Overthinking

A Burning Sun

I stared at my feet, raggedy old things, tapping silently against the cold marble floor. I was chewing my lip to pieces, and soon I could taste blood. A boy with massively curly hair sat in front of me, asleep, shielding me from the teacher’s line of vision. She was talking about the book we were supposed to read…I think. I wasn’t really paying too much attention. Instead, I watching a fly buzzing around the corner of the suffocating room.

I had my head in my hands, my eyes following the fly’s intricate flying pattern. I watched as it floated towards the ceiling, towards the flickering light above my head. It tried to find a way inside, and I watched as it gave up and flew back down. It did a series of loops before it landed on the window.

The sun was shining through the glass, and I could almost feel bad for the fly as it watched its goal sit right in front of it with no way to get to there. It just stood, there, silently invisible to the others. All it wanted to do was get outside. Maybe it had a family out there.

Whack! As the teacher smacked the window with her planner. I sucked in a deep breath as the fly dropped to the floor. It twitched, not fully dead yet. It was suffering.

I looked at the teacher, a pleased smug on her face, as she continued with the lesson plan. Angry tears welt up in my eyes, but I refused to let them drop. I looked precariously around the room to see if anyone else was phased by… this murder. No one cared, with their eyes glued on the teacher, scribbling down fast notes. That made my even angrier, but the bell rung before I could think about it anymore. I could feel a headache coming on strong.

With shaking hands, I grabbed my bag, already packed, and rushed along with the crowd to the bathroom. I ducked inside and into the nearest stall. I waited as the people came and went, girls reapplying makeup, talking in not-so-whispers about Mrs. Hill. I waited until the late bell finally rung and the last of the girls left the room. I walked to the sink and washed two pills down my throat, one more than usual.

After a while of sitting on the sink, chewing my lip, I could feel my headache subside. I watched the florescent light above cast pale shadows on me. I looked in the faded mirror at my faded image. I watched carefully the curve of my upper lip and the way my eyebrows arched. I then took a deep breath as the bell rang again. I waited a moment before I left the bathroom. When I did, the pack of wild dogs were all headed noisily towards the cafeteria, but I wasn’t headed there. I slipped around flailing limbs and wagging tails as I headed to the back exit. Some were headed there too, but none were noticing of me.

When I stepped outside, I let the cool November air hit my face. I couldn’t help but noticing the bright sun shining down and burning my skin, the bright sun that was the only thing that the poor fly wanted only an hour ago. I flew down the steps in a burst of anger and found my way to my usual tree.

My tree was small and falling over at an angle. No one else wanted to sit under it, so I sat under it, keeping it company. Its branches were dying and cast little shade, but it was sort of my home away from home, I guess.

I sat as close as I could to the trunk to get out of the burning sun. The breeze blew sharp, though, and brought me cause to quickly slip on my hoodie. I flipped open my bag, when my heart dropped to my stomach and crashed in a million pieces, making my stomach growl audibly. I hate it when I forget my lunch.

Sighing in my head, I reached in my bag again, as if food would magically appear there. There was still none, but my fingers itched towards something else. I pulled out the book doctor gave me: “How to Grapple with Glossophobia.” I rolled my eyes at the two male and female figures on the cover almost shoving a big thumbs up through the paper.

“Read this. It will help.” Doctor had told me straight to my face like I was a mental patient. Then he gave the stupid book to my mother like I wasn’t stable enough to carry two pounds of paper. Knowing my mother, I knew that she had placed it inside of my bag, her way of forcing me to try to talk again.

I flipped open the cover and flew past the introduction. The wind blew hard now, and the branches of the tree swayed, letting sunlight burn me once again. I plunged right into the text and was soon lost in a storm of psychologist terms and theories. I was soon able to block out the pain in the back of my head, the sounds of laughing voices, and the rustling tree branches.

I was cramming my head with information and I—

“Glossophobia, huh?” he said to me. I would have jumped three feet in the air with surprise if I weren’t sitting. “Oh sorry.” He said studying my startled reaction. I looked up at the boy that was standing only a foot away from my left. He was tall and blonde, his hair spiked up in every direction, and his brilliant green eyes bore a fat holes in my own dull blue eyes. He looked startled as well, but I wasn’t sure why. I waited for him to call me a freak, a loser, a speechless psychopath or something, but he didn’t, so I just looked at my feet and waited for him to leave. After about five seconds of tearing up grass with my heel, he said, “So are you actually a Glossophobic or are you just reading a book about it?”

I waited a moment, and just shrugged my shoulders. He was more intimidating than he knew. The pain crawled down my neck to my spine and I wanted so desperately to reach in my bag and take another pill, but I came to the conclusion that that would be a pretty stupid idea. So instead, I just took a deep, slow breath through my nose and shoveled dirt around with my shoe, biting my lip again in the process.

But to my surprise, he dropped his bag and sat down next to me saying, “I’ll take that as a yes.” I shied slowly away from him expecting him to harass me about it. He just sat there, drumming his fingers on his knee. What did this dude want?

I quickly grabbed my bag and stood up, but I soon felt a cool hand tug at my wrist. I was so surprised that I dropped my bag in the dirt and let in an audible gasp. He was surprised as well, and realizing what he was doing, dropped my hand, but then said, “Hey, wait. It’s okay.” But I didn’t stick around to hear him out. I ran as fast as I could through the double doors, sprinting through the halls, and ducking back into my only safe place—the girl’s bathroom.

I ran to the sink and washed down another pill, breathing hard, my brain feeling like a burning sun.