Yours truly, Gilbert | 𝐆𝐈𝐋𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐓 𝐁𝐋𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐄

twenty

"Ms. Clarke? Ms. Clarke!" Were the last echoed words I heard before I felt a sharp gust of fresh air came from my sudden push of the classroom door.

I didn't know what was happening behind me, who was looking, who cared, who was following me.

Behind me was another world. Another ball full of chaos and the only way I could manage not to suffocate was if I left. I was going back to the normal, back to the steady.

But not even the fresh air, the separation could stop my labored breathing. I told myself it was from the fast way I ran out of the school house.  It way because I was out of shape. I was getting a head rush, but a part of me knew deep down this was different.

I had only hyperventilated this long once, had my heart hammering in my head that it felt like my eyes were buldging out. Seeing nothing but feeling everything.

The day my brother got sick again.

I tried remembering what helped calm me down. I sat outside the office, head in my hands as my mother's soft voice rang through my ears. Her words seem like a blur now. I remember she told me to look at my hands. To stare at a part of myself and just focus on getting it still, calm.

But my mother's quiet words weren't here now. I was alone, outside the school house, with both zero and infinite amounts of air. My hand was nowhere close to still. I couldn't do this, not now.

Harley!

Harley, you can't just run out—

What happened to her?

Are you okay?

Harley, what just—

The far away echoes and phrases made me question if I was hearing things until I felt hands, multiple hands touch my shoulder, my back.

"Harley! Harley, look at me." The high-pitched voice matched Diana, but I couldn't see her. I just felt the hands and heard the echoes. "Harley, let's go some— the show's over, Billy! She's fine, she's—"

"Typical of Clarke. Make everything about her even when nothing's—"

Those words didn't feel like echoes. They felt like hard sharp hits to the throat.

I felt no words bubble in my throat, my vision blurred and faded more and more. I didn't have to see behind my shoulder to know which boy the voice belonged to.

I turned, lunging hand first in reach of him, past the point of forming words or snappy insults.

I had to leave. I couldn't be here.

More hands around my body, my waist, but I pushed them back, tears pinching at the corners of my eyes as I heard the shrieks and shouts of other students.

I couldn't be here.

"Harley, Harley! Please, let's just—"

Enough hands pulled us both away from each other, but Billy wasn't done with his insults.

My hands flew to my ears, attempting to cover them from more punctures, more things to add onto the ways I'm a psycho attention-seeking person.

My hands were shaking to the point they weren't covering much of anything, and I found myself wants to curl up and away from the chaos that followed from the other world.

I felt myself wanting to scream, wanting to just stop there from all the overlapping shouts, pulls, voices.

I had to leave. I had to leave. I had to leave.