2 | No one gives a shit

“What you did back there with that boy, Robin, was very stupid." Ryder, my fri- acquaintance, tells me as I do the walk of honor to our principal’s office. I give him a blank stare but he shrugs and walks away. 

These grey walls of the corridor to Chuck’s office remind me of the juvenile detention center, where I spent the entire summer last year. This office has a wooden theme with a trophy showcase on an entire wall. The students who are opposite of me win such grand materialistic objects for the school and make them proud. I wonder where that honor takes them once they reach their practical life.

I ended up in the detention center because of a boy who had said something which he shouldn’t have. Being the impulsive asshole I am, I confidently beat him to a pulp. Some students exaggerate that he died the moment I threw that ultimate nerve-bursting punch on his neck and the nurses brought him back to life by giving those electric shocks. Quite a miracle, they all say. 

But rather tragic if you ask me. I would have preferred dying during a fight to being saved by a so-called miracle. This pathetic world is full of merciless people and none of us deserves a miracle even if such a thing exists, which doesn’t. 

But that boy must have been a less merciless person among us all because even after such a bloody grapple he survived. 

After spending three cruel months in juvie, I bought a nice bouquet of white roses and went straight to that teenage boy. Handing him the bouquet I said, “Congratulations! You are a f*cking survivor.” 

I don’t know which part of what I said was funny but that was the beginning of seeing Ryder laughing like a maniac. I even saw a tear roll down his eye. 

I asked the doctor if I had hit him too hard and he had lost his mind because it appeared pretty much f***ed up to me. But he patted quite cheerfully on my back and said that apart from the three broken ribs and eleven stitches on his forehead, he was perfectly fine. He further told me that the boy had laughed for the first time in the last three months. 

I started going to school then and everyone stayed away from me as if I were a plague and I was fairly content with it. Then came Ryder and he started hanging with me. 

He stuck with me willingly and I couldn’t even hit him again to scare him away. Clearly, I had already decimated his neurons. He had completely lost his sense of judgment to be even sitting during lunch with me. 

I was silent all the time, not because I was ashamed of hitting him, but only because I had nothing to say. Ryder talked about his everyday life which was pretty boring and I didn’t pay much attention. Two awkward weeks later he told me that his parents didn’t approve of our friendship. 

I didn’t waste my time telling him that there has never been a friendship between us. Instead, I just breathed with relief. Turned out, the ease was for a minute only. 

“Don’t worry,” he told me. “You excite my boring life and I won’t give up on us.” 

And that was the first time I truly regretted beating him for he lost his entire sanity. 

“I am not gay,” I told him. 

Ryder let out a throaty laugh which sounded like a horse dying and the students looked at us only to make sure if I wasn’t choking him once again. Making someone laugh is the last thing they expect from someone like me anyway. 

“Don’t worry, Nio,” he told me again but with a polite laugh this time. “I’m not gay either. You must have forgotten but I’ve mentioned my girlfriend to you. She lives a few kilometers away. Man, I must say, long-distance is damn cruel.” 

I wanted to tell him that he’s cruel to himself to think that I listen to whatever comes out of his mouth but I just questioned why. Ryder probably understood the real meaning behind that one word. 

“Better to cry with one real fella than to laugh with a dozen fake ones.” 

Principal Chuck has been behaving like those dozen people by telling me that he cares for me and my future. His centrally bald and grey head tells me that he is old enough to know that no one really gives a shit for anyone in this world.

Nemo dat stercore. No one gives a shit.

His enthralling speech gave me only one benefit; I didn’t have to attend the last period of literature. Then followed the three torturous hours of detention but I escaped after half an hour. I don’t think Coach Murphy noticed me missing while he was busy training his prestigious soccer team. 

Some students feel like they’re getting freedom once it is off from school. Others feel like entering a cage after leaving from here. 

For me, it is neither. I just survive one trap and walk into another.