day 1 ➜ a letter to my best friend
Dear Jaime,
I don't really know why I'm addressing this to you, Jaime because you're not my best friend anymore, but since you were the only person in my life I've ever called my best friend—I'll give this one to you, for old times sake.
It's funny really but this is actually the second time I've tried to write this letter. The first time I attempted to write this, I was sat on the wrong bench outside, so when Killer Kieran came back to his spot he left me with a black eye and ripped up that letter. So here's this one.
The other day in the chapel I was thinking about you. About the first time we met. I must've been, what, around 8 or 9.
I was sat on the table playing Match Attack with Mike when Shelley brought in the new kid. I took one glance at your perfect black hair and pearly white-teethed grin and to be honest was I jealous of all the instant attention you'd get by being the "new kid" and I didn't like you.
You were too perfect, too likeable.
You were an extrovert.
Which explains why you had all my mates staring at your shiny new red and yellow football boots 10 minutes after you'd arrived, of course, my mates liked you better. I'd like to write I disliked you because it's petty to say I hated you for basically just being yourself, but if I'm being honest here... I did hate you a lot.
You were always the centre of attention.
We only really started speaking at around your four-month mark of being at Aldertree. You were sat by the windowsill of the ground floor's living room. You looked so deflated. You'd spend your whole day just sat there waiting for your Mum to turn up and she never did. You'd go around telling everyone "she's coming today" and run off from the football pitch to go wait by the window. You'd done this every Saturday since you'd arrived and I hadn't seen her once.
I don't know what was different about that Saturday, but I walked up to you and asked: "You had lunch yet?"
You'd looked at me annoyed and said: "na, I haven't". I know deep down you were secretly glad I came up to you because it distracted you from the reality of your Saturday. Your Mum wasn't coming.
I think it's because I knew what it felt like, to sit there, waiting, longing, to see that familiar face walk past the window and through the front door and tell me "I've come back for you". It hurt like hell when months and months had gone by when I realised my Dad wasn't coming back for me. You know what I learned though, that because I spent nearly all my days waiting for my dad to turn up, I'd forgotten to talk, to play and make real proper friends.
So when my mates instantly started following you around everywhere, the fact I wasn't in the group anymore didn't affect them. At all. We never really made a connection. We were always just mates because we were boys around the same age in a care home—so it was natural we'd group together I guess.
After you'd told me you hadn't eaten anything for lunch. I went to the kitchen and stole two triangle-shaped sandwiches. "Thanks, Harry," you said taking the jam one I'd offer you.
We were there, me leaning on the wall and you sat on the windowsill eating jam sandwiches. I think that was the moment we both became friends— proper friends—where we ate in a tranquil silence.
You got me into actually playing footy, although I was never as good as you. You taught me how to dribble the ball around cones and how to kick it properly, with the side of my foot. Those times were the best.
You know right now I'm smiling, and I know it's crazy considering everything that's happened, but I can't help it.
Thinking about those times where we'd spend hours watching Arsenal play Chelsea or kick a ball around with the lads. It was a laugh, you've got to admit that.
It wasn't long before people couldn't say our names without each other in a sentence, it was always "Jaime and Harry" or "Harry and Jaime". You'd get into so much trouble, and just because I was your closest friend Mike and Shelley would always assume I was involved too.
It was never fair when I was sent to the time-out room as a punishment for something you did. It really never was because I never did anything for you to get unfairly punished for.
You were the troublemaker and somehow I became your behind the scenes helper. The Robin to your Batman. The Patrick to your Spongebob. The Ron Stoppable to your Kim Possible.
I was always the wingman. Always behind you. Always the one to make sacrifices for you.
You were a real bloody dick at times. I knew you'd purposely try and make me look bad most of the time because if you were next to me, in comparison you'd only look about, what, five hundred times better.
That was the thing about you, Jaime. You had a big ego.
But of course, when we were in secondary school it got that much worse because puberty hit and you grew to be six-foot-one. Finally, your shadow caught up with your damn ego, as you surpassed me by an inch and boy you didn't let me forget it.
The thing is I got comfortable in your shadow. I got used to having someone to sit with me at dinner and at lunch in Aldertree. I got used to being around you, even if all you talked about was how hot some random girl was or how Mr Wood was a dick for giving you detention.
All our conversations were just you.
It was always your topics of conversation.
It was always your voice bitching like some moody, fake-tanned chav about the latest gossip. I remember the day I was disgusted at just how much your ego had inflated.
"Harry, come look at what Jack just sent me," you said shoving your Motorolla flip phone in my face. "Isn't it wicked?" You asked me as I realised it was a picture of a girl's breasts.
"Ew Jaime, that's gross, get that away from me," I said and you laughed. You laughed so loud people in the classroom turned their heads around to see the heck was going on.
"For Pete's sake Harry, where are your balls? Have they even hung yet?" You said loudly, and then you grabbed my crotch area.
"Get the fuck off me!" I shouted standing up from my chair and you just laughed louder. The class had joined in by this point.
"Alright Haz, don't get your knickers in a twist!" You said trying to diffuse the situation but you laughed so hard your hand banged the table and our whole class then broke out in a riot of laughter. Micheal fell out of his chair, Josh was rolling on the floor and Milo was on his hands and knees.
I was mortified. Completely and utterly stunned, standing in the classroom watching a bunch of gorillas.
"Do you think he's ever wanked?" Josh started, and more laughter roared.
"I-I don't even think he knows how to!" Micheal shouted falling back down to the ground again after he'd crawled to another chair.
You made me feel like utter dogshit Jaime. I don't think you know how it feels to feel smaller than a piece of chewing gum stuck under your shoe. It feels like you'd kicked my shins and I'd fallen to the ground. That you've tackled me to the ground and I can't get out from under you. Like time's frozen still and you're just having the time of your life, making me feel like this. It almost felt worse than when my Dad left me because once he left. He left. He didn't really keep in contact with me. You know how that feels like. Your Mum did the same thing to you and I was always there for you on those rare couple sessions every couple of years when she'd turn up. You know how it feels to think you're born broken in this world. When no family wants you. But you became my brother.
I knew I couldn't start crying in front of you lot because it'd only prove what you were trying to insinuate, that I was a girl. That I wasn't man enough because I didn't want a girl's nudes shoved in my line of sight.
Fine, I'll admit it because I know you want me to. You'll want me to make you feel, that, one bit bigger than me.
Jaime... You're the man.
You're the fucking man.
So I ran out the classroom that day and spent my time crying silently in the corner of the library. When I got home that day. I went straight to my room and dove into my bed. I missed dinner that day. But, of course, because either Mike or Shelley sent you up to check on me you came into my room that evening. You'd knocked first and I didn't respond, for obvious reasons. I felt like shit and didn't feel like talking. And yet you came in any way when you knew it was because of you.
Everything was because of you.
And you knew that all too well, you dickhead.
"Haz, come on," you said by my door and I turned my head away. "You know it was only a joke right?" You asked with a fake light tone to your voice.
You did it on purpose.
You knew full well what you were doing when you did it.
And you were playing it off as a joke.
"Christ's sake Haz, you really can't take a joke," you said and when I didn't respond you left go of the door and walked around my bed to face me.
You crouched down so your head was level to mine which was lying on the pillow. "I'm sorry," you said and by the tone, you used and the genuine look in your eyes. I could tell you meant it.
There's a thing people say about care kids. Especially teenage kids from care "they're trouble" or "you should stay away from them" or "they're weirdos". But, of course, there are people that don't give into that bullcrap and make their own minds up. But the issue I'd gotten was those few people that did try and be friends with care kids almost always avoided me as I was the weirdo of the weirdos. So you Jaime were my only real friend in school, but out of school, you were my best friend.
We grew up together, we went through puberty together, we watched the football premier league together. You were my brother and I was yours.
But when things like nude girl's picture started happening more often, that's when I really understood. You liked making me feel small. You liked feeling better than me. You liked proving to everyone you were the shit. But then at home, you'd always say "I'm sorry".
You always apologised to me at home, because I was still your brother. Still the boy you did everything with at home. Still the boy you grew up with. You never forgot that I was still your brother. No matter how terribly you and your possé treated me at school.
But then things changed. Sometimes you'd forget to apologise. Although by that point your apology didn't really mean much because you weren't actually sorry. But you sometimes forgot I was your brother.
And it was then you became my sometime best friend, no—scratch that—my sometime friend. And my sometime brother.
By this point, your ego had grown so large, not even Robin would be happy with the arrangement. And that was around the time I finally wanted out of your shadow...
But the war to come wasn't just about me and you... you know that.
It was also about Cristine.
The thing is, you and I were always on the surface. We were friends on the surface never piercing the veil and probably why it never really hurt you when you hurt me, and why it never really hurt me when you hurt me. What hurt me was being humiliated and laughed at. If you and I had gone on that deeper level of understanding in Aldertree the type of understanding and feeling and meaning I'd imagine real brothers felt then I don't think things would have ever escalated as far as they did. Brothers always bickered and pushed each other around, but they'd never let themselves go off the edge. And if they did go off I mean, then the other would bring them back. But you and I aren't real brothers. And our "bond" became ill-fated and bitter.
And so I was done making sacrifices for you, but unfairly, you still managed to evade the punishments for your crimes...
But they found me instead.
I don't exactly know if I can say I like you or love you anymore... but since you're dead, and you can never read this... I should sign off nicely.
Respect, you know, for the dead and all that.
All the love, Harry.
// author's note//
Unedited.
So this is the first chapter. I don't know if it was enjoyable to read. I hope it was. I realise why most people don't like writing using the second person. It's odd to write in- definitely.
Please leave a comment or a vote as I've never written anything like this before so it'd be really encouraging.
Lots of love,
L x