I was just about to shut the rusty metal door when a lanky boy, probably 15 caught my attention. 

"Do you need help?" I asked just wanting to go eat.

"No, I just… you’re her right?" I could hear the bedlam of the people getting lunch and I wished that I could have just sucked it up and taken the book with me. "I mean, you’re who they’re talking about, right?" I closed the locker and placed both hands on it’s warm surface looking down, not facing him. 

"You don’t have any idea what people are talking about."

"About h-"

"You don’t know anything, ok?" I said unnaturally emotionless. "They’re not talking about me anyways." I added quietly. He was still standing there when I left in the opposite direction. I traced the ‘S’ shaped scar that followed the curve of my eyebrow on my left temple and turned the music up.

"People walk around pushing back their debts,

Wearing pay checks like necklaces and bracelets,

Talking ‘bout nothing, not thinking ‘bout death,

Every little heartbeat, every little breath."

I had lost my appetite by the time I made it to the commons. I sat at an absent table near the back of the outside cafeteria and laid my hand on my folded arms. 

"People walk a tight rope on a razors edge"

Just because I’m not there, doesn’t mean I’m not with you…

I felt sick…

"Stop being a wuss Spencer." I said to myself, but I couldn’t help but roll my finger over the pealing label on the ipod again. I needed to feel something that was still there, something that my fingers could read and memorize.

Blue, like the color of your eyes… 

"Carrying their hurt and hatred and weapons.

It could be a bomb or a bullet or a pen

Or a thought or a word or a sentence."

I tucked the ipod back into the pouch on my canvas messenger bag. Without the constant music I started to notice how quite it was. People were still talking, but most of the seniors talked in frantic whispers. I tried to catch a sentence or two from the people around me, but I couldn’t hear very well anymore. All I could see was how everyone’s demeanor had morphed. The hairs on the back of my neck started to rise. I didn’t want to be here; it was unnerving. I gather my things and began walk across the commons when I met his eyes as his mouth formed two word. I turned my head towards the ground. 

She’s back.

"There ain’t no reason things are this way

It’s how they always been and they intend to stay

I can’t explain why we live this way, we do it everyday"