Tara uneasily looked around in the class as she entered the room. Most of her classmates, well, more like, all of them if she saw it correctly in that moment, were already there. And to be honest, that did kinda make sense, since Tara was rather late, almost too late even, what she realized when the bell rang right after she fully stood in the room.
Out of all those people, Tara was the one who was late, and she'd stand right in the way of her teacher if she wouldn't manage to stop losing herself in thoughts and finally go to her seat.
When that thought found its way into her conscious mind, she quickly walked towards her desk, even though that alone made her shrink in on herself already. It was unbelievable how much she hated sleeping for too long and then coming to class almost late since everyone was there and could technically also make fun of her.
At least she wasn't completely late, that would've been even worse; as of now, everyone was talking to each other about their weekends and the "crazy stuff" they've done on those days.
Something Tara didn't despise about Mondays.
The weekend between their usually last meeting, what would be Friday in those cases, gave a lot of reasons for the others to engage in deep and passionate talks and ignore her like Tara hoped for them to just do.
She herself didn't do much on weekends, she didn't have actual friends after all, but she honestly didn't really mind. Staying at home and overthinking everything sounded much better all the time.
Sometimes Tara actually started writing a poem on free days. But if those tries of writing were even finished, they'd mostly end up in the trash or some dark corner of her room anyways so that no one could ever, ever, ever find them.
If she hid one specific thing from the outside world, it was her secrets and her thoughts in general. The only people she'd honestly open up to would be her family at most, but not even they knew everything about Tara's life and feelings.
She only remembered one friend in her life that she was so close to that she even made the step and opened up about her complicated feelings. But that friend was not with her anymore and left a deep, black hole in many ways.
And God, the room always seemed bigger and more difficult to get through when all those people were there, so difficult that she still wasn't at her desk, too scared and thoughtful to go past the talking people. And please, please, please, Tara begged, please just let them ignore me like always.
And then Tara strictly told herself to never sleep in and come early or at least earlier than most of the others. But if she counted all the times she had this conclusion and never followed through with it, the whole thing just felt surreal after all.
In the end, she really just planned to get better in that field, only to not make it, feel ashamed and try to stop sleeping in again.
Tara only then noticed that she'd started smiling slightly at the thought of herself being a literal mess, standind behind her chair and staring at the desk as if there was some secret she was trying to take in. At least she'd already taken off her jacket and hung it over her chair while thinking, but this still didn't stop her from feeling ashamed for openly zoning out like that.
How did Tara always manage to put herself into situations like this when she was so scared of judgment?
Unbelievable, how fast she got distracted all the time. Nothing even happened to explain her zoning out this heavily.
In all honesty, during the first time it happened, some people might've laughed about it a lot, but nowadays it was just... normal. And everyone thought it to be normal except for Tara herself, who still felt like a literal disgrace despite already sitting down on the chair by then.
Tara knew that her subconscious had more power over her than her conscious mind. The only things she felt consciously was how time flew by and mocked her whenever the day would become a really bad one. Or the week. There were times in which a whole damn month was just a giant piece of shit for Tara.
But that time was over at least. Now, she was rather neutral towards a lot of things that were happening, especially pain related things. Only her body didn't quite understand that she wanted to be indifferent, making her blush or shake and flinch a lot whenever there was an unpleasant situation.
Tara sighed as she put her arms down onto the desk to then lean her head down on them also. She was so extremely tired, possibly because she didn't really get enough satisfying sleep despite sleeping in a lot.
It often took her hours to find sleep, so many time that her body couldn't get back, not matter how much she really slept in during a week. And she could really feel that emotionally and physically by then.
Maybe a reason for all of it was her seatmate, where she knew, IF she'd been able to select who she'd want to sit next to, she would've been the literal last person she'd chosen. Not at once in her whole life would she want to sit next to that girl.
Said seatmate let herself fall onto her chair next to Tara with a strange, almost strangled sounding noise in that moment, searching for her books because the teacher apparently got sighted a moment prior.
Tara looked at the girl next to her, sternly watching her search around in her bag and seemingly not finding what she was looking for, which was why Tara already grew madly suspicious, frowning at the sight.
Did she forget her stuff for English lessons at home AGAIN? That can't be happening. Does this girl always forget something or does she just want to annoy the shit out of me?, Tara wondered in her head and turned away to have her arms and black hair embrace her head completely.
"Uhm, Tara?" exactly the person she expected to say something asked then. Tara almost wanted to act innocent and respond with "Yes, Claire?" in the exact same tone, but instead of doing that, she just moved her own book into the middle of their desks with a hand that vanished to where it came from directly after the act.
Tara suddenly remembered that Claire hadn't been that long at the school actually and had already found her place in there. She'd tried to become friends with everyone but always stayed true to herself, something Tara, despite not liking her, had to admire.
Well, she tried becoming friends with everyone but Tara. She'd stayed as far away from Tara as possible, considering they were seatmates.
It would've been nice if the person that I often share my stuff with had at least some interest for me, she thought in frustration and sighed into the material of her sweater. Well, actually no, she can leave it like this. I don't need her clinging onto me or anything.
And with that, Tara realized why Claire didn't try it with her.
She probably had started off with so much dislike for contact with other humans around her that it all shooed Claire away from her. But if it really was because of that, Tara didn't quite know what to think of it, or further, how to react to that. On one side, it was in her interest that no one came near to her in any means possible, but on the other side... She didn't necessarily HATE talking to others.
She only knew that she herself would be too difficult and stressful to handle, especially because she, for example, was very unmotivated and not easily impressed by anything. That's a reason why she avoided people in general, just so she could avoid the conflicts coming with it and the shame she'd put on herself because Tara seemingly couldn't stop embarrassing herself at all.
But that was a questionable point. Like she implied, she embarrassed herself anyways, without talking to people... It was complicated.
No one really cared about Tara, no one spent their attention on her. Yet, she was always on the edge, waiting for them to say the mean things they once did say to her in her life.
Only her seatmate often saw how weird she was acting at times, she'd seen her look at her at times. That girl had her eyes everywhere anyways, even if Tara hid in another room, Claire would still find her there.
Sometimes Tara wondered if Claire didn't already install secret cameras in every room in any building or if she just was being extremely paranoid because usually no one cared about what the fuck she was doing most of the time, so this was just... unusual. It felt as if Claire really was stalking there, even though she was just displaying normal human communication. This fact was supporting by the truth behind it that no one else in the class seemed to mind Claire in any way.
No matter what it is, Tara found her to be creepy anyways. She'd never met someone this happy and loud that seemingly lacked shame and a general line of personal space. Nothing made this girl insecure or ashamed, literally nothing, and nothing had her lose her happiness, not even Tara herself.
It was so weird, considering that she often heard that she had a dark atmosphere levitating around her, taking a person's whole happiness when one just stood too close to Tara, no matter who that person was.
And yeah, it's not entirely wrong, definitely not, she figured. One can't be happy around Tara.
Except you were Claire, who couldn't care less about "Tara's atmosphere". And that was another thing that made Claire into the scariest person Tara ever knew personally.
Before she could elaborate on that thought, their teacher entered the room, and even though she'd rather stay in the sitting position and ignore the greeting of the teacher, but then stood up nevertheless, not wanting to get in more trouble than the trouble that already sat next to her.