lurking ☹

ignorance is bliss

At first, I was oblivious. To a lot of things, really. I used to think the world was simply, that there was no war and no violence. That everyone lived happy, carefree lives. Everything I thought based off of crazy ideals, the actual reality of it being a lot crueler than that. A lot darker than that.

I never thought for a second that when I'd be exposed to the facts about reality that I'd end up like I did. It terrified me, to know that how in such a short amount of time things could change, the world could change. People could change.

I never would've thought I'd get it. I didn't, really. As I mentioned before, I was a very ignorant kid. Not anymore though. I'll explain. I'll explain why I can't help but notice the things others don't, the things most others don't think.

I'll tell you how I began to see them. How I began to feel them lurking.

--

September 5th, 2014

Math. I had math first thing, first day back to school. Did the world hate me or something? It's so unfair. The other class had English which was way better then Math. I mean every subject is, but still. My point being, I wish I was in the other class.

"Charlie, what're you waiting for? We're gonna be late you know," my friend called out to me, her binder in hand and her bag swung over her shoulder.

I grinned, slamming my locker door with my binder in my hand and walking over to join her. "Sorry Grace, I was just checking the schedule."

"Well you're so slow, hurry up next time," she said with a laugh, a cue for me to do the same. She always joked around like this, I knew she was kidding though. It's how our friendship worked.

"Will do," I said, the laughter dying down as we reached class. Walking in to take our seats, I saw there were only two left since we were the last to arrive. One at the very front, dead centre and the other in the back corner. A couple other of our friends sat their, catching our entrance and waving at us to come over.

Before I could even take a step close to them, Grace had already raced her way over to sit down in the seat. She said something to group I couldn't hear making them laugh, then quickly glancing back over at me with a wink and a smile that seem to say, 'better luck next time'.

I shrugged and made my way to the front. Yeah, I was a bit mad. Not about the seat, stuff like that happened all the time. They were still my friends. I just didn't want to sit at the front. It's practically begging for the teacher to pick on anyone who was forced up here.

As the bell rang, I groaned as the teacher walked to the board; beginning the start of a long day.

--

"Math class felt like it was never gonna end," I groaned, sitting at the lunch table with my friends. I held a sandwich in my hands, slowly eating in between our conversation.

"I bet you just drew on your paper the whole time," Lamy laughed. "You probably didn't even pay attention!"

"Well I know you guys didn't! I could hear you giggling from the front," I told them, making them either shrug or laugh.

"Whatever, we didn't get caught," Grace said, leaning on the table with her elbow. "No big deal. We had fun."

I smiled, taking another bite of my lunch. I was a little mad at them, but there will be other moments like this, where they have moments without me. This is how friendship works right?

"Charlie, why're you eating a sandwich?" Hayley asked, staring at my food in my hands.

I stopped eating for a second and looked down at my food. "What do you mean? It's lunchtime."