"Green? Please tell me this is a joke." His mum was fuming, she was mad at his chronic hair dying in high school but it didn't compare to the look on her face when he came downstairs to make dinner.

He paused to look at himself with a spoon, a distorted reflection showed that his hair wasn't a complete catastrophe. He didn't know what the big deal was, maybe his mum was just overreacting.

"Lawyers don't have green hair, Michael." An all too common frown made its way to her face as she critiqued his appearance, from her facial expressions she didn't look too impressed even though he didn't exactly change overnight. Her tone was accusing, like Michael was nothing more than a name of someone she used to know rather than the name of her son who was standing in front of her.

"Good thing I'm not a lawyer then." Michael couldn't help himself as the words slipped off his tongue followed by a quick smile and a dismissive shrug. He got to work on making dinner with his mum shooting him a few shrewd comments every now and then from the living room.

"Dinner is served," Michael announced as he played the small dark grey plate on the coffee table in front of his mother, trying not to get in the way of the TV. She always seemed more vicious if someone disrupted her view when Love Lust or Run is on.

"You see that Michael," she shouted, pointing at the screen. "That girl has green hair and Stacy London looks terrified! Coloured hair is a no!"

Michael exhaled rather loudly, a hand on his hip as he looked at his mother who was nibbling on the Chicken Alfredo. "Stacy London isn't in charge of my life though, I will have green hair if I want to have green hair."

His mum sighed in defeat, not bothering to come up with some kind of reasonable retort. Michael was glad for now, but in the back of his mind he knew she was already thinking something up to make him feel like trash later on.

Michael couldn't bring himself to eat, he'd prepared the meal expertly in his opinion but something was stopping him. He was suffocating in this house, the stench of his mother's perfume was suddenly too much. He needed a breather.

"I-" He paused a moment, trying to come up with a reasonable excuse as to why he needed to get out of the house, this house. "I think I forgot something while I was at the store."

It was such a lame excuse, one he used almost regularly at this point. He only went to the store twice a week, but his mum didn't care enough to call him out on it.

"If you come home with another tattoo, I'm going to lock you out." His mother snapped, knowing full well that he wasn't going to end up at the store.

With the best innocent looking shrug he could muster Michael replied, "I'll just get a tattoo on my ass."

"It'll hurt if you sit down, that's how I'll know." She muttered, not bothering to look away from the TV.

"Mum, I don't know if you know this but there are other things that will make it hard for me to sit." Michael wanted to laugh, she knew he was gay. He didn't understand some of the comments she made, because they were a lot her previous one.

This time his mum did look away from the TV in pure shock once Michael's statement had sunk in. She looked utterly horrified, and Michael was sure if he was any closer she might have slapped him. Michael had a habit of spitting out whatever came to his mind first and that often got him in trouble. He'd gotten a lot better at avoiding some sort of word vomit during his last year of high school but times like these really tested his abilities.

"I'll be back later." He said finally, collecting his car keys and jacket on his way out.

The atmosphere was stifling when he made it out the door, the stench of alcoholic beverages and perfume seemed to follow him, stick to him, worse than the everlasting smell of his last cigarette that clung to his clothes just begging for him to light another.

He hated it.

A feeling always crawled up his throat whenever he left, it felt like his heart had jumped up into his throat. There was a thrill that consumed him as soon as he was off the property, like he needed to leave and everybody knew it but him.

With an absentminded smile in the corner of his lips, Michael set off to anywhere but home.

It was hard to find something to do in such a small town, everyone his age got out as soon as they could afford it. Everyone left in the dust pretty much knew they were doomed to stick around, as much as Michael loved the small town-that was a lie, he hated it here-he thought he was taking his time, making sure he'd never be forced to come back on the chance that he didn't succeed and would end up right back where he started.

Michael's friends, along with the better half of his graduating class, had left with nothing more than a goodbye and a pat on the back for Michael to remember them by. They still talked, but it was sparse and over the phone. His friend could hardly set foot in town without feeling some kind of nostalgic whiplash.

Fifteen year old Michael hadn't known what he'd be doing in five years, probably expecting greater things than living with his mum and communicating with friends for a few awkward minutes a month. He'd thought about accepting the invitation of the road trip his friends had been going on about a month before graduation, there was something about drinking and the open road that never appealed to him.

Despite the lack of friends, Michael was pretty mellow. He didn't have anyone that could trick him into doing stupid stuff, but that also meant he didn't have anyone to blame if he did end up doing stupid stuff.

He found himself seated in a small family restaurant just in between his hometown and the neighbouring town. Michael guessed that he must have been an odd sight, small towns don't usually have a lot of punks running around. Most of them had run off in pursuit of starting a band anyway, Michael was always a little more practical than his friends. Still, seeing a pale guy with vivid green hair who was decked out in mostly black would have been quite the sight if the town wasn't so small.

Everyone knew everyone, which was unfortunate. It means everyone knew his mother, there was always this one old lady that handed him exorcism pamphlets when she saw him.

He gives a weak smile to Mrs. Barns who'd pay him for mowing her lawn during summer, and a small wave to Denis, the guy that made the food at the restaurant.

Michael was three seconds away from telling the staff that he'd just be getting some coffee-like he always did-when a rowdy bunch of teenagers tumbled through the door.

Loud didn't even begin to describe the crowd, there were guys hollering at each other despite being within whispering distance, there was some guy that had a girl thrown over his shoulder. Michael wanted to sigh rather loudly, he's only been out of high school for two years and it feels like the teenagers in front of him are aliens.

He checked his watch, only a half hour since school would have ended. Michael didn't feel like sticking around to watch them wreck havoc on the poor staff of the restaurant.

"Can I get a large coffee?" Michael asked, finally removing his eyes from the newcomers. The person taking his prefer nodded, eyes still glued on the loud bunch. They'd surprisingly managed to fit their large pack into two booths.

There were six guys and five girls, which always meant a little bit of trouble in Michael's experience. He'd fought someone over a girl once, she ended up telling him to jack off to someone else though. He did end up beating it to pictures of the boy he fought, ironically enough.

When his coffee finally arrived, he thanked the staff with a tight smile and couldn't help but watch the teenagers interact rather intensely.

Another boy walked into the restaurant alone, this one looked extremely awkward especially upon seeing the crowd seated a little ways away from the door. Michael could already tell that one of the boys was making fun of the guy.

The boy idled around the counter after ordering a meal and looked like he'd rather be anywhere else than here.

"You can always sit with us, Luke!" One of the guys joked to make the others laugh, it was a lame attempt and Michael didn't think it was the slightest bit funny in fact.

Luke appeared to flinch at the suggestion and quickly shook his head, he didn't even look toward the table where the teenagers were sitting.

"C'mon, did you suddenly become deaf and mute?" The guy sneered loudly and Michael scowled, it wasn't the fact that he was making fun of this Luke boy, it was how uncreative the insults were that was bugging him.

"Going to sit with your imaginary friends, Hemmings?" One of the girls called out this time and Michael felt his grip tighten on his mug.

With a sigh, Michael felt like he was going to regret it but he couldn't stop himself now.

"Luke?" He called with a forced friendly smile. "Gosh, why do you always ignore me? Come over here and say hello."