[size=+2]001 - Introduction[/size]
i was new to the school that year. after father had gone mother thought it was best if we moved. she said that everyone needed a change of scenery once in a while and said that we’d only be moving to the other side of the city, and that i could still see my old friends.
but i didn’t really have any friends.
i mean i used to i did. but things happened and then it was just me all alone. i knew that going to a new school wasn’t going to change any of that, but i always knew the move was more for her than it was for me. and i was okay with that or i was at the time anyway.
but when i got to the school i was just as alone as i always had been. nothing had changed for me, other than the “scenery”. i still walked home alone, ate alone, cried alone.
i was silent in class but i did the work so no teacher would have thought more was going on. but something was going on, and i didn’t know how to explain. all i wanted to do was go to sleep and never, ever, wake up again.
i told mother this once. she didn’t say anything to me at first, only staring off at nothing. she told me things would get better. she promised they would. i only needed to stick with it.
that night, i heard her crying in her bedroom.
and that made me feel awful. i didn’t mean to hurt mother like that, but i couldn’t get rid of this feeling. i couldn’t even feel better by my dreams because all i was having was nightmares and then, even sleep seemed like another school to me.
it was one of the worst feelings i’ve ever had. that feeling like i was choking and no matter what i tried to do i couldn’t breathe again. i could fight and kick but never would i breathe again. never would this feeling leave me alone. i was trapped.
but then i met you.
and you smiled at me, and you asked me my name and i told you and you told me yours and you were smiling still. you told me that we should be friends and you gave me a card and on the card was an invitation to a Christmas party you were having. you smiled again and asked me if i would come and you were wearing a shirt with a green punch buggy on it and you were smiling.
and i said i didn’t know yet but i was lying because i was thinking yes in my head and then i finally said it. and it was like your friendship over the next while was like oxygen or something.
because i felt like i could breathe again.