Don’t Open It

A short story based on a true one

“Don’t open it til tonight”

You’d said as you handed me the note on the school bus.

Squeezed my hand.

Flashed me that look, you did.

That “I can trust you, right?”

Your eye brows slightly raised, bob swinging.

Smiled at you.

“Okay”

Thirteen, we were.

Used to do shit like that all the time.

Usually it was “don’t open it til you’re in class”.

I’d open it and it would be some lame joke or something you’d drawn.

Man, we’d just catch each other’s eye and omg, we’d be in freakin’ stitches, hysterics.

Loved stuff like that back then.

I think when you’re that age you do, don’t you?

Those ‘in jokes’.

Secrets.

And I was gonna open it that evening, Friday. I swear I was. Not sure why I didn’t. You know what it’s like……get in, start watching something on telly. You’re winding down after school, aren’t you?

Just sat there in my green satchel, it did. Next to the lunch box with an apple core and ‘harvest crunch bar’ wrapper in it.

That piece of paper with those words on.

Black ink.

.

Saturdays were chippy tea. Always had a chippy tea on a Saturday.  You know we did. Your mum didn’t believe in chippy teas, did she?  Thought they were a bit common from what I recall. Probably thought I was. Always found her a bit ‘up herself’ if I’m honest, your mum. I can say that to you now….

It was my dad who told me.

About you.

Was eating mushy peas. There I was, shovelling em into my gob.

Funny what you remember, isn’t it? And I remember mushy peas.

And then - just like that - I was full. My neck, tight, rigid. Like it had a ruler jammed down it. This ache just rose and rose from the depths of me ‘til it had nowhere to go, nowhere else to go. Held it in my face, held it in my cheeks like a hamster. Like one of those fireball sweets.

.

Open everything straight away, now, I do.

Can’t leave anything. Bills…..anything. Even if it’s not for me. Even if it’s meant for next door. I’ll get myself into trouble one of these days. But I just couldn’t bear to ever miss something important ever again. Risk it.

Won’t happen again. It won’t……

.

That week after.

You’d’ve hated it, Sarah.

The hollow assemblies.

Talking about ‘feelings’.

People who didn’t know you proper…….teachers. All saying their piece. Giving their 2p. Just wanted to get up there and correct em. Set em right. Say;

“No her favourite colour wasn’t red, actually…..it was lilac.”

Little things.

That Miss Lawrence was always such a bitch to you, wasn’t she? Well, she was up there, talking about you like she gave a shit.

Wanted to say “YOU didn’t know her!”

Know why I didn’t?

The only reason I didn’t?

It was ’cause after you did……what you did……I didn’t feel like I knew you either.

Cause if I had……I’d have known, wouldn’t I?

How did I not see it?

The clues.

Should’ve seen it in your pictures. God, they were dark!

Always doodling eyes and spirals, weren’t you? “paranoid bitch” I’d say. (Just having the dance, you know.)

Cause…… isn’t everyone a bit weird, Sarah?

I mean, I etched out ‘Lee’ on my arm that time with a compass in Maths, didn’t I? Bled and everything.

So…..how was I supposed to know that you were more troubled than the rest of us? That you’d do it.

I couldn’t have, could I?

I couldn’t have….

“You couldn’t have known.”

The grief counsellor said.

Didn’t believe her though.

“You’re just 13, Joanne!”

She said.

That grief counsellor.

But adolescence is when you feel things deeper than at any other time in your life isn’t it? Every look is a pin prick. Every dropped tone, a saw. You feel everything and everyone so acutely. Your skin is peeled back and you’re sensitive as hell.

That’s why I’m still mad about it. At myself.

After all these years.

Precisely because I was 13, and at 13 I felt the pain of the entire fucking world. It’s when I became vegetarian ’cause I felt the screams of cows in abattoirs. Wanted to close down pet shops, circuses, zoos….. What I wouldn’t have done for animals! Reading up about abortions too! How I felt every embryo and foetus sucked out alive and killed. Their little heartbeats. Murdered. How I cried for all of them! So black and white back then, all of it….

Life.

But I didn’t hear YOU, did I? Didn’t feel you.

My mate.

They can put ashes in necklaces these days, y’know. Came up on my Facebook. There’s people just sat there on adverts, twiddling with their dead fiancé round their neck, smiling. Think it’s a bit twisted myself. But I suppose people cope in different ways, don’t they?

‘How to remember someone’ - there’s no guidebook, is there? A ‘right’ way?

I want to think of us giving each other makeovers with your sister’s make up. ‘spilt milk’ eye shadow, ‘heather shimmer’ lipstick. Or taking Sandy for a walk on the rec…… Oh, he did get fat once you .……don’t think anyone else in your family could really be arsed to exercise him.

I want to remember you doing your impressions of Jessica Steele, Mr Hopkins…… damn …..you could be funny as fuck! Did I ever tell you that? How much you made me laugh.

On the bus too! We had some laughs on that bus, didn’t we? Back seat.

I’m on the bus now actually, Sarah.

Not the school bus……obviously.

There’s this big woman - I mean really big - wearing this clingy peach T-shirt.  One of those where, for a minute, you’re not sure if the cloth is their skin and your eyes hover a little longer than they should.

“Just enjoy where you are now”

It says.

This slogan plastered across her T-shirt.

It’s good the way some people really don’t give a damn what they look like, isn’t it? Just live life. And good on em. Good for her!

“Just enjoy where you are now”

Yeah …….I think.

Sits opposite me, she does, her eyes squinting me like a cats. And all I can see is that message emblazoned like an instruction. An invitation.

“Just enjoy where you are now”

But I can’t.

Not right now.

’Cause right now, we’re driving across the bridge.

PS: If you appreciated this piece, you can find more stories I’ve written at the top of my home page under the tab ‘stories’. I write many different types of posts you see.