The Art Of Not Caring

f i v e

The next school day was miserable. I hadn't talked to either Kat, Lacey or Luke but they had clearly all decided they didn't want anything to do with me. At first I'd hoped that they might have somehow decided to not care about all of this and pretend like nothing had happened but I figured out fairly quickly that that was not the case. Because not only did my "friends" now apparently hate and ignore me, I also had to sit besides at least one of them in every fucking class. And then there was everyone else of course. I didn't know why I'd hoped that no one would find out but I had. Based on all the stares and whispering I received from walking to my classroom alone that was most definitely not the case. Rumours spread fast, I knew that but by the rate this was going, teachers would probably start judging me by tomorrow as well. I didn't want to think about who had told everyone but I couldn't help it. Luke was the most probable one, since telling his friends made him look like the victim, the guy that had been fooled by his deceiving ex girlfriend instead of the guy that got broken up with his girlfriend out of nowhere. Kat had been my friend since forever and yet I wasn't sure about her. Sure, she was a great friend and one of the most loyal people I knew but she could also be cold and manipulative if she wanted to.

I didn't think Lacey would go around spreading rumours since she'd been the odd one out for a while when she started dressing differently, but then again she didn't seem that empathetic when I met her in first period. I was glad to escape the classroom once the lesson was over and get away from Lacey, who had sat as far away from me as possible, creating a barrier with her hair and hadn't spoken a word during the entire lesson. But as soon as I left the classroom, I realised I had miscalculated things. A lot.

Walking down the hallway was the most uncomfortable thing I'd ever done . The looks of all the students as I passed them as quickly as possible seemed to physically itch my skin and I'd never been so aware of the way I walked, my posture, how loud my shoes sounded against the linoleum floor... I'd been almost invisible yesterday. Sure, people knew me, greeted me in the hallway and I had probably been considered popular but I'd never had the feeling of being scrutinised like this. Never had all eyes been on me when I walked past, waiting for me to fuck up in some way or just for me to pass to then gossip about something I'd done. There was no way I was going to survive an entire year of this, I thought to myself. No one could. All I could do was keep my head down and race to my locker, quickly grab a notebook and then race to my next class.

I was the first person in the room and didn't look up once when everyone else entered. Kat slid into the seat next to me and seconds later I could hear her chair scraping against the floor as she moved a bit further away from me. Once class started, I hardly listened to my health teacher, way to preoccupied by my own problems than to listen to her give a bunch of 17 and 18 year olds, most of whom had had sex for the first time at 14, sex ed. You'd think she would be annoyed by this very obvious failure of the education system but no, she demonstrated how to put a condom on a banana as if no one had ever seen that happen before and even went as far as to hand out condoms to everyone at the end of the lesson. Along with the advice to stay abstinent as long as possible, as if it made perfect sense. It's not like the stuff she was teaching would help me out or anything.

I wondered if two girls could even have sex. According to literally everyone in the school Tessa had sex with both girls and boys regularly, so it had to be possible... even if the rumours where mostly tales kids thought up when they were bored. I shook my head, trying to think about something else. It's not like my chances to find a girlfriend in this hellhole are particularly high, I told myself. When the basket filled with condoms reached me - some girl named Anna passed it to me with an amused look on her face - I took out a condom without even looking. Kat snorted besides me but didn't say anything. I guess it was too late to fool anyone but not taking one would feel too much like admitting something I didn't want to admit. I didn't look at Kat when passing her the basket.