The Price of Love - NIAM [IN EDITING]

28 January, 2012

Dear Mom,

It is three weeks later and I still feel like I am in a bad dream.

I had thought my life before (when Harry and I were tormented daily) was rock bottom. But, a life without Harry, one where everyone is too scared to even look at me, is worse. 

Every day I am forced to school and every day I drift around, not paying attention to anything or anyone, like I am a ghost. Which I am in a way, I suppose. When Harry died I died with him.

Except, I still have to at least pretend to live.

I am sitting at that same table in lunch, in the same chair as I always have. The sounds around me are a tuneless white noise.

It is less painful if I ignore everything.

Without even thinking about it I started tracing the heart on the table with my fingers in the same way that Harry used to trace the insults.

I almost feel like laughing.

In the end, the tiniest bit of love in my life has hurt me far more than the mountains of hate. It isn't funny at all, but my subconscious finds it hilarious. I let a smile brush across my face as I trace the heart again, imagining my hands were Harry’s, drawing it for the first time.

The more I do this the more real the illusion seema to be. I can see the tiny scar on his middle finger, the way his fingernails were perfectly rounded.

I remember the day that we painted each other’s nails for a laugh, stealing his sisters’ nail polish.

I wonder, just briefly, how she is doing. She has long since moved out of home. I wonder if she is  missing Harry as much as I am.

Suddenly I can't do this. I can't take another another day of pretending that life should be the same without my best friend.

______ three or four hours later ______

I left the cafeteria and then the school. No one seemed to notice me go. 

I was walking, but I didn’t really know where. My feet were taking me through the streets of their own accord, until I reached the one house that I recognized.

The slightly-bent street sign read Banksia Avenue, a sign I’d passed countless times in my life. It was an ordinary looking street, rows of small houses with tidy little gardens, just like the surrounding streets, but this one was far more significant to me.

Number 24  Banksia Avenue had been my second home for years, but it was Harry’s home for nearly half his life.

After you had died our house was too quiet, too sad for me to bear. Harry knew this and so he had invited me over every afternoon and almost every night. It was always more fun at Harry’s place, anyways, because his parents were hardly ever home.

I don’t think they even realized how frequently I was there, to be honest. I rarely saw them face-to-face.

Anyways, as I drew level with the house in question, I stopped to look at it properly. Peeking out from behind the roof were the uppermost branches of the tree that we always dared one another to climb. The same straw doormat sat out the front, and I know that if I were to lift it up I’d find the spare key that I had eventually started using.

From where I stood, I could see the window that showed into the bedroom we had spent so many hours goofing off in. The curtains were drawn, but I could practically see the bed with the old star-wars doona that Harry pretended to be embarrassed about.

I could see him sitting crossed-legged on the bed, on the verge of tears, trying to find the words to tell me that he was gay. He had convinced himself that I’d hate him and turn him away; not expecting that I’d accept him and then end up doing the same thing in six months' time.