Commended - Senior section
Helleyer College
It’s a sunny day, abnormally sunny for an April day, yet it still turns my cheeks pink as I play in what feels like the biggest playground one has ever seen. I eagerly climb on and up everything I can see, a big rope structure blistering my hands as I make my way to the top and scream to my mother, “Hey, look up here!” I’m unbothered, a whole life ahead of me and I’m unfamiliar to the feeling of being a waste of space. My hair, long, brown, and curly, is blown away from my face as a gentle breeze comes and causes the hair on my arms and legs to prick up, hairs I don’t yet feel obligated to remove every week.
Mum holds my hand and gives it a little squeeze as we near home, walking under trees turning an amber tone as leaves flake off one by one and float to the ground, letting the breeze brush them along the rest of the tree-lined street. Our front door is a vibrant red with a large window consisting of different panes of stained glass, eye-catching and marvellous in my humble eight-year-old opinion. The handle is gold and tarnished telling the story of every time we have been through this door and predicting all the times we will come through in the future.
***
I have a Persian rug in my room, long tassels at either end and an intricate pattern with red and beige and black. I’ve become very familiar with this pattern as I often find myself laying here and tracing this pattern with my index finger. I stare at the roof, one hand tracing and the other laying still on the cold and smooth hardwood floors. I like the feeling of laying on my back, I always have; I find myself here every time I feel things are slipping out of my control and the earth is spinning a little faster than usual, which is something I’ve been feeling a little less sporadically lately. It’s a debilitating feeling, an exhausting feeling, hours I’m laying here, unable to pull myself out, one little trigger and suddenly, the day is wasted, and Mum is telling me that it’s okay but all the while she looks at me coldly and detached. I promise if I could help it I would, it certainly isn’t a feeling I would wish on anyone.
Sunlight peaks through the slim crack where my curtains meet, hardly interrupting my very light sleep.
“Grace, are you up?” Mum whispers through my door so slightly ajar.
“Yep, getting out of bed now,” I say pulling back my amber coloured quilt, my favourite colour. I slip my feet into some fluffy brown slippers. Our house is old, we aren’t the first people to live here, however my parents redid the entire interior and exterior when I was four so I don’t really remember what it was like before how it is now.
***
I walk to school; I have all throughout my high school career. I have my learner’s license, but my parents think it is a bad idea for me to drive, I get overwhelmed very easily. The trees are grey and bare, their branches contorted in weird positions, much more noticeable without any leaves. I can see my breath ahead of me, crossing my arms tighter to my body, burrowing my hands into the sleeves of my navy blazer and up my knitted jumper. I walk past lush green lawns dotted with drops of morning dew and families walking with their kids to new cars in paved driveways, a generic life I live.
School has a very grand look about it, high ceilings, big arches, and long hallways, basically a big fat “we’re better than you” to the public schools in the area. I don’t really have friends at school, I know everyone, but I’m not interested in being friends with any of them. I sit out in the courtyard at break times, a paved area with a big tree in the middle providing shade in the warmer months and simply being an eyesore in the colder ones. Teachers take a liking to me, probably because they think I’m lonely and sad, which I am, but I didn’t think it was that obvious. Mr. Thomas often talks to me when he sees me, sometimes he even seeks me out when he knows I have a study period to come and talk to me, I don’t know why. When my parents had a parent-teacher conference with him they talked all afternoon about how nice and smart he is. He is one of the youngest teachers at the school; he is tall and very obviously works out, his brown hair always in a purposely tousled manner, his skin naturally tanned even in a month as cold as July.
The bell rings, class begins, Mr. Thomas is my teacher and smiles at me as I walk by, and I return the gesture. Time moves slower when I’m in class, the clocks ticks one second every 10 minutes and I lose focus of what the teacher is saying. He approaches me. Everyone else, I realise, is leaving the class, it’s just him and I.
“Hey Grace, What’s up? I noticed you weren’t focused in class today.” He is kneeled next to me as I sit on the hard plastic chairs, my fingers fiddling with my blazer buttons. I don’t realise at first what’s happening, he’s looking at me with a soft smile, but I won’t return the smile this time. His hand placed on my thigh ever so lightly, his fingertips only just tucked in under my skirt hem like he’s pretending to ask for consent.
