Morbid Hopefuls

A Story by schnickythep

Morbid Hopefuls

“Dude, sometimes I wish I was an octopus”

He was sitting in one of the plastic cafeteria chairs, staring at his hand as he wiggled his fingers, his overpriced, red and white brand name shirt bunched up at the sleeves. I was across from him, looking with what I hoped was a bored expression. “You wouldn’t be able to breathe.”

“But, like, tentacles would be awesome.”

“Why? You’d look like a freak,” said one of the plastic girls at the table.

“I don’t know. I have a feeling they would be.”

“You’re stupid.” If only he knew how much I really meant it.

“Go home, kid,” he said. Why did I even hang out with this guy? I’d been putting up with his stupidity for years and still didn’t have a decent excuse to care.

Some social climbers spotted our table and started making tracks towards us. “Ohmygosh Jared hi! It’s been forever!” He probably said hi to her in sixth grade or something. Oh, she seems to have noticed me too. “And hi Will.”

I sighed and looked away. I surveyed the cafeteria, watching all the different social groups in their own little worlds. It all seems so simple when you're just watching but it seems like everyone has to try to fit in somewhere if they want to be liked. I just wish I didn’t care so much.

And why did it always feel like I was the only one trying so hard? Take Jared as an example, a person who had made his name entirely by acting like a miserable excuse for a human being. He never cared about anything that wasn’t either part of the lacrosse team, female, or giving someone a hard time about literally nothing at all. I hated him for it. I still hate him for it. And I hate myself for not having the guts to go against him. Among other reasons.

A guy walked by the table, making a point not to look at us, hoping he wouldn’t be noticed. Unfortunately for him, Jared does notice, and trips him. The guy stumbles a bit but doesn’t fall. Apparently this is funny to the idiots at my table because there is a burst of laughter from the assorted lacrosse players, preppy girls, and general social climbers. They all want the approval of their king. It was disgusting.

The bell was about to ring for the end of the lunch block so I dumped my tray, the unfinished slice of pizza, and the unopened milk that always tasted like more water and cardboard more than milk into the trash. I grabbed my sweatshirt as if to leave, and then remembered that I didn’t have anywhere to go before the bell rang.

Students poured out of the cafeteria like so many sheep, uncaring and unaware. Especially the ones like Jared. I scanned one of the cork boards where people can put flyers, advertising so many different clubs that no one cared about. I don’t even know why, just a habit I guess. Then, on the wall next to the board was another piece of paper, with the words “Is life worth living” in bold. Below that was a room number. I guess they deserve points for originality but I was only slightly more interested in that than the flyer for the trading card club. Oh well. It did get me thinking though. Is life worth all the crap that we have to go through? What if it doesn’t get any better and all there is is this mindless, unproductive regurgitating of the things we are taught to make other people look good? Every day my father comes home with his shoulders slumped and his eyes on his feet, drained to exhaustion by the mindlessness of his job. If that is all I have to look forward to it isn’t worth the time or the energy. Plus there will always be miserable excuses for human beings who go around and don’t do anything aside from annoy the rest of the world. People like Jared and the rest of the ones who followed him around.

I guess that means isn’t.

Life went on as it always had, I guess. Every day I was reminded about how miserable people are, reminded by that stupid little sign outside the cafeteria. Because really, what’s the point to it all? People stumble around their pointless little lives because it’s what they’re told to do and they’re too caught up in the little things that don’t really matter, things like conforming to the people surrounding them. Just like me. I’m no better than the rest. The only difference is that I know how stupid and pointless everything I do is. School is a waste of time. How does anyone benefit from state prescribed standardized tests? I’m never gonna use that. I don’t think anyone does. The scores probably just get discarded after the school waves them in our faces, demanding we do better next year. And the social part of school got no better, with Jared constantly there to remind me that I am just a sheep, following a shepherd who spent more time talking about nothing than he did thinking about anything. I started to wonder if he was just putting on an act to attract more and more people, girls who wanted to get in his pants and guys who wanted the girls who hung out with him to get in their pants, or if he was really just a bellowing idiot with no more mental capacity than the baboons that he acted like, more like a monkey who suddenly discovered he was fluent in English and was trying to figure out how much he could say before people figured out he was just talking and not speaking than a human. I still didn’t know why I stayed around him. It wasn’t even the girls. Maybe I just had nowhere to go and I didn’t want to risk leaving the pack to find something that might not have even existed, just like the coward I am.

Every day I passed by that little piece of paper with the four big words on it, reminding me that it wasn’t worth it. Though for some reason even though life was clearly pointless I still didn’t want to end mine. I decided I was going to go to that room, C316, and tell them how they’d ruined my already unpleasant existence. So after three weeks of seeing that sign every day and having it make me feel worse and worse, at 2:16 on February 2, I walked into C316 with a scowl on my face and was immediately, completely knocked off guard by the scene before my scowly face.

Five people were sitting in a circle yelling at each other. “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND,” yelled a guy in a black Disturbed shirt.

“I THINK YOU’RE AFRAID!” This came from a girl in a red sweater.

“He’s right,” said another girl who looked to be on the verge of tears.

“Why does any of this matter?” asked a guy wearing a grey sweatshirt

“Who are you?” said red sweater girl, noticing me. All of them stopped arguing and looked at me with as much confusion as I had looking at them.

“I know you,” said a girl with purple hair and a red on black shirt. “You sit with Jared and all of the other primates. Your name’s Tom or something.”

“Will.”

“Like it makes a difference. You’re just another cutout personality, a mask without a face underneath. Doesn’t matter what you say your name is.” The spite in her voice hurt even more because I knew it was all true.

“Don’t mind Mara,” said grey sweatshirt guy. “She hates everyone.”

“No one asked you,” said Mara.

“Why are you here?” asked red sweater girl.

“Because life sucks.” This was greeted with a few nods, shrugs, eyebrows, and affirmative grunts.

“Why would you say that? Your life is great,” put in Mara. “Top of the social food chain and everything.”

“You don’t live my life. You have no idea.”

“Yeah, nobody has a damn clue about anything. How is your hell any worse than mine? You don’t know anything about anyone. Rich parents can only buy you so much.” She looked like she was about to get up and punch me.

“You still don’t know me.”

“Fair enough.” This came from Disturbed shirt. He seemed pretty levelheaded, or at least compared to Mara. “What’s your story?”

So I told them. About Jared, about my life spent getting fed up with playing follow the leader when the leader always led you straight into thorns and usually worse. What reason did I have not to tell them? When I was finished complaining and rambling, I was greeted by some confused faces, others even angry.

Red sweater girl was the first to speak and her voice was incredulous. “That’s it? That’s why you hate the world? Because you hang out with a jerk?”

I looked at the ground. “Because no matter what I do he can ruin it and he always does. Because he is always there as a reminder that all I am is another sheep. He reminds me of how bad I am and reminds me that there are people even worse.”

“But why don’t you just stay away from him?” asked the girl who had been near tears.

“I don’t know.”

“You got a crush on him or something? Not that there’s something wrong with that.” This was from Disturbed shirt.

“No. I’m straight.”

The girl in the red sweater spoke up again. She seemed like their leader or at least someone they all trust. “Really? If this guy makes you this angry you should just stay away from him.”

“But I have nowhere to go. Everyone I know either hangs out with him or they would think I was mocking them if I tried to talk to them.”

There were nods from a few people. “I still don’t think you’re any different,” said Mara.

“That’s because I’m not. I’m just another stupid, unaware follower. Like you said. A mask with nothing behind it.”

“But you’re not unaware. If you were you wouldn’t hate yourself so much.” That came from the girl who had been near tears. “I’m Megan by the way.”

“Oh. Right. You don’t know who any of us are,” said Disturbed shirt. “I’m Kyle, that’s Megan,” he said pointing to the girl who had seemed close to crying. “You already know Mara.”

“I’m Jacob,” said the guy in the sweatshirt.

“I’m Elizabeth,” said red sweater girl. “You said your name was Will?”

“Yeah.” And I got this feeling, like even if they didn’t particularly like me, I had finally found some people worth talking to.

After the meeting was over, I went up to Elizabeth, who seemed to be the head of the group. She was talking with Megan, so I waited awkwardly until they were done and then went up to her. “When does this meet?”

“Tuesday and Thursdays, 2:30 to 4:00. Gonna become a regular?”

“I might,” I said, smiling a bit. “Am I welcome back?”

“Of course you are. Just don’t be an a*s about it,” she said, smiling too.

“Oh, I don’t know if I could manage that. I’ll try though,” I said. Elizabeth laughed a little, then walked away.

So after school, on Tuesdays and Thursdays for eleven weeks, I spent an hour and a half with the Morbid Hopefuls Club, who, despite their rather uninspired name, gave me an excuse to be myself. Over time I learned about each of them, aside from Elizabeth, who never talked about herself, although she was the one I wanted to get to know most. Megan truly despised herself because she was not who she wanted to be. She said that the worst part was that she felt like the person she wanted to be was just barely out of reach, close enough to see but just a micrometer too far to touch. It drove her insane, how close she felt she was. She hated the world for dangling it so close in front of her, for making her still hope and hope even though every time she hoped her hopes would be dashed. And she hated that she could never stretch quite far enough.

Kyle’s father had left suddenly and without warning when Kyle had been ten, leaving the family with almost nothing. Kyle was plain sick of thinking about him, and hated anything that reminded him of his father, which included teachers and sometimes his mother, who struggled to feed and house Kyle and his two sisters, even with Kyle’s job helping. He was tired of working and having everything he earned spent on food that wasn’t even for him. College was going to be next to impossible, but it was the only way he could see to do the one thing that he really wanted to do: get out of the town that had become his prison cell.

Jacob was an intellectual, drawn to the club by the same sign that brought me. He didn’t hate the world or really anything as far as I could tell. He was just interested in the discussion, and he had decided that life was worth living for the simple purpose of finding out what happens next. He rationalized that life is natural, so why would ending it possibly be a good idea? He didn’t really talk much about himself. Honestly, I didn’t really care that much about him. He was a nice enough guy, but not really interesting. He just seemed to be in it for the argument, which annoyed me because of the fact that there were people there with real, important problems.

And then there was Mara. Even if she slowly grew to hate me less it still took me two months to learn what made her so angry. Mara, whose parents had died and had been moved to this nowhere town to live with an aunt who didn’t care if she came home at night as long as she was gone in the morning. Who hated the world for tossing her around like a piece of trash, whose only reason to keep living was a friend who she never named.

No matter how much I found out about the rest of the group, Elizabeth remained a mystery. She never talked about her own problems, though I could tell they were there just below the surface. But one day, she came in with her eyes red and a look of complete and total despair on her face. And for the first time that I had seen, she didn’t speak a word during the entire time we were there. Kyle, Megan, and Mara all asked if she was okay, and her only response was “Yeah. I’m tired.”

And I was worried. She was the center of the group, always with her mind firmly in the future, helping those of us who needed it as much as she could. I had already guessed that she was Mara’s friend, her reason to keep going. She was always fine, always acted like the only thing that mattered was other people’s happiness but that day she was not okay. But she didn’t say.

Although they didn’t hate me like they used to, the people in the club didn’t seem to like me too much, even though I had been spending less and less time around Jared. So when I also asked what was wrong I got several semi-confused looks, but they didn’t matter to me. What mattered then was trying to help Elizabeth. Because after being around her, I saw who I wanted to be. She made me want to be a better person, she made me want to help people. And while I was still reminded of how bad life was, she gave me a little bit of hope that life really was worth it.

She seemed surprised when I asked too. “What?”

“I said ‘what’s wrong?’”

“Why would you care?”

I had no idea what I was supposed to say to that, so I said the first thing that popped into my head. “Because you matter.”

She didn’t answer, but looked kind of confused. Then she said, “I matter to you?”

“Yeah, of course. You’re one of the best people I’ve ever met.” And it was completely true.

Mara came in, sounding uncharacteristically gentle. “You really are. You saved my life.”

Elizabeth’s voice was shaky. “I don’t want you to worry.”

“Saying that is only gonna make me worry more. You know that,” said Mara.

“Please don’t. I’ll be fine.”

“But right now you’re not,” I said. “And I don’t like it when good people are not okay.”

She still didn’t quite seem to fully grasp that I cared. Apparently neither did Mara, who although not appearing angry still looked a bit confused. Elizabeth stood up, said “I’m sorry,” and walked out. I was about to go after her but Mara stopped me. She didn’t have to say anything. We both sat back down and stayed there awkwardly for a few minutes. Jacob tried to start the conversation a few times, but no one really wanted to talk. After a few minutes people just started to leave. Mara and I were the last ones to leave. Before I walked out, she stopped me again and gave me her phone. “Put your number in.” I did. Then I left.

I walked the four miles home, since I didn’t have money for the city bus and I didn’t feel like waiting for the late bus from school. I got home at around 4:30. At 4:45 I got a text that I figured was from Mara, asking if I could call that number. I did, and a girl picked up.

“Hey.”

“Mara?”

“No, this is Elizabeth,”

“Did she give you my number?”

“Yeah.” There was a pause. I wasn’t sure if I should have said something, but then she said “Do you really want to know?”

“Yeah. I want to help.”

There was another pause, this one longer than the last. “My best friend died a year from yesterday.”

“I’m sorry. That’s… terrible…” I said, trying to find the right way to put it. I was overwhelmed for a moment with a mix of confusion and regret and so much more that I could neither name nor explain.

“Yeah. She was the one person I could tell everything to and she could do the same with me. And It was my fault that she died.”

“How is that possible? I’m sure you wouldn’t have hurt her if she meant this much to you.”

“She died because she told me that it was gonna happen and I didn’t think she was serious. I could have stopped it.”

“What happened?”

“Her brother’s friend stabbed her. He had threatened to do it before. He had… problems… and he had never tried to do anything before so when she told me it happened again I didn’t think he was gonna do it but he did and now…” She broke off.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It wasn’t your fault.”

“But you can’t blame yourself for it either.”

“But it was my fault. I-“

I cut her off. “No. It was the guy who stabbed her. You can’t blame yourself for what he did and you can’t hold it against yourself that you didn’t believe it was gonna happen.”

“Yeah. I guess.”

“You don’t believe me do you?”

“Not really.”

“Whether or not it is still doesn’t change that it happened. You don’t have any control over the past. Would she have wanted you to beat yourself over this?”

“No.”

“I don’t think so either. And I have a feeling she would be proud of the person you are today.”

“Yeah. I guess. I just miss her so much. I don’t like thinking about the past so much but I can’t help it.”

“There isn’t anything you can do to change what happened. Please don’t torture yourself over this anymore. It’s not fair to yourself.”

“Yeah.”

“Why do I feel like you still don’t believe me?”

“I do I guess.”

“Are you just saying that or do you mean it?”

“I mean it.” I wish I could have seen her face then so I could tell what she was feeling.

“Okay.” What else could I have said? “Thanks for opening up.”

“Thanks for listening.”

“I’ll listen any time.”

“Thanks.” She paused for a second before continuing. “Why do you care?”

“Because you listened to me. And you’re one of the first that did”

“When did I do that?”

“That first day I went to the club.”

“You mean the day I mocked you for staying around that Jared guy when he made you miserable?”

I laughed. “At least you let me finish before mocking me.”

“True.” That got her to laugh a little.

“See you tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Bye Will.”

“Bye Elizabeth.”

The next day I got to school and Jared was waiting for me with three of his lacrosse buddies. “Hey, man,” he said.

“Hey.”

“Haven’t seen you around too much.”

“Guess not.”

“You think you’re too good for us all the sudden?” He started to move in a bit. I knew what was coming next, I had seen this before.

“I think he does,” said a lacrosse player. I think his name was Jim or something, one of those tough guy, I-am-a-wall-of-meat type of names.

“Don’t you have a girlfriend to cheat on or something?” Jared’s eyebrows rose a bit, like he was surprised I would go there, but I wasn’t really afraid of him. I was actually taller than him and probably stronger as well, but there were still four of them. So yeah. Not good.

“I think you need to stand down before this gets ugly.” Wow, he actually just said that. If I had had any respect for him before that, it would have just vanished. But I hadn’t had any respect for him for a long time.

“Just go away.” Most likely, a sensible person would have, but Jared, like the blowhard he was, decided this would be a good time to throw a punch. He was really quite bad at fighting, used to just blustering and intimidating people, so I was able to grab his hand as it went towards my face and push him away but the lacrosse guys grabbed me. One of them put me in a chokehold while Jared punched me in the stomach a few times.

All of the sudden I noticed I wasn’t being held as tightly, so I broke out and punched Jared in the face. I heard someone yelling “Hey! Hey!” so I looked up and saw the vice principal running towards us. My first thought was that he would be on my side, the obvious victim, but as he got closer I noticed he was glaring at me especially.

We were all taken to his office. We were lectured about responsibility and respecting each other. He had seen me hit Jared, so he hit me with a two week suspension. The others got detentions but thanks to their story, one they had probably agreed on before the fight even happened, where everything was my fault and they were just helping their friend who was being attacked, they weren’t even suspended from lacrosse. I took the fall, one hundred percent.

So yeah. Not good.

My parents were not angry. They were worried and disappointed. Thankfully they didn’t know about the club (I had been saying I was going to the weight room at school,) or I am sure they would have blamed that for what they called a “sudden outburst of violence.” I was questioned about everything from drugs to sex to depression to bullying, I told them what happened but they believed the vice principal’s story, Jared’s story, the one where I had gone up to him yelling threats for no reason, the one where the bruises on my stomach and neck were from the lacrosse players “protecting their friend” and what Jared called “self-defense.” The school didn’t want a big, ugly lawsuit from their parents so naturally their story was the official version.

More than the two month grounding I now had on top of the suspension, I was irrationally worried about Elizabeth. I didn’t want her to hear the “official” version of what had happened, so I called her that afternoon, counting myself lucky that I paid for my own phone. She was less surprised than I thought she would be, mostly worried that it would happen again and I would be expelled or something. She was worried about my parents’ reaction too, but what surprised me the most is that she kept asking if I was okay.

At first I wasn’t allowed to leave the house at all during my suspension, but eventually they agreed to let me go to work, provided that I walked. So for two weeks, all I really did was work. My job was among the most monotonous there is. It wasn’t one of those cliché jobs either, like fry cook or cashier. I stocked the yogurt section at a supermarket, making eight bucks an hour. It wasn’t terrible, mostly just stacking and stacking and stacking. It was good enough to cover my phone and gas but not much more. I talked to Elizabeth pretty much every night. She was awesome, talking to me even though every day was the same, the only really good part of the two weeks. She didn’t take things too seriously, which was a nice break from my parents, the only other humans I had contact with aside from my boss, who I tried to avoid as much as possible.

When my suspension was finally up, I was welcomed back to school by apathetic teachers with makeup work, apathetic people with better things to do, and Jared’s smug face. I didn’t know where I would find Elizabeth, or even if she would want to see me, since I was now banned from staying after school. But about a week in, as I was walking in to school, I saw a girl in a red sweater leaning against the flagpole outside the entrance. Jared and his pack of idiots were standing by the doors but I ignored him. He didn’t matter anymore, as I made my way towards her through the people trying to get inside from the line of buses.

“Well you sure took your time noticing me,” she said.

“Hey, at least I did. Then where would you be?”

She smiled. And for some odd reason, she actually did seem to care about the strange guy who showed up outside of a classroom saying that life was pointless. And I guess I cared about her too, after all that had happened. Funny how these things work out.