just the beginning.

Jesse wonders if he's real while he drinks chocolate milk out of the carton. His milk mustache glistens -- almost sourly -- in the heat of the dying summer sun. This happens every fall, he supposes. Everything -- EVERYTHING -- is a never-ending hamster wheel. Thank god for those moments, those perfect, precious moments of existence in which he truly feels alive. One deep breath of crisp autumnal air and he is filled with a mixture of familiarity, anxiety, and adventure.

School. Its time for school.  Squinting carefully at the trees that line the street, he gets dust on his white t-shirt from leaning against his brother's old mountain bike. He never learned how to make a sandwich, and that concerns him almost as much as the uncertain eye-twitches of his perfectly plain history teacher. Is her eye dry? Does she need eyedrops? Is she winking? So, he waits patiently til most of the afterschool hubbub has subsided and visits with her every Tuesday and Thursday while she grades papers, his cheeks rose-red with a mixture of pride, embarrassment, silent courage, and impossible hope.