Click.
On the rare occasion that she was referred to, that’s what everybody called her. It’s sad because for the longest time I had forgotten her real name.
Brad and Jimmy and I always sat in the front of our English class that year. And behind us, all you could hear was the click, click, click of her pen. Once or twice I remember turning around and snapping at her to shut up, that she was annoying, that if she ever wanted to have any friends she better stop. I remember that made Brad laugh, so I kept doing it.
Its funny how things work like that. I could’ve been labeled the exact same thing.
Click.
Because of the sound of my shoes down the hallway, or the fact the only people I ever seemed to associate with were those surrounding me, that I supposedly called my friends.
But they couldn’t really be my friends. They didn’t understand what it felt like to look out a window and see all the leaves on all the trees have so many colors, and still feel nothing.
And I wrote about that in English class. We had to stand up in front of the class and read what we had written. I could’ve gotten out of it if I really wanted to. I knew how to bite my lip and pout my eyes the way Mr. Jones liked. I always did it, that’s just the way things were. But always getting everything I wanted didn’t mean I felt anything.
Click, click, click. I walked up to the front of the class, and started reading my poem.
Everybody else had stayed up late writing theirs, procrastinating the same as with anything else. I had written mine at night too, only not in the same way. I had come to realize how much more time you have in your life when you don’t sleep anymore.
I crinkled the paper in my hands and took a breath, looking out into the class for a familiar face to calm me, but the only person who would hold my gaze was Click.
And she was listening to me and had this bright look in her eye that was so deep and up until that point I had never seen another person care for a stranger the way she seemed to be caring about me. It was in that moment that I realized I was wrong about everything I thought was right.
But I had blonde hair, and hers was a musty brown color, so I ignored the feeling swelling inside me.
And I read my poem.
When I was finished, Brad laughed at me. So did Jimmy. They didn’t get it. They didn’t get that just because I had written about red nail polish, didn’t mean it was actually about red nail polish. And all Mr. Jones was interested in was watching me walk back to my seat.
I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around.
Click.
“That was really good!”
Even thought I wanted nothing more than to feel cared for again, I could not allow my eyes to meet hers. So I rolled my them and turned back around.
I muttered to Jimmy. “Who does she think she is talking to me?”
A month had passed and the leaves were almost gone by then.
I still had the same friends, and my shoes still made the same noise down the hallway, but I didn’t feel like me.
Nobody seemed to notice. Not even my mother when I told her all my clothes were too big.
“Great! I’m proud of you for getting fit, let's go shopping this weekend!” She said with a smile. I smiled back, enough though I knew that normal stores didn’t sell sizes smaller than a double zero.
When it hurt, I would go into the freshman bathroom. I’d make them all leave without even having to ask; they were all scared of me anyway. I would lock the door and write all over the mirrors with my lipstick.
But even locked doors and painted mirrors couldn’t mumble the sound of me breaking.
There was a tapping. Click, click, click.
At first I didn’t answer, but it was persistent. I wiped my eyes, and thought of some story of explanation.
I opened the door. It was Click.
“Are you alright?”
And even thought she smelled like old people and wet dog, I hugged her. I hugged her and I cried because a girl who’s real name I didn’t know was more of a friend to me in a minute than any of the friends my daddy’s money bought for me ever were.
I would like to say I went home that day and threw out all my heels, but I didn’t. That would take time. And one small event wasn’t going to fix me.
I did, however, expect to go into English class the next day and smile at her, because she smiled at me and maybe it would help us both.
But the next day in English class, the only click I heard was the sound of my shoes down the hall. And in the back right corner of the room there was nothing but an empty desk with no pens to be clicked.
I don’t understand how a person like me gets to live, while a person as good hearted as her is going to be forgotten way before her time.
You may not know me, and you may not have known Jane Smith, but that does not mean you are any different from either of us.
So if you look out your window and see all of the leaves and all of the colors and you still don’t feel anything, know that you are not alone. And know that even though those leaves fall off, and get stepped on by the soles of a thousand shoes, they do grow back. And life does go on. So, please, do not let things, as simple as the click of a pen, keep you from believing other wise.
