back to square one
I'm sick of school. The people here are so cruel. I've tried to make friends at school before.
———
"Um…hi." Why am I scared? She looks kind. She looks up at me. "My mommy told me not to talk to boys," she says. "Boys have cooties." I don't have cooties. That's a Bully Thing. "But I don't have—" "Don't talk to me!" she shouts. "I don't want cooties!"
Cooties aren't real. Cooties are a Bully Thing, a first grade thing. We're in third grade.
I don't have cooties.
———
Honestly now, I would rather have cooties. Then I'd have a decent excuse on why everyone avoids me rather than just 'I'm weird'.
Weird. That word feels foreign. Poisonous. Like some sort of curse word or a slur. Isn't the word 'weird' technically a slur? It's offensive toward a specific group of people, is it not?
I'm tired. Maybe staying awake for those three hours was not a good idea. I'm tired. So…so…tired…
———
"Rui."
Can't I sleep in a little longer?
"Rui."
Come on, it's not time to get up yet.
"Rui!"
Ugh.
Fine.
I open my eyes to find myself not in my room like I originally thought, but in the classroom of my literature class. I've let my head fall on the desk and a small drop of saliva was threatening to leave my mouth. I sit up and wipe my mouth. Oops. My surrounding classmates giggle and wish I could crawl into a corner and die.
"Pay attention, please," my teacher says. I drop my eyes to my desk. Why bother? My grades are already horrible in here. It's almost guaranteed I'm going to fail this semester unless I beg for extra credit.
Sometimes I wish these storms would take down the school with me in it.
———
Tsukasa-san isn’t here today. Maybe he needs a break from school. I need a break from school. Me and my numerous absences say so. Hell, let's all take a break from school. The teachers need it.
Mathematics is a mind-numbing blah-blah-blah session. Blah-blah-blah, the hypotenuse is blah-blah-blah, don’t forget to square blah-blah-blah, Mr. —— the phone is ringing! Thank you —— for bringing that to my attention, blah-blah-blah. Kamishiro Rui? Yes thank you I will send him right down of course thank you no it’s not a bother okay thank you he’s going right now.
“Kamishiro Rui to the guidance counselor.”
I think she’s a mind reader.
———
“We need to look at your grades.” What I really need is a nap. “Your teachers are worried for you, Rui.” Then why weren’t my parents called?
“Do you expect to make it to college with these grades?” A rhetorical question, something I don’t have to reply to. I’ve learned I only have to reply to questions that require answers. I follow anything and everything else with silence.
Ms. No-Name blah-blah-blah’s her way about my grades and eventually brings up my mental state. “Your math teacher told me you reported feeling ‘potentially forming crippling depression’.” I forgot to tell him that wasn’t the term I was looking for.
Then comes the stereotypical say-the-wrong-thing-and-find-yourself-in-a-hospital question.
“Have you ever had thoughts of hurting yourself or others?”
I shake my head no. My throat tries to form a ‘yes’. Maybe I should slit my throat so my vocal cords don’t work.
“Have you ever thought about ending your life?”
Yes.
I shake my head no.
I bullshit my way through the rest of the session and she lets me leave with a ‘promise’ that everything said in this room stays in this room. I find that as bullshit as my own replies—not that I really gave any. I didn’t say a single word. She said everything in this room.
———
Maybe if life is nice enough, I’ll die before…some major event. A talentless waste of space…well, maybe not talentless. If looking like trash and thinking of morbidly dark stuff is a talent, then sign me up for my school’s talent show and watch as I win first place.
Maybe then I’ll be acknowledged.
———
When I get home, I once again fall asleep without even removing my shoes.
It’s become a habit now, sleeping to avoid life.
———
I wake up hours later to many blankets suffocating me. I push the blankets off me. Were they even suffocating me? I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I wasn’t even feeling dizzy. Either the feeling of the blankets overtop me woke me up, or I could still breathe and my body was being dramatic.
Either way, I sort of wished the blankets just finished me off. What am I even talking about? I don’t wanna die. Not bad enough to be thinking about it. Come on, Rui! Be strong for once!
I stand up and grab Kiseki. I have no idea what time it is. I look at the clock. 21:27. Okay…so I slept through dinner. I should sleep until morning, but I’m not tired.
It’s too late to visit Nene, I’m not hungry enough to get anything, Robo-Nene is good with what she has for now, my room isn’t messy enough for me to clean, it’s too dark out to walk anywhere…oh, boredom, release me from these shackles I’m confined in.
I think I’ll just talk to Kiseki until I go insane.