I was the sixth grade celebrity. Freshly out of my tomboyish phase with the dazzling realization of the fact that I was a "big girl" now and guys were no longer tiny midgets to bully. My interaction with new students was generally brief. I was the official help-outer, because of my natural outgoingness, and I was always made to sit with the new student because I had been in the school the longest and basically a helpful kid, eager to get freshers acclaimatized.
After a point of time, I would make sure they got friends of their own and got adsorbed into their respective groups and that would be all.
He joined late. Very late. Almost the end of the year. And when the teacher asked me to sit with him, I took one look and shook my head with a "No way."
I got my way. I don't think He was a big fan either. And who could blame him? I didn't exactly go out of my way to make a good first impression. I was cocky, oozing self confidence and knew people looked up to me and lived up to my reputation. Playing pranks on teachers, having people look at me with admiration for my spunk and basking in that warm golden glory. It was what I loved and it was what made me the person I was then.
Come seventh grade. We had probably spoken a couple of times and it wasn't anything meaningful. We won a quiz together and realized we worked well as a team. My nickname for him, which was originally partly-mocking, eventually became one of endearment. People didn't see a friendship-in-the-making. I didn't either, to be honest.
By the time we were in the new grade, I knew he was having problems at home, and they were serious. He had scars and bruises, he started stammering at times, he was underconfident in spite of the fact that he was easily much smarter than everyone in that year. He didn't know that.
The other kids mocked him, made fun of him, pushed him around, talked about him behind his back and to his face. Thought of him as a freak. He knew that.
This was enough to change my attitude. I was at times arrogant and bossy and overbearing, but I was also always the one to stand up for the shy kids, and protect them. That was how it had always been, right from the beginning. I got along well with the reserved kind. It came naturally. When my seventh grade teacher(probably the person who's had the biggest impact on my life) asked me to sit with him for the year, I didn't complain. Sure, I got teased. The kids threw me a much too obvious pity-party and gave me sympathetic looks. He saw them.
He did not have to tell me for me to know he was badly abused, physically. The big dark and scary bruises that he kept getting all over his body were evidence enough to that. What I did start learning about eventually was the mental abuse. The constant struggle that his life was. The fear he lived with, of disappointing or angering his parents, who never failed to give up a chance to subject him to trauma I cannot even begin to describe.
I was his first friend. For once in his life, he had someone to talk to. he had someone who looked beyond his appearance. He got someone who told him they believed in him and his potential and really did. We became his wall, me and my teacher. He was ours to protect. An unspoken promise and a pledge.
End of the year. People had gotten used to the fact that I stuck around with him. That we were truly friends, and I was feircely protective of him. They refrained from giving him a hard time, at least while I was around. We both needed each other, and we weren't ashamed of it.
He came to school one day with news. He was going to move away. Boarding school. He was leaving in less than 2 months.
I was broken. But at the same time, I knew it would help him to get away. Saying goodbye was the hardest thing to do; but it made me grow up in a way I cannot put in words.
Save for a few phone calls from him over the years, we lost touch. And just like that, he went from one of the most important people in my life to being a stranger.
Today I met his mother. After close to 5 years. We talked for some time. He is in the city now, in a different school. His mother hasn't changed. After all these years, I wanted to shake her by the shoulders and tell her to open her eyes, to accept her son for who he is, and to love him for that. She still doesn't believe in him. She still wants him to "be better". Worst of all, she still wants him to be me.
Over the one year we were friends, I lived with the constant knowledge of being partly responsible for what his parents put him through, because being his friend, they automatically compared him with me.
She told me she had gotten the letter I wrote to him to say goodbye laminated so she could show it to her grandchildren one day.
I can't put a finger on it...I can't tell you what I am feeling, because it is so complicated. And there are so many emotions.
I want to meet up with him. I'll call him maybe. I hope she remembers to leave me her number on my phone. But I don't know what it will be like to meet again. With the past and the one year of complete honesty and almost blatant frankness. Maybe it won't be like before. Maybe he would prefer to forget and leave that part of his life behind him, because it holds the worst memories of his life. His mother told mine that I was the one who "brought him back on track".
Would he ever want to relive that?
I don't know. I am just happy I could be a friend. For once in my life today, I felt like I was...worthy.
Thanks for reading.
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