Elaine
7 Months Ago.
Highschool is fun.
A grammar nazi might protest that High School is destined to be a compound word. Not to be written so close by as above. But what I see first hand at how the students are always high beneath the roof of a sacred educational hub, obtaining anything and everything else than the prescribed higher education. Hence the term highschool tempts me to let it be.
High on nightmare, high on hate and high on envy. High on what's left of them rather than actual substance.
As for High School. The one with space in between?
It's fun too. Fun for people like me.
It demonstrates the primitive young mind on a lesson of how to walk through life. For examle, you walk as people talk. Talk nonsense about you.
You have two options. Ignore or at least try to ignore. Standing up and fighting back is a segment of a myth that belongs to the genre pathetic fiction, it's insanely cliche and makes no difference.
Today, at this instant you put your charming little mouth to use and the next moment they will make sure no words spew out of them.
The cycle of how to survive high school for us socially awkward is so much more adventurous than one can conceptualize. You decide what happens in the future.
The results are endless, unpredictably abstract, and highly classified as no one can figure out what they might have stored for them.
It's all surprise.
By bearing it silently, we make a mature compromise.
But it always comes with a price, the price when it sweetly strips us of our self-esteem.
"Hey weirdo, spend the vacation learning how to brush your hair?"
David Woods, the uselessly built with too many muscles for the age kind of boy. Enormous body and meager brain. The one who has nothing to do with himself but everything to do with everyone. If you want to gossip, you know the guy.
And a chimerical illustration of the typical bully.
Bully. The person who is covertly insecure of himself appeases their weakness by acquainting the fault in others.
Sounds rational.
I turn to face him, I am smart and so I am well enlightened that if I evade his bulky existence and move on with my parade I might end up on the floor. And the new pair of jeans, let's say it has worse days to see, so I should save it for later.
See! what I told you about the power of preference I have?
Today I refuse to meet the tiles.
So stare at concrete instead.
In your face
The warm humid wind locks my hair into tangles as I play with the bag straps on the side.
"Lunch," he said extending his hands. Lack of request and consideration doesn't bother me. I was way past the point of counting on table manners and basic human etiquettes.
I don't live in a society like that.
Dropping the small paper bag containing a sandwich on his outstretched palms, I chew on my inner cheeks.
My mind lingers to the day I first saw him. Bloodshot eyes and swollen cheeks. Bruises decorated his side as he stood shirtless, outside his house.
He was crying, it was late night and I was new in town. We both exchanged glances but chose to remain strangers.
It was only a week later I saw him in here. In high school.
But the way he embraced to make sure his secret was secluded, was something he shouldn't be proud of.
But do I care?
I like to wonder at times. Afraid of why it doesn't hurt me as much. Wishing that bullying would just hurt instead of something else.
David shoved me on my shoulder as he grabs another bag from my clutch and enters the school building.
Now there goes my lunch.
I smile, as I watch him mingle around the crowd. It was easier to read him than I thought. From sophomore, he bullies me for food. Weird as it sounds he needs food to keep those muscles alive and his financial status seems more on the depressed side than I would admit.
When you are a loner and have no friends you make your source of entertainment. I communicate with myself over a person's body language. In short, I observe.
When I initially scrutinized their behavior closely, I saw them faking most of their emotions.
Everyone had their twisted method of dealing with life. No one can be trusted.
There are riches, they have everything which includes their group of followers, even the one who worships their high heels. But in reality, they fake concern to be noticed by the crowd.
Then next in throne are pretending riches. They are the ones who emulate riches. The pretenders try their best to appear and smell rich, but it gets tenacious as days pass and one could notice their budget of designer clothes fade to a sensible limit.
After that we have commoners. They counterfeit the fact that they don't give flying fries about the popular. But in actuality, they are envious.
The sweetest of them all are nerds. They are safe inside their cocoons, they never bother nor bothered. Maybe just sometimes.
At last, are the targets. Students like me don't fit anywhere and are believed to be too weak to defend. The riches label us and commoners feel dynamic by pushing their limits to show us our inferiority.
"Psycho"
"Zombie"
"Have you been using that backpack since fifth grade? darn it's so dirty"
Fantastic words to hear on your day four of senior year. No- it's not day one as per instinct assumption.
These are the times I pray for the nourishment and health of the ones who invented headphones. That's Nathaniel Baldwin for you, he was the man who made the audio signal waves to possibly emit before the development of the amplifier. May he rest in peace.
As I plug them in, I adjust my hoodie, pulling it low so that it veiled half of my face, and walked towards the last seat in my class.
That is if the students are generous enough to not play past the hurdle with their legs on my way up there.
I relax once I am seated. The class soon began and Mr. Carmen proceeded to suck the enthusiasm out of class like a blood-sucking leech.
During the monitoring of attendance, Mr.Carmen seems to find some aspect of interest in it. His brows furrowed as he pushed the thick rim of his glasses by the long bridge of his crooked nose. It must have been broken at some point to appear so- bumpy.
I kept guessing the reasons for the flaw while his heavy voice filtered the room along with his eyes that searched.
"Is there a new student in our class?" he announces and enquires simultaneously as he scans the room, Along with me may I add.
Mr. Carmen's attention span was on the same platter as mine. We both hated, loathed teenagers. Though it was a bit hypocritical on my part.
As I shuffled my gaze to the direction the class was engrossed in. I Indeed saw a new student. A handsome and rich one to be exact, with snowy white hair? You can have a glance and conclude that he will soon belong to the popular clan. Though it sounds so stupid, that's how every high school worked. He reeked of vogue, custom and affluence. He was already seated with one of them.
Tyler Wren. In all his pretended evil glory sat beside him as the new boy nods saying "I am the one"
"Would you like to introduce yourself?" Mr. Carmen asks bored, wanting to be anywhere but here.
"Yeah sure," he stood up. Grace, poise, and masculinity, lean but defined. I found myself swallow dryly as my lips parted. He was surprisingly different. Like me he didn't seem to mingle among us, while I was cast low, he was someone who appeared so powerful even for the senseless Elite of Summersville. I don't think I have ever seen someone like him in this town.
"I am Alex White_," he says, the voice ceasing the tiniest bit of murmurs in class to silence. He sounded classy, even though he barely said anything. But then he continued "_ and I am looking forward to making new friends" his striking blue gaze then meet mine, a mischievous yet genuine smile plays at the side of his lips.
Momentarily I forgot what I was even observing about him.
Then it dawned. His name.
Alex White.
White. The color I like. The color of innocence. But this white here seems anything but.
***