She was the liveliest girl in the class. With her around, not one day would pass without all of us laughing our heads off. Her unique sense of humor and her hilarious translation of any situation made our stomachs hurt from laughing. During classes, she used to crack jokes out of the blue, which took every inch of our control to stifle our roaring laughter. There were even times when we failed to do so and got scolded by the teacher for "illegal laughing" as she termed it. Her witty gestures never failed to amuse us.
On days when she didn't come to school, we would nearly die of boredom. Those days went on without any excitement. It felt like all life had been drained out of us on those days.
We all tried to mimic her ways, but antics were something else that we could never really master. She was the kind of person that everybody wanted to be. Sympathetic, reliable, kind, brimming with life, she was the embodiment of all of these traits and many more. Never once did we see her sad. Her grades were top notch, her parents never received a complaint from the school regarding her conduct, yet she was almost always present in the mischief going around. Her life was perfect. Happiness, fond memories, good grades, love from all, and everything else one could possibly wish for. She was the perfect definition of "alive".
But, that was what we thought. She had successfully deceived the world with her "miss perfect" mask. Underneath it, hidden away from the world, was a girl, who was not so perfect. Underneath it, was someone who was broken, someone who wasn't happy, someone who was desperately searching for a reason to go on. We never saw this side of her, not even once. Maybe it was this inability of her to share this side of her with others or maybe it was something else that took over the best of her and, so today, she was absent. Yet we did not die of boredom today. It felt like all life had been drained out of us, but in a very different way as compared to other days. This was because we knew she'd be absent tomorrow, the day after tomorrow and any other day one could say. No, she had not left the school, she had left the world, that too on her own will.
How do I know all of this?
When she was still with us, she used to make songs. They were the only things about her that didn't radiate the cheerful, positive aura she used to carry with her. She used to post them on a platform under a pseudonym and had quite a few listeners. I used to listen to them too, as an act of supporting my friend, but I never gave the lyrics of those songs much thought. They were deep, sad and told tales of a hurt, broken soul. I always dismissed them as her targeting to appeal to a particular group of people with her content, and being fairly talented at that. Never once had the thought occurred to me that those might have been what she really felt, an attempt to convey her real feelings, a cry for help or even somebody, to tell her that it was okay, to not be okay. To tell her, her feelings were valid, and that one day, it would be alright. To tell her, she doesn't need to pretend to be happy to be loved; there are people who'd love her regardless of what she feels.
If only…. I had understood what these meant earlier; I could have been beside her, let her know that there's at least someone who accepts her just the way she is. Maybe then, she could have started learning how to accept herself as she was. Maybe then, she would have been living today. Fighting and trying to overcome this, but alive.