Let It Pour

I should have done something. Life is so delicate. And I never realized it before tonight. I never realized how damn easy it is for one to end. Just like that. But I don't think that's what is bothering me. I think what bothers me is that nobody knew what he went through on the inside. Nobody cared about the quiet boy in the back corner unless they were spreading the rumors about him being gay. I don't want to go back to school because I'll be stuck with the people who caused Jonathan's death. I don't want to talk to any of the people I've been going to school with since kindergarten because I know it's their cold, indifferent hearts that constantly keep anyone from getting close. I'll be pressed into that sea of bodies down the main hallway, just like every day since freshman year. The only difference is I will be disgusted. I feel as though I'm going to be sick just sitting here. Because I can stay home to avoid my classmates' hearts of stone. But I can do nothing to rescue myself from the one that beats in my chest.

There was a knock on the window.

But in my dream the knock was the hard smack of a fist connecting with bone. "No! Please. Stop. Just leave him the hell alone!" I screamed. But no matter how fast I ran I couldn't get close enough for the group of people to hear me. The faster I ran the more the floor began to tilt underneath me. "Stop, please!" I pleaded one more time. But as the last word fled my mouth and echoed off the walls the floor came completely out from under my feet. I was falling down the hallway, hitting the lockers on either side of the hall like I was stuck in a pinball machine. A scared, helpless voice was following me down, but it had no body to which it belonged. "Christina!" It yelled faintly. And as I fell my name continued to echo around me. There was no bottom to this pit I fell down and I felt myself gaining speed with each tile that passed my eyes. It was never going to stop. This eternal torment would just keep intensifying until -

I was laying in my bed, breathing hard and soaked in sweat. Someone was knocking at my window. "Chris, open up," the voice behind the blinds breathed.

I reached for my glasses and tiptoed over to my window as another knock sounded across my room. "What the hell Clay? Its three in the morning!" I said while opening the blinds. "What do you want?"

"You haven't been at school," he replied pointedly. "I've been missing you. How sick are you anyways?"

"I... I'm not sick anymore." It was hard to explain, especially to my boyfriend, why I had been absent for the past week. The thing was, I had been sick. But my illness wasn't anything a Z-pack or a round of penicillin could cure. It wasn't that simple.

"So you'll be back at school in the morning?" Clay asked, his face painted with a grin. And the sad thing was, the joy on his face seemed genuine. Like he was actually happy with the thought of seeing me at school. Like he actually cared about me.

"Well, no," I explained. "I have an appointment at eleven. So I'm not going to be there."

"But you just said you're better. Come to school in the morning. I'll check out with you and drive you to your appointment and then we can get lunch together before going back. It'll be fun. Please, babe."

"Clay, I can't. I know it's confusing but I'll explain later, okay?" I began as I reached up to close the window. "I'm tired though so I'm gonna go to sleep. You gotta go." I looked down at the window sill, trying to not make eye contact with the figure outside.

"Wait... Christina." I flinched as he used my full name. Nobody ever used my full name, especially Clay, so hearing it come from his mouth was like a slap in the face. I shrunk back even farther away from the window to prepare myself for what I knew was following. "What the hell is this? You've been gone from school for almost a full week. You won't answer my calls. You've been ignoring my texts, and whenever I've been coming to see you your parents tell me I can't see you because you're sick. Then I come here at three in the morning only to be told you're not sick, but you're also not coming to school. Not only that, but now you're totally and completely shutting me out, giving me no answers, and telling me I have to leave. Dammit Christina, I don't even know with you anymore! Everyone's been asking about you. They ask me where you are, how you're doing, what you have. Do you know how damn embarrassing it is for me to not have those answers?!" He yelled now, and hit the outside wall of my house with the last word to stress his frustration.

"Leave me alone. Now." I tried to order, but no conviction would sound in my words. Instead, I sounded like one of those scared little girls on the movies who pleaded for an escort through the darkness that just couldn't be faced alone. I cleared my throat and tried again. "I said to leave, Clayton," But my voice failed me again, breaking when I most needed it to be strong.

His expression softened and he hung his head a little. "No. Chris, I'm sorry. I... I didn't mean it. I'm just worried about you babe. I'm worried about us," He said softly. Laying his hand on the screen that separated us he spoke my name again. "Chris. I'm sorry. Let me in, love."

And so I did. In a matter of seconds the screen was off my window and he climbed in, wrapping me in his arms. We stood there in the center of my dark room as the seconds melted away. Our breathing was quiet and neither of us dared to break the careful silence. It was as though we were surrounded by a sea of shattered glass and one wrong move would send us into the harsh edges that were able to make a thousand little cuts.

"You know that I love you Chris. I love you," he whispered. Those eighteen little letters used to surge through me and make me melt in his arms. But right now, a little past three in the morning, standing in my bedroom with a boy who just professed his love to me, I have never felt so alone.

...

That voice was echoing through my head again. It was as though it wanted me to save it. It cried out, over and over again. And it always cried out my name.

I was laying in my bed. Sun filtered through my blinds and bathed me in golden light. In a little over an hour I had an appointment with Dr. Elaine Hillis at her privately owned practice. I wasn't too sure if I was ready for this, but my parents had left me with no other choice. It was return to school immediately or talk to a shrink. Honestly, it was a no-brainer.

"So your parents tell me you weren't even that close to Jonathan. Is that right?"

I was already frustrated with her questions. The way she held her mouth annoyed me. The sound her teeth made when they hit each other set me on edge. Who the hell was this lady to sit there and think she knows exactly what I'm feeling? Who died and made her king of all teenager emotions?

"Yes. Well, no. We used to be close. We were best friends in middle school. Before everything changed. Honestly, before we were put in a group project for English three weeks ago, I hadn't talked to him in almost a year. He deserved so much more than what I gave him." I looked down to study the carpet as Dr. Hillis scratched some all-knowing notes into that damn yellow notebook.

"And that's why you're upset, isn't it? You didn't give him what he deserved?" She gazed at me over her glasses and I realized the expression on her face wasn't as harsh as I had first taken it to be.

"Upset isn't the right word. I was upset when I made a B+ on a paper. I was upset when I realized I was going to miss a tournament after fracturing my ankle. I was upset when my boyfriend and I got into an argument. But this? This is totally different. This is not upset." Although my frustration with the lady had somewhat subdued, I still found that her attempt to make this into something small and insignificant annoyed the hell out of me.

"I'm sorry Christina. I didn't mean to undermine the importance of this. But tell me, why haven't you gone to school since Jonathan's death?" She seemed genuinely concerned now, but the fact that she had virtually read my mind frustrated me again.

We sat in silence for a few seconds, and I could feel Dr. Hillis's eyes boring into me as though they were trying to read my soul. When a full minute had passed she rose from her chair and crossed the room to me. Pulling another armchair closer to mine, she took my hand.

"Christina, I know you don't know me. But I do know what you're going through -"

"Don't," I began, yanking my hand away and springing up from my chair. "Don't sit there and act like you know every emotion that crosses my mind just because you're a damn psychologist. I don't give a damn that you attended enough school to get the title of 'Dr.' in front of your name. That doesn't give you the right to talk as if you know what I'm going through. And it sure as hell doesn't give you the right to talk as if you actually knew him. Because you didn't. And people exactly like you are the reason I don't want to go back to school!" I turned away from her trying to hide the tears that overflowed my eyes. Dr. Hillis sat quietly and let me cry.

"Christina," she said cautiously after my tears had been dammed up. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry. Please just come back and talk to me. Its okay to cry if you want to. Its even okay to scream and shout and flat out yell at the top of your lungs if you have to. Just tell me about not going to school."

I hesitated, but I knew if today wasn't satisfactory to my parents and I still didn't attend school I would be forced to some other shrink in some other office. Rather that risk that option, I decided to answer her question. "I just can't go. I don't expect you to understand. I don't expect anyone to understand. But those people. I just can't see them."

"Those people? Who exactly are 'those people'?" She asked, her voice and expression showing more interest than they had all session.

"Everyone. Everyone I go to school with. From the jocks to the nerds to the misfits. Everyone who has walked those halls and turned a blind eye to what is constantly going on in front of them. Everyone that goes to that school had a hand in Jonathan's death, don't you see? And I just can't face them. I can't look into any more empty eyes and see stone-cold hearts and be okay with it. I can't walk down another crowded hallway without feeling alone. And every shoulder that will touch me will burn. Because the bumping and pushing and shouting in the halls is nothing compared to the stares and gossip and silence we all endure in the classrooms. School is supposed to be a safe-haven, right? But ours wasn't. Ours was the place that took that feeling of safety away from Jonathan. Everyone in that building drove him to suicide." I stopped talking and searched the Dr.'s face for a sign that I was all wrong, that I had everything backwards, because there was no way we could have caused something that extreme.

But she just stared right back into my eyes with an unwavering gaze. "And where do you fit into all of this?" She asked.

"I'm no better than the rest of them," I replied softly. "I did nothing. I sat and listened to the rumors I knew were true. I didn't spread them, but I didn't stick up for him. And now what I'm feeling is too little, and far too late." This time I couldn't search her face for reassurance. Rather, I dropped my gaze to the floor and hung my head. Shame was written all over me, and there was no eraser in the world big enough to fix my mistake.

"You mentioned rumors. When did all of this start?" She asked, taking off her glasses and setting down her notebook. She wasn't here to shrink me down into a box that fit under a certain medication. She was here to listen, and although my actions had been no better than my classmates', I wanted to try to make up for what I had held back in Jonathan's life. I was ready to tell his story. I was ready to give a voice to a body that was now six feet under.