Mr. Nelson

The Not-so-intro Intro

   "...and that is why family is important!" A tall, swan-like girl was stood at the front, speaking about her family.

   "Without my family... I'm nothing." She gave the class a dazzling smile, and fluttered her eyelashes flirtatiously. The whole class gave her a round of applause, some people giving her a standing ovation, and she drank in the attention with a grateful grin. Sabrina Adams. The same girl that Alex would dream about night after night. He was fixated on her radiant smile, the sparkle in her eyes, the sway of her long, fair hair...

   "Alex!" His head jerked up suddenly, turning to face the scowling face of Mr. Nelson.

   "Umm... yes, Sir?" He looked at Mr. Nelson, confusion evident on his features.

   "Your speech." When he received no further reply from Alex, he elaborated.

   "About your family?..." The class was now giggling.

   "Silence!" He ordered. "Alex, whether or not you've even bothered to prepare a speech, you're coming up here. And you're going to speak." He glared at Alex. Alex knew that there was no way out of this - he was going to have to speak.

   Slowly, Alex got up and walked towards the front of the hall. He felt vulnerable. Threatened. Lost. He stood in front of the hall, thirty pairs of tired eyes blinking right back at him. He drank in the silence, attempting to counteract the fear which was threatening to engulf him. He hated speaking in front of crowds. Mr. Nelson knew that.

   "Well, go on Rider. We 'aven't got all day," he barked. Alex felt light-headed as he racked his brains, searching for the right words to say. Something that would put Sabrina's heartfelt speech to shame. But the only problem was that Alex didn't really have a family. He'd never had a father to play basketball with, or a mom to coddle him at every turn of his life. At some point during his train of thought, his eyes met Sabrina, who was smiling encouragingly at him. 

   "I believe in you," she mouthed, giving him a thumbs -up. That gave Alex the push he needed, and he finally began to speak.

   "Well, I haven't got much to say." His heart was pounding, and he could feel his throat going dry. He clenched his fists, urging himself to calm down as he continued to speak. "My mom and dad both died when I was little, and since then, I've been living with my uncle." Alex carried on speaking about how his uncle had a boring job, and he spoke briefly about how video games made him happy. But then, his speech took a wild turn as he began to speak about his parents once again.

   "If I could ask my parents one question, it would be this. Why did you guys have to leave me? Sometimes, I feel so alone in this world, and every single day, loneliness follows me around like a shadow. I wish I could remember you..." Alex trailed off, tears threatening to leak out from his already-weakened tear ducts. The class remained as silent as it had been when he had started to speak, and there seemed to be no chance of him receiving the same kind of applause that Sabrina had, simply because his speech had lacked the kind of passion hers had. Well, if you could call her hair-flicking and eyebrow-fluttering passion. Alex had declared his thoughts and feelings, the ones that he had been denying for the past fourteen years of his life, to a classroom of people that barely knew him and the teacher that had been bullying him mercilessly for the past year, and now the silence lay on his skin like a poison. It seeped into his blood and paralysed his brain, leaving him unable to think straight. Mr. Nelson's face was one of awkwardness, not even hurrying to save his feelings, to fill the void with a non-committal statement of appreciation. The void was a cruelty that he had inflicted intentionally. This was Mr Nelson's idea of revenge, and he revelled in Alex's ongrowing embarrassment. He had used Alex's one weakness to conquer him and to finally win the unofficial battle that he had declared the day Alex's water hit his trousers. Mr. Nelson had won, just as he always did.