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My friend died today.
I was in class when I first heard the news. A student had been hit by a careless truck driver while crossing the street in front of the school.
Died instantly.
Once the emergency responders arrived, they declared him dead on site. Some students saw the body before they took it away. A few recognized who he was and passed the information to staffers and faculty.
The accident became the rumors of the day. Other than the few, students referred to him as ‘that kid.’ He was a quiet guy who kept to himself, similar to me. It’s a wonder that the two of us met in the first place.
Not many knew his name. Some of the upperclassmen knew him as the kid who sat in the corner of the cafeteria everyday.
Other than that, the day proceeded as normal. The school didn’t cancel classes or declare a state of emergency. It was just a freak accident; other students were not in danger.
Still, throughout the day, students talked amongst themselves about the accident. In some classes, the teacher acknowledged what had happened in front of the whole class. “One of our fellow students passed away today,” my chemistry teacher announced. “I know you’ll all be busy with your experiments today, but let us spend half a minute in silence.”
Other teachers only talked about it with a few students if the topic arised while he/she walked around the class. Others, not at all, since we started exams right as we entered class.
I talked about it with a few of my friends as well. Not very much. I had yet to find out it was a friend of mine who got hit. It was assumed he was an underclassmen since none of my friends knew at the time who had been hit.
Today was also a busy day for most classes. Winter break was coming up, and of course all the teachers decided to cram their tests and assignments into the last week. We could not afford the time or energy to throw a pity-party for the mystery student who had passed away.
In my calculus class, we had a test. In Chemistry, we had to finish up our lab assignments. In World History, we were preparing for the test later this week. I skipped lunch today to meet with my counselor. I needed to give a speech in French class today. And et cetera.
Coincidentally, our school had a fire drill scheduled near the end of classes today. It was quite inconvenient as it interrupted exam time for my English Literature class. The teacher, as irritated as she was, suspended the exam until after winter break.
I was thankful for that. Not because I felt I had studied poorly for the exam, but because I knew I could not finish the exam after what happened during the drill.
During the drill, one of my best friends ran up beside me as it ended and everyone was walking back into the building. I have a class with her tomorrow, so I assumed she wanted to talk about the project we were turning in.
When I saw her face, I had a feeling something was wrong.
“Don’t worry about the project,” I assured. “We finished what we needed to do long before some of our other classmates.”
“No, I’m not concerned about that… The.. accident in front of the school building today. You heard about it right?” she asked as we kept walking forward.
“Who wouldn’t have?”
“You.. know who that was?”
“I heard it was one of the underclassmen.” I turned my head and saw her face had grown pale.
“.. Was he.. a friend of yours?” I asked.
“No, I hardly knew him.” Her reply was slow and calculated.
“You know who was hit?”
She hesitated for a few moments, then continued. “Well.. I suppose you would’ve found out sooner or later.
“You knew him.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Who was it?” I began to think of which student in the underclass I could have possibly known.
Her next few words shook me. “The guy you sat with during lunch almost everyday.”
I stopped walking. She did as well.
There was a moment of silence between us. Other students kept on walking on past us.
“.. Oh…” I eventually murmured. “That guy…”
“I’m sorry.. I shouldn’t have—”
“No, it’s okay, I just.. Let me have some time to think about it.”
She quietly nodded, and left me alone.
The rest of the school day passed, and I walked home by myself as usual. Some of the neighbors on the path to my house were routinely outside during this time, sitting on their porches or just coming home from work. They would greet me every time, as we saw each other every work day, and I would greet them back with a smile and a wave.
I got home and found a note from my parents saying they would be coming home late today. I was free to make my own snack in the meantime.
I went upstairs and plopped down my backpack. I undressed out of my uniform and sat down at my desk, pulling out my homework.
I set down my notes on my desk, but didn’t start working. I set my elbows onto the desktop and stared at the papers for a while, winding down from the slew of events that happened today.
Suddenly, a drip of water soiled one of the pages. I looked up to find the leak, only to realize my vision had become diluted with light. Before realizing it, I began to sob, quietly at first, then letting myself loose, wailing loudly. My head collapsed down into my arms and onto the papers that were scattered across my desk. The tears wrinkled and ruined my notes, but I couldn’t afford to care.
All the pent-up emotions that had built up inside me from the day’s exams, projects, and assignments came out at this moment. When my parents came home long after the sun had set, they found me asleep at my desk, my head still buried into my criss-crossed arms. The curtains were still open and the desklamp on, as the only source of light in the room. They knew enough to leave me alone.
That night I dreamed a strange dream. I was a little child again, sitting in a bus with a bunch of other children. We were all in our uniforms; a school field trip. As kids, we were mischievous, of course, yelling across the aisles and to kids on the other side of the bus. My friends were jostling around with me, in innocent jest with each other. Despite the chaotic and hearty atmosphere of the bus, I felt an emptiness inside; the yelling and jeering slowly becoming distant echoes as light flooded everything around me, until there was nothing but white.
That was when I came to realization with myself. It all made sense, why I had felt tense, and why I uncharacteristically collapsed from the stress.
I had been anxious. I was anxious to find out who had died. And I had lied to myself that I was fine, that I was stressed out because of the tests and exams and lab experiments and project assignments and…
When I reflected on my day as I always did once I got home, it was then when it hit me the hardest.
I never got to tell him I loved him.