Silence is so freaking loud.

2

I woke up the next morning, strange headache as usual, I look for my phone under the sheets, it’s almost 9 in the morning, I have thirty minutes before my first class begin. I’m not quite familiar with the place yet, I rush out hopelessly to find my class before it’s too late, at last after running around in the same circle for about 40 minutes, I found it, I stand by the door, catching my breaths, after few seconds, I open the door, feeling like all the voices in the world has faded, everybody is staring, of course they are. “You’re late ... Mr...” I swallow in my throat, “Alex.. I’m sorry, I’m late, you see it’s my fir...” he cut me off before I can finish my explanation which obviously he doesn’t care about, “please have a seat” I take place at the nearest chair to me which is the only empty seat in the room anyway, slowly everyone eyes drifting away from me and back to the professor while he continue talking about what are we going to study in this semester in his course.

I’m looking at the people around me, some are old, young, some are very serious, they are actually taking notes in our first class, I’m not even sure what course is this, some looks bored and the other pretend like they’re interested, why though? pretending is kind of faking and the more you pretend the more you lie to yourself, it is helpful in some situations though, I used to pretend not to hear my parents arguing at the table while we’re eating, it worked most of the times.

I stare at the ceiling it’s white but has brown stains, must be old, I trace the board of my chair, scratchy wood .. I’m not used to being in such big rooms with other students. I was homeschooled as a kid. My father used to get in fights with the school staff all the times, they asked my mother not to bring me to school anymore and to look for another school for me, it didn’t worked, he wasn’t always like this, at least that’s what my mother kept telling me.

I’m here but not here, I mean I haven’t gained my full consciousness yet, I still feel like I’m running, my head is pulsing, I’m trying hard to consecrate, slowly I take out a napkin from my pocket and wipe my forehead, what is this? why I’m sweating like this? I look up again at the professor, tossing the napkin in my pocket, I glance at the clock, 45 minutes for the class to finish, “Mr. Alex, if there’s anywhere you’d like to be, you can leave you know” my face is growing warmer, “No no sir, I’m sorry”, he stare at me for few seconds then go back to his presentation, I stay still for the rest of the class period, I’ve made a fool of myself in the very first day in college, great.

I stand by the window, I’ve been standing there for quite a while now, it’s a foggy snowy night, yet I still can see people in their comfort of their homes. People don’t have much of privacy here, their lives are completely an open book for the whole world to see. I see an old man setting on his woody chair, thick glasses, he has a newspaper between his hands, I don’t think he really care about what’s happening in the world around him, I guess he just feel lonely and bored. A lady, cooking dinner, probably for her four children who are playing in the other room, and a husband who’s so focused on the television screen, she doesn’t seem so happy, she keep looking up sighing, wiping her forehead, two girls cracking on the bed, friends probably, I have this bad habit of staring at people, making up stories about them in my head, it seems more interesting here though more than it used to be in my town.

In my town there were few people, I made up so many stories about the same neighbors over and over again, I got bored, I used to stare at people from my bedroom window. In the morning, the school bus would stop at the side of the road, students hovering in the bus, boys and girls they all know each other, I used to know them once, I remember each one of them, they probably don’t remember me, I hardly last for a month in their school.

The old lady who water the flowers in her garden every morning, what’s the point? I think, people keep stepping on them anyway. Father hated this habit of mine and he would punish me, once at the evening he caught me looking, he painted the window with black ink, my room didn’t get any sunlight for weeks till my mother replaced the windows for me, she explained to him: “it’s his only window to the outer world, so let it be” I just wanted to see the sunset that evening.

Issac push open the door, throw his bag on the floor next to his bed, he distracted me for a two seconds then I’m back into my thoughts again, “stop biting your nails” Issac said from behind my back, “what?” I said not aware I was actually biting my nails, I look at my finger it’s bleeding,“ your nails, stop biting them” he says again throwing himself on the bed, “you know if you keep biting them, the next day you will wake up with your nails fallen out”.

I turned to face him now, I notice he’s laying with his wet jacket, his dirty shoes on the bed, I look at him “you do realize I’m not eight right?” I turn my back on him and I face the window again, after few minutes I say “you know when you sleep on your bed with wet jacket, you’d wake up finding yourself drowned actually?” I’m still staring at the buildings out the window, he chuckles, “ I didn’t knew you could be funny” I turned back to face him and I smiled, he sit now, taking off his jacket “woh, he smiles” he’s taking off his dirty shoes, I looked at him concerned “ what does that suppose to mean? ‘ woh, he smiles?’” I asked him, looking at him throwing the jacket and the shoes at the corner of the room “you’re so serious, have anyone told you that before?”

Minutes has passed, “No” I say at last, I lied, I knew few people in my life and met few of them as well, but one thing for sure is that they all told me that, in different ways of course, they would say you’re se serious, or they would point out at me and says he never smiles. I never understood the point of smiling if you’re not really happy or flattered or whatever emotions that will bring people to smile, I think the more you smile the more fake you are, I didn’t need to smile if I didn’t felt like it just to please the other person, I never understood the concept of smiling, we should smile less I guess, for the smile to be remarkable not a usual thing we get used to do. Issac went to sleep early as every night, I stayed till three in the morning and went to sleep afterward as well.

“Alex, Alex get back here or I’m telling your father on you ... Alex” I’m frightened, I ran down to basement, “Alex” she called out for me, humming my name “you don’t want me telling your dad on you, do you ?” The basement stairs clatters under her steps, I’m bringing my knees closer to my chest, now I hear heavier steps, must be my father, he’s getting closer, I’m shaking, closing my eyes, hoping if I kept my eyes close he won’t find me, but he did, he pull me off my arms, stop stop please I say just not loudly enough, please ple...

I opened my eyes, Issac is shaking me from my arms, “wake up!” he says, I'm not sure what happened, I must’ve been having a nightmare, I pushed him away after few seconds, he startled, put his hands on the air “god calm down, I was just trying to help”, I push away the blanket that’s covering me “I don’t need your help”, he moved away, light up a cigarette, “what have I done to end up here” he think I didn’t hear him, but I do, it’s not the first time someone would say such a thing to me, I don’t completely blame them.

Once, when I was still at school, we were suppose to work in peers to come up with an idea for a science project, I hit my partner on the eye because he wanted us to create a volcano and I wanted us to create a mini table fan! I watched it once on tv, it was more interesting, for creating a volcano was what everyone did, we argued and I hit him, he went crying to our teacher “ what did I to be with him? Am I punished for anything teacher?” He said sobbing, all the other students were looking at me as the bad kid, I was, the teacher asked me to go to the principle office, my partner came to school the next day with a patch on his eyes, I was sorry just not enough. I went to the bathroom, a shower would relive all of this.