The Fictional and yet Cynical Story

It's just way too easy to get caught up in this perverse game we call high school. But you take two steps backwards and quite suddenly you're seeing an entirely different story, the kind that makes you freeze in place and stare shamelessly.

And what I am doing here, you ask? Well, I'd like to tell that I'm at MHS watching the game from the sidelines, drawing from a wisdom beyond my years, and yet here I really am, just another piece on the board moving and playing until I've reached the goal, which is...?

I'm sitting on the quad with fake grass, about to lug my backpack to Spanish class, pretending I like the girl hovering next to me who's chattering about-how would I know, I wasn't listening.

The walk to the actual classroom is short, very short, but at the same time it is so, so long. It feels like every person I pass forces me into a new state of being; I stare just a moment too long at some people, smile at friends, and avoid eye-contact with the people I don't know so as to reduce any potential amount of awkwardness. At first this whole process can be very exhausting, but like any sport, the more you practice the better you get. And I've had tons of practice.

The teacher walks in five minutes late, sets his blue water bottle down and asks us to take out our binders and homework. I pull my bag towards me slowly, turning my head to look at the clock. I'm facing another 54 minutes and 28 seconds of class. I will the clock hands to tick faster, even just a little faster, for me, please? Oh yeah, but I'm just messing with you, if you're in high school now you know that nothing, nothing is on your side, even a stupid clock.

But don't get the wrong idea now, I'm not one to be blindly cynical, I'm just one who likes to evade severe emotional pain. Confused? OK, fine, he's in this class. No, this is not like the ex-boyfriend who a girl gracelessly dumps hiding behind a cowardly e-mail, and now she can't even look him in the eyes anymore. Nah, this just happens to be the boy sitting three seats to my left whom I didn't let myself in love with last year.

We meet eyes for the split of a second, so fast that an onlooker would have missed the exchange completely. And yet in that half of a moment I'm met with two conflicting desires; one, to hear him whisper my name just one more time, and two, to puke, violently, and then walk out of the classroom without cleaning anything up, flipping him off. I suppose the description was a little pointless, that feeling comes in a pretty little package of a word, teenager.

Why do some people speak of love as though it is the divine food of the gods, an everlasting beauty that elevates the mundane human to a point in the beyond? I'll tell you why, they've never actually been in love, they've been in denial. "Love" is like a poison that churns slowly in your veins, draining you until you are a pale ghost of your former self, weak and drawn to the one with the honeyed promises. Let me clarify one thing however, love in itself isn't harmful, love for a brother or child, or even friend can make one stronger, love for a lover, however, is pure, intoxicating, glorious poison.

Can you blame me for the sleepless nights I spent fighting nature, and myself in a grueling effort not to fall almost all of last year? And here I am now, a normal day at MHS, and I'm still playing high school's cruel game, trying to win when they're are no winners, only losers and survivors. But even more embarrassing than having not figured that out yet is that despite everything, when I see him from across the quad every morning, I'm right back to where I started.