She looked at me with strong anticipation. It seems like she's really curious as to why I am the way I am. I thought that maybe I could just lie, but making up a story on the spot would be way too much of a hassle. I'll be telling this story for the first and last time.
"I was never the kind of kid to approach others; I didn't think it was difficult or awkward to do, I just never felt the need to make friends. It simply wasn't appealing to me. On the other hand, when people approached me wanting to be friends, I saw no reason to reject their friendship. As long as they approached me, there wasn't a single person I would reject to be honest. Now that I think about it, having no friends was never the problem..."
"... Then why did you mention it in the first place?"
"Just letting you know. Anyway I guess I should start talking about what actually matters.
"My family wasn't rich or well off, we were pretty much poor, but even so I loved hearing the rain fall on the sheeted roof. I wasn't bothered by the fact we would eat the same meals every day; walking to school every day gave me more time to take in my environment. I would ignore the smell of rotting dog carcasses and the unleveled side walk. I really was innocent-"
"This kinda sounds like the beginning of any other sob story in the movies, and why are you explaining it like that "
"..."
"Shut up I have the talking stick." Even now she's spitting out jokes. Is she the kind that doesn't care as long as they're not seeing it happen or is that just her copping mechanism? In all honesty I was unsure, I guess I'll just ask her.
"Are you going to take this seriously or not?"
"I am, I just can't react well to this stuff. Just ignore me."
"If you say so." I had no idea what she was thinking. I don't know her in the first place and now that I think about it- wait aren't we advancing a bit to quickly right now? I'm just going to trauma dump on her just like that?
"Hey! You're doing it again, you're spacing out."
"Oh ya sorry, I'm going to continue now, I will accept absolutely zero interruptions this time, if you do interrupt me I'll take your snack privileges away."
"okay unc."
"..."
"Anyway the thing I hated the most was probably my parents. My mother was a loving person, but also ignorant, and my dad well, he lacked any kind of individualism. He was the most stereotypical alcoholic that goes off on there family at any opportunity they get. Looking back at it, it was never anything that serious. After all they were only verbal altercations, but to me my world would come crumbling down when I'd see them fight.. The uncertainty of what would be of our family if we kept going like this."
"Hey don't say that."
"Say what?"
"That it wasn't that serious! Of course it was serious, even if it was just verbal abuse that's still traumatizing for a kid."
"I guess so... well anyway you lost your snack privileges."
"Wait that's not fair! This isn't like last time!" she pouted and opened a bag of gummies and loudly chewed on them.
"Anyway, we lived like that up until I was 9, and my dad had the amazing idea of immigrating to America. The process of crossing the border is a foggy memory to me at this point, but I do remember how uncomfortable I was. I was dehydrated and needed to go to the bathroom and then we finally made it to America, where I thought the troubles of my parents would be fixed. I mean they would usually argue about the lack of money but no; my dad managed to become even worse than before and he would target me more often, while my mother just watched instead of just getting this man away from us.. Surprisingly, school life wasn't that bad. Nobody was racist towards me, although I think they just didn't know I was Mexican due to my pale skin. But my grades were horrendous. I thought to myself how I was going to get away from these people if I'm completely useless at academics, having to learn in a language I didn't grow up speaking was a challenge in itself and then bla bla bla my dad left while my mother almost begged him to stay and bla bla bla I lost my way and failed grades several times resulting in me being unemployed later on and bla bla bla I joined the military because of my lack of purpose and having very few alternatives and bla bla bla my mother left this house to me."
"Wait wait why are you skipping so much?"
"Don't know, I got lazy"
"How do you get lazy telling your own backstory that led you to the life your living now?"
I shrugged my shoulders. I have to keep her in the dark. If I add too much detail to the story, she could piece together some unpleasant things if she comes in contact with people who knew me at that time. So this will be as far as I go with that little story telling- wait wasn't the point of this to get a weight off my shoulders? I still feel the same. Well, I held a lot of things to myself, so I won't put all the blame on this method of coping.
"Oh well would you look at the time I think its time to sleep." I yawned dramatically.
"Don't ignore me!!! and what are you talking about, it's not that late."
"You go to school; you need to sleep early."
"....It's 8 pm "
"Ya exactly. I remember when I was in school they would tell me sleeping at nine was the ideal time or something like that."
"Okay what kind of weirdo actually sleeps at that time, and why are you trying to get off topic."
"I'm not going to tell you anymore, all you need to know is that I got lost in life
"Ummm that's not how this conversation was supposed to go..."
"I don't feel better about speaking about what I've lived, try some other way to make me non depressed." she seemed agitated, she really wanted to know more but I guess she gave up after asking me where she was going to sleep.
"I'd say my bed but, to be honest it's dirty as fuck... unless you have a kink for that then ya I'd recommend sleeping on the couch. I do have some clean blankets around... I think."
"You suddenly reminded me how truly filthy this whole place is."
"Hey that's pretty mean Emily"
"I'm going to clean this whole place up some day mark my words."
"Uhm thanks?"
"Anyway, let's do something, I don't want to sleep yet."
"Now that I think about it, you said your parents didn't care where you were at but I highly doubt that.
"It's fiiiiine. They do care but as long as I say I'm at friend's house they shouldn't press me about it."
"Ohhh it's that type of not caring."
"Anyway, come on let's do something I don't wanna sleeeep." she is high on sugar, the snacks I had bought that I thought would last a week were now reduced to half. This ball of energy had her system full of coffee and sweets.
"Alright how about we play something."
"I don't know much about games, my brothers rarely let me borrow their console."
"Well that's unfortunate, I guess we'll play something anyone could get into."
"What's that exactly Mr. Daniel?
"Minecraft"
"Oh I've played that before."
"Well who hasn't played Minecraft before? It's in my top 10 games, I don't care what anyone says." I scrambled around for another controller, only to realize how dumb my search was cause there was never a second controller in this place.
"Uhm ya plans ruined I only have one controller."
"How dare you hype me up for nothing!!! I was actually starting to get excited."
"Ya sorry I guess I'll get another one for next time."
"Next time huh? Hehe hehehe..." her mumbling and giggling was all I heard. Is she thinking of murdering me in my sleep ?
"I mean, you can still play. I'll just watch you and point and laugh whenever you fail on something simple."
"... First of all that's rude, second of all, playing it together was the thing that was going to make this fun...
Uhhh okay okay, how about you watch me play, I'll show you my Minecraft world and you can make fun of it." I couldn't believe the cringe words that came out of my mouth. The realization of what I just said sank in a whole minute later.
"Ya that one is cool, it's pretty detailed."
"Ya I wanted to be a architect at some point, but then I realized it wasn't really what I thought it was, plus as you already know, I wasn't able to get that far academically." It was odd but she didn't seem annoyed or bored as I showed her one of the worlds I had in creative.
"Some of these I just built while watching a tutorial, it felt like completing a Lego set."
"Heehhehe you're really are cute."
"...cute?"
"Ya that's the best way I can describe it."
I felt deeply insulted, but other than that, I don't know what kind of reaction I was expecting.
"No, I don't mean it in a bad way dummy."
"I always expect the worse."
Then finally after a night full of pointless conversation, we had a moment of silence. Seems like we ran out of conversation topics and we both looked tired; rightfully so. I glanced at my phone and realized it was already 3 am "Huh time really flies when I talk to her" For now I could just talk about something random, but it would seem forced. We both stared aimlessly at a blank tv for a couple minutes before I decided to turn it off. Our eyes met for a moment then Emily had decided to scoot closer next to me. She laid her head on my lap without saying a single word; all I could think about was to caress her hair. I stroked her hair as if she was a domestic cat. I didn't ponder at the fact she was crossing a lot of boundaries and how sudden it was, it just felt relaxing. I had never felt this before my eyes felt heavy as I slowly vanished into sleep.