She was happy
She was happy. A simple state of mind to be in; Happy. Not happy and anxious, or happy but tired just simply happy a pure feeling of infinite pleasure, simply just a pure happiness. This didn’t happen often, so in the rare times it did she grabbed and squeezed that feeling of happiness with all her might like a child clinging desperately to their mothers hand for fear of losing her in this crazy life. Her phone buzzed. She dropped what she was doing and glanced to see who it was. It was her best friend; she constantly received text messages from her asking what was going on, how she was or when she was free to hang out. To most people the constant questioning and pondering would be rather annoying and too much to handle, but for some odd reason she didn’t mind the constant communication the she wanted. Not to get that confused with that she complied with the question in a true manner, for this often never happened. A quick I’m fine would usually fill the need for an answer until a later time. She was afraid to trust and afraid to believe that someone could care enough to want her in her life.
She trudged through school making small talk and throwing a smile here and there just enough to keep people from wondering. She would do her homework on a regular basis and most teachers found her as a good student, never disrupting class on starting issues with other students. She was normal she was a poster child with all the common qualities but in reality she was so much more. Inside her heart had been replaced with a sinkhole, an endless tunnel sucking in everything that mattered. She was an empty soul and most of all she was afraid. She feared her thoughts and she feared her desires and she feared the loneliness that she felt now would ultimately last forever. She feared life until she met me.
We were not at all alike in any way. We constantly were talking, laughing, joking and telling each other things no one else would ever understand. Through each other we found ourselves, and that is why she could possibly be the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. One day she showed me; the scars that lined her arms and the ones that were not yet healed. They lined her arms and the pain filled her heart and overflowed into mine.
“Oh my god, doesn’t that hurt?” I said astonished and not at all expecting that from someone who seemed energetic and well, happy.
“No.” She said plainly with no expression whatsoever.
“Are you okay?” a rather dumb question now thinking back on it.
She smiled. “I’m fine.” Not sarcastic or rude, just a simple statement in which she laughed at before she finished tying her pink Nike shoes and returning to the insensible P.E games. I thought for a second blinked a few times and followed right after her.
She was sad and scared but most of all confused. I wanted to help, so I made her problems, my problem and made her promise to tell me what was going on. The answer was short because for her it wasn’t something that was happening or had happened, it was her life and that is what scared her the most. She took her fear and confusion that she couldn’t put into words and put it on her body. She took it in pills. Anyway that she released that anger and hatred for the world it was always against her own self. I began to feel the same way and that is what scared me the most.
We hung out constantly and slowly our conversations began to revolve around one thing. Well a couple of things that were all under the same general idea. Depression. I agree that discussing your feeling can make them less harmful to yourself, but discussing them to someone who shares the same feelings and will just agree, is not at all productive and we were about as unproductive as they come. We would sit and eat ramen noodles and watch “Adventure Time” for hours on her king size bed and pretend for once that our lives were normal. We would be absorbed in the dumb and comical adventures of a teen boy and his magical dog. We would just sit there and enjoy one another’s company and we would pretend that we were wearing long sleeves because we were cold. We would pretend that life had other possibilities and that we were okay and that we would make it out. I would pretend that I wasn’t scared that my best friend might not make it to school tomorrow. I would sit and just be blissful in my thoughts because for that little time everything was all pretend and it was happy and hopeful.
It other times reality would strike. At night I would lie in bed and be confused and let myself sit there for hours and try to make sense of what was going on. It was like my feelings were pieces to a jigsaw puzzle and no matter how much you turned the pieces around they never managed to fit into one another and I was just left with useless pieces. Every night I knew exactly what was going on in her head and where she was putting that confusion because I was doing the same thing. A lot of people can blame the parents with neglect, which is wrong because for a cutter that is the point keeping a secret that you can physically hide. My parents had no idea and in my mind they never would. For me that was part of the feeling was knowing that what I was doing was hidden from the rest of the world. (Except for her but I didn’t consider her part of the world because she is so much more than that.) Life continued as normal as life gets and together we got worse. Pretending got harder and cutting got easier. It became a normal everyday thing that was scary.
Eventually we told the school counselor and she immediately called our parents who then proceeded to send us to two different rehabs. It happened really fast. The whole process of being separated it felt unreal. For so many days we had been together and suddenly it all ended. Eventually she got back from rehab and I went to her house. I was “cured” and I thought she was too. At her house she tried to overdose in front of me. She clutched the red Advil bottle in her cold lined hands and while I tried to grab it out of her hands she was persistent and stubborn just as she always had been. (one day she is going to use that for great things, I just know it) It was then in which I wanted to die. I felt so alone in the world, so confused. So for months I found new friends and I felt like I had a new life but I never went a day without thinking about her and missing everything we’d done. She was upset with me because I had left her and I deserved everything she felt against me, but for those months I felt I had to remove myself from her. One day in September, she texted me. I thought the world must have stopped spinning I was elated beyond expression. Today I still get urges; I believe they never truly go away. I am still friends with Natalie which I also believe will never go away. That is one of the things that keep me going on tough days. Even though the world may tell me otherwise, Natalie remains and will always be one of the best things that’s ever happened to me. I hope she will always know that.