Stitched (Anushka Sharma)

What am I?

Am I enough?

Why am I not enough?

How do I become better?

Will they ever find me worth anything?

Am I actually something?

Every question except the ones that were in the test paper in front of me crossed my mind. But I didn't have answers for any of them. I tossed the papers, trying to find out a single problem I could solve. Calculus has never been my thing. Actually I have always hated any sort of calculations, mathematics or sciences. I chewed the end of my pencil and instantly regretted it. I looked up to find my eyes on the girl sitting two seats away from me, as she aggressively scribbled her pencil on one of those extra sheets we were given for rough work and I immediately wanted to hit her for her stupid advise of taking out your stress on this tasteless pencil.

I let my eyes roam around the room to see some of my fellow classmates absorbed in the test while the others were absorbed in cheating. Perfect!

I looked up at the clock and found the remaining twelve minutes. Pushing my overthinking aside, I focussed on the test and dug my memory to solve the problems. With five minutes on the clock, I stood up, handed my test to the teacher and walked out into the school playground. I sat on one of the stone benches under the sun. I kept my bag close and looked up at the bright February sun.

Warm, homely, complete; I feel it all.

Lost in my never ending thoughts of finally seeing something that makes me feel I belong, I was startled by a sudden shrill voice.

"Look who's here, pretty little Storm. That's your pet name, right?", Cassandra, the so-called famous cheerleader of our little school, said with her usual self absorbed tone. I mean I am self absorbed too but she is annoying. I refused to pay her any of my head and kept my gaze fixed to the sky. Pretty sure she got annoyed. She stood there, tapping her foot on the ground, waiting for me to flinch or run away with tears. But she wouldn't get any of that. "Oh come on Cassandra, she's not Storm, she's just a stinky puddle with tadpoles in her hair," came a voice from her parade of dumbass girls with short skirts and tight shirts that made them "sexy". They laughed off and left me alone. In the past three weeks, I have discovered that ignoring people is easier than fighting them off.

I know what people might think but I am personally of the opinion that this ignoring works on my problems too. My friends usually worry about my state of mind and how I am running away from everything that's bothering me, from my problems and from my fears. But why do I need to face something, weaken myself and break my own heart when I can simply act like it's not there? I do not need to be happy from my soul when I can drug my brain into feeling happiness without all those useless petty attempts at being happy, solving my issues and working on things.

"Hey girlie, rocked the test?" My philosophy was interrupted by a chirping voice and a smile curled up my lips. How the hell is she always so happy? I pushed myself up and looked at her. "I hate you Jess, the pencil is not made for chewing, it was ughhh."

She laughed and took a seat beside me,"I think I'm going to fail this test, I didn't know anything, like any single thing." I narrowed my eyes because she was probably the only girl who would get a whopping 100 on that stupid test.

"You're such a liar, if you get a 90 plus again, I'm going to kill you. I was the actual one who sucked at the test."

"Oh come on Storm, you'll get a hundred and then whine, saying, "oh my god, I didn't get a hundred and five", won't you?" She gave me a coy smile and dug her hand into her backpack, probably to get some book to read. Nerd!

"By the way, what was Cassandra and the cheer team doing here?"I heard her voice, but kept my eyes closed. This was one of those instances where I didn't like being with her. She always wants to know everything, more like she thinks she deserves to know everything. She finds it her authority to know everything about me, but knows I am not worth telling anything to. But I'm done giving out things about myself. I kept my eyes shut and answered, "Oh nothing, she was talking, you know."

"Really? What was she talking about?"

Ughhh.

"Casual stuff, cheer, classes."

"Storm, come on, don't act like I don't know. Why do you let her insult you, huh?"

At this point, I realized it's not only about making the right decisions, but making them on time. If and only if I had started keeping things from her early enough, she wouldn't be able to guess half of my present condition like she does.

I scrunched my nose, "I don't care."

"Come on, I know you do. Everyone does, who likes to feel bad, huh. Why don't you join the cheer team again and let her know who's the boss? Why did you leave in the first place?"

"It's been a whole year now."

I rose up, grabbed my bag and started walking briskly, I'm done with this conversation.

I heard Jess calling me and when I ignored her, she ran up to me and stood right in front of me, blocking my path. What does she want?

"Storm, what's wrong? You wanna talk about it? You know I'm here, right? "

Huh, fuck you're here. You're not here, Jess, you never were. You just like me as a pet under your thumb.

I gave her an assuring look and walked away.

Maybe I'm wrong, maybe she wants to help. Maybe she actually likes me as a friend. But she's ruined our friendship over the last one year. She's burnt bridges.

I spent the rest of the day, doing one thing or the other, to avoid people. After a quick yoga session, I looked up at my watch to see it say five past six. I need to head home. If I get there after six thirty, I'm gone. They don't care if I was being productive at school or whatever, I need to be home from school at time. I can't go anywhere straight from school. Stupid rules. But I need to follow them because I like my peace of mind.

Tired and exhausted I am

I hate myself or maybe I love me

Is it a bed of roses or my own corpse on which I stand

There's too much time, things I'll wait and see.