Just a Drawing
(Day 37-38: Monday-Tuesday Morning)
What are the stages of the rock cycle? Explain each stage to the best of your ability. "To the best of my ability," Mal mutters under her breath, before she eyes the pages of the textbook. She finds the diagram and looks over it, before she writes the names of each stage on the five corresponding lines of the worksheet. Now all I have to do is find the in-depth explanations of these and paraphrase them. She flips the pages, and when she finds the definitions she writes those down as well. Next question: how are igneous rocks formed? She writes the answer down. When magma reaches the surface and begins to cool down it can turn into igneous rocks. Duh.
Mal shakes her head and moves her hand to the side of the paper. She starts with a line, and then she makes sharp turns. She watches herself as she draws it, not really knowing what it could turn out to be, but when she finishes the rough sketch she understands perfectly. It's a knife. She looks from it to the teacher, before she looks back down and makes the lines sharper and darker, adding detail and shading a she goes along. It has to cut something, she decides, and then she adds two lines on either side of it. The lines go from the printed words to the very edge of the paper. She looks up from it to her colored pens, before she takes the bright red and ice blue from the open case. From there she takes the red and colors the part underneath the knife, making sure the blood also drips off the side of the wrist, and afterwards she uses the blue to draw in the veins for detail. If only she had colored pencils. If she had colored pencils, then she could color in the rest of the wrist and knife without drawing attention away from the main details.
She looks through the pencil case, until she finds a light pink and peach and a dark brown and black. She uses the brown to color in the handle of the knife, the black creating the cracks between the wood, and she uses the other two colors for the wrist. The light pink is used towards the cut, recreating the inflammation she's seen so many times before, and it's blended with the peach as she makes her way to the outer edges of the wrist. "Mal?" She covers up the side of the paper with her arm before looking up at the teacher, whom still sits at his desk. "You can leave for lunch now."
Mal eyes the clock and then stares down at her assignments, knowing fully well that all that would greet her when she leaves the room is stares, and she wonders, "Would it be possible for me to just stay here and get back to work?"
"You don't want to go to lunch?" the blond instructor looks up at her curiously.
Or is it concern? "I don't really see the point."
"The body needs fuel to function, fats for the brain to feed off of," he notes, but she doesn't respond. "If you're worried about falling behind, then don't be. You're not very behind at all, and if you don't take care of yourself—"
"I'd just really like to stay here," Mal frustrates.
The teacher is quiet for a minute, "Mal. Is there something wrong?"
She remembers how those girls told her to go back to Hell, how they eyed her like she was just some disgusting piece of trash, and how they'd called her psycho as she ignored them and left. "No. Of course, not," she evenly responds.
"Because, if there was," he continues, "you could tell me— or any staff member of your choosing. Coming forward is always the right choice."
"Which is why Audrey is taking me to court," Mal irritably replies, and then the instructor silences. "I'd really like to get back to work. Can I?"
He slowly nods, "Yes. You may." and not a moment later does Mal continue the assignment; however, after a minute the writing begins to really annoy her. The writing is slow— too slow— and she swears it's taking ten whole seconds to add a single letter. It's just one of the many lovely consequences of being cold, she knows, and normally she would start to feel an uneasiness— an ominous type of fear. However, today she simply takes it in, because she isn't afraid of her impending demise. In fact, she invites it. She knew it would happen. It was only a matter of time. She doesn't know how long it will take or how painful it will be when her time finally arrives, but what she does know is that when that time finally does come that the world will be better and brighter. It will be happier and more content without her. It will be safer. It will be safe from the monster that sucks the heat from the earth and ruins each and every life it comes into contact with.
"Good morning, Mal." She nods. "You're five minutes late."
She glances at the floor about to say sorry, as it seems to be custom to do when someone fails a teacher's expectations, but then she remembers Audrey. If she said sorry, would she be apologizing? If she apologized for being late, would she be promising never to be again? She looks back up at the instructor, "I know."
He nods, "Could you come closer, please? We need to discuss something." Mal slowly walks over to the front of his desk, and there's a short silence as she waits for him to speak. "You see, a couple of your teachers became concerned when I handed in your assignments. Your drawings… well, they appear to be a cry for help."
"What?" Mal scrunches her eyebrows in confusion.
"The doodles on your papers," the teacher elaborates. "The depictions are quite alarming."
"They're jus' drawings," she defends.
"And this?" he finds a graded paper and holds it up for her to see. "Is this just a drawing?" She sees the image of a hand holding a hook over a pair of wrists. "The green nail polish. Is this supposed to be you?"
Mal glances down at her own bright green nails, which are both chipped and faded due to a lack of care, "Could be."
"It's quite the disturbing image."
"It's a good thing, then, I guess, that I didn' take that art class Ben wanted me to," Mal comments softly through her tiredness.
The instructor gives her a suspicious look, "Are you alright? You seem to be slurring your words a little."
"Yeah," Mal slowly answers. "Jus' tired."
"So… you haven't been drinking?" he accuses.
She furrows her eyebrows at him for a minute, "That's illegal."
"Common alcohol is illegal," he corrects. "Wine and champagne on the other hand are still produced, and you do only need to be sixteen to purchase it."
"Hmm," she hums in interest. "That's nice to know."
"Are you sure that you haven't been drinking?" he asks again.
"Very sure." Mal slightly laughs, "I'm not allowed."
"What do you mean, you're not allowed?"
"My friends," Mal frowns as she glances down at the desk and trails off. "I'm not allowed."
When she looks back up the teacher speculates, "Your friends care about you a lot, don't they?" She merely nods. "What do you think they would say if they saw this drawing of yours?"
Mal takes a moment, "They'd want me to tell them about it."
The teacher nods, "And what about me? Would you like to tell me about it?" She shakes head. "Do you think that it's something I should know about?"
"No," she slowly answers. "It's jus' a drawing." The instructor quiets in thought. "Can I have my assignments now?"
He slightly nods, "Of course." before he finds the yellow, lined paper and gives it back to her along with her graded assignment.
After Mal receives the items she turns around and heads for the nearest desk, but when she sits down she finds herself wanting to do absolutely nothing. Maybe it's from a lack of energy, perhaps she just doesn't have the energy to move, or maybe the cold is just preventing her to. Whatever it is, she knows there's no use. So, she takes out the English novel, opens it up, and pretends to read; however, the entire time she finds herself slowly drifting to sleep.
- Sorry If the flow of the chapter Isn't great. I had to use alt codes for the majority of It, and although I feel like I got faster with them, It's still going to slow the Entire process down In general. I was just so Inspired to write, though, and I just had to get this out to you guys.