Social Casualty

Prologue

There's a loud thud and a pain shoots from my side, from the shock of hitting the ground. I open my eyes, alarmed and confused. I'm sprawled on my bedroom floor. The small light on my desk I use to study at night casts shadows in the corners of the room.

The last thing I remember is me studying for the English exam I would be having the next day. I must have felt asleep in my desk while studying and felt off the chair. I almost immediatly stand up, the moment I have this realization and unlock my phone, checking the time. I hold my breath when I see it's almost 5 a.m. I still haven't studied anything. I'm doomed, completely doomed. There's no way I can pass this exam with the few time I have studied, specially english, I suck at english. There goes my straight A's and high B's average.

I know this seems like not such a big deal, but it actually is. You see, my father is one of the most powerfull people in the city, and let's just say he is genius, and so are my two older brothers. My father wants me to follow the steps of the family, a pharmaceutical million dollar company (Mellark's Pharmaceuticals, it is called) . The thing is, I don't think that's for me, I just wasn't made for this, I was made to be a mediocre common guy, not a high ranking business man. That was never for me, but I still want to make my father proud, I'd say. Right now, he is living in Atlanta with  my stepmother and both my older brothers (actually stepbrothers would be morre accurate, but like dad usually wants us to say, family is more than just blood relations), while I'm stuck in Orlando with a full-time nanny or 'housekeeper, as dad likes to call her. It's been this way for five years, since my mom died and my custody was delivered to my dad.

Anyway, the thing is, my dad puts a lot of pressure on me, actually everyone puts a lot of pressure on me. He has high expectations from me, and I just can't fail him, as I'm about to do.

I sit again at my desk and try to resume my studying from where I was. I start reading the first page about Hamlet but it's almost as if the words are empty, they just don't make sense. "Hamlet  is Shakespeare's longest play and among the most powerful and influential tragedies" I stop. The words simply don't come clear in my mind. I say the words out loud again and again, until I'm just saying nonsense like 'To be, not be be to'. I exhale loudly, and run my hands through my hair, frustration towards myself and this stupid Shakespeare bubbling inside me.

"Fuck!" I find myself chanting, in the hopes that swearing will help me cool and foccus. But I can't, my eyelids feel heavy from the lack of sleep I've had these last few days and I'm almost reaching the point of calling Finnick so that I can screams at him about how he made me go with him to that stupid party the other day when I should've been studying.  "That ass!" I mutter, clenching my fists.

Before I realize it I'm punching the walls in a full blown anger attack, throwing the Brittish Litterature books around the room. Eventually the anger dissipates and turns into something that I can't even explain. It's as if for the next few moments my mind goes blank. I think of my dead mother, my careless father, my undeniable hate for humanity itself, and that stupid Shakespeare. I can already see it, an F written in red marker in my exam paper, my father looking at me with something between repulse and disappointement, my hypocrite of a stepmother with her disguise of defending the poor baby of the family (me) when in fact, I know she doesn't care, and, for some reason, my whole life going down the toilet. That's all it takes for me to take the swiss knife Finnick gave me as a birthday gift from my backpack and start digging my wrist, waiting for me to bleed to death.