A Failed Cry

He stands at the window, alone, in the classroom. It is the only one out of them all that is open. He stands there looking straight down to the ground. He was wearing a nice jacket with a nice shirt and nice pants with nice shoes. He didn’t like wearing these clothes very much, everyone else liked them, and even complimented him, but as soon as he got home from school everyday, the first thing he would do would be to rip them off and change into a pair of sweats and a baggy shirt. Suddenly the door flew open and he whipped his head around in hopes it was who he was waiting for. When he saw that it was just another student he slowly and solemnly turned back to the window. After this had happened two more times it was finally her, Ms. Terranova. He wasn’t in love with her but he was drawn to her, he felt this special connection to her from the first time he saw her. His feelings are indescribable, it was just this feeling he got not only in his gut, but in his heart. Everything about her drove him mad; he hung on her every word. He loved everything about her, inside and out. She was perfect to him, her imperfect teeth, her cute little nose, and her big brown eyes, the eyes that had the most extraordinary gleam, you felt like she could see right into you when your eyes meet her’s. The way she presented herself, never a hair out of place, never a piece of clothing that didn’t look beautiful, and always the perfect shoes. Even the way she walked was perfect; he would watch her from down that hall, just walking. But not only that, but it was her vast, infinite knowledge and intelligence, the way she would really think before giving an answer, even if it meant just standing in front of the class tapping her perfect little fingers against her forehead, the way she looked at her computer screen, eyes wide open, leaning her elbow on the table, with her index finger lined up sitting on the side of her nose, her pinky, ring, and middle finger curled up under her nose, and the thumb holding it all in place by resting on her jaw. But not only that, it was everything, the way she would speak about her son, even if it was just a short story about something he said at a restaurant or what his response to a question she asked was, she would tell it with her heart, with love and care radiating off of her as she spoke. She walked in and he turned back to the window. He had been thinking about what it would feel like to jump out the window, before jumping, while falling, and after hitting the ground. He hoped that she would notice him, he envisioned her coming over and asking him what he was thinking about, as if she cared, and him telling her and then she would ask him the question he had been dying to be asked, “Would you try to stop me?” Then in his fantasy she would say, “Of course I would, I care about you, not just because it’s my job but because I do, because I think you’re funny and sweet and bright, because I can see you, the you that you really are, and I want you to feel that you are cared for, because you are. I want to protect you,” she would exclaim, and then he would look up with tears in his eyes as she would open her arms and he would fall right into them. But day after day he stood by that window and she didn’t notice. She would make little comments, like telling him how funny she thought he was, and one day she even told him that she cared what he thought, but he knew in his heart that she was trying to get him to put what he thought in his essay, she didn’t mean that she really cared about what he thought. It was getting worse and worse as the days went on, he would burn and hit himself on his forearms and only roll up his sleeves when around her, but she never noticed. He was desperate for help, but he didn’t want it from anyone but her. He wanted her. He wanted her to love him and care for him. He wanted her to one day notice his cries for help, and take him home with her, give him a place to stay that he could call home, where he wasn’t so truly and unbearably miserable. He wanted to be able to see her face every morning when he woke up and he wanted her to tuck him into bed and maybe just maybe, if she was willing to, read him a bedtime story. But his desires were unreasonable. It would be unfair of him to want her to put aside everything in her life just for him, and he knew that. He felt terrible and selfish for even having these dreams, even if he knew they would never be a reality. One day it was all too much for him, he finally took the plunge out the window he had been thinking about for so long, except he didn’t do it during her class like he had always though he would. He was too scared that it might screw her up, mentally or emotionally, or really in any way at all, so he did it out of another window across the way. As he sat with his legs dangling out the window, he saw her, she didn’t see him, but he saw her, and as he was watching her from the safe distance he always did, he inched his way more and more out the window and suddenly he was dead.