It's 11:37 pm on a Friday night, I'm sitting down in the middle of a basketball court, lit by one flickering street light in the distance. I'm swaying back and forth on my skateboard as I look down at my knee. I see the blood slowly dripping down from my scraped knee. I poke it once in a while even though I know every time I touch it, it just hurts more. As the time ticks by I look up at the stars and wonder, how the hell did I end up here?

I go back to 6:52 am. My alarm didn’t go off this morning so if I don’t rush, I'm gonna be late. I slide on some cargo shorts, a graphic-T, and some beaten-up Nike sneakers. I run out the back door to my house and reach the side of the garage where my honda is parked. 

After I park my car in the student parking lot, I rush inside to the school. I don't generally meet up with anyone in the morning but I'll pop from group to group to make casual conversation. I only did this for about ten minutes before I slowly made my way towards class. I see my teacher, Ms. Morris walked into the classroom. She comes into the class with her typical navy blue dress that is way too tight-fitting for her to be in a school. She announces that she's gonna be collecting homework.

I reach into my backpack, trying to feel for a crumpled-up paper that was thrown in my backpack but I feel nothing. But I knew where it was. Sitting right on my desk in my room. Ugh. I see her slowly walking around the room. Then she makes it towards me. The girl next to me, Sandra Wilkie, is in her oversized sweatshirt and her shorts that have the pockets hanging out. 

“Do you have your homework?” Ms. Morris asked her.

“I'm so sorry but I had a volleyball tournament last night and it just slipped my mind.”

Ms. Morris smiles. “Don't worry about it darling, just get it to me by tomorrow.”

She slides over to me and just puts her hand out.

“I don't have it,” I say in a quiet tone.

She scoffs. She starts to walk away and under her breath, I hear her say “typical.”

The rest of the class was normal. She gives us a math problem, we work on it by ourselves and then we come back together and discuss it. The minutes tick by like hours and once the bell rings I'm the first one to get out of there.

Gym

Then Biology

And then finally, Lunch. Some guys that were a year older than me just started to offer to anyone if they wanted to come with them to get lunch somewhere off-campus. One of the guys that I knew waved me down and convinced me to come. I reluctantly agreed. I get in a van, cramped between two other guys in the back seat. I had no clue where we were going but I didn’t care. I was just happy that we were going somewhere. 

After stopping at the local Wendy's. We made it back to school just one minute before the bell rang, telling everyone they had to get to their last class of the day.

Mine was Computer programming. I took this class not because it interested me, but because I know that jobs like if you know how to use a computer. They like anything where you know something that other people don't. I don't hate the class but I'd rather be doing something else. I keep seeing the clock as the seconds tick down to the end of the day.

Friday

Thank God

The last bell rings and I don't think I have ever moved so fast. It seemed as if only in seconds I made it from the classroom to my car and then from my car to my house. I make it inside and throw my backpack on the floor. I look around for any sign of life in my house and I don't find anything. As I shuffle my way around the house I come across the kitchen table with a note on it. 

“Hey sweetheart, I know I said I was going to be home tonight but I ended up deciding to take a night shift at the hospital. There is a frozen pizza in the fridge that you can eat. Don't wait for me, I won't be back till around 2 am.”

-Love, Mom

Typical. 

I pull my phone and stare at it. I click from app to app looking for something to do. I lay on the couch with my hands holding my phone up in the air. Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, Weather Channel, Candy Crush, anything that would satisfy my hunger for content. 

4:00

4:56

5:27

5:49

6:39

7:00

“Ding.” A text. A text from Daniel, the guy that I mentioned earlier, the one that convinced me to get in that crowded van. He asked if I wanted to go skateboarding at a nearby abandoned basketball court. I was out the door in less than 30 seconds. I grab my skateboard and head on over to the court. It was a 7-minute walk and a 5-minute ride on a skateboard. I get there and see Daniel waving me over to him and about nine other guys. I guess we just then did typical guy things. Messed around, talked about girls, pushed each other around. But there was one guy that was just being a total douchebag. 6,3 and a tuft of curly blond hair plopped on the top of his head. He has a shirt that showed way too much of his armpits and the mini tufts stuck on his pits. He also had a very loud mouth compared to how small of a filter he had. And in the mists of “dudes being dudes,” he ends up ramming into me. I went from standing up to face down on the basketball court, feeling a sharp pain in my knee. It hurt. The guys around me just laughed it off and I just joined in. I told myself if I just laughed with them I could stop myself from crying.

I shouldn't have come here in the first place.

After a few more minutes everyone else left and I decided to stick around. I was so focused on not having to cry that I didn't see how much damage had occurred to my knee. I tried to wipe the little pieces of gravel out of my knee but it just made my hand get covered in blood. 

And now I'm here, swaying to the rhythm of my skateboard. 

It's 11:37 pm on a Friday night.

I don't know what to do.

I don't want to go home.

But I don't want to be here.