Remember Me [ Fred Weasley ]

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐧𝐞 / 𝑷𝒊𝒆𝒄𝒆 𝒐𝒇 𝒉𝒆𝒂𝒗𝒆𝒏

{ Song: Runaway by AURORA }

── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ──

It's one of those days that seem to last forever. One of those days that seems to have more than twenty-four hours, because there's no way that time could actually pass this slowly. Clicking my pen incessantly, I keep my eyes fixed on the clock above the whiteboard at the front of the classroom. Its hands don't seem to be moving at all.

"Do you mind?"

Alice, my best friend since middle school, looks up from her notebook and nods towards my hand. She's one of the most patient people I know, or else she wouldn't have been able to put up with my annoying habits for this many years. I mumble a 'sorry' and put the pen down.

I'm not paying much attention to the class because a, math is probably the most boring and useless subject to ever exist and b, at this point of the semester there's really no point in putting in more effort than the bare minimum.

Thirty-five minutes, I tell myself. In only thirty-five minutes, I get to go home. That is, as far as home goes.

I've never found the words that make it sound the way it feels. Maybe it's because I'm not actually sure what kind of feeling it is, to be homesick for a place you've never been. I found a word that came close once, hiraeth, meaning something along the lines of being homesick for a place you can't return to. It's like I'm missing parts of me I never even had. As if the real world isn't actually real, but instead a dream that I'll wake up from at any moment, only that the moment never comes. The more I think about it, the harder it is to believe that everything around me is my reality, because how can I feel so out of place if this is where I'm actually supposed to be?

I've tried to explain this feeling to my friends a few times and failed miserably. It quickly became clear that this is the kind of thing you don't talk about because it makes you sound like a crazy person. Not the cute kind of crazy that makes your life seem interesting and somehow makes you popular because you're dark and twisted, the romanticized kind of crazy that people write poetry and music about.

No, this made me seem like the kind of crazy that makes people look at you like you're some sort of strange outsider and the kind of crazy that makes your parents worry that they did something wrong during your childhood. It's the kind where the feeling of longing is mistaken for sadness, although I suppose in a way it is, resulting in your parents taking you to therapy only to have the therapist tell you that you just need to find a new hobby or that exercise and spinach will make you happy. Not because it's necessarily that big of a deal, but because most people expect you to move on from fantasies and let go of your daydreams as you get older. I can't see why you would ever want to.

Twenty-three minutes. Maybe I am crazy. If I weren't, I think I'd go insane. This can't be it, I think as I look out the window and let my eyes travel across the schoolyard. The clouds cover the sky in a dull, grey colour and the leaves that had once dressed the world in color have fallen to the ground, leaving the trees looking like bare skeletons of something that had forgotten how to be beautiful.

"Hey Nova, I can't figure this out" Alice says while chewing the end of her pencil. I look over at the sheet where she's scribbled down numbers and lines, letters and figures to make sense of it all.

"Let me see" I say and pull the sheet towards me, then point out the part of the calculation where the problem appears to be. Just because I hate math doesn't mean I'm bad at it.

"Oh, right... makes sense" she says and starts correcting it.

There has to be more to life than these weird numbers mixed up with letters that, honestly, make no sense whatsoever. Everyone pretends that it does, and for some reason acknowledging this makes you smart. For some reason made up numbers make sense, but made up stories don't. Funny, how the world works.