Eleven Floors | Cassie Lethbridge

Anthony Turner

Everything feels so surreal. Chatter filled the air. My fingers grabbed for my sandwich, my stomach growls. I rarely find myself reaching for food lately. But today I felt particularly hungry. It was as if something snapped in me, saying; "Anthony! Eat something you damned fool." And I guess I listened. Not often do I find myself doing something good for myself. I'd rather abuse myself with drugs and never feed myself. But that's a different story all together.

The cafeteria was crowded, per usual. You would think they would allow at least some students in the hallway, if they were uncomfortable with too many people in a room. But no. No, the school tries to "encourage" us to communicate with one another. The thought alone makes me want to roll my eyes. Even those of us who drive aren't aloud to leave the premises, unless we wanted a week of detention slapped right on our forehead.

"Hey." Simon, my best friend, since kindergarten had shoved my shoulder, in attempts to get my attention. I looked his way. A crumb from my turkey sandwich sitting on my bottom lip. "Rumour has it, Viola broke up with Jensen." He lifted one of his eyebrows up. The two slits he had put in them a few years ago were slowly starting to grow over. My heart began to rapidly beat against my rib cage.

"T-that's a joke, right?" I tripped over my words. Here's the story on viola; her goddess like appearance was nothing compared to her personality. As soon as she walked into a room, you felt instantly comfortable. She gave off this sort of, glowing sense. She was part of my "friend circle" as people would call it. She had been in my life for a while, not as long as Simon though. There were five of us. Me, Simon, Viola, Mark and Finn. We all stuck together. Finn was like Viola, this magical appearance when she entered a room. It seemed like all my friends (including Mark and Simon) had that glow about them. Except me. No one ever mentioned it about me. Maybe I did, I'll never know though. I'm usually left out of things.

That was the first floor in my head. "Friend island" as I liked to call it. No, not all levels had a name. Because not all of them have been determined this far in my life. My "floors" were discovered when I was twelve. My therapist had talked about my different personalities as floors. And it just stuck with me. The different feelings and moods I went through during that time of my life, it was just easier to label them as floors. So if I had to explain anything to anyone I could simply say, "think of floors. Each floor holds an emotion, personality or an undiscovered floor, where I can't determine if it exist or not." But that's just if anyone asked. No one really ever has. It confuses me sometimes myself. And it's my brain. I don't know if that's fucked or not, but to me I think it sort of is.

"Bro. Stop spacing out on me." Simon snapped his fingers in front of my face. I shook my head. "You do realize what this actually means, right?" He sighs. I nodded. Finally taking another bite of my sandwich, as if I completely forgot it existed for what felt like hours. It was three minutes.

"I'm keeping out of it. It's not my business. If she talks to me, she talks to me. I can't make her." Viola was a really closed off person. She kept her troubles to herself and Finn. Finn was her best friend, her go-to.

"Well you do realize, this could be your move. You could literally, not figuratively this time, get with her. Just ask her to hang out. Take her out for burgers and go to the arcade. Maybe bowling. You know she loves simple, cute stuff like that. Remind her how much you appreciate her." He gave me a grin of satisfaction as he bit into his grilled chicken wrap. Which, in my case looked so much better than my slopped together sandwich. He was right though. I'll ask her out on a friend date or something.

"Well, if I could find her then it'd be easier for me to talk to her. Don't you think?" I rolled my eyes. Lunch was so long. Why did we need an hour and a half to eat? It makes us get out later than most schools. The last ten minutes were approaching.

"She's probably in the gym. You know how she likes to read in there when Finn plays basketball." Oh right, did I say we couldn't leave the lunch room unless we went to the gym? Another stupid rule.

I stood up, shoving the rest of my food down my throat. I tossed my tray onto the top of the garbage can. Made my way out of the lunch room, telling the teacher on duty I was going into the gym. Which was directly across from the lunch room. I looked back to Simon, his thumbs ups and his eyes wide. I chuckled.

My stomach churned. It felt like it was a pit of tiny stones just rumbling around and around. I was anxious to say the least. Finally entering the gym, my eyes wandered around the room, looking for the glow that came from her. Suddenly, a tap on my shoulder. I turned around to be greeted by a very familiar mass of curly red hair. My stomach dropped all the way to my ass. Well, that's what it felt like. Suddenly the stones turned into butterflies.

"Hey, honeybat." She always called me that. It was her nickname for me. She had nicknames for every one of her friends. We all just called her by her name.

"Viola, hey." I tried to sound cool. I always felt pressured to impress her. Even though she's seen me drunk out of my mind, crying about my problems while throwing up into a gutter. She didn't judge people often.

"What's up? What made you come to the gym? You hate it here." She asked, her voice was like silk. That wrapped around my whole body and took over me. It was like there was a spell or, something out of the ordinary that came over me when I was around her.

I shrugged. "Heard about Jensen. Wanted to check up on you. That's all." I tried comforting her. Her eyes changed instantly. Her face heated up, she sniffled, trying to hold back tears.

"U-uh. Can I talk about it later?" She seemed to grow weak. Her body slumped over. All her energy seemed to be gone down the drain. "Sorry honeybat. I just can't handle it right now, alright?" She placed her hand on my shoulder and took a deep breath. She then embraced me into her arms. I was like her big fluffy teddybear. At least that's what she always told me after she hugged me. She had told me a few months ago that hugging me always made her better, no matter her state. Sober or not. Upset or not. Happy or not. This warmed me. I sunk into the hug. Holding her like I wouldn't be able to hold her again.

"How about I take you out for burgers and milkshakes after class?" I whispered into the hug.

She nodded. A tear slipped from her eye. "Thank you, I really need it." Those words alone, sent shivers down my spine. I smiled, pulling away and placing a small kiss upon her forehead. She always appreciated those. Grasping my hand, she took a deep breath and lead us out of the gym. The bell had finally rung, signalling second last period. We parted our ways, my heart breaking as we did so. She had history, I had art. So on I went, following the path to my class. Dreading what would be behind the door. But overly excited about this afternoon.