The Other Side of School Life

"Button!"

"Yeah dad?" I called back. It was 9 at night. Almost time to go to bed. Not that I actually went to sleep at the time. Normally I just stayed up on my joyboy. I know how bad it is to deprive yourself of sleep but... Yeah....

"You have any homework tonight?" my father said walking into my room.

"I'll check."

"You get started, it's late"

"Alright dad" I said putting my headset back on "Hey guys I'll be right back I gotta check for homework." I told my virtual friends over the mic.

Eh math homework.... Eh it's so late I rather just use my homework pass

"Ok guys I'm ba-"

"Button you finish your homework already?"

"No, I was going to use this homework pa-" I was explaining as I started to take out the packet with the pass to show my father.

"You don't have to show it to me!" my father snapped.

"OKAY OKAY!"

This reaction is due to our past experience with homework talk. The constant interrogations on weather or not I had really done my homework. The hours of fighting and yelling.

"Come on button every night you don't have homework I at least want to see you trying."

"WHAT?! I have the homework here with the pass I'm getting the grade for tonight's homework! I am trying!"

"What about the last 2 weeks then?! You have had no homework over the last to weeks and I find that hard to believe!"

"I have had homework and I have done it!"  While it is true I have done some most of it was forgotten. Being addicted to videos games and having ADD didn't help one bit.

"Well I haven't been seeing it!" He snapped.

"Dad even if I didn't do all of it what do you want me to do about it now?! You say you want me to try to do my work I have the work for tonight covered! What do you want from me tonight?!"

"I want you to try and pass!"

"I am! You always say I'm not trying when I am! I stop trying when you yell at me about the past when I lied about homework or didn't turn in one assignment on time! What do you want from me right now to end this?!"

"I want you to try!"

"I am trying! Look it's done for tonight!" I yelled as I reached for my math homework with the homework pass.

"I told you I don't want to see it!"

"Then what do you want?!"

"To see that you are actually trying!"

"BUT I JUST TRIED TO SHOW YOU!"

At this point we were both yelling. Both of us shut down and went into full rage. No more thinking just fighting. Yelling.

It went on between "I want to see that you're trying!" and "I am look at my homework here!" with the response of "I said I don't want to see the homework!" and so it went around yet again.

I was trying. I was trying earlier in the school year. I tried at the start of each quarter always to be talked down about the previous grades and about how I don't try.

Sadly the grades reflect the whole 9 weeks, not the first 2 in which I do truly try.

For the first 2 or so weeks of each quarter I'm alive. Go to school, do my work, sit with real friends at lunch, go home to my virtual friends that live in Cloudsdale, Trottingham, and Manehatten, and play some video games. Then came last quarter's report card...

4 Fs and 3 Ds

The usual fight starts. Just as it happened every quarter. I go back to school. My mind unsettled by the night before. The fury still flowing through. To exhausted to work and think about how to solve "2x-8y>12" I simply drop to sleep on the desk. Only to be awaken by the teacher in a loud and embarrassing fashion.

Followed by smirks from those around me. "Blank flank fallen asleep again?" with more pestering to follow. Lunch comes by with only how bad my day has been on mind. Shutting out my friends I simply sit next to them with saying anything. Ignoring their attempts at conversation by drowning them out in my heavy rock music.

The day only getting worse with 2 more classes left of pain and misery. Not the fun challenge the work usual provided. Now more of an annoyance.

__________________________

"You will never understand dad! You were popular! You had good grades! You had girls! YOU HAD FRIENDS!"

"I JUST WANT YOU TO DO BETTER AND BE HAPPY!"

"THEN WHY TALK ME DOWN EVERY TIME I DO SOMETHING GOOD?! Do you ever wonder why I hate my life?! Do you ever wonder why I have to take 10 ML of  anti depressant?! Because I hate myself and what I do! I have no friends! I play video games all day, fail every class in school, and get bullied by everyone!"

"You have friends on your computer."

"THOSE AREN'T REAL FRIENDS! THEY'RE VIRTUAL! They live in Trottingham, and Manehatten! Not Ponyville!"

Another one of the usual fights. The therapist calms them down for a while, but we always come back to the same fight.

"You will never understand my life! To be hated and made fun of by everyone in your school! Every class, every day! If you wont acknowledge when I actually do try then what's the point in trying at all?"

The circle of yelling goes around and around for another night, and then another, and another. Until one night.

My father yells "IF I MAKE YOU FEEL SO BAD THEN MAYBE YOU SHOULDN'T STAY WITH ME!"

After my dad stomps out of my room I simply say one thing to my friends online.

"Goodbye"

I pack my saddlebag and leave.

________________

Great. I left my mom and now... I left my father too. My mother has always had issues. Depression, anxiety, and recently diagnosed as bipolar. That explains a lot. My father... One problem. Rage.

So now I look over the situation. I think my whole life through.

I am Button Mash. I am a Blank Flank who is failing half of his classes his freshcolt year in highschool. I have been bullied since 3rd grade for no reason what so ever. I have no friends. No one likes me. I'm addicted to video games. Now I don't even have those.

My virtual friends that comfort me, and take me away from the real world, gone. Forever. My dad has said the same thing many times. Saying he would bring it to my grandparents down the road.

No! I am not doing that! This time... I had enough. I snapped. The first thing that went through my head as I was packing was simple.

Where's that cliff the crusaders went skydiving off of