“I didn’t have many friends in grade school,” I tell him, still keeping my eyes down. “I had one. Delilah.”
He’s quiet, and I know he’s staring at me.
“She had this shaggy blonde hair that kind of looked like a mullet, and she wore these frumpy corduroy skirts,” I went on. “They looked thirty years old. She wasn’t cool and she didn’t dress right. She was alone a lot like me, so we played together at recess, but…”
I narrow my eyes, trying to harden them as the image of her comes to the forefront in my mind.
“But I got tired of not hanging out with the popular kids,” I admit. “I’d see them hanging on each other, laughing and surrounded by everyone, and I felt…envious. Left out of something better. I felt like I was being laughed at.” I lick my dry lips, still avoiding his eyes. “Like I could feel their eyes crawling over my skin. Were they disgusted by me? Why didn’t they like me? I shouldn’t have cared. I shouldn’t have thought that kids who shunned me would be worth it, but I did.”
I finally raise my eyes and find his green ones watching me, unblinking.
“And in my head,” I continue, “Delilah was holding me back. I needed better friends. So one day I ran off. When recess time came, I hid around a corner so she wouldn’t find me, and I watched her. Waiting for her to go off and play with someone else so I could do the same and she wouldn’t look for me.
I swallow, my throat stretching painfully.
“But she didn’t,” I whisper, tears welling in my eyes. “She just stood against a wall, alone and looking awkward and uncomfortable. Waiting for me.” My body shakes, and I start to cry. “That was the day I became this. When I started to believe that a hundred people’s fickle adoration was worth more than one person’s love. And for a while it felt kind of good.” Tears stream down my face. “I was lost in the novelty of it. Being mean, slipping in a quick insult, making a joke of others and of my teachers…I felt respected. Adored. My new skin suited me.”
And then more images creep in, still so vivid after all this time.
“But months later, when I’d see Delilah playing alone, being laughed at, not having anywhere to belong…I started to hate that skin I was so comfortable in. The skin of a fake and shallow coward.”
I wipe the tears, trying to take in a deep breath. He’s looking at me, but the heat of shame covers my face, and I’m worried. What does he think of me?
“And when I started writing you a year later,” I go on, “I needed you so much by that point. I needed someone I could be the person I wanted to be with. I could go back. I could be the girl who was Delilah’s friend again. The girl who stood up to the mean kids and didn’t need a spirit animal, because she was her own.”
I close my eyes, just wanting to hide. I feel the bed shift under me and then his hands cupping my face.
I shake my head, inching away. “Don’t. I’m awful.”
“You were in fourth grade,” he says, trying to soothe me. “Kids are mean, and at that age, everyone wants to belong. You think you’re the only one who feels like shit? Who’s made mistakes?” He nudges my face, making me open my eyes and look into his. “We’re all ugly, Ryen. The only difference is, some hide it and some wear it.”
I slide the food out of the way and crawl into his lap, wrapping my arms around him and burying my face in his neck, hugging him close. He gently falls back onto the bed, lying down and taking me with him.
Why didn’t we do this ages ago? Why was I so scared to meet him and change things? We’ve been there for each other during his grandmother’s funeral, lengthy summer camps with hardly any communication to each other, and even a couple of girlfriends of his who I never told him I was really jealous of.
Why did I think that all the words and letters and the friendship would fade so easily?
His arms hold me tight as I lay my head on his chest, hearing his heartbeat and the light tapping of rain against the window. This is new for me. I’ve been comfortable in places, but I think this is the first time I’ve been anywhere I never want to leave. My eyelids fall closed, sleep pulling at me.
“I have a question,” he speaks up, causing me to stir.
“Hmm?”
“When you write on the walls at school, you sign the messages as Punk. Why?”
I keep my eyes closed, but I breathe out a weak, little laugh. “Do you remember the letter you wrote about your first tattoo and your dad saying you looked like a punk?”