Care For Me Not, I'll Hurt You Too Much

Something about the day seemed different, almost brighter. Even though the clouds were dark and thick with unshed rain, the day seemed brighter. You walk through your school with a new light, a new look. Smiles almost playing across your lips as you find yourself in familiar settings.

You spent the whole of two classes glancing around the room while you were sure no one else was looking. The people sitting around you were sitting so far away from you it seemed as though you were covered in daggers and they were afraid that if you move in their direction they were likely to be impaled.

In both classes, you noted that no one spoke. The room had been deathly silent as the unmistakable sound of the teacher clicking away feverishly at their keyboard echoed throughout the room. You saw some semi-familiar faces. You still couldn't match them up with any names, but you recognized some people from the lunch room. There was this one girl, however that you took particular interest to. Like you, she was sitting in the very back of the room with her head buried in her books, but there was something about her that interested you particularly.

You couldn’t exactly place it as your eyes wandered over her figure. She was visually pleasing as her slim figure sat hunched in her chair. You watched as her brown eyes flashed quickly over her page. Her lips were pursed together as you looked over her beautiful features. Her shoulder length dark brown hair was curled slightly, waving around her heart shaped face in a flattering manner. You wished you knew her name suddenly as you looked her over. She was quite attractive.

You gaze blankly down at the book given to you as her eyes look up and quickly scan around the room. She must have felt your eyes on her as she looks quickly around the room before coming to a stop on you. Your ears burn red again as you can feel her looking at you. A scoff from her direction catches your attention and you bring up your gaze to see her roll her eyes at her book. You feel confused as suddenly the bell rings and everyone begins to stand up.

You marvel as once again your feet carry you to another classroom filled beaming students. These students seem miraculously happy for what you imagine to be the last class of the day. You’re beginning to feel tired as you stifle a yawn and your feet carry to, once again, the back of the class.

Again, the rest of the students mingle politely around you as you are left ignored in the back of the classroom. You feel a soft hand on your shoulder and you turn your head to see who it is that has actually made contact with you instead of ignoring you completely like everyone else.

You look up and are met by a friendly looking woman seeming to be in her mid-thirties. She smiles and you note the way her thin mouth spreads widely across her face. Her light hair is so bushy it looks to be as if it is taking on the traits of an afro. It is above her shoulders and frizzes around her face as her large brown eyes stare at you expectantly from behind thin rimmed glasses.

“Hello Kendall, how are you today?” she asks. She was obviously the teacher as she speaks to you with an airy professional voice.

You nod your head and look down at her outfit. Unlike yours, it was full of bright colors and you spot beads every now and then dotted around the poncho she had draped around her shoulders. She pats your shoulder lightly, reassuringly. For some reason her touch seems normal, as if you were used to it. You wish for memories of this school and everyone around you to be coming back now as you long for communication from people other than teachers and lunch ladies.

A younger girl comes around the room, she seems to be a freshman as she hands out graded assignments clipped together in large piles. She avoids your gaze as she lightly places the pile with your name in front of you. She seems nervous as she quickly turns and walks away, leaving you gazing blankly at the stack in front of you.

As you check the papers, you see the grades. None of them fall below a ninety percent as you gaze at the cover sheets to many written assignments. Funny, you don’t remember ever paying attention in any class, yet here you have passing marks on every assignment given. It’s then that you notice certain papers are separated into two columns, often being one and all being bunched to the left side of the paper, or centered down the middle. You take in the words and recognize them immediately. You wrote this. They spin around your head as you re-read every paper, taking in every line.

They speak of loss, they speak of pain, and they speak of an unnamed suffering buried deep beneath the outer surface. Is this how you really are? So pained and broken you feel the need to write out your feelings on sheets of paper? These feelings are so deep, they seem to run to your very core, yet you don’t remember anything. Here you are reading about the torment of you life, and yet the only thing you can feel is confusion as to these unknown feelings and memories.

You ponder silently every word that you now read over. Several minutes pass before you register the sound of the teacher speaking, her airy voice bringing silence once again upon the room.

“Alright everyone settle down, settle down.” She says with a smile. You hear seats shifting and throats clearing as a pleasant silence now grabs hold of the room. “Today, I don’t feel like teaching so naturally, it’s a free day!” She holds out her arms beside her as if announcing the cure for cancer to the world. She looks triumphant as she glances around at the many faces now beaming up at her, except for your own. You stare at her, unfazed as she drops her arms as several of you classmates cheer.

Free Day? What are you supposed to do on a free day?

The class breaks up into groups, forming in large circles around other tables as you hear the radio being turned up in the corner. No one even looks at you as you half hope for someone to ask to sit with you. The teacher goes back to her desk and pulls out a stack of paper and a red pen. You look up at her chalk board and see a name. Ms. Michaels As you scan the room, you see various art materials and painted portraits scattered around the room. It only then clicks that you are in an art class, and this must be a free period and time to take advantage of the time given to you.

This being art, you deem it appropriate to pull out a sketch pad that you have found in you bag. You use a graphite pencil you found in your pocket and begin sketching. You don’t even know what it is you’re drawing because you begin wondering how it is that you don’t remember any of this before. How could your body move on its own to all these places that you don’t even remember? Why is it that no one talks to you and you can’t remember anyone here, but the teachers and staff seem to know you? The words from before become trapped in your head as you try to analyze what you don’t remember from your life from them.

Certain lines from different poems stick out and swirl around your head, making you contemplate silently their meaning.

Scattered pictures pierce my heart What does this mean? You move on to another line from a different poem that sticks out to you.

As black and purples dot my flesh What is this supposed to be? Bruises? You feel no physical pain on you, but you don’t want to pull up your sleeve to check. Instead, you move on.

Finding solace in his soul. Who is He?

While his memories invade my dreams. You don’t remember anything and you feel a bile rise in your throat. You wonder why these things that you wrote are so difficult to remember. It’s only then that you bother to look down at what you have been working on for what you believe to be most of the class period. You stare in amazement at the lifelike portrait in front of you, drawn on a simple piece of sketch paper.

The figure of a little boy, sleeping in front of your eyes is displayed. He appears to be no more than four years old as he rests his head on a pillow. You are amazed that you can draw this just from memory as you stare down at the little boy. He sleeps, his chubby cheeks make him look even more like a baby as he lays with his mouth slightly open. The shading you had unknowingly used makes the picture look as if there was a lamp above the boys head. You can’t tell the light color of the boy’s hair, but you know for a fact that its dirty blond as it hangs around his face. You also know that his fair cheeks are tinged slightly pink, and his lips are rosy red. You can’t even see his eyes, but you know they are a bright green color that add to the softness of his face. Images of this little boy come flashing back, but still you can’t give him a name. You must have known him, for you see now his smiling face beaming up at you.

A tear falls on the corner of the page, blurring the section of this boy’s pillow right below his cheeks. You hadn’t even known you were crying as you reach up and wipe away the salty trail it left behind. You look down at your fingers and see a small smudged line of charcoal on your fingertip. You must be wearing make up. You fight back the appending tears as you close your sketch pad slowly, taking one last glance at the picture of the boy.

You look up to see if anyone had noticed you had been crying, but you only find out that everyone is engrossed in their own conversations. Not even a glance is spared your way as you put back your things into your bag. You suddenly feel bored as you glance down at the chipping black nail polish you have.

Who is he? You wonder. Why are you crying to yourself in class? And most importantly you begin to think, why can’t you remember anything?

The shriek of the bell echoing around the class room pulls you out of your thoughts as several people jump up and push their chairs in. You stand slowly from your own empty table in the back and pull your bag over your shoulder. No one pays any attention to you as you are left the only one still in the class room, along with the teacher.

You are almost out of the classroom when you hear the teacher call you back. You turn around and see her turned in her chair to face you, her pen tucked neatly behind her ears. You stand nervously in front of her, right now you feel like you just want to get home…wherever that is.

“How was your day Kendall?” she asks. You’re shocked at the simplicity of the question. You were half expecting a scolding from her, but you simply nod your head in reply.

“Did everything go okay?” she asks again, her voice losing the professional tone as it is over run with concern. You nod your head again.

“How’s your head dear?” She looks at the side of your head. You raise your hand to see what she is talking about as you press it lightly right above your ear. A sharp pain shoots through your skull and your temples quickly feel numb. You wince slightly at the sudden pain, but then it doesn’t feel so bad. You’ve had worse. You remind yourself.

You have no idea where that came from in your mind as you attempt to remember what worse it is that you’ve had. You rack your brain for information as she stares compassionately at you.

“Does it still hurt?” Still? It’s hurt before? You nod your head, hoping for an explanation to come.

“Well I hope you get to feeling better.” She says to you. You nod your head and your feet pull you out the door. You wander aimlessly through the nearly empty halls. As you step out into the bright sunlight, the pain shoots through your head once again, making you feel dizzy.

You suddenly find yourself pushing sunglasses to the brim of your nose. You hadn’t even known that you had sunglasses in your bag. Your feet carry you off in a direction away from your school as you see many people pass by while piling into their cars. You spot the athletic hero getting into a car with the girl from your previous class. There were others with them, but you recognize no one else. You walk away, your mind going blank as your feet carry you away.