Met You When I Was Sixteen

36.

's FLASHBACK.

I placed the bucket of paint down on the floor. Cody was dragging the paint brushes with him, and dropped one fully in the bucket full of paint. It caused the paint to splash around, and out of the bucket straight onto my clothes, my face and arms. Cody was trying so hard to keep his laugh in. He was chuckling seeing me there, completely covered in paint.

I was looking at him with this disappointed look and grabbed one of the clean brushes.
I put a lot of paint on it and threw it on Cody. And this time I was the one trying to keep my laugh in. "You look so stupid right now." I couldn't hold it in anymore. He was trying to wipe most of the paint off of his face, so he could see something again. "Excuse me? Have you seen yourself?" He laughed, weezing between breaths.

"I mean I don't see any difference tho. You always look stupid, paint or not." He saw my smile drop upside down as he stopped laughing himself. "I- I'm sorry, I didn't mea-" I shook my head and started to paint the wall in complete silence. I was, and still am. So insecure of  the way I looked, and he knew. He knew it very well.

I remember that he once walked into a conversation between one of our teachers and I. And he caught me venting to her. He apologized after that, and promised me to never bring it up or tell anyone.  I think he meant this as a joke, but right now, I'm not so sure anymore.

"What happened over here?!" One of the teachers, Miss Dawn said, looking at the paint all over the floor, our clothes and faces. Everything but the walls were colored a bright color of yellow.  My messy bun was even messier than it was supposed to be, and Cody's hair was all messed up by some paint.

"You guys are supposed to create art on those walls, not yourselves." She shook her head in disappointment and walked away. "You guys stents going back to class looking like... this."  She was thinking of an example, we were getting the point but she always had to explain her point made, otherwise she'd be mad at herself. "like someone just threw up  yellow vomit all over you two."

I sighed, and so did Cody.  But Cody shrugged it off. He grabbed the paintbrush covered in complete paint and started to paint different kinds of shapes on the walls. I think he didn't quite get the assignment.

I grabbed my EarPods out of my pockets, my hands still full of yellow paint and plugged them into my phone, it now being covered in paint for the most part. I turned one of the songs from my Spotify playlist on and pushed the EarPods into my ears. It was almost blasting at full volume, but yet it wasn't.

I was swinging among the songs for about half an hour straight while trying my best to create something worth looking  at, on those walls, just below this massive bridge.  But they got ruined by a bucket of paint that was thrown on my head, the paint dropping down my hair and down into the back of my clothes.

Dripping down literally everywhere.  I took the Earpods out of my ears and heard a group of people laugh. I couldn't tell if Cody was laughing too, since there was paint in front of my glasses. "Oh shit bro- you should've seen the look on her face!"

Hilarious. Fucking great. I was telling myself not to cry as anger raged through my veins. I wanted to run towards them, push them on the floor and hit them right across the jaw.  But like always ,I didn't. I couldn't move. I froze and made a complete fool of myself.  I let them film me. I let them laugh. I let them have their fun.

And then I looked at Cody.

He was standing there, just standing there. Not moving an inch and just looked at me. He fucking looked at me. I looked back at him with tears in my eyes, willing to fall down.

He did nothing, he walked away just like the rest of the boys. "Cody.." My voice broke. His didn't. All he said was, "I'm - sorry.." and he walked away; he disappeared. And at that moment I knew that he threw the paint.

All this time, he was the one who did it,  just when he apologized for saying such a shitty thing. and for what? Absolutely nothing. He left, and he didn't return.

But at that very moment, a boy with a book under his armpit and glasses laying half on his nose came rushing to me. He held out his hand for me to take, and led me to the shower room. I followed him all the way there, while people were staring at me.

He left extra clothes of his own behind for me to wear and politely waited outside the bathroom. "I know what it feels like.. that's why I have extra clothes with me."

"But right now.. you could use them more then me," he gave me his clothes. he went through the same experience and waited at the end of the door for me. Had he really no one to save him  from the torture all this time?

His name was Sem, and that boy. The same boy is doing the same shit they did to him, to me. He saved me, only to break me all over again.