Before I Was Seen

Friends

I've always wanted friends. 

I want to have someone I can talk endlessly to, without batting an eye. With no subject being too far, too deep, too private. Someone to be open with. 

My Mom has been my replacement most of my life for joking, for talking, but I can't tell her everything. She'll worry, it's in her nature to worry over nothing so if I told her what really goes on in my head she'd overwhelm herself.

Keeping it to myself is just easier. For everyone. 

Or I talk to the cats. They can't understand my words but they can read I'm down, and they help me. They've been there for me my whole life, and have been to me what friends are to everyone else. They're the closest I've ever gotten or will get to a bond.

My Mom and I used to go on walks to feed the cats together when I was young, I would talk her ear off about whatever subject I had learnt that day, I always felt the need to talk about my day, however uninteresting, but she would nod, smile, add in opinions where relevant.

She couldn't always go, she was busy with work, it costs a lot to move consistently. I would go alone on occasions, and this would be when I confided in the unabsorbant ears of the cats. 

They would purr, rub their soft heads into my palms as I pet them, they'd offer me their paws. It would've been nice to hear a voice, a voice telling me it would be okay. 

"You'll be fine"

"It's no one's fault" 

"I love you" 

My Mom said these things. For years I've felt guilty, guilty for not thinking that was enough, for wanting more than what she could give me. Being born ruined her life, I forced her to move around, to pack up and leave, to shut down any opportunity for a steady life, and yet I didn't think her love, her company, was enough. 

I want friends. Good ones, not the other kids I say hello to every now and then, or the kids who come up to me at my desk and tell me about whatever dull drama is going on between the more popular kids. 

I had friends. We used to play football together, at the field nearby our houses. I was liked, they all knew my name. 

"Jiwoo! Pass the ball" 

"Get it, Jiwoo!" 

"We won, Jiwoo!" 

Until that day.

Funny, how people's opinions switch up so fast. 

There's this guilt involved. Any time I accidentally get close to a kid, not close enough to consider them my friend but close enough, close... I feel wrong. My powers will change their mind, if they knew they would run, I'm lying to them. I'm lying to force them to stay.

They would run far and fast away from me if they knew. 

The cats don't care though. They don't care. 

Mom doesn't. She says she doesn't. Is it bad I don't believe her? I'm such a difficult situation, I'm inconvenient and what makes it somehow worse is that I know that. I know. No one could look at their child, a child like me, and not hate them in any way. 

She must. 

In some way, even a little. 

Why else would she make us hide? 

What would happen if people knew? Would we be in danger? 

I'm scared of the looks. If they're anything like the kids that day. My "friends" 

I don't want it. 

She hugs me, she tells me it's okay, but she cries. 

I suppose in that way, we're the same way. Neither of us speak of my powers, it's something unspoken, neither of us talk about the illness I've brought upon us. 

If I don't acknowledge it, will it go away? 

Will we be okay? 

I want a life, I'm sure Mom does too. She works so hard. I'm so ungrateful, so selfish to think of how I'm suffering when I brought it on us. 

Those kids must've been truly frightened to look at me with such terror. With such an inexplicable look of disgust, disdain. The whole look of their large eyes changed in a split moment. All it took was a second. 

I did that to them. 

Why can't I just go away? Why won't it go away?