3. Middle Class
MIDDLE CLASS
Demons [Imagine Dragons]
Everyone calls it “the eye of the storm”. Few live to tell the tale of what’s in the centre—the eye. Yet, I’ve been there before, imaginatively, I suppose.
It’s safe in there, all the while having the chaos swirl around me in a chaotic mess of screaming slurs.
The sun shines down on me from inside the centre. Clouds break away, opening up the blue sky, and a beaker of yellow light shines down, giving me a sense of warmth.
Silence.
But as I stand in the silence, my broken, torn house filled with crushed cans, broken plates, and torn, ruined paintings spins in a messy blur around me.
And before the quiet can calm me, sound breaks me away from the sea of warmth. Fingermark bruises swell across my right arm, squeezing tighter and tighter as I fall to my knees.
The bag with a six-pack drops, and two cans pop. Liquid hisses out, sounding like a snake caught in a plastic bag.
Mum then comes into focus, cowering in the corner. Her arms move over her face, her fingers clutching at her hair as she screams, “Stop, John!”
His laughter says otherwise, and the only warmth within this broken home spills down my cheeks.
A light tapping comes from the other side of my bedroom door. I slowly blink, returning to my room, gazing at the broken fan.
I sit upright and shuffle out of bed when another knock comes, more prominent, but I don’t rush. I would have, if it were Dad, but Mum is patient enough to give me time to breathe.
I shrug on my shirt and pull up my three-day-old jeans. There’s a faint paint stain, but I brush it away until it fades enough. Then, when I am dressed, I reach my door, grab my bag, and when I go to lift it, a spark of pain hits my arm, and I drop my bag.
Taking a deep breath, I reach for it again with my left hand and shrug it over my shoulder while opening the door a crack. Mum steps back, her burning red, tired eyes blinking fast as she struggles to keep the sadness from sweeping over her. “I made breakfast,” she murmurs, pointing to the table.
I look away from her and focus on what’s behind her. The living room and kitchen are pristine enough. She must have cleaned early this morning while I was in my room with my earphones in, crying myself to sleep, cradling my right arm.
There are no remnants of last night. It’s like none of it happened.
Mum wasn’t cowering, Dad wasn’t drunk and violent, and I wasn’t the scapegoat.
But I wish there was something because I sometimes think I’m going crazy on days without remnants of what happened the night before.
Perhaps my daydreaming has become so real that I have convinced myself that the bruises over my body are because Dad was drunk and abusive, not because I ran into a display stand at the service station.
Except, I will look in Mum’s eyes and know it’s real, and the dreams of me, desperate to escape the trauma, are real.
“I’ll get something on the way to school,” I declare when I notice it’s plain toast. “And after work, I’ll buy some butter.”
Soft brown eyes burn a solid black. “You’re working again?”
I nod once. Slow. “Someone needs to pay the bills.”
“Your dad…” She becomes rigid when my gaze returns to her, my face turning to stone. “Never mind.”
I step away from her, leave home, and make my way to school, saying nothing else.
There was a time when I sympathised with Mum. Earlier on, when I first understood what was happening, I cried. Except my cries made it worse for her. Even so, the tears wouldn’t stop. They flowed like a waterfall.
Mum would cradle me. She caged me in her arms like the knight I desperately wanted. She told me everything would be okay. It was a misunderstanding.
I believed her words until the day he hit me. He backhanded me after I stood up to him and refused to get him more beer. The blow was harsh. Ferocious.
I didn’t see it coming, but I felt it.
Horrified, I met my mum’s eyes, pleading with her. I expected her to realise that hurting me was the last straw. We would run away. Run so far away that he could never find us.
But the world doesn’t work that way. She turned away, unable to hold my gaze, and acted as if she had seen nothing.
With a shake of my head to clear the bitter memories, my focus lands on the bus stop in front of the Service Station. I enter the store and make my way to the hot food section. Warm pies and sausage rolls.
I grab a sausage roll in a flimsy plastic packet and head to the counter.
Layla gives me her discount, and I smile a little at the help.
I reach into my bag and grab my wallet when another sharp spark of pain tremors across my arm. I hiss at the tension, and Layla’s smile falters as she waits for me to pull the card out to hand to her.
My wallet never leaves my schoolbag. It’s the one place Dad never looks.
After I pay for the food, I leave the service station and wait at the bus stop. When I finish eating my sausage roll, stuffing the wrapper in my bag, the bus comes.
Some students on the bus hang out in the back and claim the “popular seats,” giving them more power than they can handle. But I sit in the middle.
We aren’t popular or unpopular. We sit in the middle—the invisible line. No one bullies us, nor do we have enough status for anyone to appreciate or invite us to parties.
The middle of the bus is my haven where I can sit in the window seat, and no one bothers me. Whoever sits next to me is as invisible as I am, like there’s a divider between us. We don’t like. I’m not sure I’ve even made eye contact. The middle breezes through our lives, overlooked.
The closer we get to the high school, the more students cram onto the bus until it’s full. And when the bus stops out the front, I wait until the students already standing leave first. Then I wait for the popular students at the back of the bus to leave.
Then I wait for the popular students at the back of the bus to leave. And then, the invisible void (us) leaves.
Samantha waits by the bus. Glossy brown hair, tied into a bun, frames her face with messy curls. She has freckles dotting across her face, dark brown eyes, and olive skin.
The invisible barrier shatters, and I walk alongside my friend. Her hands shake uncontrollably in front of me, and she looks antsy with anticipation and energy.
“Dylan and I went bowling last night. He kept getting gutter balls. It was hilarious!”
I twitch a smile as I imagine Dylan’s “cool” persona he puts up in front of Samantha shattering after he kept getting gutter-ball after gutter-ball.
“Oh, and I joked he should put up the barriers, and he did! I nearly peed myself when he went to the lady and asked!”
My smile strains at her enthusiasm.
Samantha then points to me and says, “How was work?”
“Good,” I reply shortly. “I'm working again tonight.”
“Dylan and I might swing by. Are you working at the register tonight?”
I shake my head and say, “No. I am stocking shelves.”
Minor lie. Quinn does that job, but I tell her this because I don’t want Samantha and Dylan showing up to watch my work.
“Ah…bummer.”
Our friends avoid teachers and students by hanging around the back of the school block. Dylan, Samantha, and Andy are smokers. We know the teachers know they smoke, so we have a mutual, if-we-don’t-see-you-you-won’t-get-detention kind of deal with them.
The back of the building overlooks the next street, and further down the road, there’s a mini shopping centre with a supermarket, a post office, and a tobacco shop.
When we arrive, Andy, who is a year older than I, hops back over the waist-high chain-link fence, plastic bag in hand.
He gives Dylan a pack of smokes, and in exchange, Dylan hands him a fifty-dollar note.
Wylan then gives Andy his money, and Andy hands Wylan a foil packet.
My focus moves across the road to the house with the untouched lawn. There’s a car out the front, someone underneath, and a tool kit beside them.
“So…I told Noya about bowling,” Samantha declares.
Dylan’s eyes widen as he hands Sammy a smoke, his face burning red.
“Oh, what’s your version, Sammy?” Andy asks.
Disinterested in the conversation, Wylan turns his back on us and takes a drag of his cigarette.
I lean against the red brick building while Samantha explains their date again.
It seems to be the opposite of what Dylan told Andy.
The version he shared with Andy makes Dylan seem “cooler” rather than pathetic and terrible at bowling.
I look to the road, their conversation bleeding into the wind. I imagine myself hopping the fence, like Andy did, hailing a cab until a car stops. I’ll then jump into the car, begging them to take me to the train station.
Then, I will use the money I have saved to repair the air conditioner, find a place to stay in the city, and quickly find work.
Maybe a hotel until I can find a studio—
“Noya,” Andy calls, touching my arm. I flinch, stepping away from him. “Dude, sorry. You were out of it again. The bell rang.”
I soak everything in. Samantha clings to Dylan as they walk. Wylan is gone, and Andy softens his expression when I look to him and murmur, “Sorry.”
As I go to my class, he reaches for my arm again. “Did something happen last night?”
I avert my gaze because it’s difficult to conceal my awkwardness and discomfort around my childhood friend.
“Did he come home drunk?”
“I’ve got class,” I announce, holding firm to conceal what happened last night. Andy scowls at me, embodying that older brother persona, and he fits it perfectly. So, the guilt gets the better of me, and I say, “I’ll tell you about it in art, alright?”
“You'd better.”
With a roll of my eyes, I walk beside Andy until we reach Block B. Andy walks ahead to Block D while I make my way towards English. When I enter my classroom, Samantha is already seated, and the space beside her is empty.
She beams a grin when I sit next to her.
Samantha and I grew closer in year eight. Year seven wasn’t a good year for me, so I hung out with Andy and a few older students behind the school building, becoming invisible.
Then, in year eight, Samantha found our spot and was so energetic.
Despite her popularity and kindness, she joined us at the back of the building, bumming smokes from older kids.
Since then, we have been inseparable. Samantha would sit beside me in class, and we would chill at the bus stop before I went home.
But we aren’t close.
She doesn’t know about my home situation. No one knows besides Andy, and that’s because he witnessed it. Everyone else believes I don’t want friends over because of my strict parents. And since Andy supports this, they don’t invite me out either.