I remember tears. I always remember tears. In fact, they’re one of the easiest things to come by, and the hardest to erase. It’s taken me a while to realize that the reason for this is because human emotions are so easily susceptible to manipulation and coercion. As is common knowledge, words and gestures can be minute and petty – simple. However, they can also cause pain, affliction, and easiest of all, those tears that I always seem to remember.
“James*, tell Alee that I need her to type this out for me. I want this on page four of the yearbook,” Mrs. Hawthorne* said to him.
“Alright,” he said. It irritated me to hear the reluctance in his voice. It irritated the crap out of me, but it stung more than anything. It hurt like crazy.
I listened to his quiet footfalls - heart racing, hands shaking, waiting to hear the voice that I hadn’t heard directed at me in so long. To my dismay, “She said to type this out,” was all he said, as he dropped the page full of print on the desk beside me. His tone was so cold; I looked up at him in bewilderment before I remembered that this was all my fault, I was the reason behind his indifference, his scorn. I started this ridiculous onslaught of petty, enigmatic behavior. Me.
He turned and walked away after looking at me with an expression I never saw before. For the first time since I had known him, I couldn’t read it. I couldn’t see the words I’d usually hear in my head before he spoke them aloud. I knew him like the back of my hand, and now he was a stranger.
I mumbled an excuse to my yearbook advisor, and stepped out the back door of the classroom, tears welling up in my eyes before I was even out the door. For so long, no matter what the situation, I always managed to contain myself somehow. I always tried to find a way to mask the emotion that had plastered itself across my face.
It was then that I became familiar with the term regret, with tears. I couldn’t fathom the amount of significance such a simple gesture had on my composure. I was breaking down, my walls almost completely shattered. I knew then, in the pit of my stomach, how love gave someone the power to break you.