Troubled Thoughts and the Self-Esteem to Match

Bill

“There’s your friend.” Travis snickered around the top of his cup as I shoveled a bite of scrambled eggs into my mouth. I glared up at him hoping that he would get that I wasn’t in the mood for jokes about what I told him happened last night, but he ignored it. I vaguely noticed a smirk on Danny’s mouth from the corner of my eye as well, but pretended it was my imagination. Nothing could bother me, I told myself, though everything was at the moment.

“Hey guys.” Gabe’s voice permeated the group’s banter and I didn’t want to look up at him, but tossed a hopefully unnoticed glance toward him. He had his tray clutched in his hands and his eyes trained on his seat for several slow seconds before he made himself sit, doing so stiffly. “Mr. Way wants us to go to the meeting room as soon as we’re all finished with our food. Another orientation meeting I think.” He added as he made himself at least moderately comfortable in the plastic seat. He didn’t waste another breath explaining why, but rather, dug his fork into his scrambled eggs.
We all ate in near silence, save for a few words every little bit, which I’m sure didn’t go unnoticed by our new block mates. They probably thought we were the most boring group of teenagers they had ever come in contact with. They didn’t have the slightest clue. I knew the reason Gabe and I were so quiet, but why everyone else? Maybe it was just one of those days or something. It definitely felt like it to me.

Gabe coughed, almost in one of those gestures that sounded like he was trying to gain someone’s attention, and I couldn’t help but look his way as a reflex. Upon me doing so, he returned the gaze, which I couldn’t avoid. His pupils were brimmed with that unyielding solemn guilt that I had seen few times before. He felt bad about what he had done.
He’d said that he had done it because he had urges to that he couldn’t stop, but I hadn’t bought it for even a second. Why then, if that were true, had I never seen him grab anyone else in the block and do the same to them. Because he had just said that. But…Why did he even do it then?
I spent the rest of our breakfast pondering the possibilities, but nothing came to mind. I almost worked myself into a headache when I was pulled back to the group and out of my head.

“We’re done. Ready to go?” I nodded without a thought as my appetite was nowhere in sight, rising to my feet and grabbing my tray. We all dumped them and handed them off to the cafeteria workers and headed out the doors. Tomorrow was the first of December, so the temperature outside was steadily declining; we were probably going to end up with even more snowfall if it kept up.
As we were walking, Brendon scooped up a handful of snow, packing it into a tight ball and tossing it at Danny. It barely grazed his shoulder while the rest landed on Jack’s Shoes. I could tell that several of us waited to see what he would do next. Was he the type to ignore that it happened and keep walking, or the type to say some type of corny joke pertaining to the fact that Brendon got ‘white stuff’ on him?

A cheeky grin formed onto his face, he immediately stooping down and forming a large snowball. He proceeded to chase Brendon with it, yelling something about how he was going to shove it down the back of his shirt. They were quickly much further ahead of us, having a mini snow-fight that didn’t sit well with our other new comer. He was instantly overwhelmed by the fact that he had been left alone with us: people he didn’t know. Making his discomfort worse, Danny was terrifyingly close to him. I could see it on his face that he was taking notice of this, as well as internally freaking out because of it.
He was probably thinking of bolting, but was holding his composure at least a small amount. He was still toting that backpack around too. By now I decided that it must have some sentimental value to it, like maybe it was his security anchor that he needed to keep with him or he would have an anxiety attack.

It sounded realistic enough. Odd, but realistic. Brendon and Jack returned to the posse no sooner than we reached the block door, which I saw was a huge relief for Alex. I didn’t like group on a regular basis, but I did want to see what they said they were here for, so I was close behind the others when we walked through the door and toward the meeting room.

It was the same routine as last time. We tossed the ball back and forth and told something about us whenever we caught it. Not really a lot of difference between this time and the last, but I found out a bit about the new comers. When we went around the circle explaining what we were here for, Alex didn’t answer, but Jack did. He explained that he had a disorder that he couldn’t control. In his words “I have Intermittent Explosive Disorder. It means that I get these uncontrollable bursts of rage out of nowhere and I just kind of lash out.” That didn’t sound very great to have around us, but I remained hopeful by telling myself that it might not be as bad as he made it sound.
When we did the ball tossing routine, Alex reluctantly answered in his notebook that he was born in England while Jack revealed that his middle name is Bassam.
What person in their right mind named a kid Bassam? It sounded like something a meth addict might come up with. No offense to him of course.

The rest of the meeting was boring so I was grateful when it was over. What were we going to do now? Everyone else usually headed for the television, but I thought that maybe I would crawl back in my bed and take a nap; I hadn’t slept very well last night anyhow, so I needed it. When most everyone else headed to the Living Room, I made the trip to my bedroom. I tried not to notice Danny and Trav slinking to theirs as well, devious smirks matching on their faces. I would just borrow Gabe’s Ipod to drown out any potential noise that may come from their room. I walked into the room and shut the door behind me, leaning against it with a deep, ravenous sigh. It was difficult being around Gabe after last night. I couldn’t deny that I was able to push it aside and act like it didn’t happen. Who out there could possibly do that?

I hadn’t wanted to just let it happen like it did. When he’d leaned against me with only his hand above my head to balance himself, my mind just blacked out. I saw what his intentions were, and it frightened me to an extent. I had just kissed him back because I didn’t know what else to do. What else could I do? I couldn’t even deny that I hadn’t gotten into it, because I was participating just as much as he was, but…Why? Why did he do that in the first place? I wouldn’t believe that he had Basorexia.
I shook my head in frustration and pushed myself from the door. The last place I saw him put his Ipod was in a shoebox under his bed. I ducked to my knees and reached under his bed, feeling for it until my fingertips grazed it.

I pulled it out from under the bed and read the brand of shoes it had held once. Nike. I pulled the lid up, letting it lightly thunk against the floor. His Ipod was inside, along with other possessions. I didn’t like to intrude on other people’s personal belongings, but I saw he the box contained photographs, and couldn’t help myself. I sat the Ipod down on the mattress and picked up a pile of older looking photographs, sorting through them. The very first one was of a skinny, darker skinned woman with hair darker than Gabe’s, which went well past her shoulders. She was smiling brightly with a chubby little baby boy on her lap. It must have been Gabe considering how old the photo was. I couldn’t stop a smile that slid onto my lips upon seeing an infant version of him. He couldn’t have been older than a month in the photo, but he had a thick head of hair nonetheless.
The next was of him a few years older, when he was at least in Kindergarten it appeared. Sitting beside him was his baby brother, who looked strikingly similar to the infant I’d seen in the previous picture. It was almost too different of a side to Gabe that was captured in these photos, it felt odd seeing them.

There was one of the woman from photo number one, standing next to an average sized man with Gabe’s nose and eyes. It must have been his biological father.; a toddler version of Gabe stood at their feet, staring up at them. The next few photos had the opposite feeling embedded in them. Instead of happy family members, I saw the same people a few years older. There were tears in all of these where someone had been removed from the picture, and it was obvious who it was. No one in these photos looked even remotely happy, for reasons I knew all too well. I began to notice a pattern about the photos. There weren’t any of just his mother, brother, or dad. They all had Gabe in them somewhere. Maybe his mother gave them to him because she didn’t want them anymore. Gabe had mentioned to me once that she disowned him.

A school picture of him at around ten was the last in the pile I’d grabbed. He looked absolutely miserable in it; the horrors of his home life were so plain on his face, it couldn’t have been any more obvious if it were written in marker on his forehead. I placed the pictures back into the box and picked up a picture of he and Frank standing outside of this block in swim shorts, drenched in water. It looked only a year or two old judging by the slight changes. Frank’s hair was cut short, almost buzzed off, and he looked considerably less happy. It must have been when he was moderately new here.

I saw the corner of what looked like a small pocket notebook and reached for it just to see what it was, but it was that moment that the handle on the door twisted. I didn’t even have time to close it and slide it back under the bed before the door was open.
I simply glanced that way, hoping I didn’t look too absolutely guilty. At first, Gabe’s expression showed a small amount of shock, like he knew I wasn’t the nosey type, then went gradually to amusement.
“Wanted some dirt on me that bad, huh?” He accused, sliding his jacket off and tossing it onto his bed.

“No! I- I was just going to get your Ipod because Danny and Travis are more than likely having sex and I needed something to drown the noise out so I could take a nap!” He gave a teasing “Uh-huh, sure you were.”, before sitting down beside me and sliding the box over to him. “You were a ch- a chubby kid.” I stated, not sure why my stutter was shining through my words considering they usually only did that around new people.

“Chubby? I was a little fatass.” He chuckled, reaching in and grabbing a few photos to look at himself. When he reached the cut up ones, he cut his eyes my way. “I don’t want these pictures that he was in, but I can’t force myself to throw them away because they’re all I have left of my family.” A minute sigh tumbled from his lips at the thought, he looking as if he were delving into a completely different time. “I can’t bear to throw pictures of Robbie away because it’s the only way I can look at him to keep from starting to forget what he looks like, you know?” With that off his chest, he let them drop back into the box and grabbed another more recent one, of he and a boy I’d never seen sitting on the Living Room’s couch together. The other guy, with almost shoulder length dirt brown hair, was giving the camera a thumb up and Gabe had his middle finger out.
“Who’s that?” I inquired cautiously, examining it as I scooted closer to see better. “Remember how I told you about that Jacob Potter guy killing one of my blockmates? That’s him. His name was Tyler Rann. Potter punched him at just the right angle in his temple and it killed him.”

I could tell it was a touchy subject for him, so I decided to divert his attention to another photo. I found one of him and Mr. Way sitting at a café table together in what seemed to be the outside world. “Where were you two here?” I found it highly entertaining that in the picture, Mr. Way had very short, metallic silvery-white hair that actually made him look less albino that he did now.
“We were at some café in downtown Madison. The counselors here are allowed to check their patients out of the facility if they get a pass approved. That day he got a pass to take me to the doctor because I fucked my knee up, and he saw a sign on the windows that said something about half price coffee. He’s fuckin’ obsessed with that shit so we had to stop.”

“How often does he check his patients out?” I questioned, genuinely wondering about that. I didn’t much like going out and mingling with the people out there, but I would take a break from here because it got so boring. “It depends, I guess. He usually checks his block out and takes us somewhere for Christmas because he thinks it isn’t fair that we can’t celebrate at least some way.” So, starting tomorrow, I could look forward to getting out of here for at least an hour or two. I turned so my back was against the bed, the pressure it was putting on my back hurting my ribs. The pain was going away compared to what it had been, but it still wasn’t exactly a walk in the park. That word conjured up a thought that I didn’t care to keep to myself. “I wish there was a park here.” He gave me one of those ‘are you feeling okay?’ looks and waited for me to explain why, though I wasn’t so sure myself. “I like parks. I used to go there by myself before this happened and swing. It was just…I guess because it wasn’t tainted with bad thoughts. At my house, I had to constantly remember my suicide attempts, at school I had to go to class with the very people who fucked my life up, but the park? It was kind of a neutral area for me I guess.”

His shoulders shrugged in that manner that said he couldn’t do anything about it, but he offered “I can draw you a picture of a park if you really want. I can’t draw to save my life, but hey. It’s the thought that counts.” I nodded, trying to force a superficial smile. I guessed we were just going to let what happened pass without talking about it ever again, or something like that. He probably could, but not me. It was embedded there in my brain now, but I chose to do like he was and pretend nothing had happened between us. “So….Are you and Chislett ever going to talk again?” He queried randomly. I hadn’t thought about that lately. There’d been so much going on lately, I wasn’t even worried about that dilemma. I wasn’t really sure, so I told him just that. “I honestly haven’t thought about lately.”
He closed the shoebox and pushed it back under the bed, reaching up and grabbing the Ipod. He handed it to me before standing up and grabbing his jacket, I wondering what he was doing.
“You said you wanted to take a nap, so I’ll leave you to that.” I didn’t say anything. Instead of speaking, I watched him simply walk out of the room and shut the door.

He was really playing what he did down like it was okay and it was no problem at all. Whatever. I found my notebook that was hiding in my clothing drawer, along with a pen, and opened it up to a fresh page, words coming to me.

Stop making plans, start making sense
Don’t you believe any word they said
Sparked up, Sparked up like a book of matches
Falling through the night and rising from the ashes

I paused there, reading over what I’d came up with. It was decent enough to me, so I wracked my brain for more words to form in place.

If you’re under the impression I’m alright
I guess you never noticed, I guess you might have known
I’ve been holding this together for so long
But I guess you might have noticed

I more than wanted to talk to Chizzy again so we could turn these lyrics into a whole song or two after writing them down and imagining where they could go from there.