I didn't look up as the school bus driver pointed and yelled with a smirk, his husky voice raspy, vocal chords straining, seeming to deteriorate with every syllable. His words made everyone turn in their seats to the east, the direction of the gesture of the crooked, shaking finger.
"Look at that there beauty! Nature's wonder..." He chuckled and wheezed at his cliché.
A couple of boys snickered at the group's excitement, and slowly everyone faced the front again and began chatting animatedly. I continued to stare at the plastic floor of the bus. Finally a sorrowful curiosty filled and I looked up my eyes panning slowly over that ribbon of water.
"It's gorgeous!" a cute girl behind me shrieked in a chirping voice, "Wouldn't you love to live right on the river bank, Margret?" She nudged her smiling friend, presumably Margret.
I turned away from the chirping girl and her friend Margret and continued to gaze out into the stretch of river, imagining how it could have happened. I see rapids explode and I have to jerk away again. The girl next to me stares in curiosity then points out the window again to a couple of tubers. I don't know her name, Vanessa or Lorraine or something. She wrinkles her nose.
"How can anyone swim in water like that? It's so... dirty!" She laughs, amazed and amused.
"Yeah..." I reply half-heartedly. I ignore her again and she frowns and turns her headphones up louder.
Sitting here looking out the window, I remember seeing something in a movie awhile ago. A girl crying over something she'd said was "real life tragedy." A boy just staring at her. I knew that nothing in that movie was "real life tragedy," no matter how much you cared about the characters, or how much the girl went on crying. You had to experience tragedy for it to be real to you, for you to get it.
I didn't cry or anything after it all happened. I wasn't anything like that girl who had experienced "real life tragedy." I just stared out my window at a thunderstorm then kicked the glass until it shattered. I didn't tell anyone about kicking the glass when I heard. After that night, I couldn't talk to anyone.
The news was on, it was storming and the wind was shrieking. The story came on right after a five minute story on the new penguins in the zoo. The story was fifteen seconds long. Fifteen seconds, right after a five minute story on goddamn penguins. But, the news, they broadcast what sells. It makes you hate the media, it makes you hate the public.
I was sitting in my room when that fifteen second news story came on. It was the longest fifteen seconds of my life. After it went to a commercial, I calmly stood up, clenched my fists, and repeatedly kicked the window. It was all I could think of to do, kick the stupid window. The rain poured into my room. I didn't tell nyone abou the window. I didn't even tell my best friend Betsey, and we told each other everything. After I kicked that window and didn't tell her- I couldn't really confide in her. Lots of people might say it was because I didn't feel I could trust anyone, I'd fear they'd leave me too. At least I know that's what my parents said, after Betsey stopped coming to our house for dinner or after we stopped going to the skating rink on the weekends. The thing is, it wasn't about the window or the fact that I kicked it. I just knew Betsey wouldn't have cared about the window, or why I broke it, or why I felt the way I felt. It isn't about the window. But to her, the window would have everything to do with it. To her, he was only another boy in our grade. She didn't know he was in love with her. Maybe that's another reason why me and Betsey aren't friends anymore. Because I was so sad that he loved her and she couldn't even cry for him, or break a window.
I know Betsey, we were best friends. To her, he was just another boy; but he wasn't. After the lies and the window and his death, it got me thinking more about why Betsey and I were friends. If I couldn't tell her about something as insignificant as me breaking that window, or why I felt so sad for her, how could I tell her anything else? I told anyone who asked, my parents, Betsey, anyone, that a branch had swung from a tree and broke the window during the storm. It was much easier then explaining why I had shattered it, why I was angry and heartbroken. I don't know if they believed it or saw right through my lie. I don't really care even. The window was replaced that weekend, but the damage wasn't. What makes me really sad is the fact that people believe what they want to believe. Nobody even takes anyone's word, or trusts one and other. I lie all the same, but the good lies are the ones people should believe. The lies where everyone's happy and smiling. I believe those, they're nice. I think it's quite troublesome that when you tell someone something, right away they either believe it or they don't. Even if you keep nagging them about it, proving yourself and sticking to your story, they won't change their minds.
The funeral was that Monday, the day after the window was repared. I rememeber that the school handed out excuses from class so you could attend his funeral. I went into the office to get mine before leaving campus. I saw kids who I'd never seen before requesting a pass, somber faced and sorrowful. When it was all written out, they ran lauging- disguising their giggles as sobs- out of the office to skip class excused. I think I would have broken something else just then, but the attendence lady saw my face.
"You okay, hon?" She smiled, her lips a pink smudge.
I turned, walked out of the office and didn't take a pass. In the parking lot, I got into my car and screamed. I remember screaming with Betsey in a closet one day. We were upset and angry- for different reasons, but the screaming made us feel better somehow. It didn't help now. It didn't even make me feel stupid, or any less angry, it didn't make me forget.
I went to the funeral. I drove the fourty-five minutes to the edge of town. On the way I listened to the album Staring at the Sea by The Cure. I don't know if he liked The Cure. There were a lot of things I didn't know.
I was late. I entered the church quietly and I sat in the back. I would have like to have stood in the little chapel on the side of the church just to listen with the little white candles, their egnited wicks blinking like stars, and to stare up at the shining cross and try to feel holy; but a group of students were already huddled there, afraid to get any closer. Even though I got there quiet adnd late, somehow they all sensed me. People are always trying to look for something more interesting than what is going on- no matter how important the event or situation is. Girls turned in their seats and looked at me with half-moon eyes. They whispered in the pews, silent tears trickling down their white faces. The boys stared at me as if expecting something- a breakdown, a scene. I knew them all but I didn't know them anymore, not after that. I just sat there the whole time, drinking in every detail of his life, his wonderful life. I drank in everything, the sorrow, the hope, the life. It drained me dry. I saw his father, large and robust, shiver like a boy in the first pew. He errupted with emotion during a hymn and his brother, a small man, rested his bony right hand on his large back. His wife drew her small arms about him. They didn't see me then, but after the sermon I hugged them both, their sobs shaking me physically and emotionally.
I saw his best friend who was laos in our grade, his head bowed the whole time. He was there when it happened, he watched his bestfriend in the world die. I saw his ex-girlfriend she was holding his best friend's hand and whispering to him. He didn't ever respond. She let go of his hand. The sermon was over.
I lit a candle and prayed. I never prayed. I also never lit candles, but it looked so pretty, the flame sparkling and dancing there. It looked like him. It made me smile for the first time in days. I went back to my car. Maybe I got the idea that he was in the flame of my lit candle; I didn't visit the grave.
I went back to school the next day to see a sea of blank faces. I think everyone hated me because I didn't cry. The girls told everyone I was the only one who couldn't cry at the funeral. The boys told everyone I didn't feel anything for him, I had no heart. His best friend wasn't in school, neither was his ex-girlfriend.
"She didn't even love him, and he once loved her," I heard this one girl say, she had pointed at me in the hallway as I passed. This girl thought she knew everything about everyone in the school, even the quiet kids, like me, like he used to be.
I knew better though. I knew me, and him, -and Betsey, at least. I knew. He never loved me, not like he loved Betsey. I don't know how he loved the ex-girlfriend though, or how she loved him, but the girl in the hallway was wrong. I loved him like he loved Betsey- like disco heartbeats. I didn't need to tell anyone what I knew. I didn't cry because I loved him, and Betsey didn't cry because she didn't.
I heard the ex-girlfriend did cry though. Her own best friend said she went on for days. Girls in the hall said she had to go to a psychiatrist who talked to her about "healing." Her parents had made her go. They said she threw a small table at the psychiatrist. They said lots of things. They said she'd never heal. She was in "love." I think at the time she even thought she'd never heal. She went on crying.
She came back to school still crying. Everyone in the school began to hate her because she cried all the time. The girls said she wanted to make it all about her. She cried too much and they hated her. I hadn't cried at all and they said they hated me as well. They were perfect, that's what they thought. They cried about him the perfect amount. I think that's when hate develops, when you start to think you're perfect. When you think you're perfect, everything else is wrong. The thing about their crying was, I don't know if any of them really cared. What does it matter if you cry and don't care?
It went on and on, people got worse and worse about the things they said. Nobody realy listened, even if you heard. The only ones who listened were the ones who didn't know him.
"Big deal- she isn't the one who's dead, and she broke up with him anyway! Just a week before... what a little gold digger." the girls rolled their eyes, "She just wants the sympathy." I didn't even recognize anyone in the hallway anymore, not even Betsey. They were all saying mean things, trying to make sense of it all for themselves, trying to find comfort somewhere. People don't see or understand all of the time how mean they are.
At times they think that just because you break up with someone it means you've stopped loving them. They don't realize they can be wrong. Sometimes you break up with someone because you love them too much. I don't know if that was the ex-girlfriend's reason, but I don't hate her like they say they do. Nobody knows why they broke up. Nobody knows what she was going through inside, but I think they could guess, they just didn't want to see it.
I saw her at school, she still hung around. I saw her almost every day. Her parents thought it would be better to make her keep going to the school and allow her to keep her old friends. I don't think they realized how everything and everyone had changed then. Her old friends avoided her because she cried and she didn't brush her hair anymore, or wear any makeup. She walked through the halls not seeing or hearing. It went on for weeks. I tried to talk to her even though I'd never talked to her before, but the blue of her eyes were somewhere else. They were across the room. They were in the past. More weeks passed and I tried to talk to her again. She looked at me this time. I think she had started to care again about what everyone was saying. I told her not to care. I told her they didn't know him. I wanted to tell her it was okay, maybe just because I wanted to believe it really was, but before I could tell her, she started fixing her hair again. She put on makeup. She started talking to her old friends and she was okay.
Months later she got happy again, everyone said she "healed." She started dating this guy with an afro. They held hands in the hallway, their faces were pressed together at lunch. Everyone forgot that the ex-girlfriend had cried so loudly for days and days. Everyone said that in life, you had to move on.

PART 2

They all soon forgot that Jacob had died. They had forgotten about the best friend- until he showed up one day all dressed in black, his hair slicked over his face. He had always been quiet- but he never laughed now. He walked in the hallways alone with his head down. The usual flock of girls flitting about him in the hallways found new boys to hang out around. Even though he hardly talked, he didn't talk to anyone at all anymore. I guess I didn't talk to him because he and I had never really been friends- we had never really been friends... and yet we had gone to a couple dances together, with Jacob, and a couple of parties. Jacob's birthday. On his birthday Conner gave him his old video camera, the thing they loved the most. Later Conner would tell me that after Jacob died, his mom tried to give the camera back to im. Conner wouldn't take the camera back. He said it was a gift and that gifts shouldn't be returned... he started shouting that he wanted Jacob to have it. He broke out in sobs on the bedroom floor and Jacob's mom couldn't comfort him because he reminded her too much of her son. She left Conner in Jacob's room, her black heels going click click on the wooden floor.
But at that time I couldn't talk to Conner. We had once hung out, but that seemed like a long time ago. I should have talked to Conner when I saw him in the hallway. Especially when the rumors broke out. The horrible rumors that blamed him. He looked up at everyone with the saddest eyes- sad that his friends would think of things so wrong. They kept at it- they said he had been there when it happened- surely he could have saved him. They said he wanted Jacob to die. After all he'd gone through- losing his best friend- seeing someone who was in so many ways his brother, die helplessly. He knew everything about Jacob, about his life and death, and I was afraid of him because of that. Conner disappeared from our school. Nobody knew where he went, but a couple kids told people he had gone to a center for the criminally insane. By then I couldn't stand that school, with teachers always staring into your eyes trying to recognize if you were depressed or angered- always being sent to the guidance counselor, the kids always talking trash about people you loved- always talking trash about you. That part I didn't mind so much, but when they talked about Conner, or Jacob... I couldn't help anything I did. I threw a book at a girl. I went to the guidance counselor. She told me I needed to "put myelf out there socially." She explained I should go to a coupe of pep rallies, or football games. I told her she was full of crap. I thought that school was a fucking joke. She sent me to the principal.
After all my alleged anger was resolved, I met someone. He was reading Salinger on the front lawn. He smiled and brushed his hair out of his eyes. He spoke to ma and said he knew about me, how I was in drama and how I checked out certain books from the library. I asked him, amazed, how he knew. He laughed and said he was library assistant. I didn't ask anything else then, even thugh I should have.