My walk was my sanctuary; no shouting, no sarcastic remarks, no snide comments. I was completely alone with only the run-down houses and shadow-dappled sidewalks for company. It was rare to see anybody else until I reached the school fence. Then my sanctuary turned into Hell. A pure, living Hell that I survived everyday.
It was hard to pretend that I didn�t hear their comments and walk by with my head down.
�Hey, that�s him, Jake Collins.�
�You can tell he doesn�t have any parents.�
�He wears those same clothes everyday.�
�His dad�s an alcoholic; I hear he beats him every night. I�m surprised he�s still at school.�
�Come on, let�s go inside, he scares me��
The voices haunted my path from the fence to the door. Anytime I looked up, they would huddle closer together, and give what they thought were secretive looks as they continued to talk. God, I wished I could just cover my ears and run inside, screaming, �Shut up! You have no idea what my life is like! You make up lies and believe them! You couldn�t live a day in my life!�
But I didn�t. I bit the inside of my cheek and kept walking, keeping my anger bubbling inside. Saying anything to them, or doing something would only start rumors and give them reason to make up more lies. Those lies hurt more than they knew. They never went away, never.
I had stared at the back of her head everyday since she�d moved to our school last week and I still wasn�t sure what her natural hair color was. It might�ve been brown, but the brown was hard to distinguish from the blonde and black. The tips of her hair were hot pink, and when the light shone on her head, I�m sure there was some red in there somewhere.
I brushed my own hair out of my eyes with a defeated sigh. It was a completely ordinary, slightly stringy brown. My eyes soon traveled back to her head. I�d thought about talking to her once or twice, just to get her name, but decided against it.
The girls on the other side of the room erupted into giggles, and one of the blondes glanced in my general direction. �You think he�d do something with his hair, its so, ick, like, stringy and unwashed,� She played with some of her own perfectly manicured hair. She was one of the girls who thought herself flawless. I was sure she�d slept with more guys than most of the girls at school.
My hand immediately dropped to my desk with a loud thud. The whole group gave me a second�s observation before whispering fiercely together again. I wasn�t surprised as they mentioned my name with more emphasis than usual.
I could feel my ears turning red and I slouched in my desk, keeping my eyes down. Bringing attention to myself must have been the ultimate sin at school for me. They would talk for the rest of the day about me. God, why couldn�t I be someone else? Born into a normal family, afford decent clothes, and look reasonable. Even the blackness behind my eyelids didn�t shut out their words.
�Don�t listen to them,� A soft voice penetrated through my thoughts.
I opened my eyes and glanced up, �Wha-?�
She half-turned, biting her bottom lip as if she was unsure whether to say anything. When she glanced at me, it was hard to keep my mouth from falling open. I didn�t think it was possible for eyes to be that blue, or that forlorn.
�Don�t let her get to you, she talks so much, she doesn�t even say anything,� She frowned across the room at the girl. I didn�t get a chance to ask her how she knew, or her name; Mr. White stood up and cleared his throat. The girl turned around with a little sigh and gave a disgusted look at the blonde.
�Papers in! Pass them to the front please.�
I glanced down at the worksheet I was supposed to have been filling out. Sighing, I handed it over her shoulder still empty. A smile escaped my lips as I noticed she hadn�t done her worksheet either.
The lunchroom was overcrowded and hot as usual, my chair was empty. Most of the kids who sat at my table were the �Weirdo�s�; they were the kids who wore black, some wore make up and most of them had scars.
It was somewhat ironic that I didn�t really like most of the kids that sat at the table, since they were the only ones who would give me any sort of acceptance. True, most of them had divorced parents or money problems like I did, but they wore what they did to rebel against authority. I wore what I did because I had no other choice.
I shrugged out of my sweatshirt and set it on the table. It was new, still soft on the inside and clean on the outside. Somebody had said the scrawled mess on the front was a band�s name, but I couldn�t recognize it.
I saw Chris eyeing it and raised my eyebrows when I caught his eye. He shrugged, �Nice sweatshirt.� Chris�s fingernails were painted black and the black dog collar at his throat made his skin look even paler than normal. �Where�d you get it?� he asked.
�Took it last week,� I shrugged nonchalantly, though inside I could still feel the adrenaline running through me. The day could have been yesterday for as well I remembered it.
A few guys and I had been out smoking and somebody had dared me to take it. I remembered walking into the store and ripping out the tags in the dressing room before I ran. I couldn�t help the growing smile on my face as I remembered the cop who�d tried to track me. He�d gotten lost after two building run-throughs and three fences, enough motivation for me to think about doing it again. It was that easy.
Chris only nodded however and resumed eating. Stealing wasn�t a big deal to him. Most of the drugs used around school had been stolen by him.
Sighing, I began to pick at my nails, idly wishing I had money to get something to eat; some days I was hungry enough to wish for Mom to fill out the lunch tickets for welfare cases. It was rare that I ever ate lunch. My eyes traveled down my arms, crisscrossed with white lines; the fresh ones on top and dull ones underneath. I traced them with my finger, staring vacantly across the cafeteria.
By last period, my mind was burning for liberation from the comments and remarks, yearning for the silent walk home. But my walk home wasn�t my normal haven. From the moment I left the school fence, the memories flooded my mind.
�Get away from me, charity case!� A jock wrapped an arm around his girlfriend as they bumped into me in the hall. She�d said the words and wrinkled her nose at me as if I were dirt; he�d only given the finger and a warning not to come near them again.
Then in math class, a warning from one of the cheerleaders, Jenny. �Don�t sit near him, you might get fleas!� They�d laughed hard about that one after they�d gotten everyone to move to the other side of the room and banned me from coming over.
I took a deep breath, trying to focus on the street, or anything to take my mind off their words; but even the trees seemed to whisper in uncouth voices. Druggie, misfit, loser�I stumbled, stretching a hand out to touch a low wall. The voices didn�t stop though. Failure, washout, trash� I closed my eyes against a migraine that settled just behind my eyes, making the world shaky. Somehow, I ended up with my back against the low wall, my head between my knees, my hands gripping my hair. My empty stomach reeled nauseously.
I clenched my eyes shut against the throbbing, but begged it to remain, it me feel alive and not just a puppet that wandered around in the world to be laughed at. Mom�s got migraine meds at home. The thought came to me and it was enough to get me to my feet and down the next three streets.
I stared at the Tramadol bottle in my hands, �100 mg every 4 to 6 hours, not to exceed 400 mg per day�. I sat down hard on the toilet, putting five in my palm. Why not? Would it kill me? What was the point anymore anyway? I felt reckless. I put the remaining contents of the bottle on the counter.
I paused at a noise outside, then swallowed them in a single gulp and suddenly a feeling of euphoria came over me. I had done it. I slid off the toilet and braced my back against the wall, waiting.
I wasn�t expecting to think. The suicide stories told of people with blank minds, set purposes and no second thoughts. But the thoughts came too fast, and it took me a moment to overcome the dizziness.
�Don�t listen to them,� the voice came back to me along with her lonely eyes. Was I really listening to them? I hadn�t listened to those kids a day in my life � not paid attention anyway. I had created a mask, I was a puppet at school, what they saw wasn�t really me.
So why was I listening today? Why�I glanced up at noise from the front door and then dismissed the noise and came back to the situation at hand. What in the hell was I doing? Did I want to die? To be cold in the ground without giving it a chance? My sudden euphoria turned morbid.
One year and I would graduate, leave, and never have to speak to anyone here again. I could get a job, clothes, a life. My eighteenth birthday was in a few months, I wouldn�t even have to wait a year to get out of the house.
The grimy white tile of the bathroom came back into focus and a person at the front door knocked; again, I let it pass by.
The Tramadol tasted worse than anything I�d ever tasted coming back up. I gagged; kneeling over the toilet and made myself heave it all up. My eyes watered - they always seemed to when I threw up - and I tasted blood.
My stomach contracted painfully and I realized there wasn�t anything left in it. I reached out to flush the toilet, shutting my eyes so I wouldn�t have to see it. The smell was nauseating enough.
The toilet grew quiet, but somebody was still persistently knocking at the door. With a groan, I stumbled weak-kneed to the sink and spat out pink, blood-flavored spit. My reflection stared back at me with a ghost-like countenance. I swallowed some water and rinsed out my mouth before I realized the footsteps were moving through the house.
I caught her walking down the hall. Her hot-pink tipped hair stood out against the dim colored paint, and her blue eyes were wide. She looked like a mouse caught in a trap, but all I could give her was a weary, �Hey��
She looked me up and down, taking in the sweat-dampened hair, vomit and blood stained t-shirt, holed jeans, and I waited for her to run - but she didn�t.
She held something out to me, �You left your sweatshirt at school�� She took a step closer, �Are you okay?� Her soft voice was like redemption for all the bad things that had ever happened. She genuinely cared. I wasn�t sure what made me so positive that she did, but I believed it.
I managed a weak smile and took the sweatshirt. �You know�I think I am�� My voice cracked, but I didn�t care. �I�m Jake��