Tales From Another Broken Home

You’d think I’d have some feelings of sorrow, anxiety, regret, excitement, anything, as I packed all of my belongings into cardboard moving boxes.

Yeah. Not really.

Truth is, it was only moving to me. Just the process. No goodbyes to old friends, no ritualistic going-away parties, no tears, no best wishes. I just packed my bags and went, simple as that.

Its how I was raised; I mean the whole uncaring thing. My parents emanated that – they were completely logical, with no real connections with anyone besides themselves and me, their daughter. We didn’t even have a goldfish that they cared for. Honestly, they reminded me of robots, although I didn’t realize it at the time. To me, it wasn’t considered abnormal. It just…was.

That’s basically how the move went; a clean cut from northern Oakland to Jingletown. Within about two days, we were completely settled into our new house, and before I knew it, I had started my first day of school. At that point, I figured I would simply go along, living the same lifestyle that I had been before when I was back home. Oh, how wrong I was.

--

I wasn’t even nervous on my first day of school. I had no problem walking in there not knowing anybody, or where anything was, or what the customs of the school were. For me, things passed by completely smoothly.

Or at least the first half of the day did.

By the time lunch hour arrived, I realized I really wasn’t all that hungry, or at least my hunger didn't outweigh my desire to wander around the school. While the rest of the students chatted away in the cafeteria, I turned in the exact opposite direction, and simply started walking.

It was an absolutely huge school, with two floors that were a bit winding, (which probably explains the previous trouble I had finding my second hour AP Government class.) The hallways were wide, with lockers painted the school’s colors up against the walls. Every couple of feet a classroom door would appear, and there was always, from no matter where you stood, a round clock sticking out of the wall within sight. Numerous posters and banners advertising upcoming events adorned the walls in bright pinks, greens, and whatever other colors the creators thought would catch students’ meager attention span.

Eventually, I came upon a wide turn in the hallway, and saw a set of double doors opened wide, almost as if they were inviting – no, calling – me in. I absolutely couldn’t help myself – I had to go see what was through them.

As soon as I walked in, it was completely obvious it was a library. There was a rounded desk right at the front, probably to greet, (i.e. check up on,) students coming into the library, but strangely enough, nobody was sitting at it. I could hear the faint humming of the computers behind the desk, and I saw even more of them in sets located on the tops of tables in a large, open area behind the desk. Behind those were numerous sets of tall bookshelves, which I immediately walked toward.

I strolled around leisurely, glancing down each aisle, hoping something would spark my interest. Surprisingly, after just a couple of seconds, I found something. Only, that something wasn't exactly a thing.

The most peculiar boy was lying on the floor, his ankles crossed, using the bookshelf to prop his head up. He had the hood of his black zip-up covering his head, and from what I could see, he had dark – maybe raven? – hair that seemed to be styled in a deliberately messy fashion. He was wearing tight black jeans with a studded belt, (I could even see his red and black boxers poking out from beneath his waistband, which I tried to ignore,) and battered-looking once-black high tops covered his feet. I saw he was holding onto a black, outdated iPod between his tattooed fingers. I followed the white cord coming out of the headphones jack up to the sides of his face, and saw he had his eyes closed, his breathing light.

For just a split second, I contemplated saying something to wake him up, although I didn't really know why. However, he decided to save me the trouble, and opened his eyes, immediately looking up at me. I could see the look of disgust on his face: his peach lips curled upward into a slight sneer, and his dark eyes were narrowed, staring up at me as if I was some sort of distasteful bug he happened to spot on the ceiling. I had the feeling he knew I was there even before he looked at me.

“What?” he said quietly, but the volume didn’t take away from the obvious irritation he molded into his voice upon me walking into his general vicinity. His voice was slightly raspy, probably because he had been sleeping there for a while, with a bit of a higher pitch than I would have expected based on his appearance alone. Honestly, he sounded extremely normal. Save for the displeasure and all.

“Nothing,” I replied quickly, turning my head away, shying away. I didn’t really want to cause trouble; my goal was to generally keep to myself. With a bit of incoherent mumbling, (I meant for it to be “I’m sorry,” but it didn’t exactly turn out that way,) I turned around and fastwalked out of the library.

--

By the time it was fifth hour, I had almost completely forgotten about the boy in the library. I’d seen plenty of strange people before, why should I be bothered with this one? It’s not like there was anything special about this particular felonious boy.

Fifth hour was gym, and I had brought a pair of sneakers, shorts, and a T-shirt just to be prepared. I really didn’t like having it fifth hour, it meant having to sit throughout sixth period feeling all hot and sweaty, because no one in their right mind would use the school’s public showers. But still, I was fine with it; it could be worse.

We started off the day with warming up by running laps around the gym for ten minutes. It wasn’t all that hard for me, I tended to like to keep myself in generally good shape, but nonetheless, it did wear me out a bit. As I stood off to the side, taking a sip out of my water bottle, I saw two dark figures walk into the gym. They obviously weren’t here to participate, or they would have been wearing the stereotypical gym clothes, instead of the stereotypical “future dropout” clothes. I glanced over at the pair for a brief moment, and noticed that one of them was the boy from the library from earlier. Now that I got a closer look under the bright tungsten lights of the gym, his hair was actually a very dark brown, but under the right light, could almost be considered black. They walked over to the farthest wall and sat down, propping themselves up against it. I turned my eyes away, took one last swig of my water, and jogged over to the middle of the gym, where the rest of the class had gathered.

Before coming to talk to the class, my gym teacher walked over to the two boys and started, what seemed like to me, scolding them. I couldn’t really hear what she was saying because of all the chatter from the other students, but I know at one point in the conversation, the two stood up leisurely, looking around the room as if the concrete walls were more interesting than what the teacher was saying. I saw Sleeping Library Boy look at the teacher with an “I don’t care” look at the end of the conversation, and I saw his lips move to form the words, “I’m here, aren’t I?” The teacher stood there for a couple moments, seemingly admitting defeat, and walked over to the rest of the class to set up a small soccer game.

The teacher decided to test me out as right forward. I honestly hated the position, I would much rather be playing defense, but I wasn’t going to just sit back, so I tried my best anyway.

I had actually been in soccer a few years prior, throughout grades three through nine, so I was still decent at it, if not a bit rusty. I dribbled the ball fiercely towards to goal and when I thought I had a shot, kicked with all my might. The opposing side’s goalie was surprisingly good; she practically jumped ahead to kick the ball away from the net, and it ended up flying over my head towards the wall, and it was out. Normally, it would have been a free throw, but I saw the messy-haired boy grin as the ball came flying toward him.

He had been leaning against the wall the entire game, arms crossed, with the most peculiar expression on his face. It was a small smile, but I knew he wasn’t genuinely amused by the game whatsoever. The expression was condescending, as if he was inwardly mocking the entire soccer game; the idea of it, and its participants. Maybe he was waiting or something.

I got the feeling this assumption was true when he kicked the soccer ball full-force in my direction.

It hit me in the face.

I fell back, managing to catch myself slightly by only falling on my lower back, protecting my head from hitting the wooden floor. I heard a couple gasps and “Oh my God!”s from the other students, but I tried to ignore them. I sat up, hanging my head down, trying to get rid of the pain, when I felt warm liquid sliding down my face. I put my fingers to my lips for a few moments, withdrew them, and saw crimson shining on my fingers. I quickly pinched my nose inbetween my fingertips, keeping my head down, and withdrew my legs out from under me; I didn’t feel like cleaning blood droplet stains out of my clothes.

I noticed a couple things within the process realizing I had a nosebleed. One, students had crowded around me, making it extremely hard for my teacher to get through and deliver the paper towel she had for me. Two, I heard this insanely hysterical laughing. I could only guess who it was.

I glanced up and saw Messy Hair laughing violently along with his friend. I normally wouldn’t be all that bothered by this, but everything about him just seemed to catch my attention; he was doubled over from laughing so hard, and I could have sworn I saw tears in his eyes. He had his arm held out as if he was trying to point at me mockingly, and his mouth was contracted as if he was trying to stop his derisive laughter but absolutely couldn’t due to the fact he was in too much of a hysterical fit. But it wasn’t really any of those actions that stood out to me.

It was his eyes.

For some reason, they absolutely scared me witless.

I could do nothing but stare at him fearfully, absolutely entranced at the cold, cruel nature behind them. Yet, for some reason, I didn’t hate him.

I couldn’t help myself from being a little bit interested, even.

Eventually, I tore my gaze away from him, and my teacher helped me up. She sent someone to escort me to the office’s “infirmary,” and sent the boy to the office. Because the office ladies were afraid of me becoming lightheaded, I stayed in the infirmary for the rest of fifth hour and the entirety of sixth. After school ended, I went home, still thinking about a pair of scornful, uncaring, vindictive, unforgettably fascinating eyes.

That had been my first bittersweet taste of the suburban Jesus.