It Rained and I felt So Guilty

David Dodson, Year 9

It rained when I told him. Big, fat droplets fell from the sky, loudly pinging on the roof of the laneway cafe. It was clichéd, the sky reflecting my feelings, an obtuse visual metaphor. I didn’t want to ramble. I didn’t want to rush. I wanted him to understand. I had the puffer clutched in my hand, just in case. I didn’t want to use it though: I didn’t want to be that weak in front of him. His face still hadn’t reacted, shown any sign that he’d heard me. Maybe he still thought I was garbage, thought that I was a terrible person, weak and ignorant. Did he understand what he meant to me, understand that any kind of reaction was better than no reaction I mean please just say you understand what I’m going through say that you’ll forgive me for the awful thing I did to you say that–

I need my puffer. I’m rambling, losing control of my thoughts. I’m not going to use it yet. I can’t appear to be dependent, to be that weak in front of him. I’ll just be that fragile, untrustworthy ex-friend who couldn’t even put up with the schoolyard bullies. Maybe he feels bad. Maybe he was planning to forgive me, to accept me back into his life. Maybe the stars have aligned in an aberration and the world is perfect and the future looks good and I’m happy and I’m popular and I don’t fear that I’ll be abandoned or tossed aside every second of my –

Breathe. Just breathe. It’ll all be over soon, one way or the other. He’s doing that thing where he just stares slightly below your chin, rather than looking into your eyes. Shuffling his feet back and forth. I feel so sorry for him. It’s all my fault. How could I ever expect him to forgive me? I just need him, my one friend, my lifeline, my -

‘I…’

I just wanted him to decide. Hate me or befriend me: forgive me or desert me. What I’d done was awful, but I just need him. I feel so empty and alone without him.

Just a breath. Is that all? Goddamit, I need my puffer. I’m not an addict. I’m not dependent. ‘Tom,…I…I don’t know what you want me to say.’

He sounded more confident than I thought he would, more annoyed than sad. Honestly, I just want him to say something, even if it destroys me. Obviously, I’d prefer him to forgive me, for us to be friends again, but perhaps that is asking too much.

‘I…I’m sorry. You know I’d never intentionally out you like that. I didn’t think it would – I just didn’t think.’

He’d heard me. People say the eyes are the gateway to the soul. I looked into his soul for the briefest of seconds, and he looked into mine. I saw anger, mistrust. What did he see?

‘So – what do you want from me? You ruined me! You took my private life and threw it out for everyone at school to see. How can you expect me to forgive you?’

How could I expect him to forgive me? In truth, I couldn’t. He had the right to be angry. I needed him to forgive me; I needed his companionship. I needed him to help me get through every long day.

‘James…I’m…so sorry. I didn’t think. You know it’s not a problem for me, right? Love is love, or whatever. I…I was just so naïve. I thought everyone agreed. I just didn’t imagine the ignorance, the hate. I can’t expect you to forgive me, but I can’t bear not talking. I can’t bear not being friends. And I want you to understand what I go through. What I put -’

‘So, it’s about you now?’

‘No, of course it’s not. It’s just, this has been hard on me too.’

He laughed, but there was no humour in his voice.

‘It’s been hard on you? I know how you told people, and I know why you told them. Cal told me. What happened to you wasn’t even that bad. You’re just weak.’

He called me weak. That’s what he saw in my soul: weakness and dependency. God, I need relief. I need the puffer, the key to my escape; I need that rush. I can’t handle what I did. I grabbed the puffer, and without thinking, without even bothering to care that James was judging me, was disgusted in me, I took a breath.

I rushed into the change room. I needed to get dressed quickly. I threw on my shirt, hastily buttoning it up whilst putting on my shoes. I pushed my tie all the way up (may as well look presentable). I was dressed in two minutes flat. Just as I was about to leave the room, Sam came at me out of nowhere.

Samuel Mitchell - Year 8

Tom Oldale - Year 12

‘Oi! Where do you think you’re going?’ he said, blocking the doorway, silence falling over the crammed change room. ‘We haven’t had our chat.’

‘Screw you,’ I said. I wasn’t in the mood. Things to do, places to be.

‘That’s no way to speak to a friend. Where are you going?’

This kind of thing is normal, just some ‘friendly banter’. And then somebody called out –

‘Probably off to screw James.’

Mild laughter. I wanted to yell so badly. God, this wasn’t right. These people, why do they think it’s okay to joke about things like that?

‘Is that so?’ said Sam, a smug grin on his face. I just wanted to hit him, make him see how this hurt James.

‘Don’t say things like that,’ I said, calling down from the moral high ground.

Then I went to leave. And Sam threw me into a wall. And he broke my spirit. And I just wanted to leave. And he said that I could leave if I told him everything. And I really just wanted to leave. And because I’m dumb and selfish and stupid, I told him everything. And then –

I breathed out. Narcotic Bliss. A small relief from my dependency on him. I’d wronged James in a way I could never understand. I’d destroyed something good, perhaps the only good thing in my world.

‘I’m sorry. What I did – when I look back now, it breaks my heart. I was just…so afraid of those idiots.’

James was looking just below my eyes again.

‘Maybe one day I’ll forgive you. But not today.’

And without another word he left, left me alone with two half-drunk coffees on a Formica table in a dingy alley. What part of this was fair? I had it bad as well. Could he not see that? This is what Sam did, what they all did. They tore us apart like toys, picked us up like their childhood figurines and smashed us into each other. Never once did they get hurt. But we got hurt, and yet we didn’t fight back together. We fought with each other, blaming each other, rather than them. It wasn’t right. I was bullied for nothing. He was bullied because of me. I was just another Sam to him. That thought broke me. It kept raining and I felt so guilty. I had torn apart my lifeline, the thing I depended on. God, I need my puffer.