LenoreSystem
LenoreThe first sign that it was just another shitty day was the half-empty bottle of Thunderbird, three cans of Rainier Light, and a Zima staring back at Lenore instead of breakfast. They haven't even MADE Zima since 2008!
She shut the door with a sigh. "I'm going to school. I'll be back by 3:30," she told her mom. "Like you would care."
From the couch came a slurred, intoxicated woman's voice. A hand waved vaguely in her direction, more as a gesture of 'go away' than 'good luck'. Lenore grabbed her backpack and slammed the front door with more force than was necessary.
Lenore dreaded every step as she trudged the corridors of Coal Hill School. Hoping to remain invisible, she slipped into the classroom and lowered herself into a desk at the back.
At the front, Eunice Howell was holding court, surrounded by her usual assortment of sycophants. Lenore tried to ignore the Queen Bee, but then she heard the words. HER words.
“ugh school sucks. everyone here is fake and mean. just want to disappear. maybe in another life I’ll be normal.”
"No, not that! Please!" Lenore begged as she bolted out of her seat and ran over, panic in her voice. "N...no! Please, stop."
“Oh, look, everyone!" Eunice announced to the crowd. "It’s the guest of honor from the teendrama subreddit herself!”
Eunice held up her phone, screen full of Lenore’s private posts, the ones she thought were safely anonymous - now on full display. Every message she’d posted in frustration, all her dark moments of despair, her small efforts at self-expression. Eunice’s smirk widened.
"I wander through these hollow halls, unseen, unheard. My heart bleeds ink, my soul cloaked in shadow. Alone I linger, the lost poet of a world that hates me." The class erupted into laughter. “Awww, she thinks we hate her!”
Lenore looked around the room, looking for help that would never come, A beat later, Lenore bolted from the classroom, out a side door, past the bleachers, up the hill towards the tennis courts to a grove of trees nobody ever visited. She slumped to the ground, body trembling, tears streaming down her cheeks.
"I hate school, I hate everyone. I hate my fucking useless mom, I hate Eunice,” she muttered between sobs. "Why can’t everyone just fucking leave me alone?”
