AN:

I accidentally wrote too much to call this update a 'slight dent'.

What can I say? The characters wrote themselves. It just happened.

Enjoy!

February 15

Royal Woods High School

Royal Woods, MI

Dear Mrs. Guinevere Rivers

I hope this letter finds you well.

This is Luan L. Loud, a student currently in sophomore year. I am writing this letter to address the scandal I have caused around the school. Following that is my request to shift from face-to-face learning to homeschooling.

First, I apologize for blatantly swearing at my Music and Arts teacher, Mr. Nicolas Fernandez. I have no reason to justify committing such an act. However, I can explain what had driven me to such a state. I will explain all of these in this letter.

Second things second, I want to acknowledge the fact that I have faced multiple challenges in the traditional classroom setting, which have affected me mentally and physically.

With this, I request your esteemed attention to consider the proposal of my switch to homeschool until the end of the academic year.

Call it the law of attraction. Black clung onto her in a way yellow didn't.

The empty half of the document glared at her with searing brightness; look at me! I'm the progress you can never write! Why? Because you're wrong! You're so wrong for thinking that you were ever gonna have a good year!

Yeah, you're right. Luan dropped her chin on her fist, neck radiating sickly heat. This wasn't a good year; it was the best year. Oh, do I wanna soph-on-more!

That was lame, toots.

She darted her eyes to the dim space beside her laptop, her eyes tracing an imaginary image of Mr. Coconuts' figure, where he should've been. Burnt out? He'd roast. More like, burnt into ashes.

How could she not, though? Every night, every day since mom and dad's decision to drop her out of school; left and right, it was an endless bomb blast of attention.

A myriad of friends, teachers, and siblings asking 'why did that happen?'

Some scorning: 'Oh, you're just overreacting, this is why you have to become resilient.'

And some of them giving half-hearted promises: "But in case you ever need anything, I'll be there for you, okay? You're strong. Stand strong. Hugs and kisses, mwah, mwah—" whatever.

The school board repeated the same mantra over and over. Their MO to any kid that stirred an evolution either out or beyond their hands. And lucky them, because anyone that had to remind her only did it once. On the contrary, she had to deal with this when she encountered someone, anywhere. Anyone who had a snippet of the story.

That's the cycle: Answer why and listen to unsolicited advice, power through empty empowerment. Born to scream, forced to bite it back and let them yap. For the sake of her sanity. Or whatever was left of it.

She held her spinning head in her hands, trying to gain stability. Stand strong, even when you're down, wound out. That's what they'd say. Even when you were turning ill in every sense of the word.

They tell her to be resilient, that she's letting herself lose. Yes, it was true. She was drowning, but she let it happen. She was compliant, but only just. Her foot was tied to a brick sinking into the base of the ocean, how long was she supposed to swim before letting it eat her, huh? She could only struggle for so long. She could only float for so long before losing her breath; before it'd fill her lungs and blue surrounded her.

Just this once. She told herself, peering her eyes to the wall: the calendar she marked in red over specific dates. Her lip twitched into a snarl at what she was about to write. Luan loved the idea of adding more to her name. Tales and anecdotes that helped her stir quotes of inspiration if not by telling jokes. Being known as the 'kid who had it but lost it all', was not one of them. They just had to remind her every single time. Her parents, her siblings, the teachers—all of them had a say. The only thing that was ever really talked about around the place. And it was sickening, to be reminded of what you wanna forget.

Now, onto writing the letter.

Or perhaps maybe, a memoir. A mark to hold a memory that she needed to forget.

A reminder that despite her holographic view of everything, what happened was real. Everything was too real. It felt like a fever dream. A coma-induced daymare.

She placed her fingers on the keyboard and straightened her aching back. Then she typed…like a machine automated to work until it broke.

The Problem

Group projects, for quite some time, have been a catalyst for complaints amongst a minority of students around Royal Woods High, myself included. We are given a barrage of endless work. Nearly every subject drops at least one group activity in a week when we're fortunate, a. I have endured this for the entirety of the first semester with little to no protest.

However, if the group projects weren't enough, I have two teachers seemingly trying to push me down.

I am referring to my Social Studies substitute teacher, Ms. Gwendolyn Dublin, and my Music and Arts teacher, Mr. Nicolas Fernandez. These two teachers are the bane of my school days. If not for them, I wouldn't have snapped like a rubber band stretched wide, far too long.

The Inner Turmoil & The Snap

I was enlightened last Monday, February 12, by our school guidance counselor, that public schools having group projects is a Michigan Department of Education (MDE) regulation, apparently to implement the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, with the target of aiding the 'denser' students pass.

While this is good, the scales tip more to one side over the other. As one of the better students, if you will, it is not narcissism when I say that when it comes to quality of work, I have set a bar for myself that none of my groupmates or classmates for that matter, can reach. Due to this, I usually end up doing the group work on my own. Our assigned projects could be done solo if only teachers had faith in the consensus.

My inner turmoil had begun since the first month of class in late August but had not skyrocketed until this month—from January 17 to February 9.

I will reiterate the events in their sequence.