Day in the Life (Jamie)

I go downstairs to the kitchen of Mom and my's decently sized condo, faking a smile when my mom said good morning. I can't let her worry about me; there would be no positive outcome from her getting involved. Even taking my pills doesn't improve my mood, since I know that the depressing fog around me would only disperse for a short while. 

"How you feeling?" she asked me with a slight smile. Mom's good with sensing moods, so she probably already figured out that today was going to be a bad day.

Shrugging, I say, "Fine I guess. My head just hurts..."

She smiled and kissed the top of my head, gently ruffling my hair, to my annoyance. "If you don't feel good at school I can come pick you up. It won't be too much trouble."

I proceed to shake my head. "I'll be fine. Always was, always am, always will be." But I'm not really "fine." Back when my entire family was still together, my father had been abusive, and in a specific bout of aggression he threw a brick at me, crushing my knee and calf bones into a million pieces, rendering it useless and leaving me with only one complete leg and one amputated beneath the knee. This led to me being bullied from the third grade onward for having a prosthetic leg, being called things like "robot" or "gimpy". I have no friends, and I got depressed after my older brother, my only company, moved away to attend college. If anything, I was far from "fine". 

I know it bugs my mom when I put on a tough face, but I can't let her worry about me forever. She's had a tough time too, and now that we have nothing to worry about, I don't want her getting worried over me.

She drops me off at school ten minutes before the bell, a time which I've chosen to expedite my suffering. I make it to my locker and my first class without incident, and the most I get until lunch is a few insults and a couple of jocks tripping me and kicking my stuff all over the place. That may be a result of very long, tiresome lessons in all of those classes.

I should probably explain. My first hour is English. Being a freshmen, there aren't very many people I don't know in the class since its full of freshmen, but all the usual idiots are in there, trying to make my life hell. I guess there was a football game last night since most of the class is pretty dead. I have a short home room period afterwards, where I find out that my guess about a football game was correct. Second hour was a computer programming class I chose as an elective, which I don't really regret because there's a bunch of fellow geeks in there that don't seem to care about my leg. I could just wear long pants every day, but it gets pretty hot around here well into October. My next class was math, and the class was full of freshmen, sophomores and juniors of all different statuses, so I make a regular act of isolating myself in the corner, not speaking unless the teacher calls on me. The last class for my morning is history, a class I don't exactly plan on doing quite well in. 

And then there's the torture known as the lunch hour.

Like always, I go to my empty table in the cafeteria, most of my lunch intact. The reason I say "most" is because there's always a small portion of fruit or something that doesn't survive the distance I have to walk of teenage assholes, pardon my French, trying to trip me. Like always, I shovel my food down my throat and try to get out of the situation as quickly as possible. But before I can get up, somebody sits down across from me and smiles.

"Is this seat taken?" the boy asks, even though he had already sat down. I shake my head and his grin widens. "Hi! My name's Aaron. This is my first day around here, so I hope you don't mind if I sit here? I promise I won't cause you any trouble!" 

Too late, I thought to myself. He was the most annoying person I have ever had to deal with. In five minutes of watching this guy talk with his mouth full, I found out that he flunked the first grade, started playing basketball in the fourth grade, was an only child and moved here two weeks ago because his dad just got promoted to regional manager for some big-shot company. His parents aren't divorced, he used to have a lot of friends back in his old town, and he assumed that he had made plenty of friends just in his first half of the day at this school. And he had two whole legs. And I envied him for it. 

I hadn't said a word, and when the bell rang for lunch to be dismissed, I walked away from him without turning back. But he followed me to my locker, claiming that his was this way too. He bombarded me with questions, and I tried to answer them with as little energy as possible. I live with my mom; I have a brother; I haven't seen my dad in years; I'm 14 (he was already 16); yes, my hair's naturally this blonde. I couldn't exactly understand why this person was so interested in me: I was only some nerdy looking guy that sat at the only empty table in the cafeteria and got bullied every hour of the day, even in my dreams. In reality, he should be bullying me too, since he claimed he had made the freshman basketball team at his old school (I guess flunking the first grade and having a September birthday leaves a 16 year old trapped on a freshman team) where they began practicing late October instead of our early December. I didn't want to deal with this kid; I only feel worse about myself around him.

My walk to my German class didn't go well. Some kid slammed himself into me, sending me into the lockers. I dropped my notebooks and he and his friends picked them up and started tearing them apart. Even as my precious notes were being torn apart I didn't rise to stop them, and I especially didn't want them beating me even worse over trying to save my homework. Anybody who passed by either helped my attackers trash my stuff or laughed, nobody even glanced at me with pity. The peace I experienced this morning was but a faint memory at the edge of my thoughts.

I got to class ten minutes late after trying to clean up and salvage as much of the mess that was now my study materials. I wish I was homeschooled my entire life: then I wouldn't be in this predicament to begin with, and I could leave all these idiots choking in the dust. Maybe if my father hadn't thrown a brick at me I wouldn't be in this position, but I could've lost my leg any other way I guess.

My science class is full of all sorts of people, and I can see people in a lab across the room from mine giggling and watching me. I couldn't think of anything quite so funny about me, but I guess people find entertainment in all sorts of things. There were a few blotchy bruises forming on my arm, so that might have drawn some attention, or maybe they had heard about my incident earlier.

My last class of the day is PhysEd. Some might consider it a good way to let out the frustrations of the day, but I disagree: it's only another chance for me to get busted up before the day is out. The fact that we were in the basketball unit only made my worries more realistic. And just as I was thinking that things couldn't get worse, a voice aimed in my direction echoed through the locker room. 

"Jamie!" the voice called out. I didn't turn in the direction, but I knew it was Aaron immediately; one does not forget the bane of their existence quite so easily. "Hey, I didn't know you were in this class! Sweet!" 

I continued ignoring him, swapping shirts and moving to put on my shorts while he blabbed on and on about how his day had been since lunch and how much he liked this school. But before I could even get my pants unbuttoned he grabbed my arm and threw me off balance. 

"What happened?!" he asked, twisting my arm so as to see the fresh bruises more clearly. "Did you fall down the stairs or something?!" 

I glared at him, hoping my irritation with him would finally permeate his thick head. "None of your business. Now let go of me." 

But instead of letting go, he pushed down on a bruise, making me yelp in pain. "Let go! That hurts!" 

"Tell me what happened first," he said, making one of the most serious faces I've ever seen anyone make while speaking with me. In a way he reminded me of how Theo, my older brother, had been before he had moved half way across the country to go to college.  

I sighed. I didn't say anything and continued changing, removing my pants and putting on my gym shorts, earning a shocked stare from Aaron. "What?" I ask, still annoyed. 

"You're leg..." He just stares at me and my leg, going between my face and my metal limb a few times. "What happened...? Is that just...normal?"

I run a hand through my hair and turn around. "Don't pity me. I don't need anybody feeling bad for something I'm already used to. I'm just as able as anybody else." I walk out into the gym and go through our usual stretches. The teachers let me do things on my own, afraid they'd get in trouble for letting a disabled kid play with people who are physically complete.

Apparently today was to be a day completely wasted on playing HORSE instead of working on technique. I thought I could escape annoyance from Aaron since he had been getting much attention from the teachers and the other kids, but somehow he had escaped the clutches of their interest and made his way over to me. 

"Don't you ever get lonely playing by yourself?" he asked after a few minutes of watching me. I only shake my head in response. 

"Well," he continued, "if you ever have any trouble, I'm here for you. Even if you keep ignoring me.

I glance at him for a moment. What was he trying to do? Nobody had really tried this hard to be nice to me before; there were always a few people who would try talking to me but never proceeded after a few minutes of my blocking them out. This was different. This...almost gave me a bit of hope. I pass him the ball, hitting him in the gut since he wasn't paying attention.

"And you said you were on a basketball team?" I ask, getting him to laugh a bit. 

"Hey, it's only November. I've still got time to up my game," he said with a smile. "Besides, it's only the freshman team. Anyone can get on that." As he told me the story about how a boy who was 5'2" got on the team at his old school even though he couldn't shoot high enough to score, we started playing a game ourselves. 

For once I actually avoided getting tripped or slammed against lockers in the locker room. And I actually had a good time for a little while. The look on my mothers face when I got in the car actually scared me for a moment.

"Jamie!" she said when I got in the car. "What did you do now?!"

"Nothing, Mom!" I say, laughing for a moment before realizing how strange this was for me.

"You have bruises on your arm," she state, looking at me in bewilderment. "Did you get into another fight? What did I tell you about bullies?"

I shook my head. "Nah. I just had a good day." I thought about the incident in the hallway. "Well, I did after I got beat up. But the rest of the day was pretty bad."

She sighed, clearly tired by my sudden energy. But she smiled a little and said, "Tell the little lady that she can come over whenever she wants if you're this happy."

The feeling of fire in my face was almost paralyzing. "Mom! This has nothing to do with a girl!" 

My mom gave me a look of confusion. "I didn't know you were a queer."

"He's just a friend! Just a friend!"

The phone call from my brother and his boyfriend congratulating me on the development left me even more disappointed with my family.