Losing the sun

Losing the sun

‘The heavy dark cloud was raining on my heart, wishing I could rewind time. Nobody said it would be this hard, the shame of us parting still ringing in my ears. But I guess no one said it would be easy either. I still wish I could go back to the start, build a Time Machine, go to that day, and just say it was a prank. Maybe that would’ve prevented the breakdowns, the loneliness I felt for months having only one person actually on my side and who didn’t say I’m not sided but you are being unreasonable and an attention seeker, the looking down because I had nowhere and no one to look up to, the break times in the toilet cubicles that were claustrophobic and smelt like watermelon vape, maybe it would’ve.

“Unreasonable” and Attention Seeker. They hit me like a bullet. Like I’m sorry if I’m being an attention seeker or a pick me as someone might say. Sorry if I’m being too loud for you, too arrogant, not modest enough, not nice enough to care about your feelings, too fake, a liar, an antagonist, too extra, too controlling, too ungrateful, too weird, too much of a show off, too mean, too stubborn, and sorry that you think I have main character syndrome. What can I do, I’m human, or am I? I don’t even know, maybe I’m an alien, that’s why it feels like I don’t belong.

I don’t regret my decision, just wish it went better. I’m sorry, well then again I don’t know if I am. I really damn wish that you didn’t lie, maybe this would’ve all gone differently. Damn now I think about it more, it really bloody would’ve. But why would I want different if that different is listening to lies after lies, again and again, to me, about me, everything. You were still nice though, a friend that made me feel happy, although that happiness didn’t take long to turn into hatred, disappointment, anger, in you but mostly myself. I don’t know what I want. Maybe it’s to die, maybe it’s better, for me, for you, for everyone. Ugh no, I can’t think like that. But can I? Thoughts flew through my head, running through my mind. Why is this only happening to me, is what I thought.

Do you even remember who I used to be, Sarah, before you started rewriting my history? I look at old photos and I do not even recognise that girl, the one who was always the loudest in the room, the one whose laughter was so constant it felt like part of the background noise. I was bubbly. I was fun. I was the person people came to when they needed a spark. But you took that spark and you told everyone it was a fire I was lighting just to get noticed. You took my energy and called it arrogance. You took my kindness and called it fake. It is a special kind of torture, watching you convince the world that my personality was actually a symptom of a disease. You made me feel like being happy was a crime I was committing against you. Now I sit in this stall and the silence is so heavy it feels like it is crushing my lungs, and all I can think about is how much I miss the girl who was not afraid to be seen.

The lie you told, the one that started when I asked for that break, was the most efficient way to kill someone without ever touching them. I thought asking for space was a way to save us, but you used it as a way to bury me. You told everyone I was unstable, that I was obsessive, that I was making things up for significance. You knew exactly which parts of me were broken, and you pointed them out to everyone like a tour guide. The worst part is not that they believed you, it is that you made me believe you. I spent months looking in the mirror wondering if I really was a pick me, if I really was extra, if my entire existence was just one big annoying plea for attention. You gaslit me into believing that my own heartbeat was too loud for the world to handle. You turned my grief into a performance and my isolation into a stunt.

This stall smells so much like watermelon vape it makes me want to scream. It is the smell of every afternoon we spent together back when I thought you were the only one who truly saw me. It is a cruel irony that the scent of our best memories is the one that is choking me out now. I wish I could go back to that day on the wall and just laugh in your face. I wish I could say, Gotcha, I do not actually need a break, I was just joking. I would have stayed your bubbly little shadow forever if I had known the alternative was being turned into an alien. I would have let you dim my light every single day if it meant I did not have to sit here now, feeling like a ghost that everyone is trying to exorcise. But there is no Time Machine. There is just this pen, this paper, and the realization that I am exhausted from trying to prove I am human to people who only want to see a monster.

I am leaving this note here because I am done playing the role you wrote for me. If I am too much, then fine, I will be nothing at all. I will be the silence you always wanted from me. I am not doing this for the attention you are always talking about. I am doing it because I want the clouds to stop raining on my heart. I am giving you the perfect ending to your story, Sarah. You get to be the survivor of my drama. You get to be the girl who tried to help the unreasonable friend. You can have all the eyes on you now. I am stepping off the stage so you can finally be the only character left. I hope you enjoy the quiet. I hope the watermelon scent does not haunt you the way it haunts me.

But I know what happens next. I know how people are. Tomorrow, you will be the one crying. You will tell everyone how fun I was, how bubbly I used to be, how you tried so hard to save me. You will wear my memory like a trophy. They will finally stop calling me arrogant and start calling me tragic. It is funny, isn't it? They only realize the value of the sun when it finally sets and leaves them freezing in the dark. They will miss the girl who was too much when they realize the world is a lot emptier without her noise. They only remember you when they do not have you anymore. And as I finish this, I realize I am not an alien. I am just a girl who was loved for her light and then abandoned for her shadows.

I am not sorry anymore. I am just gone.’

The hall was thick with a silence that felt heavier than the brick walls surrounding it. Monday morning assemblies were usually a blur of scraping chairs and muffled whispers, but today the air was stagnant. Sarah sat in the front row, her shoulders hunched, playing the part of the grieving best friend with practiced perfection. She held a crumpled tissue to her eyes, waiting for the pity to wash over her, waiting for the school to tell her how strong she was for enduring the drama of her friend's final act. But when the Principal stepped up to the microphone, he did not offer a prayer or a moment of silence. He held a piece of paper that had been found taped to the back of a toilet stall door, a place that still carried the faint mocking scent of watermelon vape.

He began to read. At first the students shifted uncomfortably, but as the first person words of the letter cut through the room, the atmosphere shifted from solemn to suffocating. The voice in the letter was not the unstable antagonist Sarah had described for months. It was not the attention seeker or the pick me the popular girls had mocked in the corridors. It was the voice of the girl they all used to know, the one who was always the first to laugh, the one who lived in bright colours and made everyone feel like they were part of something fun.

As the Principal read the line about the Time Machine, a girl in the third row began to sob, not the quiet performative kind, but a jagged ugly sound of realization. She remembered that bubbly girl. She remembered the way that girl had reached out to her in Year 9, only to be told later by Sarah that the kindness had been fake.

The letter did not scream, it bled. It spoke of the bullet of being called unreasonable and the claustrophobia of being erased while still standing right there. When the Principal reached the part about the break and the lies that followed, the heads in the room began to turn. Slowly, one by one, eyes moved away from the stage and settled on Sarah. The pity that had surrounded Sarah only minutes ago began to evaporate, replaced by a cold sharp clarity. The nice friend mask she wore started to feel like a lead weight. Every student in that room was suddenly flooded with memories of the girl who used to be sunlight, realizing they had stood by and watched as she was shoved into the dark. They remembered her ‘too loud’ jokes and her ‘extra energy’, and for the first time they realized that the world was suddenly terrifyingly quiet without it.

The Principal finished the letter and lowered the paper. He did not need to say anything else. The letter had done the work. The alien had left the planet, and in her wake she had left a mirror. Every person in the hall had to look at themselves and realize they had preferred a comfortable lie over a hurting human being. They only realized the value of the sun when the sky went black. They finally remembered the bubbly girl, the real her, but only because they no longer had the privilege of her noise.