Burns

7.

I was sitting up, with my back leaned against the headrest, the sound of the rain, being the only thing heard. I rubbed my face, focusing my eyes on my laptop screen. I coded during my leisure hours because practice makes perfect and I had hopes of becoming a really good IT personnel—it was actually what I wanted to study.

I loved technology and I had dreams of creating a really cool app that would be loved and used by all. Actually, I had a drafted plan on how to go about the app—how I wanted it to function, its purpose, its appeal and appearance. But I was yet to come up with a name for it. So every time I sat writing codes for the app, a part of my mind desperately considered a name to give it.

But tonight was different, I wasn't as composed and collected as other nights. My attention just wasn't focused on the screen in front of me and I didn't wonder why; the constant pings from my cell-phone was responsible. It was quite unusual for me to get so many text notifications, reasons why I never put my phone on 'do not disturb', but tonight I was really regretting it.

 I bit my lip subtly, my lashes fluttering as my eyes danced on the screen, reading the works of my fingers which typed furiously. I silently mouthed words to myself, trying to get the next line of codes ready before the next one I was typing finished. It was really tasking to write codes which matched with what I wanted to project to the world correctly. And it was becoming increasingly impossible because my dumb phone wouldn't just stay quiet. Pings hit my ear every freaking second.

Letting out a sigh of frustration and defeat, I shut my laptop and rubbed the corner of my head to ease the tension buildup. I dropped my hands and laid quietly on my bed while staring at the ceiling, my mind began drifting towards nothing in particular till my brows furrowed in remembrance.

Brec. I hadn't replied her last text for reasons I was yet to really consider. I just knew that I couldn't give her a reply immediately, mostly because of the unexpected nature of her texts.

Friend. A six letter word that sounded so foreign to me. Have I ever had a friend before? Yes. In fact, I had friends. Back then when I was eight years old, I had a few friends. I was mostly a quiet child but I did have a really good sense of humor and with my friends, I got to let them see it. We'd go to arcades, play video games and just do what kids do. I felt a smile haunt my lips as the happy memories came. The birthday parties that my parents used to throw for me always had attendees and my best friends never missed any and neither did I theirs. 

I felt my smile fade as I remembered how everything changed after my ninth birthday. After my father was exposed for his atrocities, everything took a drastic turn for the worst. No one talked to me, including my friends. Apparently their parents forbade them from associating with me and the distance that once started reluctantly, soon grew to full blown hatred. They didn't look at me with sad eyes anymore, they looked at me like I was a monster. 

My mood dampened even more as images of the tree in the park on which we had carved our initials haunted me. "Uri, Jason, Monse and Kylo… friends forever." I found myself saying to myself. Funny how time changes, because remembering the Uri that had actually attempted to kill me along with Jason, it was hard to believe I was once best friends with them.

Now I was just a loner, not really by choice but after a while of trying to talk to them, I just gave up. I used to apologise to Uri a lot. It was sad what my father did, he had killed his sister. Madeleine was amongst the thirteen lives that my father had taken. And I guess as he grew up, he needed a physical coping mechanism and that mechanism was me.

Though neither of them originally were my bullies, they used to stand by the corner, watching me get pummeled and kicked, writhing on the floor, calling out to them to help but they never did; As time passed, they got added to the list of monsters after my life. It was heartbreaking but I sucked it up and rather than look at them like they were breaking my heart, I looked at them with hatred and quit being unable to defend myself because I felt guilty, I fought back with equal hatred.