Angel by Gabriel Duncan

He's leaving all of it behind. The posh apartment. School. His homicidal father. He's leaving with only his puppy, Poochie; note books full of years of writing and the clothes on his back. And he has hope that this new beginning/chance/life will be better than the last one. He didn't even know where he was going to stay when he got there. Fuck, he didn't even know where there was. So he boards a train to Chicago. And he makes friends with everyone there. When they asked him where he was going, he made up some shit about a friend in Colorado that he hadn't seen in a while. If he could only tell them the truth.

Colorado was the only place he could afford to go to. That friend, she doesn't even exist. When he gets there, he'll be utterly alone. And he'll have to struggle to find a place to stay. Maybe the other teenagers around there will help him out. There's that hope without hope again. The truth was so fucking bad he had to cling on to it. This . . . impossibility that someone will want to help a homeless teenager. A vagrant. The lowest of periahs. There it was, dangling in front of him. That hope. And he couldn't reach it. He locked himself in the bathroom and bawled his eyes out.

The truth was, right now. No one wanted him. Right now, he felt like the abandoned puppy that had been kicked around too much. And he was. He told a woman going to Denver with him his whole story. She listened. More than the other people had done. No one else could see through the mask. She saw the camouflaged pain and anguish. Loneliness. Fear. Hatred. She saw all of it. And she listened. And at the end, she shook her head and told him, sorry, she couldn't help him. The woman gathered her belongings and left him alone again.

It's pathetic, I know. Lying to people to cover up the wasteland of what I used to be. Of what I used to have. Haven't you ever lied to somebody like that? About how big your house is? How large your bank account is? Your job? Your cock? Yeah, I'm sure you have. I can't be that alone. And, even if I wasn't, it doesn't make me feel better to know that we're both lesser beings. It doesn't solve my problems. It doesn't help my mother. It doesn't bring my boyfriend back from the dead. It just means that we're both weak and terrible people. That is, if I'm not really alone. If you care enough to read this-- and, Carol, don't pity me because you can't give me a home-- I'm sure you feel like an even bigger fuckhead for not even trying to help. At least you listened. Don't mistake this for a letter of grievance. This isn't even a letter for you. This isn't a letter for anyone. So stop fucking reading it!