Blandview High Musical

4. Love Is Strange

    I had managed to talk Jade into giving me a ride to school by letting her know that I was leaving the car at the house for my mom. "You don't have to justify anything to me." She said as I was getting into the car. Today she seemed different, less bubbly and energetic. Despite her telling me she was introverted...I found that she liked to have fun just as much as all the rest of us did.

    "Are you okay?" I asked. I didn't know if this was thin ice or not, but I surely couldn't make the situation worse by asking. "Yeah, just a little out of it today." "Why might that be?" I pressed. She looked over at me. I could feel the color rushing into my cheeks. I shouldn't have asked that. "It's just the anniversary of a friend's death." She said. Immediately I felt worse; I really shouldn't have pressed. "Sorry..." I muttered. She looked over at me. "It's alright. My therapist said that I need to talk about it anyways." "Well, I don't wanna push you." I said. "No, really. It's just something that I need to speak about if I'm ever going to get over it." Jade said.

    Silence littered the air and I wondered if I had really messed up. "Was it a boy or a girl friend?" I asked. "It was a girl." She said, her fingers tightening around the wheel. "How did it happen?" I asked. "Car accident." I felt my breath hitch in my throat. When I was about 7, my mom and I got into a really bad car crash. We were able to walk away with our lives, but the other person was not so lucky. "How close were you two?" I asked. "Very close. We were best friends." "I'm sorry." I apologized once more. She shook her head in dismay. "Don't be." Another moment of silence.

    "We got into a fight." Jade offered. I hadn't realized that we were sitting in the school's parking lot. "What kind of fight?" I asked. The atmosphere was tense. Jade let out a quivering sigh. "We hadn't been spending much time together. We had kind of grown apart. I never really had friends growing up, so any time I had a friend...it was very personal and intimate for me." "I get that." I said. Jumping from place to place also made it difficult for me to have friends. "The only problem is that no one commits quite the way I do. So when it comes time to cut that cord, I always choke and can't do it. So I'll drag it out until I absolutely cannot handle it any longer. Then it fades from view and I try to forget about it." I reached up, prematurely wiping my face to prevent myself from crying. "Which worked for a while and then...I found out that she had gotten into a car accident."

    Jade's eyes remained straightforward, large crocodile tears were rolling down her cheeks. Her nose had turned a soft red color along with her cheeks. Her eyes had grown dark, like she was becoming lost in a void of sorrow and shame. "I was lost. It felt like a part of me had been torn off. A part that I thought was already dead, a part that I had tried to suffocate and I was not prepared for what came next." She said. It was clear she was attempting to hold onto the self control she possessed. "What came next?" I croaked out. "A deep and dark spiraling void of depression, lots of guilt and unrequited blame that I took upon myself; it hit me like a freight train and I got lost for a long time." Unbeknownst to me, tears were flooding down my cheeks as well.

    "I still haven't...moved on from that. I don't blame myself as much as I used to anymore, but I still carry around the guilt of not saying goodbye." "It wasn't your fault." I croaked. "I know that, but it's still painful." She said. "What triggered the fight?" "We just started arguing and she never would listen to me. The last thing she told me was to get out if I didn't like the way she treated her friends." Jade reached up, wiping her face. "I just quietly closed the door on that friendship. She didn't know the difference and I don't think she even cared about it." I swallowed the lump in my throat, sniffling. "It's just a reminder that I don't need to get attached to anyone...because they all just leave when they're finished using you to their content." Yeah...I know what that feels like.

    I reached over, grabbing her clammied hands that were sitting in her lap. They were cold and sweaty, followed by soft trembles. "Well, I know that feeling more than anyone else. So I think we can empathize with each other." My eyes flickered down to our hands which remained clasped together. "But...I can tell you right now, that I'm not your friend because it benefits me. Hell, you were the person who followed me into the bathroom not two days ago to make sure I was okay. If anything, I chose to be your friend because...I see a lot of myself in you. Granted it might be on different levels, but I know what you're talking about. I know that suffocating loneliness and those dark places that seem impossible to navigate." I sighed. "But I'm not going anywhere." I said.