Dude, I love you

Chapter Sixteen

Jack Johnson’s POV

When I awoke the world was different the same way it was before I fell asleep. Different and silent, I hear the birds that still remain, chirping in the cooling weather but their calls don’t seem to reach me the same way as they did before.

Back when everything was lively and bright. Now the world seems gray and instead of feeling the world around me vast and wide it’s as if it’s been reduced to my room, my house, my yard, and the school. Instead of seeing all the possibilities the world has to offer I’m trapped on an island with these people who don’t want me there or care that I exist. The ones I love are here with me but they seem like ghosts who can’t physically help me with the obstacles I have to face. They can advise me on how and what to do, but they can’t help me lift the giant logs of wood to build the shelter I need to protect me from the oncoming storms.

So this is the true face of depression and it comes in complete assembly with a mask that wears a smile.

When I came down to the kitchen for breakfast, I wore the mask hoping if I willed my mind to reconnect with the world I was once in, I would just pop back, but no matter how hard I reached I would never stay connected to that world. The rope was too weak and the knot not tied hard enough and I would fall back into the deep end of the waters.

My parents and Jeff didn’t notice a thing besides a bruise forming on the side of my face. I explained that I fell on my face when I tripped and comically tried to re-enact it.

We sat there enjoying breakfast and then watched TV until Jeff wanted to play online with his Xbox downstairs.  I played with him for a few hours before I got bored and just wanted lay down in my room and be alone. My parents went to visit Jack’s parents after a while and me and Jeff stayed behind. I started rereading some of my books. Sometimes just skimming through the pages and other times rereading chapters at a time. I got bored after a few hours and decided to go for a walk.

My knees were still tender and I could feel them slightly burning as I walked through the park. Walking around the park in the cool fall wind was comforting with its silence, the way the leaves rustled as they breezed across the ground and the air rushing to my face pushing up and through my hair. I watched the skies change from afternoon clouded light to the evening light peaking under the clouds as the day drew to a close.

* * *

Daniel came over Sunday afternoon with the stuff we needed to finish the Bio project. I kept my mask on and he didn’t suspect a thing. We spent a few hours doing the project when we could have been finished a in an hour but we kept getting side tracked and distracted by the TV and the temptation of gaming.

When we finally did finish I really felt we could get an A with our diagram. The ball Daniel brought was a perfect size and see through. When he told me about it I was expecting something a lot smaller and colored. We used pipe cleaners and molded the other pieces out of things we could find, paper, peanut shells, card board and colored them. It looked great and I felt proud of it.

Afterward Jeff wanted to go watch a movie since he had no plans and he invited Daniel along. My dad gave us money and we saw a horror flick. I jumped a few times and it felt relaxing and reassuring feeling a real raw emotion again even if it was just for a moment. It told me that I was still fully there deep inside.

After the movie was over Jeff drove Daniel home and I got to see his house when he invited us in for a snack. Jeff was hungry too since we hate buying expensive food from the theatre. Daniel was right his house was full of ornaments: plates, bowls and cups behind screens, figurines made of wood, ivory and glass, different kinds of traditional paper fans on the walls and paintings and pictures on varying canvases like wood, cloth and cardboard.

We left Daniels house and Jeff told me he liked Daniel, he was funny and had a good sense of sarcasm. We drove home and I returned to my room to play online with Daniel, with his gamer tag I added yesterday, until I decided I should head to bed if I wanted to have enough sleep for school.

* * *

I was walking down the hallway and entered the stairwell when Jack approached me from behind.

“JJ, I mean Jack, sorry. I wanted to—“

I stepped back and kept my head down and turned slightly to hide my bruise. ”Jack don’t.  There’s nothing you can do or say, okay? So just stop.” Still with my head down I walked away.

I heard him begin to walk after me but I turned and looked him in the eye, taking my mask off and bearing my true face and the mark he left on me. He looked caught off guard for a second and then seemed defeated.

I turned and continued up the stairs to meet Rochelle in the library, I didn’t hear Jack move at all behind me when I walked away. The Library is basically the only refuge we have where Justin’s reach doesn’t find us. It probably has to do with the teacher’s aids and librarians helping students throughout the lunch hour, meaning his tactics wouldn’t go unnoticed here.

Rochelle was going on about how annoying Justin’s little crew was. It clearly didn’t bother her, in fact it just made her more defiant and unafraid to call those kids out on what they were doing the moment they started. A few of them would just escape the attention she was drawing when she called them out and others would try to argue with her, tried and failed. Because of the constant slinging of disses between her and Justin she had quite the reflexive tongue and sass to boot.

Honestly she was kind of inspiring the way she handled them with ease. I felt safer when she was around and I also felt more at ease when Daniel was around when she wasn’t.  However I only have two classes with Rochelle on one day and one class with Daniel the next, which left me on my own most of the time.