source of picture: pixabay
Most valuable things in life are most of the time neglected by society and thy self. It is a normal behavior, despite of the negativity of the trait, it's acceptable.
I'm Carl, 15 years old, lives somewhere here in United States of America. So, you might say to me that I'm too deep for a teenager at his puberty to be talking about important things in life.
Maybe I am same like you before that thing had happened to me.
When I was 10, I used to be an insensitive guy. People doesn't really hate me, but I just only care about my games, food, toys and my favorite TV shows.
One day, A Chinese transfer student transferred in my class. Her name is Xue Zhe and my classmates and teachers calls her 'Shi' cause they've told me that her name is read as that.
To me, Shi's transfer was an interesting matter, I used to think of her as some kind of alien or specimen cause she looks different and speaks different.
She's okay with my other classmates, they eat and talk together, but not me.
There is this one incident when we were grouped into two's for a project, and with some random fate I got grouped with her.
It was an awkward conversation, I cannot even look at her.
She's speaking English to me, but her tone is something that I find weird.
The project that we were grouped for was for our social class. It's a project were two people will make a scrapbook about happiness and stuff. The project has a month long before it's deadline and I don't really feel like doing any of it.
"Zis iz we wi well stat", Shi talks to me about the project. She is pointing on our text book while she was talking and I was pretending to be interested and listening.
"Yeah, yeah", I replied to her.
That conversation went on with just letting her talk most of the time. All I did was smile to her and say, "yeah, yeah that's good"
Then it was dismissal time, time to go home. I felt really tired so I just wanted to go straight home.
I was already far from our school gate when she appears.
It was Shi and she was shouting and running towards me. I felt like she was calling me, I seriously have no idea what she was shouting when she did so.
"Cal, Cal, weit ap, huff, huff, huff", she said to me while she was catching her breathe after she ran towards me.
"Shi? Why?"
"You fogot yo buk", she said that I left my book that she has used to explain how we will do the project that I just mentioned earlier.
"Thank you"
"No, itz okey, yur wey howm iz hir?"
"Yes"
"Me too"
So we walked together going home that day. She kept talking and talking and all I do is listen.
Then we made it to the place where we will part. I waved to her and said 'goodbye' and then...
"Teynk yu", she said to me while I was walking away from her. I stopped and faced her and asked her 'why'?
"Coz you lisen to mi even yu dont want to"
"Huh?", so she knows all along, even so, she kept on talking.
"Gud bay, shi yu tomorow"
I felt some surprise there, for a moment I was dumbfounded. I thought she didn't know that I feel a little uncomfortable to her and even so, she kept on acting like everything is okay. Does that mean that I'm the victim here? Or does it mean something else?
The next day, she started trying to interact with me more. She tries to greet me almost all the time and asks me about random questions about music, TV shows and some video games that she enjoys. I just kept on telling her that I do not know most of them and when she mentions something that I know, she jumps into celebration, as if the crypto coin that she bought for 0.01$ each jumped up to 50$ in price.
Before, I used to eat alone all the time. Sometimes I eat with my other classmates, but most of the time I was alone. But now, Shi always follows me. When I eat, when I go home, when I'm just at my desk, when buying something at the cafeteria and sometimes even in the comfort room. 'Outside the comfort room' you dirty bastard!
Somehow I felt really uncomfortable about her and got irritated.
One day, I confronted her that I don't want her being around me. She got sad about it and said 'I'm sorry' to me. I tried telling her that she wasn't the problem but it was me. Shi didn't said anything. And just like that, Shi stopped talking to me.
I felt a little sorry for her cause of what I did, Shi was so nice to me. But I'm not really such a person who wants people clinging to me. I'm more of a solitary spirit.
So a week has passed since and I was back to my former school life.
I came back to my former usual daily life. I come back to mostly eating alone, reading alone and getting home alone. I was okay with that , even though I felt a little bored sometimes. I'm okay with that.
Then a certain school program happened that same week after I confronted her. That was a parent child program, you know, those kind of nonsense program of talking about your parents at front of everyone and playing some sports with them as partners.
To tell you, I didn't told anything about this said program to my parents and just told my teachers that both my parents can't come to the said event cause of their long distant works. So yeah, at 10, I'm already honing my talent to writing, by lying.
I just didn't want to participate to the event cause I always felt that the event was just a drag.
So my teacher told me that it's okay but I can't be absent for the said program and I will be helping with the preparations and props making. I said 'okay', it's not that much of a deal anyway.
So we started making these props a week before the event. There are more people that will not attend that said event than what I did expected. I thought it was only Tom, Jeff and me.
Then there was Shi, I didn't expect to see her in that place. We had this moment were we noticed each other in the room and felt a little surprised cause our eyes met. It was an awkward moment.
So, some days past and the work with the props got a lot more busier cause of the deadline is getting near.
Shi was doing all the paper work like checking the lists of what to do, writing invitations and letters, talking to teachers and doing props sometimes, but mostly, she just does paper works.
So, a day before the event, everything was just been set up as it is. Everything was perfect. And everyone was perfectly tired as well.
I was about to come home but I forgot my bag at the props room. And so, I went there to pick it up.
When I went in the props room, I saw Shi and she was crying. She accidentally destroyed a paper mache statue by accidentally toppling over it. That is what she told me that moment.
Meeeeh, what a really pain in the butt situation I just came into. I mean, if i tell you that I just left her there crying with that disaster, probably you will flag this post and will report me to the steem cleaners for harrassment and plagiarizing cause of fucking being hated for my action. But don't worry, I didn't do any of that.
First I told her that it's okay and we can finish fixing the statue before morning. And so we did, I mixed glue with water and started sticking the parts. Shi dried it with a blower and then we repainted it.
It was already past 12 midnight when we finished redoing the statue and we were so tired to go home. And to tell you, we just lost consciousness out of tiredness.
That was a very deep sleep that I had that night. And I dreamed of something really weird. I dreamed of Shi. My dream is about her being in a middle of a crowd. She was talking to everyone in the crowd in Chinese. She was calling people around her but no one gets near her.
I was in the dream too and I was with the crowd. I am handcuffed. I tried to remove the handcuff but it was impossible. Then Shi saw me and helped me with my handcuff. She removes it and smiles at me. She removes it and smiles at me.
"klang, Klang", the handcuff sounded when it has been dropped.
We looked at each other's eyes and then she spoke.
"Can you be my friend", her voice was clear.
Then everything went to blank and then I woke up. Shi woke up too, our eyes met and the we smiled at each other.
I felt that we had the same dream but we never talked about it. After we woke up, we just felt that we understand each other now more.
It's just about her being desperate of having a friend and it's just about me demanding for some of my own personal space.
After that incident with the statue paper mache, we became really good friends.
Some years had passed and Shi needed to go back to China. I just said, "Meh, there is Facebook and Skype, we can still talk to each other when we want to"
And even so we were apart, our friendship still lasted. It's now 2017 and it's been 7 years now since she left America. She just told me recently that she had just been able to have a boyfriend. I teased her a little and she laughs about it on Skype. After some more chats over the internet, we got tired and said 'see you later'. I turned off the PC and stands from my seat.
When I stood up, I noticed the scrap book that Shi and I made for that sociology subject we had before.
I opened it and read an essay I wrote about Shi behind our scrap book.
You know, the essay I made was so long. Mostly, the contents of that said essay are stories of what I thought about Shi before and after the paper mache incident. Just to finish this post, I'll read my most favorite line on that essay that I made.
"I had a hard time dealing with this Chinese witch and tried to discard her from my life, I was able to remove her. But soon I came to understand her and felt to want to win her again. I picked her up and she accepts me again. These words of mine may not be perfect, but , man, atleast somehow you'll understand the happiness of friendship that I learned out of this essay"
That was some touching story. I'm glad you had a chance to make amends and be an empathetic human. Most people don't get that chance and end up unhappy at what they feel they owe life. Good story.
LOL, so deep, I just tried to make a story that has some drama in it... Look at my novel in my main account LOL.@tediursa24
ty btw