Logan Marshall's Misery (Sioux City South Series Book 1)

2

When Logan passed through Sioux City South's back entrance, he was met with cacophonous echoes from down the hall coming from the cafeteria commons.

Logan hesitantly made his way down the hall and into the commons becoming engulfed in the noise. He glanced around at the unfamiliar madness, searching for someone he recognized. Sioux City South had implemented a brilliant fucking idea a few years ago to combat overcrowding at the main school building. They revived an old elementary school and used it to teach the entire freshman class separately from everyone else. This made stepping into the main building as a sophomore feel like hitting the reset button on the academic hierarchy. Needless to say, this did nothing to help Logan's anxiety; it did quite the opposite.

He scanned the sea of bodies looking for any familiar form. He stuck to the outskirts to avoid drowning in the masses of animated high schoolers already ready for the school day to be over so that catching up with friends could continue.

He had taken the edge off in the car, but he started to get overwhelmed. Really overwhelmed. Would he make it through the day? Would he have to burn again? Would he revert into a whimpering infant in the middle of class? Most certainly nobody paid any attention to him off to the side up against the wall, but it felt like everyone could see. See him. See through his skin. See the fragile, breaking person he was.

"Lil Logan's here!!!!!" Kristen yelled as she ran and tackled Logan with a botched bear hug. They both fell to the floor. Logan was dazed trying to figure out what just happened. He opened his eyes to see Kristen laughing uncontrollably next to him. Her antics that morning must've given her the giggles. Her distinct, obnoxious laugh instantly put him at ease. He wondered if Chris was near by. He started to push himself off the floor when a 180 pound mass tackled him back down and started tickling both him and Kristen.

"Stop it stop it stop it Chris!" Her laughs had morphed into a breathless wheeze. "Stop you're gonna make me pee myself! Ahahahahahahaaaa!" Logan was trying to resist the tickles, but he couldn't and succumbed as well to involuntary hysteria like Kristen.

"Awww don't the babies like being tickle tickle tickled?" Chris cooed as he relentlessly kept going.

Logan fought to regain control over his body and managed to flip Chris off of himself and onto the floor facing away from him. He straddled him with his legs and attacked his side and arm pits with tickles in retaliation. Chris was much more resilient than either Kristen or Logan, and was able to continue tickling Kristen through all of this.

"Chris, no no no. Oh no, aaaahhhh!" Kristen squeeled, "I think it's happening!" She was crying at this point from the laughter. She suddenly broke free from Chris, got herself on her feet, and dashed into to the bathroom nearby.

Wheezing, Logan began to pick himself up and his breaths began to slow as his laughs turned to tired chuckles. Chris had already gotten himself on his feet and he pulled Logan up onto his. "Where'd she go?" Logan asked.

"Uummm, I think she literally started peeing herself," Chris deadpanned.

"No fuckin' way. Ha! The school year starts off with a bang."

"Yup. Oh shit it's like 15 minutes until class. I gotta figure out where History is in this labyrinth called a school."

"Bro, what's the hurry? You said there's still 15-"

"Yeah, I gotta get situated. Bye." Chris slung his backpack on and started jogging off. "See ya, um, when I see ya." Chris had a thing about getting places early to get "situated", and just a thing about being punctual.

The last thing Logan cared about at the moment was classes. He knew it was syllabus day: the day when you don't do shit, and everybody walks in late as they stumble around looking for their class rooms. Normally he also cared a lot about getting to class on time, except on syllabus day. His breathing had returned to normal now, but some of his dread also came creeping back. The rollercoaster of emotions he had felt that morning all felt natural when they shouldn't have. From rage at his sister, to his debilitating self-loathing, to the euphoria of laughing on the floor. Each feeling came so naturally, which made him question what was normal. He had just felt alive with Kristen and Chris. He felt . . .joyful. How could that joyful person ever put a lighter to their own skin just to stop feeling like dying? Which person was he? I'm a fucking paradox is what I am, he thought. I'm some fucked up paradox. I'm not normal. I'll never be.

He recognized someone out of the corner of his eye coming from the bathrooms. He had almost completely forgotten about what had happened just a few minutes ago while he was lost in thought. He realized it was Kristen when he saw the watery patch on the crotch of her jeans.