Dear Diary: June 25th

2. Dear Diary

Dear Diary,

Can you believe that it is still June 25th? It’s like this day will never end, going on and on and on until we grow old and die. That would be cool, wouldn’t it? Not having to ever go to sleep? Life being one long, long day, and in the end when we would all be tired and sore after everything we did, we would go to sleep and never wake up again. Only we would know when the time again, instead o just guessing it again and again and being wrong. Maybe the truck over there will cross the road without giving a blast of its horn and I somehow get in the way. No, that was too coincidental, wasn’t it? I mean, who can’t hear a truck coming with its loud engine and daunting demeanour?

I really need to stop thinking about these things; it makes me think that those people may actually be right about me being mad.  But it also makes me think that they are all mad for not thinking that way, too. All they care about are things that are going to end, things that don’t mean anything in the end. So what if you got the latest Gucci bag because Daddy was able to pull some strings? Spill coffee on that and it’s all done for. All your bragging for nothing. Why can’t anyone else see this? Or does this not make any sense? Maybe it will in the future, it has to then.

Lunch today was a little bit different. Usually, we sit beside each other on the same round table, me, John, Jayne and Max. Liam always sits beside Carly and her group of conceited ‘upperclassmen’ of the school. I mean upperclassmen? Yet they manage to fail every test, every quiz and every class without the help of the overly ambitious ‘nerds’ who have much too little self confidence. They think that by doing Carly and her posse’s homework they get some respect, but they are so, so wrong. If anything, it makes them get even less respectful. What kind of person who spends hours on someone else’s work who only gives you a smirk in return, could ever demand for self respect?

I say the words ‘nerds’ and ‘upperclassmen’ in invert commas because I think the system is a complete joke. It’s like a caste system, you don’t seem to move up or down on most occasions, only if you somehow manage to befriend someone from a different class. Other than that, being ‘upperclassmen’ means that you don’t associate with anyone in the ‘nerd’ group, simply because that is not what you do. I get the fact that we all have friends and we make a group, but this exclusivity factor that I like to think as total bull and needs to be flushed down the toilet, in its proper place. What happened to being a democracy? Well, I suppose, living in the Kingdom of Great Britain, we are not equal members of the country, but subjects to the royal highness. Royal Highness my butt. What gives the royal family any right to be better than us?

The same way I suppose Carly manages to get the upper hand in the school. She was almost born into it. In this side of the country, in the middle of the nowhere, North West, grandparents grew up together and subsequently, so did parents and their children. Looking back at the old school photographs, you can still see the families that have reigned over our little school over the past hundred years. At the top of the food chain, is Carly’s grandparents, Marie and George Buckley, and skipping forward it’s Carly’s parents, Sarah and Michal Buckley, and now it’ll be Carly, at the end of this year. The only thing missing is Carly’s soul mate, who her parents and grandparents insist that she find here, in the Graham Academy, where they found theirs. Carly is under pressure now, and my biggest fear is that she’s chosen Liam to be hers, forever. She doesn’t deserve him, and she knows it.

Today, when I saw his arm wrapped around her scrawny shoulder, I had to look away immediately. I saw the twins and Max, sitting over near the window, as they always did. John and Jayne were talking animatedly to each other, as they always did, but Max stayed as quiet as ever, playing with his bread roll. I don’t understand him at all, he used to be the happy-go-lucky kind of kid, and nothing could get in the way of his happiness, but that was when we were all together, all laughing, all joking. I guess we all change over time, but I still think he’s the same on the inside. The only thing is I don’t know where to find him.

For once, in all the years I have been in the Academy, I decided to take a big, big risk – and sit away from them all. I decided on putting my tray on the empty table in the very corner furthest away from my old friends. I put it down hesitantly, and sat on the plastic chair, putting my legs up. I tucked my pleated grey skirt in behind me knees, smoothing it out. Maybe I didn’t feel like talking to anyone at the time, but looking back on it now, just a few hours later, I don’t find myself regretting my actions. It was soothing, somehow, just staring at my tray of food, not even trying to eat some for a show. The smell of the lasagne was already making me feel sick, so I just opened my bottle of water and took a sip. Then, realising that I didn’t even need to be here, I walked away, into the grounds of the Academy, not daring to look back. I can still feel those eyes peering into my back, but whoever they were, I wasn’t going to give them the satisfaction of looking back. I told myself that I was beyond caring, and I still hold onto that cause. Why care when they can’t do anything that would make you care anyway?

Forgetting about everything, I went out into the grounds and sat down at the base of the large oak tree, locking my arms around my knees. I so badly wanted to fall asleep, but remember that thing about not getting what you want? That happened again, and I just ended up staring out into the sky, at the puffy white clouds, wondering why everything around me seemed so elated at that moment when I felt so down. I was starting to get cold as well, even though I knew for a fact that it was almost twenty degrees and I was wearing the grey wool tights. Maybe it was because I only had my white blouse and tie on, having left my navy blazer in my locker.

A cloud floated by that looked exactly like a dove with only one wing. I thought that maybe the other one had been lost because it was attacked by a dinosaur that floated peacefully alongside it, or maybe the dove had fallen from the sky, hurt its wing and died. And now, floating in the sky was that same dove now.  I decided to name that dove Daffy, even though Daffy was a duck.

I heard the bell ring later that day, signalling the end of lunch, but for some reason, I didn’t get up. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to it was just that I... couldn’t.  No matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t bring myself to stand up, I was just too mesmerized by the jagged piece or rock that was lying beside me.

Mum is calling me now, something about her coming up to see if my homework is done. It’s not that I don’t do it, it’s just I have been slacking off recently. I don’t know why but I am starting to see little purpose in knowing the structure of a chloroplast. I study for my tests, sure, but it’s not without struggle. Mum has seen my grades dipping slowly beneath the ninety mark and she’s been on my back lately. I don’t understand, I still do better than most people in my class, but why am I not good enough for her? And Dad? I never get to work for myself, it seems. It’s always about university, about Cambridge, about law, about medicine, about genetic engineering. It’s about all these things but somehow... it’s never about me. So what? I want to do something completely different like... that I need to figure out. I want to be my own person, is that so hard to accept? I don’t want to do something because my parents want me to –--

Oh listen, she’s coming up the stairs. I’ll talk to you later Diary. Funny enough, you’re actually helping me a bit.

~K