#requiem stuff

Requiem’s day had been long and exhausting. He had a test that day (he’d written question marks for half the answers), hadn’t had anything except water and an energy drink all day, and now, upon his mother’s insistence, he had to get through a family dinner.

He paused the podcast he’d been listening to when he heard a knock on the door. “Dinner,” came the voice of his father through the door. Requiem took off his headphones and set them on his desk full of papers and covered in various trinkets he’d collected. Clothes were strewn across the floor - jeans he’d never wear because he hated the way denim felt against his skin and old shirts with cats and galaxy print on them. He stood from his chair and did a quick check that his binder was still securely under his pillow in his pillowcase. It hadn’t been long since he’d put it there, but he still wasn’t about to risk it.

The ornate cross and pictures of himself and his family mocked him as he walked down the hall. He arrived at the table in a moment, eager to get it over with.

“*****! You’re out of your cave, huh?” He winced at the sound of the name. His father laughed, finding his “cave” joke the funniest thing in the world. 

“Hi, Dad,” was all Requiem said as he looked to the oven to check what he’d be eating. Chicken breast and sliced potatoes. Could be worse.

His older sister gave him a sympathetic look as he took a seat with his plate. He was trying not to seem too much like he didn’t want to be there, but she knew how much he hated family dinners.

Fox News was on. Requiem hated that so much he preferred to focus on the soft scrape of forks against plates.

The uncomfortable energy hung in the air like a fog as the four sat around the table. Lucy, their dog, poked her head out from under the table to beg for food - she was usually the one bearable part of these. "Lucy, girl, you can't have any of this."

"So, how was school today?" His mother said.

"Fine."

"...how'd the math test go?"

"Okay."

His father blinked. "Always with your one-word responses."

Requiem ignored him.

"I was talking to you, *****."

"I know."

He awkwardly picked at his food, not having much of an appetite. He had a nervous, dreadful pit in his stomach that made him not want to eat anything.

He felt his hair on his shoulders - it was getting insufferable. Every time he so much as looked at it, the safety scissors in the drawer by the stove looked awfully tempting, and he just wanted to stand in front of the mirror and cut it all off. It would look good, he imagined. The messy look seemed like it would feel a little affirming in terms of his gender, and his parents’ rage at the loss of his “long, beautiful raven hair” would be fun to watch. But he still had to live with them, and he didn’t want to be in trouble with them any more than he was. He wasn’t necessarily in trouble with them in the typical sense at the moment, but with all the passive-aggressiveness and fights, he was in a perpetual state of walking on eggshells.

His father was telling some story about his coworker, seemingly unaware that nobody was listening. Requiem ate about half the food on his plate and slowly walked away while everyone was distracted, so as not to attract the attention of his family. His parents would doubtlessly be mad, but Requiem couldn’t handle the uncomfortable energy hanging over the kitchen anymore. The sound of an old game show and the occasional sound of a fork against a plate echoed in his ears as he retreated to his room.