Ocean Rose

False Petals

She looked straight ahead for a while. Noticing how the teacher's big blue yes smiled merrily at the children. She looked like her heart was filled with love for these strange children.

Your false heart cannot hurt me, she thought, Fake. Fake Fake.

The word echoed in her head, bouncing around on the walls of her brain, wanting to get out. But she couldn't forget it. Never would forget it. She closed her eyes.

It will be over. Soon, she felt her shoulders slump, Remember. Remember.

But behind all those ''Remembers'', she heard the sharp whisper.

Fake, fake, fake.

She closed her dark eyes and sat back, trying to keep herself together. She was a bomb. She knew.And she was about to burst. She pushed the thoughts out of her head. All the images had to disappear.

Still flashes of a lean figure raising their hand, screams, and blood on the floor passed through her mind.

And then the worst, a little boy smiling at her.

She quickly opened her eyes.That wasn't helping. And there was the teacher speaking jibberish. She caught on a few words.

''And I'm sure we'll have a great year...we'll work hard together...I'm here for you'', said the teacher,  with a smile .

She knew that this was all a lie. The great year that Ms. Fedora imagined would be full of pain, stress, and hatred.

She was waiting for the bell. The minute she heard the three piercing rings, she would be dashing out of here, away from the lies. But then, she would end up with more teachers to handle. More homework and more people over all she was going through.

And then it rang. It sliced the air with high-pitched rings and then she ran, feeling the wind smack her cheeks. She could feel other people's eyes on her, but she didn't care. She ran to her next class, checking her schedule only once to make sure this was the one.

Another period of torture, here we come.

She walked into the half-filled room and walked calmly to the back row. And then walked in a beer-bellied man with brown eyes and boring flat hair.

''Hello class,'' he said robotically, ''Today we are doing history''.

The girl felt relief. No long lecture about enjoying year. Nothing about friends. Now they were just getting to the point.

Now, they learned about some dead old guys. Great. She pulled out her crummy notebook that she got from Donnie Redwood down the street for a dollar. It had wrestler stickers all over the front .

Donnie Redwood was crossed out and ''Unknown'' was written in his place. She was never going to write down her name. Never. She didn't have a name. She had no identity. She was herself. That was enough. She grabbed the dirty pencil from her ripped pack. She had fished that pencil out of the gutter. It made her proud to see herself writing with it now.

And so she waited and watched as the teacher droned on. Occasionally she took notes. Even though she believed school was a hell-zone, didn't mean she wasn't gonna pass.

But then the teacher did the unexpected. He carelessly pointed to her.

He didn't say her name, but instead said with glazed eyes, " Now you, how was the Roman government organized?", 

The room was silent.

She said nothing.

She wouldn't say anything.

She had never said anything. 

Instead there she sat, with her eyes big and innocent and her lips dry and cracked. And without thinking she pointed to her throat and coughed. 

He nodded and didn't ask anymore questions. Instead he picked on something else.

She lay back, her neck layered with beads of sweat from the morning run. One teacher was mastered. He was figured out. The next ones would probably be tougher. She had to know exactly what to do to make things go her way.

 She sighed deeply, her hair falling onto her shoulder. She flicked it away.

And then, she caught the same guy from the field looking at her. What was his problem?

She shot a glare in his direction.The kind of glare that could break bullet-proof glass.

And suprisingly, he smiled and the room suddently seemed really hot and stuffy. She looked away, her hair falling onto her shoulder again.

She brushed it off, and took down some more stupid notes on Julius Caesar. And who cared about him? He was back-stabbed by his friend. Sucks for him. Why can't people just move on?

She glanced in the red-haired boy's direction. His amazing green eyes bore into hers. She quickly looked away, her cheeks red, and focused her attention to the front.

Julius Caesar felt really interesting right then.