Broken

Rumours spread fast. I hear whispers all around me as soon as I arrive at school. Words spoken in a hushed tone, as if people are too scared to say them out loud. As if it won’t be true as long as they just keep whispering. 

“Did you hear?”

“That’s so terrible!”

“No, that can’t be true.”

“Are you serious?”

“At our school?”

“Please tell me you’re joking.”

“How?”

“What happened?”

“Why didn’t anybody help?”

“I never thought he would do that.”

“That’s awful!”

“Why?”

Why? The question repeats itself over and over again in my head. I don’t know. Even though I’m the only person who should, I don’t know, no matter how hard I try to find an answer.

Some people, those who actually know who I am, stop their whispering when I am close enough to hear them, like I don’t already know what they’re saying. They all look at me with sympathy in their eyes, using only their expression to tell me: it’s okay. It’s all going to be okay.

It’s not going to be okay. It’s never going to be okay again. Their stares do nothing to comfort me, they only make me feel worse. It would’ve been better if they just ignored me, like they normally do.

More people fill the hallways. The whispers continue, now with new ears to reach, and they keep getting louder. Maybe people finally realized that whispering isn’t going to save anyone. Or maybe they just don’t care anymore.

“Hey, did you hear?”

The words echo around the hallways. With every step I take they seem to multiply, filling up the air and pushing away all the oxygen, until it feels like I’m drowning in whispers that aren’t really whispers anymore.

“How did it happen?”

“Is it true?”

“Are you sure it was him?”

I reach the room where my first class is, where my classmates are gathered by the door. As soon as they see me, this part of the hallway falls silent and they all stare at me. Some sympathetically, some just curiously, some, maybe those who hadn’t heard the full story yet, just as disinterested as always. All that attention fixed on me makes me feel sick, but as much as I hate the silence, the whispers that continue in the rest of the hallway are even worse.

“Why?”

“Have you heard?”

“What happened?”

“Someone attempted suicide.”

“Are you serious?”

“Are they alive?”

“I hope so.”

Run away. I want to run away. Now. As fast as possible. As far as possible. As long as I am away from here.

“Do you know who?”

The air feels thick, like it has been turned to liquid. I try to breathe. I can’t.

Drowning. It feels like I’m drowning in the words that are surrounding me. I feel dizzy. I want to fall on the ground. To curl myself up in a ball and cry. To fall asleep and never wake up again.

The bell rings. The whispers slow down as everyone moves their conversations into the classrooms. The hallways get quieter. I try to breathe again. This time, I succeed.

I force myself to act calm as the door to our classroom opens, even though I’m feeling far from calm. I walk into the room with my head down, ignoring the eyes and the voices of everyone around me. It doesn’t take me long to arrive at my seat, the two tables closest to the door. I can’t ignore the empty chair beside me.

I expected it to be quiet, maybe because they wouldn’t say anything out of respect, or because there was nothing left to say, but the whispers continue. I fear they will be following me for a long time.

“I would’ve never expected that from him.”

“He always seemed so happy.”

“Maybe that was all an act.”

Their attention focuses on the empty seat, before shifting to me again. Their suffocating stares are more difficult to ignore now, making it hard for me to breathe as I look down at the table to avoid their eyes.

When the door shuts, the class gets unusually quiet. Everyone now turns to our teacher, Ms Allen, all waiting for her to say something, to assure us that everything’s okay. Instead, she slowly looks around the room without saying anything, before her gaze falls onto the empty seat, and then onto me. For a moment her eyes catch mine. She seems concerned. I look away.

I can hear her walking a few steps forward, her heels clicking on the ground, before she stops again, right next to my desk. She leans forward a bit, trying to catch my attention. I still don’t look at her.

“Aiden, are you doing alright?” She speaks quietly, but in the complete silence of the classroom, I’m certain everyone can hear her. No, I think, but even saying one word is too hard, so I just nod. She keeps looking at me for a few more seconds, maybe waiting for me to change my answer, but I stay quiet.

She finally leaves me alone and continues towards the front of the room, walking slowly with a serious look on her face. I can see her breathe slowly, thinking how she will say what needs to be said.

“Kids, please listen up.” For once, this call for attention is unnecessary, as everyone is already listening.“So, as you probably all know by now...” She pauses and looks towards the empty seat again. “Something… terrible has happened to one of your classmates. Now, I can’t tell you any details, but...”

“Is he alive?” The one question everyone was thinking, now finally asked. The air becomes still, like nobody dares to breathe until it is answered.

Ms Allen remains quiet for a moment, although it feels like an eternity. “Yes, he is alive.” The students immediately relax and they start talking again, like that was the only thing that they needed to know before they could go back to their normal way of acting.

“Can you pay attention for a bit longer, please? Then we can move on to our lesson.” The math we’re supposed to be learning today is already projected on the screen behind her. “I just need to talk to you about a few things. What happened is obviously terrible, and I understand if you don’t want to talk about it right now, but it’s important for us to have a conversation about these types of things, so we can prevent anything like this from happening in the future.”

She says it like it’s just an easy safety measure, like simply talking about it would immediately solve everything. If only it was that easy.

“If any of you ever need someone to talk to, all of your teachers are available. We also have a counsellor at our school, who you can go to for anything you are struggling with. I know it sometimes feels like you all have to figure everything out by yourself, but that’s not true. There are people who you can trust and who you can talk to. Just remember that you are not alone, and that everything will be okay.”

I’ve heard things like that a lot. I’m sure everyone has. You are not alone. Just talk to people. Everything will be okay. In the end, none of that mattered. We weren’t alone. We trusted each other. We talked. We talked about a lot of things, including this. It didn’t make a difference.

“Okay, now that we’ve gone over that, let’s start with our lesson.”