FLAWED

Speechless.

Thursday December 11th

Post #19

Mr. Summerton put the list of people giving their speech by alphabetical order. I was practically melting into a pile of nothing by the time it was my turn to go up. I'd been practicing my speech every single day of this week so far but standing up there in front of twenty one people-I froze.

"I'm not really good at these kinds of things.." I tucked my hair behind my ear like I always do when I'm nervous. And after I awkwardly stood in front of the class for three minutes saying absolutely nothing, I left. I didn't end up going very far-I actually just stopped in front of my locker. Don't get me wrong, I didn't have an anxiety attack but I still crouched down on the floor and put my knees to my chest. I sat there with my head down for a good ten minutes trying to get myself to stop crying. In a puddle of tears from my frustration, I couldn't get myself to shake this act of cowardness. I felt like a coward for running out of a class just because I couldn't get myself to remember what to say. So with my golden hair covering my eyes and my head tucked down, I wept.

If it weren't for the smell of men's cologne and the faintly yellow hand on my shoulder, I wouldn't have ever moved. When I looked up, a concerned and worried Mr. Summerton was right in front of me. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I froze, and I didn't know what to do."

"You don't need to apologize, Sarah." He grabbed my hand and helped me off the ground. "It happens to everyone, so don't be so hard on myself."

Little did he know that's always been my biggest problem. I've always been the hardest on myself-beating myself up for every little thing I didn't do right. I wasn't always happy with myself and so I'd try to get over that by making myself do everything right. I got over that phase after eighth grade, but sometimes I have days like this where I'll feel like something is all my fault.

"So what do I do now?" I didn't really want to go back to class but where else was I going to go.

"Well, I still need to put a grade in the grade book so you could give it another try or wait for tomorrow." And that explains how I ended up back in front of the class after the very long pep talk Mr. Summerton gave me. I should have took another look at the speech I wrote out but I felt confident and I wanted to get it over with.

In Ms. Briggims's class I did my best to avoid Eric. I'd been ignoring his calls, messages and offers to give me a ride since Sunday night. At the end of class he grabbed my folder as I was putting things into my bag. "Did I do something wrong or do you not know how to answer your phone?"

Annoged, I rolled my eyes and extended my hand. "Can I have my folder now?"

"Not until you give me an explanation."

"I want you to stay away from me," I started. "Every second I get an ounce of happiness you come and you fuck with it. I'm with Steven so stop coming around us and giving me these reasons to be angry; because I just want to be happy."

"All I want is for you to be happy."

"If you wanted me to be happy you'd stop talking about how I'm better off with you and trying to get me to leave Steven."

"It's only because I would never hurt you."

I grabbed my folder from his hands and stuffed it into my bags. "And what makes you so sure you already haven't?" I didn't give him a chance to respond. I grabbed my bag and went to lunch to find Melanie sitting alone at my table.

"Where's Alison?" We were suppose to go out to eat but Alison was nowhere to be found.

"She had a dentist appointment-she left early." No offense, but Melanie looked horrible. I know I've been crying and my foundation was probably a little smudgy. But her hair looked as if it hadn't seen a comb in weeks and her clothes desperately needed to be ironed.