The Insanity of a Wallflower

Appreciation For Beauty- XI

I turned and ran as fast as I could. More people yelled at me as I slammed into them, charging by. My heart tore within my chest and a nauseating sensation pulled behind my lips.

No! This can't be happening! No one was supposed to know!

He was never supposed to know!

I thought of all my drawings within his grasps, I thought of those dead silver eyes gazing at every single one of them; the hundreds of students within our senior class sculpted to their most hideous self....

A rough hand enclosed around my elbow and pulled me back. I yipped and swung on my heel scared shïtless. But it was Tim who was staring at me in fury, not Hayden.

"What the hell happened to you?" He demanded. "You just ran straight passed me, looking like you're about to lose your mind!"

Sweat dampened my brow and I shook my head, my eyes searching the hall behind him. "I have to go Tim, I'm sorry."

"Alys!" he shook me slightly, "Snap out of this! You can't keep acting like this! Karri's gone; we have to get over it!"

My eyes snapped to his. I wanted to punch him in his face, but my inner chameleon clamped down my muscles. There were too many eyes around us. Though very few glanced this way, it was still too much. I had to fight to be faceless; I had to be nobody.

"You don't know me," I hissed lowly to Tim; my anger barely contained, "You have no right to say those things to me; to assume those things."

I ripped my arm out of his grasp and walked away.

I found my way into Ms. Lexington's classroom. I didn't take art this year, she chose not fill her time with advanced elective classes for a reason I didn't know. But this room still beckoned to me and soothed my inner core. There was no class this period and no teacher in question, so I wandered in, grabbed a chair and buried my head in my arms.

"Breathe, just breathe," I murmured to myself. What was going to happen to me?

The tick trembled my fingers so badly, my very bones seemed vibrate. I could feel its shadow swallowing me whole. Whatever progress I had made all these years was breaking away. My mind was doused in gasoline. What would he do to me? Would he try to fùck up my life now?

Those friends and teachers that had all left this school had all done the very same thing I had just done; cross the path of the very man you never should have even revealed yourself to. My fingers shook harder now. I thought of the soccer coach who lost his job after Hayden's first year on the team. He had tried to punch Hayden, a freshman as well as I was. I remembered Jason from the cafeteria as well. Suddenly, he had left school the following week. No one could get a word out of him; he refused to talk or laugh or explain anything more than "I just feel crowded here". He refused to show any emotion as Hayden shook his hand goodbye on those last days.

But mainly, I thought of the school counselor whom supervised those with the last names A-E, most specifically Hayden Donovan. I always considered myself lucky for having the last name Westbrook, for Counselor Kinsley could sense too much about me. I always resentfully eyed his Child Psychology credentials upon his far office wall.

My own counselor had been asked by him to question me and try to help me. But she was too dumb. I smiled gently for the fruit loop and she sent me away with a clean bill of student mental health- much to the pleasure of my mother. I knew he meant well, he truly cared for the hormonal time bombs that flooded these halls, but he was still bothersome nonetheless.