Friendship Contract

They wouldn’t stop. No matter how hard I tried. They kept on flowing like a river with no beginning nor end. It wasn’t liberating like the other times. My heart was growing heavier and heavier sinking deeper in my chest. I found trouble breathing. I never understood why the fact that our eyes were wet and our heart ached made our body tremble and struggle to take a single breath. Maybe the drops that were released from my eyes were so many that my organism mistook them for actual water. It thought it was drowning and in its desperate effort to save me, it kept taking quick and short breaths. I couldn’t know but what I was going through certainly felt like I was under the surface of the sea and no matter how many times or how strongly I kicked, I wasn’t getting out any time soon.

A pair of weird footsteps drew me out of my thoughts. The sound didn’t resemble a human being or any other animal, it sounded like something was dragging its body on the concrete. It piqued my curiosity and I looked up only to forget everything in an instant.

I got up hurriedly and ran to him. The only thought in my mind was “He is hurt!” which kept on replaying in my head louder and louder and the only emotion was sheer worry. I didn’t care about anything else, they didn’t matter.

He looked at me trying to smile in the same way as always but his lip was cut and bleeding so he quickly frowned. His eyes fell on mine and his expression changed for a second. It became something ominous and dark. I didn’t pay much attention to it. I was more preoccupied with taking his hand in mine and helping him reach the bench where I was sitting moments ago. He tried to appear cool but it was apparent that every move made it harder for him to endure.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing. I’m o-” I forced him to sit down and his eyes opened widely by the suddenness of the move and the pain that followed it. I raised an eyebrow at his reaction considering what he was about to say but he simply avoided my eyes. I sighed.

I sat down beside him and took some tissues out of my bag. I would have preferred for him to go to the nurse’s office but if he hadn’t already, there was definitely a reason.

“You don’t have to-” I grabbed his chin and made him look my way and come closer.

“Hold still. Don’t talk” I ordered and surprisingly enough, he obeyed. I inspected the wound. Fortunately, it didn’t look like the inside of his mouth was bleeding as well. It was only the edge of his lower lip. I tried to wipe it off with gentle and slow movements coming closer and closer and trying not to think about the odor nor the warmth that was emanating from his body. I tried to concentrate on something neutral and the closest thing I found was his collar bones. However, when I started noticing how they glistened with beads of sweat underneath the sunlight and how they stuck out from the rest of his sun-kissed skin, I realized that they weren't the best distraction I could have chosen.

“So, how did you get hurt?” I tried to chit-chat in an effort to chase away my weird and inappropriate thoughts. I had no idea where they came from but I was sure as hell determined to send them back.

“I may have forgotten the name of one of the girls…” He started awkwardly. I looked up with half-lidded eyes but soon regretted it because I became even more aware of our proximity. Managing with difficulty to maintain my expression, I looked back down.

“Of course you did.” I deadpanned. “Was she so strong that she managed to hurt your legs too or did you just let her hit you without defending yourself out of guilt?”

He chuckled.

“I’ll have you know that I did defend myself.” I tried to contain my laughter at the image that started forming in my mind. “But she merely slapped me. If she wasn’t wearing so many rings, my lips would have been perfectly fine.”

“So how did you…?” I pointed at the leg.

“Her boyfriend” He replied simply and shrugged. It was hard not to overreact with a person like that. You literally had no idea what he was going to say or do next. My whole face lifted in surprise and my lips formed an inaudible ‘O’ but that was it. I didn’t try to say anything. It wasn’t my place nor my business to comment on his choices in life. He was free to do whatever he liked. “It was no big deal, though. I probably deserved it”

There it was once again. Now that his lip wasn’t bleeding, it had returned in its place the same and unchanging as always. I could sense it was there by listening to the strain in his voice, I didn’t have to look at his face to notice it. That cursed smile!

“Can you stop doing that?” I couldn’t help myself.

“What?” He seemed honestly confused. I sighed before explaining while looking at him dead in the eyes.

“Can you stop smiling like that? It pains me to watch” My voice was a bit harsher than I would have wanted but something had come over me, I couldn’t control it. I kept looking at him in frustration.

His smile faltered. His eyes opened widely and shone in a way that normally indicates trapped tears inside of them.

“If I don’t, they won’t stop asking how I’m doing.” He mumbled with a desperate tone while looking down.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t catch that.” I had strained my ears but I had only managed to hear some chewed parts of words that didn’t make any sense. He looked back up. His expression was the same as always but now, it had a weird edge to it. Like glass ready to break into million pieces and hurt everything around it.

“I told you my story, now you have to tell me yours. Why were you crying?”

I had completely forgotten I was even crying before we met in such a strange way as always. I was more concerned about him and the way he looked but his eyes were pleading me to leave it at that and I did. I didn’t know him. I was in no position to press him about more personal information.

Surprisingly, I didn’t feel the same way about mine. I started talking and everything expressed itself so easily and effortlessly.

“The first years’ field trip is approaching…” I started playing with my hands. “And Matsuda said that I could be in the group she is in with her friends. They didn’t look like bad people and they seemed fine with it and all…” I took a deep breath “It’s just that I’m not used to being with so many people and it’s stressing me out. I want to give Matsuda her freedom but then I’m afraid that we will grow apart and she will leave me alone again. And then I talk with her friends and have all these thoughts about what they might mean instead of what they are saying and how best I could reply and react to what they are doing so they will like me and let me be with them.” I was talking quickly. My breathing resembled the one when I was crying because I was getting nervous only talking about it and I was fighting not to start crying again. But then, I had to talk about the hardest part and some stray tears did escape from my eyes. “And when I talked to my parents about going on a field trip for the first time, they said that they didn’t want to spend money on something that I was certainly not going to enjoy since I will be by myself anyway.”

I felt crappy whining like that and crying to someone who had just fought with his lover and her boyfriend and seemed to not be feeling okay either. There was something liberating about his presence that made me feel it was okay to show all the worst parts of myself. It was weird and terrifying when I didn’t even know the guy but it felt good at the same time.

“You know you’re just overthinking, right?”

“Sorry, forgot I was talking to someone who can’t even think in the first place!”

“You know, I’m disappointed. It seems that having a good friend hasn’t made you a kinder person.”

“Oh but I am a kinder person. To Matsuda, and everyone else”

“Ouch!”

“Can’t help it. They stress me out!”

“Does that mean that I don’t?” He leaned closer in a teasing tone but I was suddenly once again aware of how sweet his eye colour was and how silky his hair looked, so much that I wanted to touch it and run my fingers through it.

I cleared my throat.

“I guess you don’t” I realized. My eyes got brighter and cleared away as an idea formed in my mind. “You could be my friend!” It would be perfect. I could practice with him, if he wanted to, and then I would find it easier to properly socialize with other people.

“You mean, a friend friend?” He came even closer and wiggled his eyebrows full of innuendos.

“Hold it, Romeo! We are only going to be friends.”

“But you just said that I am the exception, your one and only! I make you feel like the real you and-”

“Never said any of those” I cut him off abruptly.

“You’re still denying your feelings for me?!” He faked a hurt expression. I crossed my arms under my chest and looked him up and down. He smiled and finally gave in. “I’ve never had a girl friend before” He admitted with a bit of enthusiasm.

“Gee. I wonder why” I threw him a withering look. He ignored me but a smirk blossomed on his lips.

“And are you sure we are only going to be friends?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

“There’s no way deeper feelings will develop! Like ever!” I cut him off. He nodded and started getting up. In an impulse I couldn’t control, I grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. “But if…if they do…which is really unlikely…I’m gonna confess first!”

It felt like I was already losing in this game so I at least wanted some sense of victory. He simply smiled but this time, it felt warmer and brighter than the others. Could be my imagination though.