School Story - 011

"There's only one person in the world who really knows me, and I'm fine with that. Just that one person is all I need."

Arthur doesn't say anything to that, he just looks at me.

"What?"

"Nothing, just… I think it's kind of amazing to be able to say something like that."

"Thanks, I guess."

"I always wanted to have lots of friends, ever since kindergarten. I don't know, maybe everyone does, I'm not sure. And I did have a lot of friends through to intermediate school. The leaders of our group, I suppose you'd call them, used to bully the rest of us, one at a time. Most of the time, no one did anything wrong or angered anyone else, it would just be decided that it was their turn to get hazed.

Once high school started though, it kind of became my turn indefinitely. I'm not sure why, or what I did, but that's just how it ended up. After a while, I just stopped hanging out with the people that I was friends with, and I've been alone ever since."

…

"What can I say… they don't sound like very good friends."

"No, they weren't," Arthur laughed hollowly, "I just wish I'd worked that out sooner."

"Well, there's no point regretting that now."

"No, I guess there isn't."

…

"Are you still going to say that you don't want to talk to me?"

"No, you're right. It's probably just an inevitable occurrence that people will dislike me for one reason or another, because people are just like that. But, how am I supposed to accept that? To come to terms with it?"

"Well, just understanding that much is probably good enough, right?"

"I don't know. It doesn't really feel like that's enough though. Even if I understand that, it's still hard to accept that people won't like me, and I'll still annoy people-"

"Who cares if you annoy other people? That's their problem, not yours!"

He was starting to annoy me just with the way he thought. It seemed that he cared a lot what other people thought of him, and yet he was very poor at presenting himself as a likeable person. That's what got him into the mess that he's currently in. That's why he's all alone.

I sighed, breathing out loudly to calm myself down, "well anyway, I guess what I'm trying to say, is that I'll be here for you if you need me. But the rest is for you to work out. If you want to go find some new friends go for it, if you still want to be alone it's up to you."

"But you're just doing this out of pity aren't you?"

"No, why would I be doing this out of pity? It's your own fault you got into this mess. I'm doing it for myself, so that I can feel good about myself. If I find you annoying, it isn't like I'll keep hanging out with you out of pity, either. I'll be your friend as long as we both want to be friends."

"I see… then you'll probably end up hating me too."

"Who knows? I don't think I will though. I'd like to think that I'm mature enough at least to not hate someone just because I find them annoying. And maybe I won't find you annoying."

"You know, you're really strange."

"Yeah, I've heard that a few times recently."

Arthur smiled at that, "well I guess if your insisting that you'll still keep bugging me, then whatever. I'll let you continue to hang out with me."

"Sounds good to me."

And with that, I made my first friend since coming to Christchurch.

Tayla's my girlfriend, Massimo is my neighbour, and all the people at the restaurant are workmates. Of course, I'm friendly with lots of them, but I don't know if any of them are really what you could call friends. Though, I would still be friends with Tayla even if she hadn't wanted to go out with me.

I know I said that I'd abandon Arthur if I found him annoying, but that's not quite true. I'm not that cruel. I don't find him that annoying anyway. Most of the time, at least.

And with that, the story of my return to school comes to its' conclusion.