Status: Active.
Suburbia
Three.
School has never been what you would call a pleasurable experience for me. Though I find it hard to believe that anyone can say their high school experience was anything near enjoyable, at least if they’re being truthful.
The only reason anyone goes to begin with is to get the grades they need to escape from wherever they are: a get in, get out scenario. So really, it’s hardly a cheery atmosphere to begin with.
School isn’t really all that bad though, I don’t talk to anyone much, but that's really a personal preference rather than a trial. No one really bothers me, I get the occasional witty remarks along the lines of ‘watch out, here comes the nut job’ or ‘prime psychopath material right here’, but that’s about it.
I actually have no idea why some people came to think I was nuts, maybe it was because I didn’t act exactly like them or play on the same teams as them or have the same opinions as them, I don’t know.
Either way, when word spread that I’d found Craig and didn’t really seem too concerned about it, it really only fed the flames.
As I walk through the corridors, people glance at me and then suddenly stare down at the floor, or if they have to walk past me they make sure that they don’t touch me at all.
But maybe I’m being paranoid.
The teachers keep giving me concerned looks and a few of them pull me aside to ask me ‘How are you feeling?’ It's like clockwork.
By the time the lunch bell rings I'm back in auto pilot, dolling out the appropriate ‘I’m fine’s and ‘no, really, I’m okay’s.
No one has really talked to me at all today, apart from when it was necessary, it's as if a taboo has been placed upon me that no one dare breach by having anything to do with me.
But these kinds of subtle atmospheres never seem to register with Jackson Wells who gets a kick out of anyone else’s misfortune.
I don’t even need to see him coming anymore: his heavy footfall and the quiet domino effect of nervous whispers that follows him down the corridor is enough for me to know who it is. I can feel my forehead crease as I take a deep breath to brace myself for any and all of his biting words.
"Hey, psycho, how are you planning on doing it?" He sidles up to me and falls in step just behind me,
"Are you going for the classic sliced wrists or are you following in your boy Craig’s footsteps and going with rope?"
I don’t answer him or acknowledge his presence but keep walking down the hall.
"I mean, it was a suicide pact, right?" I can hear Riley, his best and possible only friend laughing half-heartedly beside him, it’s easiest to picture him as a slimy parasite, surviving on Jackson's leftover infamy.
"Hey, look at me when I’m talking to you!" Jackson grabs my arm and yanks me round to face him, irked by my apparent disregard to his remarks.
"Did you watch him do it? ‘Cause I heard you watched him do it, you sick freak." He murmurs in my ear,
"Did you chicken out, was that it? Or are you still gonna do it? Don’t see why you wouldn’t, no one wants you hanging around. You should just get on with it already."
He voice trails off into a malicious snarl as he pulls away from me with a smirk on his face, shoving something into my hands. I slowly look down to see the thick rope he’s given me, fashioned with a loop on the end. The hangman’s noose.
It feels so rough in my hands; I just stare at it and hold it. I don’t know what I am doing or what I'm thinking. I just stand here, my mind blank, holding this rough, rough piece of rope.
I can feel how deathly quiet everything has suddenly become; there is only this strange, disjointed rushing in my ears. Everyone is watching me and the piece of rope in my hand: a hundred blinking eyes swarming from the edges of the corridor. No one says anything, not a single breath is heard.
My whole body feels frozen, by blood still with no heartbeat to move it. Just the rope and the swinging; slowly left to right... left to right...
Then suddenly my heart starts to beat again and my blood no longer solid and I drop the rope onto the floor, I hear it thud down and I walk away. The crystal moment shattering and burrowing out of sight beneath my skin. I don’t look at anyone and I don’t stop until I am through the double doors, outside, away from all the quiet, watching, eyes.
It's only then that I realise how heavily I’ve been breathing and how dizzy I feel.
I kneel down on the grass, my hands scrunched into my hair, until my head stops pounding and my breathing returns to normal. Then I stand up and just keep on going.
The only reason anyone goes to begin with is to get the grades they need to escape from wherever they are: a get in, get out scenario. So really, it’s hardly a cheery atmosphere to begin with.
School isn’t really all that bad though, I don’t talk to anyone much, but that's really a personal preference rather than a trial. No one really bothers me, I get the occasional witty remarks along the lines of ‘watch out, here comes the nut job’ or ‘prime psychopath material right here’, but that’s about it.
I actually have no idea why some people came to think I was nuts, maybe it was because I didn’t act exactly like them or play on the same teams as them or have the same opinions as them, I don’t know.
Either way, when word spread that I’d found Craig and didn’t really seem too concerned about it, it really only fed the flames.
As I walk through the corridors, people glance at me and then suddenly stare down at the floor, or if they have to walk past me they make sure that they don’t touch me at all.
But maybe I’m being paranoid.
The teachers keep giving me concerned looks and a few of them pull me aside to ask me ‘How are you feeling?’ It's like clockwork.
By the time the lunch bell rings I'm back in auto pilot, dolling out the appropriate ‘I’m fine’s and ‘no, really, I’m okay’s.
No one has really talked to me at all today, apart from when it was necessary, it's as if a taboo has been placed upon me that no one dare breach by having anything to do with me.
But these kinds of subtle atmospheres never seem to register with Jackson Wells who gets a kick out of anyone else’s misfortune.
I don’t even need to see him coming anymore: his heavy footfall and the quiet domino effect of nervous whispers that follows him down the corridor is enough for me to know who it is. I can feel my forehead crease as I take a deep breath to brace myself for any and all of his biting words.
"Hey, psycho, how are you planning on doing it?" He sidles up to me and falls in step just behind me,
"Are you going for the classic sliced wrists or are you following in your boy Craig’s footsteps and going with rope?"
I don’t answer him or acknowledge his presence but keep walking down the hall.
"I mean, it was a suicide pact, right?" I can hear Riley, his best and possible only friend laughing half-heartedly beside him, it’s easiest to picture him as a slimy parasite, surviving on Jackson's leftover infamy.
"Hey, look at me when I’m talking to you!" Jackson grabs my arm and yanks me round to face him, irked by my apparent disregard to his remarks.
"Did you watch him do it? ‘Cause I heard you watched him do it, you sick freak." He murmurs in my ear,
"Did you chicken out, was that it? Or are you still gonna do it? Don’t see why you wouldn’t, no one wants you hanging around. You should just get on with it already."
He voice trails off into a malicious snarl as he pulls away from me with a smirk on his face, shoving something into my hands. I slowly look down to see the thick rope he’s given me, fashioned with a loop on the end. The hangman’s noose.
It feels so rough in my hands; I just stare at it and hold it. I don’t know what I am doing or what I'm thinking. I just stand here, my mind blank, holding this rough, rough piece of rope.
I can feel how deathly quiet everything has suddenly become; there is only this strange, disjointed rushing in my ears. Everyone is watching me and the piece of rope in my hand: a hundred blinking eyes swarming from the edges of the corridor. No one says anything, not a single breath is heard.
My whole body feels frozen, by blood still with no heartbeat to move it. Just the rope and the swinging; slowly left to right... left to right...
Then suddenly my heart starts to beat again and my blood no longer solid and I drop the rope onto the floor, I hear it thud down and I walk away. The crystal moment shattering and burrowing out of sight beneath my skin. I don’t look at anyone and I don’t stop until I am through the double doors, outside, away from all the quiet, watching, eyes.
It's only then that I realise how heavily I’ve been breathing and how dizzy I feel.
I kneel down on the grass, my hands scrunched into my hair, until my head stops pounding and my breathing returns to normal. Then I stand up and just keep on going.
♠ ♠ ♠
You know the drill