Before the Rain

Five: Apathy is Easy When You Aren't Alright

                 

"Hey honey, do you think you'll be ready to go back to school tomorrow? The front office called and you really should get back sooner than later," my mother tells me, her light brown hair tucked behind one of her ears and her cream colored sweater practically engulfing her entire body.

I rap an afghan blanket around myself a little tighter because fuck, it's freezing when you're dead, "I guess."

She offers a warm smile, "You also need to start thinking about colleges. And you probably need to re-take your SATs."

I felt myself begin to break down quickly, as talk of my future always triggered this kind of awful empty feeling. I'm not supposed to even be here, I'm not supposed to move on and become something.

"Cal, are you alright?" My mother asks me in a quite desperate manner.

I haven't been alright in a long time, "Yeah, just a little tired. I think I might get some rest before school tomorrow."

She smiles again, "Well okay. Goodnight, I love you."

"Love you too," I say as she closes the door behind her.

❧

There is a sort of systematic structure within society, I've noticed. And within that structure, there are smaller sub levels of people: physical appearance, classes of wealth, intellectual hierarchy, athletic hierarchy, and then there's a strange popularity that diverges just from that of the actual person's qualities.

I've also noticed that there is no room for a person of my state in this configuration of social order.

School was almost always exactly the same way about order and societal structure; as there were people that are, and people that are simply not. Here however, at this god awful public school, everyone was different or accepting, so ultimately, there are no outcasts. That is, accept for me. The problem with that was I excluded myself from them a long time ago, and since then I have not attempted to assimilate.

So I guess if we are to blame someone for my suicide attempts we can blame myself entirely.

"Cal, come on you have to get to school," my mother reminds me, aggressively shoving my daily dosage into a small capsule in my bag.

I make my way towards the car, just about half way through the walk I notice that I am so underweight, my hair is too long and shaggy and I look like a heroin addict. But fuck, I guess I wasn't really that much different to begin with.

I'd been sleeping a lot more than I usually do, but only because I'd been hoarding away all of the anti-nausea pills my mother had ever-so generously given me. Of course some days I actually need the pills, as my stomach was in a vulnerable state; but most of the time I'd take them for the ten minute high right before I'd completely pass out onto the floor. Or that's how I had been waking up for the past couple of days.

I follow my mother to her Prius, hoping nothing too emotional and intrusive came to her mind as we approached the car.

"So Adam called yesterday," she says whilst pulling out of the driveway.

I don't even attempt to hide my quite justified disdain, "Oh."

"He said he wants you to come to his college with him; for his sociology class," she confides.

"So I'm like his project or something," I say as more of a statement rather than a question.

My mother shakes her head slightly, "Cal, it's not like that. He's just interested in you."