by Lillian Fu
Art by Peyton Chiang
Issue: Scintilla (Spring 2019)
You are nothing.
It’s third grade when you first realize this. You’re playing freeze tag with your friends on the field and you trip, mud smearing all over your face. Your friends laugh at you, call you clumsy and slow and ew, get away from me, that’s gross! You laugh too, as hot shame riptides over you. You look up at their smiles open on glee and leering over you and you’re gross so gross sitting in filth, it’s no wonder they’re laughing at you. You’re the weird one, for not understanding what’s so funny, though you laugh like they do, mud dripping onto your tongue.
You are nothing.
Those same friends leave you when you get to middle school, leave you for better, less gross friends who get what’s so funny, and their laughs ring free with no bile burning up their throats. You pass by them in the hallways, and they don’t even look at you. Of course, why would they? You’re disgusting, after all. You’re nothing, after all.
You find new friends, friends who reach out to help you up when you trip, and ask if you’re okay as they brush the dirt off your clothes. You are in wonder, and sometimes when you are with them, you find yourself laughing without the action being a conscious choice. But you’ve learned your lesson. It’s only a matter of time until they see through you, and realize how disgusting you are. Then, they’ll leave you. After all, you’re nothing, and no one is able to love nothing.
You go to a different high school from them. They cry at graduation for you, gathered around you and saying how much they’ll miss you, but it only takes a few months for the group chats to start gathering dust. They say they’re too busy, but you know the truth. They’re sick of you. They’ve finally realized how horrible you are, and are just too nice to tell you to your face. You are a leech thirsting for their love. They’re glad to be rid of you. You don’t blame them; most of the time, you wish you were rid of yourself too.
You are nothing.
No one in your new school likes you. No one in your classes talks to you unless they need something. The teacher probably doesn’t even know your name. You drift between groups at lunch, and they leave seats open for you, but you know that you’re intruding. You know they don’t like you either, and as they get to know you more they’ll just hate you more too. So during lunch, you hover around for a while before finding some cold, damp corner to sit in, alone and away from their sight so they don’t see you looking so pathetic. At least that way, they’ll forget about you instead of hating you. And when they come up to you and drag you over to sit with them, well, that’s just their pity speaking.
You are nothing.
The people around you all look so happy, so in love as they hold hands and kiss the sunshine off each other’s faces. You long for that. Long to wake up next to someone, morning husking their voice as they greet you with the sun in their eyes, you in their eyes. But that will never happen. Each fantasy, each daydream only serves as a reminder to you. You are stupid, so so so stupid to even think about it.
It’s impossible for someone to love you.
You enter college, and the impossible happens. You meet someone, someone kind and caring and funny and everything you are not, everything you wished you were and you fall in love. You know better than to hope, but then they’re fidgeting before you, blushing and looking down and they tell you they love you. You don’t believe them. Of course you don’t, because it’s ridiculous that someone so golden and lovely would taint themselves by loving you. But you do hope.
You float through a few years high on bliss before they leave you too. Something about how they can’t stand it anymore, can’t do this anymore if you can’t even believe them when they say that they love you, and I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry, choking on tears they say I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry-
You should be the one apologizing. After all, it’s because you’re such a horrible person that the one you love most in the world is crying in front of you right now. It’s your fault. It’s your fault you’re so disgusting that even the purest soul can’t stand being around you, it’s your fault you filthy piece of trash, you scum lower than anything you should do the world a favor by taking yourself out of it so that no one will be tainted by you ever again you are nothing you are nothing you are nothing you are nothing
You are nothing.
You open the door to a cold, empty apartment. You take your shoes off, trudge into the living room to dump your bag onto the couch, thinking about the last beer in your fridge and how good it’ll feel sliding down your throat. It’s only as you’re slinging your bag off your shoulder that you realize that there is no couch. You freeze. You turn around in your small apartment and realize that it isn’t only the couch that’s missing, your secondhand TV is gone too, along with your crickety bookshelf and your entire kitchen and what the hell is going on? You look down and the bag that dangled from your fingers just moments ago is gone as well.
You scream. You try to take a step back but there’s no floor under your feet, and then you’re falling and your butt thuds against hard wood. You look down and realize it’s not that there’s no floor under your feet, but that you don’t have feet.
You don’t even have time to wonder if this is a dream, a nightmare, before that nothing wraps its hands up your ankles, up your calves, stretching to your kneecaps and you scream and scream and scream, kicking your legs and shaking your head so that your hair obscures half your vision. The nothingness crawls up your thighs, eating your hips and your waist, licking your elbows into its mouth. You curl up, cover your face with your hands, and sob.
Soon enough, those hands covering your face evaporate, and you are just a head floating in the air over a puddle of salt water. And then the nothing devours your sobbing mouth and your crying eyes and when the last strand of hair is gone it laps up your tears on the floor as well, and
You are nothing.