Six Last Lessons

lesson one: words left unspoken say more than those we speak

He looked happy when he knew people were watching him.

I pulled my knees up to my chest. My finger trailed around a bruise on my knee, trying to remember how it got there. My leg was starkly illuminated as I sat in the window seat, one side lit up, the other in deep shadow. I looked up at the boy who was reading on his bed, and I thought there were two sides to him too.

The room was quiet; the only sounds those of the occasional car trundling past outside, and the fallen leaves rustling with the wind. Autumn had crept into our town, the leaves turning russet as the trees slowly became bare and skeletal. Soon they would be black and dead as the winter stole in, and we would hunch into our jackets to shelter ourselves from the bitter cold. But now, as I looked out from the window of his room, I could see rooftops and treetops alike, blazing crimson and garnet. As if they knew what was coming and were determined to burn bright until the end. I looked away from the window, because thinking about it reminded me of him too much.

The silence in the room was easy. Occasionally he would turn the page, and I could watch as he renounced the real world and turned to a false one for escape. He loved reading, and I knew why, of course I did. He was there, but at the same time he wasn't, and I didn't dare to allow myself to think of times when I'd thought we'd never be able to do this again. Sit in silence after school while he read and I thought, or drew, or listened to music. Simply enjoy each other's presence, because our friendship was such that we didn't have to talk to be happy together.

When he read, it was easier to observe him, to gauge how he truly felt. The small smile he always wore, for my sake, for his parent's sake, for our friend's sakes seemed to fade, and under it he was different. For a long time I'd struggled to put my finger on how he looked, because it was slippery and hard to grasp. But eventually it occurred to me that he didn't look sad, or angry, or pained. He simply looked tired. Tired in a way that no sixteen-year-old boy should ever look.

But he was. And I had no idea how to fix it, or if it was possible.

I let my head rest against the wall, thinking about my thoughts. I found that recently, I'd been trying to stop myself from thinking too deeply about anything. Because everything reminds me of him, and not in a good way, not how it should when someone means everything to you, where everything reminds you of their face, their smile, how soft their eyes are when they laugh with you, or how strong their hands are in yours. No, every time he smiles, I fear it is the last time, and every hint of winter reminds me that he may not live to see it.

It saddens me that we had to grow up so much faster. Not so long ago, my thoughts would have been heavily dominated by school and boys and friends. But our childhood ended a long time ago, I realised as I sat there, my hands wrapped around my knees. And despite the warm glow of the sun as I sat by the window, I shivered.

"Cold?" he asked, looking up from his book. It was still open on his lap, but he had his finger pressed on the corner of the page, as if he was about to fold it to mark his place. I looked at him hard. He sighed, and reached for the bookmark on his bedside table.

"It's a bit chilly," I said, as he put the book down. I smiled, appeased at the small victory – he had an awful habit of dog-earing books, and I was trying to bestow upon him the magic of a bookmark. So far though, he hadn't seemed to see the point. 'Life is short,' he maintained, 'I don't have time for that.' Nobody commented on exactly how short life could be.

"Just borrow a jumper." He said, tilting his head towards the wardrobe. "And then meet me downstairs. I'm going to get something to eat."

I lowered my legs from the sill. It was my favourite place in his whole house. The window was set into the wall in a way that meant you could fit pillows and blankets and (if you were lucky) two sixteen year olds. As I made towards his wardrobe, I heard him going downstairs.