He cried, he cried so deeply that his pillow soaked; his pillow became a drain for his shower of depression.
“Maybe, maybe if I was taller, or more outgoing… or if I was beautiful, maybe then, maybe then I would be special. Maybe then I would be normal…” he thought to himself, struggling to form his words as tears became a river where his soul floated.
All the years of constant judgment and constant pain reflected in his eyes like shattered glass. He lay in his bed, his hair a mess, but that was the least of his worries. His room was as dark as his slowly closing eyes.
Morning came in an instant. His eyelashes were nearly glued together from his tears. His eyes felt heavy as he reached for his phone to silence his alarm, wishing his head could do the same.
He saw the time and hurried outside. He forgot to change clothes or eat or maybe he just dint want to.
Silence filled the yellow bus as he stepped in. He felt the weight of people’s gazes. It was like knives poking into his body. He could feel the constant judgment, the negative looks. They all felt like shards of glass scraping against his skin.
As he sat, he lowered his head over his uncomfortable seat. His shoulders felt heavy beneath the stares of the others. He could feel their judgment screaming at him to run. He felt hopeless, like a deer frozen in headlights. His throat went dry, begging for water the same way he begged for peace.
Suddenly, someone sat beside him.
He froze.
“Who would want to sit next to me? Are they going to tell me what the others are thinking?” he thought to himself.
A wave of fear came over him like a blanket at dawn. He was too afraid to look up.
Then he heard her voice.
“Hi, my name’s Marian. I’m an exchange student,” she said with a warm smile.
He felt a strange warmth just by looking at her.
His heart pounded. His hands trembled beneath his sleeves. His eyes quickly lowered to the floor.
She tilted her head slightly.
“You seem a bit shy. What’s your name?”
Her voice soothed him. It felt like finding a fireplace during a winter storm.
“I-I’m not shy… it’s just cold,” he muttered. “My name is Rodrick. Rodrick Butler.”
He tried to sound confident, but his voice shook too much to hide the fear in it.
She smiled softly.
She seemed like the complete opposite of him, as if she had never experienced the judgment of her own mind.
“So, Rodrick,” she asked gently, “tell me about yourself. What’s your reason?”
He hesitated.
“I… I don’t know,” he admitted quietly. “I often don’t do anything. It feels like I’m not living… just killing time.”
Her expression softened.
Before she could answer, the bus suddenly came to a stop.
They had arrived.
As Rodrick stepped off the bus, he couldn’t stop thinking about her kindness. Most people ignored him. Others mocked him. But she spoke to him as if he actually mattered.
He walked into class, but the room immediately felt too quiet. It felt like stepping onto a stage beneath blinding lights.
Every student’s eyes shifted toward him.
He quickly sat down, lowering his head over his desk. His shoulders felt unbearably heavy beneath the stares surrounding him. He imagined their judgment clawing at his skin, begging him to disappear.
His throat tightened.
Then, suddenly, he heard the sound of a chair moving beside him.
“Hey, looks like we have the same class,” a familiar voice said. “Quite the coincidence, right?”
It was Marian.
His gaze slowly lifted toward her.
“Oh… hi,” he mumbled.
“About what you said earlier…” she began softly. “‘I’m not living, I’m just killing time.’ Isn’t that a Radiohead lyric?”
A small weight lifted from his shoulders.
“Y-yeah,” he answered. “It’s from my favorite song.”
“Well, I actually love Radiohead,” she said with a small laugh. “So why do you seem so serious all the time?”
The question froze him.
“I… I often feel like if I avoid people, they’ll avoid me back,” he admitted with a trembling voice.
“Well, sometimes you need to come out more. Humans are social creatures; we were made to be with each other,” Marian responded.
She paused before continuing.
“You know, I see life like sentences. You can’t continue one unless you pick up your pencil.”
Rodrick listened quietly. For the first time that day, the noise in his mind began to calm.
“What if I want my sentence to be nothing more than a period with no words?” he asked quietly.
“Well, it’s your sentence,” Marian replied. “Some people end their sentences with commas instead of periods because it leaves room to be continued by someone else.”
She smiled gently.
“But I want to be a parenthesis, because that’s what adds to sentences. I want to add to people’s lives. That’s how I want to be remembered — as someone who gave others more reasons to wake up the next day.”
Her words felt like water to a throat that had been dry for years.
“That’s a beautiful way to live,” Rodrick whispered. “To be the reason someone wanted to keep living.”