Everything That You Never Told Me

How often have you felt the world around you falling apart till you have completely stopped feeling at all? Or that’s what I thought, how it was going to be as I lay in the hospital bed waiting for the nurse to change the dressings over my wounds.

“Please let me…give me a chance to…” My senses got alerted to the voice outside my room, I could imagine my mother trying to control her emotions, doing her level best before she physically lashed out against the biggest bully of my life. The bully who was responsible for my condition right now. I didn’t want to remember all those painful memories related to him as all it did was pierce my broken heart and the monitor warned me of not crossing my limits.

It has been five days already, five days from when I was pushed off the roof by him, who keeps coming up every single afternoon during the visiting hours, begging and pleading my parents to be let in. Today was supposed to be different as I’d urged my parents to inform the hospital authorities to keep him off my room. I was distractedly flicking through the TV channels, tossing and turning the chopped apples the nurse had laid in front of me. I noticed the bowl had a beautiful floral pattern that reminded me of the day I was pushed, that day was supposed to be the happiest day of the year. It was my birthday that I had gone to the apartment complex roof to finally get an uninhibited view of the clear blue sky of the spring. The tall buildings and neighboring shopping malls had more or less cut us off from viewing the sky so that day I, finally relieved from all my classes and assignments managed to climb up the stairs. The sun was in the western sky and the temperature had dropped to some degrees leaving a chilly feel to the air. The breeze was gently lapping against my face as I was finally able to enjoy it blowing through my hair, calming my body and soul.

Oh, how I wished for the moment to never end!

Bang!

 I heard the roof-top door open loudly and out stepped Neil, with his long and quick strides he had already reached where I was standing. Now that I remember, he looked a bit agitated for some reason, restless even so as if he wanted to say something. He kept rubbing his hands together, just like he did back when we were friends back in elementary school. Two years back we were promoted to high school and I moved to a different school away from home, I noticed he had changed. He’d changed to such an extent that it was beyond my level of recognition. He just didn’t fit my friend frame anymore, not at all with the kind of awful things he’d do to me with his classmates back from my old school, who too are residents of the complex.

As many numbers of times I’d tried figuring out what must have made him behave this way, I’d only hit a dead end.

I heard a knock, followed by the sliding of the door. I glanced towards the clock on the wall, it was 14.20. Must be one of the nurses. I pushed the bowl to the side and laid down, closing my eyes I waited for her to remove the dressing on my forehead. Fortunately, it hadn’t been much of a threat, the fall I’d say. Not on the surface at least, but my heart had been badly injured from what had come to pass. I still couldn’t believe he had pushed me off.

“Anu…” My eyes shot open instantaneously. It was unmistakably him. It was his voice. I tried getting up but my ribs gave out an alarm as if to tell me I shouldn’t be forcing myself. Even before I had sat up, he had reached me, the warmth of his palms made me shiver. I looked up to stare into his eyes, they held those same emotions he’d had before he’d pushed me. With my right hand on the bed, I pushed him away from me.

“I am sorry…I shouldn’t have done that…” He muttered as he released me, for some reason I missed the warmth.

“Yet you’d have the courage to come up to me, after what you have done!” I felt like screaming at him, but that was not going to get me anywhere so I stuck to being calm and level-headed. My blood boiled at the mere sight of him, he was still wearing his school uniform. Oh, so it seems like he came right from his classes. How interesting.

 As I took a closer look at him, I realized something was amiss, his shirt was wrinkled with a million creases, his pants were a mess. There were splotches here and there. I looked at his face, but there he was looking down, at the floor. I was getting irritated and worried at the same time. But why?

“If you don’t have anything to say then I’d ask you to leave, Neil.” At this his face rose and our eyes locked. I was shocked. His nose was bloody with a cotton gauze sticking up his left nostril, there were scratch marks on his pale skin while his eye had swollen to a blue berry. But there it was, that same pathetic gloss in his eyes. Was he even crying back then? But for what?

“Anu…” I raised my hand not having the IV, making a gesture to stop then and there. A droning sensation had taken over my brain.

“Don’t you dare call me that!” My body was shaking badly, I couldn’t control anymore. My eyes burnt as I tried to hold back my tears, I barked madly at him, “You lost your right to call me Anu that very day you tried to kill me!” He looked panicked and rushed forward only for me to cower back against the bed frame. This is bad, he might do something to me. What are my parents even thinking letting him in, him out of all?

He held onto the sides of my bed as he said in a broken voice, “Anu, p-pl-ease don’t do this to me…please listen to w-hat I have to say…please” I realized like everyone he deserves a chance right? A chance to speak up?

“Okay, I’ll let you but only one condition,” I pointed towards the chair, “Sit over there and then you can talk.” His steps seemed forced as if he was making a great deal of effort to move. Ha! Now he’s acting, is he?

He took a deep breath as if he was finding too hard to breathe and began, “I know it’s going to be almost impossible for you to believe in whatever I tell you now. But could you please not be prejudiced and think of it rationally?”

“Seriously? Are you playing dumb with me with your sugar-coated words? What happened to the big bad wolf who’d call me fatty and pig-stool? Yeah?” I dared him to contradict me.

“It’s completely normal for you to say all these things to me but could you please…” He paused and folded his hands together as if pleading, my heart thudded. The underside of his palms had burning red marks on them, what happened to him? “Listen to me at least once? After that I’d be happy to be kicked out if that’s all you want…”

I didn’t have any choice but to listen I guess, so I nodded for him to spit out whatever he had to say.

“Remember when you changed schools?”

“Yeah, what about that?” What is he getting at?

“I was supposed to see you off at the bus stand…”

“But you never came…” Now the lone tear that I’d for so long kept in, rolled down. I quickly looked down and dabbed at the corners to prevent some more from falling as the memory from two years back rushed forth.

“Ravi and his friends-”

“Aren’t they yours’ as well?” I reasoned.

“No, they never were.” He said steadfastly.

“From when?”

He didn’t seem to mind my sarcasm as he continued, “That very hour before I was supposed to set off for your new bus-stand they called me. They asked me which school you were transferring to.”

“Why?” With my firm orbs I stared at his face.

“Because they wanted to follow you and…”

“And?”

“When the time came, they’d have had their ways with you.” I had stopped breathing.

“So, I gave them the wrong school name but in the end they found out about you. But I had to protect you…” This time I saw the moisture from his eyes finally transform into a long-awaited line of tears as they slowly trickled down his chin.

“I had to keep you safe so I told them I…”

“Have had your way with me.” I finished it for him. Good lord, I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. Now everything, for some reason was becoming crystal clear. “And showed your mum’s underwear as an evidence.”

“How did you…?”

“You were so obvious while snooping about the balcony for sneaking one of hers.”

“Was I that…?”

“Guess you were. So, all of this, this entire drama…” Even in the midst of everything he hadn’t given upon me.

“I did it for you, every time they would be nearby, I’d make sure to act like it was expected of me, your biggest bully. I couldn’t let them hurt you. Ever.” The truth in his eyes made me falter as I clutched the sheets, trying to process everything.

“But why did you, p-push me?” Why push me when all you wanted was protect me?!

“Because you’re my friend, the only one I’d ever had.”

“What?” The buzz had stopped.

“That day I’d come to wish you, but unfortunately they’d realized I wasn’t playing fair so they threatened me with dire consequences even if that meant dragging you down with it. They were planning on abducting you. The moment I’d come to know of it I had come to the roof to warn you of it…but they had already reached before me…”

“That means…” I covered my mouth as I realized it finally.

“I tried telling you but I couldn’t say a word, I panicked when I heard their footsteps creeping behind us and ended up…” He broke down at this as he thumped his chest with his balled fist.

“I am sorry…” So, it was an accident, the entire time. Misunderstandings and an accident, when the real culprit was never Neil.

“What happened to you Neil? Why do you look like this?”

“I told the police about it.” I wasn’t even shocked anymore.

“What did you-?”

“Everything, from day one to day final. They’re not going to bother you anymore.”

“But how, you simply couldn’t have stated and they’d have believed you?”

“I have evidence, I was planning it the entire time. To expose them when the time comes but ended up losing everything in return.”

I looked at him, his face a myriad of emotions as he tried to take rein over all of them.

“I had them recorded secretly every time they’d call me to discuss about stuffs. Apparently, you’re not the only one, there were some other girls as well, in the past who’d been bullied by them psychologically as well as physically.”

“Oh my god…” It was simply way too much for me to take in.

“They’ve been detained by the police and a proper trial will be held on the 24^th of this month a-”

“But how did you get these?” I pointed towards his crumpled state.

“We got into a fight at school after assembly when the principal told us that they’re going to be expelled. And this happened before the police arrived, so never mind, I kind of deserved it.”

“Why?” My voice faltered badly as my throat choked from the pressure of the incoming batch of tears I was pushing in.

“After all that I did to you, I mean I should have told you but I just felt like I was under vigilance the entire time, with Ravi breathing right down my neck it wouldn’t have been possible.”

“So, you took it all on yourself, did you? Like you’ve always done? Stupid you could’ve texted me!”

“Are you kidding me, my cell had been taken away and they kept track of everything I did?! My own parents stopped talking to me the day I pushed you off…”

“Stop saying that will you?” I just couldn’t take this anymore. “Stop being so high and mighty a saint, you are okay? I’m telling you, you did not push me, it was an accident.”

“I could be lying to you, ya know?” I felt like slapping some sense into him.

“Cause lying is all you ever did, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“Didn’t you say in front of everyone, how much you hate me? A big fat liar is all you are Neil, god damnit!”

“Hey calm down, will you?” Neil, in a flash had reached beside me and was helping me lay down.

“Neil…my parents they need to know about it!”

“They know, Anu. They know already. They’re the ones who let me in. Do you think with your lawyer of a father patrolling the floor I’d have got past the reception? Nah!” He smiled at that.

“Oh lord, Neil what have you done?!” He held my palms in his warm ones, I strangely realized they’ve always been warm. He looked up with those same glittering eyes as he said, “Will you give our friendship another shot? Will you please let me make it up to you?”

After all the world wasn’t falling apart anymore, it was falling back to its place, right where it belonged.

“I guess I don’t have any choice, now do I?”