Shorter days, Longer nights

Chapter 27 || Go to waste

"Ms. Adler?" I sighed. Not again. This teacher seemed to have something against me. 

"Twenty-four?" I read out in a half questioning tone from the solution I had worked out in my notebook. My fingers swiftly opened and closed the back of my pen, feeling around the cartridge that come undone with it.

She crinkled her eyes and lowered her head before doing the shake of disappointment. My bros lightly dipped, and I pressed my lips unsure of what to do with the eye contact anymore. At that point I was just waiting for the 'expectations' lecture.  

"Ms. Adler, your recent performance in class has been concerning. I have to say I expected more from you. You were our model student, and I don't understand how you just let your grades slip up like that." 

I couldn't handle the eye contact anymore. My sight now set on the workings of my hands as I reminded myself to nod every time there was a little pause in what she was saying. I had heard those words multiple times. Not towards me but mostly toward other students. I usually just blanked through them not wanting to let the person feel too many eyes on them. I didn't understand why this had to be done in front of everyone, but I supposed the added shame from it was technically a motivate for me.

"It's frustrating for me to see potential go to waste. I need to see more effort and focus from you. What would your parents think?" My lips parted at the words, my fingers freezing in their tracks. I could see other students suddenly sitting up in their seats, their eyes burning daggers into my skull. The dead parents card was a little far. Even for her.

I stared emptily toward her. I was done entertaining that little lecture of hers. Fortunately, there wasn't much of a lecture left after that. Her lips were slightly parted too, and she looked at me expectedly. It felt as if the words meant nothing to her. Like she didn't even care what she had just spewed out. I wondered for a moment what kind of stuff someone had to go through to be that cold.

It was official. I hated her. My chemistry scores could have gone to hell for all I cared. Why did it matter now anyway? I didn't really have all that much of a life to make for myself now anyway. My brother had his own perfect little life. My parents were dead. Hell, even I was dead. Who did I even have left to impress?

I blanked out through the rest of her lecture. Solving some dumb chemistry equation wasn't all that important anymore. I spent most of my lunch break with Eva mostly because she wasn't in my chemistry class and didn't make me talk about what happened earlier while my friends on the other hand wouldn't have let the topic go. I was not in the mood to hear any more 'I'm sorry's'. 

I managed to pay attention to the rest of my classes. Ones that didn't include the teacher using my parents to shame me into studying. I had better grades in them in general anyway. Chemistry was simply the bane of my existence. Shitty teacher or not it didn't matter all that much. 

Jaycee picked us up at the end of the day again. My head was throbbing with pain anytime I moved it. There weren't many words exchanged between her and Eva and I was too frustrated to care about her all that much then. Besides, the chances of anything between me and her were low anyway. I felt... something for her even though I didn't want to. It was a whole tangled mess. One that I didn't need right now. 

Now I stood in the entrance of my room, taking it in, my head tilted downward while my blinking became infrequent. 'What would your parents think?' the words were an echo in my head. An echo that couldn't be silenced despite my best efforts. I felt so.. hollow. Like there was a hole burning through my chest, slowly making its way through the rest of my body. I was ready to go to sleep and preferably not wake up again.

My stuff from yesterday was still in my bag on the side table. It was unzipped and slightly leaning to one side from the mess I had made inside trying to get something decent to wear this morning. Nothing much happened after we came home yesterday; it was already fairly late we just had a simple dinner and went to bed. Or well I did anyway. There was also a lot of me losing any and all traces of logical thoughts whenever Jaycee got a little too close which seemed fairly stupid in retrospect.

I plopped my bag to the first spot I could see on the ground and dragged my feet to my bed after promptly shutting the door behind me. I kicked the shoes off my feet and brought the blanket up to my face. The warmth returned my mind to Jaycee and I had to force the thoughts out. I squeezed my eyes, all too aware of the frozen furrow of my brows. I didn't allow myself to think all that much in general and eventually drifted to sleep.

I woke up in complete darkness except for the little ray of light peeking through my door. I was used to that by now. I wanted to ask someone about it but the wording just seemed too embarrassing in my head. "Hey guys I can't manage to shut my doors right, do you have any idea why?" but then again, the whole can't step through the door deal was also a part of being what I was. 

I pressed my fingers to my eyes, letting out a sigh as the funny shapes came into sight. "What would your parents think?" her words came to mind. There really was no escape from that woman. 

I shook my head, as if physically trying to push the thoughts out of my head. I didn't want to dwell on it anymore. Stuff like that didn't bother me all that much on most days. It was fairly easy shaping my day around the whole broken-family-dead parents thing usually. Things like this barely happened. Even though the whole school was aware of it by now, no one dared to overstep those boundaries. 

What did it matter what she thought? She knew nothing about my life. I tried to shut my eyes and fall back into that peaceful slumber. And then I repeated that about three times before giving up. A classic case of 'I want sleep, but sleep doesn't want me'. I supposed that was still better than the nightmares that usually kept me up. At least my mind was somewhat blank. However, staring blankly into nothingness didn't last long either.

I found myself fumbling under my pillow trying to locate the phone I had carelessly tossed around when I first lay down. The cool screen casted a faint yet uncomfortable glow on my face. The brightness was set for using it under the sun not in pitch black hence it was far brighter than I was ready for. I flinched and let my eyes adjust to it for a moment.