Little Fly Student

I was almost done. Almost out of the wretched place called a school. That place always left a bad taste in my mouth. No good memories existed in those classrooms. No smiles were brought back when I thought of those hallways. I wanted my memory to be erased from that building when I graduated. I wanted to be rid of that school, those students, and any other ties I had to it. This was the final year I had to spend there, then I could finally get out. But I still had one more year to make it through and I was dreading the return if you couldn’t tell. 

My summer vacation was decent. I didn’t have anyone to hang out with but I tried looking on the bright side and using my loneliness to my advantage. I worked on myself. Having Alexithymia often makes it difficult for me to understand myself. Not having the ability to identify my own emotions makes communication and expression extremely different. To help that I use my journal. The journal has a fairly plain appearance. A black leather cover. A black elastic band to keep it closed. A black piece of ribbon attached to the spine to bookmark where I am in my pages. Creamy white pages with black lines. I keep it fairly clean and undamaged. No rips, cuts, or tears in the cover. I can’t say the same for the pages, but they do still have that old book smell. I like that smell and the feeling it gives me. I don’t know the actual feeling obviously, but if I had to describe it, it’s like being young again. Not having a care in the world. Like the only thing I have to worry about is if I want to play on the swings or in the sandbox during recess time at daycare. The smell of the pages makes me forget the hurt I’ve had. On the inside front cover of the journal is a table. A table of emotions. There are two categories; good and bad. Every time I get a feeling I turn to this table to try and identify the emotion. If I like the feeling I look under the good category. I’ll look at the list of names for emotions and try to identify what I’m feeling based on the description of the emotion. Each emotion has a “definition” I got off the internet and another “definition” I came up with. My definitions are typically more like memories and metaphors. I use metaphors and memories to describe what I’m feeling. I find it easier to describe what I’m feeling rather than trying to pinpoint and label it with some word that truly means nothing to me. Happy means nothing. Sad means nothing. I don’t know what happy and sad are. All I know is that what people label these things, I use memories and metaphors to describe. 

My journal also contains my writing. I mostly write about my memories, recent life events, and feelings. I write in a more poetic form. I like the feeling it gives me. I feel like I’m floating, weightless. I feel like I can’t be stopped. And when I’m writing, I don't want to stop. I enjoy this emotion a lot. Whatever it’s called.

I sometimes think of my journal as my friend. My only friend. It is the only thing that helps. The only thing that doesn’t give me those bad feelings. Truly, it is the only thing that understands me. Even though, in reality, it’s just me writing about myself. However, when I think about it, that makes a lot of sense. I have been my only friend for as long as I can remember.

I’ve never really had friends. I know that’s quite depressing. Especially since this is my senior year of high school. But I’ve just never found that true connection or companionship in a person. All the friendships I’ve had, if you even want to call them that, have mostly just been empty promises and fakery. People try to be friends with me because they either think I’m special or pity me. Now, don’t get me wrong, I want friends. I want that connection. That companionship. But I’m not desperate. I want something real. Something true. Not something plastic. I am not a cheap charity case for someone to boost their morale or social status. I am a person. I have thoughts and feelings, even if they may be hard to identify or understand. But to be honest I’d kind of given up on the whole friendship thing. I only have one more year in this school. I just want to get it done and over with. Easy and stress-free.But after walking through those doors, I knew this year wouldn’t be any easier for me. 

The school hadn’t changed at all over the summer. The sandy-colored linoleum tiles lined the hallway. Blue metal lockers smaller than most of the students themselves lined the walls on either side. Bright fluorescent lights blinded my sight. The ancient, stained, mineral fiber ceiling tiles were just as aesthetically unappealing as I remembered. The scent of soap and freshly waxed floors was suffocating. The school was small. Just one long hallway that divided and branched off into different classrooms. But the size has never been an issue. The town I lived in was small. Only about a couple thousand people. Each grade had about one-hundred students. And there were only four grades in my high school; freshmen, sophomore, juniors, and seniors, so the school wasn’t packed like a can of sardines.

But recently, more people have been coming to town. New families. New children. New students. None of the new students have been my type of people, however. They either ignore me because they’re told to avoid me by other people because of my condition, or they try to befriend me because they need someone to help so they can feel useful and important. Eventually, they give up because I refuse to play into their games and make them feel better about themselves. Hopefully, the new students won’t throw me a pity party the first time they meet me.

I tried to shove my way through the crowds of people to get to my locker. Locker 182, the same one I had all four years of high school. The dark cerulean blue paint on my locker had rusted and chipped away in many places and the metal was warped and bent due to the kicking, slamming, and other various violence inflicted on these poor, ancient, lockers.

I unlocked the door and swung the door open. That familiar music of squeaks and creaks of the locker hinges and metal on metal slamming and clanging rang through the hallways. I unstuffed my backpack and placed the extra books, binders, folders, and notebooks on the floor of my locker and took the two notebooks I needed for my first three classes. I kept my locker neat and organized; no stickers, magnets, mirrors, or any other decorations on the inside. Everything was organized in some sort of system, whether that was alphabetical order, the order of my daily classes, or rainbow order. My first three classes were band and choir, math, and science. 

My first-period class was the only class that gave me a good feeling. Band and choir gave me the same feeling I get when I write in my journal. I feel like I’m floating, weightless. I feel like I can’t be stopped. Music and writing put me in such a deep trance, I get lost in the words and sounds. When I am writing or making music, it feels like I finally know what I am feeling. It’s the only time when I feel like I understand myself. 

Unfortunately, after my first period, the rest of the school day feels more like a weight. It gives me a bad feeling. Like my ankles are chained down and I have to trudge my way throughout the rest of the day. School isn’t necessarily difficult for me. I am a hard worker, I have a good reputation with all the teachers, and get straight A’s. I just highly dislike the feeling most of the classes and students give me. Thankfully I only have to deal with this feeling one last year.

I went through the rest of the day as usual. I went to the other two classes I had left before lunch. My lunch was uneventful just like the rest of the day. I sat alone at a table in the far back corner of the cafeteria and minded my own business as usual. Typically, this is the moment where the new students come up to me and try to befriend me and I try to get rid of them and their patronizing attitudes. But nobody did. I liked the feeling of not having anybody bothering me. When people come up to me and try to befriend me, it gives me a bad feeling. It feels like there are thousands of little flying buzzing around me and no matter how much I try to swat them away, they’re still there. Their fat, little, black bodies swarming around me. But today all the little flies were gone. There was no buzzing. I liked it. But I wasn’t completely rid of the little fly students. There was one guy that kept eyeballing me from across the cafeteria.

He had a fairly plain appearance. He wore a plain black hoodie with no words or logos, blue sneakers with white bottoms, and monochrome pajama pants. He looked like he just rolled out of bed. But, I guess I sort of liked his look. I approved and respected his ability to not care about his appearance. I sort of wish I had the ability to do that. He had a basic facial structure. He had soft features, no strong jawline or cheekbones, and golden brown eyes hidden under blue plastic-framed glasses. His face was quite proportionate. I’ll admit, his face was nice to look at. His gaze didn’t give me a bad feeling. I didn’t sense any sort of hostility in his eyes.

I realized while I was inspecting his appearance, he had walked all the way across the cafeteria and sat across from me. I hadn’t noticed until I heard his quietly mutter a greeting.

“Hey,” he said quietly. His voice was soft and quiet. Like flowing water. It was the only uniquely interesting part about him. But it was still such a bland first greeting. Which I guess was perfectly fitting for a bland looking person.

“Hi,” I said shortly. Strangely, I felt like playing into his game.

There was a weird silence. It seemed to last forever. Thankfully, he broke it. Unfortunately, however, it was broken with just more small talk.

“I’m Arthur,” he muttered.

“I’m Fiona,” I replied. This conversation gave me a bad feeling. I felt uncomfortable. If I had to describe it, I would say it felt like having perfect posture. Like you want to just relax your muscles, you want to just slouch, but you can’t. Nobody likes maintaining perfect posture, just like nobody likes conversations that are nothing but small talk and weird silences.

The rest of the lunch period was just Arthur and I uncomfortably sitting across from each other, not knowing what to say. Finally, the bell rang and the students were dismissed to their final classes. Arthur and I stood up, gathered our things, and went our separate ways. The rest of the school day was normal as usual. I ran through my typical class cycle, luckily without any confrontation, then went home. 

The next school day went uncannily the same way as the last one. I went through my three-morning classes like usual then went to lunch. At lunch, Arthur did the same thing he did yesterday. He stared at me from across the room, then later walked to me and sat down, then said nothing until the bell rang and we left. Then I went to my final classes and went home.

More and more days passed that all went the same. Same classes, same routine, same lunch, same weird Arthur. I didn’t understand what he was doing. By now most of the students that like to be my pity friend would have already left, but he hasn’t. He hasn’t even said anything else besides his name on the first day. This had been happening for so long that I didn’t care to even pay mind to Arthur when he stared at me from across the lunchroom and when he walked over to me. He was just another little fly student buzzing around me. But eventually, I got tired of this routine. Arthur’s staring eyes started to feel like they were burning holes in my head. For once I actually wanted him to say something. Anything. Just to break the silence that always surrounded us. Lunch used to just be another boring hour of my day, but now it has turned into something worse. It gave me a feeling like I was suffocating. Like the walls were caving in and crushing me. Even the air felt like it was weighing down on my chest. I needed to break the silence.

One day during lunch, I decided I had had enough.

“What do you want from me?” I questioned harshly.

“Wow, she talks,” he said.

“Of course I talk,” I replied.

“It was sarcasm. You know what sarcasm is right?”

“I don’t actually. I kinda have Alexithymia if you haven’t heard yet,” I said in a rude tone. Each one of my responses came across harsher and harsher each time.

“I didn’t know that actually,” he said quietly

“Oh. My bad then. I just assumed that’s why you were coming over to me every day. I thought you felt bad for me or something and came over to me every day out of pity,” I said in a less rude tone. 

“That’s terrible. Why would anyone ever do that? I first came over here because of that,” he gestured toward my notebook.

“It’s just my notebook. Why this?” I didn’t understand the intrigue of a black notebook.

“I was curious what you had in there. I wondered if you were anything like me?

“What do you mean like you?” I asked

“I can tell just by looking at you you’ve been hurt before. The harsh inflection of your voice. How cold you are with me. How the first thing you assumed about me was that I came up to you out of pity and not actual interest in you. I have been hurt too. And one way I help numb that hurt is writing. I wondered if that notebook holds similar writings to the ones I make?”

How did he know? How could he have been so accurate? It didn’t make sense. No one ever cared about my journal, especially what was in it. But he’s different. I could tell he was different. And since he was different, I had a strange feeling of wanting to tell him the truth.

“Yes, this is my writing. I use it for the same reasons you do.” I said.

“Can I read them?” he asked

Immediately after Arthur asked that questioned the bell rang.

“Yes,” I said quickly trying to gather my stuff so I wouldn’t be late.

I’ve never been so open with someone before. I never expected myself to agree to let someone read my journal. But something about Arthur told me that he would never intentionally hurt me. It seemed he genuinely just wanted to get to know me. And strangely, I wanted him to know me too.

Days went on and I got to know Arthur better. We exchanged writing daily during lunch and slowly got to know each other better. Lunchtime became the only part of the day, besides band and choir, that I genuinely looked forward to. Arthur gave me a good feeling. He made me feel understood. Like I wasn’t the black sheep. He made school bearable. Arthur gave me a feeling that I had never felt before. But it was a feeling that I knew I could identify exactly. It was like everything was bright. The sun, the colors, everything. It was like everything was glowing. I felt like I was glowing. Arthur made me feel happy.