31 Days of August

Day 21: The Newspaper

Day 21: Write a scene involving a newspaper.

I stared down at the newspaper in absolute shock, not being able to process all the emotions that I was feeling at once. Disbelief. Horror. Relief. Sadness. Happiness. Confusion. Despair. Acceptance. Pity. Distress. Regret. Thankfulness. All these conflicting concepts were battling within my head, and all I could do was try to sort them all out. It was written in black and white in front of me, though I wasn't sure if what I was reading was really real or just a figment of my sick imagination.

"Claire, what's wrong?" Caleb asked, his eyes full of concern when I met them with my own. I slid the newspaper in my hands across the table to him, and he read. With shaky hands, I somehow managed to take another sip of my orange juice, but the inner turmoil that I was currently facing wasn't about to magically disappear with more vitamin C in my system. How did one react to the public news that the person responsible for putting them through years of misery was suddenly gone--and gone for good?

"He's dead," I croaked, unsure why a small tear was currently making its way down the side of my face. I wasn't supposed to be sad about something like this. I had gone through years of praying that this exact thing would happen, and now that it had, well, I wasn't sure what to think anymore.

"You knew him?" Caleb's voice sounded, but I found it hard to make out. I couldn't focus on anything right now except for all the memories and the fact that he was now dead. Gone. Forever. This wasn't a temporarily thing--no, this someone's life. He wasn't ever coming back, and while I should've been jumping for joy, I wasn't. Maybe it was because unlike him, I actually had a heart. Caleb's tender tone was the only thing able to snap me away from my thoughts, even if just for a few seconds. "Who was he, Claire? A boyfriend? A friend? A classmate?"

"At one point or another, all of the above, but last time I checked, he was..." I trailed off, not being able to finish my sentence without feeling horrible inside.

"He was what, Claire?" Caleb prompted.

"An enemy," I finally choked out my original thought.

"I, uh," Caleb struggled with his response, "I don't know what to say, Claire. If you want, you can tell me what happened--maybe that'll help." He then stood up from his chair and walked over to where I was, clasping his hand around my hand, and indicating that I should get up. With legs like jelly, I got up from my chair, and then went with Caleb over to the couch in the sitting area, just a few feet away. Our breakfast had been discarded, along with the newspaper that had triggered all of this. I wanted to forget, but with information like that, I simply couldn't.

We sat down on the couch, and Caleb held me in his arms, gently stroking my hair like he had done a million times before. It was comforting, but not enough to ease the gravity of what I had just found out. "He's dead," I muttered, trying desperately to stop the onslaught of tears that were now welding into my cheeks.

"Start from the beginning," Caleb directed soothingly.

"The beginning?"

"Yeah, the beginning."

"Well," I started with a sharp intake of air, "we met in kindergarten. We were in the same class. Back then, we were nothing more than acquaintances. Classmates. We had no real connection other than the fact that we learned together." I stopped as I thought back to that time. It had been so simple then. We didn't know each other, and though I wasn't aware of it at the time, those days had been the best ones of my life before Caleb came around. 

"Then what?" Caleb implored in whisper, his words coming in through my ear with a small brush of air.

I thought for a moment, trying to pinpoint when exactly things had changed, but I couldn't find one particular date or time. It was all just gradual. "Then as we got older, we became friends," I said, the term "friends" seeming like a curse when related to that boy. It just didn't seem right. Though, maybe that was because we were never really friends--I had just thought we were. "And after that, in middle school, he started to bully me." Those words were harder to express than admitting that we had actually been civil towards one another at one point in time. All the memories I had of that terrible time were swirling in my consciousness, though I had clearly stored them away to never be opened again.

"Claire, I'm so sorry," cooed Caleb, continuing to run his fingers through my hair.

"I don't even know why he targeted me," I said, full-on crying now. "It was just words, but sometimes words are the deadliest form of artillery." Pausing, I found my eyes connecting with Caleb's as I remembered that I was in a safe place, and that he couldn't get me anymore. He was dead. He wasn't coming back, no matter what. "For years I was the insecure girl, and just because he continuously told me that I wasn't worthy. He pointed out my smallest flaws to the world, and even made some up. The worst part of it all, though, was that I listened to him, and believed him."

"You're perfect, you know that, right?" Caleb said, gazing at me as if I truly did fit the unjust adjective he had bestowed upon me.

"I'm not anywhere close to it, but that's because it's a faulty concept," I articulated something I had learned long ago between sobs. 

"True enough," Caleb nodded with a faint smile. "So, he bullied you. I'm sorry, Claire. You didn't deserve that."

"No ever deserves to be bullied," I said. "And you know how he justified it at the beginning of ninth grade?"

"How?"

"He told me that the reason he bullied me was because he 'liked' me," I spat, mainly in disgust of myself, "and I believed him, Caleb."

"Why?"

"Because I was stupid and thought he was cute."

"And then what happened?"

I closed my eyes, remembering back to a blissful time full of naivety that encompassed my first year of high school. I was so stupid. I trusted him. I believed him. I fell for him. "He..." How could anyone--no, how could I have been so stupid? "He...asked me to be his girlfriend...and I accepted. So, basically, I was going on with the boy who bullied me for the entirety of middle school, and I was too dense to realize how screwed up that was."

"Shhh..." Caleb mumbled, his hand moving from my hair to my back as he began to rub it. "It's okay now, Claire. I love you. Everything's going to be okay."

"Caleb...I, uh, haven't told you everything," I gulped, not sure if I was truly ready to tell this part of my past. Thus far, no one knew about what had happened. All they knew was that our breakup had been rough and nasty, but they didn't know why we broke up, or what had escalated to it all. I had never told anyone. I was scared that he would do something to me if I did. Now, though, he was dead, so I felt safer telling Caleb. He couldn't get me. Not now. Not ever.

"You can tell me anything, Claire. You know that," he whispered calmly.

With a deep breath, I attempted to conjure up the correct nouns, adjectives, verbs, articles, pronouns, prepositions, and every other part of speech in between to express what had really happened back then. And with a simple, "He used to hit me--I was in an abusive relationship," it was all out in the open. At that, Caleb hugged me tight against his body and began to kiss the top of my head over and over again. I went on, because just like the tears, it was as if my mouth just couldn't stop. "I didn't end it for a while because I was scared of what he would do. Then I caught him cheating on me and had a legitimate reason to breakup. He was mad. It didn't end well. After the split, he went back to bullying me, but thankfully stopped the physical stuff. When I graduated high school, I moved here--as far away as I could--so that I would never have to see him again."

"I love you, Claire," Caleb muttered into my hair in response to all I had said. "He's dead. He's gone. He's not coming back. And I love you."

For a moment, I glanced over to the table where the newpaper lay, and only then did I really feel as though a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. He was gone. Dead. Burried. Eternally no more. I didn't have to think about him ever again, or worry. He was dead. I then averted my gaze to those amazing eyes belonging to the boy I loved and who loved me, and then uttered the only thing that felt right: "I love you too, Caleb."