Stop Looking At Me.

Why are you staring at me like that? Stop that. Stop it. I don't need that look of criticism in your eyes. I get it from more people than you. Yeah, I'm here, why do you give a shit? Turn around. Stop looking at me. Go back to reading that newspaper or book or twiddling thumbs or whatever your hiding beneath your desk. Quit it. I'm serious.

Just because I've been gone doesn't give you the right to suddenly care. You never cared. I hate you, more than anyone else here. I hate you above all the rest. No, stop, stop coming closer. Stop it! Leave me alone! I'm backing away now, seriously, just go away. Yeah, I'm making a break for it. That one lady tried grabbing my arm? Just because you're assigned to make sure I don't do anything reckless.... Okay, perhaps it's justified. I promise, I won't do anything.... Just please, leave me alone. Let me breath.

The lady ain't the one chasin' me when I glance back, cause' she's just standing at the door staring at me as I go, but you are. You're running towards me. Your face is twisted in worry and fear. Are you afraid I'll do something too? I won't, I promise, just please.... Leave me alone.... Leave me be.

I can't breath. My chest is tight. I need a place to escape to... I need to run away from them all.

The music hall is the first place my mind wanders to for an escape. The secondary chorus room has remained empty through the remainder of the year due to the fact that Mr. Jensen retired and nobody wanted to do chorus anymore with nasty Mrs. Cobasa as the new teacher. The stairs, my feet are slapping against the stairs. Man, I'm so grateful that I have the practice of going up and down the stairs five times per morning at least. Even as I begin to sprint the way to the music hall, I can hear you barely halfway down the staircase. I take the opportunity to look around to make sure there were no teachers in the band room instead before slipping in. No way to get into the locked chorus room unless going through Mr. Veret's room. At least he was irresponsible compared to the choral nightmare. But, it's probably because of all the makeout sessions that happen in the room that Mrs. Cobasa made it a habit to lock the door behind herself. Too much PDA PTSD.

Darkness, the calming darkness. The feeling of it surrounding me... I can breath again. Ouch, my knees slamming against the ground as I collapse, they burn now. Is that blood I smell?

You burst in looking like some kind of hero, stop that, you can't just magically save me. Please... Stop coming closer.... Leave me be. Let me suffer alone. The feeling of your hand on my shoulder as you crouch down to my level, why is it so calming? More so than this darkness that was musty and stale and lonely? Why won't you leave me be? I gather all the strength within my trembling bones, but I'm so weak from the shaking that its only enough to wiggle my shoulder. I shake away your touch, but you only come back stronger. Why do your arms wrap around me so? Such a warm....

I can feel the warmth of a salty dew drop down my cheek, and my body is wracked with this overwhelming need to scream. Sobbing into you, it's all I can do. Push me away. Stop being so kind. Why would you ever embrace a monster like me?

My arms come up to hang onto your arm, and I turn, burying my face into your shoulder, and you hold me... And suddenly the burning in my wrist from where I had cut into myself came to me, and the memories of the hospital rushed back, and the feeling of fire on my face as I was dragged from the wreckage mixed with the hot flashes as the remembrance of the smell of copper came back, but not from me, from my mother as her lifeless eyes stared up at me whilst my father had been thrown from the windshield several meters away. My baby sister's arm was on the floor and her limbless corpse hung from the booster seat at the window opposite of me as I swayed in and out of consciousness in a car tipped sideways. And I could still recall even the scent of their bubbling flesh, and the scream I held inside came out so horrifically that when it echoed against the walls I felt afraid myself, but all you do is hold me. Even though your hand pressed into the awful wound where car debris had sliced through my shoulder, I couldn't feel anything but your warm body and refreshingly cold hands that ran through my hair as I bellowed for my mother's eyes to have light again and my father to be strapped into the front seat despite never buckling his seat belt and my sister to have all of her appendages attached to her torso again, but all the words that I wanted to say were morphed into a hideous cry of agony as you just held me and embraced me and cried with me.

And while I would never forget their blood in my mouth or flesh dripping onto my face, you would be there to feel it with me. Why did I run from you? All I wanted was you here, but I'm so afraid... I wanted nothing more than to die just as horrifically as they, but I forgot of you. And while half of my face was charred black and scrapped clean of infectious skin with a hot blade, while I was an atrocity to all of them, at least you'll take away all of the pain.

I couldn't breath, but I did not grab at my throat. This is what I wanted, for you to hug my neck as I stared up at the ceiling fan that seemed sturdy enough when I'd first seen it, when I kicked the chair out from under my legs. Yes, I slip away into sleep, but before I do, I should thank you for all that you've done for me. I love you, my dear, tight noose.