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I hope you guys enjoy this. I will post up further parts later in the week since I thought it better than simply posting one long neverending post. Here's the first part.
Endurance
What do you do when you’re in a room where for the next three hours the only sound you hear is the constant scribbling of students’ pencils? Silence. A real endurance.
At nine fifty an hour I was hardly going to complain when I got offered the job to invigilate at my local secondary school, but that was before I had actually been involved in a proper lengthy exam. Sure I had been in ones that were forty five minutes and maybe even an hour. But this was a two and a half hour English paper. I always found it a struggle to make it through the last ten minutes of a simple hour maths exam. How would I react now?
I entered the hall glancing at the hundred or so pupils seated at their desks as I walked by. They all knew what lie ahead and were probably as thrilled as I was to get this started. I stood next to Zoe, the only person my age who invigilated too and rolled my eyes at her. “Looking forward to this?” I whispered.
“How could I not? I was awake all night since I couldn’t stop shaking from the sheer excitement of it all.” She always said sarcastic things like that and I guess that was part of her charm. She made me laugh and with a job like this I really needed that.
“Well at least we can always play lookalike or something” I replied. Lookalike being a game we had invented where you find students who looked like famous celebrities and rate them based on how identical they were. Lately I had found the fat kid from “Superbad” and the spitting image of Napolean Dynamite, glasses and all. It was a stupid game but that’s how desperate you become when walking round a room with nothing to do for hours on end. Zoe smiled and nodded.
The headmaster of the school walked through and began doing the usual introduction to the students, explaining what to do, how to do it and so on. He was a small fat guy who panted just making it from one side of the room to the other. None of the students respected him either. They laughed behind his back and constantly made jokes even in his presence. I felt kinda bad for him so would try and sneak in a snide comment to them when no one was looking like “Dude your boyfriend keeps staring at you” or something as simple as “your hair” whilst laughing quietly. They didn’t know I could do that. They never expected it and that’s what made it so much sweeter. He signalled for the exam to begin and so began the painful period of quiet.
So two and half hours with Zoe dossing around and taking each minute one at a time. Yup. All one hundred and fifty of them. Apparently not. Just as she walked by the main door the headmaster grabbed her arm to have a quiet word. I sighed. I knew what they were talking about. He was telling her to supervise the special needs kids down in the history department which would leave me alone to defend my sanity. Damn. Just before leaving she looked over at me as if to say, “This sucks” and grabbed her bag. Now what?
Four minutes. I sat near the back on a table so most students would forget I existed. Any time I moved someone saw that as an opportunity to raise their hand and ask to use the toilet so I avoided making any unnecessary actions. Since Zoe had left the only thing I could rely on was really myself. I could just think. Day dream but stay conscious enough to make sure no one around me was cheating in their test. What do I think about though? Oh right the vacation in the Summer.
Twelve minutes. This Summer I had three plans. One was to get a slip and slide party going somewhere with my friends, the next was to try out zorbing which was simply rolling down a hill in a giant ball and finally I wanted to take a trip somewhere relaxing and warm. To get away from everything. Originally it started off as just me going with my mate Dave to Portugal since he had just gotten over a recent breakup and I thought he could use the time away. Then more people got included one by one until we were at the figure eight. It was a decent number and the villa we had rented accommodated more than that so it would have left us with plenty of room. The couple to single ratio was even too so while half of us would be doing couple-like activities us singles could do our own thing. It seemed like everything was going swimmingly and with only the flights to book there was no need to worry. Everyone was booking theirs this week so it was okay and I’d agreed to go to my ex-girlfriends nearby to book ours together since she was one of the eight going.
Now I won’t lie and say that there were no feelings left toward her after our break up. I mean we’d dated for nearly two years and she meant the world to me. There had been a year and a half gap between New Years Eve when we went our separate ways and now but I had already gone though the usual processes. For the first month I was in a rut and didn’t really do anything. It’s like those sitcoms you see where the guy is in his underwear watching TV. Then when he sees something that reminds him of his ex he gets even worse. Unfortunately it was EXACTLY like that. I’d then taken a darker route a month after and turned to drinking and eventually closed off so I couldn’t be hurt again. Didn’t tell anyone my problems, not even my friends or family. Then when I met someone else around seven months after things had gotten better until she left me since I “couldn’t open up to her.” Those last few words she left me with have haunted me somewhat.
“Until you can trust and make yourself vulnerable anyone you get together with isn’t going to last long.”
Since then I’d taken a more outgoing lifestyle and simply bounced from girl to girl at local bars and clubs. Did I miss being in a relationship? Sure, but over the past six months no one had felt right. If the slightest thing bothered me I would switch off and make no effort until the girl ended it with me. That’s the thing I could never break up with someone. I couldn’t do it. I felt horrible and cold blooded after so since I didn’t care about reputation I let them break up with me.
Sixteen minutes. Being around her obviously brought those thoughts of the times we had rushing back into my head but it surely meant nothing. She was beautiful and at the time sweet and selfless, but as time went by that changed and like a mug I took it all. She became possessive and it began to feel like she simply didn’t care that she hurt me from time to time. That was tough to open up to her since I was usually a little restricted in what I told people. After the break up there were the odd one night moments where we hooked up but I misinterpreted them as glimmers of reconciliation where she saw them as random undefined evenings. That then lead me to feeling idiotic and hurt which then swore me to saying I would take a new outlook on girls and relationships and not get too ahead of myself.
I agreed to see her at the end of the week regardless and then meet my friends (three more of whom were going to Portugal) in our favourite pub in town soon after. James and Caitlin were a couple who had been dating nearly six years so they were sort of seen as the mother and father of our group of friends. While she was somewhat down to earth and sensible he was the complete opposite. In fact the one of the reasons we were best friends was because of how much we had in common. We both loved video games, sports and more often than not wound up doing something reckless and idiotic that either ended up with us being in trouble with random guys on streets or the local police. You would probably never meet two more different people in your life. But they had outlasted any other couples that had gotten together over the length of time and always looked unbreakable.
The other member of the party was Dave. He was the joker of the group. Imagine Chandler from friends and you probably have a good idea. However having recently broken up with his girlfriend at the moment he was a little depressed and not his usual self so we figured coming out for drinks was better than staying at home alone and bitter. We may even find him a girl.
Twenty two minutes. I had to stand up since my legs were going numb from resting on a table for so long. Walking around the room slowly I glanced down at each paper looking as if I cared whether the students were working rather than sleeping. That’s what amazed me. Here they are doing their GCSE which is pretty much leading up to their career and how their life turns out and most of them simply sat and either stared at the ceiling like a fountain that is shooting water from its mouth or just sleeping with his head on the desk. Why even bother?
Twenty six minutes. I took a seat at the front this time and started to read through their paper. It was an English paper so there was at least some extracts to read which would pass the time. Oh... it’s all Shakespeare. Never mind. I threw the paper back on the desk and continued to patiently wait as every second ticked by. That’s right all seven thousand three hundred and eighty of them.
Endurance
What do you do when you’re in a room where for the next three hours the only sound you hear is the constant scribbling of students’ pencils? Silence. A real endurance.
At nine fifty an hour I was hardly going to complain when I got offered the job to invigilate at my local secondary school, but that was before I had actually been involved in a proper lengthy exam. Sure I had been in ones that were forty five minutes and maybe even an hour. But this was a two and a half hour English paper. I always found it a struggle to make it through the last ten minutes of a simple hour maths exam. How would I react now?
I entered the hall glancing at the hundred or so pupils seated at their desks as I walked by. They all knew what lie ahead and were probably as thrilled as I was to get this started. I stood next to Zoe, the only person my age who invigilated too and rolled my eyes at her. “Looking forward to this?” I whispered.
“How could I not? I was awake all night since I couldn’t stop shaking from the sheer excitement of it all.” She always said sarcastic things like that and I guess that was part of her charm. She made me laugh and with a job like this I really needed that.
“Well at least we can always play lookalike or something” I replied. Lookalike being a game we had invented where you find students who looked like famous celebrities and rate them based on how identical they were. Lately I had found the fat kid from “Superbad” and the spitting image of Napolean Dynamite, glasses and all. It was a stupid game but that’s how desperate you become when walking round a room with nothing to do for hours on end. Zoe smiled and nodded.
The headmaster of the school walked through and began doing the usual introduction to the students, explaining what to do, how to do it and so on. He was a small fat guy who panted just making it from one side of the room to the other. None of the students respected him either. They laughed behind his back and constantly made jokes even in his presence. I felt kinda bad for him so would try and sneak in a snide comment to them when no one was looking like “Dude your boyfriend keeps staring at you” or something as simple as “your hair” whilst laughing quietly. They didn’t know I could do that. They never expected it and that’s what made it so much sweeter. He signalled for the exam to begin and so began the painful period of quiet.
So two and half hours with Zoe dossing around and taking each minute one at a time. Yup. All one hundred and fifty of them. Apparently not. Just as she walked by the main door the headmaster grabbed her arm to have a quiet word. I sighed. I knew what they were talking about. He was telling her to supervise the special needs kids down in the history department which would leave me alone to defend my sanity. Damn. Just before leaving she looked over at me as if to say, “This sucks” and grabbed her bag. Now what?
Four minutes. I sat near the back on a table so most students would forget I existed. Any time I moved someone saw that as an opportunity to raise their hand and ask to use the toilet so I avoided making any unnecessary actions. Since Zoe had left the only thing I could rely on was really myself. I could just think. Day dream but stay conscious enough to make sure no one around me was cheating in their test. What do I think about though? Oh right the vacation in the Summer.
Twelve minutes. This Summer I had three plans. One was to get a slip and slide party going somewhere with my friends, the next was to try out zorbing which was simply rolling down a hill in a giant ball and finally I wanted to take a trip somewhere relaxing and warm. To get away from everything. Originally it started off as just me going with my mate Dave to Portugal since he had just gotten over a recent breakup and I thought he could use the time away. Then more people got included one by one until we were at the figure eight. It was a decent number and the villa we had rented accommodated more than that so it would have left us with plenty of room. The couple to single ratio was even too so while half of us would be doing couple-like activities us singles could do our own thing. It seemed like everything was going swimmingly and with only the flights to book there was no need to worry. Everyone was booking theirs this week so it was okay and I’d agreed to go to my ex-girlfriends nearby to book ours together since she was one of the eight going.
Now I won’t lie and say that there were no feelings left toward her after our break up. I mean we’d dated for nearly two years and she meant the world to me. There had been a year and a half gap between New Years Eve when we went our separate ways and now but I had already gone though the usual processes. For the first month I was in a rut and didn’t really do anything. It’s like those sitcoms you see where the guy is in his underwear watching TV. Then when he sees something that reminds him of his ex he gets even worse. Unfortunately it was EXACTLY like that. I’d then taken a darker route a month after and turned to drinking and eventually closed off so I couldn’t be hurt again. Didn’t tell anyone my problems, not even my friends or family. Then when I met someone else around seven months after things had gotten better until she left me since I “couldn’t open up to her.” Those last few words she left me with have haunted me somewhat.
“Until you can trust and make yourself vulnerable anyone you get together with isn’t going to last long.”
Since then I’d taken a more outgoing lifestyle and simply bounced from girl to girl at local bars and clubs. Did I miss being in a relationship? Sure, but over the past six months no one had felt right. If the slightest thing bothered me I would switch off and make no effort until the girl ended it with me. That’s the thing I could never break up with someone. I couldn’t do it. I felt horrible and cold blooded after so since I didn’t care about reputation I let them break up with me.
Sixteen minutes. Being around her obviously brought those thoughts of the times we had rushing back into my head but it surely meant nothing. She was beautiful and at the time sweet and selfless, but as time went by that changed and like a mug I took it all. She became possessive and it began to feel like she simply didn’t care that she hurt me from time to time. That was tough to open up to her since I was usually a little restricted in what I told people. After the break up there were the odd one night moments where we hooked up but I misinterpreted them as glimmers of reconciliation where she saw them as random undefined evenings. That then lead me to feeling idiotic and hurt which then swore me to saying I would take a new outlook on girls and relationships and not get too ahead of myself.
I agreed to see her at the end of the week regardless and then meet my friends (three more of whom were going to Portugal) in our favourite pub in town soon after. James and Caitlin were a couple who had been dating nearly six years so they were sort of seen as the mother and father of our group of friends. While she was somewhat down to earth and sensible he was the complete opposite. In fact the one of the reasons we were best friends was because of how much we had in common. We both loved video games, sports and more often than not wound up doing something reckless and idiotic that either ended up with us being in trouble with random guys on streets or the local police. You would probably never meet two more different people in your life. But they had outlasted any other couples that had gotten together over the length of time and always looked unbreakable.
The other member of the party was Dave. He was the joker of the group. Imagine Chandler from friends and you probably have a good idea. However having recently broken up with his girlfriend at the moment he was a little depressed and not his usual self so we figured coming out for drinks was better than staying at home alone and bitter. We may even find him a girl.
Twenty two minutes. I had to stand up since my legs were going numb from resting on a table for so long. Walking around the room slowly I glanced down at each paper looking as if I cared whether the students were working rather than sleeping. That’s what amazed me. Here they are doing their GCSE which is pretty much leading up to their career and how their life turns out and most of them simply sat and either stared at the ceiling like a fountain that is shooting water from its mouth or just sleeping with his head on the desk. Why even bother?
Twenty six minutes. I took a seat at the front this time and started to read through their paper. It was an English paper so there was at least some extracts to read which would pass the time. Oh... it’s all Shakespeare. Never mind. I threw the paper back on the desk and continued to patiently wait as every second ticked by. That’s right all seven thousand three hundred and eighty of them.
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I hope you guys enjoy this. I will post up further parts later in the week since I thought it better than simply posting one long neverending post. Here's the first part.
Endurance
What do you do when you’re in a room where for the next three hours the only sound you hear is the constant scribbling of students’ pencils? Silence. A real endurance.
At nine fifty an hour I was hardly going to complain when I got offered the job to invigilate at my local secondary school, but that was before I had actually been involved in a proper lengthy exam. Sure I had been in ones that were forty five minutes and maybe even an hour. But this was a two and a half hour English paper. I always found it a struggle to make it through the last ten minutes of a simple hour maths exam. How would I react now?
I entered the hall glancing at the hundred or so pupils seated at their desks as I walked by. They all knew what lie ahead and were probably as thrilled as I was to get this started. I stood next to Zoe, the only person my age who invigilated too and rolled my eyes at her. “Looking forward to this?” I whispered.
“How could I not? I was awake all night since I couldn’t stop shaking from the sheer excitement of it all.” She always said sarcastic things like that and I guess that was part of her charm. She made me laugh and with a job like this I really needed that.
“Well at least we can always play lookalike or something” I replied. Lookalike being a game we had invented where you find students who looked like famous celebrities and rate them based on how identical they were. Lately I had found the fat kid from “Superbad” and the spitting image of Napolean Dynamite, glasses and all. It was a stupid game but that’s how desperate you become when walking round a room with nothing to do for hours on end. Zoe smiled and nodded.
The headmaster of the school walked through and began doing the usual introduction to the students, explaining what to do, how to do it and so on. He was a small fat guy who panted just making it from one side of the room to the other. None of the students respected him either. They laughed behind his back and constantly made jokes even in his presence. I felt kinda bad for him so would try and sneak in a snide comment to them when no one was looking like “Dude your boyfriend keeps staring at you” or something as simple as “your hair” whilst laughing quietly. They didn’t know I could do that. They never expected it and that’s what made it so much sweeter. He signalled for the exam to begin and so began the painful period of quiet.
So two and half hours with Zoe dossing around and taking each minute one at a time. Yup. All one hundred and fifty of them. Apparently not. Just as she walked by the main door the headmaster grabbed her arm to have a quiet word. I sighed. I knew what they were talking about. He was telling her to supervise the special needs kids down in the history department which would leave me alone to defend my sanity. Damn. Just before leaving she looked over at me as if to say, “This sucks” and grabbed her bag. Now what?
Four minutes. I sat near the back on a table so most students would forget I existed. Any time I moved someone saw that as an opportunity to raise their hand and ask to use the toilet so I avoided making any unnecessary actions. Since Zoe had left the only thing I could rely on was really myself. I could just think. Day dream but stay conscious enough to make sure no one around me was cheating in their test. What do I think about though? Oh right the vacation in the Summer.
Twelve minutes. This Summer I had three plans. One was to get a slip and slide party going somewhere with my friends, the next was to try out zorbing which was simply rolling down a hill in a giant ball and finally I wanted to take a trip somewhere relaxing and warm. To get away from everything. Originally it started off as just me going with my mate Dave to Portugal since he had just gotten over a recent breakup and I thought he could use the time away. Then more people got included one by one until we were at the figure eight. It was a decent number and the villa we had rented accommodated more than that so it would have left us with plenty of room. The couple to single ratio was even too so while half of us would be doing couple-like activities us singles could do our own thing. It seemed like everything was going swimmingly and with only the flights to book there was no need to worry. Everyone was booking theirs this week so it was okay and I’d agreed to go to my ex-girlfriends nearby to book ours together since she was one of the eight going.
Now I won’t lie and say that there were no feelings left toward her after our break up. I mean we’d dated for nearly two years and she meant the world to me. There had been a year and a half gap between New Years Eve when we went our separate ways and now but I had already gone though the usual processes. For the first month I was in a rut and didn’t really do anything. It’s like those sitcoms you see where the guy is in his underwear watching TV. Then when he sees something that reminds him of his ex he gets even worse. Unfortunately it was EXACTLY like that. I’d then taken a darker route a month after and turned to drinking and eventually closed off so I couldn’t be hurt again. Didn’t tell anyone my problems, not even my friends or family. Then when I met someone else around seven months after things had gotten better until she left me since I “couldn’t open up to her.” Those last few words she left me with have haunted me somewhat.
“Until you can trust and make yourself vulnerable anyone you get together with isn’t going to last long.”
Since then I’d taken a more outgoing lifestyle and simply bounced from girl to girl at local bars and clubs. Did I miss being in a relationship? Sure, but over the past six months no one had felt right. If the slightest thing bothered me I would switch off and make no effort until the girl ended it with me. That’s the thing I could never break up with someone. I couldn’t do it. I felt horrible and cold blooded after so since I didn’t care about reputation I let them break up with me.
Sixteen minutes. Being around her obviously brought those thoughts of the times we had rushing back into my head but it surely meant nothing. She was beautiful and at the time sweet and selfless, but as time went by that changed and like a mug I took it all. She became possessive and it began to feel like she simply didn’t care that she hurt me from time to time. That was tough to open up to her since I was usually a little restricted in what I told people. After the break up there were the odd one night moments where we hooked up but I misinterpreted them as glimmers of reconciliation where she saw them as random undefined evenings. That then lead me to feeling idiotic and hurt which then swore me to saying I would take a new outlook on girls and relationships and not get too ahead of myself.
I agreed to see her at the end of the week regardless and then meet my friends (three more of whom were going to Portugal) in our favourite pub in town soon after. James and Caitlin were a couple who had been dating nearly six years so they were sort of seen as the mother and father of our group of friends. While she was somewhat down to earth and sensible he was the complete opposite. In fact the one of the reasons we were best friends was because of how much we had in common. We both loved video games, sports and more often than not wound up doing something reckless and idiotic that either ended up with us being in trouble with random guys on streets or the local police. You would probably never meet two more different people in your life. But they had outlasted any other couples that had gotten together over the length of time and always looked unbreakable.
The other member of the party was Dave. He was the joker of the group. Imagine Chandler from friends and you probably have a good idea. However having recently broken up with his girlfriend at the moment he was a little depressed and not his usual self so we figured coming out for drinks was better than staying at home alone and bitter. We may even find him a girl.
Twenty two minutes. I had to stand up since my legs were going numb from resting on a table for so long. Walking around the room slowly I glanced down at each paper looking as if I cared whether the students were working rather than sleeping. That’s what amazed me. Here they are doing their GCSE which is pretty much leading up to their career and how their life turns out and most of them simply sat and either stared at the ceiling like a fountain that is shooting water from its mouth or just sleeping with his head on the desk. Why even bother?
Twenty six minutes. I took a seat at the front this time and started to read through their paper. It was an English paper so there was at least some extracts to read which would pass the time. Oh... it’s all Shakespeare. Never mind. I threw the paper back on the desk and continued to patiently wait as every second ticked by. That’s right all seven thousand three hundred and eighty of them.
Endurance
What do you do when you’re in a room where for the next three hours the only sound you hear is the constant scribbling of students’ pencils? Silence. A real endurance.
At nine fifty an hour I was hardly going to complain when I got offered the job to invigilate at my local secondary school, but that was before I had actually been involved in a proper lengthy exam. Sure I had been in ones that were forty five minutes and maybe even an hour. But this was a two and a half hour English paper. I always found it a struggle to make it through the last ten minutes of a simple hour maths exam. How would I react now?
I entered the hall glancing at the hundred or so pupils seated at their desks as I walked by. They all knew what lie ahead and were probably as thrilled as I was to get this started. I stood next to Zoe, the only person my age who invigilated too and rolled my eyes at her. “Looking forward to this?” I whispered.
“How could I not? I was awake all night since I couldn’t stop shaking from the sheer excitement of it all.” She always said sarcastic things like that and I guess that was part of her charm. She made me laugh and with a job like this I really needed that.
“Well at least we can always play lookalike or something” I replied. Lookalike being a game we had invented where you find students who looked like famous celebrities and rate them based on how identical they were. Lately I had found the fat kid from “Superbad” and the spitting image of Napolean Dynamite, glasses and all. It was a stupid game but that’s how desperate you become when walking round a room with nothing to do for hours on end. Zoe smiled and nodded.
The headmaster of the school walked through and began doing the usual introduction to the students, explaining what to do, how to do it and so on. He was a small fat guy who panted just making it from one side of the room to the other. None of the students respected him either. They laughed behind his back and constantly made jokes even in his presence. I felt kinda bad for him so would try and sneak in a snide comment to them when no one was looking like “Dude your boyfriend keeps staring at you” or something as simple as “your hair” whilst laughing quietly. They didn’t know I could do that. They never expected it and that’s what made it so much sweeter. He signalled for the exam to begin and so began the painful period of quiet.
So two and half hours with Zoe dossing around and taking each minute one at a time. Yup. All one hundred and fifty of them. Apparently not. Just as she walked by the main door the headmaster grabbed her arm to have a quiet word. I sighed. I knew what they were talking about. He was telling her to supervise the special needs kids down in the history department which would leave me alone to defend my sanity. Damn. Just before leaving she looked over at me as if to say, “This sucks” and grabbed her bag. Now what?
Four minutes. I sat near the back on a table so most students would forget I existed. Any time I moved someone saw that as an opportunity to raise their hand and ask to use the toilet so I avoided making any unnecessary actions. Since Zoe had left the only thing I could rely on was really myself. I could just think. Day dream but stay conscious enough to make sure no one around me was cheating in their test. What do I think about though? Oh right the vacation in the Summer.
Twelve minutes. This Summer I had three plans. One was to get a slip and slide party going somewhere with my friends, the next was to try out zorbing which was simply rolling down a hill in a giant ball and finally I wanted to take a trip somewhere relaxing and warm. To get away from everything. Originally it started off as just me going with my mate Dave to Portugal since he had just gotten over a recent breakup and I thought he could use the time away. Then more people got included one by one until we were at the figure eight. It was a decent number and the villa we had rented accommodated more than that so it would have left us with plenty of room. The couple to single ratio was even too so while half of us would be doing couple-like activities us singles could do our own thing. It seemed like everything was going swimmingly and with only the flights to book there was no need to worry. Everyone was booking theirs this week so it was okay and I’d agreed to go to my ex-girlfriends nearby to book ours together since she was one of the eight going.
Now I won’t lie and say that there were no feelings left toward her after our break up. I mean we’d dated for nearly two years and she meant the world to me. There had been a year and a half gap between New Years Eve when we went our separate ways and now but I had already gone though the usual processes. For the first month I was in a rut and didn’t really do anything. It’s like those sitcoms you see where the guy is in his underwear watching TV. Then when he sees something that reminds him of his ex he gets even worse. Unfortunately it was EXACTLY like that. I’d then taken a darker route a month after and turned to drinking and eventually closed off so I couldn’t be hurt again. Didn’t tell anyone my problems, not even my friends or family. Then when I met someone else around seven months after things had gotten better until she left me since I “couldn’t open up to her.” Those last few words she left me with have haunted me somewhat.
“Until you can trust and make yourself vulnerable anyone you get together with isn’t going to last long.”
Since then I’d taken a more outgoing lifestyle and simply bounced from girl to girl at local bars and clubs. Did I miss being in a relationship? Sure, but over the past six months no one had felt right. If the slightest thing bothered me I would switch off and make no effort until the girl ended it with me. That’s the thing I could never break up with someone. I couldn’t do it. I felt horrible and cold blooded after so since I didn’t care about reputation I let them break up with me.
Sixteen minutes. Being around her obviously brought those thoughts of the times we had rushing back into my head but it surely meant nothing. She was beautiful and at the time sweet and selfless, but as time went by that changed and like a mug I took it all. She became possessive and it began to feel like she simply didn’t care that she hurt me from time to time. That was tough to open up to her since I was usually a little restricted in what I told people. After the break up there were the odd one night moments where we hooked up but I misinterpreted them as glimmers of reconciliation where she saw them as random undefined evenings. That then lead me to feeling idiotic and hurt which then swore me to saying I would take a new outlook on girls and relationships and not get too ahead of myself.
I agreed to see her at the end of the week regardless and then meet my friends (three more of whom were going to Portugal) in our favourite pub in town soon after. James and Caitlin were a couple who had been dating nearly six years so they were sort of seen as the mother and father of our group of friends. While she was somewhat down to earth and sensible he was the complete opposite. In fact the one of the reasons we were best friends was because of how much we had in common. We both loved video games, sports and more often than not wound up doing something reckless and idiotic that either ended up with us being in trouble with random guys on streets or the local police. You would probably never meet two more different people in your life. But they had outlasted any other couples that had gotten together over the length of time and always looked unbreakable.
The other member of the party was Dave. He was the joker of the group. Imagine Chandler from friends and you probably have a good idea. However having recently broken up with his girlfriend at the moment he was a little depressed and not his usual self so we figured coming out for drinks was better than staying at home alone and bitter. We may even find him a girl.
Twenty two minutes. I had to stand up since my legs were going numb from resting on a table for so long. Walking around the room slowly I glanced down at each paper looking as if I cared whether the students were working rather than sleeping. That’s what amazed me. Here they are doing their GCSE which is pretty much leading up to their career and how their life turns out and most of them simply sat and either stared at the ceiling like a fountain that is shooting water from its mouth or just sleeping with his head on the desk. Why even bother?
Twenty six minutes. I took a seat at the front this time and started to read through their paper. It was an English paper so there was at least some extracts to read which would pass the time. Oh... it’s all Shakespeare. Never mind. I threw the paper back on the desk and continued to patiently wait as every second ticked by. That’s right all seven thousand three hundred and eighty of them.