Friendship is the key for the perfect life
It all started on the way to school with my older sister. She looked at me and said, “Can you walk somewhere else? Like with your friends. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot. You don’t have any.”
She smiled. Not a real smile. The kind you give when your friends are watching, and you don’t want to be embarrassed. I felt something snap inside me. I wanted to slap her.
And I did.
Because that’s what I always do. I mess things up.
“Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Delavre. I’m very sorry to inform you that your child will no longer be attending this school. He has not only slapped his sister, but he has also shown repeated disrespect toward teachers and students. He displays aggressive behavior and is constantly involved in fights.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Li-chi, for his attitude,” my mother said. “Why do I have the worst child in the world? I mean, I have Louna… and then there’s Tom.”
“It’s okay, honey,” my father replied. “We’ll handle this.”
“How can you say that?” My mother shouted. “He’s just been expelled!”
“Thank you, Mrs. Li-chi. Have a good day,” said my father, calm.
“Thank you both, and I’m sorry about your son,” the principal said.
And just like that, it was over.
My expulsion didn’t sound so bad when it was written down. But when your parents yelled at you, it felt like the end of everything. At first, none of us knew where I would go to school, or even if I would go at all. But then my parents told me that I would go to a school named “FuturePath School” This name sucked!
On my first day at the new school, I didn’t talk to anyone. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I already knew how it would end. People like me didn’t get friends. We get looks.
When the bell rang, I went to my locker. Number 317. The metal felt cold under my fingers, like it didn’t want me there either. I opened it, already expecting nothing.
Instead, there was a folded piece of paper on the top shelf. I looked around. No one was watching. At least, no one obvious. I unfolded the note.
“I know what you did last year.”
My stomach dropped. For the first time since the expulsion, I wasn’t angry. I was scared. I read the note again, hoping the words would change. They didn’t.
Last year.
I searched my memory, but everything blurred together with detentions, bruised knuckles, and my parents’ voices raised in disappointment. Nothing stood out. Nothing that deserved a threat like that.
Every step felt heavier than the last. When someone laughed behind me, I flinched. When a teacher called my name, my heart jumped. All day, I felt watched. At lunch, I sat alone. A group of students stared at me from across the room. One of them whispered something, and they all looked away when I met their eyes. That afternoon, when I returned to my locker, the note was gone. I stood there longer than I should have, staring at the empty shelf. My chest tightened. I hadn’t imagined it. I knew I hadn’t.
The next morning, there was another note, but not in the locker. In my bag. I saw it when I took my notebook. It was creepier than yesterday because I was in the class, everyone was staring at me, they were whispering things that I didn’t even want to know. I took the note and put it in my pocket; I didn’t want anybody to see the note. when the lesson started, the teacher said
“Tom?” I was somewhere else; I was thinking about the notes.
“Tom? Hello… are you with us?”
“Oh sorry, I was somewhere else”
“I see that. You know the answer to the question?”
Everyone was staring at me.
“Which question?”
“Do you know the difference between an animal cell and a plant cell?”
“Animal cells are used for movement, whereas plant cells are only used to decorate nature.”
Everyone laughed
“You really don’t understand that we are here to work, and we need to listen to your teacher.” She said
“I’m sorry”
“I hope. Anyway, we will continue.”
I looked at the class, and everyone was working except for this girl. She was listening to music and drawing, I didn’t see her drawing, but she looked pretty concentrated with her drawing. She looked also pretty. Really pretty. And then she turned around and saw me staring at her. I looked away. When I looked at her, she was still looking at me. She smiled at me. I turned red.
After class, I was in front of my locker. My empty locker. I filled it with my files. When I closed it, the mysterious girl from my science class was waiting for me with a smile.
“Hi, my name is Clara.”
“Hi. I said anxiously”
“We are in the science class together.”
“I know I saw you listening to music”
Around us, everything was calm, like in a movie.
“Yeah. She said, laughing. I don’t like sciences”
“Me neither”
“You were funny when you answered wrong”
“Hahaha.” I said anxious
“Anyway, I’m gonna go eat. Do you wanna come?”
“I don’t know. I don’t wanna disturb you”
“Don’t worry, you’re not disturbing me. I’m eating alone anyway”
“Ok then, where are we eating?”
“I was maybe thinking the cafeteria, she said laughing, we can’t leave this school”
“Er… true, sorry.”
We went to the cafeteria, talked and laughed. Everyone was staring at us, whispering things, but today I didn’t care. I was feeling good. I didn’t think about the notes and all this stuff. When I realized we were finished eating, I was sad, I didn’t want it to stop. I was sad, but I needed to go. “Er… it was nice to eat with you.” I cleared my throat
“Yeah, really nice we should eat here again together.”
I went to my locker, I couldn’t speak, I was so happy, and at the same time I was feeling like she was controlling me. But it was only a feeling…
When I got to my locker, I was scared of seeing another note. I opened it slowly, like I could find something that could change my life. I felt people watching me. I opened my locker, I expected a note or a threat, but nothing, I was relieved. All the weight that had been on my shoulders because of the previous notes was gone; everything was gone. All the looks that were watching me disappeared.
When I got out of the school, I saw Clara, I ran to her and I tapped her on the shoulder, “Hi, how are you?”
She took her headphones out and said:
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothing I… I just wanted to say hi”
“Emm, you know that we’re not friends.”
My smile faded away.
“Just kidding, oh my god, you should see your face”
We laughed and she said:
“So, friend?”
She held out her hand to me, and I took it, and we shook hands.
“Friends”
After that I went to my bus and she went to hers.
The next morning, I went to my locker expecting a note, but nothing. When I turned around, Clara was standing there, staring at me. She asked me
“Why are you so scared to open your locker?”
“What do you mean” I said
“I was you open your locker and you were scared, why are you so scared?”
“You want the truth? Somebody… somebody puts notes in my locker.”
“And what’s in it?”
“heum, last year I… swear you’re gonna keep it for you”
“I swear”
“The reason I changed schools is that I… I hit my sister because I have anger issues.”
“Everybody knows that”
“What? What do you mean”
“Everybody saw the video, it’s like everywhere, so the note you were talking about, it could be anybody.”
“If you know that, then why are you friend with me?”
“Everybody deserves a second chance, you don’t have anger issues because you want, if I would guess it’s because of you family.”
“Yeah, but like…
“No, I know who you really are, I ate with you and you were kind, there’s no reason for hating you, I know who you really are.
I was there, speechless. I met for the first time a real friend, who cares about me, and doesn’t care about my past.
“You know there’s some people who are kind et really care about you, there’s not only people who wants bad things from you, like your family, there’s also people like me, who really cares about you even if we met not a long time ago, I really like you. As a friend of course”
“I really like you too, as a friend.
I smiled at her and she smiled back; we each went our separate ways home.
The next day we went to school like always, but this time I wasn’t scared at all, I was happy to have a friend. When we ate there was this guy, he came by us and started talking to us. He said, “are you the guy that hit his sister, if it’s you can you walk away from us? Because I don’t want to be hit.
Clara looked at me like she wanted to help me control myself.
“I… I”
“You?”
“I don’t want to hit you, and I’m not going to.”
“So, you’re scared?”
I thought of all the things Clara has said to me, all the love she gave me. It doesn’t matter to hit him, and I’m not.
A real friend
“No, I’m not, I’m just … I have anger issues, and now I’m controlling myself, so could you please walk away?”
“Hmmh okay.”
I succeeded, Clara looked at me with happiness, I had finally managed to control myself thanks to her.