Chapter 8
I thought we were going to proceed with our secret rendezvous on the rooftops of her house, but I guess she had something totally different in mind. I didn’t question it because Claire was one of those people that were full of pleasant surprises that you just couldn’t wait for the next one to come.
And soon, I found myself shivering in my thin sweater under the halo of a lamp in the eternal darkness known as night. She told me to wait for her this afternoon, right before she left with her father. Claire had hugged me and whispered. “Go to the lamp post we first met under at 9.”
It was cliché, and it probably sounded like some cheesy scene out of a romance novel.
But here I was, awaiting her arrival nervously with fidgety fingers and hands that were shoved deeply in my black skinny jeans.
I breathed out, and took note of the moment.
The stars were beautiful tonight, shining like the hopes and dreams of 7 billion people in the vastness of the black ocean known as reality. It was a beautiful sight to behold. And the moon was equally as beautiful, like the Roman goddess Diana, or the Greek goddess Artemis herself.
I exhaled as slowly as possible, and immersed myself in a cloud of water vapor and steam that drove my hyperactive imagination wild. Sometimes, I saw a large battle between armies, and sometimes, I only saw a cloud of smoke that just seemed to drift around me because it sensed my tension, and almost wanted to soothe me but was afraid to die.
I cupped my faint red cheeks, and exhaled again.
The water vapor was clear to see, and I told myself that I was actually a smoker who was standing underneath the lamp post. I would’ve probably been wearing a dress shirt, a rose pink one to be exact. The first 4 buttons are open, leaving some parts of my chest bare. My hair would’ve been cool and wild, just like Matty’s, and I would have ripped black skinny jeans and a bottle of liquor in the other hand.
Tequila, or maybe vodka.
I’d have looked so cool- because I would’ve been myself even though everybody condemned actions like that.
“Hey,” a soft voice said.
And before I turned, I already knew who it was.
“Hey,” I grinned back as I turned to face her.
Claire looked amazing pretty much all the time, but tonight, it was as if she was pretty much radiating with beauty. As if the 10 million celestial fireflies that flew above high in the night sky had replaced her eyes, and she shone even brighter than the moon.
“Let’s take a walk tonight.”
I was confused.
“No rooftop stargazing?”
“Haven’t we had enough of that already?” She teased lightly.
And I cracked a smile at her cheek.
“So what brought on the sudden change of heart?”
She giggled a bit at my word play, a tinkling sound that reminded of the melodious tune of a wind chime.
“No reason whatsoever, I just wanna walk and talk.”
“Walk and talk huh? To where?”
“Anywhere.” She said simply, and I decided not to question her.
It kinda reminded me of that one song by Journey, that Don’t Stop Believing one? It was super famous and the lyrics were cool as hell.
Just a small town girl, living in a lonely world.
She took the midnight train just going anywhere.
Just a city boy, born and raised in South Detroit.
He took the midnight train, just going anywhere.
Claire and I literally personified those lyrics right now. We were just two people, two teenagers, “fluorescent adolescents” in a world that only wanted conformity and the rule of a straight path that everybody had to follow. You weren’t allowed to just go anywhere you wanted. No, you had to have a destination, and there were no adventures, no glory, and no sense of being alive.
I sometimes think that’s the real reason people do drugs.
Maybe they just wanted to escape from the harshness of the reality and feel actually alive. I mean, what was our existence worth if all we did was just sit in an office all day to make money to buy a house, a car, and crappy coffee? And the crappy coffee, and the car, and the house would also be tools that enabled us to get more money to get more crappy coffee and gas for the car and the mortgage for the house. It was a never ending cycle, one that depressed the hell outta me.
Working a 9 to 5 job every single day, for the rest of your life, doing the same monotonous thing over and over again for 50 something years with barely a vacation every year or so sounded like absolute torture to me, and I was scared of it.
I was scared because that was reality.
They tell you in health class to never do drugs, because they were bad for your health.
But I mean, honestly, if we had to live in that endless cycle of nothingness and insignificance and reality, why the hell wouldn’t we want to go for a change? Feeling high was probably the first time people who tried drugs have ever really felt alive, and in that sense I really couldn’t even blame them. Sometimes I think that I would like to try drugs just to see what it’s really like to actually live, to be high on life, and to escape the fucking dreaded sewers of society’s cycle.
I got really depressed just thinking about it, and so I initiated the conversation this time.
Actually, now that I thought about it, Claire had always been the one to initiate the conversations before, and we would always end up talking about something that both of us agreed on, and so I decided it would be my turn to be courageous and share out what I think.
We were walking towards our local lake, South Lake, which was one of the 2 manmade lakes that were in the Woodbridge community. While the lakes were pretty in the daylight, with shimmering water and the happiness and the innocence of the children who were playing inside the lake, the lake at night was even more beautiful.
She was balancing on the curb perfectly, and I was walking on the curb next to her, nearer to the edge. Actually, we were so close that our elbows were almost touching.
“Hey um,” I started, and she looked my way.
I had interrupted a brief moment of peaceful silence, in which we were both admiring the moon’s reflection on the water. It looked like one big looking glass, in which fantasies and dreams could be reflected across right at you if you were able to see yourself in another world through the gleaming mirror.
“Yeah?”
I thought about my words for a second, as the question that popped up in my head was something I had wanted to ask anyone for a while. Honestly, I didn’t really know why I decided to ask her this because I just wanted to initiate conversation. It was dark and ominous and foreboding, and honestly probably should’ve have been brought up by anyone in the world, but I felt courageous enough to do it today because it was inevitable and we all needed to face it one day.
That cycle that I was talking about, the everlasting cycle of life that lasted till death, well it made me feel so damn insignificance. Sometimes, I thought about what the significance of our lives was if we all had to die one day. I mean, what’s the point of living, of existing, if we had to go back to the Earth one day. Why would God be so cruel, and create us to die?
I mean, we’re usually somewhere on this Earth for 80 something years.
That’s 29200 days.
That’s 700800 hours.
That’s 42048000 minutes.
That much time is literally spent breathing, and living, and being scared of the eventuality of death. I won’t lie, sometimes, I would wake up in the middle of the night, having had a nightmare about death and the actual eventuality that was going to happen and I couldn’t do anything about it. There was actually no way to cheat death, and you couldn’t avoid it. And death was real.
Death.
Was.
Real.
I dream about death a lot, now that I think of it.
My grandparents, my parents, everybody around me- I dreamt of all their deaths before.
&
nbsp; And myself as well.
One time, before I went to bed, I actually just couldn’t sleep thinking about the inevitability of death, and how cruel this existence was. I had cold sweat all over my body, and my heart was racing at 100 miles per hour. I was petrified, and I was alone. In death, there is emptiness, you don’t exist anymore.
Sometimes I get scared at the notion of not existing because I didn’t want to feel insignificant. And this brought me down another whirlwind of dark and scary thoughts. I thought about how we were alone in a universe that was constantly expanding, and that made me so damn insignificant.
I wondered if the Earth was a cell, like part of the blood stream of a humongous celestial baby that was growing inside of an even bigger celestial female mother. So pretty much, I felt as insignificant as a single hair cell in my body.
I felt absolutely freaking terrible now, and so I decided to finally ask her.
“How do you deal with death?”
She was my saving grace.
Claire didn’t even hesitate; it was almost as if she had thought about this as well. But then again, I really wouldn’t be surprised because sometimes we looked like we operated on the same brain wave frequency. And even though the topic was odd, depressing even, she knew the importance of talking about it.
“You know,” She started off as we stopped by a gazebo that overlooked the entire lake. She stood still for a moment and inhaled deeply.
“You really can’t. All you can do is live life everyday to the fullest, because if you’re a wax candle, you might as well burn short and bright, rather than long and low, you know? You don’t wanna spend every day dealing with the eventuality of the situation, just be grateful that we were able to experience the joys of living. A friend once told me to live in the moment, because otherwise, we’re not really living.”
I nodded.
I guess I felt a bit better.
She sighed again, and continued strolling.
“One of my closer tennis friends wanted to kill herself one day. She called me up, told she had nothing to live for, and that no one would care if she was gone so she was going to actually kill herself. She had 1600 milligrams of Adderall in her palms, and she was gonna actually do it.”
I almost tripped, and gaped at her back.
Claire sighed again.
“I didn’t know why she decided to call me during her time of crisis, but I’m very glad that she did. She didn’t wanna play tennis for her varsity team anymore, for high school, mind you, and her mother told her that she was pretty much worthless and had no accomplishments.”
I growled at that.
I hated people who assumed they could control the lives of others. Honestly, when I become a parent, I vowed to myself to let my child have as much freedom as possible, while still keeping him or her safe.
“She told me her parents didn’t love her, and she told me about how her father left when she was younger, and her mother constantly reminded her that she looked like her father. She said she wanted to help her mother by getting rid of that image, and she told me no one would care except for me, and I think that’s why she called me. She was so scared Merci. She suffered from depression, ADHD, anxiety, and a bunch of other shit that she doesn’t deserve, I guess it drove her over the edge. It was her birthday you know? October 15th. It’s supposed to be the happiest day of the year, where everyone would celebrate her existence and such, and I had given her a present in tennis camp that day. She said since her parents haven’t said anything about her birthday, she assumed it was gonna be a surprise party.”
I sucked in a deep breath. In my mind’s eye, I could already see where this tragedy was going to end up.
“And so she waited. And she waited. And she waited.”
My knuckles turned white from the sheer strength I put into clenching my fist.
And Claire smiled grimly.
“They never even talked to her. And so, she timidly went up to their room, and told them it was her birthday. Her parents only stared at her. She told she felt like crying, and honestly she probably was, but then again so would anyone. Her birthday is the one day of the year where she feels like a normal person, where she doesn’t feel depressed, because her parents didn’t believe in her depression, and told her to just get over it. And her parents, after staring at her, told her to go to her room and fucking study for her SAT’s.”
Claire looked at me, and I could see the hopelessness even behind her friend’s eyes.
I felt fucking terrible, and sick to the core.
Imagine what that must’ve been like, your own parents, forgetting about the day that they gave birth to you. I couldn’t imagine that, because even on my birthdays, my parents at least got me something to show me appreciation, and love. But for her friend, who suffered from depression, and all those other terrible mental problems, it was probably a blow to the heart.
I didn’t know what to say, but deep in my psyche, I reacted violently to the mention of depression. After all, I thought I had it once.
Depression was something that’s commonly misunderstood today.
And I sorta related to people who had it.
People who had depression got pushed down to the ground, and it’s like getting punched in the face. It sucked that so many people today thought depression was something you could just over, or something you could just walk off.
What the fuck does that even mean?
Depression is a chemical imbalance in the brain. Saying you could just “get over” depression was like saying you could ask a blind person to just open their eyes, or asking a cripple to just walk it off. It was the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, and I wondered how people can be so damn insensitive.
Treating them like glass.
Treating them like fragile objects, almost like the alienation of a different species.
It was honestly one of the cruelest things I’ve ever heard of.
Depression is an eraser,
You erase that mistake over and over again.
But it’s still there,
Reminding you that you made an error.
No one ever really uses one eraser to the very shred,
You think you lost it in your backpack.
But it was hiding on your desk right in front of you,
So you keep that new eraser that you bought as a backup, waiting for its use.
Why not just start fresh after that mistake?
“Because I don’t want to waste trees.”
Can’t you write on the backside?
But then everyone will see how much of a screw up I can be.
Depression erases happiness from you,
You know it’s there, but you can’t see it.
Depression erases your goals,
You think there’s no point in striving for your dreams, since you’ll probably fail.
Depression erases people around you,
One by one they all disappear.
Depression erases you,
You had a real life before it came into yours.
Your lively personality slowly wilts away,
Your amazing memories gone,
It erases you until nothing is left.
And even when you’re gone the eraser is still at work.
Erasing you from everyone’s memories.
But it won’t be that hard, since no one really cared about you,
Congratulations. For the first time, you used up your eraser.
The poem was something I read from an amazing writer, and her name is Martina. I’m pretty sure she was a victim of depression herself as well, because no one can understand depression to that level unless you actually feel that way. I had thought she was like me at first when I first read the poem, long ago before I met Claire, but since I never got to meet her, I couldn’t know for sure. All I knew was that she was a tennis player that lived in Torrance, which was a little ways away from Woodbridge.
The one thing that sto
od out to me most was the last line of the poem, because it was so thought provoking.
When I first read it, I knew instantly that the depression was an eraser, as per the symbolism presented in the poem. But the last line was both ominous and joyful at the same time. Using up the eraser that was depression, does that mean that she had finally beaten depression?
I mean, I’d like to think so.
However, there was also another very real possibility.
Death. Suicide.
I mean, I knew that people committed suicide; it was a cruel fact that can’t be ignored. However, I didn’t understand why they actually did it you know? When I was younger, and my parents wouldn’t let me do something, I always told myself that I would kill myself, or something stupid like that, but I never actually did it.
And the time that I actually sort of maybe thought about it deeply, and decidedly objectively if I should actually do it, it stemmed from my fear of being alone in the world, and that there was no one else like me. I thought I was just too damn different, and that I was a freak internally. Maybe this was the reason I pretended to conform externally. However, this was before I met Claire obviously.
I thought about it like this; I didn’t wanna just leave everyone behind, because I thought to myself that I couldn’t go out as that kid who killed himself. I needed to be remembered. Maybe I was a product of a failed society as well, I mean, who knows?
Either way, I didn’t end up doing it.
And I’m very glad I didn’t, because I finally did find someone like me.
I looked back at Claire, to let her know that I wouldn’t have known what to do in that situation. I would’ve been scared out of my mind, because no matter who the person is, all life is sacred. Killing isn’t the solution to anything.
Sometimes, I swear, we could communicate with just looks.
“I didn’t know what to do either, and so I told her that I really didn’t want her to leave, and that she was one of my best friends and that I would miss her terribly if she did leave. I told her that her mother was just talking in the heat of the moment, and that she didn’t mean anything by it. I told her that everything was going to be okay, and that she should try hard to prove everybody else wrong.”
She stopped and looked at me.
“You know what she did?”
I was almost scared to know. No, I was scared to know.
“What?”
“She popped an Adderall pill. She didn’t tell me this, but I heard the gulp, and the water, and glass clinking against the table as she took a pill. I immediately rephrased, because I knew the situation was getting out of hand. So instead, I told her to simply live for herself. I told her that she was strong enough to bear the weight of her depression, and the weight of her ADHD, and all her other problems. I told her that if no one else saw her strength, and her will, then they didn’t deserve her. I told her that I loved her, and I asked her again to not leave.”
There was a long pause, and a teardrop could’ve shattered the silence.
Claire smiled faintly.
“She didn’t.”
I breathed out a huge sigh of relief.
Honestly, I dunno what I would’ve done if the story went the other way. Would I cry for a life lost? Would I have been speechless? Would I have attempted to rethink what I would’ve done in that situation?
“I learned a lot that day. I learned that life is precious, oh so desperately so. If you ever come that close to witnessing death itself, you will understand. Every single instinct in your body tells you to fight it, and every fiber of your being tells you to counteract it. That’s what we call our will to live. My friend lost that will, but I gave it back to her. I learned that in life and through life, even though we know about the eventuality of death, there’s no way to cope with it unless we just try to do everything we can in life, and have no regrets when we die. That’s what I think.”
I looked at Claire in awe, and my respect for her, although already ceiling high, went through the roof and past the stars into the celestial realms.
She had literally saved someone’s life.
I’m pretty sure there are only a handful of people who can say that in the world, and those people were known as heroes. Claire Dean was literally a superhero, and most importantly, she was my superhero. She did amazing things; she stood up for what she believed in, even under pressure from so many people at the same time. She never bent to their wills, and believed in the fundamental law that governed humans, which was our right to choose.
She was just so damn cool.
And from her, I understood why it was important to actually feel alive, be alive. Instead of seeing life as a means to look glumly towards the inevitability known as death, life should be seen as an opportunity to do whatever it is you wanted to do, before returning to the Earth.
I smiled at her, a genuine smile that I never gave to anyone but her.
“Thank you.”
She grinned back.
“You’re welcome.”
And so we kept walking, and walking, and walking.
I have expected the silence that followed the dark conversation that just preceded this to be awkward, and tense, but no, instead, it was once again comfortable. And so we fell back into our natural rhythm. She pulled and I pushed, she twirled and I spun her, it was like an elegant dance of the mind, of our bodies and of our opinions.
It was our little dance.
“So I’m guessing you want to know about what was up with the tennis stuff and my parents earlier?” She finally broke the silence after we reached a middle school; actually it was my old middle school.
I still remembered the excitement I had on my first day, and the nostalgic remembrance on my last day. I still remembered meeting the group, Aileen, all of them. It was interesting because back then, I thought nothing wrong of society because I simply didn’t know better.
I was just another person who didn’t question an equation after the math teacher gave it to me, and just simply used it because someone told me to. I never questioned authority, and I was always one of those rule followers. Essentially, I was like everyone else in this fucked up place. Actually, only in the 9th grade did I actually start thinking for myself. Maybe that was why I just couldn’t trust in God.
“Yeah.” I replied to her assertion. “What was that all about anyways? You’re dad looked-”
She sighed, and I cut off.
I didn’t want to ask what was wrong, but I knew something was wrong. The way her knuckles turned white, and the way she glared at the ground for no particularly good reason- well, they were all products of anger and negative emotions. It was weird, after knowing her for a couple weeks; I’ve only been able to read her a tiny bit even though the HSP in me should’ve been able to read her like an open book.
However, it was probably just a credit to her façade.
Stronger than mine, yet she was still better than me.
“Nothing, we just had some family issues that were going on.”
I stared.
“Ok fine,” She reworded with a small smile. “I swear, you can see right through me or something. Anyways, basically he doesn’t approve of me being distracted by you because it’s senior year soon and we havta focus for college apps and what not. Honestly, it’s so fucking stupid because I don’t even wanna go to college for tennis, I just wanna go to a liberal arts college to study either writing or art you know? And it’s so stupid because he’s okay with me having other friends in tennis, just not you because he thinks you’re gonna distract me from my tennis, even though I hate the goddamn sport with a passion. And it’s just-”
She broke off with a heavy sigh.
“It’s just-”
I nodded at her, and tried to convey as much support and emotions with one look.
“I know.”
She gave me a rueful smile. “You would know, wouldn’t you? Because you’re-”
“Like me.” I finished the sentence for her,
and we shared another smile.
I felt odd.
My heartbeat felt odd.
“Um,” I said. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to breathe. I forgot my name, and all I knew in my mind and my soul was the reflection of a beautiful girl with marble hazelnut eyes that reflected the night sky. I could’ve gotten lost in them, because it was as endless as the Milky Way itself, and the mystery that it genuflected was even more beautiful.
She smiled again, and this time, I could see her exhaustion. Perhaps it was from the strain of having to battle against the pressures her parents put on her every single day, and still come out on top, or perhaps it was just a sheer physical exhaustion from tennis, I didn’t know, but somehow she still looked like the calm and collected hero I knew.
I thought about her parents, and got kinda angry again.
It was a reoccurring theme, her parents literally just wouldn’t let her do anything she wanted, and it made me extremely angry that they wouldn’t let her be herself. Wasn’t that the whole point of living, being you? If you couldn’t be you, you weren’t truly living, and in that case, you might as well have just given up on being a human because free choice is a human’s greatest gift.
I hated how her parents took over her life and deprived her of the necessities that she needed to be a sociable normal person. They took away her friends, a normal school life, and so much more, and yet she still stays strong. I mean, it was a love hate relationship because if it wasn’t for them, would Claire have been who she is today? She was the reason I was able to come out of my shell, and I thank her for it every day.
“But,” She finished off with a crooked grin. “I don’t care. I just like hanging out with you.”
I smiled back at her, genuflecting emotions and feelings that couldn’t have been better expressed except for the song that I’ve written for her. I wanted to sing it to her so badly, but we had made a deal that I had to be able to skate a waxed curb first, before I could sing it to her.
It was the most beautiful song I’ve ever written.
“Me too.”
“So how’s it going with the curb?” She asked with a laugh to her name.
I nodded. “Um yeah. No yeah it’s going alright. I’ve been able to Ollie and put my board on it. Actually, I’ve managed to grind the curb for a bit, but I can never stick the landing though. I always end up either a bit too much over or under the curb. I just need to find a balance between the 2 sides, you know?”
She nodded.
“I had that trouble too when I first started skating waxed curbs, but with time I know you can do it.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
And I blushed, a dusty pink tinting my cheeks.
“So what’s new? Tell me about everything, school; didn’t you say you had a brother? What’s up with him?”
My visage brightened exponentially, which was crazy because I felt like I was always smiling around her. I liked talking about Cyrus, as he was a person that I could call my blood and be proud of it. Cyrus was almost a pro gamer, and he told me that he had just signed with one of the biggest names of competitive League of Legends gaming. I was happy for him, even though my parents didn’t know.
“My brother’s a pro gamer, and he’s really cool too.”
Claire raised a delicate eyebrow, an action that was really cute.
“He plays League of Legends, which is like this pretty popular game that’s part of the eSports industry. He’s actually really good, because I heard people say he was the youngest player to ever get signed into a professional team. He’s too young now, but the team is gonna training him so that right when he hits 17, they’re gonna put him in as a starter player.”
Claire looked pretty impressed, and I was even prouder of him.
“And you’re parents support this? That’s really freaking cool dude! Tell him I said congrats!”
My gaze darkened, and almost immediately, Claire’s grin dropped as well.
“They don’t know about it.”
She looked pained. “Merci…”
She put a hand on my shoulder.
“It’s my baby brother you know? I’m already used to it but I swear to God if they don’t let him follow his dreams I’m gonna- I’m gonna-”
I sighed miserably, and the miasma of depression that usually crowded my personal space settled in again.
The truth was I wouldn’t know what I would do.
Cyrus was my baby brother, my kid brother in some ways, and yet other ways, it sometimes seemed like he was the older brother. He had that internal fire inside of him, the kind that Claire possessed, the kind that Eryk possessed, and the kind that I too one day hoped to possess. He was able to stand up for himself against everybody’s wishes, and I thought that was just so damn cool.
That’s the real definition of a hipster.
In some ways, he was as much of an idol as Claire was to me, and seeing my brother get held down by my parent’s insecurities about their own child was just so stupid. They had standards that they had set for each of us, and because I wasn’t strong enough, I filled every single one for them, and not for myself. And I wouldn’t want that to happen to Cyrus, because he deserved to be happy.
He was able to think for himself at a young age, and recognize the faults that are within society right away. I sometimes wondered if he was a genius. In many ways, he was certainly the older brother that was older, wiser, and stronger.
The world was a cruel and harsh place.
It had one path to success that boasted billions of followers, and the path consisted of schooling and college until you were done with your major. It attempted to denounce and demean any other type of path that people took to beat the system, to become successful that way. Youtubers, artists, writers, gamers and pretty much internet content creators in general, the system hated all of them. It just wouldn’t recognize that another path would be able to retain the same or even better results that the system’s favored path would.
And so, the system spread nasty and deceitful lies to attempt to belittle all these other ways, and it came in the form of parenting, of strict ruling, and of many other separatist ideals. I don’t think parents understand that stuff, you know? Like they couldn’t understand how playing video games, or creating channels on Youtube could make money that would allow their children to live in the real world. I just wanted parents to understand that their children live in a newer world, with newer ideals and technology that was different from the archaic times that they came from. Their generation was different because they were focused on the real world, and survival of the fittest. And because of that, they usually try to put their kid down for following their dreams, and only want them to focus on survival in the real world first.
My parents were one such example, and it destroyed me on the inside.
Honestly, sometimes the HSP personality dwelling inside me gets that they’re from another generation, and that the culture and ideals between our 2 generations were almost complete opposites, but I just couldn’t understand why they couldn’t understand us, you know?
Because I know everything that they did was purely for survival. My parents were born in a cut throat generation, where everything that was done was purely for the competition of making the most money, where materialism triumphed over the appreciation of art and beautiful things. I guess I can understand where they differ in thinking from us, but I just wanted them to understand that we live in a world that was different than theirs. However, my parents, hell most parents don’t understand that and it freaking sucked.
It’s just the problem in the world we live in.
No one tries to understand each other, and instead, only care about themselves and their own fucking situations. I hated how selfish people were in this damned world; I could only think of a few decent people, hell, I could count them on one hand. Claire was one, obviously. My brother, the other one, and Eryk as well, and I think myself as well.
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It’s weird because I used to think that I was the only non decent person in the world, because I thought differently from everybody else. I used to think that since I thought in a nonconformist fashion, that I was the only lonely weird child that had no true friends. I used to be like Claire’s friend; with bouts of what I thought was depression and suicidal tendencies in an almost normal fashion. It was pretty rough, but after I met Claire, my life literally changed.
I stared at her as I walked closer to the curb, and when I was almost perfectly balanced, I turned and looked up at her.
A moment passed, and a brief flash of emotions colored her face for a single second.
Pride.
And something else that was nigh unreadable.
“Hey. Everything’s gonna be fine. You’re brother’s strong, and you’re strong too.”
And I believed her.
“I sometimes hate my parents as well.”
I nodded, and waited for her to tell her tale.
I looked up at her, and something flashed in her eyes as we held eye contact. She smiled grimly, but this time, her grimace personified the harshness of the reality we lived in.
She hesitated, as if she wanted to tell me something.
“You know,” she began solemnly, and I could feel the mood darken drastically. It was as if a blanket of ice had wormed its way around the atmosphere, and I could practically feel the temperature drop.
“You know I’m not sure why I’m telling you this. And I’ve never told anyone this before.”
I was curious, and flattered. But then again, you can’t blame natural inquisition because even though curiosity killed the cat, satisfaction brought it back.
And then she looked me dead in the eyes.
“Have your parents ever hit you?”
Whatever it was that I was expecting, it certainly wasn’t that. In my stupid little naïve world, I may have thought of her newly found courage for a confession as her way of responding to my advances, but in the end, I was totally and utterly wrong.
“Um,” I said, not sure of where this was going. “No?”
“Well. My dad hit me before. Four times.”
I felt like I got punched.
I felt all the air leave my body in a single deadly motion and I unwillingly took a step back from her.
I didn’t even know what to say to that, because I mean, I didn’t expect it at all. But then again with Claire, I wasn’t sure of anything because she personified the adjective ‘revolutionary’.
There was no sentence, or word, or even book that could describe the sheer amount of emotions that I felt, and I didn’t know how to express my sympathy, or my respect or whatever other emotions there were in my big stirring pot of tears to Claire.
So instead, I did the only logical thing I could think of.
“What?”
Claire’s grim smile grew progressively darker.
“The first time, it was in 3rd grade. He slapped me in the face when I didn’t want to do homework. I ran out of the house for 5 hours after that, and my neighbors had to call my parents but I refused to go home. The second and third time weren’t that important, just slaps and punches. The fourth time though, I almost had to get stitches.”
I wanted to throw up.
“The fourth time,” She continued ruthlessly. “The fourth time he hit me so hard on the leg with his racquet that I almost had to go to the hospital. It was all because of tennis you know? I was so done with the damn sport, and because I had my own beliefs and my own life, he decided to hit me.”
I felt tears sting my eyes, and I clenched my knuckles so hard that I drew blood over the palms of my delicate skin.
What the actual fuck.
“I’m not even sure if it was the emotional pain, or the physical pain, but I just knew that I pretended to like tennis for 3 years after that. Whenever I lost a match, I would run to the school and stay there for hours on end because I was fucking scared to go home. You see now what I mean now? I sometimes hate my parents, I swear to God. And that’s not even the worse thing I heard. My tennis friends, oh they have it even worse than me. Because one of my friends lost a tennis match, her father pulled her to a parking lot and beat the shit out of her. She blacked out.”
I wanted to cry. Honestly, I didn’t want to believe what I was hearing. Nothing made sense anymore, and I didn’t want to do shit. I thought I had it bad in the world with my parents yelling at me and pressuring me, but physical abuse was in another dimension altogether.
Oh but there was more.
“Another dad kicked his daughter into a wall and punched her face in.”
I felt bile rise to the back of my throat.
“Another dad pushed his daughter into mud. And all this is true, and all because they lost tennis matches or talked back to their parents. I would know, I’ve seen the bruises, I’ve seen the tears and the cuts and the emotional trauma. As for me, well, after a while I just stopped giving a fuck. I mean, it was only just a physical wound that wouldn’t last after I got the fuck out of the house. I don’t even care anymore. I’m just going to be me, and if he decides to hit me one more time, I’m moving out and cutting all ties with them.”
I crashed to my knees as I stared up at the concrete angel in front of me.
Honestly, I had no words to say to that.
I was just in a state of utter and sheer disbelief. I didn’t want to believe anything she said, but the way her eyes lit up with tears was a clear indication otherwise.
It was true.
It was true that a father beat up his daughter just because she couldn’t conform to his beliefs.
It was true that a father knocked out his daughter just because she lost a fucking tennis match.
It was true that her father slapped her on the face in third fucking grade because she didn’t want to do her Goddamn fucking homework.
What the fuck.
Fuck everything.
I honestly thought that I was the only one who was alienated by the system, and I thought I had it bad because my parents would yell at me, but now that I heard of the things Claire’s parents would do, I felt so spoiled and just absolutely terrible.
I looked up at her, and all I saw was sheer strength, and the will to move mountains.
I wondered how she kept on smiling, and I wondered how she even had the will to keep living after what happened to her.
I used to think child abuse was an urban legend that parents made up to tell their children, and I thought that I would never see something so fucked up in my life. No matter how much my parents were mad at me, I was pretty much sure that they would never hit me, because they probably loved me.
“I used to cry so damn much for tennis, all the rage, all the emotions that good old dad would feel after I lost a match would affect me, except he would take out all his emotions on me. I fucking hated it whenever I lost a match, not because I lost, but because he was pissed even though I played well and my opponent and just played better. I don’t think I can cry anymore, not because I’m strong or anything like that, but because I’ve run out of tears to cry.”
I didn’t know what to say at that.
I wanted to tell her that she was the strongest person in my eyes, in the world even. But honestly, I think I was just angry with her father, and how he could be furious enough to beat his own daughter simply because she lost one fucking tennis match that didn’t mean anything in the grand scheme of things.
I felt overwhelmed, and despair crashed into me like a tidal wave.
“How do you even deal with something like that?” I whispered, half in shock, and still half in respect for her strength, with despair threatening to overwhelm me.
Claire gave me a grin, a watery, broken grin, but a grin that seemed to mean hope, and better things.
She grabbed my hand, and held it in hers.
“Just be strong.”
All my life I’ve been weak, and now, maybe I had a shot to be strong. She was so damn st
rong, and was an inspiration to me even at her lowest of lows. All my life, I’ve hidden behind a glass wall, the Aegis of my façade that protected my sanity and my inner thoughts from the cut throat reality from the outside world, and never before had I felt freer than in the moment now, with Claire.
The moon was rising in the night.
And we stood on anchored ground.
She touches my arm, and I blush so nice.
Well, there’s nobody around.
We had stopped by a set of basketball courts in the middle school, and were currently lying on our backs like concrete angels from fallen skies. Our bodies were spread opposite of each other, and the top of my head touched the top of her head as we laid sprawled out on the anchored ground, tied to the earth by the mortality of our bodies.
The sky was beautiful tonight.
And endless ocean of obsidian black that hid the mystery of the galaxy above us, that surrounded us. Millions of twinkling stars burst to life among the ocean, like tiny lightning bugs that were trying to fly. Some were dull, and yet some were as luminous as the moon itself, trying to prove their worth in a beautiful vanity fair.
I couldn’t see her, but I could feel her gentle respiration next to me, across from me, surrounding me. My entire world lit up in a symphony of colors whenever I’m with her, she just felt like the most perfect human being in the world, or at least, as close as you could get.
I wondered if she ever got tired of her façade.
I mean, she was so strong, and yet she held a façade that was even stronger than me. She held a certain type of contradiction inside of her, and it added to the mystery that was Claire Dean. I wondered if she’s ever had a nickname, and I wondered if she’s ever done anything with boys, and I wondered if she’s ever thought about me the way I thought about her, and I wondered what she actually thought of me, and I wonder if she ever thought she was a hero.
You don’t know this about her
But she’s a superhero
Her power? She’s a shape shifter
Head in the cloud, lays so low
In a world full of labels
She conforms
Every damn day is just like Halloween
One day devil horns, the next a crown of thorns
She blends with the crowd
Wishes to be seen
It’s amazing that she hasn’t turned bad
After going through so many years of neglect
Being a superhero is such a drag
Expected to save the day, to be perfect
Those with super strength also get tired
Time travelers also want to live in the moment
Damn it they’re like us
They don’t rule with an empire
The invisible are also vibrant
Superheroes deserve some fucking sentiment
Oh concrete angel from fallen sky
Tell me the truth darling, look me in the eyes
She doesn’t like the feeling of constraint
She doesn’t like the glass in her veins
She’s thought about joining the other side
Isn’t it better to be feared then loved?
She aims to please, but no one’s ever satisfied
Her mind gets darker after every move
Why the fuck does she put up with this?
She’s been living through hell
But she refuses to give in, or even let go
Even after she’s been torn
There’s a strength in her that can’t be seen
To restore faith in humanity, she was born
She lives her life to the fullest, till the final scene
That was what I thought of her, and I admire her for strength.
“Let’s keep walking, let’s just go anywhere.” She said with a smile on her face as she propped herself up on her elbows and looked at me. I caught the scent of the roses in her hair, and I sat up as well. A gleam of something, an unreadable emotion flashed through her eyes as I gazed into her chocolate orbs, and I grinned back.
And so we did.