The Mysterious Guy
Chapter 2, "If you love someone don't hesitate to tell them"
“Sweetie, can you hear me?” mom screams far far away, I want to answer but my mouth is too dry to form a word so I stay quiet. I stay quiet on the outside but on the inside everything is screaming. It is pounding in my head from the fall, but I barely feel it. It is no pain left to be in my head. All the pain is in my heart, in my memories. Everything would have been so much easier if I just would have died that night, I think just before mom pulls me up.
“Are you okay?” Dad asks and I nod before I open the door and walk out in the free.
“Honey, talk to me”, mom says but it is like I hear the words but don’t understand them. I know I have to come up with an excuse. I can’t tell the truth, I know that. I just really want my mom to hug me and say that it wasn’t my fault.
“I was just hungry, I didn’t eat any breakfast, remember?” In my ears the excuse sounds so bad, fake. But mom seems to believe it.
“Let’s go then, you can eat afterwards”, she tells me and the worrying is gone from her eyes but it left a fake happiness and something else. Is it fear? No, probably sadness. Even if mom pretends that she doesn’t care about that my brother, her son, has died I know she does. Not only because I can see it in her eyes, but also because every time I am with her I feel it. It is like it’s hanging around her, following her every step. Many people might think it’s brave of her to not show it, to be a good role model for her child but I think the opposite. She is a coward for not showing her feelings. She is too afraid for what people would think if she just went to bed and stayed there for weeks, grieving. But I know that is what she wants. I know it and she knows it as well.
“Hey Lilly!” I hear someone scream when I get to the school. The gradation is going to be held in the assembly hall but I barely recognize it with all the decorations and flowers everywhere. I turn around to see my best friend or is she still my best friend? I don’t know. So much has changed this year, she has changed so much this year. Started parting like it’s her last day, drinking every day, smoking and I haven’t even gotten to the boys. But knowing someone for fourteen years does something to you, it’s like whatever that person does you still love her.
“Hello Vicky! You look great”, I say unsure if she really wants to talk to me. You see some days we are best friends, talk all the time, but most days we are just friends and she hangs out with her other more popular friends. I am uncertain if we even will see each other this summer like we have done all the other summers.
“Thanks, you too, this is yours I grabbed it for you”, she says as she gives me the red mortarboard cap and gown, which by the way looks just like those in the movies, before she hurry to her other friends. Instead of feeling jealous at them, like I have done before, I look around for Ashley and Stephanie who I have been spending a lot of time with lately. Well, mostly Ash but Annie comes along with her. Just when I spot them they wave for me to come over. I hurry to put on my high school graduations clothes before I turn to mom.
“Hey mom, I think I’m gonna go and say hi to some friends”, I say and she nods without letting go of her fake smile. I hurry towards the bench where all my classmates are lined up with Annie and Ash closest to me. I sit down beside them and get totally blown away by their white dresses that fit perfectly with the red mortarboard gowns and gorgeous hair. Annie and Ash don’t look a bit like each other, Ash is tall and skinny with blond long hair and pale skin while Annie is not short but not even close to Ash’s length, she has black short hair and chocolate brown skin but the prettiest thing on her is her dark brown eyes. Well anyways, even though they don’t look a bit like each other they are like twins in the way they act. I want a friendship like theirs, I think when I give both of them a small hug, sitting.
“You guys look flawless”, I whisper even though the principle has started talking. They give me a big smile before all of us twist our heads towards the principle. I try to focus on what he has to say but it is impossible. It is like my ears have lost the ability to hear. All I hear is a mumbling from his mouth even though I am sure that he, as always, speaks very loud. The principle is very tall and even though he has been my principle for three years I don’t know his name. It is something like Mr. Jones or Mr. Johnson or something else that starts with a J. Anyways he is actually quit good looking for his age with dark hair that always and I mean always lies perfectly on his head, his eyes which is kind of the only thing that isn’t perfect on him is like a blur of every color there is. When you look the first time they are green, but then they are yellow and soon maybe they turn to orange. I think that one time I looked they were actually pink but that could have been a nightmare too so I am not sure. Anyhow…
“Now it is time for our top student Lillian Courtney Scott to say some words”, even though all the other words were incomprehensible these fifteen words are as clear as the sweat on my hands. I sigh, how could I forget that the top student always gives a speech? Well I have always been great at improvising so I guess this is the time to use that, I think as I stand up and the applause erupts.
“Here goes nothing”, I whisper as I make my way up the stage. I take place at where the principle had been standing just a few seconds ago and smile probably the fakest smile I have ever smiled.
“Hello everyone, I am Lillian. We are gathered here today to see our children graduate. I am not going to do the longest speech like most of the geeky students do. Because I know you don’t want to hear it. You probably don’t even listen, you just think about what you are going to do after this. But if you kindly would just listen to this little sentence and take it in I know it will spare you a lot of mistakes in life. I am not saying mistakes are bad, they are good, of course, but some people don’t understand that. No wait, most people don’t understand that. Anyway I don’t care how many times you have heard this I hope that this one time maybe will make you think a little more. If I would had known this a little earlier I would be so grateful: If you love someone don’t hesitate to tell them, today might be the last time you see them. Now you probably are thinking like, what the heck does that have to do with graduation and I have an answer on that too. If you take these words with you in the future, because that’s exactly what we are here for today the future, you will never have to feel regret and you know what? Regret is the worst feeling ever”, I have no idea where the words came from maybe it was from my heart? I don’t know. I do not know why I had said them either and last I do not know why I am crying. I just am.
