It Makes Me Happy
“Whenever things go wrong, I always cry. It’s weak to do so, I know that…I do know that, and yet I still...”
“Grandpa!”
I looked up. There she w...
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(Origninally written by a friend a few years ago, I cleaned it up and hope you enjoy! =])
The sky is brilliant and the sun is blazing. I sit in the sunshine, my dark hair whipping around me in the wind. My Math homework sits before me, finished, with the corners constantly being blown. The beautiful weather is taunting me; my soul is aching and although it is such a nice day, inside my heart it is raining.
I twirl a sterling silver locket between my fingers and a deep sigh whispers through my lips.
“What will happen next?” I wonder aloud.
She loves him--Linda loves Joey--I still can’t believe it or accept it; maybe I just don’t want to. Using the fingernail on my index finger, I open the locket and with silent tears in my eyes, I gaze at the photograph within.
She’s so beautiful...her golden hair shining like the sun above me today, her crystal-clear, sky-blue eyes as entrancing as the shockingly vivid sky. I love her. I truly do. Not only because she is so lovely, but because she is also intelligent, friendly, lovable, sensitive, caring, unique and simply the most amazing individual that I have ever had the luck to meet. Now she'ss slipping away from me and there is nothing I can do. I hope Joey can make her happy, but if he hurts her, so help me God, I will make the remainder of his life a living hell. It is bad enough that he hurt me and everyone else all the times that he did, but he ought to do nothing but make Linda untroubled from now on.
“Sarah!” I heard two happy, gleeful voices shouting. I looked up just in time to have all of the wind knocked out of me by an over-enthusiastic glomp. I closed the locket and it shut with a snap.
“Hi, Sarah!” My friend Mary exclaimed with an excited wave. She then pulled the other girl, Rishi, off of me, “Look! Look, it’s Kenney!” She thrust her arm out and pointed at the boy she liked, Kenney, as he and the rest of the Track and Field team ran three laps.
“What’s wrong, na-no-da?” Rishi asked inquisitively. Rishi had pale skin, tawny hair, blue eyes, braces and an infectious laugh and smile. Alisha had gotten injured when she was really small, but that hardly had any effect on our friendship. It was her cheerfulness, optimism, cleverness, outspokenness and friendliness that draw us all together. Rishi is very original--she has strange nicknames for all of her friends, she calls reading to ‘swee’, she calls hugging ‘glomping’ and she uses the small phrases of Japanese that she knows even when there is no reason to.
“Whaddya think is wrong?” I asked her, sounding a little irritated.
“Oh, Linda and Jou-Joe? C’mon, Sarah-Chan, Rishi knows what’ll make you feel a little better.” Rishi jumped back, readying herself to perform. She cleared her throat loudly, “Oooooooooh! I wish I were an Oscar Meyer Weiner! Yes, that is what I’d truly like to beeee...”
I couldn’t help but smile as Rishi walked like an Egyptian, discoed, Bunny-Hopped and did the twist in about 30 seconds flat.
Mary and I found ourselves singing along and laughing. Mary had straight, nut-brown hair, a narrow face, greyish eyes and a longing to be loved quite like mine. Mary was a total romantic and she, like I, wanted desperately to be cared for. Kenney didn’t return her affection and she didn’t know how to make him understand the depth of her devotion. Then she stopped laughing, “Where’s Kenney?
Rishi shrugged and I said that I didn’t know. Mary gave a sad little whine, “Kenney!”
“Maybe he’s in da’ Porto-Potty!” Rishi said humorously, “Want Rishi to go see?’
“Huh?” Mary said, bewildered by Rishi’s offer.
“Rishi will go check!” Rishi began running down the hill to where the portable toilets were.
“Did she just say that she would check?” Mary asked me.
“I think so.”
“Hey look there he is!” Mary said, pointing happily, “He just took off his sweatshirt so we didn’t see him.”
“Oh. What about Rishi?” we looked down the slope where our friend was knocking on the wall of the toilet.
“Oh my GOD! What is wrong with that girl?!” Mary cried.
The door opened and a large boy looked out. Rishi hid. The door closed and she threw herself against it. Another boy from the lacrosse team had heard the banging and he came to see what it was. The kid who was trying to go to the bathroom came out again. He saw the lacrosse-player and he pushed him--thinking that he was the culprit--but then he pointed at Rishi who then pointed somewhere towards the field. She ran back up to us giggling uncontrollably.
“I can’t believe you did that!” Mary said, “Who did you say did it?”
“Kenney.”
“What?!” Mary shouted, “Nice!” She hugged Rishi.
“Yay! Glompy glompy glompy glomp glomp a googa glomp!” Rishi chanted, “Glompy glomp da’ Sarah!” She pulled me into the hug too, hitting my head and Mary’s together by accident.
“Ouch.” I rubbed my head, but I was smiling. My sadness had melted away and I was so thankful that my friends had come and swept me out of the pit of despair and self-pity that I was wallowing in before.
People you love may stab you in the heart
People that you call your friends will stab you in the back
But the people that are you’re real friends won’t stab you at all
Because they don’t even carry knives.
"Ummmm...hey, Lan!" a familar voice called out.
I blinked. did Rishi just call me by my real name? Normally, she'd just call me 'Grandpa'.
I didn't have time to contemplate on that, because the little sophmore I had come to know suddenly glomped me. I quickly jabbed her in the side, and she let go of me. Rishi plopped down on the seat next to me. "Morning!" she chirped, even though it was time to leave school, and I was on the bus to go home.
I sighed. "Good afternoon." I replied, moving my backpack away from Rishi. I didn't want her to go searching through it for applesauce, which I just happened to have in my bag. The last time she ate applesauce, she was hyper for a week.
Rishi grinned at me. "Whaaat?" she whined, holding her stuffed cow, Steve, to her chin and blinking at me cutely. I swear, if she did that puppy pout, I would be useless to resist. Rishi always found some way to get what she wanted.
"Walk me home, kay?" she said, batting her eyelashes.
"Sure." I replied without a bat of my eyes. Rishi lived two streets away from me, so either her neighbor Tere or I would walk her home--it was normal. We didn't want out cute little 'innocent child' to be tainted just yet...which, living near three perverted high schoolers, was very likely if she didn't have a companion. Plus, if I said no, she would probably cry.
The bus ride was fairly normal, as Rishi chatted away with a freshman whose name I could never remember. Something, I noted, was weird. She was still calling me by my real name--Lan. She never called me by my real name--when we first met, she decided that she would call me 'Grandpa' and that was that.
"Oooy, Lan! Let's get off here." Rishi called, tugging my hair. It was a stop before mine--three streets from my house--but I stood up with her. She still had a grip on my hair. I picked up my bag and followed her off the bus.
Rishi and I were the only ones to get off at this stop. Well, her freshman friend did, but she went in the opposite direction. The yellow bus pulled away in a cloud of smoke.
"Hey, Lan," Rishi started, calling me by my real name again. "I wanted to tell you something."
I glanced over at Rishi. She had put Steve away. She was looking at the ground, her brown locks bouncing with each step she took. Her mouth had gone from a grin to a thoughtful expression. She bit her lip.
"I really like you, Lan."
I stopped shrot, looking back at Rishi. She was maybe a foot behind me.
Rishi looked up at me. "For a long time."
So that was why she was calling me by my real name.
Rishi started walking again, quickly catching up to and passing me. "If you want me to change, okay, I can do that. If you want to reject me, that's fine too, go ahead and reject me, and I can keep calling you 'grandpa' and we can forget this ever happened. What I want is a definite answer. Yes or no will do."
I was, to say, speechless.
"Well?" Rishi demanded. "What's your answer?"
"It's not that...I don't." I said, carefully choosing my words. I didn't want Rishi to get angry--that was the last thing I wanted. "I just don't want to get into a relationship right now."
"That's not a direct answer." Rishi cut in. "Damn it, Lan, you're so frickin' wishy-washy!"
We had reached Rishi's house. Rishi stood there for a moment, lingering. "Only a fool makes the same mistake twice." she said, her eyes averting mine. She turned towards her house. "Fool."
With that, she walked away.
Rishi never called me by my real name again.
Something that happened a while ago, and getting to writing it now.
“Sara…”
I looked up at Jim, who stood in front of me. The curly brown hair on his head was matted, and his brown eyes looked at me, concerned. He placed his hands on my shoulders. “What’s wrong, Sara?” He asked.
I quickly shook my head, the tears falling down. “I don’t want to talk about it.” I whispered. I tried to step back, but he had me in his grip. He pulled me closer, and stroked my blond hair, soothing me and trying to calm me down. Why didn’t he understand that I’d never be calm again?
The school hallway was empty. Ever so slowly, I leaned into him, his strong
arms, and sobbed quietly. The next few minutes were in silence.
“’Scuze me…”
Both Jim and I looked up. There was a small girl, maybe a freshman, standing in front of us. She had wild, bouncy brown hair, glasses and the prettiest blue eyes I had ever seen. She was clutching a folder, and I noticed all the paper that was in it.
“…what?” I asked, trying to keep a smile.
The girl stepped forward. “I…I don’t know what’s wrong.” She started. “But, no matter what…” the girl was trying to find the right words. “No matter what, no matter how things are bad…you can always make it through them. You don’t have to be sad forever…especially if you have someone by your side.” The girl, completely unknown to both me and Jim, nodded at Jim. The girl looked back down and shuffled her brown shoes.
She quickly pulled out a piece of paper and handed it to me. “This is for you” She said, letting go of the picture. “Feel better, okay?”
With that, the tiny girl ran off, down the hallway, and finally out of sight.
I looked at the picture in my hands. It was penciled out, a boy with spiked blond hair with a hat on. It looked as if he was taking a nap. I couldn’t help but smile. How would I tell my friends that a girl whom I didn’t even know gave me this? I laughed as Jim and I headed back to our classroom, his strong arm over my shoulder.
Sometimes, strangers can have more of an effect of you then your friends do.
