Seeking Solace

19- I'll Make Things Perfect Again

I really don't want to walk back into class and face everyone's stares and gossiping, so I chicken out and go hide in the bathroom. Which stinks and is covered in piss and who knows what else, but it's the only place I have left to go where I won't get mentally (and most likely physically) beaten up.

I go to the only cubicle that isn't completely destroyed- for some reason someone thought it would be a good idea to cover the toilet seats with their own shit or something- and lock the door. There're only about ten minutes left of class, and I'm all set to just chill out here and wait for the bell to ring, when I realize that I left my bag in class with my money and my lunch and the books I actually give half a shit about, and I can't avoid going back in there after all.

I groan and cover my face with my hands, pressing against my eyelids until it hurts, as if I can reach into some part of my brain that can harness time travel so I could just go back and never have punched Chris in the face in the first place. But then the more I think about it, the more I feel like there was no way I would've been able to resist. Although it would've been much better judgment to just wait until after school or something. Fuck, why did I have to be such an idiot at a time like this?

I spend a good five minutes in there panicking, and probably slowly going insane from the mixed stench of piss and day old shit, before I finally gather the balls to just go out there and face everyone. Either way, I'd have to face them all in the halls, with their stares and their judging eyes and in the way they'd make sure to leave a ten mile radius around me in the hallways. Whatever. I ruined my own life. I'd have to deal with it now.

I hesitate by the door, debating whether or not I should just wait until everyone's gone to come back for it, but I know I'll probably end up forgetting it, or someone'll take it just to piss me off, and besides, wouldn't it better if I walked in there like nothing happened? so I open the door and I walk in, and for a second, everything just stops.

It's even worse than I thought it would be.

I suck in a breath and walk quickly back to my seat, and everyone stares, and I pretend I don't care, and Ms. Stone looks at me with her stupid disappointed face which I ignore, and it's horribly quiet, as if someone died and I just walked right into the moment of silence or something, and oh God, this was such a bad fucking idea.

But I make it to my seat and I sit down, and my notebook's still on my desk with my pencil sitting on top of it like I left it, and I let out my tiny breath and Ms. Stone forces everyone to pay attention to her again, and the stares finally stop, and I ball my hands into fists so I can't see them shaking and feel like a complete failure.

I've got my suspicions about the notebook, because leaving it here was just asking for it to be destroyed, and sure enough, when I try and open it, I can't, because it's been glued shut with white-out. And I'm so unsurprised, I can just feel the disappointment radiating from Chris and the assholes that did it, and that brings a smile to my face that ends up with my chair being kicked, and then my head being slapped when the bell finally rings and everyone almost kills each other in their rush to leave.

Just like I expected, I can count on one hand how many people don't look at me as if I'm infected with the plague, and on the other I can count how many forget to stay away from the diseased faggot and are probably automatically labeled outcasts for the month.

By the time I make it to the art room, I can't deny that I feel like shit.

Gerard's waiting there for me, of course, but this time James isn't sitting where he usually is, and his girl friend isn't there. Because he's over where Gerard is, talking to him.

“...half of them only hate you because they're jealous,” I hear him say over his usual cup of coffee (which I notice Gerard stares at kind of longingly).