I can’t feel anything. I’ve been crying for so long but I don’t know why, it’s not like I’m sad. Four people have asked me what’s wrong and I didn’t have an answer. Usually I can fake a smile and Pretend to be one of those ridiculous highschoolers that go about their day laughing and smiling. I can usually fake it with ease. Not today. Today I was almost like a lifeless drone with nothing but an empty brain and muscle memory that keeps telling me where to go.

I keep looking at things in hopes of harboring a response. I keep seeing things that used to make me feel and when I look at them, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be feeling. I can’t even remember what I did feel in the past. I look at you and I keep telling myself I love you, I keep doing everything I can to convince myself of this fact but my mind won’t have it. I do though. I know I do but I’m beginning to believe I only did. Past tense. I don’t know if I am able to anymore.

I’m sorry. I’m saying sorry because it’s what I would do but it isn’t what I want to do. I’d rather just see everyone deflate into nonexistence so I can finally be alone. But wait… Aren’t I supposed to be monophobic or something?

I was crying the night before and when I woke up that morning it felt like my body had absorbed all my tears. They morphed into a thick uneasiness that sloshed around like a whirlpool of negativity in my stomach. The uneasiness was relentlessly creeping up the sides of me and ever so carefully stroking the inner walls of my throat. I wasn’t hungry, so I went to school without eating breakfast.

Arms wound tightly around my waist as her face pressed into my shoulder. I could feel her tears as they began to dampen my shirt. She was sad. I knew I was supposed to replicate her actions but I couldn’t do it the way she would’ve wanted me to. Pain shot through my gut as I struggled to lift my arms but once I finally achieved what I needed to, I rested them lightly atop her back.

Her body was tense whilst mine was completely at ease. We were opposite and opposing yet neither of us was in more pain than the other. My head throbbed in agony as I thought about how we couldn’t help each other. When she released me, I saw her eyes were red, puffy and glistening with that dreaded salty liquid. I knew I was crying too but I wasn’t sad, not like her. I was just hurting. There was a point in time when I knew whether the hurt was physical or emotional but I couldn’t tell anymore. I was just hurting.

Then, with what I expected was supposed to feel like sorrow, maybe longing, my best friend and I looked into each other’s eyes for the final seconds before I left the room. I know its cliché but it felt like we were looking through window panes in those short moments. I could see her pain, her self-hatred, her jealousy, her concern, and her brokenness all at once. My windows on the other hand did not contain so much. If she could see into me the way I saw into her, I knew she would just see an empty room. It was like a ghost town in my eyes, if emotions were people that is.

God I was pathetic…

I left the room and walked through the office, a usually bright seeming place with enough color to ensure a positive atmosphere but not so much so that the area resembled a pediatrician’s office. Today it resembled what I imagine a prison to look like. As I hesitantly exited past the heavy wooden door, the cool hallway air danced across my skin, leaving goose bumps in its wake. The halls were colorless if you ignore the lockers which were each a different shade of green. Instead of walls, large windows allowed for natural light to drizzle into the large walkway that would fill with teenagers for five short minutes of freedom after their fifty minutes of what they call torture.

I found myself in the bathroom next. There were other people there; I knew one of them. It was that self absorbed liar that tried to ruin my life. Although I’m pretty sure I hated her before, I didn’t hate her right then. I didn’t hate anything. I just made my way to the farthest sink and looked at myself being reflected upon the bent metal rectangle that was screwed into the wall. It was supposed to be a mirror.

I’ve heard stories about people who feel the way I do, people who look at themselves like I am now and see a stranger. It isn’t a stranger because they don’t recognize themselves, rather because they know the person inside their reflection isn’t the same person it was yesterday. I on the other hand, looked into the mirror and didn’t see myself at all. Instead it was as if I was watching my memories project themselves onto a screen that I couldn’t bring myself to look away from. I could absorb them and recognize that in one memory I was laughing and happy while in another I was crying and broken but still none of this harbored a response.

This was when the teacher walked in. She just peaked her head around the corner with a soft frown and wrinkles that enhanced her expression in an unflattering way. It almost as if she was looking for me. She saw my tears, the salty droplets that fell despite the void (or maybe they fell because of it). She said something I think, but I couldn’t hear her. I was just a broken person that didn’t know how to feel. Was I even human by this point?

The woman placed her hand on my shoulder closest to her and startled me back to reality. She smiled and led me away to the office. I followed. Once we arrived I think she told me to sit down in one of the several chairs lining the wall. I did. She tried to talk to me but I just nodded my head mechanically without understanding any of what she was saying. Eventually she sat beside me and tried to converse in order to get me talking.

“I like your shoes.” she said, “They look comfortable.” She spoke in a voice that was probably a little louder than it needed to be.

I paused for a good three and a half minutes before responding, “Thank you. They are.” I paused again before exclaiming informatively, “Comfortable I mean. The shoes, they’re comfortable.”

She said something after that but this is when it all gets a little fuzzy. For however long I was there I just stared blankly at my feet, occasionally wiping my face with the tissues that the woman provided me with. I remember her saying something about visiting the guidance counselor but that wasn’t what I needed. I ignored her.

Instead I went to my writing class. I usually have to improvise my way through a story, pretend like I know what I’m doing but not that time. That time I knew what I was going to write about. I finally had a story to tell. That is when I began to write this story.

I walked in with nothing and everything on my mind all at once. I love writing because it always seems to calm me or make me think in a different way than I usually do. I sat down in front of my computer where my two classmates-my two friends?-attempted to talk to me. They knew something was wrong in minutes but I ignored them.  Whispers of inspiration seemed to echo throughout me as soon as I opened the word document. I began to write and continued to until the bell rang. I was the last to leave.

I lifted myself from the chair and my body mourned the passing of my dearest friend: time. I felt heavy, and so I considered what the old woman told me to do before I left. There was no way I was fit for class at the time so with one heavy breath, I turned and began to make my way to the guidance office.

Once I arrived at the door I just kind of stood there like it was the gateway to the underworld. It was as if the door was metal and covered with spikes to ward off unwanted visitors. Invisible tendrils were creeping out from in between the cracks so they could curl around my limbs and beg for my entry. I gave in to them and pressed my palm to the handle before swiftly twisting it and forcing the door open.Warmth beckoned me closer and I walked in.