Toxic Us.

:E:

Isolation.

I was trapped in it.

I sat in the cafeteria, scribbling forgotten ruminates of a philosophical essay. It was daft and my small printing almost made it illegible but I continued on, knowing as long as these papers were handed it I would have proved Mr. Fint wrong.

He like most didn't understand me.

It was hard to anyway, I was told.

On the final line of my paper my hand tremored slightly, a line slicing its way across the bottom right side of the page where I was yet to write anything, in my race against time I wrote over the blue smudged ink before shoving the contents in my bag.

Looking up a boy sat across from me, I hadn't heard him sit down but there he was. I watched how his hands scooped what appeared to be lunchmeat into his rosy lips steadily. He looked up and stared at my face before finishing off his food.

His almond eyes closing as he gulped at the water resting beside him. Slamming it down hard against the table, I flinched and he laughed.

"Your strange" He shook his head as he made the observation.

An exposed feeling creeping it's way into my stomach. My palms sweat and I pushed down the sleeves of a sweatshirt that had belonged to my mother at my age. She never got rid of anything, so it led to me wearing most of her out of fashion clothes. Not that I minded, presentation didn't matter to me. As long as it was clean it was fine in my books.

"You, aren't you in my - um social studies class with that teacher - she is kind of -"

"You don't talk a lot do you?"

"No - not really, it gets me nervous easily - and then nervousness can lead to paranoia and -"

"Your really quiet you know?"

I knew, numerous doctors told me.

I nodded, tapping with my bitten down nails on the table.

I began to list off my movements as side affects, my quietness, anxiety, small handwriting, tremors.

It calmed it me down.

"Are you ok?" He asked leaning back in his chair.

I shook my head as I listed off another, nausea.

I stood up abruptly, not bothering to bring my bag as I ran to the bathrooms, empty the contents of any food in my stomach in the fourth stall. Glad her mother talked her into tying her hair up today.

As I sat curling with my arms around the ceramic bowl who was the closet thing to a friend I had, considering the amount of time I spent with it another side affect kicked, the overcoming sadness.

Depression.

All of them reminded me of one thing, I had to visit the nurse's office in twenty minutes for medication.

"Are you bulimic?" I heard the boy's voice say.

"What - why are you here?" I asked, my throat burning.

"Are you?" He asked, I heard the sound of him sit down on the unsanitary floor as he spoke.

"No, just Parkinson's"

"Like that Back to the Future guy?"

I forced a laughed.

"Yeah, I guess - kind of" I drained the bowl, hitting the flush button before opening the door.

"Ok" I saw him shrug before holding out his hand; I took it his palms soft as he hoisted me off the ground.

My bag rested against the wall of one of the cubicles. I picked it up gratefully and slinging it over my back, catching sight of my reflection I averted my eyes.

"This is fucked up"

I shrugged.

"So I guess we should tell each other our names right, since that's what friends do right?"

"Friends?" I washed my hands in the basin at least four times but couldn't help but wash them again.

"Yeah, I'm Curtis" He stuck out his hand but then took it back when he realized she was otherwise preoccupied.

"Eve, nothing worth - mentioning really.." I muttered facing him.

"Don't forget were both fucked up"

How?"

"I tried to commit suicide, you throw up in bathroom stalls because of some weird shit Marty has" He smiled as if he told me it was sunny skies tomorrow.

"Michael J Fox"

"Nah, I think Mcfly suits you better"

He left her after that with a shitty nickname and questions.