This is an on-going story written about a girl's life in school. I already have a lot written. Hope you enjoy. DO COMMENT. ^^ Oh yeah. Steal and I bite your head off. >(
Loose Leaf
I was surprised to find behind the white door
of my closet a hot pink binder
with hundreds of loose college ruled sheets of paper
shoved inside it. It reminded me of those times
in school when everyone shoved loose papers
sloppily into their binders. And everybody wanted
a binder, because having a binder meant
you were somebody important in school. And I would set
my plastic pink binder on a desk that had pen markings
scribbled all over it.
Impressions
On my desk, somebody
had written the words “I’M HUMAN”. I laughed
because it was so funny, but then
later in the year I didn’t laugh at the words anymore. Instead I
took a pen and at the start of every class, I would trace the words
to make the impression deeper. But I didn’t make it deeper
for the desk. I didn’t do it to point at the teachers
or the school, but I did it to leave an impression
on the students there. And every day I would watch
the students pass by and see if they would notice
the words engraved on my desk. But if any of them did
it didn’t seem to have any affect. So I just
penciled it in deeper. I wanted them to know how
unkind they could be, and I would always write
stories about school, aimed towards them, and I would drop them
on purpose near their desks for them to pick up
and read. I saw a plump kid named Toby
pick up one of my stories. When he read it he laughed
and ripped it in half before throwing it in the trashcan.
Trashcan
The trashcan
had tissues always overflowing from it. I think
that 95% of them came from me. A lot of people
called me the “Notorious Nose-Blower” and I think
that even the teachers knew me by that name
by the end of the year. I remember the first friend
I ever made at that place. She was so fun and weird,
but weird in a good way. The people around her called her
awkward. But I never thought of her, My Friend,
as awkward.
Friend
She had short and thin red hair. At least
my mother called it red hair when I showed her
the picture of My Friend from the yearbook, but really
I called it orange. She wore skinny jeans and baggy shirts
all the time, and she wore very thick glasses. And the reason
I like that band with the really dirty songs is because she
said that the structure of the songs by the band with the really dirty songs was
genius. And she wrote down the chords and the structure
of all their songs and would make two copies.
One for her, one for me. And it didn’t take me too long
to realize that she never really listened for lyrics,
but for the music and for the structure of a song. Sometimes, without thinking,
I’d start singing the lyrics
out loud in the hallways of school, and a teacher
would pass by and stare at me. But I would stare back,
glare, and I didn’t care what they thought of me
because they couldn’t hear how genius
the structure of the song was. And I’d glare at my
classmates, when they stared at my friend when
she sang the songs out loud, because they couldn’t see
how genius the structure of the song was and
how genius My Friend was for hearing it.
Timeline
I remember that I called the times before I
found My Friend “BF” and I thought that was so
cool of me because BF could stand for
Best Friend, but for the times before I met
My Friend it could also stand for “Before Friend”. After that
I started making myself a timeline about my time at school
and I carefully labeled everything correctly, and I especially
bolded the letters BF. And I wrote it those darkened words
in green ink. Not because green was my favourite
color, but because my friend liked it. And maybe I was
being obsessive, but at the time I could only think
of it as being thoughtful.
Logic
My Friend told me
that making a timeline was a really fun idea, so she
did the same thing. She called the time before she
met me the Depths of Despair. During class we would
both laugh at the people who passed each other
notes, because afterwards all of them had to rely on us,
the non-human beings in their eyes, the odd ones, for our
organized notes. I don’t know why, but I always
hid the fact that I had a disorganized binder like all the
rest of them. Maybe because I wanted to show them
something about myself that was better than them and
to do that I needed an organized binder. If I told that
to My Friend, she’d probably tell me that
my logic was twisted. I agree with her, but
it occurs to me now, looking back at my past behind
my closet door, that all of the students in that school had
twisted logic.
Quirky
I had this habit during school to draw little doodles
of this cartoon character I called a Quirk. It looked like
a cat in many ways, but I don’t think anybody saw
the cat inside the Quirk but me. My Friend saw
my doodles of the Quirk and said that she
absolutely adored them and that her favourite band
with the really dirty songs could totally use
my Quirk as inspiration for an awesome song. And
that made me smile. My Friend smiled at my smile
and showed me her braces. They were black
and white, and I wondered why she hadn’t gotten them
in pink or green or blue, but she said she really liked
the simplicity. So when I got braces for the first time
and they asked me what color bands I wanted I answered
firmly, “Piano key colors please.” So I got black
and white braces because of My Friend. And for a long time
we walked around the school, both of us with glasses
singing lyrics by that band with the really dirty songs
reading classics for fun, and
drawing Quirks and constructing timelines. I loved those
days.
Counterfeit Reality
Those times with My Friend I labeled The Good Times because everybody
I’ve met has had what they call “The Good Times” so I figured
I might as well call those times Good. And they truly were
at the time, wonderful. But later I went back and scratched out
the ink that said “The Good Times” and instead I wrote in its place:
Counterfeit Reality. Because that’s what those times
really were. They were fake. Fool’s gold. I remember
the bad things as well as the good things. And there was always
that group whom I always called them. But for some
unexplainable reason, whenever I say “them” people know
who I’m talking about. The Others in my school, the ones
who I tried to persuade that I was normal. Those people who
caused the student before me to carve those words on
my desk. I’M HUMAN. But I never guessed that they would take
her, my friend, away from me. I never guessed that My Friend would
possibly desert me
like she did.
Betrayal
I heard them all talking because they were all flocked in the bathroom,
fooling with makeup and hair, swapping rumors, and I was
inside a stall. It occurred to me that they looked like a bunch of
twittering birds. Then they started talking and I heard
My Friend’s voice. She said something intelligent and
funny, and somehow they started
talking with her. But My Friend wasn’t talking the same way
that she talked around me. She talked like
a different person entirely. And they told her that she
could become one of them. So long as she didn’t
stay really great friends with me. I had hoped that My Friend,
being the person she was, would obviously say
no. In the back of my head, I had a feeling though
a feeling of dread and I thought to myself
it’s finally happening
because I guess I had seen this coming for a while after
all. I stayed in my stall, standing up, hand on the latch, ready
to walk out at a moment’s notice. I heard My Friend’s voice
and she said in a clear, confident, resounding voice
that rung and drilled into my heart, echoed in my brain
YES.
Hurt
I walked out of
my stall a while later and tried to cheer myself up by
humming. When I’m depressed, humming always helps, but
I ended up accidentally humming a song from that band with
The really dirty songs, and it didn’t help me with anything. I walked
to My Friend’s desk with a pair of scissors and engraved on it
deeply the words: I’M HUMAN. And then I went over it
with green permanent marker. Because I knew that
even though she was a liar all along, she still
liked green. Then I walked back to my desk and
wrote a story about a girl who’s friend betrayed her. And how
the pain hurt like a knife and left a deep,
fatal wound. The friend in the story would never know
how much she influenced the girl’s life.
Eyes
My eyes during
my next class were not dry, and my nose
more runny than usual, so naturally they started
laughing at me. But this time, My Friend was
laughing along with them. Our eyes met during that
class, just once. My eyes asked why, and her eyes
replied: Because I’ve finally moved up. But I think
they also looked sad. It occurred to me later on
after I had gotten over the event that I was happy
her eyes had looked sad then, because it meant that she
really had been my friend all those times. But I still
labeled that space in the timeline “Counterfeit Reality”.
Dark Ages
I called
the times after that the Dark Ages. My Not-Friend had been
my only friend and the Dark Ages were dark because
I had nobody. Nobody to show my Quirks to,
nobody to sing lyrics by that band with the really dirty
songs. Nobody to
get lost in the hallways with. Nobody to eat lunch
with and nobody to help you survive history class. After
that I just focused on my classes and my grades
and little of anything else. And I felt nothing but
pressure to get straight A’s, because somehow
it was driven in my head to get all
A’s. I would walk to class and would see
My Not Friend laughing with them and they would
sit near each other and talk about pointless things. Like
friends do. As if they were really all friends.
Subdued
I think the days away from My Not Friend made me more
subdued. But not in a bad way. In a good way. I started
loosening up and doing things more for me, not
for her. Like I started filling my ipod up with classical
music by Ravel and Debussy instead of things by
that band with the really dirty songs. I drew Quirks still,
but only inside a notebook, and I didn’t display them
or show them to anybody. I changed my braces colors
to blue and pink. I started caring how I looked
in the eyes of everyone—maybe that was the one
bad thing. I cared too much. I hated wearing my
glasses to school, and hated wearing jeans an shirts from
Lands’ End. I bought two pairs of jeans from American Eagle
and some shirts and wore them as much as possible. Just
so I could fly under the radar at school. But part of
me was disturbed at me becoming like this. A thought
kept nagging at the back of my brain.
What if you’re doing this to become one of THEM after all?
Energized
During the Dark Ages, I really liked
Saturdays. Because they were the days in which I
could remind myself that I’M HUMAN. That I’m not
some freak or some dog going to some
silly thing called school that everyone has to go to. On
Saturdays I’d take long walks downtown to
the Borders bookstore and buy a book and
some coffee and do nothing but read. Not even
a classic, but I’d get some fantasy novel or some
romance. It made me feel more
human.
I’d compose music and write stories and by
the end of the day, I’d be completely re-energized.
Boy
I shift through the loose pages of my old hot
pink binder and come across a piece of paper that
is a story. It’s a story of a depressed girl who meets
a very nice boy and they become friends. It reminds me
of the time during school when I literally ran
into somebody in the hallways on my way to
the cafeteria. It was during the Dark Ages. My
hot pink binder fell out of my hands and my papers
spilled everywhere. My heavy biology book
fell on my foot. I fell onto the ground and looked up
and saw exactly who I had run into. It was a very tall
skinny boy with glasses and brown curly hair. He rushed to help me
and apologized a thousand times. His glasses slipped down
his nose as he bent down to help me gather
all the pages. I laughed out loud and he look up,
pushed his glasses up his nose again, and smiled
at me. He said that his name was Griffin. I said that
his name was awesome and he laughed.
New Friendship
The next day at school, I met Griffin again. I ended up
hanging out with him a lot, and I figured out that
he liked that band with the really dirty songs because of
their structure and suddenly he had gained my respect. I said
the same thing and we both laughed. He played the guitar and
I told him I played the piano. We both liked
Ravel and Debussy. And we both didn’t have
any friends at the moment. So I think that day is when
we became friends.
Misunderstand
There’s something strange about families and
making friends with a person who’s the opposite gender. That is
they start mercilessly teasing you all the time
despite the fact that you know you’d
never love him. But love him with a sort of
sibling love. It’s just one of those ongoing misunderstandings
that I was never able to escape from during those
times. Even at school, when confronted about
the matter, I accidentally said, “But I don’t like guys!” and then
everybody got the wrong idea. And then I wasn’t just
the Notorious Nose Blower anymore. I was suddenly
a lesbian.
New Perspective
The fact that I had said “I don’t like guys!” traveled
through the schools like wildfire. I even overheard Mrs. Hensley,
my Spanish teacher, talking with another teacher and
she mentioned my name and “homosexual” in the same
sentence. Suddenly, I was the center of attention, the new
celebrity. Not in the way I wanted to be. I counted the number
of times I was shoved into a locker (5 times) and badmouthed (lost track).
Yet,
somehow, despite the situation, I gained some more new friends. Two
girls who came up to me timidly, and, blushing,
commented on how brave I was for admitting something
like that and told me they were the same way and suffered the
same treatment too. I told them that I was “so sorry” but
I wasn’t actually lesbian. But I also told them, and I meant it,
that I’d never judge them because now I knew how it feel to be
judged in such an unkind way. It also made me open my eyes a bit
because before I had always thought of such matter in black
and white. But at that time it was when I finally realized that
there really is hardly a case when everything is just plain
black and white.
Safe
It was really nice during those times, even when I was
a lesbian
a freak
a nerd
an attention seeker,
that I had friends who were there to help
comfort me. Jennica and Trinity were always there for me
from that point on (the two lesbian girls) and Griffin
didn’t just assume that I didn’t like guys but asked me
face to face. And I said no. I do like guys. And he smiled
at me and said that all of those people were jerks
for teasing me over such a stupid matter. On my timeline
I ended the Dark Ages. I didn’t feel ready to name it
anything like Good either, but I decided to call it
The Safe Times. And I coloured the name in
with a blue gel pen.
Drama
In my old hot pink binder, I see another page full of my rushed
handwriting. It was written in a very angry sort of manner
and I was reminded again of exactly how bad my
handwriting was (and still is). I remember when I had written it. It
had been during The Safe Times and I had just noticed
how many things and how much drama seemed to
revolve around school. It was no surprise to me
how many TV shows used school as their setting. It was just
perfect for drama. I think I remember every year in highs school there’d be
one person who happened to get pregnant, and
one person would be caught dealing drugs. Or
taking drugs. Or smoking. It made life at home really
pale in comparison drama wise. Then again, it occurred to me
that a lot of the people in my school didn’t live very good
home lives. But I still wondered why there had to be so much
drama in school and so many tears and broken hearts
because of that drama. And I knew, and I think everybody in
that school knew, that all the drama was just the result of
imperfect teachers, imperfect school buildings, imperfect lives and
imperfect humans. And I think the only thing I could do at the time was to just
deal with it.
Sound
There was so much loudness in
the cafeteria. Noise and eating lunch seemed to go
hand in hand. It bugged me to no end. I wanted to eat
in a silent place where I could listen and hear
other things besides from people’s voices. I remember
the day that Griffin, Jennica, Trinity and I were sitting
at our own lunch table (everybody else avoided it) and
I told everyone, “It’s so loud.” Jen and Trinity nodded. Jen
flicked her brunette hair behind her shoulder and said
loftily, “Yeah, I wish everyone would just shut up for a second.” And
Trinity agreed. Griffin, though, just sat there for a while, listening
and I watched him closely (Jen and Trinity watched me watch him
like I was some spectacle) and I asked, “What is it?” And to that he
replied, “I like the sound of this place.” His words
made me think. Now, looking back, I can say that
I miss the sounds of the cafeteria.
Not-Friend
I remember one day I was walking with my
friends and I saw her. She was standing just outside
some glass doors right outside the cafeteria for students
who wanted to eat outside. She was with her circle
of friends. Except I noticed that she was biting her lip in that
certain way. I knew that it meant she was sad and
trying not to cry. I remembered those days when
My Friend had come running to me, telling me deep
sad secrets about her family, and looking all trembly
and fragile. But I really remember her facial ex
pression, and that was
trying to look fine, but she always
bit her lip when something bad was happening. So seeing her then was strange, because
even though I thought I disliked her I couldn’t
be mad at her. I only felt
worry for my Not-Friend
who deserted me.
Doubt
Griffin and Trinity and Jennica all agreed. They told me to
“Go for it!” and “Confront her!” Jennica said I should
finally tell her off and tell her how much of a ***** she had been.
I decided inwardly not to say that (though part of me really
wanted to). Trinity said a more “subtle” approach might work, whatever
that meant (I just nodded) and Griffin just
shrugged. And smiled, naturally. He smiled a lot. I saw
My Not-Friend again, but she was standing alone
outside the school in the rain, looking up to the
sky. I wondered what had happened to make her so
sad and to make her eyes so full of doubt. But to tell the truth,
I had my doubts too. About her.
Strength
It doesn’t take me too long to realize what my strengths
and weaknesses are, and I find that my weaknesses outweigh
my strengths by a long shot. One such weakness was
confronting people. I remember the day I finally
confronted My Not-Friend. I walked out to her
when she was alone, outside, all over again. Biting her lip. I
didn’t know what to say but I finally just said, “You don’t
look so good.” When she turned around the look in her eyes was
scared and infuriated. Infuriated for me worrying over
her. But she didn’t do anything, she just looked down at her feet
after a while and it was very silent. Awkward wasn’t the best
word to describe the silence either. More like
tension. Apprehension. She said to me after
the silence, “I saw what you wrote on my desk. It’s
annoying.” Then she walked away
before I could say anything else.
Sigh
I sigh a lot. Usually it’s when something stressful is
happening (work) or sometimes I sigh because
something cute or happy happens.
I used to sigh all the time in school, too. But usually it
had to do with annoying teacher and annoying
assignments that just made you sigh. And groan. I sighed
at home when I thought of My Not-Friend’s reaction:
“I saw what you wrote on my desk. It’s annoying.” What
had I expected anyway? Something like “I’m sorry,
let’s be friends again” maybe. But after I thought about it, I knew,
that’s not what I wanted. But I wanted some form of
reconciliation. I wanted her to acknowledge
me.
Sidetrack
My friends, my real friends, noticed how I was kind of
down. I felt like a dark black mass of something was over my
head and a 100 pound weight was strapped to my back. They asked me
if they could help me somehow. And I wondered what they could do. That’s when
Griffin invited all of us over to his house on Friday. It was
really fun and energizing. We did stupid things, but at least
I could act like an idiot in front of them and know that
they wouldn’t laugh at me. Not in that mean way. We watched
some scary movie and all of us three girls made Griffin
our “protector” for the rest of the night. And as I was going to sleep
I realized I hadn’t thought of My-Not Friend for the whole
of the day.
Bathroom
The bathroom in my school was always really
gross and dirty, but was the one place where you could
get away from teachers and sometimes you could even
skip class. All of the girls loved the bathroom and used it
for everything. I think 2/3 of all the rumors at school started
in the bathroom. There was writing on the wall inside the
stalls and the biggest stall was the one everyone avoided because
it had this huge crack where people could see you inside it when you
tried to go to the bathroom. I felt bad for any
handicapped people. I remember the day I was about to leave one of the
stalls when I saw that My Not-Friend was looking at herself
in the mirror, biting her lip. Again. She took a cigarette from her pocket and
a lighter (how she snuck them in I’ll never know) and she shakily lit it. And started
smoking right there in the girls bathroom.
Idiot
I didn’t even think, I just barged out of my stall and flung
the cigarette from her hand. “You idiot!” I said. “You’re really going to
get yourself caught if you do this here.” I wondered two seconds later
whether or not “idiot” was the right word to say. I thought
she was going to walk away but she just stood there. She said, “I don’t
care.” But I knew that she did care. And she knew, I hoped she knew, that
I cared. She sniffled. “I didn’t used to smoke, you know, when you
were my friend. But ever since them, it just
became a habit.” For some reason, those words made me
feel better because I think she felt remorse, she felt bad. So I decided to
let it go. I didn’t even get mad at her for smoking because I saw
her eyes. They seemed to say
I’m broken.
Let me have this crutch.
Teacher
Teachers can make a really bad subject seem
amazing and they can make a fun subject seem
awful. There was one teacher, Mr. Press, who everybody
loved. He taught literature and always let people have
discussions. We talked about how songs were poetry and
studied music. Even music from artists like
Lady Gaga. Then there was Mrs. Hensley, my Spanish teacher who
was strict and had this awful thick accent so you couldn’t
understand her anyways. Then there was Mr. Larson who
just droned on and on—but he wasn’t that bad because you could
text and send notes and get away with it. There was Miss Julia
a pretty young teacher who wore jeans every day. Rumor had it that
Mrs. Hensley and Mr. Larson liked each other and all the students
wanted Miss Julia and Mr. Press to get together. And
Mr. McClain, the algebra teacher, was gay.
Envy
I admit that I was very
envious
of my good friend Trinity. Because Trinity (before
people found out she was a lesbian) had a record
for the number of guys who asked her out. She was
beautiful and fashionable. Skinny but curvy in just
the right places. Strawberry blonde hair and
fair skin. Just too perfect. At first
I didn’t admit I was envious of her. But every time I saw her
walk past in the hallways I felt something inside me
itch. It went something like this:
If I had looks like her, I could become one of them…
I could become one of them.
Church Kid
I was surprised one day because Trinity said
that she went to church on Sunday. I had thought she was more
of the atheist type, being a lesbian, but I guess
I had misjudged her. I had done a lot
of misjudging. She told me her parents didn’t agree
with “how she was” and didn’t want her to continue
going to church anymore, but Trinity continued
anyway. And then she was teased for being a “church kid” and
liking girls. After that, I didn’t dare
be envious of her again.
Mess
Inside my binder, I pick up a piece of paper that has
some poetry written on it. It’s by me. It was entitled
“Stuck” because I was stuck in a bad
situation. I had been noticing for some time
how our happy little threesome of awkward
high school kids, suddenly had tension in it. I think that’s because
of Jennica. She was slowly, slowly starting to
pull away from us which made Trinity in turn
mad because I could tell that secretly Trinity
liked Jennica. I felt that suddenly everything was becoming
a mess. At the time I didn’t know what to do because
issues of love
were not my forte.
Telephone
During the times of school, everyone had a cell phone
but me. I didn’t like using any phones. They made me feel
weird. So it was really scary for me when I decided to call
Jennica and ask what’s the matter. I wondered why I couldn’t be like those students
who had thousands of friends on Facebook, who
could text well, who were connected, who
were liked by everybody. I thought that while I pressed the
“call” button on my home phone and got hold of
my friend. When I asked her if she was okay.
She told me, “I’m sitting in the bathroom
with a knife. Do you think I’m okay?”
Relate
I clutched at the phone and in the silence
I could hear Jennica sobbing on the other end. And a voice that was
calm, professional, came from my mouth. “I’m coming over.” But I wasn’t feeling calm
or professional. My life was so different from hers, from all of my friends’
lives. I’d never been heartbroken before, or lived
in a home that hated me. But I knew the empty feeling of being
deserted and ignored
by a friend. So at the time I thought that it must have been easy for Jennica,
for in a couple of seconds, to feel like she was the loneliest
person in the world, and I knew that
I had to be there for her.
Rescue
My heart hurts just thinking back now, at the scene at
my friend’s house when I got there. The woman who opened the door had
yellow teeth and unbrushed frizzy hair that poofed
every which way. And when I looked at her she said,
“Who the hell are you?” I told her I was looking
for Jennica. She laughed and told me that Jennica was
“pretty f*ck*d up” at the moment. I really wanted to
slap that mother.
And my heart died a bit inside when I asked where
I could find her and that woman said, “You wanna rescue the lesbo?
Go right ahead, kid.”
Pitiful
I ran past that Not Mother
of my friend. I remember thinking as I ran through
that tiny house, how small
and unclean it was. And it smelled
like burnt toast and cigarrettes. The smell seemed to be
absorbed in the walls and grey carpet flooring, and
you could even smell it inside the bathroom
where Jennica was. Huddled near the bathtub
knife in hand. There was red on her arms and
on her right wrist, as though somebody had branded her
with hot wires.
She turned around and said, "I'm pitiful." I wondered
what I could do
to comfort such a girl. I think I might have been
crying, and I hugged her where she sat, and thought
You're strong. You're strong.
"Pitiful," she sobbed.
"You're strong," I said.
Judge
That look in her eyes, that deeply hurt look
that I had never noticed, stared right at me. "I'm going
to hell," she said. "I'm completely f*ck*d up inside. I can't
live here." I remember feeling so angry
that if that mother were in sight, I would have
decked her. I thought
Who has the right to tell her that? Or even
to tell anybody that? I said,
"Straight people aren't better than gays and lesbians. We're all
messed up."
Shield
I held her for a long time. I wanted desperately
to protect her from that
Not Mother, from the people who wanted to destroy her
bit by bit. “Call me,” I said. “Call me
whenever she gets bad
or whatever,
and I’ll come and get you.” She
smiled at me and tried
to stop crying. I knew I had done the
right thing, because her eyes had been saying
I can’t live like this.
I hoped
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