Algebra Equation: A Short Story

As I looked up, the sky was dark the sidewalk illuminated by the streetlights. The sound of crickets and cars echoing through my ears. I walked home that night, tears in my eyes. I was leaving, I couldn’t handle it anymore. The meds, doctors, psychiatrists nothing was working, our lives were in constant danger. By the time I got home the car was gone. By the time, I finished packing it was dawn. The sun creeping in through the shutters. For the next couple of days, I crashed at Jason’s before I headed South. I heard my cell ringing, it was mom… I let it go to voicemail.

I’d like to thank my pink Disney princess television for the continuous distraction from the lack of affection. As I sat on my tiny chair confused by the loud stumbling outside of the living room window, my mother encouraged me to stare at whatever show was playing. In my mind, I knew exactly what was occurring. My father once again arrived after a long day of work and a long night of drinking. This occurrence was extremely repetitive until the end of my junior year of high school when my father accepted the help he deserved to get back on track with his life. Being a shy child, I remember observing my father’s alcoholism create disputes with my mother, affect us insecure children, and formed an overall unstable household.

I came home one day to see both of my parents sad. As a third grader, I didn’t completely understand at the time, but my father had been laid off from the job he’d had since his teenage years. My father had started at the age of eighteen as a student worker at Southern Miss, and after years of hard work he had been promoted to the manager of shipping and receiving on campus. When the recession struck, the need to save money resulted in his position being terminated. My father was without a job. My father loved that job and when he lost it, he changed. He found a new love, alcohol. He let his love for alcohol become an addiction. He would do anything for alcohol; he even had secret stashes when my mom had removed all the prior alcohol from the house. Quickly my father became a violent drunk and began to routinely beat my mother and me. He became unstoppable; no person could get him back on track so my mother, in an attempt to keep me safe, removed him from the house. Even my mother’s best efforts weren’t always enough, as my father constantly broke into our house. One day my mother and I came home and my father was waiting in our den with a gun. We walked in, he pointed the gun at us, and then back at himself. He couldn’t decide to kill my mother, himself, or just all of us. He had more hatred in his eyes

I knew that it would take some time to establish myself. While I was new to the community, I believed I would and could be successful with some work. After all, I had done so well in middle school. And then it happened; I entered the campus filled with energy as I walked into the big brown building. It appeared to be so extravagant, standing tall and surrounded by the bare trees. I knew what I was capable of and I told myself,"Don't let anyone get in the way". As the first bell rung, I was worried. I took my seat at 8:15 and I already began to lose my focus. I stared at all the new faces although I had yet to learn the names of my new peers. My staring contest was interrupted by a sheet of paper on my desk. It hauntingly said- "SYLLABUS."

The blazing light was shining in my face and a slight breeze blew through the arched windows. I spotted an open chest in the attic, whilst spring cleaning. The outside rim of the box was covered in dust and cobbled webs; the hinge was rusty, making a creak noise against the ghost-quiet room. Rummaging my hand around the chest there was a scratchy-substance digging against my fingers. As the sun faded from my sight I lifted up the mysterious object. It was an old rustic book; I flipped through the delicate pages, every touch made a crinkling

I never thought I would be labeled an outsider, a misfit even. As I trudged my way through the halls of my small town high school, I would endure the gazing pairs of eyes, that belonged to my peers, followed by whispering and often times some laughter. I always used zone out during those repetitive speeches and commercials about the effects of gossiping and rumors; never did I imagine that one day I would be on the receiving end of of the everyday potshot. Growing up I was always the center of attention, the one everyone yearned to be friends with, never was I the antisocial child in the corner with nowhere to turn… not until high school. They say high school changes you. They say high school accounts for some of the greatest years of

The transition from Grady High School had become a starting point of a new life. Slowly but surely, it found its way into adulthood. Where I embraced a new sense of responsibility and maturity. At this given time and day, I was responsible for following the rules and regulations. These set of rules was being enforced by the principal named Dr.Bockman. Students did not appreciate her position as being principal, yet her job was to support the Grady community. She had a very strict job and she took it very seriously. Nevertheless, I made my first entrance into the steps of being in high school. I walked into Grady High School with an overwhelming fear of anxiety and depression. I had no idea what the expectations was gonna be. So, I knew that

Being a freshman, in a new school, a new city, even a new state, frightened me going into my first day of school as a high school attendee. Chaparral High School in Phoenix, Arizona was considered to be the top high school in the state of Arizona, however it sure was not for me. There was an ample amount of kids who believed they were better than the kid next to them because of the money their parents possessed. This characteristic began to grow on me; without my own awareness. Furthermore, I began to talk back to my parents, acted as a terrible brother to both my two younger brothers who looked up to me, as well as, my friends back in El Paso, Texas did not even want to talk to me. I had become a monster in all my friend’s eyes.

I took a deep breath as I walked through the doorway. The door was stuck open, hanging on just one of its hinges. It was clear that no one had been near this place in a long time. As I entered, a stench hit me. It smelt sickly sweet, almost like rotten fairy floss. I looked around the room at the faded and ripped wallpaper, and the broken furniture. The air was so thick with dust it was almost impossible to breathe, and everything was thickly covered with dust. The little light there was came from the cracks in the yellowed blinds.

Walking into school on my first day of high school, I felt out of place. My face covered in acne, my teeth covered in braces, and the callicks in my hair stuck up through the abnormally thick layer of hair gel that coated them. My middle school social anxiety still ruled over me as I could barely speak with any member of the opposite sex. Yet, I still had an odd confidence about me. I had always been one of the best students in my class, even without ever studying for a test. I viewed high school as a slight uptick from the curriculum I had easily passed in middle school. I was wrong. High school exists as a microcosm of society, in which I originally failed to acclimate myself to the challenges posed to me in a setting of increased

People sometimes forget that not everyone is capable of a high school environment. Sometimes to be successful, you have to fail. I had just moved in with my mom therefore I was going to be the new kid at Lake Gibson High. I was nervous, but I tried my best to hide it behind a smile. My mom has always been able to see past the fake smile, although to everyone else, I was just another happy nobody. I knew that I wouldn't fit in. My anxiety made me breathe heavy. I got off the bus, still no one noticed me. I was hiding behind my black hoodie with my hair covering my face. “Breathe” I mumbled before stepping into my 1st period English class. I took a seat in the back, and all except the teacher ignored me.

I breathed in the after rain smell. It must have rained the night before but I hadn’t seen it so I wasn’t aware that it would be wet. As I strolled onto the sidewalk and began my route to school I stomped on the wet, fallen leaves. I walked about a half mile each day to get to Florence Nightingale High school , or as I liked to call it, my daily prison. It was a good high school but it was still a high school. The usual American high school is full of people who are unsure of themselves and because of their un-surety, they feel the need to others down. Now take those people and add in an over-confident deaf girl into the mix and that's my every day. I am extra isolated but that’s fine by me. I really don’t care what they say about me. It's not like I can hear it

I tried to blink in my tears, because the last thing I wanted was to end up crying like a loser on the first day of school. "Mom, I'll be fine.". I certainly was not fine. I was anything, but fine. I took a long, deep breath as my eyes met the sight of Johnson, an enormous school with kids bustling in and out like bees. I knew I was in for something big, but big doesn't always mean better, right? Time was ticking by, and I had an obnoxious feeling luring in my stomach, worse than any type of butterflies. I turned on my music, completely redid my hair and started tapping on the dashboard with my nails. Oh gosh, I literally was doing everything to get my mind off going to school. However, that became quite impossible when my mom stopped the car in front of the main entrance of high school. I was so close to pinching myself, hoping that this was some messed up dream. But it was, unfortunately, reality. After observing a bit, I couldn't help but laugh at the diversity of all the kids that were walking in. Some were jumping with joy, others laughing for what seemed to me no apparent reason, and some who hunched as they sluggishly walked

Soon enough, I started to believe them; by the conclusion of fourth grade, I felt worthless. When I learned that I would be transferring schools, I saw redemption. That summer, I exchanged novels for magazines; I went on extreme diets to lose weight as if cutting pounds could cut the memories of abuse from my head. Going into fifth grade, I found myself googling “How to be Normal” in an attempt to abandon my identity; fifteen pounds and a miniskirt later, I had all but done so.

Have you ever felt like everyone in the class is looking at you? That was me in 8th grade, the new kid, not only to the school but to the country. My family and I had just moved from Germany to Columbus, Georgia, it was a big change in all of our lives. I sat in that class with not an a sliver of an idea of what I was doing, where I was going, or how I was going to survive this year. My shoes were not exactly the most stylish, neither were my clothes, Germany was not exactly the most fashionable country, so why would I be, I had lived there for 12 years of my life, I was 12 at the time. My teacher was Mr. Kahlouch, an old grouchy man that I would learn to not like even more as the year passed, but today he would make me stand up and introduce myself to a class where it seemed every student had already produced their own clique. I told myself that I would be okay, that it wasn’t a problem, and thought of the old cliché, “picture everybody naked.” I was ready, I walked up to the front of the class took a deep breath and went, “Hi my name is…” I woke up about an hour later, I had passed out in front of everyone in my new class at my new school, in this new country.