The Difference Between You and Me

Chapter 1

Sometimes we look at our lives with a questioning raise of the eyebrow and wonder to ourselves,

What exactly am I doing?

What is my purpose?

Why am I still alive?

Is there a reason to continue living?

And even though we almost never get the answers to our questions, we still manage to continue waking up in the mornings, get dressed for a day filled with plot twists and uncertainties and push through with the tiniest string of hope that maybe things will be better.

And granted, sometimes, or perhaps it'd be more accurate to say on a day where the sun is at the right temperature and it's not hot but yet not cold, the wind caresses your cheek and does not dishevel your hair as you cruise along the road on your way to school or work, the principal or your boss acknowledges your existence for the first time, the cafeteria food isn't so bad and the world seems almost perfect in that moment on that particular day. Perhaps it is like those days, rare and precious, which strengthens our hope that things will in fact be better.

However, despite such fleeting moments of positivity and burst of hope we are all still just trying to survive each day as it comes. In a desperate attempt to stay alive; to keep living.

That was Ammie's life in a nutshell. She woke up every day unaware of what will happen next and really couldn't care less what happened. She was just concerned with making it through to the end of each day, and today was no different.

It was late in September and Ammie still felt as if she was a prisoner in this classroom, in this school. No one spoke to her, with the exception of the janitors and cafeteria staff and the teachers treated her as if she was some kind of alien. But that was more so her doing and imagination than the fault of anyone or the true representation of the situation. Ammie believed the universe and everything in it had it out for her misfortune. And as a result, developed a selective and particularly unfriendly demeanour which she had no intentions of changing or doing anything about.

"...Miss Brians? Miss Brians!" Ammie's math teacher Mrs. Stanbury called out to her.

"Yes Miss?" Ammie asked, confused as to why her name was being called repeatedly. But soon after, coming to the only conclusion that maybe she was too entranced in her own thoughts to hear what Mrs. Stanbury had said before.

Ammie believed her imagination was more interesting than anything that was going on around and so, she'd oftentimes be caught in her own world with her own thoughts. 'It was liberating', she'd always say; a means of escape and somewhere where she could go to gain back her sanity and rejuvenate. She didn't mind getting lost sometimes, because the greatest adventure is in trying to find your way back and realizing that's not the easiest thing to do.

"I'm waiting on the answer to section C, exercise 3, number 4, letter b, part ii in case you weren't paying attention Miss Brians...again," Stanbury scoffed narrowing her eyes and folding her arms across her chest while she waited for Ammie to answer the question.

Mrs. Stanbury, you could say, was a rather sophisticated middle aged woman who you'd picture being the CEO of her own company but somehow got stuck teaching at a high school with a bunch of shallow teenagers.

"Uhhh...umm...the answer to the question is..." Ammie began, trailing off to look at the clock which hung above the white board. And realized that she had approximately one minute left in class.

It wasn't that she couldn't answer the question but she didn't have the energy to try and would rather not give anyone the satisfaction of thinking she was incapable of solving a calculus problem. So she pretended to scribble something in her notebook giving the impression to the rest of the class and Mrs. Stanbury, who were all waiting on her, that she was trying to work the problem out.