loving the enemy

the beginning

First day of high school I am clueless as to what to expect. I walk into the school palms sweaty, heart pounding.
Orientation day was ok, i didn't make a point of talking to people, thinking back the whole day was a blur.

I got to school the next day to find that there was an unfamiliar face sitting in the far corner of the class.
I don't think much of it although she is really pretty and she seems to be quite opinionated.

''Sophie, I haven't gotten your indemnity form. Do you have it or will it be emailed?'', Ms Norman asked from the front of the class.
This is embarrassing, she could have called me to the front instead of me having to answer in front of the class.
''It will be emailed, I'll ask my parents just to be sure..'' Now everyone's looking at me, ugh this is why I don't like speaking at school, everyone must think I sound weird.

Class is dismissed and in the corridor I find the unfamiliar face speaking to someone in our class. I don't hear much of what they're saying but upon close inspection I notice how pretty she is, she was tall and had her hair braided. Her voice was soothing and the words she used were very concise and blunt. I'm staring again, I pick up the pace seeing as the students are all in a hurry to get out for break.

I was on my way to the library to spend break reading or writing.
This was how my day usually went,, arrive late to school and do the bare minimum while isolating myself from everyone else by spending break in the library. It was the safest thing to do,, that way I wouldn't get hurt.

It's currently April and grade 8 has been unpleasant this far.
I felt horrible and I decided to write down what I was feeling, thinking it would help. I mentioned feeling sad all the time and not enjoying being alive as much as I'd like to, I mentioned feeling weird feelings towards a girl in my class, not having friends and whole bunch of other stuff. It didn't make much of a difference to my reality but after writing it out I could think about it a lot more and even understand myself.

That all came crumbling down when my mother found that note and confronted me about it, asking me questions like, ''why you would even write something like that, let alone think it.'' and ''your life barely even started, how could you possibly hate your life''.
She spoke about how life isn't easy and that I couldn't cry each time something didn't go my way.

It made things worse since you can't threaten someone into not being anxious or depressed.
The following day I got ready for school as usual since now that I've been exposed every move I make is criticized by my mother.

I got out of the car when we got to school, my dad stopped me before I could run off, ''Sophie, I love you and your mother does too. Don't worry about friends, I only made real friends in grade 10. The things that you wrote in that letter wasn't very nice, you should speak about what's bothering you. It'll make you feel better. Have a lovely day, bye.'' He gave me a hug before getting in the car and driving off.

Tears welled up in the corners of my eyes, well shit. Now I'm late and I'm going to show up to class with my post crying face. After crying it all out I headed to class and carried out my usual routine.

Each day was no better than the previous one, I constantly felt like crying and the fact that my parents were playing good cop bad cop didn't help either. it was either my mother telling me to grow up and stop crying all the time or my father telling me to talk about my feelings.

Today in my life orientation class we were speaking about something to do with study skills, I was completely out of it. One of the teachers caught my attention and when she mentioned exam stress. ''Feel free to come and speak to any of the school counselors if you feel overwhelmed.'', she said and then dismissed us. I was the last person to leave that class. Maybe I should speak to her, maybe it'll help. Nevermind, that's what I said about the letter and look what happened.