Just a shell

James was a simple man, yet he had one thing about him. He seemed lifeless, without emotions. Yet, to the untrained eye, this is who he was at the core. People were met with this calm demeanor when they thought they would make him angry. When one of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, death, had taken someone close to him. It almost seemed natural to him not to show grief.

James was a man of little words. However, his calm demeanor was often enough for anyone to understand if there were any alterations in his voice to hold one’s tongue. Though subtle, his words hit like a sledgehammer if pushed too far. James’ voice was nothing special it was pretty typical, not too loud but undoubtedly soft. He was more reserved than anything. His voice was gravelly, shot when he decided to speak his mind.

But there were days people questioned him because of his voice; they questioned things about him. His emotions, his actions, his voice; they questioned everything about him. When there were days like this, James was at his worst. It isn’t known what he does behind closed doors of his bedroom. James was still young, so his parents wondered what was going on, what was happening to their son.

Sara, his mother, did understand him or his lack of emotions. However, she always thought-since she grew up in a different time- it was for attention; it was nothing more than an embarrassment for him to do this.

Kevin, his stepfather, did not understand what he was going through either but did not openly express how he felt about this. He always felt after something, James came home from something, James was being used-because so did he grow up in a different time.

James was a shell, a husk of what he once was. His emotions were shot after the party. He did not feel himself after the party that night.

That night James was having fun at a party held by one of his friends only four months prior to this. James had seen some things happen at that party to people. He did not want to see them, but, as he was taught, “the lord giveth the lord taketh away.” But the lord did not giveth to him; he only took. James went home that night, not himself anymore. He never was after that night. Like his grandfather, something there was a part of him that was left at that party, like something was left his grandfather in Vietnam.

The blood on his hands may have been washed away, but the blood in his mind would never be washed clean. You never want to have to use CPR, but sometimes you have to. Even when you don’t want to, he left the party bloody and shaken.

James suppressed his emotions from then on only to make sense of what he saw at the party. He could only make sense of the high-induced violence this way; he saw if he did not let his emotions get in his field of view, something like that would happen again.

He could discern things clearer this way in his mind. He didn’t concern himself with his emotions because, to him, they were the enemy. He had listened to them until, to him, they led him astray. To him, they were the reason someone had died. To him, there is blood on his hands that cannot be washed away.

He wears a mask of cold-blooded-minded actions. So that no one knows his guilt is something that may be a lookalike to his guise of being emotionless, without feeling. No one can see through this guise.

No one except one, a girl that was at the party with James. With him, but without as well. She was there; she knew what he saw; she knew what he did to save someone, only for it to fail in his face. She knew what he was going through. She knew the guilt he bore. She knew what he was going through; she could commiserate with it all.

Her name was Carra Ricci she knew what to do. She could see it in his eyes. All he needed was a kind hand to caress his cheek, someone to smile at him, and peck his cheek with her lips. He just needed someone kind, understanding, caring, sweet, but most of all: a shoulder to cry on.

She watched him at school, trying to build her own courage to help him. James doesn’t notice her calls in the halls when she does. He doesn’t read her letters that she tapes to his locker that say everything is going to be ok. He doesn’t even bother letting anyone sit next to him. Not even the girl that thinks can help him.

To everyone, he is a brick wall. To her, he was transparent.

One day she decided to do something bold. Cara, at lunch, decided to sit next to him. And she said, “Hello, my name is Cara. What’s yours?”

James looked at her, and with a cold, expressionless face, he said, “James.”

In her head, she was frightened, cold-footed. But as her mother says, “If you truly care about someone and want to see them grow. Even when they are all alone in this world. You give them yourself. You talk to them, and by you being there for them, you help them grow. One word is worth a thousand dollars to a man without a friend.”

They talked for a while, and James felt something in his chest that he hadn’t felt since the party. On-lookers saw him, and for the first time for many, he seemed human.

Cara, to help him a little more, told him a joke “What do you call a fake noodle?”

He asks, “What?”

“An impasta,” She responds. To everyone’s surprise, James smiled and let out a light chuckle.

James felt something for the first time in a long time. He wanted to suppress it, but his heart said, “No, boy. Feel your feels. It is only natural.”

Then on, James had found a friend. He felt himself again. This mere shell he once was, was now filled with the feelings of a man. His parents liked his newfound self and his happiness. Cara and James kept to themselves most times but talked a lot, and James felt whole again. James had regained himself and was himself again.