American Royalty

Hands tangled together, eyes set on the floor and lips quivering, I walked down the empty halls. Class didn’t start for another ten minutes, but I was always on time. It was lunchtime but I didn’t feel like eating. Joseph didn’t want me eating. A hushed noise echoed throughout the halls but I ignored them, because I already knew where it was coming from. My brain. I imagined things, you see? I was a freak of nature and I came to terms with it. Paranoia settled in and destroyed me.

Suddenly I spotted three girls on the floor, giggling and eating their lunch. They should’ve known that it was forbidden to eat lunch in the hallways. But I held my tongue and continued to walk. I twirled a part of my scarf around my finger, and held in the words I was dying to say.

When I was near the girls, they stopped talking and I felt their eyes on me, just glaring with anger. I was a freak, and they were probably thinking why on earth a freak like me was in the halls. Well I went here.

Usually I felt like an outcast here, yet I had been here for the last three years. I heard one of the girls whisper, “What a freak.” I wasn’t surprised and I didn’t respond, but continued to walk. This hallway was horrifically long. I recognized one of the girls to be Amanda or rather, Amy. She was a junior like me but act like she was so much more privileged, important, and richer than me, or anyone in our grade.

Passing them I quickly glanced at them and saw one of the spit on the ground. I felt like this was some kind of battlefield, and it was me against the school. No one would be my friend, fear that I would curse them or something.

After a while, I changed course and walked in the opposite direction of my class. This school was rather big, which wasn’t surprising, since there was an exceeding amount of students. I swear we were one hundred students too much, crowding the classes and hallways. But no one seemed to mind, only loving the more students. I, however, liked the smallness of things, my room, my house and my life in fact.

Mostly I wished it to be small so I didn’t have to fit the monsters pondering my dreams and reality. My heart beating loudly in my chest, I saw him. I saw Joseph staring at me, a smile upon his face. Such a beautiful smile, yet a heartless soul. He ran his fingers through his shiny black hair and looked at me with his sneaky blue eyes. He was ready to pound upon me.

I opened my mouth and whispered, making sure no one would hear, “What are you doing?”

“Following you, is that a problem?” He responded simply, like it wasn’t a big deal. He wasn’t supposed to be here.

“Yes, so leave.” I hissed.

“Flo, if you didn’t know, I go here.” He spoke in a matter of fact tone.

Fear quenched my body, and I glanced back to see creatures of horror skid across the grounds. They were following all ready to screech and claw at me. I bit my lip and sweat trickled down my neck. I suddenly wanted to run, and have this never ending fear of paranoia leave my soulless body.

“What are you looking at?” Joseph suddenly asked and I snapped my neck back at him.

“Just shut up, ok?”

“Sorry, miss Princess, didn’t realize I was getting in your space.”

“Don’t call me princess, and never talk to me in the halls, ok?” I demanded and he simply nodded. He strutted away, so calmly, leaving me scared as always.

Worry was on my mind as I heard the bell chime through the halls. I assumed the monsters would leave the premises but they stayed as students filled the halls. They hid in corners, glaring and hissing at every laughing student.

I was an outcast, my side bag hanging, my sandals out of style in the dead middle of winter, and the bun hanging high, with hair strands tumbling out, like I was some kind of lunatic. These students glanced at me as they passed like I was a lunatic.

I wanted to tell them. I wanted to scream at them that I was not a lunatic! That this world was haunting me and I needed someone to talk to me! But that was impossible because I already made an impression on all these stubborn students. I was a freak.

I was and always would be a freak, roaming the halls like I didn’t belong. But I wanted to belong.