Memories for Company

Untitled Part who knows

Sometimes doing things for the sake of making memories is not such a good idea. For example, installing yourself in friend groups whom you share no interests with just so you can be invited to weekend plans you'll later try to forget. And then, after you get invited to these plans, you'll have talk spread about you through the school in a deathly, insidious manner. Personally, I thought that these people were only hurting themselves with spreading and believing such dumb rumors, clearly everyone would see their stupidity. But my attitude changed when people started giving me looks in the halls, or when people started becoming uncomfortable in our conversations, or when the halls opened up for me as everyone scampered away like I had a disease. With every rumor that appeared, they believed it with their entire soul. But even as I realized how terrible of goldfish my peers were, it still hurt when people averted their gaze from my eyes or eyed me down or acted like they wanted to run away when I talked to them. It was painful, but after all, I did this to myself. 

 Saying the memories weren't good would be a lie in the finest, but they were stupid through and through. I blame it on the lack of excitement in our suburbs, with the identical houses lined in a perfect, symmetrical manner, with green tress the exact same height and color lined in the perfectly green median. Nothing ever happened; nothing does happen, and we don't expect anything to happen. We face no trouble here, and the school next to us doesn't know a singular thing about hardship. Really, after you learn about the insane, maddening perfection of our town, and after you live in it your entire life, you could understand why it drove me crazy. I was a teenager raised with classic dystopian books and countless films about teen angst. 

When I got into high school, I was quite disappointed. The worst thing that was happening was the occasional loss of virginity in someone's junior year. It was so boring. I was going mad. Then, I met another group of kids who shared my exact view in life. Well we didn't really meet, but I heard about them, and slowly I changed my morals, my personality, my clothes and voice and I snuck into their friend group over a year later. 

 Sure, I had other friends before that. The kind of friends that held your hand through the halls and sent you goodnight texts, and the kind of friends that your parents knew almost as well as you. They were the kind of friends who wanted you to be happy and achieve the best. In other words, they were the kind of friends who were considered losers and talked down upon. I slowly drifted from them, sure there were some arguments, but during that time my memory gets fuzzy and I remember the books I read more clearly than the people. I became a stranger to them, but I didn't mind. I was too busy caring about people's opinions and shrugging off rumors by talking bad about them. 

 Sure, some outings with my new friends were painful, where all we did was sit in a circle and talk trash about girls we have never even met, other outings were good enough to be taken straight from those angst-filled films. 

 High on spray paint we would drive through the night with meaningless music blaring from the speaker, or other nights get together and steal our parent's liquor, laughing at the spark of danger we felt and the woozy feeling. We whoop'd and did stupid things, shared secrets that I never wanted to come out of my mouth, we would try to get high off household cleaners just to feel light, and we made mistakes. 

 One night while I felt like my head was in the clouds, and I had that sort of falling feeling people do when they lay in bed, I looked over to my laughing friend, and she looked so beautiful. I was already the tag-along outsider in the group, I never try to draw attention to myself, but she was so stunning. Her hair was highlighted by the candle light in the room and her eyes sparkled in a way I didn't know eyes did. She seemed to laugh the entire world off her shoulders, I wanted to be closer to her, to soak up the slightest amount of perfection she had, but with what I did, I just stopped her laughing. I never draw attention to myself. I am quiet, I go along, but I am not unique. So, when I sat up, all heads turned to me, and when I leaned in to kiss her, all the anger was pointed to me. No one could care less about the time I spent with them, I meant nothing, and so to the sound of my stuttering for an explanation, they all screamed at me and ushered me out of her house. My tears drenched the collar of my shirt, and before the door was shut I saw the girl rub her arm with pure hatred and anger on her face. I can't believe I stopped the laughing. I was an idiot, why did I do that? God, oh god, why did I do that? I walked home with that sad, numb feeling in my stomach. The feeling when your emotions are too sad you just don't feel a thing. I walked home that night without a thought on my mind. I couldn't bring myself to think. 

 The next morning I woke up, I wanted to sink into the floor, to be gone forever. Even the air seemed to have weights that made it hard to breathe. I felt like my world crashed around me, and I felt the full weight of my emotions that I suppressed the day before. Even my curtains looked like the colors changed. What a mistake I made. The next day when I arrived at school, I got the same looks I was running from, but this time they weren't rumors. This time people who used to know me climbed the social ladders with trash they could speak about me. I was the talk of the school, people gave me looks and I cried in the bathroom. I was alone, I was hated, and this never went away. I cried about my feelings to those who would be kind enough to listen, but with everything I told them, it would go straight into the mix of rumors that were ruining my life. Soon I learned talking it quite useless, especially when your words hurt yourself.

We always expect things to die down, but in my town with perfectly symmetrical buildings and no entertainment, it all just got worse. Even the people I used to talk down on didn't want to meet my eyes. I walked around like a ghost. My world fell. It hurt to think and it was even harder to feel. One day I sat back with my old group of friends. They looked like I was toxic and silence fell over us. Their looks skittered over me and quickly flickered away, their food suddenly becoming very interesting to them. I got up and left, and I could hear their whispering growing louder and more intense with every step I took. I could practically feel their stares on my back.

That was the moment I realized I was truly alone.

I was truly alone because the mistakes I make.

But at least I was alone with these memories in my head, which was the point, right? My own head never stared at me weird or had scattering looks when it was seen with me.

At least I had that to keep my company.