I shot up from my bed with a pounding heart. My eyes darted all over my room as cold sweat covered me.

Desk. Dresser. Cabinet. Blueprints.

My arms wrapped tight around my blanket as I fell back.

It’s my room. I’m safe here. The door and windows are locked. No one can get in.

A big breath in through my nose-

I’m safe here.

-and out through my mouth.

One deep breath, over and over until my hands loosened their grip on my blanket.

It was pitch black out and I was more than ready to trade anything to get another hour of sleep, but that wasn’t gonna happen. It was between laying there for the rest of the night, or getting up to work, so I dragged myself out of bed and slumped down at my neat and tidy desk.

If there was one place I refused to let be a mess, it’d be my workspace.

A stack of at least twenty different blueprints piled up on the floor to the side of my desk, while all my drawing materials laid spaced out across my desk. All of it exactly where I wanted it. Complete with the sheet for that desk I started yesterday at the center. Immediately, I went to work.

Sure, drawing it wasn’t super complex work, but I still always lost myself in planning. All the worries in the world melted away like they weren’t there. It got to the point where if I had forever to just draw and work with wood, then I’d be in heaven. I didn’t have forever though, I had until whenever the sun decided to come up, and sadly, it wasn’t that kind of apocalyptic day where the sun went out. It eventually came up, and with it a knock at my door.

“Kendall? Are you awake?”

I jumped at Mom’s voice coming through the door, almost tripping over myself rushing to the door to open it.

“Yes Ma’am, I’m awake.”

“I’m making breakfast,” she said with a soft smile. “Feel free to come out when you’re ready.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. I’ll be out in a bit,” I said, standing at attention as she walked back to the kitchen.

I closed the door and rubbed my face to wake myself up. Before setting foot out there, I had to do my make-up. Putting this stuff on was the worst, but people always asked about the super dark bags under my eyes. They’ve been there for god knows how long, but people still found ways to mention them. At least it was easy for me at this point, so it didn’t take much time.

Yay, I guess.

When I finished my make-up, I put everything back in my bag and shuffled out into the kitchen. Emma was at the table while Mom put breakfast out.

"Good morning," I said. My voice and movement lacked any life, but when I sat down, a smile bright as day popped up on me as I gazed upon the most magical food ever made.

Tiny!

Pancakes!

---

Sitting at a restaurant next to the best sister ever as I ate these beauties.

---

I popped them in my mouth one at a time in complete and beautiful bliss.

“Are you ever going to get tired of pancakes?” Emma asked, eating her non-tiny pancake breakfast.

“These will always be the best food you can eat, and you should know that.” I tossed another in my mouth.

“Oh I know, but you’re still a weird kid, you know that?” she said as she reached out to ruffle my hair.

Really? Ruffling hair when we ate was way off-limits! I used one hand to defend my hair and ate pancakes with the other.

“No roughhousing at the table,” Mom said. “I don’t want any more broken plates.”

---

Dragged into the corner with a painful grip on my arm.

“You will be the perfect daughter and you will not make a scene. The next time I hear you break something, you’re going to regret it. Understood?”

---

That memory planted my hands in my lap and forced my head down. “I’m sorry Ma’am…”

My hands only left my lap to take small bites out of my breakfast.

Today was going just fine. At least as fine as it could be, then one little freaking thing changed the entire tone of the room. All of us stopped talking and sat there for minutes in the worst kind of silence.

“Sweetie, you don’t have to be so serious around me anymore. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to come off like I was angry at you. I promise I’m not,” Mom said. She acted like this was about her getting upset, but it wasn’t, and I didn’t even know how to explain what the problem was.

“I know,” I said, going back to my food. Even if I had time before I had to catch the bus, I ate fast to have an excuse to get away from here.

The moment I put the last pancake in my mouth, “I need to get going.” I stood up and gave Emma a hug, “Love you.”

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“Love you too,” Emma said as she hugged me back. She was amazing, but even she had trouble figuring out what to say when things got like this.

I broke the hug and grabbed my bag. “Bye,” I said to Mom as I got my stuff together.

“Stay safe,” added Emma as she got ready for work.

“I will.” It didn’t take long for me to get ready and open the front door.

“Have a good day at school,” Mom said. “And Kendall.” I turned back around to her, already halfway out the door. “Please remember that I love you...”

“I know, Ma’am.” I shut the door and walked down our driveway, doing my best to calm myself in one of the only ways I could right now.

Deep breath in through the nose-

Today will be fine. I have shop class, and I can mess with Robbie. Remember that.

-And out through the mouth.

If this morning was a sign of things to come, then today was going to be terrible, but that didn’t mean I was going to let it fall apart.

I had to do something. Something big and special to make today fantastic, so I planned on what I could do to Robbie.

When I made it to the bus stop, there were only ever a few other kids there, so thankfully, I never had to stand around many people at all. When the bus came, I rushed on and took the first empty seat.

The looks I felt on me made my skin crawl, even if no one was actually looking at me. The worst part though is the feeling only ever stopped when I hid from everyone, so I slouched down in my seat to keep my head from popping up. People might’ve thought being tall was wonderful, and it was when you’re in a fight or something, but a lot of the time it just made me want to curl up.

All this worrying was wasting time though, so I came up with a plan on how I was going to have fun with Robbie.

Maybe if I snatch one of his text books? Eh, that’ll hurt his parents more than him. I could go with the classic of spilling something on him to make it look like he wet himself, buuut I’d probably find it a lot less funny than when I was twelve. If I could actually stand talking to other people then I could spread stuff about him. Like I’d ever be able to do that though.

We were halfway to school when the edges of my mouth crept up in a beautiful smile.

I could mess with his food in all kinds of ways, and no one could prove it was me.

Goosebumps covered me all the way to school just thinking about it, but I had the rest of the day to get through first.

I made sure to be the first one off just like always, and even made it into school without being near anyone. I couldn't avoid the crowd for long though, because the halls of the school were always so damn crowded.

Once inside, my shoulder scraped the wall as I kept my distance from everyone. Nobody paid much attention to me, but that didn’t stop my mind from making every word I almost heard be about me.

+++

‘Did you hear what Kendall did?’

‘Useless bitch’

‘She’s a slut.’

+++

I’m not a slut, and they’re not even talking about me…

It was like this every day, but today decided to actually be kind for once. I managed to pick out Robbie in the crowd. He was talking to his little girlfriend, so I took a deep breath and dove into the crowd to work myself over to him, because why wouldn’t I have a bit of extra fun?

“Surprised we actually made it,” his girlfriend, Sarah, said.

“Yeah, but I gotta get to class. I'll talk to you after school.”

He started to walk away, so I jumped in when I could. “That's if you're not spending after school with me,” I said as I walked up to them.

Even this got me standing tall with a ‘I got this’ kind of boost. It made it seem like I could slog through today until I could mess with his food.

Like always though when she’s around, Sarah immediately pushed herself between Robbie and myself to spoil everything. She was always way too annoying, but what’s worse was that she couldn’t help but march right up into my face.

“What the hell happened yesterday?” she said as she looked up at me. She was taller than Robbie, but maybe a few inches shorter than myself.

“First,” I said, grabbing her arms and moving her back. “Stay at least this far away from me. And I didn’t do anything to him.” I peeked off to the side of her to look at Robbie. “Isn’t that right?” I said, all while admiring the handiwork I left on his face.

He kept his eyes to the floor and didn’t say anything. It was good to know he didn't forget how things worked.

“Bullshit. I know you’re the reason his face is like that, and I’m done letting you treat him like that.”

“Can we just get to class already?” Robbie asked, but Sarah didn’t budge an inch.

“No,” Sarah said. “Someone has to stand up to her, and if you’re not going to do anything then I will.” We never took our eyes off each other.

“He doesn’t even want your help, so stop trying to act like you’re some big shot,” I said, moving past her and up next to Robbie. “And you. Tell Sarah to stop babying you.”

He stared at me and his forehead got all scrunchy.

“Who’s Sarah?” Robbie asked.

“Sarah- Sophie- Sammy- I don’t care what her name is, just tell her to stop butting in where she’s not wanted.”

Sophie, or whatever her name was again, pushed herself between us to get right up in my face. This girl had no clue what personal space meant, but if that gave me a reason to finally beat this girl down, then I sure as hell wasn’t gonna complain.

“I haven’t done anything because Robbie told me to stay out of it, but you better watch yourself.”

I grabbed her arms and, yet again, moved her back. Only this time with much more force.

“That’s nice and all, but it doesn’t matter. You’re sure as hell not going to do anything to stop me.”

I took out my phone and looked at the time. “I have to go to class.” I looked around her again to Robbie. “Your little girlfriend isn’t going to protect you all the time. Besides, maybe you wouldn’t accidentally get so beat up if you just follow my advice."

Stepping around her, I slapped Robbie on the back and walked off, only to be grabbed by the shoulder and spun around.

---

Laying in bed. Gripped and pinned down by my shoulders.

---

I spun around and slapped Sophie’s hand away. Taking one big step forward, I walked into her and knocked her back. “Do. Not. Touch me.”

She quickly stood back up straight and took a step forward. Standing right in front of me, “Or what?”

“Or I can make your face look a lot worse than Robbie’s.”

“Sophie,” Robbie said, “People are staring. Can we please just go?”

Sophie and I looked around to see people shooting us looks, and the attention wasn’t making this worth it. Forgetting about Robbie, I left those two behind and headed towards my first class. One day she was going to get that smug little face of hers beaten in, but today was not that day. Instead, I went off to my first class, English.

Most classes without Robbie were always boring as hell. If shop class could at least be at the start of the day, then I’d have something to start things off with, but nope, I got screwed by scheduling and it was at the end of the day. That wouldn’t stop me from making the rest of the day eventful though, because I still had my little food plan for Robbie.

One thing I noticed was that Robbie ate french fries every day. The perfect food to do this with.

When the lunch bell rang, I grabbed my usual meal, but this time I picked up some fries and went to sit at my table filled with the other silent types.

I couldn’t exactly sit alone during lunch, but at least there was the chance to sit with the other quiet kids. I mean, it was as close to sitting alone as someone could get, and honestly? I was happy with this. Sure, some called it the delinquent table or something stupid like that, but it was better than dealing with people who didn’t know when to shut the hell up.

Once I sat down, I took a fry and licked every inch of it. Once the taste test was done, I lifted up my foot and used it to clean the bottom of my shoe. Next up was to take a stroll to the trashcan to dunk it in there with the day old garbage and move it around. To finish it up, I took a napkin and dried it off completely to make it look like any normal fry. This was going to be so good that keeping a straight face to Robbie’s table might have been the hardest part of the day.

When I made it over to them, they were all talking when one of them noticed me. Before they said anything, I reached over Robbie’s shoulder and snatched one of his fries to pull the old switcheroo with the one I messed with. After that, I spun around and made my way back to my table, eating the fry I took with a big fat smile.

This was going to be quite possibly the best shop class since the start of this school year.

“Everything good?” One of the kids at my table asked when I sat back down.

“I just wanted to tell someone something.”

They accepted that, and the talking stopped there. Again, it was nice they let me sit in silence.

Once lunch was over, it was only a couple more classes until I could appreciate the build up that this was going to have. I should’ve done something like this more often, since it made me look forward to going to school. Robbie and I had other classes together, like gym earlier in the day, or science, but I wanted to save it for the end.

Maybe shop being last period wasn’t such a bad thing after all.