The hallways were always full with the cacophony of sound. Sometimes too much sound. Too much laughter and way too many groups I would never a part of. Not from lack of trying...once...back when I first moved here but now I was in high school and so done with the outside looking in feeling I've had since I was the new girl no one wanted to get to know. The new shy girl who was too prone to tears to be anything but labeled as a crybaby and put down daily for her imagination.
What if I wasn't here anymore. Would anyone miss me?
Would anyone miss me if I was just walking across Main Street to Burgerville for lunch but did not quite make it across the busy crosswalk only to end up on a hood of some car, crunching their windshield only to land behind the mini truck staring emptily at the last numbers I would ever see? Would he stop or just keep going? Did he do it on purpose?
He was certainly mean enough to always tripping me always placing icky white milk cartons in the hood of my ugly winter coats I would settle for in the store with my parents too afraid to make my true feelings known. I am a chronic people pleaser to voice my truest opinions, keeping my eyes firmly fixed on the ground just to avoid their sneers at the fact that I dared to breathe their air yet another day. What if I just stopped? Would they care then?
Would someone scream at the horror of my blood on the asphalt messing up the perfectly spaced white rectangles? Would they yell at someone to call 9-1-1? Would a peer want to touch me enough to help? Or would it fall to an adult, a teacher to assign the task just like they had to assign me to groups for projects as no one wanted me on theirs.
Why? Because I wouldn't do the work? Or because they could not handle someone who just listened preferring the whisper of book pages and the scratch of lead against paper taking notes rather than the cacophony they seem to enjoy every day. If that was so desirable then why did it leave me weary at the end of the day until all I wanted to do was to remain silent and read after I finished my homework? No, I had to help my mother by making supper and amusing her after a quiet day at home listening to my dad sleep the day so he could work at night. It's not that I didn't want to talk to her but merely done with sound.
All I know is that I was tired and that it would be so easy to just let go.
Ooooh and then I could haunt them. Haunt them like a ghost who could finally scream at them without being seen. I found him in the hallway, the kid who left sour milk in my hood. This time I tripped Lloyd in the hallway and laughed with the others as he tumbled ass over head. I followed him into the bathroom to turn on the hot water until it steamed up the glass enough to write in the condensation: boo! Lloyd, this big tall dude screamed like a little girl! Then I looked down and saw that I was fading away.
What did I accomplish? Did torturing him really make me any better? Did it eradicate all the scars upon my heart that my peers had torn apart? Did I feel any less laden?
No.
All I did was lose. All I would lose are those who love me and not just because they bore me or shared blood with me. I would lose my stories and my music. I would lose my dogs and my books. Most of all I would lose my everything for I was not ready to leave for such a permanent decision that would only punish those I left behind.
With a sharp breath, I pulled in their air that I sucked in greedily grateful, for once, that I was invisible that they did not see me act odder than usual. Who gets so drawn into imagination that they forgive to breathe? Yet I couldn't resist a small chuckle for just imagining their reactions had been enough to get me through the rest of the day.