Toxic Us.

: E :

Our social studies class all where lined up in the hallway outside the physiatrists office. I pitted them and they pitted me. When I walked by continuing into the slightly empty library I could feel them watching, wondering why the most damaged person since Marcus’s death didn’t step within a meter distance of a person who could help, supposedly they thought Albert could help them. But really I saw the souls who left his office, their eyes red but not from tears and their hands shook.

He was a bad therapist.

And I didn’t exactly want to shoot up in the school, now or ever.

So I sat down in a chair facing a white wall, nothing was particularly interesting about it, just your classic white brick wall. Yet I stared at it, soon accompanied by an older boy. I’d never seen him before; he had lost sea blue eyes like the boy’s picture at Marcus’s funeral, the boy who was supposedly Marcus himself.

“Hello” I said, still looking at the wall.

“Eve?” He asked, shifting awkwardly on the chair beside me, if his leg leant a centimeter more I was certain it would brush mine.

“Yes” I answered unfazed at how he had come to know my name.

“You knew Marcus?” He asked.

“No”

“He wrote to you”

“I was given his letter, and much to his wishes become rather odd to everyone after that”

He laughed.

“Odd is good, it is better than perfect”

I shrugged.

“I – call me Seth”

I nodded, feeling dizzy at the jerking movement. I clutched the bottle of water laying on the chair between my fingers until the pressure my grip turned them white.

I needed food.

Bad.

He noticed the tension, offering a stick of gum.

I accepted even though it wasn’t food in the generic sense, but at least I could trick my stomach into thinking it was and maybe that would buy me a few more hours before I would have to eat.

“Seth Optrica, right?” I chewed the gum, hiding it away in my cheek.

“Yeah”

“Were your brothers?”

“Halves, I only saw him at Christmas and even then we weren’t that close”

Do you miss him?”

“We weren’t close” He shrugged, tapping his fingers on the armrest of the chair.

“Do you miss him?” I repeated.

“Yes”

I nodded and we said nothing more.