Marked

Chapter 11

        It was a Monday morning. The air was cold, making me shiver in my sweater. When I reached my locker I looked exactly as I expected, blushed cheeks and nose, chapped lips, pale skin and the only highlight of today, my light brown hair decided to leave its unruliness and just cascaded over my shoulders in waves.

        Every class was a blur like every other day, words just floated around me in a hurricane and I was in the very eye; I was used to it all, but things just kept getting worse by the second.

        I was never stellar student, I barely reached an average persons grades and I struggled so much to learn; when people asked me to explain I would lack the words, because there aren’t any that I could say for all of them to understand.

        People didn’t hold pity against me anymore, most of them had already forgotten about my parent’s murder. Lucky them, because ever since it happened it had been the only thing on my mind. When it happened the word spread like wildfire through the halls, people would whisper as I walked by and all I could do was ignore them and lean on Jen or Marcus. But now they all just acted as if nothing had happened.

        Meanwhile my world was upside down.

        “Miss Johnson” said my history teacher, Mrs. Ainsworth, a tall lanky woman with graying brown hair and glasses nearly falling off the bridge of her nose “could you tell me who is the twenty-fifth president of our country?” she had an angry tone in her voice, making me wonder if she had been trying to get my attention for a while now and I was about to put more wood into the fire.

         “I- I don’t know” I said, avoiding the look of disappointment in her eyes as the rest of my classmates snickered and whispered around me.

         “Well please do pay attention, we weren’t even on that subject” Mrs. Ainsworth retaliated making my classmates’ snickers and laughs gain momentum.

        I was used to this, teachers calling me out, people criticizing whatever answer escapes my mouth and with time I have learned to block it all out but I will never be completely bulletproof, each shot from their guns bruises my skin but at the end I always wonder, am I becoming stronger or a I just suffering from a slow death?

         I tried to pay attention at the rest of my classes, but every word I saw danced of the page, every time I tried to focus the most minimal thing would easily distract me. At the end at the day, the only thing I knew was that I didn’t know anything at all.

         Alas the day was finally over, I just had one more thing to attend: Mr. Simmons’s tutoring. After everything he had been one of the few people that comprehended me, somehow we understood each other. I didn’t know a fraction of his story, but I could just tell that he had lived through so much.

          As I neared his classroom I saw him, he was sitting on his desk, going over some papers that were most likely the essays that were due today. I knocked on the door and went inside as he gestured me to do so. I walked over to the seat that was directly in front of his desk.

       “Good afternoon Miss Johnson” he said setting down the papers and rewarding me with a warm smile.

          “Good afternoon” I said quietly as I took out my notebook.

          He creased his forehead in sentiment, “How are you doing dear?” his voice was calm and kind.

         “Well, I’m breathing” I said with a barely there smile.

        “Then it must be the right moment to be alive” he looked down as if he knew more than he led on, but he always had this air to himself. Wisdom and unfortunately some arrogance.

        He stood up and wrote something on the white board; meanwhile I tried to pay as much attention as I could. Somehow letting him down felt like the worst thing I could do at the moment. The very though of his disappointment stirred this uneasy feeling in my stomach.

       I tried to do what Mr. Simmons recommended every time I felt myself numbing up to the world. I had to breathe deeply and focus on my senses. I don’t how or why but it somehow worked, although it took time to get me centered down.

        It’s hard to explain how it happened, but in the simples of words the world began to repaint itself. At the end of the day I would generally understand more in one hour than I did through the entire school year.

         But in the blink of an eye the hour was over and it was time for me to go back to Jen’s.

        I said goodbye and agreed on meeting again the day after. The moment I began walking away from the classroom I could feel the colors draining all over again and dizziness taking over, it was slight but it was there. I guess that little breathing exercise would just be a quick fix, never a cure.

        I headed walked outside, slowly perceiving how edges became soft and colors washed out back into black and white.