Whispers of a hidden heart chapter 7

NO ONE FROM SCHOOL READ THIS!!!!!!!! NO WAY!!!!!!!!

Chapter seven.

The bell rings, and the class simultaneously leaps from their desks. They rush out the door, to their friends, to joy, to freedom. I stay inside, sliding my laptop into its tray and piling up the books on my desk. I try to delay time, hold back from the moment where I have to step into the hallway and face the world. Face my “friends”. I don’t have friends.

Friend- a person who experiences a strong bond with another. Someone you can rely on. Someone who will always be there for you. Someone who supports you and enjoys spending time with you.

Not me.

I grab my book and walk out the door, into the corridor. Charlie is still fumbling with something in his bag, but I walk straight past and slide down the stairs into the eating area. A fake smile is spread wide upon my face as I sit down on the bench. “Hi guys!” I say as I place my book onto the table. With forced happiness. A vacant emotion, something far away.

“Hi. What’s that book?” Asks Paige. Her dirty-blonde hair is tied up in a messy ponytail and freckles dot her face. She is perfect.

“Well, if Scarlett’s reading it then it’s bound to be inappropriate.” Replies B. I reach my hand across the table to punch her. But she is right- in some sense. This book is appropriate. For 14-year-olds. It is inappropriate for me. But it is brilliant. Not a fairytale, not an adventure. An actual life written down on the pages. Something relatable. Not that I tell her that.

And I can’t tell her. Her attention is to Athena, who is bargaining off a Nutella b-ready bar. Typical. Leila’s watching Katie sketch her ‘boyfriend’ and Paige has turned back to her book. I am back to being on the outskirts. “Uh, Addy, what’s the time?” I ask Adelaide. She pulls up her wrist and I see her watch. 1:29. Time to go. I stand up and glance back at the table. Nobody turned their heads, no one is asking where I am going. I am alone. Invisible Pluto.

I climb the stairs, my stomach churning with fear. I am about to tell someone. Let my secrets fall like water forming a waterfall. But am I okay? Maybe it gets better. Maybe this is the start of something good. Something safe. When I reach the top, sunlight blinds me. It blurs my vision, yet somehow doesn’t reach inside of me, like the darkness within defeats light. Maybe it does. Maybe I will forever be filled with shadows. Or maybe I am a shadow, stretching across the world.

I start walking across the artificial grass oval, kids swirling around me like leaves caught in the Autumn breeze. Their chatter weaves around me because I am the invisible girl, unseen. And I don’t look back. I turn my back on the past, and just keep walking. Because I don’t matter. Because I am matter. And I slow my speed as the bell plays, signalling the junior school back to class and the seniors to start playing. That is, if you have someone to play with. In which, I do not. I am alone, it’s just me and the voices inside my head.

Charlie’s not coming. He’s forgotten. You are the forgotten soul. He doesn’t care about you. No one does. What are you doing, Scarlett? Everybody hates you. You might as well die; it would make no difference. What have you done? But someone is coming, behind me. I wander onto the concrete path, just as they sidle up next to me. It only takes one glance at the ground to know that it is Charlie. I start shaking my hands, I can’t help it. Stimming. I try to find the words but now I’m here my tongue is tied, so nervous about what comes next.

Finally, I force something out. “What would you do if I died?”

But that’s not right. If I died, I would cease to be living. Yet I am already dead. I do not live. I am molecular, atoms forming molecules making my body. Making me. Yet, I do not have a body. I am an onlooker, always standing on the edge of the world. I am a puzzle piece that doesn’t fit, I belong to a different puzzle altogether. I don’t how to put into words the feeling of floating, a dull, worthless phantom on the top of the water. Because that is what I am. Who I am.

Charlie replies. “Be sad. I dunno.”

We’re plunged into silence, lost in our thoughts. I have stopped stimming, but now the fingers on my left hand are tapping against my leg, patting the song we played this morning in orchestra. I can picture my bow gliding up and down the strings, a beautiful rhythm unknown to others. A rhythm unlike mine. I am somewhere else, in a world where I don’t hurt. I am okay.

Gravity pulls my mind back to the present as he starts talking again.

“Suicide?”

And it feels weird to hear that word spoken. Like hearing my thoughts voiced out-loud.

I used to be a paper plane, soaring weightless through the sky. But then my life came crashing to the ground, ablaze with my mistakes. I fell into the water, I am disintegrating. A crumpled-up piece of paper lying here, useless.

But then I hear Charlie talking again. Something about helpline, “…I called kids helpline…”

I glance across at him and he is looking at me. Waiting for a response. Doesn’t he know I can’t talk? I can’t let the words tumble out of my mouth; I freeze. My fingers are still playing on my leg but they get faster and faster just like my heartbeat and I think my heart is pumping faster than those racehorses we see on tv right before they stop dead and I still can’t speak and I’m praying to God to let me open my mouth and I think he might have listened because finally, oh finally, I think of something to say.

“What did they say?”

What would they say? They are adults, pretending to be like us. They can’t relate, they don’t know what it feels like to be on the outskirts, to pretend all the time that I’m okay. Because I am not okay. And I don’t need strategies to cope, I don’t need someone telling me what to do. I need someone who can relate, who I can talk to and not feel alone. Another dwarf planet. I need someone who can actually listen, not judge or say that it’s alright because it is not alright. How am I alright if these voices invade my head every day, saying I’m useless? And maybe I am.

Charlie shrugs. “They just asked if I okay and if I wanted to talk.”

And of course they did. They lived decades ago, unbeknownst to what we have to go through. I am a snowflake, parting with the sky and falling to the ground. I slur into the grey. But I don’t need to put that into words, because we are standing in front of the library. My haven.