Simplicity in meaning, meaning in nothing. These things, people couldn't see. Alyson could. Math, Science, English, Philosophy? No problem, for her. Academics were nothing, and work was nothing, and thoughts were nothing, but friendships were something. Friendships were something that Alyson just didn't have. She'd sit on the steps, every morning, alone. She'd sit at a table, and it would be cleared, leaving her alone. She'd come home to an empty house, alone. She'd return to school the next morning, homework finished, alone. It was nothing unusual. It was nothing different. It was the same, as every day was the same. It was the same as the other thirteen years of her life. Why would her fourteenth be any different?
She sat down in her desk, looking around at the other students, chatting merrily. She wished for that. Such a freedom, she knew she would never reach, but she could at least pray to one day pretend. She pulled her homework out of her book and unfolded it neatly on her desk. It was a normal day. She didn't see anyone else pulling out homework, and she would be walking solo, to the teacher's desk, to turn in the paper that she, alone, had completed. She looked around at the others, sitting with their cliques. She heard their talk, of what they had done the night before, rather than doing their homework. She saw a few sitting silently, but they were not alone, like she was. They, too, had not done their homework. Alyson looked at her paper, covered with her sickeningly neat handwriting. She looked at the others, who had nothing more than notes to each other, sitting in barely legible crayon writing.
"Good Morning, Students..." Mrs. Mendola said robotically, as she had done every other day of the year, "I hope you've all brought your assignments..."
Alyson looked at the teacher and could see that Mrs. Mendola was looking straight at her with a strange, mocking smile. Alyson gave a nervous smile back, knowing that once the assignments were asked for, a roar of mocking and teasing would follow her up to the desk. Alyson looked at her neatly spread out paper, knowing that she had worked very very hard on it. She had stayed up slightly later than usual to finish, when she could have been sleeping soundly in her bed. As a matter of fact, she could have been playing, or watching television, or listening to the radio, all afternoon, rather than doing the assignment. She looked around at the other students, who had done just that. She looked at her paper, one last time, almost sympathetically, and removed it from her desk.
When Mrs. Mendola asked for the paper, Alyson kept quiet and still. Mrs. Mendola glanced at Alyson with a disappointed frown, while the usually straight shooting teenager tore at her paper, under her desk. By the end of class, Alyson had a rather large pile of tiny pieces of paper, where she had continued to tear at that assignment, that proof that she didn't belong. She kept looking at the relieved faces of her classmates, who had been given an extra day, without punishment, to complete the assignment. She looked at the tiny pieces of paper and realized that she had torn up her opportunity to do what she had been wishing she had done the night before. Yet again, she would be up late, writing because she had torn up what she had already accomplished.
"Alyson?" Mrs. Mendola asked softly, with a discreet sadness in her voice, "Would you stay after class, please..."
Alyson knew that she was the teacher's pet, and staying after class was a normal thing for her, but this time, it was different. She had never stayed back for being in trouble, before. She put away the tiny shreds of paper in a tight pile on her desk, which looked up at her like a pupil-less eye, ominous and all seeing. She tried to distract her eyes from the pile, but found it quite difficult. She felt like the tiny scraps of paper were looking at her, through her, seeing everything that she had been, and everything that she would never be again.
The rest of the day flew by, unlike the morning, before she had been told to stay after class. The morning had seemed to drag along, second after second until only one minute had passed by the clock on the wall. The second she had something unpleasant coming, time didn't just move like normal, it moved even faster, to catch up after the drag that she had experienced that morning. AS with everything else that is unpleasant enough to make time fly, there was no way out fo her meeting with Mrs. Mendola. When everyone else ran out of the building, laughing and chatting, she remained in her seat.
Alyson waited for Mrs. Mendola to come to her desk, but saw the teacher moving things around on her desk in a fake, waiting, kind of way. Every other time, Alyson had been eager to see Mrs. Mendola out of class, but this time, she was anxious. She inched out of her seat and slowly crept to the front of the class. She could see the teacher glance up at her. She now knew how embarrassing it was to be caught creeping. She finally made it to the teacher's desk and realized that she had not come empty-handed. There, in her tightly clenched, and slightly sweaty fist, was the pile of little scraps of peper, which had, at one time, been her assignment.
"Alyson," Mrs. Mendola sighed, "I believe you know what this is about..."
Of course Alyson knew. She had been thinking about it all day long. She looked down at her fist, which was tight and pink, with a few edges of paper sticking out of it, and sighed. She looked at Mrs. Mendola with tears in her eyes and put the pile of scraps on the teacher's desk. She didn't say a word. She didn't think she had to. It was just as well, since she didn't think she could, either. She looked at Mrs. Mendola, who was looking grievously at the pile, and began to cry.
Alyson had been holding her tears for many years, each one worse than the one before it. She had been alone, but still, unwilling to cry. She had been the same person, the same unlikable person for thirteen years. She looked at the small, damp pile, sitting on the teacher's desk and was compelled to say something, anything, to explain it to the teacher.
"That was my paper..." She hissed. She didn't appreciate what had come out, when she had wanted something meaningful. She looked down, feeling a few tears drip off the tip of her nose. Things had not gone as planned. She had planned to break free, but all she had done was ruin things for herself, for another night.
"I don't understand." Mrs. Mendola cried out, "Why didn't you just turn in your assignment?"
Alyson tried to answer, but all that came out were sobs and words that belonged to no language known to mankind. Mrs. Mendola stood from her desk and scooped up the assignment. She looked at Alyson, without a smile on her face, and nodded her head. She ut the scraps in an envelope that was sitting on her desk, and closed it. She looked at the soaked, pink face of her pupil and back down to the envelope.
Alyson looked down at the envelope and saw Mrs. Mendola pull out a red pen. Alyson had seen other people get detentions, suspensions, or worse. She expected that she would be getting the same thing. She held her breath as she watched the red pen glide across the front of the envelope, watching its movements rather than the shape it was actually making. When Mrs. Mendola lifted the envelope, Alyson saw a large, red letter C on the front.
Alyson took a deep breath in, without having really exhaled fro the previous one. She choked, coughed, sputtered, and cried, until the envelope was sitting heavily in her hand. She looked at Mrs. Mendola, with a pleading look on her face, and expected to get some form of comfort. She waited for what seemed like hours, but was only minutes, as her teacher gathered up her things and opened the classroom door.
"Don't do that again..." Mrs. Mendola sighed, as Alyson walked out the open door.
Alyson turned around, to a wooden door in her face. She wanted to cry, but she had already done that once. It had made little difference. She looked down at the envelope in her hand and thought about how much of a teacher's pet she really was. She looked at the door, and thought about the way Mrs. Mendola had acted towards her. She thought about her classmates, and the lack of mocking laughter. She thought about the evening to come, lazily passing by, drawn out by her sadness. Alyson felt a strange heaviness, filling in the hole that had formed from her crying. She turned to walk way, no longer a teacher's pet, and thought to herself, "I guess this is the first step..."