The morning sun caused him to squint as a small numbness invaded his eyes. Alex groaned as the alarm blared out, calling out to him to get his lazy fatass out of bed. Great just another typical morning, he thought to himself as he groggily sat up and shut his blinds closed with a little more force than necessary. The force of the blinds shutting caused the loose nail to finally be yanked out, covering him with the blinds. Alex groaned as he struggled to free himself, pulling and yanking to free himself from his silly captor. The struggle only made it worse as he could not see and caused him to trip on who knows what and fall to the floor. As soon as he freed himself from the cursed blinds he stared at the object that dared to trip him as if it had personally offended him.

Alex knew that if he was looking at himself do what had just happened, he would be laughing so hard he would struggle to breathe. He internally giggled at the thought and gave a tentative smile to no one. Not even the great morning debacle of-he glanced sideways to look at the calendar-Thursday morning was enough to get him into a bad mood.

Alex slumped over to the bathroom still halfway asleep and almost knocking over a picture frame. He went through the mundane routine of morning preparation. He showered as quickly as possible and toweled off sliding his clothes on. His toothbrush was getting kind of ragged, he would have to get a new one soon. He squeezed the toothpaste as hard as he could, becoming frustrated that it simply refused to come out of the tube. Eventually he managed to be as clean as he possibly could.

Alex stared at himself in the mirror. He intently looked at himself studying his features. Semi sharp cheekbones, dark raven hair that was short on the sides but longer on the top and occasionally flopped in front of his face, light brown chocolate eyes that were not particularly hazel, and full pink lips that formed almost a perfect bow, if not for the scar that trailed from his upper left lip through the bottom lip and to the edge of the cleft of his chin.

He gave a quick smile to himself in the mirror and headed back to his room to grab his backpack and make a quick peanut butter sandwich. He was out of bread now… great. Alex headed out the door giving a quick glance to the portrait hanging by the door, giving it a sad smile.

No. No bad memories today. Just go with the silly morning you just had and you'll be fine, he told himself. He glanced at his watch and saw he still had an hour before school started. He only lived about 10 minutes walking distance from the school so he figured he might as well head to his little sanctuary. Alex began walking towards the woods careful to avoid the Hale property, although he knew that technically they owned the whole woods but he hoped that they would just assume he's a jogger passing by. Alex felt invincible in the woods. He loved it: The dead leaves crunching beneath his feet, the whistling melody of the wind, the rustling of the trees and bushes, small animals jumping in and out of view, the river trickling and making soothing sounds. It was like a fucking cliché scene from a storybook.

Alex reached his little spot in the woods, crawling through a hole in between trees covered by leafy ferns. He walked over to the rope swing placing his backpack down and sitting on the old wooden plank. This was one of the only places he could ever think straight. Clear his mind and forget about all the other shit that plagued his life. Alex closed his eyes and let out a soft breath.

"Come on honey, I want to show you something", Elizabeth said as she grabbed Alex's hand and pulled him to his feet. "Ugh, can you at least let me finish my sandwich, I had to skip lunch today and I'm starving." "Your stomach can wait, this is important", Elizabeth stated as she yanked on Alex's hand again. "Fine" The ten year old succumbed. "Aw, you're so cute when you're pouty," Elizabeth cooed as she pinched his cheeks."MOM! I told you not to pinch my cheeks anymore!" "But the face you get when I do is so adorable I just can't resist". Alex gave a small playful grimace and followed his mother out the backyard.

He was a little confused when they began walking towards the woods. "Mom, where are we going?" "Someplace really special to me," responded Elizabeth. Alex trusted his mother with his life so he obediently followed her. It was a couple minutes after that they reached a small secluded area of the woods. "Mom, this is a dead end, I think you took a wrong turn somewhere." Elizabeth feigned hurt and brought a dramatic hand to her heart. "How dare you doubt me." Alex giggled at his mother's playful banter and responded with "Fine, then what do we do now." Elizabeth didn't bother responding and just yanked Alex in the direction of the trees. She kneeled down and began crawling through two trees covered by leafy ferns. At Alex's confused expression she said, "Well? Do you plan on just standing there or are you going to follow me to the magical Land of Oz."

This is why Alex loved his mother with all his heart. She could be serious, sentimental, and absolutely ridiculous when she wanted to. She was just plain lovable. Alex considered himself lucky to have such an amazing person that loved him unconditionally no matter what he did or who he was.

Once they crawled through the crevice in the trees they ended up in a small enclosed space that seems almost secluded from the rest of the forest. Alex's mouth dropped open at the sudden beautiful change of scenery. The little cove was oval shaped. Trees and thick bushes gave the illusion of being almost dome like. Beautiful flowers grew from the bushes and trees. Sunlight filtered through the canopy. Beautiful flowers covered the trees and bushes, the most vibrant being the yellow ones. In the center of the cove there was an old rope swing with a board that looked too yellow and withered to be strong enough to support someone.

His doubts on the swing were fulfilled once his mother sat on the swing and began swinging slowly. Alex was still at a loss for words. He settled with "Th-This place is amazing!" Elizabeth gave a bright warm smile to her son.

Elizabeth loved her son and would do anything to protect him. He was her little baby boy and no matter how old he was he would still always be. She would do absolutely anything to show him how much she loved him. Sometimes she believed she was being a little too overprotective and would coddle him a little too much. The little boy sometimes got a little fed up with it, but nevertheless he couldn't deny his mother.

"So… how's that boy you've been crushing on?" Elizabeth said as she gave Alex a small smirk. "He barely even knows who I am anymore" Alex said with a sad smile. "Oh sweetie. You'll see, one day he's just going to look up at you and realize that you are an amazing boy and that he loves you with all his heart, and that he wants to spend the rest of—" Elizabeth was cut off as Alex clamped her mouth shut with his hand. "Mom stop your embarrassing me." "Oh baby, I was just joking. But seriously you'll see. One day." "You can't possibly know that." Elizabeth gave a little happy grunt at that as she extended her hands towards Alex.

Alex smiled softly when his mother made little grabby hands at him. Elizabeth pulled Alex into a tight loving embrace. "I love you baby." "I love you too mom."

Alex snapped opened his eyes, the flashback quickly fading back into his mind. He sat there for about thirty more minutes, enjoying the brisk morning air and humming softly to himself. He glanced at his watch and realized that school started in about 15 minutes. He picked up his backpack and headed out of the little cove and back on the trail to school.

Ten minutes later Alex was walking down in front of Beacon Hills High School carefully observing the people around him. Students milled by the front door as others honked their horns looking for parking space, whereas others were calmly walking down the street, while some tied up their bikes to the bike racks. Ah high school, that time that every preteen looks forward to only to have that image be broken by the harsh truth of reality, Alex thought to himself as he walked through the front doors.

The morning activities had Alex in a good mood and he was calmly walking down the hallway on the way to his locker. But because Alex's life sucks they just happened to be walking down the hallway at the exact moment Alex was.

Alex internally groaned as Erika Reyes, Isaac Lahey, Boyd, Scott McCall, Stiles Stilinski, Lydia Martin, and Jackson Whittemore (aka, the popular badasses of school) began walking down the hallway in his direction. Not all of them were huge assholes. Assholes considering mostly of Erika, Lydia, and Jackson. The rest of them were actually pretty cool people, but Alex kept his distance nonetheless.

Alex mentally prepared himself for the banter and ridicule that was probably about to follow.