The Pain We Feel

What would you do if the person you loved was hurting themselves? What would you say or do to show them they didn’t have to do that? How could you let them know they’re not all alone in this?

Those are the questions that ran through my head as I talked with my best friend Jen. Though I know I would never actually ask her these questions. She didn’t know about Alex, my crush for the past month and a half. The only ones who really knew was no one. I have Alex for my math class and we were becoming real good friends. Each day I looked forward to the class knowing I would see him again, but I never expected that today could change all of that.

“Emily have you been listening to a one word I’ve said in the last five minutes?” Jen questioned me.

“Of course I have.” I lied.

“Then what happened on my date this weekend?” Jen questioned again.

“Ok maybe I spaced out for just a little bit. I’m sorry Jen. I’ve just have a lot on my mind lately.” I replied.
“Yeah, I’ve noticed you spacing off a lot lately even more than usual. Do you want to talk about what’s going on?” she suggested to me.

“No, it’s ok. I’m fine. Really, I am. So don’t worry about me. So what happened on your date? It was with Mark right?” I said attempting to distract her.

“Yes, it was. Oh my god I can’t believe it but when he dropped me off he walked me all the way to the door. Then like out of nowhere he kissed me. Can you believe it?” she shrieked.

“No way! That’s great Jen. I’m so happy for you.” I replied trying to sound sincere.

“Yeah, by the way I wasn’t distracted by that, but I won’t question you about it anymore either. Well, at least not anytime soon.” she told me.

We didn’t talk much more after that mostly because it was time to take her home. After we got home from dropping her off I just went up stairs and locked myself in my room. Jen still texted me but I’ve gotten good at faking my happiness through texting. That is unless she couldn’t tell through text. Either way I didn’t pay much attention to our conversation as my thoughts were all with what had happened so far this year in my math class.

Math was my third class of the day here at my high school. After that I have lunch and so does Alex. He usually walks with me to the lunch room but we have never sat down to eat together. I always wondered what he did during lunch. It’s funny now thinking about it since I never would have thought I could fall for a guy like him. If Jen knew she would probably think the same as she would say he wasn’t my usual “type”. When we got our assigned seats and I saw he was in front of me I just thought “Oh great. I sit next to one i know at all.” Who could have guessed we would actually become friends.

My first impression of him was that he was stuck up or self centered and depressed too. Mostly this was because he never looked up from being slouched over his journal in his black hoodie. Them my view on him did a total 180 when he turned around. He had a look of peacefulness in his hazel eyes and a sweet smile on his face. Then amazingly he introduced himself to me. I was so stunned that he did that I could hardly reply back. I could barely think much less reply to him in any sense of normal conversation. Even though it took me a while to respond he didn’t laugh at me. He just kept on smiling at me. Once I was done embarrassing myself we started talking. You know just like asking random questions about eachother and all that. We actually had quite a few things in common. Ok so maybe it was a bit more than just a few. Then when I asked about how he could be so polite I saw his smile falter. He looked stricken with sadness all of a sudden. I felt terrible thinking I had done something wrong, but before I could ask what it was I had done he spoke up.

He told me it was because his mother had raised him that way. She believed that all men should somehow seem a gentleman. He said that being polite was how he remembered his mom the most. She had passed away when he was ten. Now he was 16 and I couldn’t believe that he still kept on being so polite. He showed me that he really must have loved his mom. I didn’t question him anymore about it. I felt terrible since I had brought it up in the first place. Though after we stopped talking about it I noticed his smile returned as well. This was strange to me but I decided to just put the thought aside.

As the days went on we talked more and then on Friday he asked me what I had after math. When I told him I had lunch he said me too. So starting from then on we walked to lunch together. The first day we did was so memorable to me. Jen was outside waiting for me and the look on her face when she saw us was priceless. She was so shocked I was amazed she managed to keep her mouth closed. That’s really the only reason she knows we're friends to begin with. She didn’t question me much about it but she did seem truly surprised. Mostly that has been our routine so far for this school year. Then a few weeks ago I still don’t know how but I realized I didn’t see him the same. He didn’t seem like a friend anymore to me. He seemed to be something more. Something so much more.

Then today we were sitting in our seats during math and today we couldn’t really talk because we had to take notes for our assignment. Alex was wearing his usual hoodie but his sleeve was pushed up a little. If I hadn’t dropped my pencil I never would have seen anything. Close by his elbow I could see a scar. It wasn’t fully healed but it wasn’t a fresh scar either. I could only see some of its red outline but I couldn’t tell how long the scar was either. That part was covered up by his jacket. I wanted to know what had happened to him but I was afraid of what he would say. Afterall I had never really been one to be nosy.

Though, I tried not to think about it that didn’t work out so well. Instead all that flooded my mind were the different possibilities. Maybe he had moved his arm against some broken glass; he could have fallen and cut his arm there, or maybe he accidently cut himself with a knife. Maybe he used a razor and did it on purpose. How do I know he doesn’t cut himself? How do I know if he doesn’t have more cuts on his arms? No, it can’t be that. He would have told me if something real bad was going on. Right? Something bad has to be going on if he’s cutting himself. Wait, I have to stop thinking he’s cutting himself…………he can’t be. My mind just kept reeling with different questions. I had to stop thinking about all this now before I couldn’t let this idea go. I had to stop myself real soon.

Finally my mind snapped back into what I was supposed to be doing. Though I wasn’t really doing anything at the time to begin with. I looked down and saw I had five messages from Jen. When I finally replied she asked what I had been doing. I told her I had been doing my homework. We talked about some “normal” things, for us at least. When it was about nine-thirty I decided to try to go to sleep. So I just let Jen know and put away my phone. I couldn’t though I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours. When I checked the clock and it was only ten-ten. It had only been forty minuets and I knew I couldn’t take a whole night like this. So I did something I rarely did unless I knew I had no other choice. I took some cold medicine and it took a while but sure enough sleep found me.