Gene was a horrible person - there was simply no other way to say it. It was a curse just to be near him. Dealing with the constant overbloat of his ego, with his friends (who he called his friends) cheering him on. It was a deafening choir of loud and obnoxious. A fearful sight for someone that barely knows their way around the school known as Phoenix Drop High.

Gene was… Gene didn’t know what he was, anymore. He was tired - tired of being the worst person, tired of being the piss poor example of an older brother to his little brother; Dante. But he had to be. He had a reputation to uphold and there was simply no going back from there. What else did he have left? Attempt - during his senior year - to be friends with people, to try for clubs that he knew he would never belong in?

It was an outrageous idea to him to even attempt such a stupid dream. It wasn’t a future that he deserved, a new leaf he simply could never overturn. It was like last years sand from the beach - caked into the beds of his sandals… but that was years ago, and the sand remained.

Gene had it out for anyone, really. Never quite bothering to understand it when the few people who did show him kindness - tried being kind. He’d always do something to make them ever regret interacting with him. You were no better.

But the moment he laid his eyes on you, it’s like his vision - what surrounded you - was bathed in a metaphorical holy light. You were like his lighthouse, and he was the dirtied sand that remained and clung around from old boats that once washed ashore. He was like a dog, running to you the moment something seemed to worry you, the moment something wasn’t okay, the moment he was scared.

It wasn’t normal for him to be loved, to want to be treated like the sweet angel he was when his mother used to kiss his forehead and tell him things would be okay, that one day an angel would love him just like her. It wasn’t normal for him to try and be better, and his friends knew that - were they even his friends? He couldn’t tell anymore, and frankly he didn’t care.

But you had him talking for hours, sleeping on call - staying awake just to hear the soft huffs of breath that confirmed you were asleep while he poured his heart out to you.

“Kitty,” he whispered. “You’re everything to me.”

It was his secret, basking in your glory while you let him remain the filth that he was - but you can only cherish dirty sand for so long, and he was terrified.