School
School. It could be considered a haven of sorts, or a hell. Each day it changed. My first day I was brought into reality. Most family's had two parents. A father and a mother. Everyone got three meals a day. Some brought their lunch from home, some bought it at school. I had neither. I don't even know why Liz sent me. Me going to school had no value to her. All I could come up with is that she wanted me out of the apartment. She wanted me out of sight. I don't know. I still don't know.
First grade. I learned the use of a calendar. Things started falling into place after that. I could actually count how many days from one birthday to the next. Three hundred and sixty-five days. Fifty-two weeks. Twelve months. I could tell you how many hours, minutes and seconds too.
Time. Time represented everything. Life was ruled by time. Daytime. Nighttime. Early morning. Morning. Midday. Afternoon. Evening. Late evening. Night. It made things hard for me. Before I knew, it didn't matter. Once I knew breakfast happened in the morning. Lunch happened at midday. Dinner happened in the evening. It made having next to no food in the house hard. I knew it was time to eat, but I couldn't. It was hard.
I was thankful I could already read. It made school all that much easier. There was a teacher. One teacher for twenty odd students. It always seemed like an unfair ratio to me. It didn't matter though. One look at the writing on the board. The sums on the board. It all clicked. I finally understood something fully. There were questions. There were answers. School was easy. In Math there was only one answer. In English there were no wrong answers. Not that I ever raised my hand. The teacher explained. I absorbed the information. I read until we moved onto the next subject. Tests came around. Pop quizzes never bothered me. I had all the right answers. School was easy. Too easy.
The teachers became aggravated with me. I aced their tests. What more did they want? They hated that I didn't participate in class. I could never understand why. I didn't know how important students were in a class. I never knew that a good class was only good because of both teacher and student contributions. I couldn't understand that something I thought. Something I believed. Would change a teacher's opinion of me. Would change the course of the class. Would open up the teacher and other students to new and different ideas. I didn't know. I can't help and think that going back now I would be the same. I still wouldn't contribute and I find that sad.
I got sick of the teachers. At first it was just one class. I sat behind the gym. I went to the next class expecting to get in trouble. It never came. I did it again and again. I never got caught. I wondered why that was. Was it because they didn't notice, or because they didn't care? Didn't care about me. It didn't bother me. I found a park. A park with an arch. An arch that served no purpose. It was home. It felt like home. I cut class. I cut whole days. I spent the day reading in the park. It was the same as school, but more freeing. I was getting fresh air. I was studying people. Learning street smarts not book smarts. I went to a class every now and then. I learned the new subject within that class and then cut again. I went enough to pass each grade. And for me that was enough. It wasn't too much. It wasn't too little. It was a good balance for me.
The kids picked on me. They didn't understand me. I was different from them. I steered clear from them in the beginning. I was smarter than them. I was above it all. They were most likely only lashing out to feel superior. I didn't need that. I already felt as though I'd never amount to anything and the idea of making someone else miserable on the off chance I'd feel better about myself and my shitty life, just never sat right with me. The only time I retaliated was when they got physical. I got that shit at home. I didn't need it at school. I never taunted. I never spoke a word. I just let my fists do the talking. Cuts heal. Bruises fade. Words stick.
It wasn't long until they feared me. They knew I wasn't meant to me messed with. I could hold my own and I did. They left me alone after a while. I was thankful. I was regretful. I had portrayed myself as a ferocious monster. Someone to be feared. Deep down I needed a friend. Not even a friend. Just someone. I didn't need to confide in them. They didn't need to talk to me. They just needed to be there. Their presence would have a calming effect on me. I screwed myself up on that avenue. No one would get close enough to me. I thought that was a good thing. I was proved wrong though. By my first and only friend.