Tally

Chapter 15: Friends

"Live." That was the choice I made that day.

It had been two weeks since I woke up from my coma. Apparently, I was asleep for three days, which was considered fortunate as comas could even last for months to years. However, not everything was smooth sailing as a lot of my time was spent in the hospital trying to recover my memory.

"Nolan, time for breakfast," mom shouted outside my room.

"Okay, mom!" I answered. As I head down after getting changed, I see both my parents sitting at the dining table waiting for my arrival.

When I did get most of my memories back, my parents rushed straight away to the hospital once they heard the news. They wasted no time scolding me, but I didn't fight back. Mom and dad questioned me multiple times, "Why did you do it?" "Are you crazy?" I couldn't answer the questions because I did it out of a selfish, stubborn act of escapism. I didn't want them to be further burdened by my situation. By then, they asked me something different. "Are we bad parents?" "Did we push you too far?" "Did we do something wrong?" Confusion struck me. Why are you guys asking that? It isn't your fault. It is my own. You guys did everything you could for me, yet I shoved all away. It didn't seem like it at first, but we were all blaming ourselves. I was a stupid child who acted out of his own will, and my mom and dad who were irresponsible in taking care of me. Finally, it was just a heartfelt conversation from both sides trying to work things out throughout that time. I knew that our relationship would never be the same after this, but I am at least happy that we were making progress in a new light.

After breakfast was finished, I said goodbye to my mom and went straight to the car with my dad as we departed for school.

School took notice of my "incident" and gave me extensions for my assignments and assessments. While most of it resulted in me putting more time and effort into spending my days just to catch up, the offer was generous, and I'm thankful they did something about it.

However, there was one last thing that I needed to know before I could truly move forward.

During my coma, once a handful of people visited me. My parents would've been the only ones to come, but another two people did. My parents who met them said they were boys around my age and were willing to pay for my hospital bills even though my parents were against that. I have a hunch who these two people are, and once I was out of the hospital, I privately messaged them to come to school early so we could talk.

As I saw that I was near the school's gate, I grabbed my bag and was ready to start my interrogation. One last goodbye to my dad and I headed into the building.

I said that we would meet at the usual eating spot in the message, so I began my journey through the hallway into the cafeteria. There I saw the two figures I was looking for. I walked to the table casually but made sure my footsteps were loud enough to get their attention. They noticed my presence, and I then sat on the chair, and we were ready to have our long conversation.

"Hello," Roland and Roman greeted me.

"Yeah, hello to you too."

There was a long silence as it had been days since we'd last talked to each other. Even though I should be taking the initiative, it was still difficult for me to comprehend everything. I looked at their faces, and they felt uneasy as they knew that I knew everything they had done.

"Can I know why you guys did it?" I asked. The first thing that has bothered me since our parting was why they did it. I know that the reward for the act was money, but I feel like that was just the surface of the cause.

"We were greedy," Roman answered softly.

"A thousand dollars was a lot of money," Roland continued. "We could make our parents proud of us knowing that we were able to earn this much money by doing something so simple."

Affection by parents. Not that I did not understand their reasoning, but it was surprising that they could agree to that so quickly. Then again, if I were me in the past, I would've probably decided to do it as well. Back when we were having our talk, back when we were close, our parents compared us with born geniuses or prodigy and great-minded children who could find success in business quickly.

"But why be "friends" with me?" was the second question I asked. Why was becoming friends with me given a reward of a thousand dollars?

Before they answered, they looked at each other, and then Roman began opening his mouth. "It was a challenge. One of the guys said whoever is first to be friends with that "freak" would win a thousand dollars."

So it was a challenge. I knew these kinds of challenges that friends would often play are high risk and crazy. I guess I just fell victim to one of them.

"Did you guys mean it when you said I was annoying when you said I was a coward and would rather die than be me? Did you guys mean it" I asked

"Not everything," Roland said, "Yes, you were a bit annoying and somewhat of a coward, but we went too far with the "I would rather die" part."

As time went on, the questions got heavier and heavier. We moved to an empty corridor outside the sports field to ensure that no one else would listen to our conversation. The more we spoke, the more the atmosphere shifted from a severe interrogation to a depressing one. Tears would flow out of each other's eyes as the honest truth that they were spitting out punching was punching their guts while I was in my thoughts remembering everything they said.

As I attempted to regain composure, I asked my last question. "Do you still want to be friends with me?"

Roland and Roman just stared at me, "Why?"

They reminded me of myself before my coma when I was a selfish, stubborn kid who committed dirty deeds regardless of the guilt as long as it made myself and the people I was with proud.

"We are sorry," they continued. "We know that what we did was wrong but are you sure you still want to be friends with us?"

This was just like back then when I questioned them for becoming my groupmates.

"I just want to move on. You guys already apologized. You guys tried to make up for it, so please just tell me, will we still be friends?" I begged.

They stood quiet, but I knew what they were feeling. I know those who committed too many mistakes feel unworthy of receiving a second chance. Those were the thoughts going through in their minds. Even though they already apologized, even though I forgave them, we are just neutral people now.

Minutes went by, and they finally spoke their answer.

"As long as you are okay with it, then we are your friends."

Those words broke me down in tears. I rushed to hug them, and they accepted it. All of our conflicts, weights, guilt, problems that we've carried at each other were gone instantly.

As we were still in the moment, the bell rang as class was about to begin. We broke apart, still feeling sappy, and we ran together into a new part of our lives.