Bitter Sweet

Letter to Grayson - Understand

NaNoWriMo is coming, and I'm participating in it too c: And because of it, I'm going to have to finish this before November comes - that means an update once every or every other day.

Can you guys please show some amazing support by dropping a comment below? Thank you so much xoxo I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH HAVE A FABULOUS DAY BECAUSE THE COW GOD LOVES YOU <3

Dedicated to CravingInfinity bc we're on a mission to kill her friend to get front row Taylor Swift tickets shhhh

~

Hey Grayson,

Watching people is a splendor.

You witness the moments when their lips crack smiles, when their giddy eyes form into crescents, when the bursts of laughter rise up from their throats and ring in the air.

They're a painting - a painting in which a world where only happiness and good humour exists.

But of course, occasionally their eyes would darken with doubt, their smiles would tug down on one corner, and their fingers would fiddle anxiously for no reason at all other than fear for the times in the future where the paintings they've illustrated so carefully would be splattered with the ugliness of reality. And then the flash would be quickly erased off their faces because - oh, weren't there so many things to be happy for, so many friends to be entertained by?

For the longest time, I only observed. I saw everything there was to see without an opinion at all. They were so foreign, so not understandable; almost like a different race of their own.

The most unfortunate thing was that Sarah Addison changed it all. Those days when she made you laugh as you two walked together to classes were engraved into my mind. Those days made me realize a lot of things all at once.

I want to be the one whom everyone adores for her kind ways and beautiful personality. I want to be respected by even the toughest bullies. I want to have lots of friends. I want people greeting me in the hallways with hugs and screams. I want to be admired. I want to be favoured by teachers. I want to be on sports teams. I want to be the one who makes you laugh.

And I did. I walked side by side people as they chatted and giggled away about secrets that I would never know and tried so hard to become part of their conversations. Those words never came to me; they were so muddled inside my brain and impossible to blurt out. But sometimes I did say them out loud, and never did they earned me laughs. My rewards were often strange stares and disagreements and - if I was lucky - simply being ignored.

They never liked anything I did. I loved black tea, they thought it was too bitter. I loved Green Day, they thought the band sucked. I loved reading, they thought it was worthless. I loved toffees, they thought they just make you fat. I loved writing, they thought reading responses were torture. I loved everything, they hated everything.

Even Mrs. Calvert, our English teacher, disliked my short stories. She would scrutinize and pick out every single flaw I made with a bright red pen, while Sarah Addison's were left almost always untouched. I wasn't good at anything - and if I were, there'd always be someone in another community or another town or another city that was better than me.

Thus eventually, I gave up. I broke away from the ones whom I walked with and trod the distances myself. They were behind me - and I chose be in front, mind you - because it was my last desperate attempt to show them that yes, I was strong enough to stand alone and no, I did not need pretentious company.

You're the opposite of all those things, aren't you? You don't know what loneliness feels like. You have no idea how being misunderstood can affect you. You have everything good to yourself. You have the world to yourself.

I'd be lying if I denied getting mad at you all of a sudden sometimes, because it's true. I do. The anger would rise up from nowhere and constrain my throat so, so goddamn tight. Those times you'd be showing me how to solve your Rubik's cubes. After a matter of seconds, a solved piece would replace the one I messed up and you'd give me your lazy smile, cooing me that it's easy - really easy if I just try it one more time.

It's not easy. It never was, would be the first notion that comes to me when you say that. Then I'd remember that you were talking about solving a Rubik's cube, not something else.

But what if - what if that cube were my life? What if I've already messed it all up? What if I couldn't solve it? Would there be someone to solve it for me?

I shouldn't hope for that. If something good would happen to me, it should've happened long ago, when the frustrations first began. When middle school began.

"Sarah." That was how you started our conversation today. It seemed like everybody got annoyed when I start talking to them, so I simply didn't .

"Yeah?"

You showed me your arm. There was a wobbly-drawn Death Hallows symbol on your wrist. I grinned. You challenged me to a "tattoo-making" contest yesterday. You told me that you would obviously win, because your drawing skills were so professional.

"Where's yours?" You teased.

I rolled up my cardigan sleeve. "Ha, Grayson! Isn't it -" I stopped short.

A pair of round glasses and black-out lightning bolt were drawn on my wrist, and below it were three angry red marks.

It was from yesterday, when Mom lost her patience with me and my dinner time. I didn't remember it until now.

Your fingers traced those marks. "Whoa, what happened there?"

"I... scratched my arm on a tree branch yesterday," I lied. To make it more believable, I added, "It hurt a lot."

After a pause, you said, "I bet it did."

I rolled down my sleeve again and you dropped your arm. Your eyes were dark. Stormy. Like the deep waters at Eramosa Creek.

"You win," I said in attempt of changing the mood. "You win the challenge."

You laughed. "I know I did," you replied in a girly sassy with a ridiculous fling of your wrist.

I smiled with my head low, pretending to stare off into space when my nerves were in fact bundled tight, arms tense, fingers twisted and tangled together. You said before that I was actually taller than you by a few inches, but it has never felt that way. To me you were always the brighter one, the popular one. I was the loser. I was the one who fell for everyone and was afraid of both everything and nothing.

I could feel you staring silently at me. I catch you doing that these days. Your breathing fanned the dull brown locks hanging on my forehead. We were so close, so close that I could feel the warmth you radiated to the point where I was trying hard not to shake all over.

You didn't believe my excuse - I know it. But I'm not so bothered, because it's a good thing that you don't know about the bruises on my shoulders nor the nail scratches on my neck nor the bump on the back of my head. There's always something to be glad about, isn't there?

And I'm not telling you all these things to make you pity me or tell me that you're sorry; I want you to understand. It's something that I wish more people were able to do now and then.

Lots of love,

Sarah.