Damaged Goods - 2. Chapter 2

Lesson Number 7: It’s at least five times harder to not look at someone when you’re trying not to.

It took me only a matter of seconds to learn this one. The moment I sat in my seat the familiar panic took hold. I still don’t know what it is, but I feel as if I’m somehow exposed next to him, and I hate it. Instead, I focused all of my attention to just looking straight ahead at the teacher. ‘I wonder if he hates this as much as I do.’

“Ok, who here can tell me what Psychology is... anyone?” An arm across the room shot up almost instantaneously. “Yes… err… Charlotte.” By this point, I had lost almost all interest in what was being said and instead now found myself watching Drew out of the corner of my eye, as if I expected at any moment for him to pull a knife on me. ‘This is insane! No one should have this kind of effect on you. Maybe everyone is right; maybe you are crazy!’ He wasn’t even looking at me and somehow I still felt as though I were being judged by him. All I could ever see when I looked at him was him in the boys’ bathroom doorway looking down at me, seeing me at the weakest moment of my life. He was the last thing I saw before I lost consciousness and woke up two days later in a hospital. If he had found me any later it would have been too late, and I wouldn't be here to suffer his unintentional judgment.

I spent the remainder of the class pretending to take notes on the ideas and the goals of psychology. The last thing I needed was more psychology; I already got four doses of it a month.

“What about you Nick? You’ve been quiet so far.” I looked up from my fake notes to see the entire class’ eyes on me awaiting an answer to a question I didn’t even know.

“I’m sorry, what was the question?” She didn’t answer, but rather walked over beside me and stared down at my notebook, which instead of having notes, had been filled with an assortment of lines and swirls that began to look like something out of one of the Modern Art exhibits Aunt Maggie planned at the studio.

I felt my chest tighten up. It had to know at this point that I had no idea what was going on and soon enough the entire class would as well. She turned the picture to see it from the angle I had been looking at it.

“Hmmm… interesting piece.” She turned and walked back to her desk. “The question was, ‘What in psychology are you interested in learning about most?’” I had never thought about it. I had never planned on this class. Until this point, I had always been the one on the couch, not the one sitting in a chair with a notepad, pretending to listen to the person on said couch. However, after a moment’s thought I had my answer.

“I want to learn about mental disorders. I want to know what it is that makes some people normal and other people… not.” She leaned back onto the front of her desk; she seemed almost surprised by my answer.

“That’s a very good objective; however, I don’t think there is such a thing as truly normal… or truly abnormal, for that matter. Just thousands and thousands of different ways people think, react, and process emotions. Certain people handle certain situations better than others.” It was clear she had more to say on the subject, but the bell rang, cutting her short. I grabbed my stuff as fast as possible and found myself out the door before anyone else, more than happy to be as far away as him as possible.

The next two classes were as expected, your typical English lecture followed by a less than enthusiastic math class. Both teachers seemed nice enough, I suppose… nothing to really rave about. More importantly, nothing had been brought up about last year. In fact, up until that point I had only spotted a handful of others that I even recognized. A new school had been built on the north side of the city and the school district had been split up. Therefore, a majority of what few friends I had before were now at a separate high school. Still, I was hoping to at least see one familiar face.

The bell finally rang, ending the painfully dull math teacher’s ongoing ramblings. ‘Thank god! I swear I think he learned how to teach by watching C-Span or something.’ By the time I got to the cafeteria it was already swarming. I scanned the room and within in a moment spotted a bright crimson red crop of hair. Even in a crowd like this, she was still easily spotted. As I made my way over to her table, I realized that once again I had a multitude of eyes on me. I saw some of the same girls from the bus stop earlier. Only now, they didn’t even grant me the courtesy of whispering.

“Holy shit, they did let him out.”

“Oh my god! Isn’t he supposed to be dangerous?”

“Only to him, I think.”

“Is it true what they’re saying… about why he did it?”

“Yeah, I think so; I guess it was announced in front of the entire cafeteria.”

My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach as my hands began to shake.

“I heard his mom is just as batshit crazy as he is!”

‘What? M-my mom? How... How could they….’ I began scanning the room franticly, my heart now racing. ‘God no! Please! He was supposed to be at the other school! He can’t be here!’

I had to find out where she heard this, and now…

“Hey!” The entire group of them jumped at the sound of my voice. “Who the hell have you been talking to?” They all took a step back and acted as if I were some kind of rabid dog, which was fine, because by that point I felt like one. I needed to know where they were hearing this.

Lesson Number 8: Intel is everything. Knowing what the enemy knows is the key to victory.

“Hey psycho, don’t you have a poor little animal to go torture or something?” I could feel every bit of my patience being drained.

“Don’t waste your time, Nick.” I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to see Carrey beside me. “The Barbie Bitch Squad isn’t worth anyone’s time.”

“I’d rather be Bitch Barbie than Butch Barbie. Or haven’t you told him yet? Oops! Guess I spoiled the secret. Sorry about that, Scary Carrey.” She said nothing as they walked past. The leader of the group turned to face us once again. “Then again, now that I think about it, if what I heard is true I doubt the psycho cares too much. It’s not as if he was looking for a girlfriend anyways, because apparently, not even you are butch enough for his liking.” I tried to follow them, but by that time Carrey had ahold of both my shoulders and she easily overpowered me.

“Save it. Like I said, they’re not worth it.” It took another few moments for me to finally calm down. And together we walked to the table and sat down. Any appetite I had from earlier was gone. Instead, I just laid my head on the table. My first confrontation and I had almost lost it. If Carrey hadn’t stopped me, I probably would have. I felt as though I was losing the fight already and it was only the first day of the school year.

“Congratulations, you managed to get yourself on Amber’s hit list, one of the biggest bitches this school has to offer, and on the first day too! Just tell me now, are you trying to make life hard for yourself?” I honestly didn’t have an answer for her I couldn't very well tell her why I had reacted that way. “Look on the bright side, you only have two years left to deal with her. I’ve had to endure her presence since I was a freshman. “Look, I don’t know exactly what happened last year, but you might as well accept the fact that people are going to talk, especially people like Amber and her bimbo parade. They have nothing better to do than talk about other people’s lives. The more you show it bothers you, the longer they’ll keep it going.”

“I already know all of this. I was really hoping I’d be able to just ignore it!”

“Then what was that all about? You may not realize it, but you’ve just made yourself a target for whatever they can think of to throw at you.” Once again, I found myself unable to answer. Laughing. I expected laughing, and a barrage of questions. I had never accounted for just how much everyone already knew.

“So exactly how much have you heard about what happened?”

“Just what everyone else already knows, you had a meltdown in front of the entire middle school cafeteria, and a half hour later you were found in the boys bathroom with your…” She couldn't bring herself to finish. “At least that’s what I heard. I don’t know if any of it’s true or not. I really try not to believe any rumors I hear.” I still have no idea what possessed me to do it, but without any words I lifted both my arms up to show her the scars on my wrists… a permanent reminder of the lowest point in my life. “Why did you do it?” This wasn’t a question out of sheer curiosity, but rather, she seemed like she genuinely cared to know.

“A lot of reasons really, a lot of them I still don’t really understand myself. I’d tell you, but we’d end up missing class.” She didn’t push it any further, but instead just went back to eating.

Lesson Number 9: True Friends don’t need to understand everything about you; they can just accept it for what it is.

I had barely closed my eyes when I felt another presence at the table.

“Hey! You’re the crazy kid, right?” The question came from an unfamiliar voice.

‘Maybe if I lay still enough he'll figure I’m dead and leave.

“Hey! You alive there?”

‘Nope, not at all, just a lifeless corpse here, nothing else. Move along please.’

“Really Josh, now is not the best time for your bullshit. Okay?” It became obvious that whoever the intruder was, Carrey knew him.

“Hey, I’m just curious. I mean, in a school this big for something to become news must mean it’s pretty big, right?”

‘Great, now I’m news?’

“Hey dude, wake up! No sleeping in class!” I felt something soft hit the top of my head, which caused me to jerk, giving me away. I had no choice but to finally lift my head to look for the projectile, which turned out to be a dinner roll. I also saw Josh, who was a tall lanky kid with short dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. Above his right eye was a silver eyebrow piercing as well as a number of piercing in each ear and one in his lip. “Oh look, it is alive! Good thing too, I was about to start poking you with a stick. So are you the crazy one or not?”

I didn’t say anything, but just nodded my head and laid it back down on the table. “Dude, that is totally fucking awesome!”

His response was so unexpected that my head shot back up with a look of complete confusion across my face. ‘Did he seriously just say it’s awesome?’ I was beginning to wonder if I wasn’t the only one in this school. He then leaned over across the table, shoving his face only about a foot from mine, causing me to lean back in my seat a little. He was practically trying to memorize my face, as if he wasn’t completely sure of what to make of me.

“Josh, knock it off, you’re creeping him out, and me too.” He finally backed off and sat in the seat across from me. “Well Nick, you have met both the school bitch and now the village idiot.” Josh bowed his head accepting the title with pride and for the first time today I found myself actually smiling, forgetting about Amber.

“So… just what all were you diagnosed with?” I found myself actually about to answer when Carrey chimed in.

“Jesus Christ! Do you ever think about what you say before you open your damn mouth?”

“What? I have a very strong curious nature and whenever I have a question, I have an even stronger urge to learn the answer to said question. I can’t help it if I want to learn. I mean, that is why we’re here, is it not?” The two of them had begun to bicker back and forth between themselves and it became clear that I wasn’t going to get a word in edgewise, even if they were arguing about me. Instead, I spent the remainder of our lunch watching them go back and forth with each other. The bell rang and it was clear they were not done discussing me with each other and I could expect it to be continued.

The next few classes continued the pattern my earlier classes had set up of being painfully dull to the point of wishing I were back in psychology. At least there, avoiding Drew’s eyes provided enough of a distraction to help time seem to move faster. Even history, which had always been my favorite subject, failed to keep my attention, as we had yet another C-Span commentator for a teacher who actually found a way to bleed out any excitement of World War II era Europe.

I had all but given up running into anyone I really knew from middle school and I still wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or not. I just felt like it would be nice to have one familiar face on my side in all this.

Lesson Number 10: You are only as strong as your weakest ally.

And while I appreciated Carrey, and even Josh, there was still a part of me that wouldn’t let me trust them, not with everything, not quite yet.

Every so often, I found my mind wondering back to them and how I wish they were here for plain entertainment value, if nothing else. Then my mind would wonder back to Drew and the power he held over me. I knew I would have to do something about it or risk becoming a living example of the day’s lesson.

Just when I thought, I might blackout from boredom, I found myself jolted into reality by the sound of the bell sending everyone scrambling to escape. I looked down at my schedule and found out that my last class of the day was gym. I wasn’t by any means the overly athletic type, but it had to be better than sitting through another hour of lectures. For the first time today, I found myself able to make it to my locker and drop off the number of books I had when my spirits shot through the roof. Finally, I had spotted not only a familiar face, but also one of the few friends I had from the year before. Shoving everything into my locker as rapidly as humanly possible, I ran to catch up to him. He was already halfway down the hall. However, after dodging and shoving my way past the swarm, I finally found myself catching up beside him.

“Logan, hey!” Logan, who had been one of my best friends last year, turned and looked at me as if he had seen a ghost. It was a safe bet that I was the last person he had been expecting to run into, which was understandable.

Just as I had feared, he had grown taller over the summer and now stood over me a good five inches. He had cut his sandy blonde hair short. And had ditched his glasses for contact lenses that made his eyes blue.

“Holy shit! Nick? When the hell did they let you come home?”

“About a month ago. I thought you would have gone to the new high school that opened up.”

“No, they switched the school districts around. Right when I thought I was about to go to the other school, I found out I had to go to this craptastic place.”

“So now that I’m back at home we should hang out.” The words left my mouth and right away, I could tell something was wrong, or maybe something had been wrong since he first saw me and I just hadn’t noticed it until then. I’m not sure. But the minute I mentioned hanging out, I knew.

“Yeah, I kinda got a lot going on right now… so everything is tied up right now.” I was being given the brush off and I knew it. The question was 'Why?' Logan had never been one to pass someone up.

“Well I don’t really have anything going on so whenever you’re free…” He just shook his head.

“Look, I don’t think it would be a really good idea for us to hang out too much.”

“And why’s that?”

“Look, after what happened, a lot of people began talking…”

“Yeah, I know, but it’s fine; I’m over it.” He was still shaking his head as if I were completely missing the point.

“Not about that. About what Mike had said My blood turned to ice at the mention of his name. “He’s going here too, and it might be weird for you to be around us is all”

“What the hell do you mean ‘us’? You’re seriously still hanging out with him after what the hell he did?”

“Look, he’s real sorry about what had happened and besides… it’s not like you ever really denied it and it got me thinking. All he really did was tell everyone the truth. And if it is the truth, then it might not be such a good idea for us to be seen together.”

I felt as if I had been punched in the heart repeatedly and then pissed on by someone who I had once considered one of my closest friends. I wanted to speak, but words had become lost to me. Instead, I just stood there refusing to cry by sheer will alone. I watched as he turned and walked down the hall, leaving me standing there statuesquely.

I had lost all sense of time because by the time I finally moved, the bell had rung, signaling the start of the last period and the halls were now empty. I didn’t go to class. Instead, I sat down on the floor of the hall and leaned my back against a row of lockers. His words kept playing repeatedly until my will finally broke and my eyes began stinging with tears.

I must have sat there for close to twenty minutes, unable and unwilling to move, when I heard footsteps coming from down the hall. Realizing the state I was in, I wiped my eyes and began taking deep breaths, trying to get my breathing back to normal. I had made a vow to show no weakness and it was one I insisted on keeping. I waited for the source of the footsteps to round the corner, expecting a teacher, or even worse, the walrus man, knowing that I was caught. But I was ready for any punishment they had; I didn’t care at that point.

To my relief, I was spared the wrath of the walrus man and instead found my Psychology teacher, Ms. Raltz, carrying numerous large paper bags.

“Oh, hi there… Nick, right?” I nodded as she shifted one of the bags so she could see me better. I expected at any moment for her to bust out and begin demanding why I was sitting in a hallway during class. However, she never did.

“I’ll make you a deal. You help me carry these back to my room and I won’t ask why you’re out here. So do we have a deal?” I didn’t say anything but rather got up and took three of the bags. We walked in silence through the halls until we finally made it to her room. “Just set the bags down over there and I’ll write you out a pass. Just this once though.”

“What’s in the bags?”

“Just some cake ingredients I need them for a class activity.”

“What does cake have to do with Psychology?”

“Well that’s what you’ll find out next week; for now though, you should probably try to get to class before the bell rings and at least make an appearance.” She handed me the slip of paper excusing my absence from the class due to me helping her set up for a project. I turned to leave, but I had one more question to ask before I left.

“Did you really mean what you said earlier about how there is no such thing as being normal?”

“Nick, one thing I’m sure you’ll learn about me is that I never say anything I don’t mean.”

“Then why is it some people are treated like outsiders for not being something that doesn’t exist?” She didn’t answer right away; she had to think on it for a moment before finally choosing her words.

“I think some people just get an idea of normal in their minds, and no matter how impossible it is to fit that mold, they tend to fear anyone who doesn’t, so much so that they fail to realize that they don’t fit it themselves. It is human nature to be imperfect. Which I feel is a good thing. A perfect world would be a very dull place to live. Don’t you think so?”

“Yeah I suppose it would be.” I turned and left the room. I made sure to really take my time making my way back towards the gym, hoping to catch it as late as possible. As luck would have it, I made it just in time for the last bell to ring. I had to practically jump out of the way to avoid being trampled by a stampede of kids leaving the locker rooms. I walked in and handed the pass to a more than absent minded gym teacher. He was not even aware I wasn’t in the class. But he made no fuss about it, which was fine by me. I was more than ready to get the day over with.

Carrey tried her best to get me to talk on the bus ride home, but my mind was still hung up on Logan’s betrayal… and of the fact that Mike was somewhere in the school as well. Eventually I knew I would have to face him, as much as the thought of it made me cringe. That last time I saw him he had all but ruined my life.

“So did you see any of your old friends?” I was at home eating dinner with Aunt Maggie when she had asked. I thought about telling her about Logan when I realized the wording of the question.

“No, no friends,” I said. ‘Just a traitor.’ I figured there was no reason to let her worry more than she already did.

“I'm sorry, sweetie. Look at it this way; maybe you can have a completely fresh start this way. Who knows? That might be just what you need.”

“Yeah, maybe.” She had no idea just how much my problems had followed me.

That night I was lying in my bed, unable to sleep, as usual, and once again, my mind began to analyze everything as if it were war, and I, the General, had managed to secure two new allies, despite a mutiny from an old one. However, I now had a new opposing force as well and instantly Amber’s face appeared in my mind. Also in the back of my mind was Mike, who had all but ended me last time. A mistake I could never make again. Then I had Drew, who I still had no category for. I lay there and thought like this until the clock read 1:30 am. Finally, after much effort, I shut down and slept.

Lesson Number 11: See Lesson Number 10.