Extraordinary.
the paranoid heart.
I pulled the blanket over my face, trying to ease myself into sinking back into the blissful sleep I’d been enjoying. I threw the first thing my hand touched, which was unfortunately a mere pillow, fiercely at the dreaded alarm clock that was still shrieking at me. It was bad enough that I was still sore over the wasting of an entire day. I could have been done with that school, but it was the wrong person.
I’d picked the wrong student out of an entire school.
Failure picked at my bones until my stomach started turning over itself, getting tied up along with my tongue. I stood slowly trying to avoid the unavoidable vertigo, stumbling my way across the floorboards and into the closed door.
I pulled a brush treacherously through my tangled, auburn locks, getting caught and catching glimpses of my wide, pained eyes in the mirror. The ghost of my grey irises haunting my tired vision. I started to put one contact in before a glass shattered below my feet in the kitchen and I decided that glasses would do for today. The thick, dark burgundy tinted rims obstructed my vision, leaving me tripping over cracks that normally would have never made a difference in the sidewalk and even the slightly uneven treads of the floorboards. I threw on the only clothes that I knew anymore, the ratted jeans and nameless, bare threaded tee-shirt that I had a million and two of.
Breakfast was non-existent, or it was here at least, I found. The kitchen lay undisturbed aside from the slight stench of stale alcohol and the broken glass bleeding on the floor. I’d never met this set of parents, but I didn’t feel I would like them anyway. It didn’t matter, I’d be gone by the stroke of midnight, they probably didn’t even know I was there.
This was the kind of optimism I had to try and convince myself of. Of course they knew I was there, how could they not? I shook the thoughts from my head as I took step after confident step towards the ominous looking school. Five hundred and sixty four students in North Blockstreet High and I’ve only gone through a years worth.
Inhale. Exhale. I tried to get the apprehensive feeling that was taking over my gut to go away as I got closer and closer to the ever new high school. It was October twenty-fifth again and it would stay that way until I found the proverbial needle in the haystack. I would have the same substitute teacher first period that wouldn’t be able to pronounce my name today that I had yesterday and she would try to introduce me to the same class of students who don’t give a shit. Second period will be taken up by a fire drill that was never supposed to happen and the beginning of third will be wasted while they try to figure out who would have pulled the alarm. I will be questioned twice because I’m ‘not in the system yet.’ The rest of third would be science, where we accidentally blow something up and successfully cause a real fire this time. Fifth will be history, where I find that I know more than the teacher, but keep my mouth shut anyway. Then there’s lunch, where I sit with a new group of friends everyday, trying to pick someone worthwhile for the day. Sixth period I’m caught listening to a rant about the principal, who walks in in the middle, misunderstands, and joins in, leaving seventh to be math with Mr. Hedgerow, who never seems to get a new math problem on the board and never ceases to be amazed every time I get the answer correct.
Inhale. Exhale. I prayed that today would be different, but it’s not. It’s the same old boring routine, that was there the day before and the last three hundred some days before that. Even before that it was close to the same ritual with different faces behind names. I dreaded third period everyday, trying to hide from the frustration that the incessant interrogations would bring.
“Did you or did you not pull the fire alarm?” the pale woman asked me, sitting with her elbows situated firmly on her desk. The name plaque read Ms. Handoverson, I felt sorry for her future children.
I took a deep breath trying to calm my manic innards as they screamed at me to just strangle the bitch that wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I swear, Ms. Handoverson, I did not pull the fire alarm,” I said, trying to not let my voice waver in anger. I opened my mouth and rotated my jaw, trying to get the kink that clenching it so hard for so long had caused.
“Why don’t I believe you?” she asked sarcastically, flipping white blonde hair over one shoulder and staring at me with edgy green eyes that screamed hungrily at me.
“Probably because I’m not in the system yet,” I grumbled under my breath, crossing my arms defiantly across my chest and waiting until she was forced to release me. The clock told me it was almost the end of third, but time lies. It took me over fifty days of this to figure out why the last minute took so long. “I don’t know,” I countered the infuriating woman, “why don’t you believe me?”
The attitude was like a slap in her face and she physically flinched before leaning forward on her elbows, putting more pressure on the wooden desk. I waited for the line she fed me everyday, but it never came.
Instead a loud voice was heard screaming in the outer office, through the thick wooded door to Ms. Handoverson’s own person office; my personal Hell. The voice continued loudly as it made it’s way towards us, I could hear the heavy footsteps land themselves against the slick floor. “I need to talk to her right now,” he complained, a familiar twinge in his voice making me tilt my head towards the door, quirking my ears in his direction.
He threw open the door, revealing his comforting face to me, worry lines appearing on his otherwise seamless forehead as he grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the vice principal and her cave. He didn’t speak until he had sufficiently drug me out through the front doors of the school and out into the mid afternoon sun.
I glared up at the light and shook my head, trying to figure out what I had done to cause such a difference today. This had never happened after three hundred and forty five days of everything staying the same. Small changes were constant but nothing this big had ever happened to me. Never.
“You’re okay, right?” he asked me, concern coating his words and his eyes darting across my face. He was looking through my eyes and right into me, searching for a truth. Oceanic blue eyes filled my field of vision as he came closer and closer, wrapping a set of strong arms around me tightly as if I were some old friend in danger. I remembered him, but it was a vague remembrance. His brown hair danced with mine in front of my eyes as I pulled away and my heart beat raced to a paranoid beat. My mind was running in circles, tripping over itself to find answers.
What had I done wrong?
I’d picked the wrong student out of an entire school.
Failure picked at my bones until my stomach started turning over itself, getting tied up along with my tongue. I stood slowly trying to avoid the unavoidable vertigo, stumbling my way across the floorboards and into the closed door.
I pulled a brush treacherously through my tangled, auburn locks, getting caught and catching glimpses of my wide, pained eyes in the mirror. The ghost of my grey irises haunting my tired vision. I started to put one contact in before a glass shattered below my feet in the kitchen and I decided that glasses would do for today. The thick, dark burgundy tinted rims obstructed my vision, leaving me tripping over cracks that normally would have never made a difference in the sidewalk and even the slightly uneven treads of the floorboards. I threw on the only clothes that I knew anymore, the ratted jeans and nameless, bare threaded tee-shirt that I had a million and two of.
Breakfast was non-existent, or it was here at least, I found. The kitchen lay undisturbed aside from the slight stench of stale alcohol and the broken glass bleeding on the floor. I’d never met this set of parents, but I didn’t feel I would like them anyway. It didn’t matter, I’d be gone by the stroke of midnight, they probably didn’t even know I was there.
This was the kind of optimism I had to try and convince myself of. Of course they knew I was there, how could they not? I shook the thoughts from my head as I took step after confident step towards the ominous looking school. Five hundred and sixty four students in North Blockstreet High and I’ve only gone through a years worth.
Inhale. Exhale. I tried to get the apprehensive feeling that was taking over my gut to go away as I got closer and closer to the ever new high school. It was October twenty-fifth again and it would stay that way until I found the proverbial needle in the haystack. I would have the same substitute teacher first period that wouldn’t be able to pronounce my name today that I had yesterday and she would try to introduce me to the same class of students who don’t give a shit. Second period will be taken up by a fire drill that was never supposed to happen and the beginning of third will be wasted while they try to figure out who would have pulled the alarm. I will be questioned twice because I’m ‘not in the system yet.’ The rest of third would be science, where we accidentally blow something up and successfully cause a real fire this time. Fifth will be history, where I find that I know more than the teacher, but keep my mouth shut anyway. Then there’s lunch, where I sit with a new group of friends everyday, trying to pick someone worthwhile for the day. Sixth period I’m caught listening to a rant about the principal, who walks in in the middle, misunderstands, and joins in, leaving seventh to be math with Mr. Hedgerow, who never seems to get a new math problem on the board and never ceases to be amazed every time I get the answer correct.
Inhale. Exhale. I prayed that today would be different, but it’s not. It’s the same old boring routine, that was there the day before and the last three hundred some days before that. Even before that it was close to the same ritual with different faces behind names. I dreaded third period everyday, trying to hide from the frustration that the incessant interrogations would bring.
“Did you or did you not pull the fire alarm?” the pale woman asked me, sitting with her elbows situated firmly on her desk. The name plaque read Ms. Handoverson, I felt sorry for her future children.
I took a deep breath trying to calm my manic innards as they screamed at me to just strangle the bitch that wouldn’t take no for an answer. “I swear, Ms. Handoverson, I did not pull the fire alarm,” I said, trying to not let my voice waver in anger. I opened my mouth and rotated my jaw, trying to get the kink that clenching it so hard for so long had caused.
“Why don’t I believe you?” she asked sarcastically, flipping white blonde hair over one shoulder and staring at me with edgy green eyes that screamed hungrily at me.
“Probably because I’m not in the system yet,” I grumbled under my breath, crossing my arms defiantly across my chest and waiting until she was forced to release me. The clock told me it was almost the end of third, but time lies. It took me over fifty days of this to figure out why the last minute took so long. “I don’t know,” I countered the infuriating woman, “why don’t you believe me?”
The attitude was like a slap in her face and she physically flinched before leaning forward on her elbows, putting more pressure on the wooden desk. I waited for the line she fed me everyday, but it never came.
Instead a loud voice was heard screaming in the outer office, through the thick wooded door to Ms. Handoverson’s own person office; my personal Hell. The voice continued loudly as it made it’s way towards us, I could hear the heavy footsteps land themselves against the slick floor. “I need to talk to her right now,” he complained, a familiar twinge in his voice making me tilt my head towards the door, quirking my ears in his direction.
He threw open the door, revealing his comforting face to me, worry lines appearing on his otherwise seamless forehead as he grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the vice principal and her cave. He didn’t speak until he had sufficiently drug me out through the front doors of the school and out into the mid afternoon sun.
I glared up at the light and shook my head, trying to figure out what I had done to cause such a difference today. This had never happened after three hundred and forty five days of everything staying the same. Small changes were constant but nothing this big had ever happened to me. Never.
“You’re okay, right?” he asked me, concern coating his words and his eyes darting across my face. He was looking through my eyes and right into me, searching for a truth. Oceanic blue eyes filled my field of vision as he came closer and closer, wrapping a set of strong arms around me tightly as if I were some old friend in danger. I remembered him, but it was a vague remembrance. His brown hair danced with mine in front of my eyes as I pulled away and my heart beat raced to a paranoid beat. My mind was running in circles, tripping over itself to find answers.
What had I done wrong?