FEEL

2. Monachopsis

Monachopsis~ the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place.

~ The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows ~

~°~

The oddest thing about solitude is that you don't have to be physically alone to feel it. It's not just about having nobody around you, or being in an empty room. It's the feeling of talking and nobody is listening. It's that of crying into your own arms because nobody has offered their shoulder. The one that makes you think that if you died, people wouldn't realize you were gone for days. Your body would be rotten and withering away by the time it is found.

I feel it right now. The crowded hallway buzzes with students. Laughters, moans, shouts. If this was a movie and it was set in a park, I would be a tree. The tree that has no firm branches for the kids to climb on, no beauty for them to behold and no fruit for them to partake of. I would just be there, taking up the space they could have used to play ball but now can't because of me. Not only do I not belong here, but I'm as good as non-existent. Nobody here knows me and I don't know them.

Not that I make an effort to stand out. Unlike me, the girls here actually do. Their gray skirts are tigh-length and they style their hair, apply light makeup and pedicure their nails, making the school uniform look more like a fashion trend. I, on the other hand, am wearing a pair of black washed out dad jeans that give off the illusion of the gray pants that the boys wear.

This is only because mama had bought me the tiniest skirt known to mankind that I simply would dig my own grave and lie in it than wear. When I brought this to her attention, she had dismissed it, telling me that she did it deliberately.

“If your skirt gets any longer than this, you'll look like somebody's grandmother,” she had told me. “All the girls your age wear dresses this short.”

Girls my age are nothing like me. How they think, how they act, I can't understand it. I've stopped trying to. The boys aren't any better. In fact, my seven-year old cousins behave far more maturely than they do. If they have any mind in there, I doubt it's being used.

English class comes in the early afternoon, right before lunch. It's usually the only thing I look forward to, but after I got caught filming Mr Pierce yesterday, I'm anxious to even go in. I'm not certain if he recognized me that day. There's many students in this school. He barely even talks to me as much as he does with the others.

I'm the first to enter the class. The scent of him has already dissolved across the entire classroom. It fills my nose as I inhale, and I feel like I've just sucked in his aura. The beat of my heart speeds as he lifts his head when I enter.

Stormy blue digs into my earthy orbs. I don't let the eye contact linger a single second more than it should, whipping my head towards where my desk is. Determined, I start the tedious journey towards my chair, the weight of his scrutiny hardening every step.

“Aquila,” he calls my name. His English accent is subtle, slowly adjusting itself to assimilate into the American lifestyle. I'd heard it more times in class last week.

He knows. Oh my God, he knows.

Pressure rises up my throat, weakening my stomach. I turn my head to look at him. My heart starts banging against my ears and I worry that I might not hear him when he speaks.