Chaos

·I deleted all my pictures with black hair on my social media that day. I locked myself in the house for weeks after that, if not months, afraid to face the world. But, that wasn’t anything new because my whole existence for over a year had been in that musty house anyway. I had no motivation to change myself or to improve except those little dreams deep in my skull of a better day, or the late night ramblings of a lunatic describing an elaborate scenario where I am actually living and not just shaking under the anxiety and stress of my strange idea of life. Where did the slightly insane whisperings at the corner of my brain come from day in and day out? It couldn’t be me could it? I was the one trying to ignore it and distract myself, right? But aren’t we all just trying to distract ourselves? From death, regrets, lost hopes, our questionable sanity, or maybe it’s just me distracting myself so I don’t lose it.
There was nothing in the news about what happened in the forest.
I just spent day after day in a haze sitting in front of a computer typing away, some days doing schoolwork, some days watching TV shows. Even prior to that fateful day I would still have little black holes I’d fall into where I couldn’t get anything done for weeks at a time. When I finally emerged I felt like a strange hermit crawling out of my cave in the forest. I eventually pushed myself to leave and went out to register for my new classes at the local community college with my mom. I felt like a complete alien to the outdoors and the entire car ride she stared at me and questioned why I hadn’t been outside in such a long time, while I think this is the first time she has ever really noticed what I’m doing..
The last flash isn’t really a flash because it never stops or ends, it just goes on as the time progresses until the present. It’s me waking up the morning of my first day of college. I sit up in bed blinded by the light from the windows I forgot to cover the night before. My phone alarm is blaring a generic song and my mother is asking from the other room what I want for breakfast. I answer her and survey my room thinking about how amazing most of it looks after I redecorated. The first thing I stare at every morning is the back corner of the ceiling in my closet. It’s a gaping hole covered by a piece of cardboard that leads to the dark attic that I have never, and hopefully will never enter. The rest of the room is pretty nice though, the walls are a light aqua and the floors have sand colored tile. All the furniture is blindingly white with gold accents here and there. Originally I wanted black walls and black floors with gold lighting and furniture, but that did not go over well with my mom. I drop back onto my pillow and attempt to predict the day that is coming. As cliché as it sounds, I hope I make a friend and like my teachers. I’m slowly recovering from the night in the forest, and beginning to feel like its okay to enter into the world again even though I’m petrified of meeting new people today. I crawl out of bed and roll onto the large rug on my floor over to my dresser, so I can pick my outfit without too much effort. I drag skinny jeans out of the drawer and a maroon chunky sweater with my favorite owl necklace. I stand up to get dressed and scan my closet’s floor to find shoes that match and eventually grab my tall brown Ralph Lauren boots. I get ready, eat, and sluggishly do my eyeliner leaving the rest of my makeup for the car ride.
As soon as I get in the car the reality of the situation hits and panic takes over as my mom drives away towards the school. I’m actually going to be in a class with other people my age! They’re going to see me! I’m going to have to be nice and friendly and converse with actual people! I’m freaking out now and shakily say, “Mom let’s turn around, I don’t want to go. I’m not ready for this.”
She laughs, SHE LAUGHS, and replies, “Too late, and you’re brother’s going to be late if we don’t drop you off soon.” I drop my head to my hands and stare at the floor when my brother speaks up, “Hey, I know you haven’t been in a regular school for a while, but its actually not that terrible and you’ll make friends.” I spin around and look at him, “Wow, that’s probably the nicest thing you’ve ever said.”
He rolls his eyes, “Yea whatever.”
My mom quickly looks at me from the road and says, “Honey, you’ll be fine. Just focus on your school work and pay attention. I know how hard the past year in online school has been for you and I’m sorry, but you’ve always been great with people and everyone’s gonna love you.”
I quickly look up at her to flash a sad smile and reply, “Thanks but I don’t know about that,” and drop my head back in my hands. My moms all nice and cheery but as soon as I start smearing foundation on my face she gets that disgusted look again. We always fight over makeup because she always thinks I wear it just to impress guys because ‘I don’t really need it because my natural skin is beautiful’, and I think makeup is like fashion, it makes you feel on top of the world. Anyway, as soon as I finish my makeup we are in the college parking lot and my mom is searching for the ‘D’ building while I take my hair out of it’s braid and try to hide behind It so no one will see me in our messed up car. Luckily, she drops me off in the back and I cringe when she yells out of the car, “Bye Ellie, I love you and hope you have a great day! I’ll pick you up at 2:30!” I say ‘I love you’ back and wave to her and my brother before running off to my first class, Calculus. I have a mild panic attack when I see the whole school but try to act calm like I’m just strolling down the hall surveying my surroundings. The school is actually really pretty because the trees are losing their leaves, the bushes are flowering, and the huge glass buildings are reflecting everything. The entire area is full of people sitting around, talking, or skating along the sidewalk. To my right in a field I see two girls dancing to really loud music and a pang of jealousy shoots through me that I would never have enough confidence to do that. My head is turned looking at all the people surrounding them when my worst fear happens, I run into someone, my binder drops with a loud ‘THUMP’ and everyone turns to stare. “Oooh sorry bout that,” someone gets down to help me pick up a paper that flew out. I automatically say its okay and look up to see a guy with pastel blue hair. He’s still holding the paper I dropped, which happens to be my schedule, when we both stand up and he says with an Australian accent, “Hey we all have the same first class! You new here?”
I nod awkwardly.
“Oh cool, I’ve been here all summer. Where are you from?” He asks guiding us towards class.
I take the schedule back from him and run my hand through my hair, “I actually did online school before this because I was doinga lot of acting.” That was kind of a lie because I never really did much acting but whatever, “What about you?”
He’s about to reply when another guy saunters up to him and grabs his arm, “Yo, M we’re gonna be late for…. Whoa, who’s this?” He pauses when he sees me and scans me up and down while I just stand there flustered because one of the first people I meet at this school JUST HAS to be unbelievably hot. He seems like the player type, but I can’t deny he is still extremely attractive. His dark hair and stubble is styled to perfection and I can see the tattoos on his tan skin peaking out of his leather jacket. Oh hell, I can barely think straight with this godlike being right near me and I’m stealing glances at him between every step. Hey everyone, that’s me, the creep that won’t stop staring. Somehow I keep walking with the boys while pastel hair guy replies, “This is… uh I never got your name?”
“Elqenna, yours?”
“Wow, that’s an unusual one,” I nod and roll my eyes knowingly, widening them when he grabs my hand, shakes it, and pointswith his thumb to the other guy, “I’m Michael Clifford, and this is Zayn Malik.”
I smile, “Zayn’s name is pretty unusual too.”
I notice Zayn intently staring at me and he meets my eyes and grins, “Unique,” then walks through the door of our class and drops into the back row.
Michael laughs and walks with me into class, “He thinks you’re hot.”
I roll my eyes for probably the fourth time this morning and sit down in the third row, not too far in the back but also not too close to the teacher. Michael sits a row behind me right next to Zayn and we wait as the rest of the class piles in. I pull out my phone and pretend to text someone on it to avoid the awkwardness of not knowing anyone while everyone around me is socializing. Right as the clock hits 8am a short girl wearing a light blue crop top with long, straight brown hair runs in and collapses into the seat next to me. I see a huge bow tattoo on her wrist when she raises her hand in the middle of the teacher’s introduction. The teacher nods to her and she flips her hair off her shoulders and asks, “Can we just get to the point? I need to know what textbook we supposed to use for this class and where can I get it cheap?” I widen my eyes and when Michael sees he laughs a little and covers his mouth. The teacher looks shocked that she would ask that kind of question but answers and continues with his lecture. I immediately dislike her and plan in my mind to avoid her when she turns to me and says, “Hey, you got a pencil?”
I start searching through my bag, “Uh…” When Michael throws a pencil on her desk and says, “Naida why you always stealing people’s pencils? I better get that one back.”
She ignores him and starts writing while I turn around to thank Michael. He nods and I turn back around awkwardly avoiding eye contact with Zayn. I feel his eyes on my back the entire class and it makes it about ten times harder to focus on anything so as soon as the teacher dismisses us I jump up and make a run for the door. As soon as I’m far enough down the hall to get away from the class I hear Michael yelling, “Bye Elqenna!” I turn and wave to him before glancing at Zayn who is once again staring at me and then rush off to go find some food.
After two hours of waiting for and eating food in the foodcourt at the mall nextdoor, there’s no way I was eating at the school cafeteria, I go searching around the mall for a sephora (so I can pretend I have something to do). I realize, sadly, that they don’t have one so I dejectly walk out of the mall and into the bright sunlight. I pull my sunglasses over my eyes and think about why I’m so weird. Everytime I go anywhere alone I just feel so out of place, like everyone is staring at me, when they probably don’t actually care at all what I’m doing. Sometimes it gets to the point that if someone stares too long I’ll start panicking and my face will get really red. Why does that happen? What’s wrong with me?
I hide beneath my sunglasses as I make my way back to my next class, Government. As I wait to cross the street back to college I drift deep into my mind and start my cycle of worrying again. The only people I’ve met today are a cute guy that I’m too scared to talk to, another guy that is nice but keeps flirting with me, and an obnoxious girl that I wouldn’t want to be friends with anyway. My fear of not meeting anyone to become friends with seems to becoming true and I’m petrified of how the rest of the semester is going to go when I’m all alone.
I check my schedule again and try to navigate to my next class once I’ve crossed the street. Even more people are hanging around the campus than earlier, and the anxiety sets in again. I walk faster to my class and once I notice the door is open I practically run in and almost slam into the teacher. The second time I’ve pretty much ran into someone today! I look up to see a very tall woman, she must be at least 5’11”, with extremely short hair. She looks down at me and says, “You in this class?” Well duh,I just walked in, but I just nod. “Well then, welcome. I’m Ms H. What’s your name?” She pulls out a list of names as she walks back to her desk.
“Uh, Elqenna Lawton.”
“Ah yes Elqenna,” She says, checking my name off her paper, “You’ll be sitting in group ‘B’ and your partner will be Niall.” She points to a table in the back corner and a seat with my name on it. I’m one of the first people in class and no one from my table has entered yet so I set my bag down and look around until everyone else shows up. The first people to sit at my table is a tall blonde guy with lightly tanned skin wearing a tight black shirt that shows his toned chest and extremely reflective sunglasses, and a girl with tan skin and straight black hair hitting her shoulder blades wearing a white jacket and tan jeans. They walk in deep in conversation and don’t notice me until the teacher points to where they have to sit. The blonde guy drops down next to me and glances at me before returning to his conversation with the black haired girl across the table. They don’t even say hello! The black haired girl actually gives me a dirty look while I sit there and awkwardly pull out my notebook to distract myself. Before I can write anything someone else, who all I notice in my peripheral vision is that they have dark hair and pale skin, sits down across from me and drops her bag on the ground before turning to me and announcing, “Hey, I’ve never seen you before! You’re super pretty! Are you a model?” I feel my face get red because now everyone in the room is staring at us so I just say a quick ‘Thanks’ and shake my head. The other two people at the table are also now giving me their full attention. Despite my prayers for her to not be so loud she once again speaks up louder than anyone else in the room and says, “You know I was going to be a plus size model, but they told me I needed to lose weight! To be a plus sized model! Can you believe?” I notice how crooked her teeth are and feel the urge to fix them right this moment even though that’s extremely impossible. I calm down enough to smile at her openness and she pushes back her mass of wavy, somewhat haphazardly straightened hair and continues, “Anyway, I’m Aisha. Whats your name?”
“Elqenna, but you can call me El.”
She’s about to reply when the blonde guy next to me speaks up in a deep Irish accent, “Oh wait, do you know Michael?”
I look surprised at him and reply, “Kind of, I just met him today in my first class.”
He laughs, “Oh well he mentioned you, anyway I’m Niall and this is Aviana,” he pointed to the girl across from him.
“Aviana? That’s a really pretty name.” I smiled at her nervously wondering if she would ignore me.
Surprisingly her stony face broke into a grin and she replied, “Hah! Aviana? Your name is way cooler! Elqenna, that’s so freaking cool. How do you spell that?”
I told her and all four of us started up a conversation while the teacher handed out worksheets. I was slowly opening up to them and they seemed pretty nice. Niall was really funny and Aisha was loud but really friendly and Aviana seemed a bit closed off but loved to gossip about anything and everything. Overall the class wasn’t too hard and the more I worked with the other students the more I felt like the day didn’t turn out that bad after all, or so I thought.

Notes