I Don't Really Know...

Chapter 33: Challenge Accepted

Waking up used to be a fantasy for me.  Being in a slightly dreamy state, still in your dreams, wrapped in warm covers, your head enveloped in your pillow, making everything muted and still beautiful.  Sunlight streaming in the windows, blinding your eyes; you still enjoy it, though.  Well, today?  It feels like a nightmare just about to begin.  

 

Right now, jolting up with my red face becoming pale as I realize that I’m late for school, is less than perfect.  I rush into the bathroom, brushing my teeth as I slip into my sneakers.  I’ll tie them up later.  I brush my hair up into a ponytail, grabbing my backpack and a breakfast bar, dashing out of the house.  

 

But something hits me.  Almost like a pile of bricks.  Bricks?  No, no….like a steel metal weight.  Like a missile.  It makes me veer to the side, up the hill towards the nature-made balcony.  I feel as if I’m trying to dodge the missile.  

 

But it won’t let me go.  It keeps chasing me up the hill, and I cannot stop running, panting, sweating.  Ironic-I’m trying to run from a missile when something in my stomach is weighing me down, slowing me to a jog.  I try to tell myself, There’s no missile, it’s just you acting crazy.  Calm down!  Snap out of it!   I can’t.  

 

I force myself to stop.  Running.  Nothing hits me.  I’m free.  The missile is gone.  Nothing was chasing me.  Nothing physical, anyways.  

 

It was...sadness?  Remorse?  Depression?

 

I guess all of those combined.  

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“Can I go to the bathroom?” I ask, making Mr. Adding peer at me over the rim of his glasses.  He nods, as I bit my lip in relief.  

 

“Take a pass.”  I nod and rip off a pink pass, letting him sign it as I hurry out of the room.  

 

Ash had been annoying me all class.  Actually, more like harassing.  Whenever I would turn my back on him, he would start to say to his friends, so loudly, everyone could hear.  

 

“Check out jail girl’s shirt.  It’s like an orange jumpsuit.  Fits well for her, don’t you say?” He snickered with his friends.  I took a side glance at him, when he would start doing ‘work.’  I turned back to my current question, boring my eyes into it, hanging onto every word it listed.  I heard him speak more to his friends.

 

“Hey, guys, you know what’s crazy about her?” They murmured, egging him on.  I listened closely, straining to hear his answer.  I could practically hear his smirk in his next words that I wish I had avoided.  

 

“She used to like me.   Honestly, guys?  I’ll say that again.”  He kept repeating it, my heart shrinking more and more with each repeat. It was like the world kept reversing for just that sentence and was stuck on replay.  

 

And that’s why I’m currently hiding in a bathroom stall just outside my math classroom with my feet pulled up on the toilet seat.  The problem is, I don’t think the world was on replay.