offstage

Have you ever wondered if an offstage guy could become the main character? Life’s never been fair to me. Can you imagine being abandoned by your birth parents the moment you were born? That’s how my story starts. I was left in the street the day I was born. Some old couple picked me up, but I wasn’t their son — I was just hands they could use. I did whatever it took to survive. In school, I was the kid everyone called dumb. I ditched classes, never opened a book, and caused trouble just to feel something. Every other kid had a place. I didn’t. I was background noise. And then she showed up. A girl moved into our neighborhood. The opposite of me in every way. Bright, kind, loved by everyone the second she walked in. I hated her for it. But she’s the reason everything changed. My name is Lucien. This is my story. It happened on a day the sky couldn’t decide if it wanted to flood the whole town. I was soaked, sitting on the steps by the old market, too stubborn to move even though my shirt was clinging to me like a second skin. People rushed past with umbrellas, pretending I wasn’t there. Then she stopped. She had a blue umbrella, too big for her, and she held it over my head without asking. “You’ll catch pneumonia sitting out here like that,” she said. Her voice was calm, but there was no pity in it. That’s what pissed me off. “I’m fine,” I muttered, shifting away. “You’re not fine. You’re wet and being an idiot.” That got me to look up. “Why do you care?” I asked. “You don’t even know me.” “Exactly,” she said. “If I knew you and still left you here, that’d make me worse than everyone else.” We argued for ten minutes right there in the rain. She said I pushed people away on purpose. I said she didn’t know anything about pushing or being pushed. She left when it let up, but not before saying, “I’m Eliana, by the way. If you ever decide not to be an i***t, I live on Oak Street.” I hated her for being right. And that’s when I knew she was different.