The cold water runs down my face as I blindly reach out to grab a paper towel from the dispenser.
I dry myself off, peeling strips of soggy brown paper from my skin that it stuck to. I ball them up and toss them into the trash a few feet away.
Leaning on my hands, I get my face close to the mirror, examining every bruise under my eyes, every bag and darkened color from sleepless nights. The fresh new gash on my temple that I cover with my hair. My chapped lips that have almost turned the color of the gray brick walls of the school bathroom. The way my pupils have shrunk in the fluorescent lights and the green seems to have faded from a lively forest to a deadbeat swamp. The way all the marks stand out on my face, contrasting against my pale skin and dark hair. I could almost pass for a dead man. Someone who got in a fight and was beaten to death.
If I was put in a coffin and I decided to shut my eyes, people who came to peek over the edge would assume a dead body. I look like death. I look awful. I want to plug the drain and drown myself in the sink right here right now.
But I won't.
I don't want to fall again. I don't want to have to pull myself up the jagged ledges to haul my
limp body onto the surface again. I've fallen once and caught myself before I fell into nothing. I don't want to be falling for forever.
My fingertips are gripping a rocky ledge that is thin and could crumble any second, sending my down to plummet. I wish I had a hand to pull me back out so I could instead see the sky for forever. For now, I'm stuck.
The tears start pouring out of my eyes.
ღ
My chest heaves up and down as streams of salty water run down my cheeks and arms. The tears fall onto my lips and squeeze through to land on my tongue where I swallow back my sadness. I try to stop the tear flow, but I just can't. My body hasn't cried for quite a while. I just don't understand.
Everything is all because of Tyler Olivarner. The cuts on my face, the bruises on my sides, the throbbing in my head, it's all an outcome of him. If he wasn't in the city at that time and he didn't collapse against me, pinning my to the ground, holding me there. None of this would've happened. My father wouldn't have screamed irreversible words at my and my siblings. He wouldn't have blamed all his problems and my mother's death on his own son, Malaki. He wouldn't have slapped my baby sister straight across the face. He wouldn't have thrown Cecelia against a wall. He wouldn't have beat me into unconsciousness and still after that.
Shoving my head between my knees, I try to calm myself down, keeping my body as far away from the toilet as possible.
It feels like I've already sunk so far down that it's impossible to swim to the surface before I run out of air.
Through my sobs, I can barely detect the faint footsteps with my ears. As I do, I stop breathing entirely.
The soft tap of knuckles on the door startles me and I bury my face in my lap, trying to muffle the oncoming sobs that creep up my throat.
Tears slip out, dampening the fabric of my jeans, and my rackety breathing is too loud for the person outside the stall to not hear.
"Anyone in here?" The person calls out.
"I'm taking a shit. Go away." I answer back, my voice cracking on the end of each word.
"Is it a painful one? You are crying an awful lot."
"Yeah, go away. I'm fine." I choke back my tears and the odd sounds that escape my mouth with every pain that sparks a flame in my heart, in my mind, in my soul.
"Logan, just let me in the stall." The person sighs, softly rapping on the door, trying to get me to open it.
"Unless you want to see feces coming out of my arsehole, I suggest you stay out." I snap, then I end with a cry because I spoke too much at a time.
"This is pathetic." I hear the person mutter then a pair of dark brown eyes appear under the stall door. "Scoot over." Tyler says as he inches himself under the stall. I do as he says, giving him space to sit and fold his knees up to his chest in the cramped stall we now share.
"This is a violation of my privacy." I point out. "I could've been exposed and on the toilet."
YOU ARE READING
Seeking Smiles//Slow Updates
Teen Fiction"Wait for me," the person says when I don't respond. "Don't jump yet." "I wasn't going to jump anyways. I was going to fly." I tell them. "I've always wanted to fly." ------------------ **This story deals with some topics that may be triggering to s...
