That Four Letter Word

I was alone.
With the whole school looking at me.
They stared with their precious boyfriends clinging to their arms and their shiny designer bags hanging on their tan arms. They snickered behind my back only because they were too afraid to look me in the face while they gossiped about Saturday night.
Everything is fucked up. I walked alone down the halls to my locker. It was the end of the day. I had survived the first day without him. I've done it before, learning to live without someone I loved. But this time was different. This time, he wasn't coming back.
Absent-minded I dropped some books into my bag and slammed the door shut. My forehead rested again the cool metal locker, with my eyes closed. If today was a Tuesday, tomorrow would be Wednesday, and Wednesday was hell day. Wednesday was weigh-day. It would be extra special because, since Saturday, I haven't been able to keep anything in my stomach. Dillion was right, I was scrawny, but that's because I was strong in that sense. It was the one thing I had complete control over. It was the one thing that would always be there. Me and her, we were inseparable. One relationship that could never be broken.
Then it happened, the tears, they threatened to escape from my eyes. I ran to my car, past David and Jasper, past those girls who stood in their tiny circles, past the spot where his locker was, and slammed the car door.
My hands trembled as I turned the keys and heard the familiar purr of the engine. I wish heaven was a destination to drive to.
I'd race there.

Home. Home is where the heart is, right? This must not be my home then because I felt nothing in my chest. It was as if my body was running by the seconds on the clock, not by the beats that were supposed to be pounding in my chest. When I walked up to the door I stopped to look at it, or past it. My eyes were blank as they stared at the thick carved wood that kept me from my home. People passed the house and they often stared at the structure, the height and the size of the stone mansion. They sometimes would pass through the neighborhood, paying a price since they didn't live here, just to look at the homes.
Sometimes I'd be in my room, on the balcony, and see kids my age looking into our windows from their cars, probably wondering what kind of life we were living. They admired our house as if the people inside were just as beautiful and perfect. I wanted to scream out my window "come inside to see the freak show!" because nothing was as it seems. If they wanted to sight-see then I wanted to give them a sight to see.
I could show them my mother, in the garden even on the coldest days, because she didn't want to be inside. She felt trapped, a house-wife in charge of the kids and the household, so that's why she spent her time outside, to avoid the cold, empty house that was her home. Then, I could show them my father, or lack-there-of, and tell them the only time they'll see him is on the rare weekends when he isn't traveling or in his study working. Next, I could show them who raised me. I would stand in front of the mirror and point.
After, I'd laugh at the kids, but I'd really be tearing out my hair when they left. Nobody knows what's it like to live on the other end of this door. They could guess, but they'd be wrong.
My hand gripped the steel doorknob and twisted it to the right, pushing with the strength I had left, and breathed in the stiff air. The smell of wood and old rugs filled my nostrils. The foyer was empty. In the corner by the door there was a post taller than me for coats and hats and umbrellas, and by that there was a tiny golden garbage can with encrusted birds and flowers. Across from the door, by the archway to the other living rooms, was a red chair with diamond stitching and gold embroidery. Next to that was a dark wooden end table where the phone sat, and a small Japanese tree in a gold box, barely bigger than a vase of flowers.
I hung up my own coat and walked through the entrance, not sure of where I was going. Homework wasn't on my mind, I already finished most of it, and my stomach wasn't inviting food in yet. So I walked through some rooms thinking the very least I'll get some clear space to think. Or forget.
But it didn't work. My mind was still humming from yesterday. I swear, funerals weren't meant to say goodbye to the dead, they were meant to invite tired souls into the grave yard. I felt as if I were joining the dead instead of leaving them. My soul was restless for rest, it wanted to join the line of stones.
My feet took me back to the foyer; back to square one. Nothing came to my mind of what to do, and I looked up from my feet that I had been studying for the last half hour to a man standing by the door staring back into my lost eyes.
Neither of us spoke. Words were not coming and I don't think it was a time to make idle chat. He looked at me from the ground up and his eyes seemed distraught.
"Hey." Derington's voice was muffled from the silence.
Hey. Something you say when you want to say so much more, but don't know how to begin.
"Hi." Something you say when you want a quick escape. A full "hello" would invite you into the conversation, but a "hi" is a passive greeting.
He took the silent beg for peace and threw it out the window. "Are you okay?"
My mouth turned down at the corners and my mind stopped humming. He took me out of my coffin, demanding that I make myself alive. Of course, I had to lie to get away. My thoughts took a second to process and I urged my mouth to move, "I'm fine." Fine: something you say when there isn't anything you want to say but you have to say something. I bound my eyes to the floor. If our eyes met he might see the truth. The truth that I am not fine.
He, on the other hand, dragged his eyes upon mine and when I wouldn't meet his he looked below my eyes.
I saw, from the corner of mine, that he was studying my composure with a nervous twitch on his lips. "You don't look okay," he said uneasily.
With this, I had enough of his words. If he was worried, well so be it. It wasn't anything for me to care about. I needed to say something that would make him go away. So...I had to speak.
Nothing was coming. My mouth was forced closed by an invisible force, maybe something called fear, I wasn't sure. All I knew is that I couldn't talk and he was waiting for some reassurance that I wasn't completely insane and sick. Now would be a perfect time to assure him of that. If only I could speak.
He breathed in loudly and let it out. Then he pushed his lips together and opened them like he was going to say something. Only he didn't say anything, or maybe he did, I wasn't sure. What I knew is that I didn't stick around to hear him accuse me of anything.
My lips weren't working but my legs sure as hell were. Before he could utter a single syllable I ran. I ran past him and threw the heavy door to the other side. My legs wanted to give out in front of me but my mind demanded force. It demanded my legs to carry me past the car, oh yes, apparently technology wasn't an option for my mind either, and past the guest house and the garage and a dozen trees and a fountain and all the way along the paved driveway to the street where all the pretty cars zoomed by. My mind directed my feet to not stop there, but keep going past the two other houses next to mine, and finally stop at his house.