Just A Drag No One Wants To Inhale

Today Is Gone, And Tomorrow's Sure To Come

***

When I got back home, I was in the worst mood I've ever been in for a while.

Willz wasn't at school at all.

He wasn't in the corner of any of the rooms, mimicking the teacher to make me laugh; and he wasn't there talking shit about that damned history teacher when she told us that we only had that lesson to complete the assignment that she gave us the day before.

He wasn't there when some kid in the older grade "accidentally" shoved my head against the lockers and coughed a not-so-subtle "faggot". Or when one kid from my science class, Joaquin, asked to switch partners as soon as Mr. Myron paired us up together. 

Or when I had to spend both breaks in the second toilet stall, contemplating smoking, actually doing it, and ate the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches that my mother made me.

It poured when I walked home, and I didn't even care that I was drenched. That I was cold down to the bone, and I tell you what? I liked  it.

My mom kind of made a fuss about it, though. Of course she did, she's my mother.

But she told me to get out of the soaking clothes, take a shower or whatever, and then come back downstairs for late lunch.

"And I don't care if you already ate in school!" She called back up to me as I ran up the stairs, and straight to the bathroom.

I got undressed and turned the water on and got in, not caring that it was too cold and would eventually turn too hot. I drew the shower curtain closed.

I rubbed the bar of soap against my skin a little to harshly and dropped it when I heard Willz say from beyond the curtain, "How was your day, champ? Make any friends yet?"

"Jesus Christ, Willz,"  I hissed at him, poking my head through the curtain and seeing that he was sitting cross-legged on top of the toilet seat. Lid down, obviously. "Can you at least wait until I'm fully fucking clothed to ask me about my fucking day? And for the record, it was shit."

I closed the curtain again and let the too-hot water wash away all the suds. I heard Willz moving around again. "Alright then, potty-mouth."  He sneered. "Make sure to wash your mouth out with soap."

I was too angry and frustrated to even wash my hair at that point, I punched the tiles next to my head. Hard.

My knuckles hurt and I felt the crunching of the tiles, but I didn't look at the damage I'd done just yet.

I let the water wash away everything that I've become.

I inhaled the bad stuff... Exhaled the good.

I reluctantly looked at the tiles and my knuckles and found that I broke a couple of tiles and that I had cut myself because of it. The blood turning a gross orange-pink as it got diluted by the water and swirled down the drain.

A searing pain came from my knuckles. I wanted to scream, it hurt so bad... But I didn't. Instead, I let myself really feel the pain, like I deserved it.

I kept my right hand on my chest and clumsily shampooed my hair with the other.

When I felt that I was sufficiently clean, I drew back the curtain and dried myself off with a towel that was so generously folded beside the sink. I brushed my teeth twice and once I had spat out all the foam and wiped my mouth, I stared at myself in the mirror in vain.

Who and what have I become,  I asked myself. Hoping for an answer but never receiving one.

I wrapped the towel loosely around my waist and opened up the medicine cabinet that was hidden behind the mirror. Bandages, gauze, rubbing alcohol and cotton balls are what I took out from there. I put my right hand over the sink and washed away all the dried blood from my hand, rubbing the places where it stayed in the wrinkles of my palm softly.