Institutionalized

Mac, 6th Grade

"What's that?" A voice asked from beside me. I had noticed him sit next to me earlier in the year, I didn't know him though. his coilly mohawk was dyed red, but most notably, one of his eyes was brown and the other one was the color of blue cotton candy. How peculiar, I thought. I didn't know that eyes could be different colors. But I liked things out of the ordinary. I related to them.

I looked down at my half completed piece of art. Red drips and slashes via red pen I'd made in an attempt to give the viewer chills. Of course, I wasn't happy with it; it wasn't gory enough. I shrugged,

"Nothing. Just a doodle."

"Looks... kinda scary. What's it supposed to be?"

I looked up at him,

"What does it look like?"

He paused and glanced between me and the paper.

"Like dangerous scribbles."

I smiled, "Really? Thanks. It's not done yet though. Hopefully it'll look way better when it's done."

The boy looked taken aback, and then smiled. He glanced again at my desk.

"You don't have test corrections?"

I shrugged.

"No."

While I tended to make A's on all my tests, Language Arts was my strong suit.

"Need some help?" I offered.

I could finish my drawing later. I was more interested in making a friend.

"Oh, sure."

I helped him learn the ins and outs of sentence structure and he turned in his work.

"I don't actually know your name. I'm Howie."

"I prefer Mac. Nice to meet you Howie."

"Cool... I've never heard the name Mac before."

I nodded,

"Most people go by Max if their full name is Maxwell. I've never seen someone with two different colored eyes before."

Howie shrugged and looked down,

"Yeah, me either. It's called heterochromia. Pretty rare I guess." He sounded kind of embarrassed.

"Does it bother you?" I asked.

He nodded slightly,

"People stare a lot. It doesn't hurt or anything though."

"Noted." I said.

I wouldn't bring it up again.

Once most people were done, Miss Wiess introduced our homework. Howie was jamming out with his pencil. It was kind of an impressive rhythm, to be honest. I worked on my drawing until she was done talking and handed out our next assignment: an essay on what we did over the weekend. I thought that was an incredibly dull topic. Of course, I would make it work.

"Hey, what'd you do last weekend?" I asked Howie.

"Howie shrugged,

"Played video games, practiced bass, watched a movie... what about you?"

When Howie mentioned that he played bass, my eyes lit up,

"You play bass? That's so cool. I played a lot of video games too, watched uh-- movies, of sorts, and read a few books."

Strange as it was, I loved medical documentaries. My mom thought I should be a doctor when I got older, and I wasn't opposed to it. I just couldn't decide between that or being an artist.

"What kind of video games do you play? Maybe we could play something together sometime." I asked.

"I play first person fighter games like Black Ops and Assassin's Creed, and Dark Souls. I also finished Undertale."

I loved Dark Souls and Assassin's Creed.

"That's cool. I play Assassin's Creed and Darks Souls too— especially Dark Souls. What consoles do you have? I have a PlayStation, an Xbox, a DSi, and a switch."

Howie blinked. He gave an impressed look. I realized that having all of those might be something most people couldn't afford. My mother had a large inheritance, and I had to remember that I had a lot of privileges that other people didn't have, otherwise I'd become a snob, apparently. That was why mother sent me to public school.

"I have a PlayStation," Howie answered, looking away awkwardly.

"That's cool."

The bell rang and I glanced at my unfinished drawing. I slipped it neatly in my binder and started packing my stuff in my backpack.

"Do you have instagram?" I asked, hoping to make plans with him sometime.