day one.

I'm not sure why I'm writing this… but I'm not sure of anything any more. Everything is so different here. I admit I was never popular at my last school, but at least I was comfortable. Maybe naive, - some may even call me stupid. I had friends, though. I had a niche. I really thought people understood, that I was the luckiest fifteen year old kid in the world. A Freshman who wasn't being bullied, wasn't an obnoxious asshole, got good grades but still maintained a social life comprising of extra-curricular activities and hanging out with friends. What more could I have asked for? It was all going so well. Even the teachers seemed to like me for the most part. Mrs. Finnigan being the exception there, but looking back I don't think she liked anyone. I don't blame her, either, I'd hate the world if I had to spend my days teaching History to kids who had no interest in her class other than for the opportunity to call her names and throw gumballs at her. She never taught me, but my… best friend at the time, well, he was one of the people who particularly liked challenging her, and anything associated with him made Mrs. Finnigan instantly crazy. I'm pretty sure she did go insane in the end, my last memory of her (and also my fondest) was her grabbing me right by the bowtie, dragging me into the Principal's office and yelling at me to spill any information I had on "his" conspiracy plans against her… needless to say I had no idea what she was talking about, and that landed me in detention for two weeks. I think that could have been the beginning of my downward spiral.

What was my point there? Oh, right. Firstly, I never understood why my peers wouldn't get over the fact that Mrs. Finnigan was slightly overweight, spoke with a lisp and walked around with her skirt tucked into her underwear, and realize that she was actually really knowledgeable about her subject. But most teenagers don't seem to have an interest in history class - there's something in that, I think. Because unless you're Homecoming Queen or the Star Quarterback and end up peeking in high school, you spend eighty percent of your days fantasizing about what you're going to do once you graduate. Where you're going to go to college, or where you're going to live, if you'll get out of Ohio or have to make the best of yourself in the same town where you grew up. People don't want to look at the past, and sometimes they don't want to look at the present, they just want the glorious, unclear vision of the future, which is everything but defined for them.

Or maybe they just found the class insanely boring. Either way, I enjoyed my time spent in Mr. Ryan's class, where his preferred method of teaching was pretending he was a pirate. He even had a stuffed parrot that knew all the answers to the questions his deckhands and slaves (honour roll students and… other students) were too dumb to come up with. I'm not sure Mussolini had an exotic pet bird and said "Arrr" at the beginning of every sentence, though… Hitler, maybe.

It's ironic that I still enjoy History, even after losing my mentally unstable teacher. It was the highlight of my first day at McKinley. If someone can bring me back to the 1800s in forty minutes, maybe someday someone could bring me back to where I was this time last year, and let me stay there.

Did anyone even notice me today? I don't think so. I dressed normally - not normal for me, normal for a normal straight sophomore on a normal day of school, I didn't speak to anyone aside from my teachers and some tiny brunette with crazy eyes asking if I could sing. She was looking for glee club recruits, apparently they were reforming with a new showchoir director and they'd actually definitely for sure win Nationals this year because she was the lead vocalist - I'd considered it for a brief second. Last year, I was in Glee with… yeah, I was in Glee, and I loved to sing and dance. I was pretty damn good at it, too. Performing really became my thing. But it didn't fit with the persona I had to uphold. So I smiled semi-politely at the girl and told her "Maybe next year, if they ever cancel football", and she seemed pretty offended and stormed off.

At lunch I located a lovely deserted bathroom at the end of the building. The stall was almost cosy, once I got over the smell. It was weird, being in a school. After being withdrawn for the last few months at my last and then having the whole summer to try my best to re-invent myself ("Try and find yourself, son… a better self. A self everyone can love, and you'll be fine,") the concept of a routine day of education was almost alien. Not having anyone to talk to in class, at break times, in the hallways, it was kind of depressing. But I need to remember why I'm here. I can't risk anyone finding out about me… I don't think my family would ever forgive me if it happened again.

Writing about my day was meant to help… documenting my feelings was meant to be comforting. Like those diaries you read from people living through World War Two, or the accounts of those discovering new lands for the first time. In a way I am conquering new territory, right? They always wrote about their present. You never heard their back story. Everyone has their own history, but maybe it hurts too much, or maybe it was insignificant in comparison to the present, or the aforementioned non-defined future. Even Anne Frank got a diary for her birthday and proceeded to write about the days she spent in hiding. I wonder if any of those great men and women of the past got any satisfaction out of it, or if they just did it because they knew that at any turn, any moment, something amazing could happen, something that would be remembered for the rest of human consciousness. Maybe they knew they were in danger, and were terrified of not leaving any shred of legacy. What's my reason? To find an escape? Where do I want to escape to? Do I want to expel my past? Wouldn't writing about that help? I considered it, you know. But instead I told a story about two teachers. It's weird, I have complete control of my hand and the pen I hold in it, but the minute I try to talk about… yeah, this happens. I can't even write his name. And if I try, my brain just makes me forget it. Because he's a part of my past, a part of the person that got beaten out of me all those months back, and now I'm someone else. I'm supposed to be someone else. I know who I have to be to survive. I don't like him a lot. He's a bit of a coward.

I just want to leave him, that guy I pretend to be, behind and trap him in ink and paper and close the cover on him at sunset. In three years time, I can lock him up for good. Maybe burn him. But until then, this is how I'm ending my days.

I know I don't have a way with words, a flare for language or whatever, but nobody is ever going to read this. It's the only part of me that's never going to be judged by someone else.

Then again, it is only day one.