Self Love • Christopher Velez •

chapter 39; telling him

Chapter 39 - Telling Him

"Hey hey hey, Nila," I heard Christopher said as he ran after me. I was walking extremely fast. I wanted to get away from him. From the entire situation. I was having so much fun with Christopher. It had been such an amazing day I just had to bump into him, didn't I? Why must I have bumped into him? 

"Nila, hey," Christopher said again as he took ahold of my arm, pulling me out of my thoughts. All the times when he bullied me were still going through my head. The name calling, him telling me that I was never good enough, telling me to kill myself. 

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked me and I looked at his face, not able to look at him in the eye. He had a frown on his face with a confused look on his face. I had no idea if I was. I thought I was over all of it, but when I saw his face, all the negative feelings came back to me in a rush. 

"Hey, are you okay? What's going on?" he asked as he raised his hand to hold my cheek gently. I bit my lip before looking up to look at him in the eye. 

"I, uh, I'll explain when we get home," I mumbled and he nodded. We turned to walk out of the mall. We were walking in silence and for the first time in a few months, we were walking without holding each other's hand. I unconsciously started to dig my nails into my palm as I thought about what happened. 

I had no idea how to react. I did not want to act like everything was okay because it wasn't. But at the same time, I just wanted to not deal with it. I had been ignoring everything, not talking about it unless someone asked. At this point, it had only been Andrea and Zac that knew about it. 

I had no idea how I would tell him. With Andrea and Zac, it was easier as they were not there all the time. I did not know Andrea in secondary school and I rarely saw Zac since he was living in another city. I had not even thought about needing to tell him. I thought that I would not see him after secondary school since he moved to the States, and since I did not see him, he did not need to know nor did I need to ever tell him what happened. But we were now always seeing each other and we were getting closer again. 

"Nila," Christopher said and I looked up to see that we had reached home. 

"Come with me," I said as I opened the door and stepped in. I walked up the stairs and heard Christopher say hello to my family before following me up the stairs. When we reached my room, we got in and I closed the door. 

"I, uh, we should sit," I said. We sat down on my bed and I turned to take off my shoes. I turned to look at Christpher and folded my legs so that I was sitting Indian style. He did the same and we sat, facing each other. 

"I, uh, well," I started before stopping. I really had no idea how to start. 

"Nila, are you okay?" he asked me and I shrugged.

"I have no idea," I said. I had told Zac that I was fine, but after seeing him, I was not sure. He reached over to put his hand over mine and I smiled. 

"I have no idea how to start," I confessed, looking down. 

"Maybe you can start with why you were so upset when you saw Mateo?" Christopher suggested softly and I nodded. 

"He used to make fun of me," I started but stopped. I had tried to hide this from him for six years and he did not know a thing. I was about to tell him the one thing that I had hoped he wouldn't find out. 

"He called me names and uh, well, h-he used to bully me," I continued as I dug my nails into my palm. Christopher ran his thumb over my knuckles softly, causing me to stop what I was doing. I unclenched my fist and my hand shook slightly. I took a deep breath.

"Well, you know that we were close friends when we were in primary school, but when we went to secondary school, he teased me a few times and one of our classmates joined in. He started teasing me more as when he did, our classmates would laugh and agree with him," I said. 

"So he would continue teasing me and teasing became name calling. He then started to tell me that I wasn't good enough, that I was dragging everyone down," I muttered and looked up at him before tearing up a little. 

This was my third time telling someone, but it was the first time that I had teared up. I blinked away the tears and he stared at me.

"How bad was it?" he muttered and I bit my lip. I lifted my shaky hands and took off the bracelets and chains. He looked down and immediately gasped. The scars were all very obvious, which was why I used bracelets and chains to hide them. 

"It started when I got frustrated at the comments, but it soon became a way I cooped. They used to tell me that I was dragging you down and that I was a deadweight. Whenever they said that, I turned to physical pain. I could take the physical pain, but not the pain I felt in my chest when they said that. It crushed me, thinking that I was dragging you down," I said and a single tear fell from his eye, causing me to tear up. 

I lifted my hand to his face and cupped his cheek, wiping away the tear. 

"Hey, it's fine," I said and he shook his head. 

"I'm so sorry, Nila. I wasn't there for you," he said and his voice broke. More tears started falling from his eyes and he looked down. I shook my head, my own tears falling from my eyes. 

"You were there for me, Christopher," I whispered as my own voice cracked. I cupped both his cheeks to wipe away his tears and he looked up at me. 

"I wasn't. You had to go through all of this yourself. I'm so sorry, Nila," he repeated and I shook my head.

"You were there for me. You were my friend throughout secondary school. You always took my mind off these negative feelings. You were always there, smiling and you helped me deal with it. You did not know about this, but you were there, cheering me up slightly with your presence, your laughter and your smiles," I said to him with a smile as tears fell from my eyes. 

"Did you not trust me?" he asked and I froze. 

"No, oh my god, no. Christopher," I said and shook my head. "I trusted you more than I trust myself. I did not want to tell you because what they were saying to me got to my head. I was afraid that if I told you what they said, you might believe them. I did not want to lose you. You mean a lot to me. You still do," I said as I lifted his head slightly so that he would look me in the eye. 

"Christopher, you were the one that helped me get through this. Please don't think that I don't trust you or that you did not help me. You helped me through it. And I trust you," I whispered and he nodded. 

"I'm sorry," he whispered and I shook my head.

"Don't apologise. Thank you, Christopher, for helping me through it," I said and I shifted so that I kneeling in front of him on the bed. I wiped away his tears before smiling at him. 

He wiped my own tears with his thumb and he hugged me, wrapping his arms around me. I wrapped my arms around him and he hugged me tighter. We stayed in that position for a while before we separated slightly. 

"Don't blame yourself, okay? No one outside my class knew what happened," I said and he nodded. 

"I'm so proud of you, Nila," he said as he held my cheeks and pressed a kiss on my forehead. 

Okay, I teared up a little writing this.