Big Brothers

Help Me

It's been a month. A month since... everything and everyone has been treating me like a ticking bomb. Everyone's been stepping on eggshells around me. I haven't tried to kill myself again. I haven't gotten the chance to. Someone is always watching me. I'm never alone. I guess in hindsight it's a good thing.

But why would you want to keep someone alive who desperately doesn't even want their life? Is that selfish of them? From what I remember, I was fighting against my thoughts. I was willingly taking in all that water, but my body naturally wanted to live. Naturally, my brain was trying to make my body swim to the surface. I just blocked the feeling and tried to die as fast as I could before I let my mind take over. Then James, selfishly, saved me. Everything after is a blur.

I haven't forgiven him for saving me. I didn't want to be saved. I wanted to die. I want to die. There's no way in hell I'd survive this... this life. There's always something. Nothing has been solved, either. It's still an open case, at least for Toby. Alexander is free for some odd reason. Both him and his brother are free. They can take me whenever they want. They can kill off Dylan whenever they want. God, they can do anything they want now.

"Lia, what's your answer for number 5?" asks Mr. Stone.

Crap, what was number 5? I quickly look down at an empty piece of paper. Class started 20 minutes ago and I hadn't bothered to even put my name on it. I know we were brushing up on biology for some reason...

"Miss. Hill?" He raises an eyebrow.

Ugh how I hate that stupid look.

"Um..." I clear my throat and quickly read the question.

What is one of the six basic elements of living organisms?

That's the question. I know this one. I close my eyes and try to remember them. I can't get anymore "bad notes" or "write ups" from any teachers or else my mom is sticking me into therapy. After what happened, we had a long talk and came to many solutions. I tried to play it off cool. I tried to make it like an "impulse move" and that I didn't really mean it. But I actually did and I still do. I'm not sure how they believed me enough to to give me one last chance.

"Maybe if you weren't dosing off into Lea-Land, you would know-"

"One of the 6 basic elements of living organisms is oxygen." I interrupt.

"... um... yes... that's correct..." he nods and writes the answer on the board along with all the other answers. "Please, at least look alive in my class."

That was a sick joke.

I nod, ignoring the slight anger bubbling inside. I take this time to jot all the answers written so far so I don't turn in an empty paper. Yes, I do remember to write my name.

"Alright, we have about 15 minutes left. Now that we went over the first 5 questions as a class, turn to a partner and discuss the last 5 together. Anything you don't complete will be homework." He puts the cap to his blue marker. "Also, just a reminder, we have no school Friday. It's a teacher-in-service day. I'll be passing out homework on Thursday which will be expected to be completed during the long weekend."

Everyone groans. Homework on a long weekend?

"I know, I know. Get to work."

"Hey, Mr. S" I hear the annoying tone from Brittany. "Can I work with Lea? My partner is absent today." She bats her stupid eyes.

He's ruffling through some papers, probably long over do assignments that either need to be graded or are graded and he just hasn't gotten to them. He has a habit of over assigning and not catching up with grading.