The Tunnel

Chapter 1

Her eyes slowly cracked open. The light shone through the slats of the blinds, too bright for the eyes. The little dust partials where visible floating in front of the window. It was one of those mornings where you just want to lay in bed under the warm comforter, and close your eyes, resting your mind without actually being asleep, enjoying the simplicity of the early morning.

But not for Amelia. This morning was like all the others. She had not been awake two seconds when the impending sense of doom settled over her. Her gut sank like a ball of lead. She wanted to stay in, not to catch up on sleep but to cry, to curl in a ball and sob. Amelia was collapsing from the inside out, her inner structure no longer able to support her. She did not want to wake up on this earth. She wanted to be alone. To be separate from the world. Every day she drew even further within herself.

She could not stay in bed though. She had to put on a facade. Go through the motions of a normal high school girl in a normal day. Attend classes, take notes, and eat lunch in the cafeteria. It was a role Amelia was an expert at playing. She would have to fight herself every second to push through the day.

Slowly, she lifted her head from the pillow. One by one, she placed her feet on the floor and walked to the mirror. She lifted her shirt to expose her stomach.  She touched her abdomen with her palm.  Disgusted with what she saw, the shirt fell back into place. Amelia leaned in towards the mirror, grazing her fingers across her cheeks. Her eyes narrowed in on every imperfection every blemish. Not a freckle went unnoticed as Amelia’s hatred of herself grew. Zeroing on her hairline, she found three red spots erupting from her pores. The hands moved into her hair, chopped just above the shoulders. Tufts stuck up here and there, the ends frizzing. Her eyes burned with shame, brimming with tears as she fought the urge to scratch furiously at her face until her skin turned raw.

She sat down on the floor the floor in front of the dresser and pulled out a sports bra, hoodie and jeans. She pulled the shirt over her head and let it fall to the floor. There was nothing special about her uniform and that’s what made it perfect. She was completely unnoticeable, nothing to draw an unwanted eye. Fully dressed, Amelia stepped out of her room.

She walked down the desolate hall towards the door. Her parents were already gone for work. She had no siblings to be with in the mornings, she was totally alone.  She slung her backpack over shoulder and left the apartment, unprepared to face the challenges of the day.

Her heart pumped hard, crashing into her rib cage. Her breathing was heavy and loud. She came here every day and every day the sight of the building gave her anxiety. Her empty stomach churned, clenching from lack of food. She wrapped her thin jacket closer around her, hands shoved under her arms attempting to keep the biting cold wind out. Eyes down, she advanced the high school. She entered the crowded hallways feeling very aware of everything about her; how her skin was dry and patchy right below her lips, the way her hair was falling in her face, how her jacket was just big enough to fall off her shoulders. It felt as if the entire school was boring their eyes into her back secretly judging and mocking her. She was inferior to the rest of the student body. They were perfect, she was not even close.  She didn’t want to be there. She wanted to be home away from it all. In her sanctuary she didn’t have to interact with other people; she could be alone with her thoughts and worries.

She approached her locker and turned the lock; left, right, then left again and the door sprung open. The yellow locker was barren except for the bare essential; a few textbooks and notebooks covered in mindless doodles. The lockers itself had no decoration. No pictures or mirrors. Just the ugly mustard-yellow-painted metal. She closed the door, cringing as the hinges creaked with rust. The lock clicked into place and she advanced onto her first period class.

Her day started with advanced pre-calculus. She hated math. It confused her. It seemed there were so many ways to the same answer and so many places to make a mistake. You could use pythagrioum theorem to find the missing length of side b or you could use the Law of Sins and set up a proportion. There were so many options and it overwhelmed her. There were so many choices in life; she just wanted some to be decided for her. When she made a stand, it was always the wrong one. She took her seat in the back corner of the room. Here no one could look at her but she could also not focus. She needed to ask questions but could not do that in the back. The teacher would not be able to hear her because Amelia never raised her voice above a murmur. She watched as the other students filed into the classroom. Half were still sluggish from sleep in the early morning. Others were jostling with their friends laughing together. Amelia could not remember the last time she felt that happy. And she could not remember why she started feeling so empty.

The teacher’s name was Mr. Fowkes. He was very sarcastic and teased students often. Other students loved him because he was easy-going. But he rushed through lessons and got very impatient when students could not keep up with his pace of teaching, usually Amelia. Everyday started with notes and ended with a quiz. After three days, there was a test on the unit. Mr. Fowkes sat at his desk and pulled out a fresh sheet of paper. Turning on the projector, he explained what the class would be on today then dove into the notes. He rambled on about radians and degrees. Amelia’s pencil was scratching down every word possible knowing she would not remember any of the lesson tonight and would need to refresh her memory with her notebook. Even then, she would have to trudge through the assignment. The lecture morphed into converting a radian to a degree and Amelia became lost. It just didn’t click. She couldn’t see the logic. It needs to have a good explanation. How does it work? What is going on? Her heart speed up. She tried to regulate her breathing but it was no use. She didn’t understand. Frustrated and angry at herself, tears of stress and self-disappointment streamed down her face. Why couldn’t she grasp this concept? Grateful for her seat in the back, she let her hair fall in front of her face to ensure no one would see her tears. She fought through the rest of the period internally yelling at herself for being so stupid.

The rest of the day, Amelia shuffled through the halls. All the people around her were blurs. She was on auto pilot, going from one class to the next. Days like this were not uncommon for Amelia. At lunch she took her normal spot at a table. The other people who sat there used to be her friends. But once Amelia started to slip away, they didn’t know how to help her. She wasn’t able to connect with them anymore yet she still sat at their table, slightly apart and not interacting with them at all. She set her head against the palm of her hand and let her arm support the weight, covering half of her face with her hand. She kept replaying the memory of pre-calculus, cringing at her own stupidity. Amelia picked at her sticky, flavorless mashed potatoes covered in a gelatinous gravy. Glancing up, she saw people being load like normal teenagers. The cliques of the cafeteria were obvious. You could usually tell by the color they wore. All the kids that played sports, usually soccer or lacrosse, sometimes both, wore white and red; the school colors. They were the furthest from Amelia’s table, over by the A La Carte, closest to the food. Occasionally one of them got up from their table to buy another slice of stale pizza. The doom and gloom kids, or Goths, wore black. These people were situated, ironically, under the burnt out light in the far corner of the room.  They occasionally sported a faux animal tail as well. It always smelled of sharpies in that corner due to the constant drawing of “tattoos” on each other arms. Then there were they really smart kids that tended to be on Academic team or the Chemathon team. They all wore lighter colors ranging in the pastels. The girls stuck to pinks and purples, while boys stuck it out with typical blue and greens. For some reason, they all had the same kind of zip up hoodie. They were the only ones in the room who did not have anyone have a textbook spread out on the table because they all did their homework the night before. Instead they were huddled together, speaking in moderate voices.  The theatre nerds, who, when there was a big musical coming up, were rarely in the cafeteria at all, wore more original colors. Burnt orange sweaters and plum purple pants were not uncommon fashion choices for those who lived for the stage. They tended to be the loudest of the student body, telling their jokes and belting out show tunes at a volume for all to hear. Then there was the party group. On a Monday morning, the majority of them were still hung-over from someone’s burnout party. In their area of the cafeteria, there was a lot of skin tones as the girls all exposed too much skin and the boys favored muscle tanks that showed an excess armpit.

And Amelia didn’t fit in any of them.