My senses are hyperaware. Every step I take, I feel the force rattling through my knees. Every breath, every word the people around me utter, echoes haphazardly in my ears. Every whiff of perfume, every meal in the cafeteria swamps my nostrils in wave of overwhelming smells. My eyes dart feverishly around me, picking up every movement around me, every sideways glance directed at me. Most of all, though, my tongue. I can taste everything. I can taste my lunch of a peanut butter sandwich, the apple that I ate with it, the soapy taste of cologne, and worst of all, oranges. The sour tang of oranges haunt me with every step I take to my next class, of my last kiss with Matt. I can taste his kiss, his oranges, and it terrifies me, the hold it has on me. And I hate myself even more for letting him do that to me.
"Hey. You alright?" I snap out of my reverie, and look up to find myself inches away from Josh, who's looking down at me concernedly.
"Hm? What? Yes, I'm fine, it's nothing," I mutter, as I shoulder my way past him and into the classroom. I'm hardly surprised when Josh sits with me again at the back of the room.
"Hey, seriously, what's wrong?" His solicitude sickens me, the fact that he is more perceptive of my breaking down than my own boyfriend. "I haven't seen you in class all week!"
"It's nothing."
"Does this have to do with last week? That fight with Emma?"
I desperately want to say no, to hide the fact that her words have sunk deep, deep beneath my skin, but my lips won't obey, betraying the fear that is consuming me. I don't dare to look up at Josh as I slowly, methodically take out my textbooks and my pencil case. In... Out... In...
"Alex? Alex, please, say something."
In... Out... In...
"Please, Alex, you're crying!"
My breathing falters, and I stifle a strangled sob with my fist. The classroom isn't full yet, with just several students seated near the front of the room, so Josh holds me close to him, letting me muffle my sobs in his shirt.
I desperately want to let go of him, to stop crying like a whiny bitch, but I can't. I have held these emotions inside me like a tightly corked bottle for the past week, and now I have to let them out, before the glass fragments and rips me apart inside out.
Slowly, slowly, slowly, I regain control, and when I look up at Josh, the words are lifeless, dead on my tongue.
"Emma was right."
CZYTASZ
How to Save a Life
Krótkie Opowiadania"Life is like a rollercoaster that you just can't wait to get off." Alex is suicidal. Alex is depressed. This much is true. When Emma finds her crying in the girls' toilets, she tries to help, but she makes a fatal mistake in telling her friends. Wo...
