Hurting vs. Hurting

After saying a fast goodbye to our deceased fellow acquaintance we barely even knew, as if we having nothing else to do, we gather once more for the continuation of the lectures. We return to our daily lives, and we let the past buried down in the casket. The room I always meet Sonny in is still empty. It takes a while for everyone else to come here. Unlike me, they have things to do. I waddle to my usual seat, not too close to the front, and not too far in the back. A point of dividing.

Ignorable, and perfect.

In the exact middle, in the eighth row. The second seat from the window. Sonny has the seat next to the window.

It’s not like our seats were pre-determined, but almost everybody naturally stick to the seats they chose in their first week or so unless they faced a dispute with the ones surrounding them. It didn't feel right changing something they were used to.

I stare outside, without Sonny blocking the view. I stare outside to my heart’s content. I try to stare as much as I can.

I glue my eyes to the window.

I stare at leaves falling.

At people walking.

I stare at the sunlight penetrating the empty spaces between the leaves, letting the shadows mark their territory on the ground.

The world outside looks perfect.

Maybe looking away from it is a fatal mistake. Maybe if I just ignore everything and watch the beautiful scenery, everything will stop. Maybe if I look away, it’ll disappear. Maybe it’ll go away for good, and I will never see it again. Maybe if I look at it, everything will end. Maybe if I look at it, everything will begin. I dislike both possibilities.

But no matter what I do, and no matter what I look at, the paper on my desk will never stop existing.

The same paper.

The same handwriting.

But a different text.

What the hell is this, a detective novel now?

The letters scribbled on the note were pleading me to read them. I ignore them and put the note in my pocket the second I feel another presence. Sonny drops her bag on the floor, right next to the window. A loud thud haunts the once-quiet place. She sits next to me.

Sonny does not care about her bag; I’d say she refuses to care about her bag. I’d even say she sees it as a punching bag at times.

"Huh? Well, a punching bag is still a bag, so it’s not wrong to say that a bag is still a punching bag." Was what she said when I asked her. Although, I find many things wrong with the way her logic works.

“I’m not going to apologize for what I said back there.” She tilts her head and glares at me with a serious expression. “What I said, and what I did, was all for your own sake, and I will keep doing it, if it means it'll do something.”

Sometimes, being hurt by other people is less painful than being hurt by yourself. Some people have the idea that blaming others when they make a mistake is a bad idea that can cause them more pain; but when you leave a person completely alone after they’ve done something they blame themselves for, it will only make them feel useless, and absolutely alone. A person needs to be blamed sometimes, rather than being stuck in a cycle of self-hatred.

I get where the idea comes from now.

“I wasn’t expecting an apology either. I know you did it for my sake.” After hearing that, she gives me a side-glance and flashes a grin.

“You’re too much of an idiot if you haven’t realized everything I do is for your sake.”

I'd hate to admit it, but I really would be an idiot if I said otherwise, after all these years.

“Anyway, don’t you think the sudden appearance of a random suicide note on your table was a bit strange?” She asks.

“Would you please control the volume of your voice? What if someone just comes in?”

“What I mean is," She pushes herself closer to me, and whispers. "It doesn’t need to be specifically you. You’ve never even seen that guy. The safest guess would be that he used to attend the same high school we did. That said, I don’t even remember seeing him.”

“Maybe it wasn’t supposed to be anyone specific. Just anybody would suffice. Sometimes, you only need someone to listen, and you wouldn’t really mind who they are.”

“I guess.” Barely convinced, her head slowly lands on her desk, and she stares downwards. “There are some messaging platforms where people just share what’s on their mind without being afraid of having their identity revealed.” She pulls down the zipper of her lemon-colored hoodie and takes it off. The text on the back of her hoodie reads “I’m everything you need”.

So, this is what people call narcissism.

“So, how do we deal with this? Don’t tell me you’re going to hide like a fugitive." Sonny is right. If anything about this note leaks out... "You know that the longer you keep the note a secret, the more unbearable the troubles it brings you will become, and the more suspicious you will look, especially considering your background.”

After I found Naomi, I was stuck in a never-ending loop of interrogations, and therapy. I had to repeat a year at high school. That was around the same time I got closer to Sonny. No. It was around the same time Sonny got closer to me. After Naomi died, she has been lingering around me like a haunting spirit, trying her hardest to replace her for me, which is a favor I can never return. She is the only person who knows more than enough about me, and talked more than enough to me when that happened.

“So?” She repeats herself, still gazing at my eyes from the side, without raising her head from the desk. “What are you going to do?”

I would have definitely come clean had this happened only once, but the second note is definitely a game-changer. This was probably sent to me by a friend of Oscar’s; somebody who knew more than enough about him, and probably somebody just like him, who’s leaving their final note here on my table.

And whatever their reason might be, I'm sick of always hearing people cry; when I myself never got the chance to, when I myself never had anyone to read what I wrote, unless it was a story. I won't let these idiots think they can just leave their stuff to me and get the hell out and die. I've already had enough of sad backstories.

“Hey Sonny,” surprised to hear me call her name, she immediately turns her head and stares directly at my lips.

“You called me by my name. That’s rare. You usually use the name of an animal or a negative adjective to refer to me. I almost came up with a formula a while back, to determine when you’re going to call me what. But I never expected my actual name. This should be important.”

"That actually sounds sad. I didn't know. Sorry." I apologize, and received a genuine smile as a reward.

"It's alright. So, what is it?"

“Can you tell me about the kids in the writer club?”