Everything I Should Have Said

I

solivagant

[adj.] wandering alone
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I stared at him, my gaze never leaving his face. Tears streamed down his face, as I cradled his head in my hands and shoulder. He thought I would judge him for a crime he didn't commit. He was the victim and people believed the true criminal. He felt alone.

I pulled his face away from me so I could look him in the eye. I wanted to show him that I believed him and I would never leave his side. Even though I didn't mean as much as he meant to me, I would make him feel safe. That's what friends were for.

Unlike all the others, he was the only one who was truly my friend and maybe I was his too. At least that's what I'd like to believe. I can't ask him now, even though I knew the dark truth of my question.

"I know you didn't do it." His eyes met mine and I wandered why a beautiful boy like him needed to have an affair with Lea's mother, it didn't add up. Though I know he needed all the love we couldn't give and so if don't judge, I didn't have the right too.

"But I do know you have a- a relationship with Lea's mother." He drew in a shaky breath and I wanted to press my lips against his . To show him that he can be loved by us, that I love him.

Do you realize how this could blow up Shane, its against the law. You're underage and she's a legal adult, she's even married. Can't you see you're hurting everyone by what you're doing. Lea is forced to do something she doesn't want to; her mother is distraught, she thinks she's going to jail. You're her broken, and I don't know why.

"Do you love her?" He shook his head violently. I didn't feel bad for him, I felt worried, worried that the legal matters of this case could cause him pain. The people around me, including me, pain.

"It's not like that, Clover. Well it is but, I don't know where this is going. It's stupid of me, I knew we could be nothing more and I tried to stop it. Every time I thought I could do it something big happened, and she understands me, you know? She doesn't just listen she relates to me. She's in an abusive marriage and we know Lea is abused by her father. We were helping each other, and we did it in a destructive way." I don't blame him, Mrs. Brown at 32 still looks beautiful. Even though she had Lea at the ripe age of fifteen years old, her husband who was seventeen at the time, agreed to father his child. Obviously there was a catch, he abused Lea for ruining his life.

We all knew about Lea's father but as always we shoved the burden of pity back onto Lea. We pretended to not recognize the black eye or two she would hoard around every few weeks. The cigarette burns on her neck or wrists. We even turned a blind eye to her broken arm, which she said was the outcome of riding her bicycle at night. She didn't have a bicycle.

"I don't want you to go to jail and you won't. Mrs. Brown is selfish for not helping her daughter, she's protecting herself." His eyes lit with anger and his fists clench and shake. His breathing ragged and viscous. I immediately retreat from his fuming figure. His eyes soften slightly as he notices my previous actions.

"Says the girl who acts like Charlottes drug abuse is not deadly. That Lea's relationship with her father is not toxic. That my interest in death is not going to bury me and your eating habits is not destroying you. So here's a question for you. Do you consider yourself selfish? yes, it's not just you who ignores our faults, I do too. I just don't say hypocritical accusations you so easily throw around." My eyes teared at his words but I knew I deserved them, I overstepped a boundary.

We were finally talking about our problems, finally giving them existence but we were referring to ourselves almost as inanimate objects. Almost like our faults and mental health defined us completely, like we were just Paper People and our smooth at sight but ragged at touch edges were our only trait. Paper People, cut the same and our emotions as blank as the white canvas we chose to keep. That were once colored and beautiful in our own ways. Now we're emotionless don't want to be different but rather aesthetic and our blank canvas were the perfect aesthetic. So when we thought of ourselves as flaws and only flaws, we began diminishing into beautiful nothings.

"I know Shane, I am selfish but my selfishness is my survival weapon. I might be hurting myself but we all are and we understand the importance of ignorance. The importance of not wanting or receiving help because truthfully I don't want want help and I don't think anyone of you want it either." He looked at me long and hard, his eyes shone with dissatisfaction. He sighed and nodded his face turning to look at me, really look at me.

"You may not want help but it's inconsiderate to think I don't, to think we don't. I've been crying out for help for a long time. To you but I realized something. You don't know what it's like to want to be helped, just to be happy for a while." All I wanted to do was help you and him bringing up my mistakes were discouraging. He thought I didn't want him to be happy if I couldn't be, like I was a monster.

Maybe I was, monsters weren't ignorant but persistent and even though I lacked that trait when it came to helping, I thrived in it when it came to persistence in acting like I'm helping, into believing it. I was great at acting kind.

"Friends support each other and that's all I've done with you." He was the only one I considered my friend and I supported him on what every decision he made. Even if that decision was designed to destroy him.

"Were we ever friends?" And that's when my world crumbled, I felt helpless and reality hit. I've always considered him my only friend but maybe he didn't consider me his friend, maybe were all alone.

Maybe we've all never had requited relationships. Maybe what you feel for some one is not equivalent to what they feel for you, platonic or not. So in reality all relationships are equivalent to unrequited relationships, because what you would do for another, they will not do for you.