I come home to my cousin sitting on the couch.
“Hey, you’re back early from your walk” She says
I check the time. It’s only 5:00 PM, 5 minutes later than when I left. But what Sky and I went through was way longer than 5 minutes, in fact it was probably more than an hour so I am very confused, I’m still questioning if it even really happened, but I know it must have because I wouldn’t have ended up where I am now, having Skyler’s number just so I could let them know I got inside my apartment so their friend’s older sister wouldn’t get worried. Oh, speaking of which, I forgot to text them so I text them and let them know I got in, and they like the message. I put my cousin’s keys back where she always puts them.
“Don’t tell your parents or my mom that I let you walk by yourself, ok?” She says
“I won’t” I respond
I go to my room and change out of my clothes and into my nightgown and I fall asleep for a while.
I wake up, and the first thing I think of is Skyler, then I realize that it’s 8:00 PM, my parents and my aunt and my little cousin have gotten home, my family is having dinner already. I go out to the dining room and eat and talk with my parents, aunt and cousins. Near the end of dinner, my little cousin has another one of her temper tantrums because she wants to watch TV but she has to go to bed so I excuse myself and go to my room. I have still been thinking about Skyler this whole time, my shirt from the walk in the forest is on my bed and I stare at it and think about the moment when I ran from a monster with them. When I fell from the cliff with them, we wrapped our arms around each other, thinking we were gonna die, I feel very melancholy, I pick up the shirt. It has their smell, I didn’t even notice their smell when I was with them, but somehow I recognize that the smell is theirs. Even though it’s just a scent, it fills me with emotion, I want to text Skyler again but I feel like it’s wrong for me to. Why do I feel like it’s wrong?
Ah, yes, I feel like it’s wrong because of Jake. How could I forget Jake? How did I forget that I have a boyfriend? Is that bad? Well, I’m not in love with Skyler, so I don’t know why I feel like it’s wrong for me to text them I just have the feeling that Jake wouldn’t like it, but that really doesn’t matter. It feels uncomfortable, almost painful, to not be texting them right now so I send them a message, just asking if they’re ok.
“Yeah, I’m ok” They respond almost immediately
I smile. Then they send me an article, the title is something about experiencing emotional attachment to people you’ve had a traumatic experience with.
“Are you feeling this too?” They text me
“Yes I am” I respond
“It’ll probably wear off right?” They say
“Yeah” I respond
I hope we’ll still be friends after the attachment wears off, I know that if it did wear off I probably wouldn’t care anymore, but right now with the attachment I just need us to be friends.
The next day at school
I sit through ELA wishing I was in a class with Skyler right now, I almost feel worried that the trauma attachment isn’t gone yet, but then again it’s only the next day, and we did almost die together so I just need to be patient. I’m excited to see them in art class, I wish the next time I get to see them wasn’t all the way at the end of the school day.
At PE
Coach Sally takes attendance, I see that Skyler is here and get a little confused.
“Oh yeah, and Skyler will be joining this PE class now because they have a required class that overlaps with the other PE class”
I’m happy, I can tell that they’re nervous, and I’m not sure why, but I hope they’ll be happy to be in this class with me too. I wave at them and smile, and then they come up to me.
“Hey,” I say to them
“Hi”
“Why are you nervous?”
“My friends were in the other PE class, and they aren’t in this one. I have social anxiety, and I feel really uncomfortable doing PE stuff in front of people”
“Oh, well, it’ll be ok! I’m not judging you”
Coach Sally starts leading the stretches, then she asks us to vote on a game, and most people vote on the scream game. This is a game where you run and scream, stop running when you run out of breath, and then whoever got the farthest wins. Skyler and I enjoy watching and laughing together while other people participate in the game.
“Do you wanna participate, Skyler?”
“No!” Skyler says
“Aw, you should! I’ll do it with you!” I respond
“Do you guys wanna do that?” Coach Sally says
Skyler thinks about it and reluctantly agrees, we try to run and scream together, but we’re not able to do it for very long because we end up both feeling stupid and laughing in the middle of it.
At Art Class
Skyler and I sit next to each other, as usual and today we’re continuing working on our pottery, the whole rest of the class is having their own discussion right now, but Skyler and I are just having our own conversation. I start using a tool to carve shapes into my pot, and Skyler does the same.
“This shape represents anxiety,” I tell Skyler, pointing at the X I carved
“Oh, your shapes have meanings too?” They respond
“Yeah, what are the meanings of yours?”
We keep telling each other the meanings of our shapes, some are serious, some are more silly and make us laugh together, they’re a really good person to laugh with.
After art ends, we all go to the area where we wait to be picked up and I sit on the bench. After most other students leave, Jake comes up to me with (probably fake) tears in his eyes.
“Sugar, I’m so sorry for how I’ve treated you. I really do need you, I need to be with you forever. I promise I really do care more about you than I do about myself, and that’s why I’m gonna change. I won’t ever treat you badly again, I mean it this time. Do you forgive me?”
“Yes,” I respond, fully knowing that he isn’t really gonna change.
“Thank you so much, I love you” He says as he hugs me
At Home
I continue texting with Skyler, they put me in a group chat with three people who they tell me are named Kat, Celeste, and Dante. Kat is really silly, Celeste seems sort of reserved but is kind, and Dante is just casual. We all send memes and Skyler, Dante and I send pictures of our pets, I’m disappointed when I have to tell them I need to go have dinner with my family, but then they promise that we’ll call after.
After dinner with my parents, I run to my room excitedly and get on the call.
“Hey Sugar” Kat says excitedly
The rest of them greet me, I feel warm and like I really belong in this group, even though I only just met them.
“Oh yeah, so what happened yesterday? Why were you at Sugar’s house, Skyler?” Dante says
“Yeah, we’ve only known of her for almost a week” Celeste says
“Oh God,” Skyler and I both say at the same time
“Is it a long story?” Kat responds
“Yeah, it is” I say
“Well, we’ve got all night, even though it’s a school night” Kat says
“Ok, so, I was going on a walk in the forest,” Skyler starts, “and then I heard footsteps behind me, and I turned around and saw Sugar-”
“I’m staying at my aunt’s apartment, which is near the forest” I chime in
“-yes, and then we just started walking and having a normal conversation, but then, you guys won’t believe this next part”
“What was it?” Kat says
“Ok, so, we saw a monster” Skyler says
“A monster? What kind of monster?” Dante responds
“It had glowing red eyes and horns, and tentacles” I explain
“And it wasn’t a human in a costume, it was definitely a monster. You guys probably don’t believe me but please just let me continue. So we started running from it, and it chased us. We eventually outran it, and we were thirsty, so we started drinking water from that lake in the forest even though the water isn’t clean, and I don’t know what was in that water but we started feeling drunk”
“I think we were hallucinating, and we were describing our hallucinations to each other” I say
“Yeah, and we weren’t afraid at all anymore. We didn’t even remember the monster. Then eventually, we threw up, and so the drunkenness passed. We lay on the floor and almost fell asleep,”
“And then you woke me up because you saw the monster again, and we started tiredly running from it”
“Yes, and then I fell off a cliff-”
“I caught your hand-”
“You lost your balance-”
“And then we were both falling.”
“We wrapped our arms around each other and accepted fate, genuinely thinking we were about to die”
“How did you not die???” Kat responds
“Well, this may be the craziest part, but we landed in my bedroom” I say
Everyone is chaotically yelling, trying to process the entire story, wondering if Skyler and I are joking or not, and they settle down when we finally manage to convince them that we’re not. They’re understandably extremely confused. Suddenly though, Dante’s demeanor changes, I don’t know how I can tell through the phone screen, but he seems to get worried, or maybe depressed. Skyler and Celeste also seem to know exactly what to do when this happens, they just switch the subject.
It’s 2:00 AM now, we really just don’t care that most of us have school, well Kat doesn’t have school, she explained that she might come to our school soon though. I always stay up this late on school nights, usually because of Jake, so it’s been really nice staying up this late for a happy reason, this time it was because I was having a lot of fun talking to new friends. I’m excited to tell Naomi about them. Speaking of Jake, I haven’t checked if he’s texted me at all, he could be berating me right now. I realize I just zoned out and tune back into what my friends are saying.
“Woahhhh, what the fuck I feel like the ceiling is floating” Skyler says tiredly
“Ok Skyler, go to bed, seriously” Celeste says
“No, I can’t go to bed because then the cat will jump off of the building, and if the cat jumps off of the building, then the dog will lose its ball, and then the mouse will fall off of the airplane”
“What?!” I say with a small laugh
“Skyler, you really need to go to bed” Celeste says
Then there’s just silence from Skyler’s end.
“Ok, I think they fell asleep” Dante says
“Do they often get like that when they’re tired?”
“Yeah, they do” Dante responds, “I’m weird too though. I sleepwalk. One time when I was sleeping over at Skyler’s house I started sleep walking at like 12:00 AM and made a mess in the kitchen”
We all laugh, then agree that we should probably go to bed too, so we hang up. I’m a little sad hanging up, I really like these people, but it’s ok, I’ll talk to them again tomorrow. I choose not to check Jake’s texts, I’ll just let him argue with me tomorrow, it doesn’t matter right now. I turn the lights off and go to sleep peacefully.
Broken Minds 