Wednesdays

(written in 2024)

Holding my math’s textbook tightly across my chest I brace myself for another quiet day, another day where I can count how many words that I say out loud on my ten fingers alone. I wave back to mum’s car as I walk towards the ‘senior school campus’ that my locker resides at. My bag is heavy on my back, and I’m already slouching as I force myself to keep walking, when all I want to do is get back in the car and curl up in a ball on my bed for the day. It’s year eleven on a Wednesday, VET Day. The one day every single week that my only two friends don’t come to school. They go to their respective courses while I’m stuck forced to come to school alone. My heart pounds, I keep my head down as I head to the first class, hoping that I am invisible to everyone around me. 

And I am. 

Everyone else is in their friend groups, chatting loudly, laughing, the sounds you resonate with the idea of fun. I watch my feet take every step closer and closer towards the first classroom, up the stairs, but staying to the left, so I am not in the way of anyone. The brick walls feel like a prison, as I move down the hallway to each cell, or classroom as everyone else referred to them by, I convince myself that they aren’t actually closing in on me. I drag myself through the first doorway, and force myself to look up, but not too much, I cannot look anyone in the eyes. It would break the whole illusion that I’m invisible and I might even be forced to speak. The rooms are just as bleak as the hallways, four brick walls, a small window near the roof, no pictures on the walls. I pull out a chair and sit near the back of the room, making sure I am just close enough to someone else so that the teacher won’t recognise the loner. Every room smelt of sweaty bodies, the mixture of perfume and cologne, the kind of smell that sticks to your skin, making you scrub your body free of their stench every night. I swallow the lump in my throat and prepare to say the first word of the day, making sure it’s not too loud, not too annoying, but also not too quiet enough to not hear at all. Then my name is called.

‘Here.’

No one looks at me, but the teacher scribbles something on their page. Perfect. Now I just have to do my own silent math’s work and stay quiet enough that the teacher forgets to ask me any questions. It works every time. I look at my watch, I’ve been at school for twenty whole minutes. Only five hours and forty minutes to go.