Befriending Tom Fisher

Tom

I was 11 when we met. April 13th 2011. I saw him from across the courtyard, more like I saw his Pokémon cards. I was usually a shy, intimidated child when it came to meeting new people, but I felt like I could trust him. I went up to him and had said something like "nice collection you got there" referring to his large stack. He had looked at me weirdly as if wondering why a year 6 girl was talking to a year 9 boy, and of Pokémon out of all things. He had thanked me questionably before I had pulled out my own secret stack that no one knew about. Not even my parents knew that I had spent all my pocket money on playing cards. Soon after we had become best friends and arranged to meet at a certain spot at lunch time behind the main buildings staircase. As he walked away was it only then I had realised he was wearing a high school uniform and not a primary school one. I didn't let it bother me, why would it? I had made a new friend and that's all I ever wanted, friendship. And he gave that to me. Our lunchtimes usually consisted of tag, and trading Pokémon. I never asked why he wasn't at school, and I didn't really care as I had someone to hang out with. He had invited me over to his house a few weeks later to see the rest of his Pokémon collection. I immediately said yes, asking my parents to go my friend Luna's house. Or so they thought. Yeah it was lying, but I didn't care. Still don't.

They had said yes of course and I met up with Tom outside the school gates, his mum came and picked us up, she was known as Mrs Fisher at the time. She had gotten divorced a few months before we first met because she had loved another man. This man was Tom's dad. That's irrelevant though. Tom and I did everything together along with Aaron, his older half-brother. I never minded that I was the youngest, it made me feel protected, like as long as I was with them, I would never get hurt. That was until one day when we met at our secret place one weekend, a park around the corner from mine, did his sleeve ride up. Revealing deep purplish scars along with some fresh strawberry like gashes. I had asked him about it, he had just stared at me probably contemplating weather or not to tell me. He ended up telling me that he was getting bullied in school as someone had seen him hanging out with an 11 year old. He had stood up to them, defending me and our friendship. They had beat him up, teased him called him names and told him to cut himself and all these other horrible things. Sadly he had done exactly what they wanted. I was furious. Angry tears wear dripping down my cheeks, he had embraced me for the first time in a warm and long hug, something I had been longing for since I could remember. I let it all out then. All my anger, all my pain, all of it. And he just sat there whispering soothing sounds into my ear and rubbing circles on my back. Up until this point, I refused to cry, believing that it made me look weak. But around Tom, nothing mattered. After a few minutes of staying in the embrace, him comforting me, when really it was him that needed it the most. He offered to walk me home. I refused as I didn't want him meeting my parents. I feared that if they met him, they would try to change him, make him perfect, and judge him when they would realise that he's not.

Because nobody is.

He didn't mind though. A year had passed since we first met, and we were going to celebrate our one year anniversary of being best friends. I was going to go to his house after school to surprise him, instead of meeting at the park. It was hard keeping this a secret from him as I had never had to before, we told each other everything. I was acting like my stupid self and started doing army rolls down his hallway, trying to be a ninja. I had opened his door as quietly as I could only to scream at the site.

The whole day, I hadn't noticed he seemed off, I didn't notice how quiet he was, how he was always somewhere else and never in the moment. I should've known he needed my help. He helped me with my bullies and my demons, but I couldn't help him. He always brushed it off and changed topics. If I had gotten here earlier, if I hadn't wasted my time trying to be a ninja, If I hadn't stopped to get ice-cream, then maybe, just maybe, I wouldn't have witnessed what I did. I wouldn't have seen my best friends limp and pale body hanging from a rope attached to his fan. I wouldn't have seen my best friends light in his eyes dull before my very own. I could've saved him, I could've helped him. I should've. But I didn't. And I regret this so much. I regret not being there for him, not being a better best friend, not being good enough. I hadn't noticed his mum and brother running up the stairs and into the room, I hadn't noticed anything. It was all a blur, I collapsed onto the floor tears were streaming down my face uncontrollably, and I was shaking. Aaron tried to comfort me but I pushed him away not wanting to be comforted by anyone other than my best friend. He was gone. The only person that understood me, that tried to help me, was gone.

I ran out of the house and to our place not caring about anything. Nothing mattered to me anymore. I sat under our tree and cried. I cried for a few hours before going home, my parents didn't question why I was home late. Even if they did, they wouldn't care why. I had gone to my room and closed the door, sliding down the back of it. I rocked back and forth in the foetus position drowning in my sorrows. Weeks had passed and I wasn't myself, I was fighting with my parents, I had been failing my classes, and I stopped doing things that I used to enjoy. When he died, it felt like a part of me had died.

Mrs Fisher had come around on a Saturday morning leaving a box with a sticky note on top. The note was in Toms writing, it had said "For my best friend, I'm so sorry" I had kept the note with me for years until I lost it when we moved houses. The box contained a note addressed to me, one of his shirts that was my favourite "you look cuky" I would always say when he wore it, cute and geeky was his thing. Wrapped up in the shirt was all his Pokémon cards. On the backs of each had a single word. Something that he loved about me or was thankful for. I had kept these for years until my mother had thrown them out saying they were old and "of no value to me" when really, they meant more to me than anyone would ever know. I couldn't risk my mother chucking his shirt out so I buried it in the box. It's buried underneath our tree. I had made a map back then, with the amount of paces it was from the base, and how far I had to dig and the exact spot that it laid. I threw this out as I had memorised the spot by the 6th time going there.

I would go there when I missed him. It was as if he was there too, like I could feel him around me. Watching over me. I'd sit there crying wanting my best friend back. I wouldn't believe he was gone. That was until a group of people from his school had come up to me one day, saying it was my fault he was dead, and that I could've saved him. I knew this, but hearing it from someone else, made me believe it even more. It had affected me so much that I thought I had to feel some sort of pain like he did. This resorted in me, a sad little girl, self-harming for the first time in honour of her dead best friend. That night, I felt like I was doing something right for once, that this was what Tom would've wanted. It didn't stop there, I was self-harming every night until it wasn't enough. I had found a lighter in my kitchen drawer. I would heat up a bobby pin and burn myself with the thin metal, deserving every bit of pain I had felt.

One night, while I was self-harming I thought I heard his voice telling me to stop, and that I was hurting him by hurting myself. Only now do I realise that it wasn't him, but my subconscious begging me to stop. At the time however, I had stopped. I stopped for Tom. I was broken. I sat there and cried and cried until I physically couldn't cry anymore. I went months being clean. These months turned into years and I was finally getting better. Tom would be proud of me. I'd think every time I stopped myself from self-harming, and this was the only thing that helped me other than Tom himself. It was four years later when I had done it again, yeah I had relapsed a few times, but it was nothing like this. I was worse than I ever was. I wouldn't eat, wouldn't sleep. I stayed locked up in my room, my parents not knowing anything. I told no one at my new school, afraid that they'd judge me more than I did myself.

Tom's family couldn't stay in that house any longer and moved away a few years after his death, I believe that they're in Canada, Mr Fisher had received a job offer so it was the perfect excuse to leave. We haven't spoken since they left. Mrs Fisher was crying, Mr Fisher said he'd miss me, and Aaron had given me his signature awkward hug along with a phone number I presumed was his. I never contacted Aaron, scared that he only gave me his number out of pity and that he had hopped I wouldn't call him. I miss them all so much, they were like a second family to me.

I avoided anyone and everyone. As no one seemed to understand. No one cared. And nothing mattered.

I don't matter.

I'm not the same happy little 11 year old that I used to be. Now I'm a sad, depressed, suicidal 15 year old that could snap at any minute. No one even tried to understand anymore, everyone has stopped worrying about me believing that it's all just a phase. But they don't now the truth. No one does. And up until this point, I had refused to even mention it as every time I do, I can't help but to break down and cry. My parents think that I'm fine, my so called friends think that I'm miss perfect. No one understands me. I feel so alone. So lost without him. He was all I had, and now, now I have nothing. I am nothing.

I miss him.