The Butterfly Who Broke Free

Chapter 1: Funny How Things Work

  Chapter one.

It wasn’t supposed to happen. He seemed low on life but it still shouldn’t have happened. All I could do was watch. He was my best friend. Fifth grade. He was the new kid, shy and silent. He looked kind of weird too. Or, that’s what everyone said. I guess you could say I felt bad for him, sitting next to the window in the way back, where the light was always dim. I decided to sit next to him, innocent as I was. My goal was to at least make him smile. I had no idea what I was getting into. He flinched a bit when I sat down. I wonder why he did..  The class was starting. 

“Hi.” I whispered, smiling.

He tried to avoid my eyes. It took him awhile to answer and I was wondering if he even heard, but he responded, so quietly I worried if he used his voice often. “Hi.”

I stared at him. That’s it? He didn’t even look at me when he talked. Under his eyes were bags, as if he’d been staying up at night. But why would he need to though? He’s at least 10. I could hear the teacher talking in the background. From the back of the class you could barely hear, but I noticed that this boy’s paper was full of neat notes. I didn’t understand. I didn’t understand this boy.

Soon, days passed by and turned to weeks, and the only thing I’d managed to say to the boy was ‘Hi’. Pretty impressive, right? Not really. I didn’t even get his name. So far my goal to get him to smile, was not working out. ‘I’ll get there,’ I’d say  in my head. ‘All in due time.’

That was the problem; maybe waiting too long was a bad idea. He came to class each day looking worse and worse. His face was pale and his eyes red. Under his eyes were increasingly darkening circles. It seemed as if he came to his desk to sleep, because that’s what he did. The teacher was passing out the previous weeks test with the scores in the corner. I tried to take a peek at the boy’s paper but realized he was sleeping on top of it. ‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘I’m sure he did fine.’ 

“Why are you late to my class?” the teacher asked irritably.

We were currently going over something in the textbook.  “…” The boy didn’t say anything; he was staring at the floor as if all of a sudden it became the most interesting thing in the world. “Aiden?” The teacher looked at him expectantly while the kids giggled into their hands. Oh, Aiden must be his name.. Aiden kept staring down. “I’m sorry.” he said softly. The teacher sighed, but pointed to the seat next to me.

“Go sit down and don’t let this happen again.” Aiden walked to the back slowly, the kids looking at him scornfully. Aiden staggered into his seat.

“Are you ok?” I whispered worriedly. His grey eyes were closing and opening, fighting to stay awake. 

“Yea.” His voice came out broken.

“Aiden..?” I tapped him to get his attention. He jolted in surprise, backing away from me.

“I-I’m fine, just leave me alone.” He said as I watched the tiredness from his eyes fade into an emotion that was icy cold. Aiden buried his head into his arms, obviously ending the conversation.

It was not ‘fine’, far from it actually. He was a very good actor, but his mask was gradually crumbling apart. I noticed his grades were dropping, 100 to 92, to 79 and eventually to 65. He was late at least once a week, and he barely focused on whatever he wrote, like he was in another world. I couldn’t stand it! He was making me angry and sad. I’d had enough of our teacher making Aiden stand up and explain to the class why he didn’t finish, and just plain tired of hearing snickers from our classmates. I hated their dumb smirks. Aiden was embarrassed obviously (anyone would be) nervous, and looked dead tired.