To be lonely

They had all gathered in the hall, and as she looked around, it all seemed eerily familiar…


The day had started like any other. Exam stress was heavy on her shoulders, deadlines were fast approaching, and the sun was relentlessly burning through her skin. Summer was supposed to be fun, but not this side of the school year.

During the day, she made idle conversation:

“You Okay?”
“Have you done the homework?”
“How’s revision going?”

And despite having a lack of close friends around her, she was content. School would soon be over. Summer freedom would soon be here. Everything, she was sure of it, was going to be fine.

However, it was when she got home that things started to change.

Sitting in front of the Tv with her mother, she finally had a decent conversation, one that wasn’t instigated by herself, and didn’t only consist of her questions and prompts at a connection. This was real. And nothing else seemed to matter.
Until it did.

The pain that shot through her stomach sent her crashing to the floor. It was invisible but blinding in a way she had never experienced. She clutched her abdomen and reached for the bathroom door. The pain, a monster that had awoken inside of her, was nestling in her throat, clawing at her oesophagus and ripping through her chest. She couldn’t scream, couldn’t call for help. She was stuck.

It was only when her mother found her, did she call the ambulance. The rest will forever remain a blur of flashing lights, muffled voices and deafening wails.

She had spent the next weeks in hospital. The exams passing in a haze she wasn’t involved in. The year she spent studying vanishing in mere seconds. Before she woke up, it was all over.

But by then she had got her brain to turn back on; the memories of what happened playing back in her mind. She wasn’t to know where it started, how it could have been avoided, if there were any signs…

It hadn’t killed her; it should have done.

And everything felt like a fight. The monster inside of her fought against the good of the cannular, resisting the attacks, and bettering the advances. It soon became apparent it was stronger then they had imagined.

It would be staying, she needed to come to peace with that.

But it was a fight to keep her eyes open. When the nurses and the doctors began their evening rounds, it was difficult to restrain the newest beast inside.

It was nothing the doctors could fix, nothing they could see, nothing they could diagnose.

The ache in her heart was not cardiovascular.

So instead, once her mother had left for the evening, she stared down at the empty screen. In the reflection she read the time and the date. He refreshed. Turned it on and off again.

Nothing.

She was left staring back at her own reflection, hazed by the growing mist of loneliness.

She knew she didn’t have close friends; she didn’t think that mattered. But this time, this time it hurt.
But that was fine.

She wouldn’t expect these people to drop everything to make sure she was okay. It wasn’t like their were people she spoke to on a daily basis...

Well, never mind, she wouldn’t think about that.  

It was fine. She was getting better. And the monster, she was growing fond of it. It had etched itself a place in her body, and now she knew it would never leave. She would live with this, she had too.

It took 6 months to be able to move properly again.
The monster too, had come to accept this position. They found peace.

She didn’t want to go back to school.

But it was the last day, last opportunity for her to go back and to see these people she would never see again. Her mother told her she’d regret it if she didn’t go. She knew that wasn’t true.

She went anyway.

She didn’t know what she expected.

No, that’s not true, she expected to be welcomed back, she expected there to be people who asked how she had been, to ask how she was, had she done the homework? How did she find the exams?

She expected there to be questions, she expected to see their understanding, their sympathy, their guilt.

When she walked in, she felt more out of place then ever.
When she walked in, she couldn’t move.
When she walked in, she stopped, looked around, waited.

The school was just how she remembered it. Loud. Busy. Full.  It was the same as ever. People sitting in their unofficially allocated tables. Friends chatting. Boys shouting. Teachers scolding.

Nothing had changed here. But she was not the same person who had left the school 6 months ago.

Even her ‘friends’ didn’t look up when she walked in. She had hoped they hadn’t seen her.
She walked over, smiled, greeted them…

They didn’t stop their conversation for her.

They didn’t look up.

They hadn’t noticed.

Ever.


She was alone.


She had known that, but now it was true- now she knew categorically that not a single one of them cared.

They didn’t ask how she was. Didn’t ask where she had been. Didn’t notice her pain. Didn’t ask her anything. Didn’t say a single word. They didn’t even look up when she spoke to them.

But this was who she was.

Now. And before.

A loner.

A shy girl.

A loser.

A freak.

Yet that didn’t seem to be the worst part.

It was like she had never been there at all. No one knew who she was. No one seemed to remember her name. She was invisible. Alone.

It was the assembly that scared her the most though.
In the great wisdom of the head, they decided to show the pictures of every student – their first school photo In the first year, and their last photo.
She watched, an invisible entity in the front row, and everyone appeared and disappeared from the screen. Everyone she knew, those who had joined late, those who were no longer there.

All but her.

She wasn’t there.

She may as well have never been there.

But it was that moment a deadly thought entered her mind.

This was real. Her fears had not been a figment of her vivid imagination, but this was real.

If the monster had consumed her – she wouldn’t be missed. There would be no one to mourn her, no one to cry. The funeral would be empty, but the hearse would be full.

She was alone- now and forever.

She left the hall first,  a ghost of the school, with a smile on her face – not through choice or true happiness – but because her mother was waiting for her.

Her heart was broken, her spirits crushed.

But she told her she had a good time. That it was worth it. But she would live with that memory for the rest of her life, constantly doubting the people she would befriend.

That memory was her reality.

She would be alone – now and forever.


Through the cloud of despair, she opened her eyes.
“And this is to celebrate the end of your time in this school”

Why did this time feel no different?