Chapter Two

By Misdirection

I am what I suppose you people would call a fickle being. My thoughts have very little basis upon reality, changing as quickly as the breeze does. One moment, I am perfectly sane, capable of coherent and understandable conversation. The next, the sentences I speak oft have no correlation, no rhyme or reason to speak of.



Like bacon.



Or squirrels.



Or squirrels and bacon.



For some reason, that sounds oddly appealing. Maybe I should try-



Mmmm, cookies.



Anyway, as I was saying; my mind changes quite often. There is hardly a time where I am completely focused on anything; always that niggling thought in the back of my mind that, when prompted, will interrupt with something that has absolutely nothing to do with the current topic.



Or occasionally, something that has everything to do with the topic, just not in the way that the innocent wish to hear.



Or teachers for that matter, teachers definitely do not want to hear what sort of dirty comparisons your mind has managed to come up with during a discussion. Oh, they know you're thinking dirty thoughts when you snicker and chortle amongst your friends, but trust me; they hardly care for you to share those thoughts.



Fortunately for me, I'm no teacher. Just a simple-minded student doing simple-minded studies based off of math textbooks written by authors who should have never been allowed near a math textbook, much less a math classroom.



I don't care what anyone says, "Discovering Algebra 2" by trying to force you to "discover" the concepts, by making you do silly exercises, and then never explaining exactly what it is you were supposed to learn is a terrible way to learn Algebra.



Back to the main idea; I'm a student in high school. High school is very, very boring.



Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be whiny or anything. It's just that when you've spent the majority of your public education being told by educators that, the boys and girls who are bullying you psychologically into believing that you're nothing but a worthless piece of shit, actually have crushes on you, it's kind of hard to treat the system with any sort of dignity, much less enjoy the damn thing.



Yes, I'm sure Isabel has a huge crush on me, let's get on with things. Are you going to ask her to leave me the hell alone, or will I have to get violent? Asked my little 3rd grade self, staring in the tiny bathroom mirror. My dirty blond hair was in cute little pigtails; my blue eyes were red from crying.



I was tired of asking for help from people who refused to do anything but the equivalent of a wag of the finger, "You shouldn't do that!" they'd say admonishingly, staring with mild disapproval down at the whichever child had seen fit to bully me that day.



To truly get a grasp of the extent of torment I felt, imagine you are locked in a room with about thirty-two people. Now, these people are wary of you. You're different from them, they don't know how, and neither do you really. You want to be friends with them, but you're different, you repulse them. They revile you, and honestly, don't want anything to do with you.



Now imagine that, until you enter your sophomore year of high school, that's how people treated you. Like garbage.



I've had my things stolen, been tripped by anonymous assholes, and told that I was worth nothing, that I was ugly, stupid, foolish.



But the worst thing I've ever been told wasn't by my peers, wasn't by my tormentors.



No, the worst thing I've ever been told was by the teachers and administrators of my schools. As I desperately looked for a solution, for an answer, they told me one thing over and over and over, in that same reassuring tone of voice, that same kind gaze. It was all the very same…



They told me that there was nothing wrong with me.



You can't imagine just how much that hurts; when you're searching over and over for an answer to the problem, one that's just staring you in the face, that's how obvious it is, and the people who you're supposed to trust to help you, tell you the one thing that you don't want to hear; the one thing that will destroy you more than anything else.



I want to sit those people down today, and ask them this, because I want them to realize just how much damage they've done to me. Not the bullies, not the children who stood there and watched, but the adults who did what they thought were the right things.



If there is nothing wrong with me, then why won't any of my peers accept me? Why? How can one thousand children, out of the entire school, be wrong? There had to be something wrong with me. They wouldn't stop telling me that.



I told myself then, my little 7th grade self that I had no right to be scared of the monsters hiding under my bed. At least with those monsters, if I could even call them that, were always the same, always there, unchanging? Did I even have the right to be scared of monsters? When I was so scared of my own kind, human kind, that I could barely convince myself to get out of bed in the morning, for fear that I would be bullied again.



No, I did not have that right.



Suddenly, night time wasn't very scary anymore. I loved the night, with its bright stars, twinkling in the far off distance, the moon hanging over my house like it was being dangled by the DreamWorks CGI child off a fishing rod.



Night was, and still is, a beautiful thing to me, unlike the day, with the harsh glare of the sun in my eyes, and the children, watching me, their accusing stares daring me to stand up for myself.



I like the rain. When it rains, it's like the world is crying with me, like it too is just as sad and scared as I am.



In many ways, I still am that crying child. I'm terrified that my peers will once again reject me, telling me that I should not expect to exist, that I have no right to exist in this world, with its beautiful stars and sympathetic rain clouds. I wonder at which point in the road will I take the wrong step, a wrong turn, and be ridiculed for making a mistake.



We've come to a truce, my tormentors and I. They no longer bully me, and I don't bring a shotgun to school and murder them all.



Oh dear, that might have offended some of you… I didn't mean to treat such things lightly; it's just that after years of being harassed and internalizing every harsh word, every cold shoulder; I've become a little bit sadistic and twisted. I hope you don't mind.



I've come to prefer my loneliness, my solitude. It gives me excessive amounts of time to think, sometimes to overthink. I plug in my headphones, blast my overtly-cheerful music and off I go, imagining what my life would be like if I were someone, anyone else.



"Kathryne," a sharp, female voice, full of disdain rang out, yanking out my headphones and directing my attention to whoever decided to try and ruin my day, "You're sitting in our spot."



It was Sarah, and her giggling gaggle of girls. We didn't really get along, possibly because according to her, I had no fashion sense, and according to me, she was a bitch who didn't understand the meaning of individuality. Her friends were named Samantha, Joanna, Kimberly, and Isa; each of them wearing very similar clothing, and the exact same brand of shoes. Airwalks, if I remember correctly. Never mind that I'd been wearing that brand of shoe for years now.



I nodded slowly, making sure she caught every bob of my head as it went up and down, "That's nice Sarah," I replied cheerfully, smiling a smile that didn't reach my eyes. God I felt like such a liar, "Now tell me, why is that a matter of any importance to me, and if it is such a matter, why the hell should I care?" And there goes any and all pretense of amicable conversation.



Yeah, maybe I'm a bitch. So sue me.



Sarah narrowed her unremarkable brown eyes at me, bringing attention to the huge amount of eye shadow and liner she had on, "So, move," she seethed, trying to restrain herself.



"Yeah," I tilted my head back and forth for a moment, debating whether or not I should, "Ain't gonna happen sweetie. Deal with it. There are plenty of other open tables for you to enjoy, and I'm not stopping you from sitting here," I shrugged my shoulders, "Be my guest."



My friends, I have mastered the art of pushing people's buttons.



Her facial features darkened even further, "This is our table, and you need to move."



And so the concept of ownership comes into play. "No, this is not your table. This is the school's table, and this is also the table that the guy you're trying to get to notice you, Peter, was it? Can see you the most clearly from," I glared right back at her, I only have so much patience after all, "As I said before, go ahead and sit here; I don't care." I did care, actually. However, there was no way I was going to let her know that.



Kimberly decided she would get in on the conversation, obviously I'd move if they all objected to my presence, "Look, we don't have time for your little games Kathryne. Move or we'll move you." Her black acrylic nails tapped impatiently against the tabletop, and her bleach blond hair seemed just as frazzled as she and her friends were about to be.



"Oh, but I'm afraid I have all the time in the world for my little games," I answered with a sarcastic grin, knowing full well that if I pushed them any further it could lead to a fight. "After all, you and your little posse have made sure of that, haven't you?" Sarah and co. were the main reason I'd been so isolated from my classmates. "Either run along or sit down, it doesn't matter to me."



At the beginning of my freshman year, they'd made it very clear that they were going to be in charge, and if you didn't admire them, want to be around them, or were envious of them, then you had no place at Worthington High School thank you very much.



Since I'd basically rejected the status quo they'd set for themselves, they'd made it their personal mission to reject me, and make sure everyone else did too. It was basically social suicide to be seen hanging out with me.



Hence why I found my current situation highly amusing; they wouldn't dare break their own rules just to have their table back. No, they'd try and get me to move, therefore establishing dominance over me.



Sarah practically hissed at me, looking a lot like a drowned cat actually, "I will ruin you if you don't move right now Kathryne," she threatened, trying to appear intimidating.



I snorted, "Save it for someone you can actually scare, stupid," I bit back irritably, "What more could you possibly do to me? You've already made sure I have no friends."



"Move now, or I will-"



"Is there a problem here, ladies?"