Cleansing

The classroom has been leeched of colour. I’m not sure when it happened. It’s almost like one day the sound of my classmates’ raucous laughter and mischievous whispers painted the room with bright euphoria, and the next it was gone. The paint was stripped from the walls. A vacuum came along and sucked up the happiness, leaving nothing. Not a spot. Not a mark. Nothing.  

Lia’s hair curtains her face, the thick strands partly concealing her features, leeched of colour. Her ocean blue eyes seem grey, her lips pale and set in a hard line, her cheeks ivory, as if someone has taken a paintbrush to her skin with a thick white paint. A tear trickles down her cheek, meandering leisurely on its way. She wipes it away quickly. No one notices.  

I wonder if anyone would notice if I got up and left. Would anyone look up from their phones, or pause their conversations for long enough to notice that my seat was empty? And if I screamed, would anyone turn in their seats, their eyes creased with worry, and ask me if I was ok? But no, their eyes are fixed to the board, or to their books, or to their friends faces and they giggle like nothing has changed. Nothing has. But everything is different.  

Mr Rosario teaches his class, oblivious to the cloud of misery hovering over Lia’s head. She slouches low in her seat, crosses her arms over her chest, and fixes her eyes to the board, seeing nothing. Outside, it’s raining, fat droplets of water falling from the sky, soaking the earth. After a while, the raindrops harden and turn to balls of ice, falling with malice onto cars, breaking glass and wreaking havoc. Lia notices. Mr Rosario, absorbed in his lesson, does not.  

If I stare at Mr Rosario’s head viciously enough, will it combust? The sound of hail hitting the bonnet of exposed cars reaches my ears and I wonder if he will regret today like I will. Probably not. I press my pencil to paper, not thinking, letting the words flow from my brain into my fingers, staining the page. Grief flows from me to the page. The page turns odd blue colour, and becomes soaked quickly, long before I’m finished. I could write a whole book, and it still wouldn’t be enough. Will it ever be enough? 

While everyone’s ears are being filled with stories of ancient civilisations, someone else hears the hail. Someone eyes Lia’s harsh scrawl and reads the words on the page, smudged by tears, and remembers. They take in her grey eyes, and they know she’s screaming inside. They gaze at her hands, clenched tightly into fists beneath her desk, and they notice.  

A piece of paper hits me in the back of my head. When I imagine it as a brick, or something harder, it makes me feel better. I’m quite fond of spending time unconscious. It dulls the mind. Slowly, I bend down and pick it up. The carpet feels rough beneath my fingers. Someone has written words, for me. Someone has noticed. A heavy sigh leaves my body.  

The rain patters on the roof, raindrops racing one another down the window pane. No one else notices. No one else sees the lightning brightening the sky, or hears the thunderclaps shake the ground. All but one. They watch Lia sigh, watch some of the tension leave her body, and they remember what it felt like to be seen. They let their fingers play with the locket at their neck and they smile sadly, feeling the familiar ache in their heart. No one notices.  

There are no words. I feel it in my heart, even as my eyes trace the words on paper. My mind, a usually bustling place filled with thoughts and dreams and colours, is silent. My heart is empty. But someone knows. Someone understands. And someone noticed. There are no words.  

There are no words. There never will be. No one will ever quite understand. And that will be ok. The hurt never goes away. But they look at the tiny face in their locket and when they smile, it’s real. It still aches, but they know it’s ok to be happy again. Lia will know it eventually, but all that matters now is that she feels seen. Heard. Understood. Even if no one else notices. Especially then. 

I sit up a little straighter, and fight the urge to turn and meet the eyes I know are pinned to my back. Something tells me they don’t want to be seen, that they are willing to give me this, with no expectations. No strings. No drawbacks. And even though I want them to know that I see them as well, I keep my eyes on the board, on Mr Rosario, on the person in front of me. I hope they know I appreciate them. My heart hurts, and maybe it always will, but someone sees it. Someone has felt this and has triumphed. Maybe I can too.  

Mr Rosario finally returns to reality and scratches his head when he notices the rain. The hail has ceased, but large balls of ice lay on the ground, pockmarking the ground like spots. He runs to the window and searches for his car, heaving a sigh of relief when he remembers he left it under cover this morning. He gazes at the puddles covering the ground, the raindrops falling lackadaisically from the sky, and he breathes in the scent of rain. Slowly, he smiles.  

Some colour has returned to the room. Slowly, I watch the carpet return to its odd beige, stained by years of students, the desks become brown once more, and I can trace the carvings made by past students with my eyes. The girl beside me laughs, and I drink it in like I’m starving. Mr Rosario’s hair is still an unnatural grey and the blackboard is still white, but I take a deep breath in, relaxing my shoulders and loosening my fists. I let the sound of the rain envelope me in a blanket of calm. Slowly, the corners of my mouth turn upward in resemblance of some sort of smile.  

Someone sits behind Lia. They watch her shoulders relax and her hands unclench. They watch her chest expand, and they can imagine the expression she’s wearing on her face. They glance at Mr Rosario, still standing by the window and see his dreamy look. They notice the quiet in the classroom, the lack of the cloud of grief hovering over them all, although most were unaware. They let the tranquillity soak into their bones, imagine the cool drops of rain falling on their cheeks, and tip their head back slightly. Slowly, they smile.