I always find my place among the ashes
One
It wasn’t the first official day at school. It was just called the first day of actual school because everybody’s schedules had been corrected and worked out. I wasn’t sure how I felt that this was the beginning of my last year or middle school. Everything was still hell on earth and every knew each other. The conversation had last night when grandmom and dad had done nothing, even though I had a tiny bit of doubtful hope. That’s why I hate hope? If you have it, you always set yourself up for failure.
I stepped off the bus and just followed all the kids into the cafeteria where we ate breakfast. I never ate breakfast, I just liked to pick out the sixth graders who acted stupid and who I would eventually have to deal with later in the year with our school tutoring program. My grades were so good, it was required I be a tutor to all the other stupid kids. It was harder to flunk the classes I had than to pass because the teacher would make me do my work or she’d call home. I had enough stress from school to be grounded for a month. So I just did everything and stayed quiet. I passed the class, answered some questions wrong so people would leave me alone and I just lived one more day.
The bell rang as I starred at this table of rowdy boys yelling and laughing about some fat girl walking past. Kids were so damn mean, that’s why I hated every single one of them. I was the opposite of fat, they just called me anorexic. I’m tall and skinny naturally no matter how much food I eat. I stopped trying not to care, it hurts even more when I act.
I walk out, invisible. It’s actually harder than everyone makes it out to be. You can’t really touch anyone of the loud popular kids because then they’ll have a reason to pick on you. And they’ll take it, anything above the level of shitting on our heads or something of that nature.
When I walked up the stairs and into the third floor hallway, I saw a teacher yelling at two boys that had obviously made a girl cry. It was the morning and her day was bound for the meaning of crap. I learned at a very early age, to cry to myself because no one cared and no one cares. It shows your weak, that their words hurt and you feel pain. It was easy to find that crying didn’t help. It just made things worse. People either pitied you or laughed harder.
I walked into my first period, it was math. Algebra 1, something we’d learn next year that I already knew. I took a waiting worksheet from the teacher’s hand and sat in the desk in the back of the room in the corner. There, I could sleep in peace or draw, which ever I wanted to. I couldn’t shade yet but I could draw pretty good.
I started on the worksheet and put a light check by three out of nine that I’d purposely miss. I’d calculate a simple missed step and by then I wouldn’t be able to get everything right. Three out of nine would most likely end to be a C or D. I didn’t mind, I’d make it up in tests where they were more questions to balance out wrong and right.
People started coming in two minutes before the late bell. That’s when all the stupid popular kids started coming in all rowdy and happy. They were happy because they’d play all day, some people actually came to learn. Wait a second, no they didn’t. Middle school was a show everyone put on. There was no geek squad or anything. The only clique that was here was ‘follow the popular kids unless you wanted to be a loser and sit alone at lunch’…like me.
I pulled my sketch pad from my book bag and started to draw a girl’s face. The bell rang and Sustained Silent Reading began. I believed it was a waste of time, but I loved drawing, or sleeping, or doing homework in the morning when the teacher wasn’t watching. It was a nice thing to have, when the teacher wasn’t watching.
I attempted a calm look to her face; closed eyes, lifted face and flowing hair. She was strangely beautiful to me. Small yet long lips and a sharp noise with high check bones thanks to shading wrong but it made her beautiful so it was like a gasoline rainbow. A mistake with a beautiful result, I wish life was more like that.
I erased her eyes and made them fiercely beautiful, or at least that’s what I tried to achieve. I wanted her to be like a model and have eyes like what I wanted. Any color but brown. Brown is boring, neutral. Her eyes looked regular so I focused alittle harder and drew small lines for the iris to the outside. Using my eraser, I pushed the pencil lead around in a little circle.
“Ms. Hai, I’m going to need the drawing.” Shit. I looked up quickly spooked. Not only by the attention but by her seeing me, even in the farthest corner from where she was standing at the front of the room. Everyone was starring. Some girls were mumbling things under their breath. I pretended not to hear an “ugly” comment toward my drawing.
“I’ll just put it away.” I mumbled. She shook her head.
“Give me the pad,” she said looking annoyed. I heard a stupid blonde in the front snicker. I hope I see her in the future so I can mow her down with a car or something and claim it was an honest accident. I stood and walked through the aisles and literally tossed the sketchbook at her.
“I want to see you after class.” No one has time for that! My day was officially ruined. “Now start on your math.”
“I’m done.” I muttered but she didn’t understand so she just glared thinking I made a smart comment as I sat down. This wasn’t good, I already had a teacher against me, it wasn’t like I cared. It just wasn’t easy getting a good grade In a class I hated or was hated in. She or he mostly just called me out for everything from breathing wrong to biting on a pencil and everyone’s eyes bore into me and I hated it.
The jokes went on for another five minutes and I let my head fall in my hand and I just starred at the desk straining to hear every word of every mean thing they could say about me. They said I was ugly and they made fun of my eyes, I was from Asian descent so my Asian eyes looked different from their American ones. I had a button nose and small pale pink lips I hated. I was very skinny and I usually pulled my long black hair into a ponytail, but today, I let it hang loose hoping that somehow, everyone would see how much older I looked. Something slapped me and it was hard, no one cared. I slouched down in the chair and starred at the numbers on the paper with my pencil absently tapping against my thigh.
Five minutes passed before the teacher now introduced as Mrs. Diamond told everyone to pass them to the front. She shuffled the papers around a bit and then began to pass them back.
“We are going to grade these. This will happen often so buy a red pen, borrow a red pen from a friend, steal a red pen but as long as it’s not mine your stealing, you need a red pen. I expect it by next week although you go your supply lists the first day of school and it’s been a week. Today, I’ll be passing out red pens, so you won’t have to worry about it today.” she said finishing passing the papers out when she passed the last paper to me. “Put your name on the back.” Jenna Harvi, the captain of the cheerleading squad, also the bitches. I already knew it was all wrong, but how could I mark it wrong without her going off? This day was officially crap.
“Why do I have this ugly?” I heard Jenna remark laughing at Robert. He really looked like a loser, I just looked like a Goth. One thing about grandparents who don’t care about you, they don’t care about how you dress because that goes with the part of caring about you.
“Okay Jenna, that’s enough.” Mrs. Diamond said, “What’s your answer for number one.”
“Well, stupid put twelve but I think it’s eleven.” she said smiling brightly.
“The answer is eleven.” the class burst out in laughter. When Jenna was wrong, they laughed with her. When someone like Robert was wrong, they laughed at him.
“Rachel, what do you have for number two?” I slipped one mp3 head phone into me ear. I was tired of listening to these people. I was tired of everything but it was life and it wasn’t like a beautiful painting, more like the smudges you get when your fingers touch the pencil lead and then you leave a grey finger print on your clean white paper of a sketch.
I pulled my hair into a ponytail, no one thought I looked older or more beautiful so I’ll just give them the old look. Obviously they weren’t ready for the hair change.
I rubbed my eyes, I was rather tired. I was about to take a nap when I heard my name. I froze and knocked the headphone from my ear and looked at Mrs. Diamond.
“What did you get for number nine?” she asked.
“Uh…she put seven. But I believe the answer is seventy two.” I responded hoping she didn’t ask for the mp3 player.
“Good. Pass your papers to the front. I passed my paper forward and I watched as the paper I graded was put on top. I sighed and slid down in my seat.
“Who graded my paper?” Jenna asked looking around. When she couldn’t spot anyone who looked suspicious and she didn’t have enough common sense to turn the paper over, she turned them in.
“Turn it over Jenna.” another voice said across the classroom. Shit.
“Ew…..Luke graded my paper. Why?” she said. She turned around and glared at me.
“Mrs. Diamond, Luke cheated.” she said looking at the teacher then, “she marked everything wrong!”
“I marked what was-”
“Shut up stupid!” she yelled back at me. I should have stayed quiet. “That’s why you look like you just walked out of hell…bitch.” She mouthed the last word to me and everyone laughed and watched intently even though they knew nothing would happen,; there would be no fight threats or arguments at least with me. I would just sink into my seat and just sit there with the same bored look on my face.
I have no reputation or self-esteem. It went down the toilet the day Jenna entered my life. Well, really, I’ve never had a lot of self esteem. Everything in my life has always been broken, tainted, burned. I always find my place among the ashes.
Author's Chapter Notes:
Sorry about the wait. I had to put it in the "internet" format because it's in correct paragraph format when I wrote it.
