CLASS:
LESS THAN EXTRAORDINARY
WRITTEN BY ZARIUS
(Contains spoilers for "Detained")
Ram felt like he was gliding as he darted out of the class and spilled into the corridors, awash with every precise kind of pessimistic emotion not felt since the loss of Rachel.
He felt a large weight in the general vicinity of his heart, like a hammer pounding into an anvil it got heavier and heavier.
Still, he felt like he was gliding, like he could head outside, take a running leap and let the wind carry him into the clouds above, allowing him to soar.
That was the two-way street with truth. It can elevate you, set you free, make you feel light and loose, but it can also pin you down as your mind casts itself back and reflects on all the people you let go because they let their truths be heard in addition to your own.
He didn't know how to quite process the truth he had been subjected to. April's truth. The fact she was having a complicated time processing her own feelings for him, feelings he had made clear had been good for him, that they had carved a clear path for his soul.
Her soul, on the other hand, bore too much pain to see all that clearly. She shared so much, yet all she could do around him was repress, to hide.
That was what hurt him more. That she could only reach the honest stage of their relationship by making use of some alien contraption, a prison for a guilt-ridden entity that made its victims spill their own guilt to all around them in an aggressively naked manner.
She could only stand to love him to a point, and no matter what she told him afterwards, that the journey was about sorting out those feelings, he knew he did not want any part of settling for complication.
He needed a simpler approach, he needed understanding, commitment, and he needed love. She was how he found strength, and it was that strength that fuelled his confession.
It was weakness that provided her with the strength of her own. Weakness around Ram, weakness surrounding herself. He was a means to her own end.
As he ran through the halls, he stopped and gasped for breath. He pressed his hands firmly against the wall and listened closely as the voices of so many students strolling past him made light complimentary comments towards one another, promised their significant others a date, wished each other luck on exams.
All the normal things, all the simplistic things.
And he knew they didn't mean any of it.
They were all hiding personal resentments, had anxieties over what their acquaintances really thought of them. He had spent his afternoon in a place void of time, space, and any meaning, with people who found nothing but raw power in spilling out their private sins. It had been an eye-opening experience for him.
Now he knew what to draw strength from, so he would not face the sort of hurt he was experiencing now in the future, he would try to play the field, he would try to be more open to options, more open to normalcy.
That is, if he could.
And that was grounds for his next confession.
Love was extraordinary.
When the person you profess to be the one cannot consider you in the same light, then it doesn't matter what kind of truth you end up admitting to, the confession you face next is that you don't believe you could settle for anything less than extraordinary.
