A Living, Breathing Bullet Through My Unsuspecting Heart

Feeling After the Experience

"I can't seem to understand how to draw it at this angle. It's like my mind knows what it wants to do but my hands don't want to respond the right way. This looks like I'm having a spazz attack all over my paper... God, whats wrong with me..."

"Umm, well, you know...?"

"The question was rhetorical, no answer required. But thanks." I Stared miserably down at the sketch of the building. It was abandoned, with city ruins in the background. This building had a window with a little girl looking through the broken glass, and where her hand gripped the board on the window a sprout of a plant shot up. Only, I couldn't draw the little girls hand. Maybe you just genuinely suck... Wow. Low self-esteem much.

"Hey, don't get down about it." Milo was sitting in the stool on the opposite side of our raised tables. He looked right at home while he was up to his elbows in oil pastels, creating a picture of what looked like... ... ... I don't even know but it went together like monkeys and bananas.

"Usually when I've been working on something for too long my hands start to do that too, so I try doing something for fun instead." I stared at him blankly while he explained this to me. When he didn't get a reaction from me his cheeks brightened and his head kind of slumped. "I mean, it takes a lot of concentration do do something as well as you're trying to so... well... I just... Goodness! I don't know okay!" His outburst surprised me, but I guess he was getting frustrated with me and my non-reactioning face.

"No. Don't stop, tell me. I can't really focus on anything else anyway." I was hopeless in this state. Here it was, Monday morning, and my creative levels have all but disappeared. We only had thirty minutes left anyway, but I wanted to get Milo to talk more, I wanted to get to know him, I guess.

"Oh. Okay. Sorry I snapped, " he apologized. Than his face went back to annoyed. "I just don't really know how to explain certain things to you. And," He said this really softly so that the rest of the class was almost drowning out his voice, " whenever you give me that bored look it makes me think about weather I'm saying the right thing or not, like I make you bored easily."

"No actually, my face is naturally this way. That's mostly why people can't stand to be around me. It's not that I hide my emotions, I just don't really feel anything worth freaking out over." I have never had to explain this to someone before, and for some reason I didn't want to have to explain it to him. I know that I didn't want to lie about my personality to him but this was, for the first time in my life, making me embarrassed.

He stopped moving his hands and listened to what I said. After I was done he looked up sharply and obviously wanted to ask me another question, but the bell rang, releasing us from one hell and sending us to the next. I stood and put my books back in my bag. When I looked up Milo was already at the sink trying to scrub off the pastels from his hands and exchanging friendly words with Mrs. Hopkins the drawing/art teacher. Wait, if this is drawing, then why did Milo have pastels? Then I saw the teacher take the remaining stubs of color and retreat to her supply room. Oh, okay, I see what this is. Whatever.

I wrote out a quick note and left it with Milo's stuff before leaving the class and mentally prepareing myself for the next most boring six hours of my life.

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I walked out of my third period class shuddering, eyes drooping and hands in my pockets. I swear Calculus will be the death of me. I trudged to the lunch room and saw a group of bodies had chosen to swarm with there posies right to where I had told Milo to meet me for lunch. WTH! I hate crowds. I didn't mind them that much really, its just my reaction to the wold today. Hate it, hate EVERYTHING!!