I’d gone through endless years of school and done a seemingly infinite number of homework assignments, struggling through plenty of crap that I didn’t understand with my sanity relatively uninjured, but, recently, I’d get confused about a difficult math problem and get frustrated with why I was doing it rather than my inability to do it properly.
In sixth grade, I had a great history teacher, probably learned tons, and had a decent enough time being pushed through the curriculum. Problematically, though, five years later, I did not remember any of what those lessons had included. Not only was I unable to recall every detail of the history I had learned that year, but I didn’t even remember what we had studied. Something to do with Buddhism, probably India. Exactly what we’d gone over at the beginning of Junior year, too, and that, that pissed me off. How many hours had I passed in those stupid fucking plastic chairs in sixth grade history, or social studies, as we referred to it then, hearing information that was ejected from my head immediately after I was tested on it? Why listen to lectures to hear the exact same words repeated ages later, the erased information once again registering as new in my mind?
By that point in the year, both the students and instructors of Dulaney were stumbling exhaustedly to the next break, the monotonous days losing their definite edges and blending into a perpetual school day. Connecting notable events to the day they occurred became a struggle since everything got so indistinguishable, the months when Spring Break was over and it was too soon to get excited about summer always depleting everyone of the remaining energy that they could offer to classes. I was running out of fucks to give, so whenever I turned a textbook page to discover that the math problems I still had to do were multi-stepped and complicated, I snapped.
I’d end up frowning at my notebook, pencil slipping through my fingers and over my knuckles, eyebrows pushed together with concentration as my thoughts departed from the assignment and instead focused on its futility. When, exactly, would my extensive knowledge of the parts of the cell improve my life? If I ever reflected on my existence and realized that I had some scientific job – in a cardboard cubicle, surely, since I wasn’t smart enough to be an important scientist – I’d either quit immediately and search for a career that wouldn’t disappoint my teenage self, or have a mental breakdown because of how much of a failure I was. So what was the purpose behind learning about the properties of water?
The answer to that question was both obvious and irritating. I strained for good grades in the subjects that I despised so that my transcript would be impressive and I’d be accepted to decent colleges. The only thing that prevented me from ripping up my math notebooks was the fact that failing a class would give me a deplorable GPA, and I’d go to community college or make minimum wage at Burger King. Both of those options were alarming, so, despite internally convulsing when looking at the numbers that I’d squiggled across so much graph paper, I did my homework and passed my tests and tried to ignore how sad it was that the only unusual events in my foreseeable-future were exams.
It maddened me, though, that I slogged through all this shit for such an idiotic reason. Everything leads up to something else, and high school A’s would only contribute to the next section of my education. College degrees, of course, were viewed as important exclusively by possible employers and pretentious dickheads, so they were also quite essential. Memorizing impractical information that would ultimately be forgotten had been annoying me to such an extreme extent that everything I did suddenly seemed pointless, and I’d be overcome by this idea that nothing had any purpose and I may as well snuggle up in some blankets with my music and never move again, because all the effort I put into school, which controlled most of my life, was insignificant.
But in those instants when everything appeared inane, I searched for an actually meaningful justification for doing all this crap, and recalled the times when I experienced the exact opposite emotions. I sometimes questioned if the good in life should completely outweigh the bad, or if it was worth stressing through the repetitive days to get to the ecstasy-inducing events. When my brain was throbbing with the stupidity of most of what I was forced to do, remembering shouting lyrics and pressing forward with crowds under flashing lights with drums beating in my chest kept me sane.
I forgot that, sometimes, but music was why I did it, all of it. Concerts made everything worth it. The excitement and happiness that had thrilled me when Alex alerted me of Fall Out Boy’s reunion were sensations that I remembered during those distressing assignments, and while living off happy memories was dangerous, believing that they’d be repeated in the future motivated me to exist. Ideally, I’d eventually live because being alive was so wonderful, but until then, I got through this textbook reading, this period, this week, this issue, slumping on until my next chance to really live.
So, even though I spent the previous night pulling painfully on my hair and erratically blinking my eyes because I couldn’t answer a review question for Science, waking up to discover that Fall Out Boy had made Save Rock and Roll available to listen to a week before it was released immediately got rid of my concern for the test I’d be taking. Maybe my priorities were fucked, but if I was still breathing and an hour closer to getting home and hearing new music from one of my favorite bands after my Science exam, regardless of the grade I received, it’d been worth doing. Aggravated Sunday night for an elated Monday – I’d take it.
I went through that day with jittery fingers and random smiles, laughing through math, doodling lyrics instead of taking notes, practically skipping around the field with Alex during PE, and irregularly grinning at my notebook during History, though I hated that class. When my science class simultaneously decided that the period was close enough to being over and began tossing supplies into pencil cases and flinging chairs up on desks after our test, Alex came over from his current place across the room and stopped me from watching the second hand of the clock tick away the remaining minutes of the day, pushing his hair out of his eyes and asking, “Wanna do something today?”
“I have to listen to Fall Out Boy,” I replied, brain too focused on getting my computer and playing Save Rock and Roll to contemplate the possibility of doing anything else with the rest of my day.
Alex nodded seriously, that stupid, cute smile playing on his lips as he said, “Obviously, but I figured that we could go and do that separately, or, preferably, multitask and make out while listening to Fall Out Boy.”
I grinned and grabbed his hand as the bell rang, pulling my boyfriend -- who had amazingly improved the already incredible occurrence of Fall Out Boy leaking their own album -- out the door and into the halls, maneuvering to our lockers.
Some pushing, a car ride, and several repetitions of Save Rock and Roll later, Alex was sucking on my lip, thighs on either side of my hips, fingers pulling at my hair, my hands running over his spine under his shirt, Alone Together playing as we disregarded the actuality of homework. My attention was split between the essentially perfect brunet straddling me and the extraordinary song.
I pressed my hands up as the chorus pumped out of my speakers, pushing against Alex’s shoulder blades as the music progressed, his lips moving to kiss the side of my neck. My eyes opened, wide and blinking, breath measured, high with positive endorphins. It was sensory overload, almost, with Alex sucking on my skin and Patrick Stump singing in my ears.
If my brain could function properly in that instant, I would have realized that such sensations were exactly what convinced me to endure all those that I detested, and been impressed that the shitty night before had been canceled out by excellence so quickly. But, really, it’s the moments where it’s impossible to notice anything besides what is currently happening that are the best. Those are the ones that justify the infinite crap.
As Alone Together’s only verse repeated, Alex dropped his head onto my shoulder, giggling. Confused, I connected our eyes when he turned his head, cheek against my collarbone, smiling at me with laughing lips. In response to my expression, he said, “You’re tapping the beat on my back.”
My unconsciously moving fingers stilled on his spine as the song ended, and I considered this, deciding that I was an idiot, a really fucking happy idiot, and saying, “I really like this song.”
Alex giggled again, kissing me once more and declaring, “I really like you,” before moving off of me, folding his arms under one of my pillows and observing me with expectant eyes, Where Did The Party Go beginning. I pushed up the back of his shirt, Alex’s eyes slipping closed as I rolled onto my side and continued drumming the rhythm on his back. He exhaled, pillow absorbing his breath, muscles relaxing into my bed. I was amazed by him, that he was in my room, content with my weird reaction to the record. I was so happy.
I listened to the indistinguishable words of the pre-chorus, grinning at the return of Fall Out Boy’s impossible to understand lyrics, and watched the movement of Alex’s back under my fingers as he squirmed and inhaled, my smile widening, and that, that was strange. I felt almost the same about Alex as I did music, and I loved music.
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Alex left, stumbling out of my car and up the divide in their deprived grass, leaving me with shining lips and Alone Together stuck in my head, the beat stimulating and firing my brain cells as the music bounced through my mind. I drove home with a smile, humming what was most likely the incorrect chorus, tapping the tempo on my thigh. Thoughts overpowered by that amazing song and nerves sensitized by Alex’s skin; everything, for once, was good.
I put my phone on my dresser and kicked off my sneakers after returning, grinning stupidly at my tangled bedding before going off to shower. I passed May curved over homework and my dad typing with his glasses falling off his nose in the office as I walked to the bathroom. Neither acknowledged me.
With water pouring down behind me, splashing against the glass shower door, and air buzzing around the bathroom, I stared at my reflection, elbows propped up on the counter and my discarded v-neck slipping into the sink. Mirrors were strange, I decided, examining my appearance and analyzing its aspects. Really, what did they reveal?
I wasn’t overly concerned with my looks, since it’s completely useless to be anxious about something that’s unchangeable. My nose was embarrassingly huge and my large eyebrows, though humorous, were absurd. And that said what about me, exactly?
Writers give their characters metaphorical physical traits, but, in reality, my uninteresting eyes were just a result of genetics. I did this sometimes, searching my pupils for my identity, and was consistently disappointed by the nothingness in them. Maybe the loops and lines of my irises did disclose my personality, but the technology to decode those stripes had yet to be invented.
I curled my neck forward, contemplating myself through the platinum blond blotch, condensation obscuring my face. Black lashes circling tired sockets, white skin stretched over prominent bones, silly hair stuck to my big forehead. Hair, possibly, meant something; mine had a bleached blond section and looked insane because of my boyfriend’s tugging fingers. Even that wasn’t obvious, though. It could easily be assumed that I’d recently woken up, or, laughably, had been exercising and was disordered because of it. Hilarious, what some could guess from debatably meaningless appearances.
Angling my chin up to observe the bruise on the underside of my jaw, sucked into existence by Alex’s teeth, I straightened my joints, veins flipped by the mirror. My shoulders hunched as I put my weight on my wrists, monitoring my y-shaped scar as it reddened with the tension on my tendons. It was a reverse h in my reflection, blurry. Scars are substantial; they come with stories, pure or disturbing, exciting or boring, funny or depressing. The explanation of mine was both unlikely and unexciting, like everything that had happened while I’d been a Junior. What a year I’d had.
I stepped back, blinking at the pink scars exposed above the top of my boxers, jeans not concealing them. I popped the button and pulled the zipper, opening them enough for the denim to bend over, tugging my briefs down below the cuts scarring my hips. They too had whitened, fusing with my uninjured skin, only a couple on each bone still defined and red.
They were slanted, imperfect, overlapping and diverse, delicate and extended or wide and short, produced by different pressures and presses of the razor. Even after having sliced so many scars onto myself, I didn’t know what caused what. How much the blade had to be pushed in to cover my thigh with blood, make a skinny scab immediately instead of needing bandages, or give me a unfading disfiguration, I still wasn’t positive. Pain, blood, and permanence, weren’t, from my experience, related. Confusing, maybe metaphorical. Exactly like everything else.
The oddest thing about my reflection, though, was that I didn’t really connect to it. The brown eyes were obviously mine, and I could recount the creation of every deformation on my body, but my personality wasn’t exposed by the freckle on my shoulder or my jagged nails. That could be the explanation for my disinterest in my appearance. It wasn’t that I was indifferent to looks – I only originally noticed Alex because of his honey hair and cute dimples – but their importance was definitely over exaggerated.
Sure, it was Alex’s pink mouth that I’d focused on before I knew his last name, but it was the funny and intelligent words that he said with it that made me love kissing him. His sparkling eyes were endearing, yet where he directed them and what caused his pupils to expand was more meaningful than their color. Alex’s long fingers were uninteresting to me until they used a pencil to explain Algebra to me, or slotted perfectly between mine.
It’s the changeable parts of us, I decided, that differentiated us. Decisions have no impact on our DNA, but it was how we modified the result of our genetics that gave clues to our identity.
I, whenever possible, had my legs crossed. Some hooked their ankles together under their seat or flopped their knees wide open. My hands were restless; drumming a beat, fidgeting together, pulling on the inside of my pockets, or playing with random objects whenever unoccupied. Others pressed theirs together, motionless, or placed them on their thighs. There could be an exact duplicate of me, an optic double, who always stood with his shoes together and arms relaxed at his sides, and he’d be absolutely nothing like me. I’d never stand like that.
If I had the same injuries, same two-tone hair, same band tees, same everything, but different mannerisms, I wouldn’t be me. Did my jokes not cause Alex’s teeth to poke out, I wouldn’t be able to laugh unrestrainedly with him. Were his laugh the same sound but not preceded by a bubbling gasp, he wouldn’t be as irresistible. So it’s how we enhance, use, and place our bodies that defines us. Physical indicators only disclosed a fraction of us.
Deciding that philosophizing while the shower was running was wasteful, I continued to observe myself and movements in the increasingly wet mirror and tugged off my jeans. Everything about me contributed to my identity, I supposed, so both my stuttering progress in removing my pants and the pale legs uncovered as I got them off made me Jack Barakat, teenage idiot. And I was ok with that. Though I despised myself and was continuously baffled about Alex’s desire to be with me, I was me, and repressing that was silly. That wide scar on my left hip irritated me, but it was permanent, so what use was there in agonizing over it? I had an plenty of mental annoyances, and couldn’t handle any more.
I slid the glass door closed and ducked under the water, contemplating how maybe, blocks away, Alex was facing his own mirror, discontent with what he saw. That was absurd to me, exactly as my personal hate must be to Alex. It was lovely, having someone I so adored reflect my feelings. If Alex liked me, I had to be decent.
Objectively, I realized that, and I refused to believe that I’d never internalize it. Eventually.
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So, it's been several months since the last chapter. Sorry about that. This one is quite disorganized and strange, but so is the rest of this story, so hopefully no one will mind. As usual, I don't bullshit anything in this, and really believe everything I said in here. I've got plenty of friends who are nice, funny, interesting, whatever, and have unclear skin of frizzy hair, but who actually gives a fuck? If anyone judges you on your looks, they're a dick, fuck them. Anyways, I think I've got something worth saying again, so there shouldn't be any more huge gaps between updates. I'm not going to make any promises about when the next'll be, though. Thanks for all the support, even when I was giving you guys nothing in return. Please comment and vote!
xoxo
Rose