"How was your exam?"
It is the same question as every other day, but today, it stabs me somewhere in my stomach. I swallow the bile that threatens to rise up my throat. Trying to keep my voice as normal as possible, I reply, "Good."
"What did you say?"
Shit, I can't speak loudly when I lie. "Good," I repeat, louder this time. The word almost gets stuck.
Her eyebrows perk up. She crosses her arms and asks, "Really?"
"Yeah." I take off my shoes and pass her without a glance to reach the stairs.
"You do remember what I told you earlier, right?"
I stop, but don't turn around.
She continues. "I don't want to see your grades drop even a little."
I scratch the inside of my thumb with my index finger, pressing my lips tightly together. My whole life has been based off what she wants, and she still demands more. Not once did she ask me if something was wrong, if something happened at school, like all those moms in the books do.
"Or else?" I ask.
"What?"
I turn around. "Or else, what will you do? Lock me up in my room for a month until I die?"
"What? What in the wo—"
"That's what Rain Castleton's parents did to him because he didn't pass entrance exams. You remember Rain Castleton, right? He is the boy who committed suicide about two weeks ago." He is my July, the boy who suffered so much for his parents.
Her eyes widen and her mouth hangs open. I notice how thin she has gotten. In the dinner table, I don't see her eating these days. But I have never asked her about it. I didn't even think of asking her.
If she is a bad mother, I'm not a good son, either.
"Is that what you think of me?" she asks, her voice quiet, and slightly trembling.
"You leave me no choice," I reply, my own voice breaking. "Parents like you . . . never leave their kids any choice at all."
Then I turn back and go to my room. July is standing right is front of the door, a worried look on his face. I avoid his gaze and put my bag on the ground.
"You fought with her again," he says.
I lean against the table, burying my face into my palms. I take a long breath. "I didn't want to."
"What happened? Something's not right, is it?"
I remove my hands from my face. I look at the floor and confess, "I couldn't answer 17 marks today." Hearing it being spoken out loud is so incredibly scary, that I squeeze my eyes shut, as if to protect myself from the sight of something that will scar me forever.
I feel his hand on my shoulder. "Hey, it's okay. It happens. It's fine, Cedar."
I shake my head as I say, "I don't want to hear that from you. I want to hear it from Mom."
His hand moves to my other shoulder, his arm encircling my neck. I keep my eyes closed, feeling my only childhood demon feeding on the fears of my mind. The demon is telling me, in a thin, shaky voice, "I don't want to raise a failure". The demon is my mother, the one who gave me birth, the one who didn't hold me in her arms when I woke up from nightmares, the one who scolded me for getting 98 on an exam instead of scolding me for not eating my vegetables.
The one who is too afraid to ruffle my hair and tell me "I'm sorry" when I am awake.
And just like July said, a simple apology does not erase anything. If it did, perhaps the world would have been much simpler. Perhaps I would forgive her and tell her that I understand, that I would work hard for her, and all she has to do is to show her love to me even when I'm not sleeping.
"I know, Cedar. I know," July says. And I know he does. Everything I feel, are everything he has felt himself.
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23 July; Tuesday
"Why're you standing here like a tree?" Edgar asks.
I look up from my flip notes. I was afraid of how he would look today, but he looks surprisingly fresh, and it doesn't seem fake either. I notice he has styled his hair differently. More like, he has combed it today, which he didn't bother the other days.
"Why are you staring at me, creepy nerd?" he asks, moving a hand in front of my eyes.
I snap out of Observation Mode and say, "Let's go in."
"You just ignored both of my questions. How fucking rude."
"Probably means that your questions aren't worth answering."
He kicks my leg with his toes.
"Ouch!" I yelp, raising the leg to rub the spot. "You want me to break my leg or what?"
"Yes! Break a leg. It's your least favorite subject today!" He shoves his hands in his pockets and starts jumping as he walks ahead. I warily follow.
The dreaded Biology exam is today. I really couldn't make time to exchange more than a few sentences with July last night. He had to practically drag me out of my chair at 2 am 'cause I was showing no signs of doing so myself. Though I dedicated the whole yesterday to Biology, I still don't feel too confident. There are way too many things that I continuously forget, so it's impossible to make a flip note for them like I did with Chemistry. At this point, I'm just gonna leave it all in God's hands.
I remain close to Edgar. As soon as we reach the third floor, heads start to turn towards him. People start subtly pointing at him. They start whispering with their friends. Edgar doesn't glance at anyone as he walks, looking straight ahead and not faltering even a little. It makes me admire him more, though I don't think he feels as confident as he is showing. But we all must put on a facade to survive in this society.
When we reach our lockers, I see something written on it using black marker : G OR B?
"Woah, dude." He looks at me. "It's karma." He laughs humorlessly.
"Ugh. If I could find them—"
"Eh, just let it be. It's troublesome, though." He sighs and opens it. "You think I should transfer?"
"No. Why should you? You have every right to read in this school."
"Yeah." He nods. "Yeah, you're right. " He turns around and adresses the hallway with open arms. "Peace out, people! I'm both B and G, now go fuck yourselves." He flicks up the middle finger of both his hands. I blink several times, in awe. Then he whispers to me, "My brother taught me that yesterday. Makes me feel so badass."
"Speaking of yesterday, how did it go with Alex?"
His eyes drop, and he tries to hide a smile. He smacks my arm and says, "Shut up."
"What?" I laugh and smack his arm too. "What happened? Tell me."
"Nothing happened! Shut up. Nosy bastard." He heads towards the class. I grab his arm.
"No, tell me!"
"I'm not telling you anything!" He tries to free his arm from my grasp as he drags me to the class.
"I left you two alone and did a favour. I deserve to know."
"I said shu—" He stops at the doorway, so I come to a halt behind him.
"What's wrong?"
"This . . ." He walks in, and I follow.
In the blackboard, the words "WE ARE SORRY, EDGAR" has been written in beautiful calligraphy, contribution of our artistic Hayden Nakajima. The entire class has stood up in their seats, each carrying a banner that says something. "We love you, Edgar!" "We are proud of you". "We are sorry for hurting you." And all such sentences.
Edgar looks from the class to the board, his jaw dropped. He shakes his head. "I . . . I don't . . . what the fu—?" He lets out a breathy laugh and looks at me. "Did you know about this?"
"Of course I did," I reply, grinning.
Louis called me last evening. He told me that our class president, Lydia Henlei, had suggested us to do something in order to apologize to Edgar for their behavior. So she created a group chat with all the students of our class except Edgar and planned this whole thing under one night. She instructed everyone to make a banner saying what they want to say to him. My one was made by July while I was studying. I kept it on my bench after coming to school in the morning, and right now, Louis is holding it up in one hand while his own one is in the other. It says, "I will stay by your side!" July wrote the text in black calligraphy. The sentence, was of course, his idea.
"Oh fuck. Oh my God. This is so . . ." Edgar laughs, wiping an oncoming drop of tear with his pinky finger. "Oh God. Thanks a lot, guys."
Lydia, whose sign is saying, "It's okay to be whoever you are, and whoever you want to be", says, "Edgar, we were all shocked, but that's not an excuse. What Cedar said yesterday made us realize how cruel we were to you. How bad you must have felt. But you don't have to feel like an outsider with us anymore. We all accept you, and won't treat you any differently than before! You're still our friend. And we still love you. Right, guys?" She turns to the class.
"Right!" Everyone says in unison.
Edgar remains speechless for a while. His mouth opens and closes repeatedly, empty of words. He finally says, "Th-thank you. Oh fuck." He puts his fingers over his eyes to hold back the tears. "Thank you so much."
The class settles down after the 30 minutes warning bell rings before the exam. The two of us go to our seats.
Louis, who was holding a sign that said 'Louis was a bad friend. Please forgive him :(' says, "Edgar, Louis is sorry for yesterday."
"It's okay, dude." He smiles.
"It really is?"
"It really is." Edgar lightly hits the albino's chest and sits down. "What the fuck did you tell them yesterday?" he asks me, taking the banner July made in his hand.
"Honestly, I don't even remember," I reply.
"Louis has never seen Cedar so mad!" Louis said, putting a hand on his chest. "Louis was scared."
"Woah, really? The nerd can be mad too?" Edgar laughs.
"Yes! Cedar was cursing in front of Mr. Henwicks and he looked scarier than Louis' neighbour Mrs. Crooke when a dog peed on her lawn."
Edgar and I both laugh at that. Edgar examines the banner and tells me, "This is pretty nice. You made it yourself?"
"I had help."
"Guess I'm gonna take this home."
"And hang it on your wall and show it to everyone and be like 'my friend drew this for me!' like a grade schooler?"
Louis giggles. Edgar hits me with the banner. "You." Smack. "Fucking." Smack. "Self-important." Smack. "Piece of." Smack. "Shit."
I give him an incredulous look. "Don't smack me with that. It's cardboard. It's expensive."
He returns my look. "Your dad earns 5-digit figures per voyage. Heck dude. I'm going to cry."
"Then cry."
"You fucking—" Another smack.
I click my tongue disappointedly. "I'm the only one who made a cardboard banner. Everyone else used poster papers."
"Are you boasting, rich bastard?"
"I have a cardboard. Of course I will boast."
"Then go fuck a cardboard!"
"Is it really possible to do that?" Louis asks, looking genuinely curious.
"Yeah," Edgar says, "you like, wrap your di—"
"No!" Louis covers his ears. "Edgar stop! No bad words!" But Edgar just said the f-word a million times.
I lend a helping hand. "You wrap your male reproductive organ. Edgar, continue."
"Yes, you wrap your MRO with cardbord and then moan saying 'Oh! Cardboard-sama! Oh!'"
"Stop! Edgar is pervert!" But Louis is giggling. Perhaps the debate with Daisy yesterday made him slightly less religious.
Another random guy nearby who was probably hearing our conversation joins in and goes - "Thee so thick, cardboard-sama, oh! More—"
Daisy Redfield bangs her palm down on my desk, making the three of us jump in surprise. We look at her. Her curly bangs hang in front of her face as she glares at each of us individually and declares, "Men are disgusting."
Louis clears his throat and sits straight. I go back to my Biology book. Edgar puts my banner under the desk and pretends to follow a mosquito with his eyes. That other boy who joined gets back to his friends and starts talking about Doraemon. Daisy moves her eyes over us once before groaning and sitting straight herself.
I glance at Edgar, who shapes his lips into an O and silently pretends to moan. I kick his leg under the table. From the front, Louis takes out his cross locket from under his shirt and shows it to the two of us, a scared expression on his face. The three of us quietly laugh, but stop when Daisy snaps her head towards us.
When she turns back front, I look at the window. The sky outside is filled with puffy white clouds, as if teasing the advent of autumn. I smile. Autumn was Dawn's favorite season.
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"I screwed up the diagram of heart, though," I tell July. "It looked more like a lunchbox than a heart." The rest of the exam went pretty well.
He laughs, turning the page of the Geography book. He is asking me questions to help me practice. "Did you also mess up the diagram of the vagina?"
I roll my eyes. "It didn't come."
"You were totally blushing while practicing it last night."
"Well, of course it's embarassing to draw a vagina! Same goes for a penis."
"Ooh?" He wiggles his brows.
I warily shake my head. "Ask the next question."
He shoots me a sheepish smirk and starts. I get some of the answers wrong, so he makes me go through them again and again so that I don't forget the location of the Prime Meridian, or the time difference between every consecutive ebb and flow until the day I die. I hope the answers to these questions help me pay my taxes in the future. We finish a little after 12 am, and prepare to sleep. Or at least, I do.
I just closed my eyes when July says, "You know, I thought about it."
I snap my eyes open. When he thinks about something, it's usually bad.
"About what?" I ask.
"What you said that day. I thought about it and realized that what I did was quite immature and pointless. In the end, I didn't achieve anything out of it."
I shift my position and lie on my back. He is sitting a little ahead, his back faced to me, so I can't see his face.
I say, "I don't think it was pointless. Not if you don't only think about what you gained. I don't know what's special about that letter, but if it managed to reach the heart of even one parent and change them, then I think you were very successful."
I stare at his back for a while, thinking how behind that gray fabric, lies hidden scars from his mortal life. What a painful life that must have been. He says, "It couldn't change your mother. And I don't care about anyone else in this world other than you."
Somehow, hearing that makes a wave of warmth rush through my entire body. My face heats up a little. I reply, "Maybe it will, one day."
He chuckles. But his voice slightly trembles when he says, "Maybe."
"You know, without you, July . . . I don't know what would've happened to me. I have changed and developed so much as a person, and I couldn't have done it without your help."
He doesn't reply at first. After what feels like a long stretched silence filled with a nervous tension in the air, he finally says, "All those years, existing to only hurt others . . . it feels great to hear that, Cedar."
I smile. "It's the truth."
He turns his head sideways towards to window. "But I didn't do much, Cedar. If you look back at the days we have spent together, you were the one who did everything. You realized your mistakes and learnt from them. You're amazing, Cedar. I hope you know that."
"Couldn't have done it alone."
He chuckles again. "If you say so." I thought that marks the end of the conversation, but then he says, "There is something I didn't tell you."
I'm sure there is more than one thing he hasn't told me. "What is it?"
He moves his hand through his hair. "In the . . . uh, three days I was gone, I went back home to see my family."
"Oh." Why am I not surprised?
"Sorry for not telling you, but yeah. Took a train. I wasn't surprised with what I saw. They got divorced, and Mom left. Dad's staying alone. From what I could gather, I was buried as Hale Castleton in a very private quarter of our family graveyard. Many strangers come to visit, but they're not allowed in, so they just leave flowers to the keeper, who never puts them in my grave. Anyways, Rain never came back once. Dad looked . . . lonely. Don't know where Mom is. I saw writings and graffitis on the walls of our house saying shit about them, calling them murderers. That's what I always wanted, but when I saw it, I didn't feel good."
"I think I understand."
"I know you do. Families are always so strange. No matter how much you hate them, you can't stop loving them, either."
I think for a while. "Don't you want to know where Rain is?"
"I do. The more I think about it, the more mysterious his apology gets. But there's nothing to do about it. Even if I feel guilty, I can't change anything."
I take a deep breath and exhale, the sting in my chest becoming more painful as I do. "Even if I feel guilty, I can't change anything, either."
He finally turns his head back, and gives me a sad smile. A knowing smile. My heart clenches at the sight. The more similarities we find between us, the more closer we seem to get.
But the closer we get, the worse it will be.
I've been thinking about something for a while. "I have decided to announce three ground rules," I declare, after a short silence.
He laughs. "Okay? Go ahead."
"Hmm, first rule." I raise my pointing finger. "Don't lie to me again."
"Ah . . . okay."
"Second rule." Raise the next finger. "Stop reading my mind whenever you feel like it."
He nods. "I still don't have full control over the power but I'll try."
"Okay. Third rule, don't ship me and Ed—"
"No!" He clasps his hands together in a desperate plea. "I can ship whoever I want! You can't take away my birth right. Violation of Human Rights Charter. 1981."
He is so dramatic, oh my God. I only roll my eyes. "Fine, will decide the third rule later. Remember these two now."
"Okay!"
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Y'ALL AREN'T READY FOR RULE NUMBER THREE IM TELLING YA😭😭 (it will come in book two!)
hey guys! how are you all doing? hopefully great! :)
i try to make my filler chapters really important and filled with foreshadowing so that it's enjoyable but i don't think i do a good job at that. gotta improve this aspect more.
anyways, thanks a lot for reading! there are only a few chapters left for this book, and i still can't believe i have come this far. thanks for all the support!❤
— love, poma