Yeah, I Heard You.

Chapter 11

I felt my eyes begin to water as I stood my ground, as if fighting off all of the evils in the world simply by standing there like a rock.

I couldn't help but have an old book come to mind, Dante's Inferno by Durante degli Alighieri. In the story, Dante travels through the nine circles of hell. The outer circles consist of things like lust and gluttony, but the inner most circle was treachery. My old teacher explained this inner most circle to be the betrayal of a friend or someone close to you. She said that we often look to the most obvious sins, like lust for instance, as being our tickets to Hell but what if the seven deadly sins were not the worst things we could commit? Perhaps, there is something much worse that we do not often understand to be as awful, like your very best friends' betrayal.

I never quite understood how for Dante the worst level of Hell would consist of friends who stabbed you in the back compared to serial killers or rapist, but now I think I understand. When you here about rapists and serial killers, you no doubt think something along the lines of 'How terrible,' or 'That's so sick,' but when your friend, who you've told everything, who you've looked to for support and guidance pulls the rug out from underneath your feet, there are no words to represent the feelings that you find within yourself.

A part of me understood that Tim never betrayed me in the conventional since, he never told my secrets to another, and he never did something to purposefully humiliate me. However, he did pull the rug out from underneath my feet, and he prevented me from trusting in him. He hurt me, without truly meaning to. For those reasons, I understand Dante's Inferno, because if I were to ever truly feel the betrayal of a friend that hurt Dante so much that he placed them in the lower most circle of his Hell, I would go mad.

I forced my thoughts away from their gruesome path, and forced myself to focus on the present, trying not to let my mind wander any more.

Earlier I didn't know what I was feeling, but know I know I'm feeling to many things, hurt, sadness, anger, etc. I desperately tried to cut off my emotions, but I found a bit of hurt and anger still leaked out. It would have to do.

Soon enough Couch Danes began our practice fitness tests. We ran the pacer, did curl ups, and finished off with push-ups. The period went by fast enough, me in my own little bubble, mostly trying to ignore Tim. Eventually Couch Danes ended our training for the fitness test and we changed back into our normal clothes.

I decided to hang out in the library instead of going to lunch, leaving all my stuff in the Health room. I didn't want to face Tim, who would undoubtedly be telling Bells everything that went down last period. Oh good God, when did my life became some drama induced soap opera to be played by big breasted balls of make up watched by bored teens in the summer time? I thought this was reserved for the sixteen and pregnant girls, or the weed infatuated kids who fail all of their classes. Since when was there a drama made about an unimportant, studious girl with a weird since of humor? What kind of parody is this?

I was just about to make my way back to Health to gather my belongings when someone called my name.

"Yeah?" I called back, turning around to see Payne jog up. Crap, I forgot about him.

"Hey," he said, throwing me his heartbreaking smile.

"Hey," I said nervously, I felt my heart skip about five beats.

"Where you headed next?" Payne asked as we began walking back to the Health room.

"English, you?"

"I got Math," Payne said as he made a funny face, clearly expressing his dislike of the class.

"Well, when you say things like that, be glad you don't 'got' English next," I said, bringing out my true inner nerd that must always make an appearance.