truth hurts sometimes. you avoid knowing it - even wanting to know it, and engross yourself in other things, hoping its wily little fingers never wind up coming close to you. but sooner or later it catches up with you, and you listen and let it happen. you can say a few words, hoping you'll get a positive answer. but what comes really does come hard and fast, and then your dream-world bubble collapses all around
so it happened, this tuesday i found out my initial fears were right after all. you'd feel it, not talking to a close friend (or a once-close friend) for so long. before this - rumors spring up like toadstools all around, and i discovered for something like four months already? you'd rather you didn't know but it all comes to you in one day, from multiple directions.
and it makes you stifled and unsure of what to do. now that you know, you can't say you don't anymore D: trying to carry on and play pretend like nothing happened - doesn't work. you try to say a few words, but they don't come. or you give in to the pleadings of those around you to talk, and you do - but then wish you hadn't after all. maybe things might have improved far more than they look now.
you convince yourself that maybe, just maybe, there's a chance that this could all work out. at some point you tell yourself that rumors can't hurt a great treasured friendship thats about a few months old. but truth comes knocking again, and you realise that though you tell yourself repeatedly "no its not going to get to me." but it does and you put distance between the two of you - and hurt the other person. try to take it back but do it too long, and repeat the same mistake - now the other person hurts you back
come back round to not talking - that friend who was there for you when rumors blasted a previous friendship (not as close, but a friendship nonetheless), who you could ask for help with those random non-understandable science questions, and with whom chatting online was always so much fun. you remember appreciating how this friend was the one you'd look forward to seeing and because you laughed the most maybe, during these chats. contrast it to now - you don't see your friend online, and you know its not normal - then you realise what's really happening -
thats when you snap. don't show it but inside youre falling apart and you don't get why the bumps in the corridor or the unexpected interactions in subject meetings or the such, why they show otherwise. otherwise of what you know is really happening. you hold it in and at most, talk to the closest of your close friends. you tell yourself "i may bend but this... oh no it won't break me."
it does, eventually. prior to that - you're still wandering around rather ghost-like and friends notice - they say why do you look so terrible? you shrug smile and play pretend, look like you're happy with not a care in the world. every smile's truly a facade, for as long as the truth continues to hurt you. each time you spot your friend from afar its a stab and then another. you don't know what to do - you want to talk but now you can't anymore. and you wonder how it'll be like if this friendship ever repairs.
what goes around really does come around ): seeing your friend still happy (or looking) and you feel colossally empty inside and wishing you two could laugh-talk like before. the weekend comes and you wish this was the chance to patch up but no it isn't. the day before you tell another close friend you didn't really wanna show up for saturday but you do - late. another unintended glance, another stab. try not to think about it but you can't focus on what's at hand.
snap, snap. you can't do it anymore and collapse comes. you know you should never have come, know that somehow you don't wanna come for future saturdays until things get better, because each time something happens you know you're probably gonna mess up again. and someone you thought was a friend isn't helping - from behind he's killing the friendship you're trying to patch up - and then he comes around and calls, says "hi how are you are you okay" - you know he's doing this the second time around. you get mad but you're sick of arguing and laugh, smile say "i'm fine."
you wanna take a break from school, a break from life, a break from social circles. because nearly whatever you do doesn't feel so real anymore. and the fact that your once-close friend is involved in many of the things you are - that doesn't help either. you bump into your friend several times in a day - even a half day at a field in the west, and in the mrt station - but its a blank un-said. you see anger, jealousy and indifference in the eyes of the other and it hurts again.
thats when you know you'll never be 100% happy until resolution comes, and reprieve for those around you whom you treasure most but who are also falling apart like dominoes for their own reasons as well - its so weird but its true. and you wonder why. you understand why some of your friends turn to darker things, use other means of recovery and you feel tempted. but you know its wrong. you don't wash away the good that your school, your friends have submerged you in for many months, and go back to the old habits of older days.
God tells you not to worry, so you force yourself to sit there primly and wait. so when you don't know what to do and how to deal with things, just remain there. unmoving. tears - splish splash drop. and try to put the shattered pieces together again without any glue.
how do you move on? and what do you do next? back to bottom line - rumors sting. you think you're not gonna let them get to you but no they do. and you become acutely self-conscious and act defensive. yes i'm guilty, that much is my fault. you see your friend in the corridor - you really wanna talk. in fact, a million words you could say there and then, share your day and joke about the latest news in school like normal - they come but they stick on your tongue. you lose your voice, you pretend you don't see your friend. it hurts, yes, but you avert your eyes
and you continue walking - away.
