Again

Chapter 2

𝓢𝓮𝓻𝓮𝓷𝓲𝓽𝔂

Once I dash back inside, I traverse up the pyramid of stairs and run back to my room. My PE kit is in my cheap £10 puma sports bag, and it's right at the back of my wardrobe. I really don't have enough energy to wipe the handle again and again, so I just pull it open, trying my best to clear my mind of anything bad. I grab it and shut the wardrobe door before looking around to see if there's anything else I've missed.

My eyes wander to my little window above my bed. It's a crisscross window that you can't open and is made to make the wall look less empty. It doesn't work though, because I have nothing on my walls. They're just plain white without an ounce of decoration or colour. My room isn't very big, being only about three metres in length and two in width. It's a small, rectangular room with light beige curtains guarding the bigger window beside my bed. The door - beside my ceiling-length, grey wardrobes - is this orangey brown wooden door that doesn't really fit in with the room at all, being the only block of vibrant colour visible. There's also a little, round table where I put my candles and whatever book I'm reading. In general, it's a pretty boring room without a single hint of life or personality. It sort of makes sense, because I don't have either of those things anyway.

The rooms in this house aren't particularly decorated, because . . . well . . . that kind of stuff is expensive, and we don't really have the money for that. All the houses in this neighbourhood aren't the prettiest from the outside. With their chipped, red bricks and peeling paint, the houses definitely aren't favourable. The house beside ours has been unoccupied for years after the old owners left, and no one's really bothered to buy it since. After all, this side of town is known to be one of the dodgier areas, so I'm not that surprised. However, the interiors of most of the houses aren't too bad once you've renovated the place. Beth and Mella managed to make their rooms look all aesthetic and cool, because they managed to find expensive-looking cushions and furniture from a shop selling knock-of items, but I just took the simple, cheaper approach. I'm not too keen on spending money.

My eyes fixate on my grey glasses perched on the edge of the small windowsill, threatening to fall off and plummet down through the little gap between the barren wall and the untidy bed, before colliding with the rugged carpet. Thankfully, though, it doesn't move. I'm glad I've forgotten my PE kit otherwise I would've left my glasses here too.

I can see without them, but I wear them most of the time, because I'm shortsighted and can't see things that are further away as clearly. I always misplace my glasses though, so I'm stunned to discover that I was in the right mind last night to put them on the windowsill instead of somewhere like the bathroom sink or submerged in the enigmatic tangle of my bed sheets. It's not that I don't care, it's just that I'm a little forgetful. Once I start something, I forget to finish it. It really isn't my fault though, because I have other stuff to worry about.

There you go with the 'it's not my fault' again. You really need to stop thinking that.

Okay, I suppose it is my fault that I don't get things done. I just don't have the motivation. I'm constantly sleep-deprived, my mind is whirling with morbid thoughts and there are always random scenarios being generated in my head. I feel like I don't have any space in my head, yet it feels like my skull and everything inside is expanding, getting bigger and bigger, making space. But then the space just gets filled with unrelenting thoughts and worries that are multiplying by the second.

I push the glasses onto my face, one of the arms from the frame sliding into my hair and being wedged there instead of resting on the outskirts of my ear. I flee from my room, shoving the wonky glasses properly onto my face, trying to make them symmetrical. I bound down the hallway, picking up my large, black headphones that I somehow discarded in the corner yesterday, stuffing them into my black bag.