Breathe Me in Sweet Suffering

"That's it class. Remember your essay is due Monday".

The class groaned. I rolled my eyes while packing my books into my bag. We have had like two weeks on the three pages essay. More than enough time to write it and still they complained. Mine was done last week. I never liked putting off things and it wasn't like I had any social life to interrupt my homework either. Not anymore anyway.

I froze in the doorway. Chris stood leaned against the lockers and pushed off from them with a beaming smile the second he saw me. He had black eye-shadow on today, and his traditional 18 Visions t-shirt on. Ah fuck. So much for hoping everything had gone back to normal and that his smile before had been some kind of fluke.

"Katt! "

Before when he didn't use my real name I would stiffen up as he yelled Snowy after me. My biggest fear back then was to hear him call me that awful nickname. How naïve I had been. Chris calling me Katt with a pleased tone in his voice was ten times scarier than him calling me Snowy in a taunting voice.

I ignored him and aimed for the cafeteria and breathed in relief when Chris walked to the cafeteria line, his Demonia's clanking loudly against the allumium floor. My usual table was empty. Not surprising as no one wanted to sit next to the stone heads. I wouldn't either but it was the social outcast side of the cafeteria and also the table furthest away from the table were my former best friend sat with her boyfriend and her new friends.

The lunch book today was genes. A book about human mental development. I had always been interested in the human mind because of my aunt who was a shrink and the book was complicated enough to keep me occupied so that I didn't think too much over the fact that my table were the only one in the cafeteria that only had one occupant. Like I didn't stand out enough by being the only white kid in this school.

I was deeply into the gender difference in kids when a chair scraped beside me. Chris. Chris with a lunch plate sitting down like he belonged there. What the hell? Why wasn't he over with the other "popular goths" ? He always sat there. It was an unspoken rule that they always ate lunch together. Always at the same table. Always together and no one ever joined them and they never joined anyone else's table. What the hell was he planning?

I shoved the chair a little further away from him but he didn't seem to get the hint. Instead he gave me a wide smile like I had been the one to invite him over before he turned his attention to the insanely huge pile of food on his lunch plate. Seriously it looked like the same amount one would feed a bear at the zoo. I peered over the cover of my book and cringed. Everyone was staring and whispering. Some were even rude enough to point fingers at us. I was in the spotlight and I really didn't like it.

I stuffed my book in the bag and walked fast out of the cafeteria as eating when people were staring was next to impossible. It would be so nice to skip today but that would mean Chris had won and yeah. I was a really sore loser. Chris wasn't going to get to me with his sick games.

I walked into the library and found my favorite spot. It was an old chair in the corner of the politics corner. No one ever ventured into that section of the library and it was out of sight so no one could find me either. I sighed and closed my eyes. Damn it. I had not even gotten the chance to eat and there was a no eating rule in the library. Not only was I becoming as jumpy as a rabbit on the run but now I was hungry too.

"Katt?"

Oh hell no. Chris was in the library.

Don't find me. Please don't find me.

"Hey Katt".

I opened my eyes and looked straight up on Chris' smiling face. His eyes were such a light brown, I hadn't noticed before. Ah fuck. He had found me.

"What the hell do you want?"

His smile faded but he kept staring at me with that creepy stare.

"I..I… was just…".

Was he stuttering? What the hell was going on? Had I woken up in some sort of twilight zone or something? Attack of the pod people? I sure as hell wasn't going to stay around to wait for Chris to find words to whatever he wanted to say. I was pretty sure I wouldn't like whatever he was going to say.

Unfortunately Chris didn't get the hint. He followed me like a little lost creep out of the library not even trying to make it look like he wasn't following me. Was he high or something? There were rumors that the giants used steroids but I didn't pay attention to rumors. They were often false and it wasn't my business if they were true either. But looking at Chris' face I was beginning to wonder.

He looked at me like I was some sort of wonder. Like me existing was a miracle. If I had been anyone but me I would have thought he had some kind of bet going on about sleeping with me. No bet could overcome that and I had been having a front seat to Chris loathing life of people for years so I was all too aware of what he thought of me just because of our first encounter. There was no way he would touch me even for a bet. Nor would he look at me like that for a bet either. All soft and nicelike like I was actually someone he enjoyed being around. Enjoyed being around and not just enjoyed torturing because that look I was all too familiar with. He had never once looked at the girls he wanted to bed that way. Nor would he smile like he was trying to charm them.

Chris never charmed girls. Oh I was sure he would say differently but in my world sexual innuendo and leering didn't count as charming someone.

And it really creeped me out.

For years he had taunted me, made fun of me and tortured me and not once had he used my real name. I was surprised he even knew my birth name.

He would stop soon if I ignored him and carried on like he wasn't there.

Yeah. That's what I would do. Pretend like he wasn't there. Prove that he wasn't getting to me at all