fragile [PREVIEW ONLY]

Chapter 1

High school sucked.

Ask any typical American teenager, and he or she would tell you the truth. Unless, of course, he or she was either A) deluded B) lying or C) popular.

For me, Ava Collins, high school was just a means to an end. It wasn't fun, it wasn't about the parties, and - yes - it most definitely sucked.

Why?

The answer to that question was fairly simple. High school sucked because people sucked.

Starting at 7:50AM every morning, I was subjected to a series of torturous interactions with the people I hated to admit were my peers.

Today was no different.

First period flew by without a hitch. It normally does, considering it's study hall. Ah, study hall. The one high school class it's impossible to fail. Completely stress free, most of the students in my study hall at Lincoln High School chose to utilize their free time to catch up on the sleep they didn't get the night before. They were probably partying, getting wasted, or hooking up. Not that I'd know. My classmates practically belonged to another species.

Right off the bat in second period, however, the day inevitably took a turn for the worse. The class was assigned two chapters to study and answer the accompanying thirty-six questions in their Advanced Placement biology textbooks. Our teacher, Mr. Rutger, preferred to take the 'hands-off' approach to learning. Most of the class involved taking down notes and countless worksheets, sprinkled with the occasional dissection...which was actually optional.

Who decided to make dissection optional in biology? Didn't it defeat the whole purpose of the class? More to the point, how were students supposed to pass an AP biology exam with a teacher who doesn't actually teach?

You might have thought, "Wow. An entire forty-five minute class to work on thirty-six questions. That doesn't sound too bad."

Well, you would be wrong. Each question required a well-thought out paragraph for an answer, and - with thirty-six questions multiplied by at least 5 to 10 minutes per question - that added up to a lot of biology homework.

Lucky for the class, Mr. Rutger wasn't that much of a sucker for torture. Partners were almost always allowed, which cut the workload (and the misery) in half.

Except for me.

Why? Because no one wanted to work with the deaf girl.

It wasn't like I couldn't do the work. I'm not mute or anything, but - unfortunately - most of my classmates were under the impression that just because I can't hear them, I can't communicate.

They were oh-so-wrong.

I'm loud. Probably the most outgoing and talkative girl in the senior class, but - thanks to bullies - I learned early on to keep quiet and stick in the corner. I mean, I'm not loud, loud. Not verbally, but I'm definitely not afraid to make my opinion known either.

Ninety-nine percent of the people I've encountered, however, just weren't able to understand me when I did.

Today, I just bit back a sigh and started working on the assignment. There wasn't any point in looking around for a partner, and - to be frank - I was pretty okay with that anyway. People sucked, remember? At least this way I knew I'd get an A.

When the bell rang, students flooded out of the classroom, and I took my time. Why rush to get into the hallway when I was just going to crushed by the swarm of bodies? It wasn't exactly fun to navigate the halls of my high school when I can't hear what was going on around me. Sure, it's not hard, but have you ever thought about what it's like to hear a group of teen boys thunder down the hallway behind you? You get out of the way, right?

For me, that was a little more difficult. I could feel the movement in the floor beneath my feet, and I always tried to pay attention to the faces of everyone around me. If people were coming, someone was bound to look over a shoulder at them. I always had to be 'on' during the day, focusing on the faces - on the sensations around me - and never able to just...exist. It was doable, definitely, and but if I was completely honest with myself, I had to admit that it was sometimes exhausting.

Today was one of those days. The kind of day where the world was already catching up with me, and I'd give anything to go back home, climb into bed, and press reset. I could practically taste the ice cream that waited for me in the freezer at home, and my heart yearned for a good, old-fashioned Netflix binge.

I tossed my laptop into my bag, followed by my textbook, and exited the classroom with a smile at my teacher. Mr. Rutgers was nice, at least, even if he was a horrible teacher. After adjusting my bag over my shoulder, I turned to the right and narrowly avoided a collision with a large, man-shaped wall.

"Whoa!" Zach Kennedy said, swiftly side-stepping me. "Sorry, I--"

Glancing down, he froze when he realized who it was. The deaf chick. He didn't know sign language or any of that shit, so he just shrugged and walked away.

Because what use was an apology to a deaf person?

I clenched my fists, resisting the urge to shoot him a particular sign with my middle finger that everyone understood, and headed down the hallway to my next class.

Zach and his friends were the worst of my classmates. Some people at least tried to be polite, smiling and nodding at me in the hallways, but most seemed to prefer to believe that I was a persona non grata. Hell, I was practically invisible.

Everyone pretty much acted like I was. At lunch, in class, in the hallways - they wouldn't even bother talking behind my back, because they thought they could get away with saying whatever shit they wanted to my face. Not like I could hear them, right?

Wrong. I've spent seventeen years learning how to lipread like a champ, meaning I was forced to suffer through endless teenage brutality - aka, stupidity - because people were stupid and forgot that just because I can't hear, that doesn't mean I can't think.

And, of course, it was only third period.

I wouldn't mind if someone were to kill me now.