Unchain

When I arrived at home, I went straight to my room and sat at my desk with my jaw slacked and my backpack hanging limply on my wrist. I’m not sure how long I kept that pose but I snapped out of it when my pack hit the wooden floor with a muffled “thunk” from my textbooks. I looked to the floor and shook my head.
“She’s just being nice,” I whispered to myself. “That’s all. Everything’s a ‘be nice to the depressed kid’.”
Emily still had my jacket. I wanted her to have more, but I couldn’t let go of the fact that no one was supposed to really like me.

I had wild hair that made Robert Smith look like he had the best stylist in the world. A girl once asked me why I didn’t do anything with my hair and I replied, “would fixing my hair make you want to go out with me?”
She didn’t answer; and in hindsight, it wasn’t a great retort. Still, my hair was only one of my glaring faults: the other being my total pessimistic (I would say realist, but, okay…) attitude about everything. I was ten years shy of the emo-generation, so people just assumed I was an outsider to life.
Or something to that effect.

I grabbed my backpack from the floor, unzipped it and then dumped the contents out onto my desk: textbooks, pens, three folders, a non-functioning calculator, and a folded note…one that I did not put in. The note had my name on it and I feared looking at it, let along opening it. I received notes like that in the past and I never found out who sent them, but they were sarcastic love notes, written by someone who thought it was a trip to send them to me, hoping that I would felt elated at having a “secret admirer”. I read the first few, I ever followed through a bit with what they asked me to do: go to a location at a certain time, “because, I’m shy”, the writer said.
This went on a few times, with the writer never showing up, at least, to my knowledge. If they were looking for me to be elated or to be worried about how they may have been, I must have disappointed them as I showed little emotion. The last note they sent me? I tore it up and threw it on the floor. Maybe in their presence, maybe not. I would have told them that I didn’t understand hints or gave them. It would be a point-blank, “I tell it like it is, baby cakes”, kind of thing.

I rode the bus to school in the morning and sat in the back with my arm leaning on the window, to hide a headphone in my ear. Headphones were not allowed on the bus—but bullying and ear-flicking were for some reason. On some days, the bus driver either didn’t notice or didn’t care but on other days, the other kids would rat me out. It was a DN-DC morning, so I cranked up my “Use Your Illusion Two” album and turned the folded-over note in my free hand as I debated whether to open it. I pocketed it instead.

I got off the bus, hoisted my backpack up and walked towards the front door of the school. Emily stood a few feet away from the door. I had to wonder if she was waiting for me or maybe she just liked the chilly mornings as she still had a coat on—I could see my jacket out of the bottom of her coat, so it was still in one piece. That was a good sign.

“Hiya.”
“Good morning,” I replied.
“I get a good morning. Excellent,” Emily replied as we walked into the building together. She walked a little bit in front of me and then turned to me. Her face was a bright shade of red. I took it that she had been standing out there for awhile.
“Kyle, did you find a note in your backpack?”
“Yes,” I said with a nod.
“Did you read it?”
“Not yet, I didn’t find it until this morning.”
“Oh,” she said, and her face was still red. “I wrote it.”
“Great,” I replied with a slight smile.
“I…it’s like…I’m not good at saying things like this. My voice cracks and I start adding fillers, and, like that. Yeah, see, like that, and um.”
We stopped at my locker and she closed her eyes.
“You okay?” I asked,
“Not sure yet. I want to be here when you read it, but I also want to be on the other side of the county too.”
“I can read it now, if you want,” I replied as I put my backpack in my locker and then took her hand.
“I think you know what’s on it.”
“Not yet. Do you want to give me a hint?”
“I’m not good with hints. I can’t even keep a Christmas present a secret.”
“Sounds familiar,” I said with a small laugh.
“Okay, open it, please.”
She let go of my hand and I carefully unfolded the note. The thoughts of it exploding or it being some form of curse or put down faded as Emily looked between the note and my face.

The bell for first period rang, but we stood there as everyone ran to class as I read:

Tears are falling on my story book
Colors running, I don't want to look
There's a cloud on my looking glass
Full of questions, I'm afraid to ask
Afraid to love, such a chance to take
If I love and lose, my fragile heart will break
No dotted line, there's no guarantee
For the story's end you may never see
Unchain me from my poverty, release my soul
Unchain my life
Let the doubt and the darkness fall from my eyes
Unchain my dreams
Let the heavens of love open up in me

“I…I didn’t write it, but, but it means a lot to me and it was supposed to be about how I didn’t know if you, well, you know.”
I folded the note back and cupped it in my mind as I took a step forward and hugged her. “Thank you.”
“Thank you.”

—signed,
Kyle Jovankah