Stand in the Rain

The organ played a haunting tune singing of pain and life lost. I clutched the sodden tissue in my hand angrily. I didn’t want to be in the church, in this so-called place of holiness. The black, knee-length dress my grandmother had forced me into was restricting and I wanted to scream out of sheer frustration. The tears had flowed down my swollen face for the entire funeral service. I still couldn’t believe it. Part of me was still in shock and believed I would go home and everything would be alright. My feet ached and I rubbed at my face restlessly. There were so many people in this Goddamn place, expressing their condolences and telling me to ‘be strong.’ I doubted their sincerity; had they even known the woman in the casket? Finally the last notes were played, echoing sadly among the people seated in the pews. We rose and I avoided eye contact with anyone, unable to take any more sympathy. I sighed with relief as we were finally granted leave. I followed the procession out the church doors and glanced at the corpse in the coffin one more time. Goodbye, mother I thought.

My father thought it would be a good idea to leave after the ‘incident’. I did not. I was torn between wanting to forget the pain and desiring to remember all the finer details about her. Before we left I remember standing in front of the mirror in my room, among all the boxes – pieces of my past life - and wondering how exactly I’d changed. I looked the same: tiny, short and skinny. So, I took the scissors, wanting to change that. I was not that girl anymore. I hacked off a chunk of my hair in the front to resemble a fringe and tried to smile at my new reflection. Maybe now I could pretend to be a different person, a girl who was normal; a girl who hadn’t just witnessed her mother dying.

I recall sobbing in the middle of the night and writhing in agony at the unfairness of it all and asking the God I no longer believed in what I had done to deserve this. I was young and I needed someone to look after me. I thought about the years she should have seen and all the important things she would miss and everything I hadn’t asked her or told her. Did she even know that I loved her? It was too much for a nine year old child to deal with. They wanted me to see a counsellor but after I sat there in the sessions, straight-faced and silent for week after week, they realised that it was futile. I was not going to talk about what had happened, not with anyone.

It was dull and misty on the day I changed schools. I remember it clearly, the harsh misery that clouded my mind until I could not think of anything else. I was still angry with my father. It wasn’t fair, but then, life never was. I stuffed my hands in my black jacket’s pockets and stared into space. I would never fit in at this new school with these unfamiliar people, who had already sorted themselves into cliques. I closed my eyes, exhaled, and then stepped into what I considered prison for children. The school was grey and dull, filled with smiling children of different races. All I wanted to do was run screaming from the building. I bit my tongue holding back, trying to slow the panic that was fast immersing my entire body. I tried to force myself to calm down, breathed deeply, but I could not control the whimper that slipped from my lips. I was terrified and alone. It was worse than I had ever possibly imagined. I stood at the classroom door, my face locked in a paralysed expression.

The teacher introduced me to the class and they looked at me blankly, not really seeing me. There were colourful pictures of animals on the walls and tacky posters too. I didn’t think I would survive this. Cringing with mortification, I went to find a seat at the back of the classroom. I was aware that they were whispering about me already. Children are vicious and cruel and I was the newcomer, the strange girl with the untidy hair and beat-up shoes. A perfect target. I pulled out a book from my dirty bag and bowed my head, willing the words in front of me to make sense but I could feel their eyes burning into me. They weren’t even trying to hide it either. All besides one, an exception, I don’t think she even noticed my entrance at all; she seemed beyond trivial things like that. The girl was writing angrily into a notebook and had an air of scruffiness about her. I knew at once that she was not like the rest. I tried to smile at her hesitantly, knowing immediately she was an outsider like me, but she never looked up. We never spoke for a year. It was only in fifth grade that I finally got up the courage to speak to her. And that’s when everything changed.

I never made a conscious decision to knock on her door that day. I had never known where she lived, but I had taken a detour home and noticed her hunched up figure in the distance. It was raining and I was shivering under my meagre hood. Eventually I just gave in and allowed the water falling heavily from the sky to soak my hair completely. My father wouldn’t care anyway; he was too busy with his mates or working to have time for me. I didn’t blame him; it was tough looking after the both of us. We barely saw the rest of our family nowadays and it was better that way. Every time we got together they would start talking about my mother and I had successfully bottled everything up so it just irritated me when they provoked thoughts I had pushed from my mind. It was easier that way, simpler. Deny that she had ever been a part of my life. Pretend it was all just a horrible nightmare. I brushed the rivulets running down my face, the cold piercing through everything, the wind eliciting Goosebumps all over my body. The girl had no umbrella either and didn’t look as if the water bothered her much. I was enjoying observing her, the enigma she provided. School was barely tolerable, people mostly left me alone. They tortured her though, but she never gave in to their tormenting. I saw her pull a knife on them once. I remember the glint of that blade and I saw the malice and anger in her eyes. She wanted them to die. She wanted revenge and it scared the hell out of me. For all my anguish I never really retaliated to their bullying, I just endured it. I was too weak to actually do anything anyway.

I had been so busy thinking about her that I almost didn’t notice when she disappeared into one of the run-down houses. It was a crappy neighbourhood. Litter was scattered on the piss-reeking pavements. Even the trees looked unhappy to be situated there. I didn’t know why I hadn’t gone straight home. But the house was always empty and there was no homely feeling or smell of cooking to greet me. Dad would probably get take-out again. I should probably learn to cook, I mused absent-mindedly kicking a stone in front of me. I stopped outside the house the girl had gone in. I couldn’t see into it, faded orange curtains obscured the view inside. I was just about to continue walking when I heard yelling and something like glass shattering from in there. I don’t know what possessed me to go up and knock on that door. As soon as my knuckles had hit the wood I regretted it, but before I could chicken out and bolt away, the door was flung open and I was face-to-face with the frowning girl. She stepped out onto the cracked porch, closing the door behind her quickly. “What do you want?” She asked abruptly, her arms folded and her entire demeanour shrieking for me to get out of her space. I forced a smile and asked if she wanted to hang out. Her answer was instantaneous and cold, “No.” She stated and went back into her house, slamming the door harshly behind her.

The next day I went and sat next to her in class. She threatened me and told me she’d slit my throat in my sleep if I didn’t leave her alone. Something about having a 10 year old skinny kid tell you they were going to murder you in your bed sounded ludicrous and so I laughed. She looked so outraged and angry that I felt bad, especially when she got up and moved as far away from me as possible. I sighed, knowing befriending her was going to be anything but simple. I kept sitting next to her and persistently followed her around in the breaks. She swore she was going to break my arm but I carried on, always trailing behind her. Eventually she stopped ordering me to go away and just plain ignored me. I tried to speak to her, to engage in a conversation but all she would do was monosyllabically grunt.

After five months of barely acknowledging my presence, one day as we were about to go home after class, she suddenly asked me what exactly it was that I wanted from her. I frowned, “I don’t want anything from you, you’re just interesting” I told her honestly “And you’re my friend”. She left me standing in the empty classroom alone, but the next day it was she who sat next to me in class. We became inseparable after that, mostly because we had no one else. I loved her more than anyone I ever had before; she filled some of the vacant space that was present inside me. Sometimes words were not even necessary, her being there was enough. I knew how utterly broken she was but it did not matter. Nothing mattered except her friendship. It got me through my darkest nights and my deepest pain. She walked my damned path alongside me and we were more than equals and more than sisters. It was a bond so deep that if it ever broke, we would both be so irreparably damaged that even the thought of it was inconceivable.

We spent two years together. Time went so quickly and before we knew it, there was none left. My father was forcing me to move to a high school across the country. He didn’t like her at all and thought she was a bad influence. What he didn’t realise was that she was the only thing keeping me from losing it. I needed her to keep me sane and I don’t think she even knew that. We grew increasingly sombre and I could feel her sadness, it tainted all our conversations, it was the undercurrent of every word we spoke to each other. Every time we were together in those last few days it felt like we were saying goodbye . . . In every gesture and look, it was there. It was killing me inside; I would have done anything to stay, if only to be with her. I promised her I would keep in contact in every form of social media possible. There was no way I was going to lose her, not to distance or anything else. I revered her more than anything in the world, crazy for a twelve-year old but that’s how intense our friendship was.

Then finally, the last day of seventh grade arrived, the one I had dreaded for so long. That day is branded onto my mind and one I will never forget. I can recall fragments of the speeches our teachers gave us and messages we should take with us for the future and I can still feel the bright flash of the camera burning in my eyes when someone snapped a picture of the two of us. But what I remember most about that day is when we snuck into the rafters above the main hall to our secret hiding place. She looked nervous and then out of nowhere she confessed her feelings to me. Before I knew what was happening she had grabbed me, her lips meeting mine in a representation of the sweetness of our pain and unspoken goodbyes. I pulled away, my heart swollen with emotion and I could not respond for fear that the tears would escape. So I touched her cheek gently and smiled at her sadly one last time, hoping that she knew what I meant. Willing her to understand what exactly I wanted to say. And then, I walked away. It was only once I was out of her sight that I allowed the tears to fall, in my own personal rainstorm.