Angels Wear Blue Jumpsuits

Part 6

It wasn't so bad.

My last year of high school was a breeze.

I passed my exams, I made a dozen new friends, I ran the gaming club, and I made Class President. I graduated with top marks and found the love of my life.

At least, that's what I tell people.

Truth is, I only lasted six months of that year before I unintentionally took your advice– I dropped out– because I was about to be expelled.

For some reason, everyone hated each other that year. The students hated the teachers, the teachers hated the students, the students hated the students, and the teachers hated the teachers. Every time I walked through those front doors, I felt another layer of toxic sludge poison me. I became truant. I was forced to see the school councillor and truancy officer for my behaviour. That old bitch didn't care about the state of my mental health. She was paid to make sure students had a passable attendance record and to keep the police off our asses, not to guide me through my obvious grief.

During this time, I developed a 'talent' for being able to forge people's handwriting– and their signatures. No one wanted to be in class, but they had a hard time getting a note from a teacher or parent to be excused. So I saw the opportunity and ran with it.

I must have forged hundreds of pardon notes. I charged ten dollars per forgery but offered no more than five per day across the entire school. Any more and teachers would start to get suspicious. I kept a notebook in my bag that I used to practice people's handwriting. I was always extra careful with it, but one afternoon during home economics class, I wasn't careful enough.

My home economics teacher loved drama. She always overheard disputes between students, even small, harmless ones, and took them by their collars, dragged them to the Principal's office and told her exactly why they deserved detention. So when this notebook of mine fell out of my bag while in her class and landed open at her feet, she stumbled across pure gold.

As expected, I was half-dragged to the Principal's office.

"You won't believe what I've found, Mrs Browning," she beams, her fat chest popping out, "this little button-" she whapped me on the nose "-has been found guilty of forgery!"

She shoves the notebook under Mrs Browning's nose and stands there proudly, waiting for promotion to Deputy. The Principal's eyebrow rises at me from behind a thick pair of glasses and my mother is called in to take me home. It's a serious affair. I've committed a crime, various times, for payment. I'm indirectly responsible for the falling grades of these students who skip class. The Principal barely knows what to do with me. In the end, I'm sent home for the rest of the week as she decides my fate.

During this time, I weigh up my options. In my country, not only is sixteen the legal age for sex, but it's the legal age to drop out of school. My mother explains to me that I have two options:

I can let the school expel me, but that is a permanent red mark against my name if I want to enter college or find a job. Legally, I have to state why I was expelled– and the reason being fraud? I could kiss my future goodbye.

Or–

I could willingly drop out of school before they pass expulsion. To colleges and employers, I'm under no obligation to say why.

The next day, only hours before my seventeenth birthday, I leave. I burnt my school uniform. It created an awful smell, but it was so sweet.

My days now had no rhyme or rhythm. I'd stay up late watching movies, smoking more cigarettes than consuming calories, go to bed at three, wake up twelve hours later and repeat. I would text you sometimes, but as predicted, you were too busy with college. We drifted apart. I often thought about Tammie. Sometimes about Kody. Nothing inspired me anymore. I barely left the house. I had no friends– save a few online ones. I listened to and played a lot of music during this time. It was the only hand that held mine. It understood me and I understood it. I contemplated, nightly, about vanishing from the world. Who would miss me? But music always came along to snatch me from those thoughts. I wouldn't be sitting here writing this if it weren't for her. My mother made me see a psychologist. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety but all those pills did was make me sleepy. What's the point of happiness if you're too tired to do anything with it?

The devil with the brown belt then officially entered my life, simultaneously ruining it further.

Six months later, I'm sitting in a police confession room, my thigh bouncing, my eyes red, and my arms bandaged.

"Are you ready to tell me how you got those wounds on your arms?" the detective asks, slouched and sick of my excuses.

"... I put them there-"

"We both know that isn't true."

He leans forward and I shrink backwards.

"Enough, Isla," he says, softly now, "Tom is being held in a cell, ready to be taken to a mental ward and away from the potential harm of others– I just need you to be honest with me."

It takes everything to say the words and I'm left with the tattered remains of what the devil turned me into. I'm ready to give up again. I almost do.

Then I get this bright idea of how to fix my life– overseas travel.

That's how most young people 'find themselves', right?

I spun an old dusty globe that my mother kept on a shelf and decided I would visit the first country my fingertip landed upon (unless it was North Korea or any other potentially troublesome nation), and the one I got was The United States of America– the land of the free and the home of the brave– perfect.

I got a job. I worked my ass off to save up for the trip and planned my great escape. I would see everything. Do everything. Eat everything. I was gonna take Cairo's advice– I was gonna grab it with both hands and fuck it in the ass. America would be my bitch.

I arrived– hated Los Angeles instantly, left, travelled to the state of Georgia and stayed in the small city of Macon with an online friend for a month. Dawn, and she was as bright as her name suggested. But she did like to eat out a lot and this was the unfortunate reason why I ran out of money. Until I met a family friend of hers– Tyson– a twenty-four-year-old who couldn't keep his eyes off me during dinner one evening. I wasn't physically attracted to him in the very fucking slightest. If I was honest, I found him repulsive. But I did find the thickness of his wallet appealing. Enough to launch me into a relationship with him and secure my stay in America.

I shouldn't have let things go as far as they did.

I should have hopped on a plane and flown home the instant I ran out of money.

Tyson ended up proposing to me. I said yes. Even though I was in love with his best friend.

Tanner was the closest thing that ever resembled you, in soul. His presence was warming while Tyson left me feeling cold. When Tyson was working, I would hang out with Tanner, never cheating but wanting to. Whenever Tyson fucked me, I closed my eyes and thought of his friend.

Then I got this crazy notion to admit my feelings for Tanner.

We went to the local mall, ordered a slice of pizza twice as big as my head, and I told Tanner the inside of my heart. I knew he felt the same. Why else would he sometimes hold my hand in the car while driving me somewhere? Why else did he throw me onto the bed in the middle of a playfight and wrap my thigh around his waist? Why else did he shuffle closer to me on the couch whenever Tyson exited the room? Why else did he 'joke' about wanting to have a threesome with us? Why else did it look like he was about to cry as I confessed my feelings?

He nodded at every word I said until he looked down at my left ring finger and back up into my eyes. None of our feelings mattered. We were doomed from the start. He couldn't live with betraying his best friend, even though I could have. I then realized that my life had been so heavy that it broke me– backbone and all.

America was empty for me now. And I went home, limping out of the country from how fucked in the ass it had left me. Tyson tried to stop me. He genuinely loved me, but not enough to follow me. He let me keep the engagement ring. I eventually pawned it to pay for a car repair bill.

I then entered what I like to mentally refer to as 'the noose'. I had a long string of jobs and relationships that eventually coiled back around and left me feeling choked. I acquired a few tattoos and exes. Some leaving a more permanent mark on my life than others. I try not to think of them as mistakes now, but lessons. A few of them I'm still friends with.

Now returned from America after a whole year and my unhealthy coping mechanisms settling down, things were... normal. I got up, went to work, made friends while there, came home and kept going. How boring. How amazing. And then things became even further incredible– I received the first text from you in far too long.

Hey! I'm in town this weekend. Wanna hang out? ^-^