Gone || ✔

II

I wake up to the smell of sweet maple syrup, crispy bacon and gooey fried eggs. The sight of the trees swaying with the wind and leaves flying with the birds starts to get to me, but I try to not let it take over me. Sometimes I feel like I'm just another leaf, following with the other leaves- the crowd. Then to be screwed over and stuck on the ground until I'm drowned and collapsed in snow. Actually, this is how I feel everyday. Except, I haven't been to public school in four and a half months.

My friends are people I've met on the internet, except for Jamison. He stood up for me in school. But we all sort of moved close together without realizing it, so now we all sorta hang out together. And it just so happens that we are playing an Ouija board at exactly ten o'clock at night to make it more dramatic.

At breakfast, I decide to ask mom - I mean beg her - about telling me why I need to go so bad to Alexx's house to play a stupid board game.

Me: why do I have to go?

Mom: because Lianna. You deserve a life, a chance to be like everyone else.

Me: there you go again! Nagging me to be something I'm not, to make me do something I don't enjoy. Like cheer. Remember how that turned out? I begged you to take me out of public school because YOU ruined everything I had. Chased away everything. I did have a life. But I am not being like someone else. I am my own person. And I'm not letting you take or chase that away from me either.

And with that, I leave.

--Later That Night--

I still haven't apologized to my inconsiderate mother. I don't have to. She's the one who should be apologizing, not me. A mother should never make her child do something she doesn't enjoy. Instead, the mother should be encouraging about things their child likes to do. But that's never happened to me.

Third grade, my mom was on the school's website and she came across cheer leading. She was so happy because she finally had a daughter who would make the "most perfect cheer leader." Back then, I was self-conscious. Yes, I know, why would a freaking third grader be self-conscious? I spent a lot of time to myself. Anyways, the next day, she got a physical and made me go to try-outs. I fell and did anything I could to embarrass myself, but trust me, I would never do that on purpose. Years later, I didn't think it would affect me.

But it did.

It affected me in so many ways I never, ever wanted to see another human being again. In the halls at school, I'd try my best to blend in with the crowd, but someone would always find me and make me noticeable. Everyone would go to the walls or lockers and make me walk in the hallway alone and they stick their legs out at me saying, "Don't trip." And when I would walk home. Boys would harass me. Every night I would cry myself to sleep when everyone else was already dead asleep. So no one would hear the sobs coming from someone who couldn't keep their feet on the ground, or the person who was pushed around by gravity.

Since I dropped out of high school, (I dropped out my freshman year) I've been in the house ever since. But now I'm finally out in the cold, walking to Alexx's house. It feels weird, the way the wind hits my face. It's like school all over again, and when my tears drop from my eyes and trail down my cheeks, the salty water dries up on my face. My hair whips in the wind and I'm freezing. I would get my phone, but I don't even think I can take my hands out of the warm pockets of my sweatshirt.

I forgot Alexx's house is 24 minutes away, so it's going to take me at least over an hour to get there at this rate. I risk the warmth of my hands to grab my phone and to CALL Alexx. I hate this. I hate everything. My shaky fingers jab onto the smooth screen and I accidentally hit the wrong button. I SWEAR TO GOD. I look around and see a gas station. Good enough. I walk with my head down and my arms across my chest, trying to keep some warmth and enter. The warm air around me hugs me like a big fluffy blanket. A small smile comes across my face and I realize the cashier is staring blankly at me.