Lance's bright eyes were always looking at the stars as he'd jabber on and on about how beautiful the worlds beyond this one may be. Lance's eyes held the dark blue night sky speckled with bright stars. Words about them never stopped flowing out of his mouth until one day.
Lance walked into class with empty eyes, as if all of the stars had flickered out. That whole day he did not speak. Years passed and not a word left his mouth and the light to his eyes never returned. His mom didn't care one bit and no one else seemed to notice.
That was until Lance entered the sixth grade. In his Science class there was a group project. The project was all about the solar system. Each group was assigned a planet or phenomenon that they had to research and create a project on. Lance's group got black holes. It was the most difficult topic but she believed Lance and his partner could handle it since Lance score a 100% on the pre-test and his partner got the second highest score of a 76%.
"Alright everyone break up into your groups." The teacher instructed and the room becomes a loud mess of children moving in all different directions.
"Hi I'm Hunk," Lance's partner stuck out his hand. "Your name is Lance right?"
Lance gave a quick nod and hugged his arms close to himself feeling awkward and scared. Hunk is a big kid. Some kids make fun of him for being fat but what they don't know is that most of Hunk is muscle. What Lance doesn't know is that Hunk is gentle giant.
Hunk looks down at his feet after Lance doesn't shake his hand. "You're really shy right?" Hunk rubs his thumb and index fingers together. "Sometimes I feel shy, but you seem really cool and I know you know a lot about space. There's nothing to worry about with me around."
Lance tries his best to seem normal but he barely interacts with his siblings this much. Unsure of how to react he just nods again. Hunk laughs at Lance but not in a mean way.
"Okay first thing is first what kind of presentation should we do?" Hunk prompts Lance.
Lance looks at their options: poster, comic, play, 3D diagram, cereal box, crossword puzzle, or any other approved assignment. Lance shrugs but he really wants to do the comic.
"How about a play?" Hunk suggests and Lance gets even more nervous. "So no play." Lance feels bad for not doing what Hunk wants to do but at the same time Lance knows that he couldn't deliver the lines need to be in a play.
"How good are you at drawing?" Hunk asks. Lance nervously shows him some anime inspired doodles he made in his science notebook. "How about we do a comic. You can draw the pictures since your art is amazing and I can read it to the class since you don't like to talk."
Lance smiles at Hunk happy they could find a good compromise. In Lance's house it's never about compromise. In Lance's house it's always every man for himself. Even the youngest of them, Lance, has to fight for what he needs.
"We should meet up at lunch to work on it more." Hunk suggests. "I'll ask if we can meet in here at lunch tomorrow. The teacher seems to really like to the two of us so it should be okay."
——
That night Lance didn't even bother fighting his siblings for the small bit food in the house. He just went straight to the cramped little closet that was once his nursery so he could work in peace. Ever since the day when Lance went silent he could never trust his siblings. He felt as though his siblings had abandoned him that day, and almost every day after that, in a situation that could never be forgiven.
Lance yawns tiredly and cuddles into the thin sheet he managed to steal from the laundry room some time ago. He forces himself to get up and get washed off. All of the bathrooms are in use so Lance goes outside and uses the house and watered down dish soap to get cleaned. He changes into his father's old T-shirt and underwear and tucks himself in his makeshift closet bed. Lance drifts to sleep to the sounds of his rowdy household.
