Chapter One in Caramel Ice Cream

Chapter One
October 26th, 2017
I walked to school today. I was proud of myself, because I knew I needed the exercise, and it wasn’t common for me to act on that knowledge. But I really wanted to change for the better. That’s what I told myself. But that wasn’t even close to the truth. I was so malnourished and skinny from depression-caused starvation that becoming fat from no exercise was hardly a problem. Instead, I wanted to get away from home. Why, you ask? My father was drunk and on the phone with my mother. Both contributing to the undesirable toxic environment. As my backpack painfully slammed into my lower back each time I took a downhill step, I thought. Just thought. Not about anything specifically, but I just eased into my bubble world. It was nice to be able to think once in a while, when at home I can’t hear my own brain with all the ruckus. My bubble world is what I call my “lost in thought” place. It’s not a physical area, just a psychological realm where everything is perfect and nothing is out of place. I call it my bubble world because every time I come back from it I remember that the world is a terrible place, thus bursting my bubble. I never really forget about life in my bubble world, (who could - it’s inescapable), but it’s just so far buried in my conscious mind that I’m not thinking about it that exact moment. Which I guess is the best thing about my bubble world.
I was late to class. By around 10 minutes. It’s an hour long. I missed a sixth of my first period class… And nobody noticed. At least I don’t get marked tardy. My first period class is Chemistry. I sat alone. I don’t know why sitting alone is such a monumental thing to me, but my heart breaks a little each time my table is empty. My heart, if you didn’t know, is probably dead about now: it has rather lots of fractures. Soon it’s just going to break again. It’s done that before. My heart has been shattered by a lot of people, most without even noticing they’re doing it. They never apologize. That doesn’t bother me that much, because if you drop and break a plate, telling it “sorry” won’t piece it back together again. You can always glue it, but even then there’ll be fracture lines. But someone else has to put back together the plate. Nobody did that for me; I had to put myself back together again.
The day went by rather uneventfully. I was shoved in the hallway, and tripped, but no biggie. I’ve gotten used to it over the years. However, this particular anonymous shover hit a little harder today, and I fell flat on my now-bruised knees. As I massaged them, I ate my lunch. I didn’t eat it during actual lunch because I was busy crying in the bathroom, like normal. Not the in-order bathroom, because other people would hear me and then I would be known as the girl who had a mental breakdown in a public bathroom one day. Not that they’d know I do it every day anyway. No, I went to the transgender bathroom. Nobody uses that one because, duh, it’s highschool, and any hint of homosexuality is shamed on and bullied for. It doesn’t matter that I disagreed with it, it’s just the sad way it is. I sneak in there myself, because its doors close (and lock, at that) and it only has three stalls. I never lock the door, though, because I never needed a reason to. After all, nobody but me uses that bathroom.
For lunch I had made myself a tuna sandwich, but by now the tuna had sogged through the bread. I ate it anyway, to my disgust, but I had to. It was the only edible food in the house, as my father lived off of crackers and booze and my mom was busy with her other family. Her favorite family. The only thing I could eat legally was the food I had bought myself, but that was hidden in my secret place in my room. I worked my own job and made my own money (which wasn’t a lot), so I couldn’t afford my father going through my supply. I don’t think he even knew I was home, but that’s nothing new. My father isn’t much a part of my life. There was once a time when I would’ve been gently scolded for my uneaten lunch by my mother, but that was when I was a child. Oh, and also when I lived with both parents. Oh, and I had a best friend (or a friend at all). Oh, and also when my parents that I actually had gave a single shit about me. Ah, those were the days. The days before the day. I fell asleep remembering it; June 12th, 2012.