Word Count: 546

The problem with Jonah was not that his parents were rarely around.

Certainly that was an issue. They'd been absent for most of his life. Not always emotionally absent, and not always physically, but somewhere between the two. Their focus had always been more for their careers than their children.

Jonah didn't fault them for it. That wasn't his way. They did what they did to support their family, and Jonah could respect that, even if he did sometimes want his mother around for a hug, or his father for advice about things Jonah didn't feel comfortable talking to anyone else about.

The problem with Jonah wasn't his little sister.

Though there was a seven year gap between the two of them, they remained relatively close—or as close as could be under the circumstances. They shared books. They commiserated about the absence of their parents. They argued about stupid things like all siblings did, and they eventually got over it. They were normal, at least if you didn't pay attention to Haven's fascination with monsters.

The problem with Jonah wasn't even his sexuality. Although, considering his grandfather's political views, it meant he was walking on eggshells at home all of the time. Jonah learned at a young age to grow comfortable in the closet, at least until he was out on his own and no longer reliant upon his grandfather for everything.

Which was a complication he now faced.

The problem, as Jonah saw it, was not his parents, or his sister, or his grandfather. It wasn't his feelings of abandonment or his sister's obsession with monsters or his repressed sexuality.

The problem was he was only days away from graduation, and he still had no idea what he wanted to do with his life.

He expected that was true for most students in this day and age. The economy being what it was, after all, made life post-college quite a bit more difficult than it would have been a couple of decades ago. But Jonah was fairly certain he couldn't blame the economy for his lack of job prospects.

He could only blame himself.

He studied history because he liked it, not because he expected to get a job in the field. He didn't have any skills to speak of, and his resume was barely even half a page long. He had no clubs to boast about, no extracurricular activities—not any sports or student council or yearbook committees. He looked pathetic on paper and felt pathetic off of it. All the job postings he came across online were either too daunting to apply for or required experience he didn't have.

He felt like a joke, staring at his computer screen, searching for something, anything to help him get his foot in the door somewhere. Without a job he'd have no money of his own, and without money he wouldn't be able to get his own place, and without his own place those things in his life that weren't quite problems were going to become problems.

He couldn't live like this anymore. He hated the loneliness. He hated being cast in his little sister's shadow. He hated walking on eggshells around his grandfather, waiting for everything to come crumbling down.

But above all, Jonah hated himself.