Him

Memories // Conan Gray

Sometimes I wonder if I was ever enough. Maybe he liked me because I was just there, constantly waiting for his attention. But it was more complicated than that, wasn't it? There was so much more happening around the time

My earliest memory of him is in the school bus around 5 years back. Apparently we were in the same class before they shifted me to a different one (overpopulation I'm guessing), and we had talked to each other. Then with a change in location at the end of the year, I was shifted to a different bus too. His bus.

On my first day, I realised how early I would have to wake up every single morning. The bus left at around 6 AM, and that was comparatively much earlier than my previous bus. I remember getting onto the bus, my eyes half-lidded for sure, yawning as the lady in the bus told me to sit next to this girl. She was younger than me, by maybe two years. We immediately became friends. It was the classic, "Wanna be friends?" handshake. I miss that, really. I miss it all being so easy, so black and white. But with him, it never was. With him the shades of grey were endless.

So I'm here sitting next to my new friend, and she just falls asleep. That's when his voice calls me from behind. Apparently there was some sort of a rule that new students were supposed to sit on the front seat. I'm pretty sure the others just made it up because they wanted the seats behind. It's funny how none of that even matters anymore, now that he's gone.

So his voice called me. He asked me something along the lines of "Do I know you?"

To be quite frank, I didn't remember him at all from the class before since I'd switched classes so early into the year. By the time that all this happened, it was almost the end of the academic year.

"I don't think so." I replied.

And surprising me, he knew my name. "That's it, right?"

"Yes." I remember answering, unsure of my words. "And you are?"

He told me his name with a smile. I guess he remembered me from the start of the year, somehow. Really, the only thing I remembered from their class was that I hated the teacher.

The rest of the ride went by so slowly. I didn't dare to let myself close my eyes. Everyone else was happily asleep, though. I guess it was the childish fear that I would somehow miss the school altogether and wake up back at home. Silly, now that I think about it, but it didn't feel that way back then.

***

It was soon very clear that the girls and the boys in the bus, the ones my age at least, had an ongoing beef. On my very first day, I remember reminding myself to play nice. I wanted both these groups to like me.