I managed to ghost along in class just fine this time around; I knew how to avoid confrontation, how to avoid any attention or ire, and so I skirted the sidelines of the rich atmosphere of other's childhoods, and watched them fall in and out of love, try new things, meet people. The vignettes I got as a child flashed in my mind as I watched them, silently; when they tried to get me involved, I had a litany of canned responses prepared, just detailed enough to satisfy, but not enough to get anyone interested. For all they knew, I was a quiet kid who just wanted to do well in school, and lived with his grandfather: I dressed the way they dressed, I listened to their music so I could comment on it, I watched their shows so I could seem somewhat relevant, but only just enough to stay out of the way.
This mirage worked on almost every person I met; every person except for one, strange girl who couldn't seem to leave me alone. Her name was Aera Lee, and she seemed to be fascinated by me for some reason. I didn't gauge myself as particularly attractive; almost everyone else left me alone as a possible partner. But she seemed so intent on pushing past my bullshit answers that it almost was like she knew they were false. That thought frightened me, the idea that this woman could destroy the peace I had worked so hard to create, and so I mostly ignored her.
One day though, I understood why she knew. As I saw her gofer drinks for her fellow classmates, a soft hazed-over look in her eyes, I knew immediately why she could sniff me out so readily; she was just like me. She had felt the things that I felt, the torment of being abject to her classmates' wishes, and recognized the facade I put up. That day, after class, I pulled her aside quietly, and for the first time since I had left America, I let my guard down. I told her that I saw what she was being forced to do, and that she didn't have to do it if she didn't want to. I told her that she was better than being reduced to that, and that if she needed anyone, as long as it was out of sight, she could come to me.
“So you'll be my friend as long as no one sees?” she replied, a wistful look on her face. “That's… sweet. But I don't need or want a pity friend.” As she turned to leave, I could feel the shame bursting in me like a ruptured appendix, like I could die right there on the spot. I couldn't help it: I blurted it out.
“I was like that too!” She stopped, and turned back to me. “I had to do stuff like that too… But I changed schools and ran away. That’s why… That’s why I don’t say much.”
She looked at me for a long while after that; it seemed to stretch on into infinity. I couldn’t discern what was on her mind, as hard as I tried, but I figured out by now that it was worthless for me to discern the specific thoughts of my peers. After all, if I could manage that, I wouldn’t’ve had such a hard time making friends in the first place. And so I simply looked at her, and studied the arch of her nose, the shape of her lip as it contorted into a soft smile, the deep brown of her sleepy, thoughtful eyes. They made me feel comforted in a small way, as if some piece of me deep down was being disarmed, an IED implanted within me long ago finally noticed. But the moment was broken by the sound of her high-pitched, melodic voice.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“How about we get out of here?” she proposed. And so we went to a tea shop in a neighboring town, where no one knew who we were, and we talked. I talked like I hadn’t since my mother used to ask me about school, since before she was unwell. I didn’t cry, I didn’t emote; I spoke with a simple, flat intonation about things deeply personal to me, as if I were talking about a stranger or someone from a novel I read. But they were about me, and from me, and for the first time in as long as I could remember at the time, I could feel something other than misery stirring within my chest, though its name I did not know at the time.
Several times during my stories, she would stop me and ask a simple question or two, but she mostly listened. The questions she asked, though, made me reflect on myself in ways that I hadn’t considered: like, she asked me about if I ever missed my mother. I thought naturally, yes, of course I did, but as I thought about it, I considered the life she led in order to secure my childhood that I treasured so dearly. Working two jobs, and still having time to take me walking around the neighborhood; she probably never slept at night, probably skipped meals, probably didn’t care for herself like she should’ve. As I thought about it, I felt horrible shame and guilt rise in the back of my throat. When I looked up the causes of her disease, worrying about how she got it, they mentioned that these things and stress could be a causing factor: was my mother doomed to die simply from my being?
I thought about what life would’ve been like if she had sent me to public school instead, only working one job and having time for herself, to care for herself. I thought about what life would be like if we had moved with grandfather earlier, and she had support from friends and family. I was just a child; I knew that there was nothing I could’ve done to change my mother’s mind at the time, but the feeling gnawed at me for a long while after the question had been proposed. I think she could tell it did too, as she took the time to excuse herself to use the restroom.
When she came back, we talked about my bullying, and she asked if I ever wanted to fight back. I told her no, that the thought hadn’t really crossed my mind, but as I thought about it, I remembered having vivid daydreams in class, idle fancies in which they would take things too far, and I would be forced to fight back as ferociously and murderously as I could; my head would swim with these ideas, as if I had taken a drink far too stiff. Why did I envision these things, if I had no desire to hurt anyone? The shame returned, but I was ready this time, and swallowed it down. I revised my answer, and told the truth this time, seeing if it would make me feel better. Surprisingly, it did, and her reaction left the impression that she felt more positively about me for doing so; she leaned in closer, and her smile parted her lips to show a bit of her slightly-misaligned toothy grin.
When I finished my story, the sun was beginning to set. Remembering that there was supposedly a murderer on the loose, I offered to walk Aera home, which she accepted. We didn’t speak much for the train ride, but as we approached her house, she turned to face me, and said, “let’s do this again, Grey,” before she gave me her phone number, and made her way inside. I stared at my phone in disbelief; it was the first number I had ever gotten besides my grandfather’s, and it was so nonchalant and sudden that it may as well have been lightning. The unnamed feeling spread through my chest, and I couldn’t help but smile as I made my way home.
