Headphones

The moment I first saw you, I knew to be afraid.

You were different. Your hair was short, your eyes were cold. There was a ruggedness in the headphones you wore around your neck, and there was a distant apathy in the voice you rarely used.

I steered clear of you. I stayed with my bright, warm friends, avoiding the cloud you lived in. And yet still, every day at school, I saw you, and I watched you. What made you frightening also made you fascinating.

Until one day, you weren’t at school. And the next, you were, but it wasn’t you. Not quite. Your hair was unkempt, your uncaring blue eyes were bloodshot. Your headphones weren’t there, and your voice wasn’t either. The cloud around you wasn’t defensive, didn’t scream, “Leave me alone, or else.” It was lonely. Melancholy.

So that day, I looked at my full table of grinning friends, and I walked to your empty one. I sat down. You looked at me through your tears like I had teleported next to you. I just smiled.

I didn’t know what had happened, but I was a sponge, soaking up your misery, if a sponge could joke with you and tell you it’s going to be okay.

That class period, I shed more tears than I ever had at school.

I also made a forever friend.