Today was graduation day.

The senior hawks of East Ravenwood would soar on their own for the first time today.

"Today marks our first day on our journey into our future," I spoke calmly and clearly into the microphone as I looked into all of the eyes of the people looking back at me, but as I scanned the entire crowd of family and friends in the auditorium, I didn't see my family or my friends.

And that hurt immensely.

I still plastered a smile on my face as I raised my hand in the air, prompting all of the seniors to do so. "No matter where we go, who you meet, you'll forever be a hawk, so fly high, class of 2021!" I finished, getting hoots, cheers, claps, and screams in response as the auditorium lit up for the last time.

I was smiling and laughing as I gazed at my teammates, but that feeling didn't match me on the inside. I felt cold and empty because I had no one here.

"I can tell you're bummed out," I heard a voice from behind me and I turned to see Cameron in his purple cap and gown standing there. "No need to look so sad," He held out his arms and I watched as he pulled me in, deciding that now was an okay time to stifle the tears.

I graduated today, and yet the only person by my side hugging me and ruffling my hair was Cameron.

Once I was done with East Ravenwood, I jumped into my car as I was eager to figure out why everyone was so ghost today. Today was an important day for me, so where were they? First, I was going to see my best friend to figure out what had him so occupied. I was gonna go visit Hunter at his house. I didn't see him after they passed out diplomas, so I wondered if he wanted to spend this day together like we did every year. 

Once I pulled up into his driveway, I got out to walk up to the door. I didn't even have to knock because his mother opened the door. "Hey, is Hunter in? He left right after the ceremony," I greeted the sweet woman, and she shrugged, her green eyes beaming brightly at me.

"I think he's upstairs. I'm not sure, I just got home," I stepped aside one Marissa Steele as she motioned for me to go on upstairs. I nodded and began quietly jogging up the stairs to the end of the hallway, where Hunter's room was. As I got closer, I heard all of this rhythmic squeaking noise followed by deep grunts and moans. 

"Yes, Hunter! Right there!" I heard a familiar voice and my hands started trembling as I put one up to the knob to turn it. My mind was telling me to turn around before I ruined my own life completely, but I couldn't stop myself.

Here I am once again, feeling lost, feeling like I deserve everything handed to me. My jaw fell open as my eyes started to well up with tears. Every single memory that I ever had was crumbling to ashes.

"W-what?" My voice was so small and pitiful as I watched Michelle, my own girlfriend, dig her acrylic nails into the back of Hunter, my own best friend, seemingly carrying their way to climax. "Wow." I spoke loud and clear, realizing that I would never wish this agony on anybody, not even my worst enemy.

My heart broke into tiny pieces like a dropped vase.

The worst pain that I could ever feel. 

"Oh my god, Eli! Baby, it's not what you think!" Horror-stricken faces and guilt-filled eyes snapped to my direction as they start scrambling for their clothes. I didn't say anything, but I just slowly backed out of the room, ignoring their apologies and pleas for me to come back. It was all started to click together, you know? A fool like me just had to hope.

"ELI!" I heard Hunter panicking as I stomped down the stairs, getting a narrowed look from Marissa. "Everything okay, son?" She questioned, hearing running from upstairs. "Just peachy. You won't need to worry about me coming back," I couldn't keep the disdain from merging into my tone as Hunter and Michelle screamed my name, nothing but the slam of the front door giving them a response.

I couldn't believe it.

I broke. I could literally feel something in me die as I peeled out of their neighborhood, putting my feet to the gas pedal. I wanted my parents to comfort me, to tell me that it was going to be okay, that things happened. 

I wanted my brother to get upset for my sake, threatening to beat them with his shoe because no one disrespected his family like that. I wanted my sister to get in her car, driving down to Michelle's house to give her a cursing of a lifetime because that was what she did whenever someone did me wrong.

But that wasn't what I got when I arrived at my house on E Monaco Ave.

"Are you fucking kidding me, Isobel?! First, you not only lose your job because you were late four times in a row, mierda," I could hear my father raging as I entered my house, wiping my face free of tears as I sought to go see what was wrong. He sounded furious and I could hear my mother yelling back in Spanish. "But to find out that you were having an affair with your co-worker, who in the hell do you take me for?!"

I walked into the living room, seeing my father pointing his finger at my mother, looking so pained and so angry. My mother had the look that Michelle had on her face, yet she was stabbing her finger into my dad's chest as if he were the one who cheated. "I'm not the one who fed a customer raw food and now look! You got a whole lawsuit that you're not even winning, pendejo!" She brought a direct attack to my father's job as an owner of his restaurant.

What was happening?

What?

Enrique put a hand up to the bridge of his nose with a growl. "That and this are entirely two different things, Isobel! You are in the wrong here!" There was so much spite in the air, and I wondered what the world was coming to. "What's, uh, going on?" I faltered, watching them twist on their ankles to shoot me the most malicious scowl, and gone was the love in their eyes that they used to look at me. 

"Go upstairs, pedazo de mierda! Just looking at you makes me remember how unwanted you are!" My own mother yelled into my face, her cheeks red as she addressed me as a piece of trash. Her cold words stomped all over my heart as I stared, taken aback. "W-what?" I recoiled back like her words were splatters of acid being thrown on me. "¡Cállate, Eli!" My father roared for me to shut up in the darkest tone possible and I blinked, seeing him shaking his head.

"God, I don't have time for you anymore," Isobel groaned like I was taking up so much space by being here. Her words were relentless, stabbing at my slow-healing wounds. My stomach fell in shock, trying to comprehend why my own parents were being so rude. "I told you we should have given him for adoption," Enrique muttered lowly and I tried to wrap my brain around the chain of events, hearing my heart crying out within me. 

I wanted to cry again. Scratch that, I was going to cry again as I could already tell that the burning from the sting of tears was approaching.

"H-huh?" It was one thing to be called a piece of trash, but it was another thing to have the person who carried you for nine months tell you that you were unwanted. It was also one thing to have your father tell you that you should've been given up.

What did I do to warrant this onslaught of hatred?

My knees were shaking as I stepped back, wanting to go upstairs before I disintegrated into a shattered soul. Anthony would know what to say. Things were rocky between us, but he'd know what to say to make everything better.

He would.

I bit my lip to keep myself from screaming as I knocked on his door, turning the nob. As I walked in, hoping that he was coherent enough to talk and comfort me, the raunchy stench of marijuana hit me in my nostrils. "A-Anthony?" I sputtered, coughing as the air entered my lungs. Not this again. I was going to ignore it because I needed someone right now. "Why are mom and dad fighting?" I was still holding on, maybe they just said those harsh words in a fleeting moment, not meaning them. You know it is, you say things in the heat of the moment.

My older brother didn't even spare me a glance as he took a drag from the drug in his hand. "It shouldn't concern a worthless person like you," He sneered in my direction, rolling bloodshot eyes at me. "Stop bothering me, dude. It's annoying," He gestured to the door, shooing me away as he continued to blow out smoke, burning away more and more of my heart and my sanity. I felt something inside me crack as I numbly shut the door. 

Hearing him speak to me like that just made me want to give up.

The one person I cherished wholeheartedly thought of me to be so worthless. Once upon a time, I was everything to him and now, I was nothing.

I forced myself to walk down the hall to where a big purple T decorated the door. "Tatianna?" I muttered in a small voice, gathering the tiniest bit of courage that I had to knock on her door. Seconds later, my sister swung the door open, blinking at me. 

"I heard everything," She replied hollowly, raising her brow. "I don't know what you want me to do about it. If Anthony doesn't care, why should I?" She snorted in annoyance before slamming the door in my face, my heart coming to a stand-still.

I just couldn't take it anymore.

It felt like I was watching someone put a flame to the piece of paper that was the only life that I knew as Eli Matteo Velacruz. It was demolishing everything that had been true, leaving such a hole in my heart. Being told that I was unwanted by my own parents, that I was worthless by the person I considered my role model, to have my sister shun me for no reason, and to walk in on my best friend and my girlfriend, I was drowning in an ocean of misery.

I stormed to my room with one thought on my mind: leave. Why are you staying here when you know you're not wanted?

Yea, I was going to go.

I was trying to smile to keep the tears from falling as I threw my clothes from my closet into my biggest suitcase along with a bunch of other stuff, but it was no use. I couldn't even hear myself over the sound of my own sobs, the tears falling to the floor like a broken melody.

I felt so abandoned.

I wasted no time exiting my room, hating that the last few moments were spent with me crying in my pillow and feeling lonely. I yanked my heavy suitcase down the stairs into the foyer, and I could hear my parents still arguing. They wouldn't care—they never did, so I just dashed out into the pouring rain, trying to figure out when the skies started to weep. 

I had nothing but everything that I owned from my room and the clothes on my back. I had a full tank, but I had no destination in mind as I wheeled out onto the wet streets with wails leaving my mouth. "Why is this happening?" I sniffled to myself as I headed towards the ominous road that twisted through Devil's Tombstone. 

I wasn't even thinking straight. I would never drive through this never-ending forest during the daytime; tall silhouettes shadowing the ground, ravens circling overhead, and screams echoing through the wind, so why would I drive through the night?

I didn't even care.

My car was the only one with light, making it hard to see as I drove deeper and deeper into the devil's grasp. 

Water poured endlessly from the dark sky as lightning illuminated the night. There was nothing the weather couldn't tell me. The deep roar of thunder filled my ears, mirroring the fear in my heart. The grass seemed to drown in the low flood of the storm and it made me realize that I had no idea where this night was headed. Eerily yet not unexpectedly, a popping sound floating through the air.

All of a sudden, I felt my car dip to the right, the sound of metal scraping against the tar road saturating my ears, and I winced, feeling like I was gonna start bleeding from my ears. "¿Qué mierda?" I cursed, slight fear and panic surging through my veins like an illicit drug. The roads were so dark and I was too afraid to pull over to see why my tire popped, but then I heard another one pop.

It all happened so quickly.

I snapped my head up to see a large figure dashing towards my car with full speed ahead from the darkness of the forest, seeing bright yellow eyes narrowed into slits, and before there was any time to react, any time to get myself together, I felt the colossal impact as loud hissing cracked the silence. 

With a swerve of my car into the nearest tree to avoid hitting the individual, my head lurched against the steering wheel as the car flipped over, the sound of tire screeches and a blaring horn filled my ears. There were simultaneous noises as I felt my body slam against the seatbelt, long before I heard my own pained scream as the shattering glass cut my face and arms. I couldn't tell how hard I slammed into the tree, but my body was pressed tightly against the ceiling and tears were pouring out of my eyes. "H-help..." I reached an arm out to get attention but my vision was blurry and pain wracked my entire body.

The sound in my ears erupted into a horrifying screech. Glass continued to shatter and everything seemed to twist and contort into something incredibly terrifying. Everything built and built until the noise was the only thing left and suddenly it was gone. Silence filled the air and seemed almost worse than the screeching as if the whole world was so shocked it couldn't produce a single sound.

It all happened so quickly. 

"S-someone," The overpowering scent of poisonous petrol fumes blended with the coppery odor of my own blood dripping as everything throbbed and burned. Was I going to die here? Probably. I had nothing left anymore, so I could succumb to the lightheadedness that was plaguing my head. With bleary vision, I saw the person running in the opposite direction, a venomous growl shaking the forest. 

Ah, this was it. 

I heard the flapping of wings along with the sound of clicking, and with blurry and hazy vision as I registered the dark grey sky tinged with rain and lightning, I found myself looking into familiar red eyes. I was hallucinating for sure, but I felt a hand caress my face gently, wiping my tears away as wings morphed into a person, extended canines hanging over their bottom lip. Then suddenly, just before I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to death, I heard a low and gentle, almost hypnotic voice permeated with something foreign.

"Don't worry, lubirea mea."