My best friends are “there for me.” Each, in turn, presents their partial list of people who’re upset with me - with my “social suicide” decision to opt-out of my senior year and go, instead, to university.

It seems that by forgoing 12th grade, I'm rejecting their way of life, attacking mass production or committing an act of terrorism.

I try to explain this obsession I have, since the pandemic lock-down, to get out and into the world.

The great pandemic isolation scraped away at me, left me feeling ransacked and empty. I can’t ignore the call of freedom any more than I could yank out my heart and continue living.

They can’t seem to hear me - it’s like I’m mumbling, speaking in tongues, or talking to myself.