Teen Idle

Video Games

1990

Three years. It had been three whole years since his death. 3 years,36 months, 156 weeks and 1095 days. Exactly. Three whole years since you had gone on the journey of a lifetime, and met the most unusual group of people that you were proud to call your friends, your best friends. Were.

The word stung, like a broken chord. It had been years since you had seen any of them, living or dead. You nursed the warm cup tea in your hands, holding the handle so tightly you were sure it would break. Dead.

Had it really been that long? That long since you last felt his warm arms around you, or his soft voice in your ear. Life had past by in a bleak flash since those sixty days, the best, and worse sixty days of your life. Forever you would be grateful, that life had given you them chance to meet them, to meet him.

You had both promised to stay in contact afterwards, even after his death, you were still friends. Weren't you? He would ring you every few weeks, at first conversation flowed fairly easily, you had been close. Had.

After a while the flow speech faded, you both didn't know what to say anymore. What was there to talk about? Soon it grew awkward, both of you would mumble a quick "hello" and then there was silence...so much silence.You would listen to Jotaro's breathing on the other end, both of you content to sit there. There was nothing to talk about anymore, nothing could fill that gap you both had. He had brought you too together after all, you never would have befriended the young delinquent if it wasn't for him. Without his funny jokes and steady knowledge, all that was left between you and Jotaro was a silence. You were both missing something, an aching void, that neither of you knew how to replace. Where he used to belong and no magic or words in the world could change that.

So one day he just stopped calling. You stopped trying to, and just like that the last contact you had with your old friends was gone. It set off a raging anger in you, that would always end with tears, tears for Jotaro tears for him. That no one could understand, but the two of you. Your family and friends had tried 'their best' giving comfort in 'the best way they could', but they didn't understand. No one but Jotaro did, but he didn't care, not enough to call you anyway.

"It's just some high school relationship," You had heard your mother say to your gran over the phone weeks later, "I don't see what there is to be sad about, there's no point, they would've broken up in the next week anyway."

After being released from the hospital you returned home, but your childhood village was a ghost town, the neighbours you used to wave to were strangers, your friends were ghosts. You had changed, you weren't the person who once lived in that town.

Rumours spread around the school like wildfire, students staring at you as you made your way down the corridor, teachers letting you off work, or giving you easy grades. You didn't want their pity, but you were too tired to be angry. The kids that once bullied you, didn't insult you anymore, they didn't kick or punch. They just stared, whispering to one another, with wide eyes.

Songs that you had once listened to while walking home from school, didn't install the happiness they once did. It was all just a hum of a guitar and the crash of a drum kit, it was all noise, all of it too loud, too noisy. Your group of old friends would now walk several paces ahead, gossiping and laughing, you were too tired for that now. Gossip about Sadie's new boyfriend didn't excite you anymore and you didn't care about Mike's new car. So one by one they faded, until you were left to walk the dirt track by yourself.

You were completely swallowed by your depression? Sadness? Misery? There wasn't a word complex enough to describe it, nothing that could convey what you were feeling, the endless void inside your chest. So you worked in silence, ate in silence and sat in silence, trying to reason with the monster in your head. Your parents had grown extremely concerned for you, sending you to therapy and counselling, never quite understanding how your exchange trip to Japan had brought upon your depression.