Remaining

The story of the friendship between two boys, just before they start lives apart from each other in high school.

It was a tuesday afternoon when James and I were walking home from school. We cut through the woods as we did every day prior, and as we probably would have done every day after. Today was a little different though. There wasn’t a lot of talking. Not to mention, we were making pretty good time on our way to our respective houses, on account of the fact that we weren’t stopping to thumb wrestle, or skip rocks in the nearby lake, or flirt with the girls we would see walking by. The truth is, we weren’t really happy with each other at this particular moment. We kept walking in silence, until eventually he tried to get me to talk.

“Sam, are you ever going to talk to me again?” He said it in a matter that I could tell was supposed to come across as calm and unconcerned. There was even a slight laugh attached to it. But I could tell he was upset. I didn’t care though. Well, I shouldn’t say that. I did care, but those feelings of concerned were overtaken by either a sense of pride that I had, or the sheer desire to make him suffer for what he was doing to me. He tried again.

“Come on, I’m serious.” The tone in his voice shifted to a more serious one. He still spoke softly, but in a much more stern and obstinate matter. His voice carried a sense of shame and desperation in it. At first I just let him keep walking in his agony. I even enjoyed it a little bit. But as a few more seconds went on, I started to feel bad. I don’t know if it was a feeling of sympathy for him, or shame for me, but either way, I wanted to get rid of it.

“I still don’t understand why you can’t just go to Roosevelt next year. Everyone you know is going there. Plus, all those kids who go to private high schools are rich snobs. Doesn’t it cost a lot of money to go to one of those schools anyway?”

“Well, yeah, but I got a scholarship. That’s why I’m going there in the first place. Otherwise I’d go somewhere closer.”

I was satisfied with that exchange for the moment, but it wasn’t over. The problem still existed. James spoke up again.

“We can definitely visit each other though. Just take a bus. It’s only two transfers, I checked.”

“It’s not just that”, I said. “You’re my best friend.” Now I could hear myself starting to sound really sappy. I knew it, but I didn’t care. I was trying to guilt him.

“So, we can still be friends”, he says. “A little bit of geographical distance doesn’t change that. Not to mention, it’s only January. We still have a few months before I have to leave.”

“I don’t think think you understand the problem”, I insisted. Actually, I don’t think I really understood it until the exact moment my next thoughts came out of my mouth. “I’ve never really seen you as the type of kid who would go to a private school. You know? Because I would never go to one, and I thought we were kind of similar to each other. You were relatable to me. In fact, you’re probably the only person I know who is. Now it turns out you’re just like everybody else. It just hurts me to see you conform to the same boring lies and ideals that everybody else conforms to. I never saw you like that. That’s why I like you so much.”

At this point, I  couldn’t believe the way I was talking. It’s not that I was surprised to find myself thinking these thoughts, but that I would actually say them out loud. It was like I was writing a bad emo poem and reciting it out loud. I was a little embarrassed that I had bared my feelings in this way, but also relieved that it was out there. He laughed a little bit. When I heard that, I was offended, because I was really being serious, so it didn’t seem fair for him to make fun of me. Then I realized it was more of a friendly laugh than a malicious one.

“James”, he says. “If you visit me one day, and I’m wearing a nice outfit with my shirt tucked in, and I’m telling you about fiscal responsibility and the lack of maturity that plagues our generation, you have my personal permission to shoot me in the face.”

Once he said that I couldn’t stop laughing. I thought it was funny, but I was also relieved that he said that. Then it started to become clearer in my head.

“What, are your parents making you go or something?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

I felt better, but then I started feeling guilty again.

“I’m sorry I wasn’t talking to you before.”

“Don’t worry about it”, he said, as he smiled.

We were coming out of the woods. That’s when we saw Jen walking by in front of us across the street. She was on her bike. Both James and I were pretty taken by her. All the guys in our class were.

“That’s one thing you’ll miss next year”, I say to James. He laughs, and then speaks loudly so that she can hear him.

“Hey Jen! Do you need help with your anatomy homework? You have 206 bones in your body, but you can always use another one.”

I started laughing hysterically because I couldn’t believe he actually said that. I was so endeared by this, that I joined in.

“I think you have a mirror in your pocket, because I can see myself in your pants!” She quickly flipped us both off and otherwise ignored us, before riding away. My mood had completely changed from just a few minutes earlier. My friend was back; my foolish, immature, jackass of a friend, and I couldn’t have been happier about it. In anyone else’s eyes we were a pair of stupid kids: James, an a*****e who treated everyone but me like s**t, and me, an insecure, needy kid who craved any attention or kindness I could get. But at that moment, none of that mattered.

James and I eventually got the idea to go back through the woods again just to play around. It’s what we usually did every day when we were walking home, so we didn’t want to miss an opportunity today just because we were fighting. We picked up some sticks, and had fake swordfights with them. Then he started walking further into the woods. I followed a few steps behind. Then I was overtaken by a sense of fascination in the person I was with, as well as sheer excitement, that I just ran up to him and jumped on his back, taking him by surprise. It was just a friendly annoyance on my part, as was his aggressiveness in shaking me off of him. He smiled as he helped me up. Soon enough, we saw one of the few trees in our path that was actually somewhat climbable. We usually try to climb it, but we’ve never gotten to the top.

“Want to try again today?” I say in a somewhat taunting tone. I had the record between the two of us for climbing the highest.

“F**k that”, he says. “There’s no getting above that one branch up there without risking a serious injury. It’s too weak.” So we keep walking until we’re at the local lake. I joked that he should jump in. I think he knew I was joking, but there must have been something that caused him to take me seriously. I think maybe he didn’t want to turn down two dares in a row. He handed me his bookbag. I didn’t even comprehend what he was about to do until I saw him running. He kept all his clothes on except for his shoes, and jumped right into the lake. I just watched, laughing. He couldn’t take it for more than five seconds before he started to swim back out.

“You know, for someone who got a scholarship to a private school, you’re a real dumbass.”

We kept walking, and of course we went on with our normal conversation. We talked about video games, which girls we would f**k, and the time James got kicked out of the bowling alley for running up and down the lane. We talked about anything but school. We eventually made it to my house, and while the plan was probably for James to just keep on walking alone after that, to his own house, we decided that he should just hang out with me some more, considering we wouldn’t have a lot of time to do that sort of thing for long. We walked into my house, past my mom who was standing in the kitchen. We ran into my room without even addressing her, in order to continue enjoying each other’s company. I was incredibly annoyed later in the afternoon when James brought up moving again.

“There’s one thing I didn’t tell you about me leaving”, he says.

I gave him a look that told him that I was frustrated that he mentioned, but also that I was listening to what he had to say.

“I really don’t want to go.”

“I know. You already told me that. Your parents are making you go.”

“No, I’m serious. I’ve been incredibly depressed by this. I even started drinking more, but it hasn’t worked. I can’t handle all the pressure this puts on me. You have no idea what my family life is like when you’re not there. I can’t keep living the life my parents want for me. I can’t waste my entire life like this.”

His voice was breaking now, so I knew he was serious. He looked more vulnerable than I had ever seen him. He suddenly became more interesting to me. I started to care for him in a way that I never had. We were more alike than I had even thought. We had both felt that our lives were taken from us. I had some type of unexplainable tendency to assume that everyone around me had little value for me, and that my existence was just an inconvenience. This affected the way I interacted with the people in my life, as well as the way I viewed myself. Now I learn that James is forced into a life that his parents want for him. We had nothing of our own, except for each other. That’s always been true. I just never knew it until now.

“How about we run away?” he says. We could live completely different lives, and we’ll never have to worry about anything again.

“That’ll never work. We have nowhere to go. Plus, people are the same everywhere. It doesn’t matter where we go. We’ll just be living a life that someone else intends for us to live. There’s no escaping that. It’s inevitable for everyone.” I upset myself with my own words.

“I’m tired of telling myself that it’s going to get better in the future. In elementary school, I told myself that things will be better in middle school. They got worse. In middle school, I told myself it would get better in high school, and now I find out that I’m going somewhere where I know for sure I don’t want to go. Is this what our entire lives are going to be?”

I can feel the eagerness filling the room. “I can’t accept that. There’s no way I can go on if that’s true.”

“I feel the same way. I’ve thought about killing myself so many times. I think it’s just a matter of when.”

We sat there in silence for several minutes. There was a spirit in the air that was a simultaneous mix of enthusiasm and despair. I didn’t know what I could do in that moment, so I just put my arms around James, and hugged him. I don’t think I’ve ever had a hug in my life, but it just felt like the right thing to do. At that point, tears started filling my eyes. Both of our lives were being wasted right in from of our eyes, and we could do nothing but watch it happen. The quiet in the room eventually ended when James starting talking again.

“I think we can create a world that has nothing to do with anyone else. You and I don’t have to answer to anyone. We’ll both get jobs in high school, and by the time we graduate, we’ll have enough money to live off for the rest of our lives. We can live somewhere in the woods, and eat plants and animals to survive. The money will be used as a backup, if we get desperate. It won’t matter what anyone expects of us, or wants us to be.”

I loved the idea, because everything he was saying made sense. There was nothing truly wrong with either of us. We were living in a world that had arbitrarily decided what its inhabitants should and should not be like, and we just happened to have different ideals. If we could live without the burden anyone else’s expectations, we could be whatever and whoever we wanted in our own worlds. I was getting more and more excited about the idea. I was reluctant for one reason though.

“I can’t do that to you”, I said. “I’d be putting you through four years that I know now are going to be miserable for you, just to suit me. I’d be doing exactly what we’re complaining about. If it were just me getting the job for four years, I could handle it.”

“If you don’t do it, it’ll be my whole life that will be miserable.”

He was right. We had to do it. At least that was my thinking before I made another suggestion.

“What if I just get the job for four years? You go out into the woods. Or better yet, you can stay in my closet.”

“Everybody knows you’re my best friend. You’re going to be subjected to a lot of questioning if we do that. No doubt they’d find me. We’d have to convince them I’m dead or something, so they don’t go looking for me.”

That’s when our idea was hatched. There wasn’t the least bit of sarcasm or fantasy in our discussion at all. We decided that I would tell everyone that he died. James immediately wrote a suicide note, and made sure to sign it so that it could be verified as his own writing. I was amazed at how quickly he wrote the note, as if no thought was required for him to say what he needed to say. It was a fake note, but it was absolutely real.

The plan for tomorrow was for James to tell his parents he was going to school. That would be the last they would see of him. Then he would immediately go to my house and hide in my closet. We would have to sneak him past my own parents. Then, tomorrow after school, I would run and tell everybody that James committed suicide, and wrote it in a note to me. I would tell them that James specifically instructed me not to open the note until after school, presumably to ensure that he would be dead before I read it. We thought about James’s family, and how they would feel, but we didn’t care. Our lives had never been our own. We were taking them from our parents, and living them for ourselves.

I ran right to James’s parents’ house with the letter, and showed it to his mom. I watched as she read the letter.

Dear Sam,

I am writing this to let you know that I will be leaving this world. I can’t take being here anymore. It’s too much pressure to adapt and change myself based on society’s opinion that who I am is not adequate. I gave this letter to you specifically, because you are the only person I know who would wait to open the envelope if I ask you to wait. No one else I know has listened to my wishes, or even cared. I don’t leave this world with an ounce of pain or regret. I have nothing but fond feelings of everyone who touched my life. It’s just that I can’t go on living it for anyone else. It doesn’t have to be a big deal. This is my choice, and I ask that you all be happy with it. Be happy for me, and be happy just because you want to be happy. That’s what I’m doing, so it would be hypocritical of me not to expect you all to do the same. When you think of me, don’t think of me as you know me to be, because that is a delusion. Think of me as someone who chose finally to live his life the way he wanted. I would consider that to be a far better way to be remembered.

James

I watched her face change, and I started to feel a little guilty about our plan. I knew it had to be done. At this point it was official. James was believed dead. She didn’t seem to have any reaction at all. I figured she was just bottling in her feelings or something.

The next day, I was told that funeral arrangements were being made. I couldn’t believe how everyone was falling for it. I couldn’t have been happier. I told James about it, and he laughed.

“How did everybody react”, said James.

“Your mom was crying hysterically”, I said. I know this is what he wanted to hear. ”She blames herself for everything, and she finally understands that you were right all along, and then she never should have stopped you from being who you are”

“Oh”, he said. At first I thought he felt guilty for making his mom so upset, but then I realized he just didn’t believe me. He knows her too well I guess.

“None of that matters any more. You’re free now, and soon enough, we both will be.” He seemed to like the sound of that. I did too. For the first time in my life, I felt relaxed. I felt free; like I set myself free. I finally felt like I did something to combat the awful state I was forced into. I spent the entire night with James, just talking about our plans for the future. We were talking about living in the woods, and becoming great hunters, and being completely independent from the strains of the world.

For the next few days, this went on. I would just spend all the time with James, because he was the only person I cared to talk to. I had found a job pretty quickly at the local supermarket. I can only work on weekends because of my age, but that will change soon enough. I told James about this, and he couldn’t have been happier for me. At one point when we were talking, I heard my mom knock on the door.

“Go away!” I said sternly.

“I just want to know if you’re okay.”

“Go away!” I heard her footsteps walking away, and James and I continued talking.

I knew the funeral was the next day, and James and I laughed about it. I joked that he’d be the first person in history to be able to know what people actually are saying about him after his death. I assume I will just get a bunch of fake compliments from people who barely know me, and James assumed the same thing.

“I guess we’ll know for sure tomorrow”, I said.

At the funeral, there were several people speaking. His grandfather talked about how smart his grandson was, and he called him “Jimmy”. His dad called him “Jim”. No, he doesn’t like that. He only likes “James”. So many people from our school were there. It really pissed me off that Jen was asked to read something about him on behalf of the class, when she didn’t even like him. I should’ve been asked. I think she realized that though. I sat in the second row looking at her as she read, and she noticed me. She could tell I was upset that I wasn’t reading. Even her cold heart felt for me and James in that moment. She knew I should’ve been up there, so she took it upon herself to call me up. I was a little nervous. I don’t know why she thought it was okay to moderate the funeral in that way, but I didn’t care. I was glad she did. I didn’t have anything written down. I had a lot to say.

“James and I were best friends. It was a friendship that I couldn’t really explain with words. He was a lot better in school than I was, a lot better looking, and a lot more likable in general. He was by far the kindest person to me in my entire life. He would tell me about his views on the world, and how no one listened to him. He would tell me about how the world doesn’t accommodate for its people, but instead expects the people, no matter who they are or how different they are from one another, to all accommodate for it in the same way. He saw how illogical it was. He and I would joke to each other all the time about how much easier life would be if we just lived in the woods. He was the only person I ever met who saw the world in the same way I did, and I think that’s why he is where he is now. He was different, and the world doesn’t like different. He didn’t really do this to himself. Not really. The world did this to him. He had more desire for life than anyone I’ve ever known. It was this world that never let him express that desire, or satisfy it. It is the people who care most about life who are the first to realize when they’re being denied it.”

I looked over at the casket, and I listened to the words I was saying. I thought about all the conversations we had with each other, about how we were the only ones who understood what the other was going through. I thought about the different emotions that were going through my head that afternoon we were walking home from school, and how I couldn’t even talk to my best friend; how he was leaving my life forever. I thought about how unfair it was that I was losing the only thing that gave my pain any validation. I thought of everything that I was feeling as he handed me his bookbag with his suicide note inside, right before jumping into the frozen lake, ending his torture right in front of my face. I thought about how he lost, and he accepted his loss. I thought about all the trouble we got in together, all the girls we lied to each other about f*****g, and all the times we were there for each other, because otherwise the other one would just collapse. All this was rushing through my head at once, and I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t stop the tears from flowing down my eyes, and I started screaming. I had a million thoughts going through my head but I couldn’t get a single word out. I started shaking, still screaming and crying, as I slowly dropped to the ground. There was nothing for me anymore in this world. There was no reason to think anything was going to be okay. There was just a few days ago, but there isn’t anymore. James did not do this to himself. That’s all I know. If there’s one thing I’ll ever know in my life, it’s that people don’t do this to themselves.