Going On

Theo

“If you're reading this...
Congratulations, you're alive.
If that's not something to smile about,
then I don't know what is.” 
― Chad Sugg, Monsters Under Your Head

I watched as Noelle sat down awkwardly next to me.

She winced when she saw me looking at her, and looked at my nose.

“My nose is fine, Noelle.”

She smiled awkwardly, pursing her blood-red lips.

“Really, it’s fine. Really,” I said.

“I know, I just... I mean... I’m sorry, because I really like you, but not... Not like that. I mean, not that I wouldn’t date you, I would... But I mean, I’m just... I’m scared, you know? I’m scared of the love- I mean... The... The respect I have for you? Yeah, that works, I guess. I just... I like you. But not- Not like...”

I smirked at her, and she bit her lip.

“You know what? I’m just... I’m just going to stop talking now,” she said.

The kid across from us smirked, looking at me and winking. He was the guy who I thought wanted to fuck me. He was wearing a black leather jacket, and he had spiked his hair. Oh, what a badass. I bet he could kick at least ten kids without even sweating.

Dickhead.

“You’re one lucky dude,” he said.

Guess I wasn’t the one he wanted to fuck.

Noelle looked at him, then looked at me, then back at him. She furrowed her eyebrows and looked angry. It was adorable.

“Shut the fuck up.”

I laughed at the sound of her being so serious, and she shot me a glare. It was even more adorable than before.

“Sorry, sorry.”

“We’re not together,” she said, glaring at him again. She sounded like she was trying to convince herself more than anyone else, and sunk lower in her chair.

The teacher came in and shushed us, standing near the front of the room by the marker board. He was so young, too young, to be teaching such a lesson. He didn’t have enough experience.

Of course, most people would think that every kid in the room didn’t have any experience with suicide, but we did.

Life is fucked.

He wrote a quote on the board:

“In three words, I can explain life: it goes on.”

He didn’t bother to put the name of the person who said it, but underlined it multiple times, especially the last three words.

He placed the marker down on the edge of the board, turned around, and clapped his hands together.

“So,” he said, “why are you all here? Let me give you a hint: I just wrote it on the board. Don’t bother raising your hands, I’ll tell you what you’re doing: you’re going on. You’re moving on from what happened, and you know what? That makes you good people.”

He sat on the edge of his desk, and looked at us.

“I would like to apologize for our last session. To be perfectly honest with you, I was going through a bit of a rough patch myself. My long-time boyfriend left me. Some of you may feel uncomfortable with me sharing this with you, but a large part of moving on from experiences is trusting other people with their care. A lot of times, getting over something isn’t because you forget something; it’s because you leave it behind for someone else to take care of. When you tell people about your experiences, that’s exactly what you’re doing; you’re cutting a little piece of yourself off and handing it to them for them to hold and care for for you, so you can walk around a bit faster with your head up a little higher. Energy cannot be destroyed, it can only change forms. The same goes for pain: it cannot be destroyed, it can only change hands. But either way, someone will feel it, and it will destroy someone.”

He stopped abruptly, and stood in front of the room staring at us.

Noelle looked at me, and held out her hand.

“What are you doing?”

She smiled softly.

“I’m giving you my pain. Will you take it?”

I smiled and nodded, taking an imaginary handful of her pain and putting it against my heart, groaning in pain as I absorbed it. She smiled.

I held out a hand to her.

“Will you take mine, Noelle?”

“I’d be honored.”

She took an imaginary handful, and put it against her chest, closed her eyes, and gasped.

“Well Noelle, I have some bad news for you.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m in just as much pain as you, because I don’t feel any different. Perhaps we did it wrong, or perhaps God wouldn’t let us transfer it correctly because he’s a dick or something. I’m not sure, Noelle, but I like to think that I have it and we’re just both as fucked up as the other one. But I do feel a little better knowing that I’ve taken away some of your pain.”

She smiled.

“I feel the same way, Theo.”

“Good,” I said, “because we’re going to need it. God only knows how much more we’ll have to exchange.”