The Girl Who Sat in the Corner

Chapter 8 - Pain

Wesley had been beaten up enough times to gain a good understanding of physical pain. Sometimes, it began with a shock, his vision going white or black and his nerves jerking suddenly wide awake. Then the agony courses through him like a tidal wave. Sometimes, like with a deep cut, the pain didn't register completely at first, but built steadily by the minute and hour. That was how he felt now, but it wasn't something he could cope with and ignore like physical pain.

A voice in his mind told him that this is why he stayed away from people and kept his feelings to himself. If you don't get close to anyone, you'll never get pushed away. That was a promise Wesley had made to himself so secretly, he wasn't totally aware of it. It had been part of him for so long that he had forgotten about it. Now he was paying the price for breaking that promise. It was a kind of pain he couldn't understand and wasn't prepared for. As hard as he tried, he couldn't hide from it. The shell wouldn't form, the cave was closed to him.

When he got home from school, he went straight to his room and laid down on his bed. In a few minutes, he heard Esmeralda softly coming up the stairs. She knocked on his door softly. "You all right, mijo?"

"Yeah."

A pause, while she weighed his privacy against her strong, motherly instincts. "Hokay then. Your dinner is in the fridge when you want it. Your mom's gonna be late, but she'll be here. You take care now."

"Thanks, Esmeralda."

An image floated into his mind that shocked him. He was enfolded in her arms and was crying. She was stroking his hair, consoling him. The sadness and pain was flooding out of him, letting him feel a first dim glimmer of relief.

Downstairs, he heard the front door close and lock.

He thought he might sleep, but as he lay there, every time he closed his eyes, he relived those last seconds with Kai. Her eyes. Her words. His shock and confusion. He got up and forced himself to pick up a book and try to study, but his mind just wouldn't focus. His thoughts would quickly scatter like her papers on the hallway floor. His room was hot and he let it stay that way as if he deserved the discomfort. He looked to his manga collection, but they just reminded him of her. Take a walk? No, the pain would follow him everywhere. Computer? He could only think of vid.io and her.

Laying back down on his bed, he surrendered to the torment storming inside him. The image of her beautiful smile, glowing the light of the computer screen of that morning clashing with the storm of hatred and anger in her eyes that afternoon. He didn't understand why. Even more, he knew he never would. He just wasn't smart that way. He just knew he had hurt her in some way and she had ejected him from her life forever.

Wesley didn't remember sleeping that night. It was around two A.M. when the rain started and about an hour later when a few flashes of distant lightning lit his room followed by a faint rumble of thunder echoing off the hills. The rain splattered on the leaves outside his window and more harshly on the street beyond. Even with his window barely open, the odors long held captive by the dust and heat and released by the shower quickly filled his room. In the distance, trucks hissed by on the wet freeway, a lonely sound.

She wasn't on the bus the next day, but she was in homeroom. He tried to force himself not to, but he looked back at her. She had been looking his way but before their eyes could meet, she quickly looked down at her desk. It was like a second bullet hitting him. Wesley had no idea that it could be anything else but sheer hatred. That was all he knew. If he somehow had made her feel as badly as he was feeling now, he deserved every drop of agony in his veins.

As he shuffled through the day, everything he saw made him sad. People who looked happy made him jealous and resentful. Others looked ugly and mean. The day felt like it would never end. He knew, deep in his heart, that this would be how he would feel for the rest of his life.

At home that night, he found himself back on vid.io and looking at Kai's profile page. There was nothing new. He wanted to see her face without the chance of her turning away or with boiling hatred in her eyes. Something told him just to wait there for a while. Maybe she was online and would message him? Or maybe it was just his silent and secret way of saying goodbye. He just sat and stared at the screen, thinking about the first friend (or maybe even something more) he ever wanted lost to him forever.