School Therapy

Life goes on, shit will get better, stop being so corny, she tells herself in her mind. She knew these things were true, but a barricade of doubt that had been built up over many nights spent awake thinking still held strong. It was either this attitude or not caring at all, the latter was the usual.

Spending a lot of time in the bathroom, fifteen or so minutes every hour, seems excessive until one is in high school and it's the only safe haven within the absolute prison. People gathered in groups and sat, chatted, and smoked in the handicap stall and even out in the open of the small facility if they were daring enough. Smoking was obviously not permitted on school grounds, or really anywhere in this day and age, but people still did it under wraps and in the community of other students that either did the act as well or wouldn't tell.

She did this activity by herself sometimes, though. Just like the shower, she sat, smoked, listened and thought, took a break from life. She fixed her hair, rubbed off some of the mascara that was sticking to the tight line of her eye and reset herself to get another class over with.

"Hey, is that who I think it is?" uttered a hushed voice bounced off the tiled walls. The only visible identifying trait were the shoes, stood just outside the textured door; a beat up pair of Adidas covered in signatures and doodles with permanent marker. Without really saying anything, the blonde scooted across the floor that matched the walls and popped open the latch. It was etiquette; walk in, close the door behind you, find a seat. The toilet, the sink, the floor, the trash can flipped upside down, it didn't matter. No one wanted to stand for ten minutes on end.

"Got anything?"

She handed her the smoke, the other female sighing in relief and whispered a quick thank you as her eyes widened and a small smile drifted across her lips before they were molded onto the end of the cigarette. They were sort of a status symbol, anyone who had them were surrounded by people but it had it's downside since they were only there for a couple hits and a prolonged conversation over the toilet. It was fine though, this was high school and these were teenagers. She exchanged the cig back to the owner, who nodded in response before taking a long drag after having abandonment issues since it wasn't between her fingers for over a minute. The girl slipped to the floor and leaned the back of her head against the wall.

"How's it going with Spence?"

"Good, I'm seeing him today, hopefully. His sister's coming back from West Virginia. We're supposed to fuck."

"That's shitty, I haven't seen Nick in forever. My mom's a bitch."

"She really is."

The ember was reaching the orange and with a tad bit of despair that the bathroom sesh was over and that they both probably had to make it back to class in order to not get an earful from the teacher. She flicked the end into the ominous toilet water, the sizzle that followed was always satisfying.