He sits in front of me in biology. I don’t know him very well. All I know is that he sleeps in class and has the heaviest stride I have ever seen. Other than in biology, I see him at lunch. Every day he sits at that same dented table outside. We both eat alone, yet neither of us are confident enough to speak to one another. He has unkempt hair, not like he does not take care of it, just as if it had a mind of its own. He eats cafeteria lunch and does homework. Every once in a while, I flash him a shy smile, but he only nods in return. He’s probably a rude kid. He wears intricate outfits that were planned down to every little detail; even his shoelaces change from time to time.

             He always walks home. We pass him walking when we are on the bus. I wonder why he doesn’t just ride the bus. Every time the bus flies by him, the kids in the back yell slurs and throw things at him. Though I wish they would, I don’t tell them to stop. He walks like he wants his steps to shatter the ground below him. He doesn’t seem enraged in the slightest at the bullies’ antics though. He always gives them a look, the kind of look your momma gives you after you burn something in the oven. That whole ‘how could you be that stupid’ vibe. 

             Today he sat down at lunch like he was mad. He slammed his tray down and pushed himself into the wooden table. The nauseating smell of wheat bread and half spoiled milk wraps around us. Half of lunch had already passed, and he hadn’t touched his food. He definitely seemed different today. It wasn’t until I really looked at him that I saw his puffy, red eyes. It was hard to tell behind his grape-tinted hair if he had been crying. His usual unusual outfit choice had ceased, and his carefree attitude seemed to fly away with the howling wind blowing all around us.

             I was staring a bit too long and He noticed me. His stare was blunt, and his eyes were the color of obsidian crystals. He looked as if something was haunting his thoughts. Even though the sun was shining all around us, as happy as can be, his inky black aura seemed to poison the exuberance around us. He stood up abruptly and walked to the nearest trashcan, dumped his tray, and started to walk off. This time he did not walk with the concrete cracking steps; he walked like a quiet mouse in the sand. 

             He moved like he just wanted to slump over and lay right there on the ground. I think back to those glossy eyes. They looked like they have never known true bliss or like he went through the most cataclysmic thing a person could experience. When he walked past me, he felt like the color gray. Gray as in distant and detached. I don’t know how it’s possible for someone to feel distant when they didn’t talk to me in the first place but here, we are.             

                            If you saw him walking around today, you would stare and whisper to your friends about that one kid in your PE class who got called to the office and is now walking around like he had been crying. They are probably going to start stupid rumors that he got expelled or something like that. On a normal day, you see him walking around self-assured; he never looks full of pride, but he does seem like he doesn’t care about what others think. Today, it seems the same. He’s blocking out the disrespect and annoyance around him. He doesn’t care what others think, but it seems like his own mind is belittling itself. Any other day he would have that walk, the walk that could shatter concrete. Alas, the concrete is not what it used to be. The straight lines were jagged, there were cracks everywhere. Now he walks on concrete that is shattered, like a mirror. Concrete that is just like his mind, shattered, broken, and cracked. Maybe one day this concrete will be straight, but unfortunately that day is not today.