Perspectives

16. Auburn

Tonight is not a good night.  As rain pounds outside, a young boy is checking everywhere for signs of broken glass or blood.  He is making sure that the house is just as his mother and brother left it.  Outside the closed walls of the ordinary appartment building, life went on normally.  In the slowly darkening night, people walked around outside as if life was so normal.  They acted like nothing was wrong.  I found myself getting angry at them as I sat on the thin window frame of Nahuel's appartment.  I realized later that there was no reason that I should be mad at them.  They had no idea what was going on behind the walls of this little boy's life.  They didn't know that the night before, a little boy had almost killed himself.  They didn't know that a little boy had a list of people to tell goodbye.  They had no idea what he went through.  What he had been through already. 

Once his house was clean, Nahuel went into his room.  I crawled across the high wall to his window and looked in as I sat in the windowsill.  He looked at his phone and thought of the first person he needed to say goodbye to.  Claire.  He scrolled through his contacts and found her name.

Hey

Nahuel sat there.  His head in his hands.  He knew what he needed to say.  He had planned it out before he even sent the text.  But now it was actually going to happen.  He was actually going through with this.  Claire's response lit the screen.

Hey

Nahuel's hands started shaking as he responded.

Can i tell u something, Claire?

Absoluetly

Im leaving on friday  

What do you mean?

I mean that im goin to kill myself friday after school

Upon hitting send, Nahuel dropped his phone into his lap and started crying.  Deep sobs.  He looked up to wipe his eyes when the phone vibrated again.

No Nahuel! You cant do that. I love u (not like that) but i love u and i will be so devastated if u do that to urself.  Dont do that.

Claire i hav to do this. u have no idea what is goin on.

Theres other girls like jacey. Dont let her end everything for u. if u die u'll never graduate highschool college or anything.  u wont get married u wont have a family.

Its not just Jacey.  Theres other things to.  u wouldnt understand. plus with my luck none of that is going to happen.

I felt Claire on the other side of town start to worry frantically and pace her room.  I felt her tears begin to fall and I felt her head begin to spin.  What was she to do? How was she to save him?  She had to convince him to not die, but there was no way that she could.  She knew that he had the will.  She tried to convince him all night before falling asleep, tears in her eyes.  

Of all of the places in the world I could be right now.  Of all of the areas in the world where it is raining.  I choose to be here.  In Monrovia.  I choose to be sitting in a bush outside of a drama class watching a young girl sit there staring blankly at her classmates, wathcing them do their improvisation practice.  Claire sat there, tears still in her eyes, watching the front of the classroom.  Waiting.  Waiting for something to happen.  Waiting for the clock to change.  Waiting for the time to come.  Waiting to be able to go talk to him.  

The clock ticked on and on.  Minute after minute.  The time changed and the bell rang.  As Claire ran out of the classroom, leaving several people bewildered, she ran straight to Nahuel, pushing past Drew to give him a huge hug.  She just grabbed him and he started crying and she started crying.  They just stood there in the middle of the hallway, hugging eachother and sobbing as if nobody else existed.  And I stood there in the mass of people, pretending I was one of them.  Pretending for the shortest time that I was normal.  Eventually they let go and Nahuel walked away from her, headed toward his next class.  But Claire followed close behind him.They were in Mr Burn's class and I was by a window.  Nahuel was sitting in his chair crying and he and Claire were passing notes.