With tears streaming from my eyes I ran down the hallway, not towards my class, not towards anything in general, I was just escaping the horrible clutches of pain. Or attempting to do so. Life was just so unfair, I got Bs in English even though I worked harder than anything for that subject, in things I was good at pencils were thrown at me and the one moment when I could just ignore classes and school I was being called ugly and made fun of even more. Wasn't there supposed to be this balance that set everything straight so everyone had their fair share of bad and good?
I think it's broken if I'm honest. People like the jocks and the populars didn't do a single good deed a day, heck, they probably did 20 bad ones and then there was little ol' me sitting in the background and being nice to everyone, getting repaid with slaps, insults, Bs, and so much more that it hurt. I kept pushing against the barriers that life put in front of me but in the end they were just that, barriers, meant to stop me and not really ready to get out of the way any time soon. It just sucked so much sometimes to see yourself stuck in an endless cycle of going for it as best as I could to just be knocked down in every sense of the word. I tried to keep Blue and Grey safe, my dad hits me. I try to get Jared to like me, he abandons me in a hallway to my own luck. I talk a little to popular and he makes me feel as crap as hell, albeit that one really wasn't my fault.
My feet came to a sudden halt on the muddy path I hadn't realised I'd been following when I came face to face with a metal building. It had blue chipped paint falling from it and a dome shape which made it look like a ball that had fallen from the sky, getting itself half buried in dirt. There was "Do not cross" tape over the entrance but I'd had too much of a bad day to simply try to circle around it and continue on my merry way.
"No. Way." I stood gaping at the insides of the- of the- "Oh my god it's a planetarium!" I knew there was an abandoned one around the woods yet every time I imagined it I simply imagined it to appear like the ones in the pictures I looked up on the internet. This one on the other hand was old and rusted all over, somehow managing to make it look full of magic.
I couldn't believe I'd actually found it! It had been my lifelong dream to uncover it from a scary amazon-type jungle, making it into the coolest clubhouse ever for me and all of those non-existing friends I had in year two. The goal had of course changed a little bit when I discovered that the woods around my house didn't have tigers, or lions, or monkeys, but instead just had a couple of birds milling around. Yet it changed the most when it hit me that no friend of mine would actually enjoy trekking through the woods for two hours each day just to make my happiness complete while we had a tea-party. So in the end I simply wanted to find this amazing place, and I just had.
"Yes!" A couple of bats flew from their place on the crevices and holes all around the dome, startled, and soon to be joined by me as a voice came up behind me.
"Kim?" Spinning around I saw Sam Uley, leader of those whom the tribe honoured and respected for some odd reason. I gulped hard and batted my arms in hopes of becoming a bat, being able to fly away in search for a new quiet spot like the rest of them had. Instead it just made Sam look at me weirdly. Why did I even cross the yellow tape anyway? I was an idiot, a third degree one, I should've just done what I'd been doing all my life.
Oh well, wasn't that what YOLO was about? Yes, it was a foreign policy to me but maybe this would be an educational experience. I'd never been in trouble before so I could gain a few experiences in life that I wouldn't be allowed to have once I became an adult and the opportunity passed by. It was probably for the best. Still panicking into my hands I forced my mind to believe every inch of what I'd thought. If I got to feel all these things in life that I'd never even gotten a glance of before then I wouldn't be so scared. Perhaps that was the secret to coming out of it all and to stop hyperventilating every single time someone looked at me bad. I just had to stand up tall and face the music. Oh god, I was so not ready for this.
"Um, yes?" My voice came up 8 octaves higher than it normally would but who cared anyway, this guy didn't know me, he probably didn't even realise I was lying. The look he gave me told me otherwise but, how did he even know my name anyway? I didn't voice my question, in case it was rude, choosing to simply swallow it down hard. I didn't want to be in even more of a mess, didactic lesson or not.
"What are you doing in the forest all alone?" He shouldn't care about that. He was a protector of the "tribe" and as such he should be worried about putting a hooligan such as me in jail. This was probably my last chance to go to Juvy anyway before I had to go to real badass jail which, my friends, would have to be one less educational experience because there was no way in hell I was going in there.
"I was just, you know, exploring."
"Well you should go back now before Jared blows a fuse, it's close to nightfall."
"Why would Jared blow a fuse?" He didn't care about me. He'd abandoned me to my luck the minute Ryan stepped into the picture with his stupid womanizing ways. Even if he wasn't exactly trying to make me fall for him. Whatever.
"Never mind. It's dangerous out here. Let's go." Saying no would've been pretty bad so instead I simply reminded myself where this place was to return on a sunnier shinier day when Sam could come up with less excuses to kick me out of my new favourite place.
The minute I stepped foot outside the forest, Sam being out of sight too, I breathed out the massive gulp of air I hadn't even realise I'd been holding in. To hell with YOLO and enlightening experiences, I prefered staying in the dark forever; getting into trouble would not be needed to have a full and happy life.
So walking out from behind the tree I had a new resolution in mind. Things wouldn't be able to push me down. From now on they would all be part of my new project: Living life to the fullest.
Excluding jail, Juvi, getting into trouble and, of course, detentions.
