Alex

I have no friends. That's not a complaint, it's a fact.

I am 16 years old, my black hair is too long to be normal, I am tall, skinny… as if my body has not yet decided what to do with me.

I sleep little. Or hardly at all. Insomnia isn't the problem, it's routine. The nights stretch out like a damaged cassette tape, repeating themselves meaninglessly until the bell rings for day.

I go to school like someone fulfilling a mandatory requirement of the universe.

But there is one place that doesn't change.

The art workshop.

I'm always there.

I sit at the same table, though no one notices. I put on headphones. It's not music to escape to, it's music to drown out the noise of everything else.

Drawing.

I don't always know what I'm drawing until it's already finished. Shadows, blurred faces, things that don't ask permission to appear on the paper.

I don't talk much. Actually, I almost never talk.

Not because I can't.

Because I don't see the need.

The world keeps turning the same without me saying anything.

And that's... okay.