Waking up feels distant, as the gates swing close and a 6-hour ticking time bomb starts. Avoiding eye contact like the plague I cautiously slinked into the bustling corridor, hoping to disappear in the chaos. Not like that’s very hard as most people don’t even know I exist. Honestly? I wish school was different, even though I may not be considered ‘weird’, I certainly aren’t popular either. Let’s see… first class of the day, drama. I like drama, it helps me to escape my reality, but the only thing ‘dramatic’ is the way kids pretend to fit in. I don’t see the appeal in being a lamb, I’m unique, if only that was a good thing. In this day’s society, if you’re different you’re an outcast. I wish I could shrink as I figured out that I zoned out for a good while. My stomach dropped as I noticed someone waving me over. There sat smugly my only two friends, Sammy and Eli. Sammy was a 5,2 petite blonde with freckles and a noisy demeanour, like a 6,5 rowdy schoolboy inhabited a tiny child. And Eli, oh he has potential to be the next big shot, but instead he chose to wear baggy clothes, kept his hair long and entered all the ‘nerdy’ clubs. 1
immediately that they didn’t do it, as they prefer to instead constantly talk about irrelevant subjects like, Peeta or Gale, or, (here’s a controversial one), Fitz or Keefe? (Let’s be honest here, OBVIOUSLY KEEFE.) Like a funny, cute AND supportive guy or a slightly more handsome guy with extreme anger and family issues? OH CRAP. Of course, I just had to have one of my love-struck daydreaming sessions while standing directly in front of the whole class of morons. The teacher Mr Melrose looked at me expectantly, with a raised eyebrow and an amused expression displayed across his long slender face. I hastily sat down, in the process knocking over a plastic severed arm. At this point, you can probably imagine I wanted to just vanish there on the spot and that this moment was going to be mentioned all my life, it was going to taint my speckless resume, my future jobs, I was going to get evicted, my house, my family, my life. I start hyperventilating, struggling to gulp down the musky air. Think happy thoughts. I feel the heavy sensation lift from my crushed chest, only to realise, I had fallen into Sammy and Eli. Instead of helping me up, they glared down at me in disgust as they quickly pushed me away, straight into the corner of the desk, knocking my head against the solid wooden floor. My side throbbed and my head felt like needles were stabbing it, as I tried to process what was happening. Maybe it was just a reflex? “Maybe…” I whispered to myself. Mr Melrose arose from his hard wooden chair in one swift motion, making his way towards me, repeating my name over and over again. “Caroline… stay with me, stay with…” his voice faded as he shot a horrified expression at the bump swelling rapidly, agonising every twitch my body made. “Caroline Kelley!”, his sharp tone slicing through my blurry consciousness. I looked around one more time and then everything faded to darkness. 2
the back without so much as a glance. I kept thinking about our so called ‘friendship’, every time they asked me for favours, my opinion or even my things. Looking back now, made me realise how naïve I was for believing that I had friends at this god forsaken dump of a school. “I really thought…”, I muttered under my breath, but it turns out I wasn’t alone as the sharp cold tone of none other than my father cut through the silence like butter. I forced my body to sit in an upright position, observing the room. In the corner, glued to his phone, sat my tall, cold stick of a father figure. “What was that?”, I asked, determined to piss him off as much as possible. He shot me a disapproving look as he deliberately slowly repeated his statement. “I see through your little act Caroline. This is all a big ploy to get attention and sympathy. Well, I don’t buy it.” His harsh words stunned me to silence. I stared at him in awe, bewildered at how this emotionless, monotone, empty shell of a man could be related to me. I shrunk just thinking about the idea of heading back to the prison house. Our house was about as exciting as a nuclear bunker, (and the food is just as revolting). At this point the doctor had rushed in and forced me to lay down on my back, with a lot of muffled sighs coming from the Slenderman. My eyes practically disappear into the back of my head as I bit back a sarcastic response forming on my tongue. This is going to be a long day. Finally getting back to the baron brick building, a wave of panic rushes over me as I spot two silhouettes leaning against the tall, steel bars of the gate. My heartbeat shot up as I realised it was none other than Sammy and Eli. 3
was about to tell them to get out, but they spotted me and rushed over and… embraced me? I sputtered in shock as Sammy started sobbing into my shoulder. “We didn’t mean to push you”, she said, “it was a silly, stupid reflex”. I took a sigh of relief. “Yea it’s ok, I know you didn’t mean it”, I couldn’t shake the bitterness from my voice. 4
I wasn’t planning on staying late that day, I just needed to grab my notebook, left it in the drama room again like an idiot. The hallway was mostly empty, just the sound of my shoes echoing against the linoleum and the dull hum of the vending machine near the staff lounge. I turned the corner, ready to push open the door, when I stopped. Voices. Familiar ones. Sammy. Eli. I froze. “No, but seriously,” Sammy laughed, a little too loudly. “She’s so dramatic. Like, we barely nudged her and suddenly she’s out cold like she’s in a soap opera or something.” “She just makes everything about her,” Eli muttered. “Like, maybe if she wasn’t so clingy all the time, we wouldn’t have to pretend we like her.” 5
Pretend? “She’s not even that bad,” Sammy said, but her tone was light, dismissive. “It’s just, ugh, you know what I mean. She’s exhausting.” I didn’t realise I was backing away until my spine hit the wall. My fingers trembled around the strap of my bag, nails digging into the fabric. I wanted to storm in there. I wanted to scream. But more than anything, I wanted to disappear. Everything inside me went quiet, too quiet. Like the calm right before the storm. I turned, walking away slowly, steadily, as if the ground beneath me wasn’t crumbling with every step. I didn’t cry. I just... shut down. My body walked home. My mouth said “hi” to my dad. My hands opened the front door. But inside, I wasn’t there. I was still in that hallway, still hearing Sammy’s laugh echo in my ears, Eli’s voice slicing through my chest like ice. She’s exhausting. We have to pretend we like her. It wasn’t like I didn’t already believe those things about myself. I just thought, maybe, they didn’t. That maybe, even if the world didn’t make space for me, they had carved out a corner just for me to exist in. I was wrong. 6
ceiling, and the thoughts that never stopped spinning. My chest tightened until it hurt to breathe. My brain repeated the words on a loop like a broken record. I wanted to sleep. I wanted to forget. But every time I closed my eyes, the scene replayed, again and again and again. It wasn’t just embarrassment. It was confirmation. That every awkward silence, every nervous joke that didn’t land, every time I felt like too much or not enough, they felt it too. I wasn’t imagining it. I was too much. Too clingy. Too weird. Too broken. By midnight, I was curled up like a paper ball under the covers, my body aching from how tightly I was holding myself together. Why does existing feel like such a burden? Why does being alive feel like something I have to apologize for? I tried to think happy thoughts like the therapist once told me, but even the happy ones turned against me. They all ended in me being alone. Again. The next morning, I didn’t want to go to school. My legs felt like cement blocks. My reflection in the mirror looked like a stranger. But I forced myself to go, not because I wanted to be brave, but because I didn’t want my dad to notice. He already thought this was all an “act.” I walked the halls like a ghost. Head down, shoulders hunched, heart thudding painfully every time I heard footsteps behind me. 7
I didn’t wave back. And when Eli asked if I was okay, I gave him the kind of smile people wear when they’re falling apart and don’t want anyone to know. Inside, I was screaming. But outside, I was silent. Because if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that people don’t really want to hear the truth when you say, “I’m not okay.” 8
Weeks passed. Or maybe it was days. I couldn’t really tell anymore. Every morning felt like dragging a full-sized version of myself out of bed. Like I was fighting with my own shadow. Every step to school felt heavier. Every conversation tighter. My chest constantly buzzed with this invisible pressure, like something was sitting on it, just heavy enough to keep me from ever fully breathing. People asked if I was okay. I lied. Not because I wanted to. Because the truth was too messy, too sharp, too ugly. “I'm just tired,” I’d say. And that part wasn’t a lie. I was tired in my bones. Tired in my brain. Tired in the way the world always seemed one shade darker than it used to. Sammy and Eli were still around, but they were different. Too careful. Too distant. Sometimes, I’d catch them watching me when they thought I wasn’t looking. Pity, maybe. Guilt. Or just discomfort. They were waiting for me to be fine again. To go back to normal. But I wasn’t sure I’d ever been normal to begin with. 9
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