A house is only as fun as your house mate

Chapter 11: Lance

Work sucked big time today. Normally I didn’t mind my job, you know, the kids and I had a pretty good relationship, they didn’t normally annoy me and they would all enjoy having me as a teacher. But what happened with Keith earlier that night, had stuck with me throughout sleep and into the working hours of the day. I should have been fine without him, he shouldn’t have upset me as much as he did. And he didn’t. I didn’t let it bother me. The little sessions of walking half way through a lesson and into the toilets to calm myself down was normal, was it not?

The worst one that made me realise that I was not okay, however, was the one in the middle of my year eleven class. I had many ‘episodes’ throughout the day, but this was worse. I was sat marking a paper that my previous lesson had completed. Funnily enough, it was my year eights, my favourite class. I had given them the paper based around describing your ideal friend, using colloquial language. It was fun to see what they had come up with, until I came across Akito’s piece. He was normally silent or sleeping in my lessons so I’m surprised that his test turned out so well. I skimmed through the paragraphs, picking up on certain words and phrases. ‘my friend would be someone who wears a lot of black. They would also be emo. A fringe would cover their forehead and one eye. They would be an epic person to hang out with and would be there to listen whenever I wanted them to.’ That piece felt all too familiar to me. ‘they would listen to lots of heavy rock music like me so we could talk about how awesome those bands are.’ Keith would listen to heavy rock music. I started crying all over the paper, creasing it slightly underneath every tear. One of my students looked up to see my tear stricken face. “sir?” they called. I could barely even see the face of the person who had called me. I stood up and excused myself. That’s when I realised that Mr Yamazaki had a free period and was working outside, I asked if he would babysit my class for the rest of the period. Thankfully he agreed.

I walked past Clavis’ classroom to go to the toilet yet again but sadly, he caught my sight before I could move any further. He left his classroom and stood by the closed door to talk to me. “lance, is there anything I can do?” I shook my head. He bit his lip in thought and distress at the idea of not being able to ease my upset. “meet me here at lunch.” Was all he said before giving me a hug and leaving back to his class. Everyone inside was giggling at seeing us together apart from a couple of students sat holding hands at the back, they were too invested in each other to care about the surroundings. Clavis silenced them and shot me one more half smile before teaching again. I left to the toilets.

It had taken a good half hour before I had completely silenced myself from my sobs and calmed down as much as I possibly could. I couldn’t face seeing Clavis at lunch so I skipped it after sending him a message and pushed through the rest of the day as much as I possibly could.

When I got home, that was when it came back yet again. Keith was walking down the street with Bellamy, laughing and smiling. He looked happy, and I wasn’t the one to put that on his face. Perhaps Keith and I just weren’t supposed to be, we were too different and he was too stubborn. He caught sight of the car and searched for me within it. His face dropped and looked desperate. I couldn’t see him so sad because of me again so I pushed down on the accelerator and drove quicker to escape his gaze on the taillights. Tears began to drop down my face yet again. My tear ducts ached at the amount of moisture that they were losing.

I couldn't have gotten into the house quicker. It was the only relatively safe place I had but it had begun to smell like Keith after the five months that he had been living here. Everything had the Keith stamp in this place. It just seemed I couldn't escape him no matter how hard I wanted to. The cupboards were his, the sweaters of his he had left in our room, his side of the bed, his toothbrush on the side of the bathroom sink, there was always at least one thing of him left. I couldn't let it go which made it so much worse. If I could just give him up, then we wouldn't have this issue, yet I had already decided, I'm not taking him back yet again. He was better off without me. I sat at the dining room table with my head in my hands, catching every salty tear and allowing them to soak into my palms.