I Write, Because Nobody Listens

| Chapter Two |

“Cam! It’s time for dinner!”

Sighing, I pulled my blankets tighter around my shoulders, not even bothering to take my eyes off the screen.

“I’m not hungry, Mom! I think I’ll pass!” I called back, reaching out and continuing to type the short story I was working on for the contest. Even with the incident earlier, I had managed to finish it. Now came the fun part. Typing it up and editing.

Whoop-de-do.

“Cameron Casey you get your butt down here this instant! I will not stand for disobedience young man!”

I bit the bottom of my lip in anger, clicking the save button, before shrugging my blanket off my shoulders and pulling my hood over my head. Why does she even care if you come down to dinner? I’m sure she wouldn’t mind if you starved. What’s wrong with having less mouths to feed? chirped up the quiet, nagging voice in my head. Opening the door, I let out another sigh.

“You know… for once I agree with you, old friend,” I said under my breath, slowly walking down the stairs with my hands in my pockets.

My entire family, including my dad (which you can imagine surprised me) was sitting at the table already, eating spaghetti and my mom’s homemade marinara sauce. Which, actually looked very appetizing. So, I silently sat down at my spot and started eating without a word, keeping my head down.

After several minutes of silence, my ten year old sister Jenna spoke up, a huge smile evident in her voice.

“Guess what grade I got on my oral report today?” she asked chipperly, before taking another bite of her food.

“What did you get, sweetheart?” my dad questioned, obviously smiling as well.

“An A plus! Can you believe it?! I certainly can’t! I felt like I did a horrid job!”

“Well that’s just great, hun,” Mom spoke up as she took another bite. “You worked very hard on that report. You deserved that grade.”

“You definitely did. Maybe you can teach that older brother of yours a few things about speaking,” Dad commented with a snort.

I froze mid-bite, not daring to move. When I looked up, every person at the table was staring at me. Jenna was giving me a sort of pitiful look, like she was trying to care but just couldn’t. Everyone else however, was smirking at me. The twins looked like they’d just heard the greatest joke in the world, and Mom pretended she didn’t hear. Dad was pointedly smirking at me. As if he was trying to make me feel bad.

That was it. I’d had enough. Without saying a word, I stood up, grabbing my bowl and heading over to the stove to dish up some more spaghetti and sauce. Tears were slowly trailing down my face, but I tried to ignore it as I refilled my bowl, and then ran upstairs as fast as I could.

“CAMERON! GET BACK DOWN HERE THIS MOMENT!” I heard my mother scream from downstairs. To be honest, I could really care less. Ignoring her, I slammed the door to my room shut, and fell back into my desk chair, curling up into a ball.

Cammy, honey, listen to me. Those people out there don’t care about you. They don’t love you. You need to find something to do with yourself. Finish your short story, love. Keep your mind off those wretched people you’re stuck with for three more years.

“Good idea…” I mumbled under my breath, scooting forward and facing my computer again.

I think it’s called schizophrenia. When you have several voices talking to you in your head at once. And, I think it’s supposed to be a bad thing? But, I don’t really care. I’m friends with the other voice in my head. She cares about me. She’s my only real friend.

Yeah, I know I sound crazy, but who isn’t? Aren’t we all a little mad inside?
But anyways, back to the good stuff.

Staring at the screen, and then looking at my paper, and then the screen again, my hands began to fly over the keyboard. I wanted to get this in to Mrs. Pepper by tomorrow at the latest. If I was lucky, maybe email it in that night. The only time I stopped was to take a few bites of my dinner.

Writing relaxed me. It calmed my nerves. Still does, to this day. My philosophy is, that if you’re having a rough day, sit down and write. Channel the emotions that you’ve been feeling into your fingers and let it flow onto paper, or onto the screen. I’ve found, that my worst days are when I do my best work. That’s only because I can feel what my characters are feeling at that moment. It makes my work come to life. And that’s what amazes me.

If I recall, it was about eleven something when I had finally finished. I read it over about a million times, before I was happy with the end result. Opening up my email, typed a quick message to Mrs. Pepper, and attached the document.

To: Naomi Pepper (peppersauce120@yahoo.com)

Subject: Writing contest submission

Hey, Mrs. Pepper! It’s Cam Casey. I just wanted to email you a copy of my short story contest submission, Hello, I Exist. I really, really hope you and the other judges enjoy it.

Thank you so much for informing me about this contest, by the way! I really enjoyed taking part in it.

You’re the best! :D

Your Student,
Cameron Casey
Period 4
Honors Language Arts

With a smile on my face, I clicked send, and sat back in my chair, pulling the blanket up over my head. Judging for the contest would start on the day the submissions were due. Which was three days from now. After that, the judges would take the day and night to discuss the pieces, and the results would be in the following day. This meant, that in four days, I would know if I had won the contest (and $100) or not. And, I was nervous as heck, which wasn’t uncommon for me. But still. Having to wait, sucked.

Promising myself that these next four days would be over fast, I pulled myself from my computer and over to my bed. For some reason, I felt oddly at peace. Even though I had just gone through arguably the crappiest day of my existence, I didn’t feel as terrible as I had a few hours ago.

And as if to just confirm that I was okay for now, I fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.