Another Now

Mikey Sellers

While I knew breakups were hard, I never thought it would be this hard. The worst part is, I was barely thirteen and a half and I was already certain I'd experienced the worst kind of heartbreak. Adulthood probably won't be very kind to me, I concluded.

There was nothing particular about the breakup between Carol and I months earlier. It was one of those classic disagreements that ended in chaos. We didn't see what happened (or what didn't happen) between Jess and Grace on the night of the 4th the same way. In the end, we concluded that our definition of trust in a relationship was excruciatingly different and therefore, so were we. And that was it.

I don't think I have ever cried that much in just 72 hours. Just as I was beginning to feel like I was maturing, growing up, becoming something of a man, I dropped on my knees in tears over a stupid girl. I felt stupid.

I didn't see her again until school went back and even then it took a couple days since we took no classes together in the first semester. She looked happy, as if I never existed. Her and Lisa seemed to pass me like they never knew me in the hallway and it didn't take long for me to realize that not only was it the twins, but everyone else too. Leslie Burke, Jesse Aarons, Barbara Keane, all of them. It was as if they had never been friends to begin with, not a single one of them. It was my first day of first grade all over again. I hadn't felt that alone since then. It was consuming, overwhelming.

The talk of Grace's promiscuous activity ended up reaching me sometime in October. It wasn't until then that I really realized I hadn't seen Tom once since school started. I assumed he didn't take any of my classes, but talk of what he did to Grace and what may have happened to him after took over me for quite awhile.

I never did find out what happened with the rest of them. I started reconnecting with a few girls I'd been friends with back in elementary school, before I really befriended Jess and Leslie. They had less information on Tom's whereabouts, and the rest of their downfalls than I did.

The next three months passed in a haze. I felt hardly anything at all, it was as if I'd become numb. Eventually the whole conversation about Tom was old news and people talked about him less and less. Fortunately for me, that made it a lot easier to keep him and his sister in the back of my mind.

Keeping Carol at the back of my mind was significantly harder considering I passed her in the halls almost everyday. Sometimes, I passed Lisa too and wanted to ask her how Carol was doing but I was always too afraid she'd just slap me and turn the other cheek. That was Lisa.

While her physical appearance was changing as the months progressed, I watched Leslie change emotionally too. Not like I had a front row seat to this, but having first period with her and seeing more of her around the school than I may have liked to allowed me to see how the distance was really affecting her. Over the last year and a half, almost everything significant that happened had a negative affect on the once overly cheerful girl and the decline in her happiness and mental health was obvious at first glance. The maturity she showed in stepping away from both Jess and Grace completely shocked me beyond words. I half expected her to walk into school that first day bickering with both of them, even though that was impossible with Grace still being at LCS. Leslie was smiling more and more often and she was almost always with Janice Avery, a twelfth grader who once bullied even the most popular kids in our grade. I knew at some point back at LCS, Janice and Leslie had connected in a way that nobody else had the courage to and I guess in the end, it prevented Leslie from falling back to her old status of 'friendless weirdo.'

Barbara, who was also in first period with me, seemed to be falling apart rather than acting prideful, which isn't what I was expecting from the girl who was known for her confidence and lack of insecurity. While Leslie seemed to be blossoming both physically and emotionally, Barb seemed to be the opposite. It was obvious she put less effort into her appearance than she used to. At first I thought she started dressing what I'd call 'trashy' because of her foster care situation, but that didn't explain why she looked so pale and...dehydrated? I'm not sure what I would call it. I wondered if this was just because the group fell apart or if there was something else behind it.

Jess took both first and second period with me, so I had the liberty of seeing him for three hours straight every morning. At first, I saw no change in the kid whatsoever. This was something I expected, considering how little he'd been emotionally affected by anything over the last year and a half. His art skills, however, progressed greatly and his work was continuing to take front and center on the art display outside its classroom. Eventually I noticed that Jess, who'd always been somewhat chubby, was beginning to lose weight. It wasn't drastic, but enough that it was noticeable. I wondered if anyone else noticed too. What shocked me even more so than the weight loss was the depressed, heartbroken vibe he started giving off in about mid-November. His eyes were almost always glassy, he kept his head down too often and seemed to be wiping his eyes with his long sleeves, which he'd been wearing a lot of lately. That of course could've been due to the colder weather, or maybe just to absorb the pleas of sadness it looked like he was bottling up. Having seen little to no heart in Jess since 2016, I almost wanted to go up and hug my old friend and ask what was wrong. It was quite tempting, but it didn't seem like my place to ask or break the silence trend.

While it seems like I put all my time and effort into watching my old friends move on, I only seldom noted significant changes in them and then moved on with my life. Most of my attention went to my school and homework. Ninth grade was heavier than I thought it would be. I eventually grew used to seeing the twins in the hallway and attending science class with Leslie, Barb and Jess every morning. It didn't take too long for me to stop noticing them anymore than I did the rest of my classmates. That's how I knew, it was really over and would probably never be the same again.