Keith is terrified.
He has been since the first time he realized that something inside of him was different than the other boys around him.
It does something to a person, that isolation. To feel such an innate sense of being out of place at such a young age was disconcerting, confusing, and did nothing but plague an already tumultuous mind.
Since he was thirteen years old—the age at which he learned how his society and his family thought of people like him without realizing he was one of them—all Keith has ever felt is that he’s been stuck in a tailspin. He’s yanked at the controls, bargained with God, even prayed. He has done everything possible to make himself feel the way he is meant to feel in order to pull himself out of this death spiral.
But nothing he did mattered.
Here he is, still trapped, still unable to accept this part of himself that has pushed its roots so deep into his heart that it would kill him to pull them out. Because accepting it means certain death.
All he can do every morning when he wakes is lie there and feel those roots continue to spread through his blood and his bones. And he knows there’s no way out.
There’s no way out.
Read Chapter Two Here
As always, the amazing art in this fic is done by the incredible @soylante ♡
