I was never very good at confrontations. As a child, I often played by myself due to my differences with others. They would look at me as if they were looking at bug, with disgust and a dab of fascination. It was tiring to repeatedly explain why I enjoyed certain things when other children would try to befriend me. So I naturally gravitated towards a corner, reading books at recess instead of running around and playing tag. But I liked it better that way. I enjoyed diving into a whole new world buried deep within the paragraphs that I read day after day. I was comfortable and content.
However, during the first week of high school, I noticed the groups of friends coming together after a long summer break, excitedly chatting away about what the semester might hold. And here I was, sitting alone in some secluded corner, watching conversations unravel all around me. In those moments, I suddenly felt something heavy in my chest. At first, I thought it was indigestion or heartburn, caused by a hearty helping of mediocre cafeteria food. But as the days became night and I sat in the comfort of my own home, the heaviness would return and remain there for hours at a time. After some contemplation I realized what it was: I was feeling a desperate loneliness.
As a child, it was easier to be alone because of my vivid imagination and an excess amount of toys that was littered around the house. But now that I was older, it seemed that I yearned for companionship that could only be gained by gaining a group of people I could call ‘friends’. I became determined, desperate to sate this ravenous hunger in my heart. And within a month, I formed relationships with a group of strangers who had similar tastes, people who didn’t need an explanation of why I enjoyed different things, people whom I could call friends. Of course, that’s not to say these relationships didn’t come with complications. But with every argument and debate, we would be able to quickly reconcile our differences with a crude joke or a picture that we found on the Internet. Confrontations in our group were few to none and never really serious. Because of this, our friendship was able to last even until today.
But now I wish we did have some sort of life-altering fight that could make or break a relationship, some type of experience that would have prepared me for this. I stood in front of the door to the stairwell that led down to the visitor parking one floor below. I had just broken up with my girlfriend and left her alone in her car. I lied and told her that I was in love with someone else. That I was still in love with the person before her, my so called “first love”. I didn’t think she would believe it, because truth be told, she was my first everything and I thought she knew that. But from the corner of my eye, I saw the look of agony in her own, I saw the way her bottom lip trembled, the uncontrollable shaking of her body. I knew that her world was crashing down around her. All because I couldn’t tell her the truth. But how could I? How could I tell her that I love her, that I want to be with her until the very end, when the end could be so soon? How could I tell her that earlier in the day, I found out that I’m dying. That soon enough, I would naturally leave her alone anyways. So I decided to end things before it was too late.
I reached out for the door handle, but for a second, I hesitated and turned around to look at her once more. But when I saw her, I became afraid that I would go running back, apologize, and hold her in my arms until the break of dawn. I shook my head and gathered all the strength that remained in my legs and disappeared into the stairway. This was the end. This was my exit plan.
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