Nothing But Trouble

38/midnight cram session

chapter 38: midnight cram session
blake ren

There was another hideous uproar of drunken laughter outside my door. I dug my nails into my skin, feeling a surge of rage course through me. I pushed my nails deeper. Too short to draw blood, but just enough to put the anger somewhere else.

I closed my eyes and did a power meditation for thirty seconds. Like the way people took thirty minute power naps to regain their energy, a thirty second power meditation was an attempt to restore my cool.

It wasn't working, but I was going to keep telling myself it was.

I leaned over my workbook again to continue studying information that might be on the SAT. This was my last cram session until I took it tomorrow morning, but I couldn't focus and I've had to reread the same sentence three times now because I lost my concentration every time Vince's friends made too much noise.

I wanted to fling my door open so hard the door knob got stuck in the plaster and yell at them to shut the fuck up.

Every cell in my body craved to do that. It was getting very difficult to ignore. Very. Difficult.

I put my pencil down to the paper with the intention of circling something but when a cheap speaker started playing heavy bass that made the walls of my room shake, the tip of my pencil dug into the paper, destroying the lead into tiny filaments and making a messy hole in the next eight pages.

I threw my work aside and tucked my legs up into my chest, sinking my hands into my hair frustratedly. I grabbed my thin pillow off my bed and held it tightly to my face while I screamed.

I stayed like that for a moment, hoping to suffocate myself. Just one second longer, Blake.

        My lungs, too desperate for air, made me pull away and suck in a breath. I hurled the pillow across the room.

        "This was so fucking stupid," I muttered to myself. I looked at my closed door, thinking about Vince's words and how right now I had to pee really badly.

        "Don't fucking leave this room, Blake." He said before his friends came over for another game of poker or whatever the hell they did.

        "Did they have to come over tonight? I have to study—" He snatched my face with his hand, squeezing tight so I'd wince.

         His eyes were bloodshot—unhinged. If I took so much as a toe out of line tonight I was getting my head thrown through a wall.

         "Ya shut the hell up and pretend you don't exist in here. You understand me?" he gritted close to my face. I tried to pull away, his breath just cigarettes and dog shit. I nodded my head, hoping he'd let go but he jerked my chin closer with his dirty fingers. "What the fuck are you supposed to say?"

        "Yes sir," I said glaring at him. He pushed me away by my face and I moved my eyes to the floor, staying stock still until he slammed the door shut behind him. Then I immediately went to touch the tender red skin with my jaw dropped in pain.

        Fucker.

        But what did he expect me to do now that they were out there and I was in here with a full bladder? Piss myself? Actually that probably was what he would tell me to do. He could've at least thrown an empty water bottle in here or something.

        I got up to my feet. I didn't have a desk so I'd been working on the floor.

        I grabbed my phone and went outside on my balcony, knowing it was the only part of the apartment I could be grateful for. Even if the view was shit and the wood was moldy and splintered, it was still my own escape from what goes on inside.