Among the Living

Chapter Four

Sitting in the third row of Mrs. Peters' history class, I finger the blade. When Mrs. Peters' back was turned, I slump in my blue chair trying to hide behind the short kid in front of me so the teacher wouldn't be able to see what I was about to do. Ever so slowly I take out the razor blade. I clean off the dried blood from my earlier accident, a few minutes ago. I roll up my left sleeve up to my forearm just so my wrist was showing. I hold the razor up to my wrist wondering should I do it or should I not? Should I give Colton the satisfaction that he got me to do what he wanted me to do? Just as I was about to take the razor blade off of my wrist, the teacher said "Alex Wilson can you tell me where one of the concentration camps were?" I had accidentally cut my wrist out of shock that she almost called on me. I didn't even pay any attention to the lesson.

"Holy s**t! That hurt like a mother." I yell out loud

"Mr. Winter!" Mrs. Peters said sharply, "I do not tolerate foul language in my classroom."

"I apologize Mrs. Peters, I was just so shocked because I was so sure that you would call on me and I just wanted to have at least a somewhat decent answer."

"Well would you like to give the answer? Or would you like to go straight to the principal? Because either way that's where you're going to end up."

"Well I'm not feeling to good anyway. So I might as well see the nurse so I can go home."

"Very well then, you are dismissed and I will call down there to make sure that you actually went down there,"

I put the razor blade back in my sweatshirt, gather up my things, and walk out of the classroom. I make my way down the hall just before I exited the building there were two guys sitting on the bench. They were barely recognizable. But I remembered them. Thomas and Greg. They were my; best friends in seventh grade. They had changed so much. Thomas was now tall, well built, long curly brown hair, with a black leather jacket that he wears all the time, and he was now a lineman for the football team. Greg now has short dirty blonde hair with blonde highlights, grey-blue mixed with green eyes. He is a bit shorter than Thomas but not by much. He has a red and black hat covered with 39 green and blue and 1 white monster stickers. He is also a line man. They are so much different than I remember. I would never have expected them to play football. As I walk by them I hear Thomas whisper quite loudly to Greg, "faggot"

I march up to them. "You know I wouldn't call me that if I were you because if you don't recall, we were best friends."

"Well not anymore."

I suddenly didn't feel like talking to anyone anymore so I walked off. I exited the building and go outside and step out in the rain. I sit down on the outside bench and take out the razor blade again and hold it up to my wrist and make a slice not to deep and I tip my hand downward so the blood drips to my palm.

I blink a few times and the memory fades away. I realize that the water has now run cold. I get out of the shower without turning off the water take my blue towel and dry off. Turn off the shower and put my clothes back on and dry my hair with my parents' blue-green blow dryer. I finish drying my hair just as I hear my family pull back up to the house. I hear a clunk sound so I throw down the hair dryer and run out of the room and into the upstairs hall. I leaned over the banister to see what was going on. I turns out that Colton had his hands full with the groceries. My first instinct was to go help him. But I held myself back.

I wait for everyone to come inside before I went outside. Once everyone came in I go outside. I tilt my head back to look at the sky. It was starting to get dark and on top of that it looked like it was going to rain. I had to find a place to sleep before it got too dark and start to rain. I really didn't need to sleep being the fact that I was dead.