Pieces

2. Solace

"You've been really quiet today. Something wrong?" Anita asked, as soon as the bell, signifying lunch break, went off. 

I looked at her, trying to decide whether to tell her or not. I sighed. "He's gone." I whispered softly, a lump forming in my throat. 

For once, I wished I were Anita. I know she felt my sorrow but at least the intensification of the pain of losing him wasn't as much. She was more concerned about how I was doing rather than how she felt about his loss. And it only made sense for her to feel like that. He hadn't been her best friend. He had been mine. And she knew that and accepted it. But she'd never made a move to interact with him. Nor had I ever forced her to.

"I'm sorry." She whispered softly, as she put an arm around me and gave me a squeeze. That was the closest contact we'd ever had with each other. Sure, we'd been best friends for six years now, but we weren't cool with hugging and all that. It felt weird to do that. Neither of us could understand why but I guess it was because we were an odd pair of best friends. 

Strange part was, even though I'd never met Marcus, but I knew if I had, we'd have hugged each other. But I would have slapped him first. For hiding something so important from me.

Unlike Anita and I, Marcus and I weren't an odd pair. Rather, we had the perfect friendship you could ask for. We joked around, shared things we didn't tell anyone else, were always there for each other and always managed to cheer each other up. I teased him a lot, trying my best to get to his nerves sometimes, just for the sake of it, but he never gave in. He was always so patient. He was perfect. 

Maybe too perfect to be allowed to live. 

Maybe God, if there even existed one, got greedy and that's why he took him away from us. 

All I knew was, no one would ever replace him. No one could. 

"What can I do to make you feel better?" I snapped back to reality. Anita was looking at me sadly, her brown eyes full of concern.

I shook my head, as tears pricked the corner of my eyes. "Nothing." I said, blandly. 

She had this clueless expression over her face, one she always had whenever she never understood anything in physics. She had no idea what to do. And I knew she wanted to help me. She didn't know how.

I didn't, either. 

But I didn't want her to dwell too much over it.I didn't want her to be sad because I was. At least one of us deserved to be happy. 

"Just-just don't talk about it, okay? Can we not talk about it? Can we pretend..." My voice broke. I took a deep breath before continuing. "Can we just pretend that nothing... nothing happened?" I asked her, looking into her eyes. To let her know I meant it.

She looked at me uncertainly. She wasn't sure if that would help me. 

"Can you just do that for me?" I persisted.

She threw me a sad smile and then nodded. I tried to smile back, but it was too hard.