There is a phrase you'll hear many times in life that you don't even realise is a big fat lie. "Life is short!" they all say, but they're wrong. It's like the painted, dotted white lines in the centre of a road. As you're driving along, the lines ahead appear short and broken in small intervals. But as you get closer, the lines get longer, and the breaks are further apart. It's all about perspective. So, life may seem short, but it is in fact very, very long. For example, according to the clock just above the whiteboard at the front of the classroom, physics class has been going for only twenty minutes but in reality; I've been staring at this equation since the beginning of the Stone Age. I look around at my fellow classmates, who all either discussing with each in small groups or have their head bowed to their notebooks. But my mind is blank. Steve (who my older brother refers to as the squirrel running on a hamster wheel inside my head) is at a standstill. I don't think he's even breathing. I'm supposed to calculate the force required to roll a six-kilogram bowling ball from point A to point I-don't-fucking-care, on an incline of who gives-a-shit degrees. I've been gaping at the page for so long, the man in the diagram turns to laugh soundlessly at me while giving me the finger. A hot ball of anger settles in the pit of my stomach. In retaliation, I lean down and draw a moustache on him. He tries to avoid the tip of my pen, but he can't escape. He's just a picture on a page of a physics textbook after all. When I'm done, I admire my work. The two-dimensional man, now dubbed Moustache Man, flails on the page. A vindictive smile forms on my face.
"Hey, what the hell?" My victorious moment is cut short as I snap my eyes toward my classmate - who happens to be the owner of said textbook - as he scowls from his seat beside me.
My smile turns into a sheepish one, "sorry Kevin. For what it's worth, I think it's an improvement."
Kevin doesn't even try to play along. "I didn't ask what you think. Don't draw on other people's things. Didn't your parents ever teach you that?". The question is supposed to be rhetorical; he thinks he knows exactly what my parents are like, but I respond anyway.
"No, my totally laid-back parents always encourage me to express myself creatively." I say dryly. Truthfully, my parents do have words about my creative side, it's just not exactly encouraging. Kevin doesn't need to know that though. His scowl deepens but a muffled laugh draws my attention away from my unamused desk mate.
I look down at Moustache Man. It doesn't come from him. Obviously. The source of the interruption are my two best friends sitting in the row in front of me. Usually, the seat at Samara's left – Hafsah sitting at her right at the end of the row – is meant for me (an unspoken, unofficial seating plan that all students of the class adhere to – most of the time). But when the three of us arrived at the beginning of the period, it was already taken by another classmate. This didn't stop my two friends, though. While I trailed behind by only a few steps, the pair wordlessly continued to their preferred seats. So, without any better options, I sat directly behind them in the last row with all the other friend group rejects. This isn't the first time this has happened, so I'm not annoyed. If I flopped into my chair with less care than usual, it is merely because of the heat. Samara and Hafsah laugh again, this time much louder. Ok, maybe I am a little annoyed. The pair's heads are bowed close to each other, giggling at something on the phone screen that's clutched in Samara's hand. It's a blatant show of not doing the assigned equations. To anyone else, they appear to be slacking off. But I, and most importantly, our teacher Mr Atkinson, know that the two have already breezed through all of it. Internally, I debate whether I should even bother asking what it is they find so hilarious. I don't. Instead, I think about asking them for help on the question I've been stuck on. I don't do that either. Doing so would only confirm what I already know: that intellectually, much like my current seating predicament, I'm not nearly on the same level. I already have the judgement of Moustache Man; I don't need theirs too. Plus, I can't as well draw an Adolf Hitler moustache on my friends just to have the upper hand.
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A Brown Girl's Guide to Surviving Sixteen
Ficção AdolescenteKavya Perrera only has one goal in life: survive the day. At school, she laughs with her four best friends, flirts with her crush of whom she suspects is beginning to return her feelings and, fake it to her teachers. when she gets home, she tiptoes...
