Whispers

I Can't Think Straight

Studying, the hardest course of action for most high school students. There is games to play, comics to read, shows to watch and overall just no fun in studying. It's a difficult task when there is just so many better and more entertaining things to do. It's like trying to focus on class when you haven't slept the night before because you were up gaming with your boyfriend.

Don't misunderstand me, I wasn't a bad kid. I just had my interests. And being an elite student was not my interest. It's the same as being popular. If I get good grades, if I was good at sports or if I were to participate too much with people, popularity is the pension. I never wanted to be drawn in to that kind of life. It would take away from my game time.

Though... I was mainly just terrible at socializing if it was not online and I hated studying. My goal was to grow up and get a job in the gaming industry. Why in the world would I need to know French, civics or world history? I focused on the priorities like the mathematics, English and music class because what if I needed to write my own scores? I could write stories, I always did since I was small.

So instead of focusing I tended to doodle, designing characters and levels. Sometimes I took joy in recreating characters I knew well from games I appreciated.

But last night was a special case. I don't usually stay up late playing games but a new RPG was released, from a series of games that were my favourite title. A fantasy game where you are the hero saving the world. But these games weren't about beating the bad guys for praise, rather, they were about protecting your loved ones and the world you live in.

One of my goals in life was to travel to Japan to go to the company's home location and meet the writers. I wanted to join the team and work there as my career. Japan was a wonderful place for giving us delicious foods, fun games, anime, movies and shows as well as memorable characters that we've grown up with. Of course most people grew up with the western adaptation, I personally began researching the original series and their original runs.

So obviously I had better interests than unnecessary school classes. But my parents and teachers didn't agree with my mindset unfortunately and I tended to find myself in a lot of trouble from time to time. My grades ranged from 50-60 average for those "unnecessary" classes and many of my family members were disappointed in my lack of effort. The school got ahold of my mother and she insisted I get a tutor.

"Get your mind out of your fantasy worlds and start acknowledging reality!" My mother would say to me. She then took all the cords and controllers for my games, stating I was grounded until my history grade rose to at least a 78% from its current 43%. When I asked why it was 78 and not 75 or 80 she stated it meant I had to increase my grade by 35% which she would accept. It still didn't explain the number choice but I gave up and reluctantly accepted the task.

A new game came out, and I was only a few hours into it, now I couldn't play it for a long while. My best bet would be avoiding online social media so I didn't get game spoilers. When I told Theo, my boyfriend, he stated that he too wouldn't play until I could enjoy it as well.

Theo was such a sweet boy. I felt like the luckiest person alive to have him all to myself.

Anyway, that's where my story began of course. The tutor I received was a boy named Ezekiel, though he preferred Zeke. He was an all around "perfect" guy, attractive, smart, good at sports, friendly and popular. And he drove me absolutely insane, I couldn't stand the guy in the slightest. I knew who he was and what he was like and had absolutely no interest.

I hated popular people. I had dealt with many of them in my life and I didn't want to deal with anymore. For that I was accused for stereotyping by Theo but I was certain that Ezekiel wouldn't enjoy his time with me either. It was bound to end in a fight and I didn't want to deal with it.

Ezekiel had a weird mind set. Everyone had to like him, or else he got self conscious. It was something my best friend Ray told me about. The two played on the same basketball team, and previously they had a member who gave Ezekiel the cold shoulder. After realizing that, Ezekiel gave his time trying to make the kid like him and it resulted in the team losing a member and the kid switched schools. I heard that it was because his family moved but I didn't doubt it was partially Ezekiel's fault.

The guy was atrociously annoying and I wanted nothing to do with him. One day in a mutual class we had, he asked me why I didn't focus in class and instead I doodled, I told him my mind would wander and that I couldn't think straight, in which he laughed and stated that was because I wasn't straight. He wasn't wrong, I am a gay male, but just the way he laughed at me mockingly rubbed me the wrong way.

I requested to the school to get me a new tutor but they refused. I was ready to drop out at that point but my mother would kill me.