[7] How to Disappear Completely

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Verity

The minute I see her talking to Henrietta and her friends in the common room, I know I'm screwed. There's no way they wouldn't be talking about how bad I am and how important it is that Amy stays away from me. How could I not have seen this coming? Of course she'd want to be with them and not me, what was I thinking considering the possibility of us becoming friends?

A solid lump forms in my throat as I rest my chin on my arms, trying my best to ignore the hot feeling in my cheeks. I'm such a screw up. No one would ever choose to know me. The sniggering coming from their direction makes everything worse, my eyes pin pricking. I haven't cried in over a year; giving up any hope of anything in my life getting better kind of prevents that. If I hadn't been so fucking stupid, maybe I could have carried on the streak.

I've managed to stave off all the negative thoughts for a while but now they're all crawling back and all I want to do is disappear completely. I don't know why I thought that Amy would change anything - of course she won't, not when I'm still me. I'm just destined to become a laughing stock, nothing more. I'm utterly insufferable to everyone around me, and I can't forget that, even if someone somehow makes me feel any different.

XXX

I don't say a word in my first classes or at lunch, not that anyone would notice anyway. Mr Fielding chooses not to embarrass me in front of my classmates in physics which was nice of him, considering it's becoming a bit of a regular occurrence now. I decided pretty early on today that keeping my head down is undeniably my best plan, at least just until school ends. Seeing Amy talking to Henrietta like they're now besties still feels like a stab in the chest though.

My next lesson is English, which I'm not especially looking forward to, but it's also a decent enough class and at least Henrietta isn't in it. I take my usual seat at the back of the class at the only desk without anyone else sitting there. I'm going to be alone forever. There is no end to any of this pain because it's never going to get any better and no one is ever going to actually like me. I don't even try to stop the thoughts from coming anymore; I know in my heart that they are all true.

"Hi Miss Woolley, this is Amy, the new student I'm showing around today." She says it so proudly, like she's won some sort of contest for appearing to do something good. It's all performative, I know that better than anyone, but what does that matter when it's Henrietta? She's obviously a million times better than me. I'm just a fucking mess.

"Ok great, nice to meet you Amy." Mrs Woodley starts off and I try to tune it all out but I can't. "There's a seat for you at the back next to Verity, I'm sure Henrietta can show you where it is." Fucks sake. This is just what I need after how much of a disaster this day has already been.

I watch as she walks over with her cane tapping the chair legs of the desks around her. I try to make it sound okay in my head - chances are she isn't even going to attempt to talk to me anyway after what Henrietta will have told her already. I'm surprised she didn't grimace when the teacher announced it; Henrietta sure did.

"Don't worry - I'm sure I can get Miss to change the seating plan easily enough." She tells Amy with a smirk before leaving. The girls sitting in front of us join in, making absolutely no effort to conceal it. I slump my head back onto the desk: why can't this day finally be over yet?

"Hi," it's halfway through the lesson and we've been set individual tasks to complete, effectively meaning that everyone can talk among themselves. My worksheet is still blank; I just can't be bothered anymore.

"Hey." My voice is hoarse and feels weird, probably because I'm having to be present again after quite a few hours of being at least semi-dissociative. My fingers feel tingly with the anxiety of how badly this conversation could go and I hate myself for being like this. It's all part of the rollercoaster that has been getting my hopes so high and then having them immediately crushed a day later. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah no, I was just going to ask about the worksheet – I don't think the teacher thought it through." I looked over and saw the same printed worksheet in front of her that I had. Wow, I see what she means.

"Oh shit, sorry I wasn't paying attention," Understatement of the century, right there. I hate that I can get so dissociative sometimes; it's great when I just want to avoid all the pain I would inevitably feel if I was actually present at school, but it's also a really hard state of mind to just snap out of. "Do you want me to go and let Miss Woolley know?" Wow, what a doormat I am. I never usually speak to teachers ever voluntarily – they all probably know what a disappointment I am anyway to help me with anything.

"No no, I don't really want to cause a fuss right now," I see the fear in her eyes at my suggestion and, yeah, it is a bit of a relief. I would have done it – I think we all know that – I just tend to forget how shy I actually am until I have to do stuff like talking to teachers. It should be easy, I know that, it's just ... still a bit intimidating to me.

"Oh okay, no worries. How is the best way to help you? Shit sorry, I don't mean that in a mean way I'm just really clueless with everything and I just wanna help you in a way that's actually useful and - "

"Verity it's fine don't worry!" She cuts me off like she did on the way to the train station and again it stops my train of overthinking in its tracks. I nearly physically kick myself under the table – why do I have to be so embarrassing as to ramble on like that? I truly am the biggest idiot all of the time. "I actually really appreciate it when people ask me instead of assuming – it's really sweet, genuinely."

Fuck, I'm blushing again. Why am I like this?

"If it's okay could you just like read me the questions? I'll get my laptop out and I'll just type the answers so I can read them back later... it's just yeah, not very helpful if I don't know what the questions are."

"Yeah no of course I can do that – I haven't even started myself so we can just work through it together?" I can feel it; I'm getting my hopes up yet again, even though yet again they're obviously going to get crushed. She's only being nice to me because the teacher's been really inconsiderate and she's a nice person who doesn't want to be high maintenance. It's not that deep, it's not that deep, it's not that deep.

"Yeah, for sure! That would be really helpful actually – I think I'm kind of behind with the analysis side anyway." She replies enthusiastically and it just brings back all of my feelings from yesterday. She's so fucking lovely it's unbearable. She's genuinely the nicest person I've ever met and I'm so not ready to go back to knowing her opinions of me are the same as Henrietta's, I'm really not. It hurts too much.

"Ok great. By the way, with the whole Miss Woolley thing, we can definitely just go and speak to her after the lesson instead – I'll come with you I promise." Why do I sound so desperate? Obviously I care about her and it's really unfair that the teacher didn't even think about her, but I still must sound so pathetic to her. Especially if she's had Henrietta's speech about what a loser I am already.

"Oh yeah that's a good idea – thank you so much! That's so kind of you!" She beamed in my general direction and it made me smile in the same way it made me smile yesterday. I was officially screwed ... again.

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