My English teacher is a nice lady, bubbly and excitable, with a nasty high-pitched voice that often reminds me of an obviously older porn star trying to act like a school girl. She likes to call students nicknames like sweetie and pumpkin. It is bizarre. I feel like this forty-five-year-old woman believes she is younger than she really is, which in all senses might really be a healthy thing. I often feel old, being forced to act like a child to fit into the social class of my similarly-aged peers. Maybe I should take a page out of her book.

Today, we are learning the proper use of punctuation. I'm asleep before she finishes four sentences. The bell rings, sharp and shrill, waking me from a nightmare about killing wild rabbits with my bare hands. As I rub the sleep out of my eyes, I can almost still feel the stress of snapping necks in my fingers. I step out of the small chair, stuff some papers into my bag, and head for the door.

"Alexander, sweetie, can we have a team meeting for a second?” she asks. I breathe an internal sigh of contempt, put on my perfect boy face, and turn to face her. She smiles at me and pats her desk, a gesture to come sit down. I gently place my bag between my feet and look at her expectantly. I was expecting some kind of light reprimand about sleeping in class or handing in late homework assignments.

I should be a weatherman, I think to myself, predicting people's reactions to my words, being a special gift I seem to have acquired. Of course, she asks me if everything is going OK at home to cause me to be so tired all the time, and I spin her some cock-and-bull story about my brothers playing loud video games all night, which is true, but once I’m asleep, I could sleep through a hurricane and an earthquake at the same time. She accepts this, then follows with a questionnaire about late homework, to which I give simple, pleasing answers such as that I don't work well in a classroom environment and prefer to study at home. Again, she accepts this.

"Well, Mr. Allaire, your grades are staying at a B average, so I can't complain, but I wish you wouldn't sleep in class." I give a little friendly spiel about making an effort to be more attentive. She seems pleased with herself, so I excuse myself and head for another long lunch hour.

I head down the staircase to the first-floor hall, shouldering past lockers, staring at the floor intently in front of me, avoiding the long crowds of "sheeple" heading in every direction. I debate whether the sanctuary of books would be my destination, nestled in the safe, quiet corner of the library, or if I should make a social call and sit with my "friends." It’s been a few days since I've been to the usual hangout spot. The long row of chairs bolted below a large pane glass window overlooking an unused bus loop was the nesting ground for those imbeciles. Or maybe I should stop in the weird dark abandoned computer classroom, where the anime club gathers to watch over-sexualized cartoons.

It feels like too much work to try to pretend that I am one of them, so I head for the library. But a commotion takes my attention—the side corridor parallel with the library doors. It was almost as if I had walked onto a movie set, or maybe I imagined the whole thing. But as I looked up, the most beautiful girl I had ever laid eyes on was strolling towards me, as the entire hallway parted just for her.

Never had any model looked like this. She had the face of an angel, soft with sharp features blended with softness. Long, dirty blonde hair curved around her face, perfectly proportional from head to toe. Short, with the tiniest hint of soft baby chub, her eyes pierced like cut sapphires. Maybe it was because, subconsciously, I could tell how broken of a person she was. Maybe I only felt this way because she is just like me inside. I instantly had the deepest longing to know her name.

She approached, her hips swaying, and I had the fleeting idea of just kissing her right there. Instead, I stepped back, and just as she walked past, a familiar shape moved beside her, took her hand, and led her away. Kevin. I never thought of myself as much of a looker, always being told I was ugly, but that kid looks like he should be named Garthlic Bobbins Whistle Toe—tall, skinny, lanky, with pants half down his ass, acne, and a face that only a mother couldn't love. But somehow, this kid was constantly with some pretty girl, and every guy like him.

I would be more understanding if he was a nice guy, but Kevin is the biggest douche I've ever laid eyes on. I just don't get it. I struggle with this new feeling, so I duck into the nearest bathroom, into a stall, and down the second half of my bottle as fast as I can. The burn makes my eyes water, and I retch as I fight to hold in the booze.

I step out of the stall and head towards my friends. I sit down on the floor in the circle of kids, envious of those early enough to get a chair. As I gently listen to the excited talk of teenagers about the shows they like and the amazing book about sparkling vampires or fairies or something that just came out, my mind wanders into a drunken stupor of jumbled thoughts and spinning rooms.

After lunch was a blur, and by the time three o'clock rolled around, I was almost unaware of the pain in my arm and leg. The number 13 bus pulls up five minutes after three, and I step on, followed by other kids, rushing to get a seat with their friends. Because I don't have a locker or friends, I am usually the first or second on the bus. I find my normal seat, put my knees up, pull out a well-loved book I had gotten from the library during the last period, and attempt to read through the jostling bus, swimming vision, and overwhelming exhaustion.

I’d like to say this is one of my bad days, but this one is actually better than most—at least it was different, and I got to experience completely new emotions. I am silent for the ride home, and for a change, no food or crumpled paper is being thrown at me, which I thoroughly enjoy.

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The scenery flying past the window is beautiful—deep reds and yellows fluttering in an autumn gust, light sunny patches poking through white clouds, and I come close to a feeling of peace. Then something wet hits me in the back of the head. Spoke too soon. I reach back to my crown, wipe whatever it is off, and look to see a thick, watery brown substance with little flakes in it. I smell it. Of course, I recognize the distinct smell of mint chewing tobacco cud. Somebody had just hocked on me.

I wipe my hand on my pants, suppress a shudder, and go back to looking out the window. It’s almost my stop, and there is an explosion of laughter behind me. I don't look. They’re laughing at me. They're always laughing at me. But I’ll get them. God, I wish Sarah was here.

I get up before the bus has stopped moving and head to the door. The driver stops, so I give him the same daily farewell: "Thanks for the ride," and I hop out while he drops the distance rail in front of the bus and puts out his stop sign. I cross without looking, hoping some idiot would hit me one day, but God is cruel that way. He would rather I suffer a long and agonizing life than allow peaceful rest to wash over me.

I start the long and tedious climb up the steep driveway, my knee aching, my ribs creaking in my chest. Once at the top, I stop for a quick breath and enter the gate, closing it tightly behind me to keep the animals in. I hate those fucking dogs. I often think of leaving an open jug of antifreeze on its side in the garage.

I enter the garage, cool and dark, walk up through the laundry room, down the hallway, and into the kitchen. I put my bag by the table and head back out the door. My brothers have finally made it up the hill behind me, walking slowly, with no worries or concerns for their tardiness. I fucking hate those guys. I often imagine adding antifreeze to their morning oats.

I grab a plastic bag and the half-tong-half-scissor-style pooper-scooper, as my dad called it, and limp across an acre of lawn, scouring for dog excrement, limping all the way. My father watches me from the deck. If I spend more than twenty minutes, I'm being lazy. If I spend ten or less, I'm not doing a good enough job. On the rare occasion that I miss a pile, and my father runs over it with his new John Deer ride-on tractor, I get a pretty good "whopping," then I have to clean it and scoop again.

Today, there isn't much, and I finish quickly. So I make another two passes, tie the bag, and head back inside. I wash my hands vigorously and head back to my bag, which, for the first time in months, is not being dumped on the table and rummaged through. I sit, pull out my binders, and begin slowly doing my homework, trying to fight the fading effects of alcohol.

I can't keep that face out of my mind. I wonder what she's like. Maybe she's like me. Maybe she doesn't feel like other people. Maybe she's just pretty, and I'm hitting some kind of irrational mental puberty. Thoughts tumble in my head in a great turmoil, trying to analyze why I felt so connected to such a stranger.

"Alexander, how was school today?" my mother asks, a look of expectancy and concern on her face, as though the morning events had not even occurred. “What game is she playing,” I wonder to myself. "It was educational," I say, trying hard not to sound sarcastic.

She asks me what I did, and I immediately understand. "Relax," I say in a mockery of a calm voice. "I didn't tell anyone that you guys threw me down two flights of stairs this morning." She looks annoyed that I figured her out so quickly, but it seems to satisfy her need to converse with me about my petty, daily activities at school.

I focus back on my studies, re-doing the worksheet from the day before, which I had gotten another copy of after telling my teacher that I had lost it. He was irate in a weird, silent way—calm but furious. Like the waste of one page would bring ecological collapse. I wonder if I should worry about his mental health or if I should just wear a Kevlar vest to school in case he decides to explode and bring a gun in.

My thoughts begin to tumble away again. I fumble through my work for the minimum three hours I have to do every school night. It’s close to eight o'clock when I head downstairs to my room, put my bag away, and head right back upstairs to make lunches for my brothers and me for the morning. I walk back down the stairs into my room and close my door. A lamp-like light shining in my window gains my attention, and I peek outside.

The moon is high in the sky, casting milky shadows on my room. I face the luminous orb and chant, “I accept the moonlight, I accept the moonlight,” over and over, relaxing my vision and allowing my entire peripheral vision to go black, with only the moon bobbing in and out of focus. After several minutes, my head starts to spin, and I can't stand any longer. My concentration is broken, and I feel I have completed what was needed to satisfaction.

I click the snooze button on my alarm clock the number of times that the current hour and minute added together equals. I set the clock to vibrate at three a.m. and then place it under my pillow. I immediately fall asleep.

When I wake at three, I roll out of bed and listen under my door, making sure my brothers aren't awake, still playing shooter games and yelling about camping. Everything is silent. There is no creaking above my head, so my father is still asleep. Silent like a mothball across a hardwood floor, I move into the downstairs kitchen and put a small splash of water in a cardboard matchbox. I carry it back to my room, pull up the blinds, open the window, pop the screen out of place, and pop the filter of an Export A Green into my parted lips. I strike a match and drag a burning lungful of excitement, just exhale and watch it float out the window.

I learned quickly to place the soggy matchbox on the edge of the windowsill and the screen under the bed in case I heard somebody coming towards my room. It only happened once. I heard my oldest brother, by adoption not blood, flick the light on in the kitchen and walk to the fridge. I dropped my smoke into the soggy box, knocked it out the window behind the big bush below my window, and dove under the covers with the precision of a soldier. When he opened my door to spy on me and make sure I was in bed, he said, “Why does it smell like smoke in here?” I grumbled something about Dad smoking on the deck right above my window, half coherently, feigning that I had just been asleep. I felt like he let it go, because even a deaf paraplegic wouldn't have believed that half-cooked bullshit.

Not tonight, though. Everything is quiet. When I'm done, the unused matchbox goes back onto my shelf to dry for use again, if needed. It’s becoming rather tattered. I replace the window screen, close the window, lower the blinds, reset my alarm for five a.m., and again, am asleep before my head even hits the pillow.