Everything went crazy after she moved here.
Something crawled in my chest. I don’t know why I thought about her so much.
“Listen, listen, listen! Hey, do you think I did something wrong? Can you read this text I got? I’m not the crazy one, right? It’s him!”
At first, I was happy about it.
I wasn’t close enough with anyone in class to have a best friend, so having an actual person to talk grades, gossip, and whatever else with was heartening. And she really listened to my problems, too.
But over time, her issues began to engulf everything.
“He totally likes me, doesn’t he?”
“That teacher thinks I’m such an honor student, right?”
“She just treats me that way because she’s jealous, huh?”
“The reason I’m isolated in class is totally because I’m special, and I have talents that ordinary people don’t understand, you know?”
Calls, letters, texts, every little comment required a response, no matter how pointless. Day after day after day. I wanted to escape, to be free of them, but I couldn’t ignore her.
“Oh yeah, everyone’s jealous of you. They’re just frustrated because you’ve got this and that,” I would say to cheer her up, but that only made the remarks more frequent.
Look at me, look at me, look at me.
Compliment me.
Praise me.
Listen, listen, listen…
I thought I could control it.
I thought I could pay her some harmless compliments and say, “Uh-huh” enough to satisfy her. Why has the content of her chatting lost importance? It’s the talking itself she cares for.
When I don’t repeatedly praise her, it becomes a larger and larger problem in her mind.
“Why aren’t you writing back?”
“Do you hate me now?”
“I thought you were my best friend.”
“That’s really heartless of you, after I spent so much time being your friend…”
Whine, whine, whine. Between her sentences, when she stopped to breathe, I didn’t hear actual griping, just the sound of it.
Whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine, whine…
“I’ll kill myself, you know. Murderer,” she whispered through the phone.
Not to her actual boyfriend, or to her best friend, or even a regular one.
I’m rapidly becoming the person she hates the most.
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Everything went nuts after he showed up.
I’m so worthless, aren’t I?
I mean, I can’t keep you safe.
I promised I would, and I can’t.
You should give up on me and find someone better for you.
That’s just how I am. I know I don’t have any confidence, but you need to be with me.
I would absolutely die for you.
But what’s worth it about a guy like me?
I don’t even love you.
Each word a manipulation, each text message incomplete. I prayed for any response at all, even if it was just mindless, violent anger, but nothing, nothing, nothing.
What if he was in an accident? What if something happened? I waited and worried. And then he’d finally answer.
It’s your fault.
You spoiled me, and you ruined me.
But that didn’t tell me what to do. I was immobilized, tied down by the word “love.” The phrase “let’s ruin it all together” shook me to my core.
Let’s die together.
There was no enemy, no obstacle, no anyone in my way, yet he gave me an invitation to escape.
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We all went crazy after that teacher showed up.
“There’s no bullying in our class.”
Maybe something was already going on with him when he made that declaration. As a matter of fact, kids were shunned by others regularly, and it was common to pester those you hated during school. We just assumed he didn’t count that stuff.
But no matter what happened, the teacher repeated those words. “There’s no bullying in our class.”
Nobody decided on the goal of Togetherness written on the sheet of card stock paper hung on the wall, but there it was. Lunch cliques dissolved, and we all ate as a group to reinforce “friendliness.” Whenever something happened, we pretended it hadn’t. Not only was there no bullying, there was no fighting, either. One day, I, the class representative, was called up to the teacher’s desk, and he showed me what was on his computer monitor.
A paper titled The Tale of Group Togetherness.
It outlined how he’d brought together a class that couldn’t behave, and it was written like a novel. The teacher clapped me on the shoulder.
“It’s up to all of you how this story ends. I’m submitting this to the research board. It’s on you to make it right. Fix this class’s story.”
I didn’t know what to say. My tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, and I couldn’t speak. How had it come to this…?
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Everything changed after that message arrived.
What you’re writing here is about my work, isn’t it? Well, I’m stunned. This is very sad. Do you even realize how hurtful you’re being?
I kept a social media account that I used to write movie reviews occasionally. Not long before, I had written my thoughts on a number of films without giving the titles. However, anyone was free to comment. There was no evidence that one was actually from someone involved in filmmaking, so I ignored it.
Then I started getting multiple direct messages. They were so frequent and high in volume that they became impossible to ignore, try as I might.
Why don’t you make your own, if that’s what you think?
If you can’t even understand that your words affect other people, then you shouldn’t be writing smug reviews in the first place.
I poured my life into that novel.
When I saw the word novel, I thought, Aha. My reviews were solely about movies. This person was just confused. That got me to finally write back.
Excuse me, but I think you’re mistaken. I’m writing my thoughts on movies. Not a single one of my posts was about books.
But it didn’t matter.
Don’t lie to me.
Don’t make excuses.
You won’t get off that easy.
I found your old site and this picture on it. How about I spread this around?
It was an old selfie taken with a friend, but it wasn’t posted on this account. Stunned, I could only watch helplessly as more messages came in.
And you live at _____, right? May I dig a little deeper? You really deserve to be punished for this.
Alarmed, I finally blocked him. However, I soon got another message from a new, unfamiliar account.
I’m the person who was just talking to you. There’s no escape. You must face your punishment.
What did they mean, punishment? I hadn’t done anything to deserve this. Why was this happening to me?
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It all started on the day he said that crap.
The part-timers all seemed to agree that the manager was pushy and insensitive at times. But none of us knew how long we’d be working here, so we let it slide. It wasn’t worth getting worked up about. We continued living our lives without calling it out.
But then…
“Hey, doesn’t the manager really piss you off?”
Once it was out in the open, the unspoken understanding shattered. After that, things changed.
Someone saying it out loud meant we couldn’t return to how things were before that person admitted it. Still, we didn’t mean for that to happen…
We didn’t mean to get together and do what we did to him…
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When that underclassman’s in the clubroom, it throws everything off.
At first, I thought she was great. A new team assistant with an upbeat attitude and a killer smile. Everyone fell in love with her, and it seemed like all the others were competing for her. That’s why I was stunned when I heard the truth. She accepted every invitation to go on a date and every request to be someone’s girlfriend.
When did things get like this?
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When he comes over, everything at home goes haywire.
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When that person…
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When…