4. P
4
P
Dear Diary,
Lame.
I’m P, and I’m…sad? Lonely? Broken?
I don’t know what I am, I just know I’m here even though I wish I wasn’t.
If I knew of a way to get the hell out of here I would. Hands down. Don’t even have to ask me twice, but unfortunately, I’m not so lucky. None of us here are lucky.
Maybe I should take comfort in the fact that I’m not alone in the matter, but finding the ability to connect with anyone here feels impossible. The only thing we have in common is the fact that we’re all here waiting to die. What am I going to ask someone? Oh, hey, do you feel sadness deep inside, like an overwhelming swell of waves crashing against your strength again and again and again?
They would likely laugh in my face, I’d rather avoid any and all interactions than deal with embarrassment.
It seems these pages are the only form of expression I have, so I’m pushing through the discomfort of writing my thoughts. At least this way, I feel like someone is listening to me.
It’s my birthday today.
Happy Fourteenth Birthday to me!
Still not dead. Still lost in the cycle of this damn place. Still no purpose.
But…maybe for my fourteenth birthday, I could possibly try to…smile? Be happy? It doesn’t feel possible, but I guess trying does no harm.
There are fifteen of us in total in our class. Each with our own initial. It’s fine for the most part, unless we happen to cross paths with someone in a younger year with the same initial, then it becomes even more regimented and they call out our age too. Thankfully, there’s only one other P at Florentine’s. He’s a boy, a year older than me, and he sneers every time I’m close, like I chose the initial I’m called by.
Mostly everyone in my year seems nice enough. Not that I care to get to know them any better. S, however, she seems to leave me no choice.
S says I need to focus on what is possible instead of everything that isn’t. I’m still undecided whether I like her enough to appreciate her opinion. She doesn’t act sad and lonely or scared, so I keep my mouth shut. I guess the sound of her voice isn’t completely irritating.
For now.
Either way, I’m choosing her as my…companion to spend the extra hour outside with me today because a part of me thinks it’s better than being alone.
P x
Dear Diary,
I hate Mrs. Stephens.
I’m not sure if she hates me more than I hate her, but the feeling is definitely mutual.
She’s just…mean.
She made V, a quiet girl who sits at the back of the class, read out a passage today about blood kins. I guess the knowledge about the blood curse that hangs over us is a part of our memories they allow us to keep, but the news keeps changing and evolving.
The law has now changed.
Blood kins may not know of each other until their twenty-first birthdays. We may be isolated like this, but not know of each other until a time declared by someone else.
V started crying, but Mrs. Stephens wouldn’t take over. She made her read it.
I almost started crying too.
I don’t remember anything from home anymore, but I remember the knowledge that you were supposed to learn who your blood kin was so you could protect each other, like siblings, until the blood curse came to fruition.
Apparently not.
Mrs. Stephens enjoyed the pain in the classroom today. She practically sparkled with it.
One day she’s going to enjoy bringing us to our end. I just know it.
P x
Dear Diary,
(I guess it’s a little less lame today.)
There’s a weird sensation in my stomach and I need to write about it.
I’m still sad, but maybe only ninety-nine percent of the time? I don’t know, the loneliness clings to me like a second skin still, like I’m sure it always will, but actually spending time with someone seems to be…helping? There, I said it, I admitted it, but don’t you dare tell anyone.
S drives me insane most of the time, talking and talking and talking, but it distracts away from the pain I guess. When she turns to me and smiles, I feel almost obliged to do it in return, and sometimes, only sometimes, does it linger a little longer than necessary too. As if it’s actually meant to be there on my face.
On top of all that, and while we’re on the topic of S, it’s her birthday today. Even though it’s a day to celebrate her, I felt the butterflies in my tummy too when she chose me to be the one to enjoy the extra hour outside with her.
Me.
I. WAS. CHOSEN.
We didn’t do anything different than usual, but I did wish her a Happy Birthday. I think there were tears in her eyes, but she waved them away before I could be sure, and she was back to her bubbly self again.
Maybe she is my friend; maybe what she says about being positive is something I should listen to, but there’s no way in hell I could be as positive as she is.
I’m too negative at the core.
Who knows? Not me.
I know I’ll still be here tomorrow. Maybe I could try.
P x
Dear Diary,
(Almost not lame at all.)
Trying to be nice is more complex than it sounds. I’ll leave that to S. She sits with me now, claiming the spot beside me on the asphalt, and instead of drifting off in my head, I watch the rest of the school around me.
People watching is her favorite thing to do, but the way she chatters about the boys tells me there’s only certain people she’s interested in spying on. Yes, spying on, because she’s always trying to teach me how to do it as unsuspectingly as possible.
Sometimes, we watch the guys play football, throwing some weird shaped ball between one another. While she’s ogling them all, I spy the younger girls skipping in the corner, or observe the other stragglers sticking to the edges of the playground with their heads down, closed off from everyone.
That would usually be me too, but I must admit, it’s much more fun to see the world as it passes me by. It’s going to rush right past me whether I like it or not, maybe S is right, maybe there’s no harm in enjoying something about each day instead of wallowing. Although, wallowing is my safe place. I’m excellent at that.
If I was getting marked on it, I would definitely come out with A’s instead of the B’s and C’s I’m actually achieving in my classes.
I may be here, waiting for my death, but at least it isn’t coming today.
P x
Dear Diary,
Sixteen.
One word, one number, and a whole world of a difference.
Something about the number makes it feel sweet and special as I now get to declare that’s how old I am, but I’m acutely aware of the gloom hovering closer in my life.
Two more years, and then I’ll disappear to wherever the eighteen-year-olds go.
I don’t want that.
As much as I despise it here, at least it’s familiar.
Like the last few years, I chose S to celebrate today, even though she insisted I should have asked T.
T.
A. Guy.
He watches me on the playground. I track him too.
If he catches the ball? He looks my way. If he throws the ball far? He looks my way.
S says he’s making sure he has my attention. I don’t know where else I’m meant to look. He’s cute, I suppose, but there’s no way I’m asking him. Nothing in my gut is urging me to do that, so I’m sticking to what I know. I don’t need anyone else—just myself. Maybe S too, but I can’t tell her that.
P x
Dear Diary,
HE. ASKED. ME.
It was awkward. I gaped at him for a solid five minutes before I remembered to speak. He had a weird grin on his face, a smolder. S insists it has something to do with his eyes too, but I didn’t pay enough attention.
I was ready to say no, I didn’t want to give him the wrong idea, but the thought of the extra hour…changed my mind. His birthday is tomorrow, so at least I’ve got tonight to prepare myself.
S says he’s going to want to kiss me, maybe even more, but that’s ridiculous. I’ve heard the stories. I’ve seen couples kissing on the playground, and it makes my nose crinkle in disgust every time.
Get. A. Room. Losers.
None of that is for me.
No thanks.
P x
Dear Diary,
He kissed me.
K.I.S.S.
And I think I kissed him back?
Dammit.
The control I insisted I had was gone. It was nice, I guess? I’m not desperate to do it again, but it did things to my body. Things I’m not ready to talk about.
I’m more mad that I have to admit that S was right. She always is.
I just hope he doesn’t think we’re doing that on the playground tomorrow too.
Although…maybe…
P x
Dear Diary,
I just…I don’t know what just happened.
I was heading back from the shower block as always, but instead of Mrs. Stephens guiding us today, it was Mr. Deakin, who usually handles the year below us.
He ignored us for the most part, which is fine by me. Although, he doesn’t seem to sneer at everyone like Mrs. Stephens does.
Anyways, none of that matters, what matters is what I saw…or what I think I saw on the way back.
I don’t even know what to say or how to say it.
Dammit.
She… I… Well…
On the way back, we were walking past Mrs. Stephens classroom. Mr. Deakin told us to wait against the far wall while he spoke to her. He was taking ages, and I mean ages, and I was starting to get cold, so I… well… I gave up waiting, but I didn’t leave altogether, I’m not dumb, I just… went to knock on the classroom door, which was open I might add, but before I could hit the wood with my fist, my gaze locked with Mrs. Stephens at the other end of the classroom… and… well…
She snarled at me, told me to get back in line. Which is fine, really, she’s said worse, but it’s the way she flicked her hand almost dismissively. I jumped back a step, but more because a second later the classroom door was swinging in my direction.
There it was.
Slammed shut in my face.
But no one was close to it.
Not that I saw.
Mrs. Stephens and Mr. Deakin were in a heated discussion at her desk.
It doesn’t make sense.
No one else in the line knew what I was talking about.
I don’t know what it was, maybe the wind, but it didn’t feel like the wind.
Maybe I’m going insane in this place.
Yeah, that’s it. It makes total sense.
Here I am, signing out while still sound of mind.
I hope.
P x
Dear Diary,
Seventeen.
The final countdown is here.
I don’t feel any joy at all for this birthday. None.
Not when I spend my thirty minutes every day doing the same thing, chatting with S for twenty-five of them and kissing T in the corner for the last five.
I’m not the only one; S has a boyfriend, his name is, B.
T isn’t my boyfriend.
I don’t think he’s even my friend. There’s no talking, just kissing, but he inched his hand to my breast today, squeezing gently around my tiny B cups, and I liked it.
I also chose him for my birthday today. We didn’t do anything else, but I’m starting to think I want to. Everybody else is, and for the first time in my life, I’m intrigued and curious by what they’re doing around me…
Maybe for his birthday?
P x
Dear Diary,
I… Well he… I just… He just…
I couldn’t do it.
Sex.
How do three little letters make up such a tiny word that holds such huge meaning?
Whoever came up with it needs to reassess themselves. That’s what I told S too, but she was too busy correcting me on the fact it stands for sexual intercourse. That just makes it worse.
His hand slipped under my skirt, teasing the hem of my panties, and I just…I couldn’t. I’m sure I’m the only one missing out at this stage, but the idea of it, right there, on the asphalt, only solidified that it wasn’t for me.
Not when there’s always a teacher supervising. I don’t need an audience to embarrass myself any further.
T wasn’t happy, but it wasn’t about him.
I don’t think he’s ever going to speak to me again, and I think I can live with that. What’s one more person to leave in the pile that keeps on growing?
Disappointment threads through my veins tonight, mostly at myself, but no matter what, I know I made a decision for myself, one that was right in the moment, and there’s strength in that. Strength that won’t matter when I’m dead, but at least it mattered today.
P x
Dear Diary,
I hate it here.
No I don’t.
I just hate him.
No I don’t.
I loathe him.
That’s a lie.
I actually hate that I don’t feel any anger, maybe just more disappointment?
It seems since I haven’t been putting out, T has been looking elsewhere. Multiple elsewheres, if we’re being honest, but that’s beside the point.
Anyone in our age group has been a target, except me and S, since she’s still got a boyfriend.
I’m not sad, or mad, I’m almost…relieved. But lonely. Definitely lonely.
I didn’t want to kiss him anymore, and I definitely didn’t want his hands on me, but he could have at least said goodbye or something? Maybe, I don’t know.
Despite how much I don’t miss it, I miss the feeling of being connected to someone.
The reality is, I didn’t give him what he wanted and he left.
I wonder if there’s something I don’t remember from my childhood that played a significant part on my behalf that brought me here. Maybe it wasn’t just because my blood kin’s family had more money, maybe my family couldn’t deal with me. Maybe I deserve this.
I’m still talking with S, but I see the look in her eyes, the one that confirms I’m slipping back to my old ways, but solitude has only ever been my savior.
Besides, the clock is ticking. In six months, everything is going to change again.
I may as well distance myself now because people will only slip between my grasp whether I like it or not.
The truth of where the eighteen year olds go will soon be information I’m privy to, but for the first time in the seven and a half years I’ve been here, I don’t want to find out.
P x