In the seeming chaos of high school, Charlie has always watched from the sidelines, his keen eye behind the lens of his camera capturing fleeting moments of beauty and ugliness alike. Since losing his grandmother, his world has grown colder, a mere...
Life in high school felt like wandering through a gallery of vibrant lives, where I stood unnoticed in the background, a mere observer of someone else's masterpiece. Amidst its chaos was always an underlying beauty, but also a certain ugliness behind the beauty. I always had my camera with me to capture the beauty, but especially the ugly. It used to belong to my grandma, but I inherited it after she died. It was hard when she passed. She had always been the pillar supporting our family, but now everything has changed. The world is somehow darker; colder.
I knew something was different about me at a young age; I was always a shy kid, hiding in the shadows, observing. It was during a particularly cold December day that I knew. I remember it well because it was just a few weeks before Grandma died. My mother and father had come to pick me up after the first day of middle school. It was drafty outside as we made our way to the car, talking about my day. It went something like this, if I remember everything correctly.
"So, honey, how was your first day of school today?" my mother said with a radiant smile, her expression bright with curiosity. My mother was the best; she had long blonde hair with brown highlights and kind brown eyes. She used to be an actress, but she retired to raise me.
"It was alright," I said unenthusiastically, my eyes roving over the dark-colored pavement as I remembered the way the kids all paired up in class, and I was left all alone in the back of the classroom, looking out the window at the gray weather and the dark clouds swirling in the sky. I watched a squirrel climb a tree and the few people walking on the sidewalk as the day approached its end.
"You know, champ, you should open up more, make some friends; that'll be good for you," said my dad encouragingly as we got to the car and sat on the old gray seats, heading toward our house. My dad was the very definition of a man. He served in the army for quite a while before I came along, but when my mother was expecting me, he came back home and became a mechanic.
The only thought in my head as I looked at the blurry, sprawling trees outside the window was how invisible I had become. But that was then; now everything has changed. Now I'm 17, and I feel like a lonely shadow of myself. I spend most of my weekends outside with my camera, taking pictures of the different people I encounter and the nature around me. I'd like to think of myself as a photographer, but I don't believe I have the skill. The photos I take could be considered somewhat somber to some, but it's not like anyone's seen them.
Today is the last day before I have to go back to that prison they call a school. It's pathetic, really, how they claim to educate us, emphasizing that it's a place where students can feel free. In reality, you're simply a puppet in a machine we call society, draining the hope and joy of life and then dumping you once they're done with you.
Currently, I am in my room, trying unsuccessfully to sleep. It is my favorite place in the world; it's where I feel safest and where I can be myself. I love my room, with its wooden floorboards, its dusty corners, and its silence, away from the whispers and hidden from the shadows. As I try to succumb to sleep, I can't help but hear through the thin, worn walls of my room as my parents quietly argue in their room.
"I'm worried about Charlie. He's either cooped up in his room or off to God knows where," said my mom, worry seeping out of her voice as she talks to my father.
"Don't be stupid, Alice! He's a teenager for God's sake!" says my father with bitterness in his voice. I can only picture his clenched fist and angry expression. He's changed since Grandma died; he's become mean and bitter. I sometimes come home from school and see him sprawled on the sofa, beers clinking as he puts them down on the hardwood floor with the others. Her death hit him really hard too. It's changed my mom as well, but not in a way that her grief for Grandma was too deep. It's more that since Dad's changed, she's become softer, perhaps weaker.
As I try to sleep, the whispers of their argument fade away as I curl up into a ball and fall into a dreamless sleep. All I can think about is how much I want them to hear me.
As I wake up, I can feel the tension in the air; the sun is covered by dark clouds today, and the tree outside my window seems older than it is, more gray. After a few moments of vacantly looking at its greying leaves, I decide to capture this moment, immortalizing it forever. As I stand up from my bed, I take my time picking my clothes and laying them out before me on my bed—anything to delay going to school.
I sigh as I reach my door, hesitantly gripping the knob before turning it, bracing myself for another day in hell. I fidget with my hands as I walk through the creaky corridor to the kitchen, and I swear I can see someone behind me, but it must be my mind, still tired, playing tricks on me.
As I peer into the kitchen and dining area, I grimace slightly at the sight of my mom and dad's steely looks. Dad's gripping his newspaper with gritted teeth; it looks like he's going to explode if he unclenches his fists. My mom, on the other hand, looks cold, distant, with a faraway look in her eyes. It takes her a second after I walk into the kitchen to acknowledge my presence.
Once she does, she plasters on a smile that makes her look like a robot, and I swear I can hear her wince softly as she smiles at me. My father ignores me—shocker. As I grip the cereal box on the kitchen counter, the silence is deafening, my mother returning her glance to her cereal bowl, gazing at it with an unreadable expression, while my father remains on the same page of his newspaper, gaze unwavering.
I can't help but let my shoulders slump as I direct myself to a chair across from my mother. She finally looks over at me with a soft smile and asks, "So, excited to go to school, Charlie?" her gaze returned back and forth between me and her soft cereal, uncomfortably.
"Yep," I say in a flat tone as I play with my cereal with my spoon, not meeting her gaze.
"Good," she says, apparently content with my response, as she continues to gaze at nowhere in particular.
I can only hope that school is less terrible than this moment right now. But deep down, I know it's just wishful thinking; the shadows always seem to follow me there.
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