Forced Into Insanity

Chapter 7: Crumble

— Oliver —

I'm almost certain I've heard more than one student whispering whenever I'd pass by. When I make eye contact, they seem to shrivel back, are they seriously gossiping? Idiots. They're all idiots.

Idiots I don't care for.

I continue on with my day as if I neither saw nor heard anything at all. Eventually, I have my dreaded lunch break. I was surprised Francesca approached me last time, in fact I was genuinely happy when she called me her friend. I get to have a friend, a real friend, maybe even a best friend.

Katherine only became my friend because she was the one to approach me first back in middle school. Up until then, I'd been in and out of schools. Nothing too serious, but loneliness can bring the strongest people to their knees. I however didn't suffer too badly, at least I don't think I did. I was lonely, but I came to love isolation, it gave me time to think, observe and best of all, create. I knew my surroundings like the back of my palm. I was finally stable, free, my body disenthralled, cut off from a cruel world already in distaste of the concept of me being in it.

I've always wanted the unattainable. Someone so similar we agree on everything, I was never into the idea of opposites attract. I don't want typical, I want the wallflower, I want the tall girl with beautiful short hair and gorgeous eyes that keep me guessing her everyday thoughts. I don't want a Katherine, a woman who isn't committed, is the typical idea of beautiful.

I want too much, and here is where I fall.

I want the leftovers. I've heard the argument of 'there's a reason society ignores these people' but I want a cultured woman, someone new, someone who isn't a woman in my life right now.

Definitely not Francesca either.

She's..fine? I don't see her as anything beyond a spontaneous flirt. Someone who plays too easy, is obvious, expressive and can't pick up on simple social cues. Is it really so hard to ignore the euphoric feeling of infatuation? Don't you want something real? Something that lasts?

What if, maybe for a second, this were linked to my childhood? I was curious, always eager to explore my boundaries but my mother never had any of it until I graduated college. I was never allowed to hang out with friends, never to go to their houses, never to dress like them, never to talk like them, never to do anything at school except eat my lunch and study.

For a while, it worked, I complied willingly. I knew how to behave to get what I wanted, which was approval, a sort of reward. Except it seemed to be that my limits were then loosened the more I complied. I became trusted, and it changed the way I saw myself. I went from following mindless routine to utilising my tendency for unsolicited manipulation. I made other kids do things for me, they weren't going to accept me either way, why keep sulking over people who don't deserve it?

As my father always used to say,

It's best not to probe in foreign territory.

Maybe he's wrong, maybe my friends will care this time, whether they're aware of it or not.

—~~~—

— Thomas —

Fran is covering my first class today so I have a bit of free time, which is a rare thing for me. I decide to head to a nearby café and get some food for the road. I happen to live quite a way from the school.

Lavigne Garnier doesn't tolerate being late and I hate it because I need this job more than they'll ever know yet I live several kilometres away.