THE BROKEN DREAMS

The city of Gravestone was nothing more than a broken promise.

Cracked pavements split under the heavy steps of thousands of forgotten souls, and the rusty streetlights flickered like dying fireflies under the polluted dusk sky.

In a one-bedroom shack squeezed between collapsing apartment blocks and a garbage-choked alley, lived Fred Layton — 17 years old, dark-skinned, slim but wiry, standing 5'9 with hollow cheeks, restless brown eyes, and rough calloused hands that spoke of years of quiet suffering.

His clothes were faded hand-me-downs — a tattered grey hoodie with holes near the cuffs, worn-out jeans that barely clung to his narrow waist, and battered sneakers with the soles threatening to peel off.

Fred's world smelled of old metal, sewage, and regret.

His mother, Rachel Layton — 42, a woman once described as "the beauty of Gravestone" — now looked twenty years older, her caramel skin dulled by hardship, her once-curvy body frail and bent from cleaning other people's houses.

Fred never knew his father. Stories varied: some said he died running from the police; others whispered he had fled, ashamed of the son he left behind.

Every morning Fred would wake before sunrise to the sounds of rats scurrying across the ceiling beams and the coughs of his neighbors through paper-thin walls.

He would sit at the cracked kitchen table — made from scavenged wood and nailed together by his own hands — and study by the dim light of a stolen lamp, using second-hand textbooks with missing pages.

Dreams, here, were not encouraged.

Dreams got you laughed at.

--

School was a twenty-minute walk — through gang-ridden alleys where blood stains never quite washed away, past the old rail tracks where homeless men muttered to themselves, and across the busy highway where luxury cars — black Mercedes with golden number plates, custom Lamborghinis with roaring engines — zoomed past, spraying Fred with mud as if to remind him exactly where he stood.

Royal Crest High School wasn't built for boys like Fred.

It was built for the children of city councilors, business moguls, celebrities, and corrupt tycoons.

When Fred stepped through the massive golden gates of the school, shoulders hunched, eyes low, he could feel the disgust radiating from his peers.

Melissa Vane — 17, a spoiled daughter of a shipping tycoon, with creamy flawless skin, straight blond hair flowing past her waist, and cold blue eyes that judged everything she saw. She once told Fred to "watch where you're breathing" because "poor smells spread faster."

Victor Cruz — 18, football team captain, bronze-skinned, muscled like a Greek god, who drove a red Mustang and treated girls like toys. He saw Fred as "entertainment" — the "poor charity case" of the school.

Carla Owens — 16, a sassy Latina girl with lush curly hair, bright brown eyes, and a tongue sharp enough to slice steel. She was kind... only when teachers watched.

Fred moved like a shadow through the halls, carrying his torn bag, ignored, laughed at, and sometimes pushed against lockers "just for fun."

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No one knew that Fred hadn't eaten in two days.

No one cared that he couldn't afford the $300 school trips, the $150 gym uniforms, the $50 football tickets.

Teachers didn't see him.

Even Mr. Peterson, the 45-year-old math teacher known for his fake smiles, who wore Gucci belts and taught like he was doing students a favor, barely nodded at Fred's presence.

Fred lived in silence — the kind that chokes you, wraps around your lungs, and slowly steals your breath.

He would sit in the back of the class, near the window cracked open by a missing hinge, and stare out at the world he didn't belong to: sparkling malls, buzzing sports centers, hotels where people paid more for a coffee than his mother earned in a week.

Sometimes, when hunger gnawed his ribs raw, he would imagine himself there: wearing clean suits, driving a black Audi with diamond-studded number plates, pulling up to towering skyscrapers he owned.

But imagination was dangerous.

It built expectations.

And expectations built heartbreak.

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That Day...

It was a rainy Thursday — the kind of rain that felt personal, cold and punishing.

Fred sat in the cafeteria, a tray with nothing but a single apple in front of him.

Around him, the elite teenagers laughed over steak burgers, pizza, milkshakes topped with whipped cream and gold flakes.

Fred bit into his apple and felt something snap in his chest.

It wasn't the apple.

It was the realization that he could starve to death at this table, and no one would notice.

At the next table, Melissa posted selfies showing off her new Cartier bracelet, flashing the "poor kids" in the background for laughs.

Victor bragged about his upcoming yacht party, "only $10,000 a head," he said, like it was pocket change.

Carla flirted with a boy who once set Fred's books on fire as a joke.

No one saw Fred's clenched fists under the table.

No one saw the tears he blinked away.

When Fred finally stood up, tray in hand, his sneaker slipped on the wet cafeteria floor.

The apple went flying.

The cafeteria erupted in cruel laughter.

Someone — Fred never saw who — whispered loud enough for the room to hear:

> "Maybe he should crawl back to the garbage where he came from."

That night, Fred walked home alone under the storm, shoes squelching, soaked to the bone, throat tight with shame.

No umbrella. No jacket. No hope.

When he reached home, the power was out.

His mother lay curled on the torn couch, coughing, fever burning through her fragile body.

No money for medicine.

No food for tomorrow.

Fred dropped to his knees beside her, held her cold hand, and for the first time since he could remember, he let himself cry.

> Not just from hunger.

Not just from shame.

But from the crushing, overwhelming fear that maybe — maybe — he would never escape.

Outside, the rain kept falling.

Inside, Fred promised himself, through the salt of his tears:

> "One day, they will remember the boy they chose to forget."

But that day was still a thousand heartbreaks away.

And tomorrow?

Tomorrow would hurt even more.

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