Strangers | ✔️

six

thursday ☾

––hey

I cringed when my heart missed a beat at the first text I've gotten that evening. The three alphabets stared at me in the most casual way possible, and suddenly I could imagine Damien, all crossed legs, palm pressed against face, bored looks, downturned eyelashes. Tapping on his phone with lazy fingers, like he was seeking for a last resort of entertainment. Me.

I gripped my phone with fingers stiff from the cold air conditioning. Hesitantly, I typed out a reply.

––hey

––can we talk?

The text cursor blinked at me as Damien read the message. My heart spluttered in my chest. Really? Can we talk? That sounded so stupid.

––sure

––come over?

I asked for an extra twenty minutes and took a shower. Allie fell asleep halfway through the movie so Raegan muted the television. The girl even slept through my hair drying with barely a single flinch; she must be really tired. I cleaned up the room a little, throwing away junk food packaging and washing empty glasses. It was perhaps an attempt to calm my jitters, think over what I wanted to say to Damien. Raegan sipped on a can of soda and glanced at me from across the room, and I awkwardly stood back up from taking out my key card.

"I'm gonna go for a walk," I said, slipping my key card into my phone case. Raegan lifted her drink at me in farewell.

"Home before midnight, young lady," She snickered, and I rolled my eyes at her.

"Yeah, yeah. See you," I opened the door, looking back at her. "Don't wait up, yeah? Go ahead and sleep if you want."

Raegan's "at eight forty p.m.? Hell nah." faded into the room as the door closed behind me.

* * *

His loose sweatpants hung low on his hips, his hoodie barely hiding the fair skin that peeks out from underneath. Streamlines on his waist hinted at toned muscles.

Our knees knocked together as he sat down on the other twin bed across from me. He barely seemed to notice the contact as he looked at me expectantly. I sifted through my thoughts, wondering how to start.

You've been a jerk for the past six-something years? Well, bystander, but same thing.

Yes, because that's what you say to someone you like.

Tonight was horrible I'm breaking up with you?

Yes, like we were ever together in the first place.

Can those pants get any lower your eyes are up there not down there?

Ah, off topic.

Upon seeing my hesitation, Damien glanced off to the side and squinted at nothing in particular, then fluffed up his hair awkwardly. It was only when I followed his eyes did I notice the light steam coming out of the bathroom and the fogged up mirror.

"Just showered?" He looked back at me, nodded. I gave a small smile and looked down at my fingers. The fact that he showered before seeing me made me blush, though it was probably unrelated to me coming to his room at all.

Damien waited patiently. Didn't complain, didn't say anything, just stayed quiet and relaxed in his seat like he knew addressing the elephant in the room was hard. But his patient only made me even more panicked; what if he wasn't being nice and just didn't care enough to react?

The thought made my breathing quicken. What would he say? "It was a joke." "Jeez, you're overreacting." Well, guess what, perpetrators don't get to decide if victims are overreacting.

"You good?" I snapped out of my spiral.

"Yes. Sorry. Um. I just wanted to say that what you guys did tonight was very mean. It was childish nonsense, especially coming from eighteen-year-old adults." I blurted out in one quick sentence, eyes fixated on a spot on his forehead.

Damien opened his mouth as if to speak, then flicked out a tongue to wet his lips. The silence was too much, and so I continued.

"And!" The word came out much louder than I expected, and I cringed and forced myself to continue. "And... what you guys did back in the days... and honestly, all throughout high school, was pretty much a jerk move. Allie has made it clearly multiple times that she does not like her middle name due to personal reasons, but you guys had no respect for that and treated her like a..." It pained me to say it, but there was really no other way I could phrase it.

"Like a joke. It's like... it's like, grow up, you know."

Damien looked at me, long and hard, and it occurred to me that none of us... no one from his friend group or my friend group has ever confronted each other like this, just sitting down and listening with very basic respect. How pathetic.

"I'm... I'm sorry." He said softly. "I guess Allie was just... not the best person ever? She had no self awareness whatsoever, and most of us felt like she needed to get over herself. And perhaps the first thing we resorted to was bullying."

It was odd hearing the word come out of his mouth.

"I get that, Damien, I really do, she was frustrating at times to us, too, but first of all, disliking someone gives you no right to constantly insult, hurtfully tease, and emotionally scar that someone like that. Any... I don't know, fourteen year old would be sensitive to that kind of bullying no matter how subtle it may be. Second of all, did you guys ever give her a chance? Yes, she may have been a... slightly annoying, overly self-centered child, but have you ever wondered if she's trying to change? Allie even saw a therapist for a year or so on her own accord, and I'm not trying to make up excuses for her, I just want to say that you guys never gave her a chance. Perhaps she did get over herself and you guys just... habitually came back, like today, plucked her scab away from her scar like she was the same selfish person she was years and years ago."

The rant flooded out of me like water from a broken dam. I pressed a hand against my eyes, dragged it down my face. The overload of words only left me drained. My feelings for Damien only confused me, betraying my indignance and heavy-heartedness. It was only when I let out a frustrated groan did I realize my face was wet. I wiped the angry tears away, looked back up at Damien. Gosh, how can anyone not forgive that doe-eyed look on his face, like he didn't know what he'd done to my friend this whole time.

"I'm sorry," he whispered again, looking deep into my eyes like he was trying to figure out if forgiveness was part of our story. "I... agree with every you just said. It's... it's perhaps the reason why I never truly joined in directly in their bullying; some part of me knew it was wrong and definitely very childish–"

"Argh!" I cut him off, hands against my eyes. His words sent a red, hot blade through my chest as I recalled his face–his face from long ago, so cold and careless and disgusted like it was our fault for being too sensitive or whatever word insensitive people love to use. And suddenly he sounded like he was defending himself by saying he was only a bystander, nobler than the bullies because he only watched and did nothing wrong.

"Damien, being a bystander makes you no better," My words came out slurred and shaky. "Maybe not as bad and culpable as the perpetrator, but doing nothing is the... is the easy choice; you're signalling your friends that it's okay and acceptable to bully and to hurt even if it's god damn not, Damien! It's not!"

A long silence pursued my explosion. What I've said was a collection of everything I've said in my head every time they'd bullied Allie, everything the girls and I have ranted about to each other over the years. I tucked my bare feet up on the bed, careful to avoid knocking them into Damien's knees. Wrapping my arms around my knees seemed to give me no courage in meeting his eyes, either.