Start Again

1.This Is Me

Sophomore Year

Boring.

That's all I can say about my life: boring. My math teacher calls it the "Commutative Way". You wake up, you go to school, you come home, and repeat. I can't say that she's wrong, because that would accurately describe my life for the last seventeen years.

It's not that I didn't like the system. I found it easy for me to have a routine. I pushed my glasses up from their slanted position on my tilted face, which nested in my right hand as I read my book.

Maybe changing the system isn't such a bad idea. I mean, does life absolutely have to be commutative? Branching out and doing something out of the ordinary of yourself sounds like it could be a good plan as well.

I shook my head at the thought. I have never and probably may never get the confidence to do such. It seems almost impossible for me.

As I continued to ponder my thoughts, I absentmindedly opened up my notebook and began to write a bucket list of some sorts. The list started to look more like one of things I'm incapable of achieving as I continued to write, which irritated me, making me curl up the paper in my hand and throw it in my bag, turning my attention to the teacher.

Miss Raven had been mumbling on about the same topic we had been reading for the past two days, so nobody was paying much attention to her droning, monotone voice.

From behind me, I heard a loud smack and felt a cold substance hit my back and fall to the floor. I looked down to see it was wadded tissue that had been dampened.

I felt another hit my back and three more hit my shoulders and hair. Laughter ensued almost instantly as the class began to notice the commotion occurring.

I turned around to face the culprits of the situation. A few rows away from me in the back were five football players, laughing and giving each other fist bumps as other students around them pointed at me and laughed.

"Why", I asked, my voice shaking.

"Face it", one of them said. "You're an easy target".

He was right. It wasn't the first time it had happened to me. In fact, it was a regular thing, but every time, it still hurt to think that my pain caused so many people pleasure.

I was left stunned as his friends laughed at his comment and continued pointing at me.

With last bit of dignity I had , I stood in front of my Calculus class and walked out the door, as if life itself was kicking me out. I stormed off, trying to withhold with tears in my eyes, but fail miserably as my vision begins to blur.

I walked into the bathroom and quickly locked myself in a stall, taking off my glasses as I sat down on the toilet seat. When I was sure there is nobody around, I began sobbing . Why does it have to be like this? I wish I could be in a different school with different people and it would all be okay. Well, we can't have everything we want, now can we ?

I turned on my phone in my pocket and wrote myself a letter, mostly influenced by the unachievable bucket list shoved in the pit of my backpack; I made to make it a reminder that I would never be like this again.

I dried my eyes and unlocked the door. I stepped towards the sink, quickly switching on the water and splashing myself , enjoying the cold sting my hot, flushed face.

I took a paper towel from the dispenser and wiped myself off slowly. I discarded it behind me, hearing it tumble softly onto the marble floor; I've never been one for good aim anyway. I looked at myself in the mirror, eyeing my state.

My eyes were puffy, my nose was running, and my hair was a complete mess.

"You can do this Vanessa", I whispered into the mirror, "hold your head high. You're a strong, independent woman. No more of this".

I picked up my glasses from the counter and walked out the door with a new, in- built confidence that I lacked when I walked in.