Читать A Better World - Tatiana Bazhan

Night. Alex lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Sleep wouldn't come. Not tonight. Not any night, really. A heavy weight pressed down on his chest, a constant companion these past months. It felt like a stone, cold and hard, lodged right behind his ribs. He sighed, the sound swallowed by the darkness of his room.

Depression. That's what the school counsellor had called it after Alex's last breakdown. A fancy word for feeling… utterly broken. He hadn’t gone back to that school to tell him he felt worse.

He closed his eyes, and instantly, they were there. The voices. Whispering, then louder, sharper, crueller.

“GINGER FREAK!”

“CARROT TOP!”

Each taunt echoed in his head, amplified by the silence of the room. It had started innocently enough, the odd comment in the corridor. But it had escalated, day by day, turning into a relentless barrage of insults, snide remarks, and outright mockery. And with the digital age at hand, there was no going back.

The teacher, Mr. Davies, just seemed to look the other way. Did he not hear? Didn't he care? Probably not. Alex was just another kid in a classroom full of them.

His parents? They had no idea. He couldn't bring himself to tell them. His dad, a university professor, always seemed so… preoccupied. His Mum always too busy with the house to listen. He didn’t want to burden them. Besides, he was sixteen. He should be able to handle this, shouldn't he?

He’d tried. God, he’d tried everything. Ignoring them. That didn’t work. Fighting back. That only made it worse. Trying to befriend them? Hopeless. They weren't interested in anything beyond their phones, their stupid online stories, and the latest viral trend. They didn't know what a book looked like, let alone that a guitar could move your soul. They just liked tormenting him and filming it.

Alex rolled onto his side. Maybe he should just get a new place. Switch schools? What would it help? This was the third school in two years. Always moving houses with his people. It was always the same. The whispers, the stares, the relentless pursuit of anything that made him different.

He remembered the last time. The hand-drawn caricatures plastered all over the school corridors, his face twisted into grotesque shapes, accompanied by vile captions. Photos of him taken without his knowledge, uploaded online, attracting a torrent of hateful comments.