Whatever.
“So why did you do it?”
Freakazoid Amy Cutter plopped down next to me in the library during study hall. I started the period at the field, but the normal rain switched to a thunderstorm, so I had to come back inside. Amy had been taking it on herself to stop by every couple of weeks and offer me some words of sage advice, which just pissed me off.
“Do what?”
“Beat the shit out of some poor soccer fool?”
“Some people just need to have the shit beat out of them,” I replied.
The teacher shushed us, and I gave her the finger. She just glared at me and shook her head. It was good to own the school.
Amy leaned over the table and looked at me through darkly lined eyes.
“It has something to do with Nicole Skye, doesn’t it?”
“Fuck off,” I replied. “Why don’t you go lick a rug?”
“Why don’t you admit you’re pining for her?”
“Fuck you.”
“I see the way you look at her.” Amy continued to press. “You know, when you think no one else is looking? And that guy was from Minnesota, and she—”
“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled at her as I stood up and balled my fists at my sides.
She just looked up at me passively as I tried to control my breathing, and the teacher continued to mouth off to me. I ignored her.
“Feel better?” Amy finally asked.
“No!” I snapped back.
“Maybe that should be a clue to you,” she said as she stood up. She took a couple steps backwards then turned and left. I flipped off the teacher again, grabbed my shit, and left.
Lunch hour hadn’t technically started yet, but I walked in to the cafeteria and grabbed a Gatorade anyway then dropped my ass down in a chair near the back door. I opened the bottle, didn’t drink any of it, and just stared out the window instead.
My stomach hurt.
“Thomas?”
Oh fuck, no.
I stood, leaving the Gatorade and trying to walk around her without making eye contact.
“Thomas, please…” she called out, but I kept walking, trying to stop myself from doubling over from the ache in my gut.
She would have been so much better off if she had never met me. I had tainted her life with the vileness of my very existence. I shouldn’t have been here to hurt her or anyone else.
I’m the one that should have died in that car wreck years ago.
The world would be a better place.
I had to agree with Shakespeare, and likened my life to the one led by The Scottish Play’s title role—“a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Somehow, I just didn’t see any reason to it anymore.
Now, I no longer cared.
I ran.