Looking At Us

42. darrin

I hated myself. I hated life. I hated this whole goddamn place.

     putting up with this

           desperately

   insalubriously

             steals my soul 

                            from me. 

     We worked on the computers during Geography the next morning. Cody sat on my left, and Shain was on my right, and Shain had done the most work out of the three of us. Cody kept whispering to Cori and putting his hand on her thigh, and he was really making me think of Sasha, of how I missed her, of how she missed me but how she was sick of me, and I didn’t get any work done for the rest of the class. 

     Megan wasn’t there. 

     Cris hadn’t come out of his room this morning. 

     help me help me help me

     For some reason, Megan’s name came up in a conversation between Shain and two girls, whose names I vaguely remembered. The first girl, Angie, said: ‘’I saw Megan and Cris Domnall holding hands the other day. Are they still together?’’

     ‘‘They’re so cute,’’ the second girl—Kelly, I think—added. 

     Shain shrugged. Like always, she was wearing a baggy T-shirt, boys’ jeans, and that ridiculous blue toque that she’d been wearing since Christmas. Her red Nike hi-tops tapped nervously; Shain always looked like she was ADHD, like me, except without the Attention Deficit part, and just the Hyperactive Disorder. 

     ‘’I don’t know,’’ she said. ‘‘Probably. I haven’t heard word from her on anything.’’

     eating 

             me 

        alive

     I wished it could’ve been easier, this problem with Sasha. I wished maybe I could’ve broken up with her, but then she would’ve buried me with guilt from the scars on her arms. Or if I didn’t have this constant ache for her, this craving, this unfixable hunger. We were never really . . . in love. When I touched her body, when I kissed her, it was never because I felt this pulsing of devotion. We were sex buddies, basically. I loved her body, but not her. I loved to feel her. I didn’t love her feelings. 

     Kelly said, ‘‘Where is she?’’

     Shain replied, ‘’I have no idea.’’

     In Biology, I talked with this pervert kid Jared about dicks for some reason, and I watched Cody have a conversation with Sasha. Sasha looked stressed, folding her scarred arms together, and Cody reached out and took her hand. Shivers rolled down my spine, giving me the feeling that they’d done something together, but I didn’t know what. There was something—not jealousy—giving a bad taste in my mouth. 

           a piece of me

        never

               meant to last

     Disintegrating. 

     At lunch, Megan came back to school, and she looked incredibly distraught. Shain comforted her. I heard the words break up, and I decided to call Cris. Nothing. My call went to voicemail:

     ‘‘Hey, Cris, it’s your confused brother, and I just wanted to know what the hell is going on here. You screwed up really badly, you dickhead, because I swear Megan’s going to start crying any second, and Sasha’s freakin’ pissed at me but not at Cody, and . . . okay, that last problem was my fault, but still. I. Need. Help. Get me some goddamn help, Cris. That’s all I’m asking.’’ 

     During Home Ec., Shain and Megan worked without Cris. I had to work with Sasha, but she wouldn’t look at me. I had a feeling that she wanted to grab a paring knife and slit her wrists right there and then, and I had a feeling that I wouldn’t be able to stop her. 

     these memories 

          inside me

  are ripping my soul from my body

               and i’m damned

        until you save me

     I tried to say that I was sorry. 

                          which will never happen