Intricacies of the Teenaged Mind
Alex Alcamo
Ellie sat on the bus, popping her gum quietly. She had her ear buds in her ears, the music
turned up full blast, as usual.
She hated the bus. It was a huge yellow mockery of her very being. Like it was her fault that she
couldn’t take driver’s training because a bunch of bullies were taking it that month.
She moved her dark hair out of her light eyes, biting her lip. See, since she was a teenager, people
sort of assumed she hated everything and left her alone.
She does have friends though. She just didn’t like to bug them with her dumb problems.
She kept almost everything to herself, because, really, at the end of the day, all she had that she
knew would still be sticking around by the time high school ended is herself. She was just a tad on
the pessimistic side.
Ellie never really let that on though. She’d hate when everyone would come up with those dumb cliché
sayings. “Life will give you lemons for your lemonade…” or whatever.
She couldn’t wait to go home. School had been long. It’d been such a long week. She felt like she
was suffocating. Between trying to keep up with homework and tests and sleep and trying to act happy
all the time, she could hardly breathe.
She stretched slightly, yawning, looking up as more and more kids piled onto the bus. So much was
always happening around her. She just always seemed to miss it. Maybe that was her own fault.
Either way, she didn’t care. Or she tried not to care. She always tried to act like nothing was
bothering her. She could fake a smile impeccably well. She could tell a lie about her own well-being
like a snap of one’s fingers.
But keeping up that whole façade was exhausting. She exhaled as the bus took off finally. She was
going home finally. She looked around her, seeing a sea of people, all doing so many things.
It was as if life was just passing her by and she had to struggle to be included in anything or feel
good and passionate about something.
Everyone told her it’s just normal teenager stuff. Teens are supposed to feel this awful all the
time, really?
Some people seriously needed a reality check. Thank god it was finally Friday. She wouldn’t have to
be ignored again until Monday. But the pretending never took a break.
Art By
Jessica Kube