The World Beyond the Mirror - 3. Missed Busses

Sorry it's so short! It was too painful to write, and I had to move on quickly

I didn’t make the bus. I wasn’t even close. By the time I’d stumbled back to the school, even the teachers were all gone. I’d had to call my foster dad to pick me up, and he’d been pissed. I didn’t have the energy to care. I couldn’t feel anything past this gaping hole, this emptiness. I realized I’d been staring at nothing, tears leaking silently from my eyes, for longer than I should have. I looked around, finding that I was alone in the car, and it was almost dark. I’d spaced out completely, and my foster dad must have gone inside, leaving me here.

I looked around blankly, and some part of me recognized the house I’d been starting to like just a few days ago. That one little voice of sanity directed me to lift my hand and use my fingers to open the car door. It guided me up, out of the car, and reminded me to close the door before stumbling lifelessly into the house. It helped me take the stairs one at a time, and it followed all my usual habits, getting ready for bed. The nightmares began as my head hit the pillow, and they didn’t let up until my alarm clock screamed at me to get up.

I wasn’t going to go to school, until I realized that it was the only way I’d know if Nate had come back. I was able to get myself ready, moving mechanically, focused only on my goal of getting to the park again. I made it out to the bus, emotionless as a robot, and got on. I was numb the entire way to school, and as I got off the bus, all the fake smiles and cheap happiness surrounding me assaulted my senses.

I turned, heading in the opposite direction as everybody else, and I made it to the park. I sat down on the bench – our bench – and began to wait. I tried not to think, but I couldn’t stop worrying.

I knew it made no sense, but I couldn’t help this terror that I’d been right to stay distant from everybody. Every time I’d started to like someone, they’d died. It didn’t make me confident about Nate coming back, and I hated myself for not believing in him.

He has to come back, I told myself. It sounded weak, even in my head, but I held onto my necklace and repeated it to myself until I had to go back to school to catch the bus. I lingered for a long time, almost too long, but he never appeared.

When I got to the house, I was greeted by angry glares from my foster ‘parents’.

“Why the hell is the school calling us?” my foster dad demanded.

I brushed him off, going upstairs to the room they’d given me.

Fuck, I thought. I hadn’t been planning to skip, but that was only because I hadn’t been planning at all. My life didn’t feel real, and I’d been drifting through it like an ethereal shadow, ignoring everything and expecting the favor to be returned. Unfortunately, as removed from daily life as I felt, to everybody else nothing had changed. I was just another kid who’d skipped too many classes, and they were looking into it. I’d have to go to all my classes now, or something bad would happen. I couldn’t think enough to know what that would be. This was as much ‘considering’ as I could do. I’d been ignoring everything that needed my attention, because I just couldn’t deal with it. I still had to think about my date with Georgia, although that seemed petty and unimportant, and I hadn’t even started to decipher what I felt about Nate kissing me. I pulled my pillow over my head, trying to shut out all these thoughts, but the silence soon became deafening and the darkness was a stage for my imagination to perform all the worst scenarios it could. I ripped the pillow off my head, gasping for breath, and lay on my back, fingering my necklace while staring at the ceiling and trying not to cry. The burning of my eyes was able to distract me, and my nightmares tugged me back into their domain.

When I woke, there were fresh tears on my face, and I didn’t bother to wipe them away. More would take their place, anyway. I got ready for school, feeling like a puppet putting on a play for the world. A small, emotionless, part of my brain had taken control of my body, and it was pulling my strings, making me dance so people could see what they wanted to see. It got me to school, making up for how most of me was still grieving in the back of my mind, oblivious to the world. The counsellors wanted to talk to me, but I didn’t remember any of what I’d told them, if anything. It must have worked, because they left me alone, and I lost myself in grief, not paying attention to anything. At lunch, Georgia caught me again before I escaped to the park to wait, even though a part of me was screaming that there was nothing to wait for, no reason to continue suffering through life. She followed me on the way there, and I thought I apologized and promised her that my depression wasn’t anything to do with her. I wasn't really sure what I was saying, and I didn't care as long as it made her leave. A part of me still remembered that she wasn’t a bad person, so it was important to be polite. That part of me took over, and I confessed to her that I’d kissed someone else, and she stormed off after I apologized. That was the last contact I had with people. After that, I shut myself down and let the days slide past, marked only by the growing hole in my heart. One day passed, then two. Three days passed, and still Nate didn’t show up. Four. After a week passed, I lost hope. I continued with my schedule, because I didn’t know what else to do with myself, but I knew I wouldn’t live much longer, and the knowledge comforted me. All I had to do was find some way of ending it all, and I could fall into the embrace of oblivion.

I found myself in my math class, with no memory of how I’d gotten here. I must have walked, but I wasn’t aware enough to remember it. I was operating on autopilot, and large chunks of my memories were missing where I’d just… zoned out, moving around from habit. It was hard to believe this was real life, and not just another nightmare, but it was.

I stared out the window blankly, trying not to let this emptiness consume me. My mind had long since shut down, and I hadn’t had a conscious thought in what seemed like forever. I was vaguely aware of my hand on my necklace, and I wiped my eyes as my view of the road blurred. When I opened them again, it was still blurry. I felt some of my mind shake itself out of its stupor, and I realized the window had fogged. It was just a small part of it, as if someone had breathed on it, and I felt a spark of my old curiosity flicker to life as something left marks in the fog. It was the first emotion I’d felt since… I flinched away from remembering. It had been a while, anyway. I felt more of my brain come to life, and a part of my old self returned as I watched the line being drawn. It curved, and my eyes followed it, with only the slightest spark of interest. As my brain dusted itself off, it slowly noticed that there was nobody on the other side of the window. I physically shook myself, and I examined the phenomenon with as much intensity as I could muster. I blinked as the line joined up with where it had started, and I saw it was a heart. I stared at it for a moment, uncomprehending, until I saw a flash of pink on the other side of the window. It had only been there for a second, but…

I jumped up, knocking my chair over, and ran out of the class, ignoring the teacher’s shouting. I couldn’t help a flare of hope as I ran, and I felt my old self returning fully as I threw open the school doors. There was somewhere I needed to be, and it wasn’t here.

Thanks for all the encouragement! The next chapter'll come out in two days (the 25th), 'cause I'm a sadistic bastard and I want to keep writing ahead of what I have posted, just in case I can't write for a while