Don’t ask me why I got kicked out of school. I’m not gonna tell you anyway. I didn’t do anything worthwhile, that’s for sure. So why bother?

I guess that’s what they call “s*** happens.” People like sticking that on their cars, thousands of drivers who think their life is somehow worse than others’, and then you meet them, and it doesn’t make a whole lotta sense why they’d say that. I mean, what do they know about “s***” when they’ve got a car and money for a bumper sticker? That just kills me.

I don’t think even I can say I know what “s***” is. I mean, I get depressed and all, and school hasn’t been great lately, but it’s not that bad. Just take someone a mile away from you, someone who doesn’t even know how to read the darn sticker, and it’s not like they are too young for that sort of thing or anything. They just never got the chance to learn. That’s depressing. I always think about those people whenever I feel bad. And those people with the stickers should too, only they never will, because they are too darn happy with their witty sayings to care about stuff like that. I don’t get that, but then, they probably don’t get me.

I suppose I should tell you something about myself at this point. Stories usually start like that, good stories, not like those movie-type cheap “novels.” I hate those. They make me depressed, the whole bunch of them. And not ‘coz they are sad or anything. God forgive if a “good guy” died in the story. No one would buy it. But all of them are so similar! You buy one book, and then another, and by that time you are not even sure you if you’ve read it before or not. It’s just the same old story, with three or four new words added to spice it up a little bit. Same underappreciated heroine and brave hero. No brains necessary. Kills me when people read those, really does.

I didn’t feel like going home after school. It was the last day and all. I didn’t care for it much, though. Last day, first day, in-between day. All the same school to me. Hated it the whole while. Well, not the whole while exactly, but when I look back on it, I don’t know why not. It did seem nice and all at first, everyone smiling and being nice. But that was the problem. They’d smile at you, and let you inside their circle, but then they wouldn’t care, and then the moment you left, they’d love to stab a knife in you, hoping you wouldn’t notice. I can’t quite explain it. You have to see it, feel it. You have to be there.

I guess there is no point in hiding why I got kicked out, don’t want you thinking I killed a kid or something. I just failed at it. School, I mean. And I don’t have any excuses. Once you start failing, it’s hard to stop. Thing is, you don’t want to stop. It’s too nice of a feeling. I can’t explain it. But it’s easy to try for yourself.

My parents weren’t mad or anything. They can be awfully quiet about stuff like this. But I know they were really upset. That depresses me. I don’t want them thinking stuff. I’d rather they screamed at me and maybe even hit me on the head or something, you know, for educational purposes. But I know they won’t. It’s my life, they say. That’s the scariest part. It’s mine, but I just don’t know what to do with it. Kind of like as a kid, you never spend your birthday money. It’s too special to be spent, so you save it for another day. Years later, when you open up the treasure box, that money isn’t worth much anymore. You are lucky if you can buy anything. I hate comparing my life to birthday money, but it does makes a hell of an appropriate analogy.

My teachers are probably worried. They think I talk too much about life not meaning much. But I’m not suicidal. Suicide depresses me, especially ‘coz it’s so “common” these days. Kids just think it’s the easy way out. It really seems like it. Even health teachers say so. Hell, they show us how to act before killing yourself. Not as hard as you’d think. Say your goodbyes, enjoy your last moments. All that good stuff. Sounds like you’re ending life on a good note, shortcutting your way into heaven. I bet that’s why people are doing it. I sometimes think that in 100 years or so, people will be killing themselves so often that they’d have to put “suicide booths” on the streets, with little crematoriums in them or something. And they wouldn’t even print names for the obituaries, just numbers, stats, and then one day no one would even care about those. It’s awful to think like that, I know, but someone has to think what this world is going to. We wouldn’t have fiction without that. And anyway, I wouldn’t ever even go near one of those “booths”.

I should probably go home. I should probably find another school, too, whoever would take me. Thing is, I can’t make myself care about school. It’s not like I haven’t tried. That’s why I didn’t go straight home. I want to “sort out my emotions”. I want to feel something Sadness, anger, remorse, any of those. But I can’t, like a rock.

I guess it could be because I kinda failed on purpose. I knew where I was heading. And I’m going to tell you one thing in secret, I enjoyed seeing my teachers look at me weirdly when they knew I quit studying. I needed “a change”, and now I don’t even regret it. I thought I would, and maybe I will. That’s why I’m not going home yet.

Maybe I should give my friend Peter a buzz. Peter is a chill guy. I like Peter. We used to be madly in love with each other, thought we’d grow old together or something. I was so proud of my Pete, like he was the best guy on Earth. And then we didn’t love each other that much. One day I woke up, and I just wasn’t feeling it anymore. And I know he wasn’t either. That’s why we are such great buddies now, old Pete and I. We’ve got that great understanding between us.

Pete would probably know why I got kicked out. He should... But I don’t think I’ll call. I don’t think I want him to understand this me. If he did, that would mean he’s giving up on me ever getting back on track. And I know people think I’m a lost case and all, but I don’t want them to get used to thinking that. Or I will too. That would kill me for real.

So instead, I started thinking what I would tell Pete if I did call, and how he would respond. The thing with Pete is, you know what he’d say, but when he gets to saying it, it’s not like you expected it, really. We’ve been like that for quite some time now, knowing each other so well and all. Ever since we stopped being in love. Love’s just makes things weird between two people. Friendship doesn’t. And we are best friends now. I don’t have to guess what he’s thinking anymore. I know. No more games or worries. It’s a good thing.

It started raining. I feel awkward when it rains and I’m sitting outside. When I was a little kid, my mom used to tell me, that my hair would fall out if I sat in the rain. I still don’t feel too comfortable when it drips water from the sky. It’s romantic as hell when you are inside, but not outside, when your scalp is in danger.

The thing about rain, too, it makes you think weird. And not just about every single hair on your body falling off, but other stuff too. Like maniacs. I guess it would be kinda cool to meet one. If you can protect yourself, of course. When it’s raining and I’m outside, I like to think that if a maniac tried to rape me on the street, I’d hit him so hard he’d never even try hurting people again. Then I’d feel safe. That is, once it happens, and I’ve taught the guy a lesson. I bet everyone thinks they could escape like that, though, and someone ends up a victim. So I better not wish for it. And, after all, who’d want to be roaming about in a storm like this?

I think of poetry too, a very corny thing to do in the rain. Everyone is a poet when there’s a storm: the bumper sticker people, and probably even the kids at my school. There’s this one poem that I’ve always liked. It made me feel “inspired” at all, really inspired, not like in those cheesy “survival against all odds” inspirational movies they make these days. All that drama could not make me move an inch to do great things.

This one poem was written by Robert Frost, a nice guy and loved nature and all. He was miserable, though, said he had a “lover’s quarrel with the world,” saw his whole family die, and was sick a lot himself. But hell, he wrote great poems. This one’s my favorite,
“I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

I used to think I’d be travelling this “other” road someday. It seemed like a grand path and all, with success and riches and good things included along the way. I never realized the guy didn’t ever write that. And I guess there are just as few people succeeding as there are failing completely, which is my “less traveled” road right now. That’s depressing as hell.

I haven’t told anyone about the poem before. I don’t want them to say, “Be careful what you wish for” or something. It’s my secret. I like to think that maybe it’s not too awfully late to switch paths. Even for me. Maybe I could write a great novel or something about how I lived, and how I made mistakes and all, but not one of those phony “inspirational” novels, not some movie-type crap. I’d be honest about it. Real life is not corny. That’s why it’s life. And then people would read the novel, not too many of them (or else they’d scream about it too much and I’d hate the whole thing), but just enough for me to earn some money, settle down, and maybe go to school again. Everyone would love me if I wrote a novel. But I wouldn’t care. I care now, an awful lot, about people, and they don’t bother with me, but the thing is, when you actually have something, then you can not care.

I got excited with that whole writing a book idea, almost got up and went home. As if I’d sit down and finish it right away. But I knew I wouldn’t. That depressed me. Because I knew I couldn’t do it, and so I wouldn’t do it.

I started crying then. I always do when I try trying something, and won’t bring myself to do it. It’s the worst when that happens. I wasn’t feeling too great. The rain was getting the best of me. I just hoped it wouldn’t get my hair as well. I still couldn’t bring myself to go home. But I really wasn’t feeling too hot...

***

They found me half an hour later. I had fainted right there in the rain. It was kinda exciting. I mean, stuff like fainting happens to other kids, never to me. I’ve always wondered how it would feel, to just lose consciousness in the street. These two nice police officers took me home in their cool car. They kept asking me what happened, and I said “I failed,” and I think one of them thought I failed a test, but the other probably thought I failed to kill myself. I didn’t correct either of them. You just don’t tell stuff like that to nice people. They wouldn’t get it anyway...

I guess that concludes my story. I got home in the police car all right. It was raining, and the sound of the drops beating on the roof was kinda soothing. I enjoyed the ride...

One last thing, and then I will shut up and let you get on with your own business. When I got out of the car by my house, it was no longer raining. And there was a rainbow in the sky, one of those huge ones, with all the seven colors, the kind that looked like a bridge to a magical land when you were a kid. They are very rare, such rainbows. I haven’t seen one for ages.

I wonder if I can cross that bridge?..