A few hours later, Ray, Frank, Bob, Gerard and I are walking home, all but Gerard clutching cherry pies; he skipped class due to being "a totally shit cook". (Frankie's pie unfortunately hasn't gone too well - the filling's spilling out onto his hands now - but I don't mention that.) From walking back these few days with them all, I remember that Frank splits from the group first, and Gerard and Jamia last.
Jamia and Mikey are at their Bass guitar exams, though.
Just me and Gee then, later on? Hey, maybe I could get my answers! I still have enough time to prepare what to say! Two sets of questions resolved in one day, now that'd be -
"Bye Gee, bye Sunny!" Ray says as he stops, patting my shoulder with a knowing smile.
"What? Where are you going, man?" Gee asks. We've stopped outside the turning to Frank's house, I think.
"Oh, Bob and Ray are coming over to mine tonight. We have to...uhm..." Frankie looks towards Bob, who speaks up after a nudge from Ray.
"We have to uhm...we gotta...revise! Yeah, that's it. Big Math test soon, so we're gonna be study buddies. Okay, Frank'll drop the dog that he told me about later, bye!"
Next thing I know, the three of them have bolted around the bend.
"And then there were two!" I say, and Gerard smiles a little.
We start walking up toward my house silently, and while my head's telling me to say something, my mouth just won't move. I can't gather up enough courage like I did in Social Studies to do this...to ask him everything I've wanted to since he saved me. But I can't. I just can't.
Luckily, Gee breaks the silence. "So, Sunny, you missing Wyoming much?"
"Kinda." I lie, and he looks at me for a long time...he knows my secret.
"Really?"
I turn to him, weirdly angry that he knows I'm lying.
"Well, okay. Our Lady Of Sorrows High was my school. And it totally and utterly sucked. I had no friends, I cried all the time, and I was bullied. Happy now?" I blurt that out a bit obnoxiously, because I'm getting a catch in my throat and I don't want it to be obvious.
He puts a hand around my waist gently, and we gradually stop walking.
Okay, it's obvious.
"I'm so sorry, Sunny." He says softly, and that's when the tears come.
I don't even know where they've come from. It's just...now I've finally told someone how much I hated it, I'm just letting all of that pent up hurt go. I never told my Mom or Dad, never wrote about it to Storm - I didn't want them to be worried. Y'know though, it feels good. To be free. Free of the pain forever now - and yet for some reason I'm crying my eyes out all of a sudden. He pulls me into a hug, and I cry into his shoulder. I feel his hand brush my hair a few times, and it soothes me a little.
Memories.
They're all coming back.
"Hey, Emoshit!"
Rita Appleby, Jazz Jones and Ursula Fisher. I'd just come out of the bathroom cubicle to find the biggest bitches in the school smiling sinisterly at me in front of the sinks and the large mirror they usually admired themselves in. Jazz shifted from foot to foot, I remember, but she was still smiling that awful, unerving grin.
"Fancy seeing you here, honey! You were just the person we wanted to see actually. See, we have this new lipstick we've been wanting to try out, but we thought it's a little...black for us." Ursula said as she circled behind me so that I was trapped.
"Come on guys, don't..." I heard Jazz mumble, but it clearly wasn't loud enough for what would happen in a few minutes.
Panicked I glanced at each of their faces. Don't what? What were they planning?
"So me, Jazz and Ursi were thinking. Hm. Now who do we know that likes the colour blacK?" Rita put a hand on me, and the grip was so hard that I couldn't get away.
I didn't say anything, so I remember her taking my jaw in her other hand and moving it up and down while she provided the voice - like some sick ventriloquism act.
"I do!" She chirped, making Ursula laugh. Jazz uncertainly giggled, but it was still a laugh. A laugh that made me so angry, so sad that I wanted to scream.
But I couldn't. I was shy old Sunshine, who let everyone treat her like dirt. I was just harmless anyway. I wouldn't stand up to them in a million years, back then. I feared any social interaction, because I thought that'd mean I got treated even more badly later on.
"Want to try it then? Our lippy? Hey, and maybe, we could give you a few hairstyling tips! I've got my scissors on me right now. Would you like that, Emoshit?"
No. No. NO!
That's what I wanted to yell.
But I didn't.
...I left the bathroom with 'Emoshit' written across my forehead, a huge mustache drawn on and my hair in raggedy clumps all down my back. It took me less than a second to realise it wasn't black lipstick, it was pernament marker. It was the end of the day. They'd planned it perfectly - no teachers would be around to see what they'd done to me, but all of the students that were leaving would be able to see me. It was the perfect humiliation trick.
I cleaned what I could of it off, and put my hair up before Mom got back from work. But I could never clean off the emotional scars I got that day. The tears seemed like they'd be there forever - almost like they were pernament markered on too, with the strongest marker in history.
It's been about 5 minutes now, of hugging and sobbing. My Nirvana bag is on the sidewalk next to us now. I don't remember it falling out of my hand. I don't remember a lot of things from these past 5 minutes. I only remember the memories that kept flooding into my head, and have only just left it now.
"It's okay." He whispers into my hair. "I...never mind, I'll tell you about that another time... but my point was was that I've felt like that before. But that's what I was like a long time ago. It's what you were like a long time ago, Sunshine. What we were like, basically. Those were the kids from yesterday, Sunny. Those aren't the kids of today. Those are the kids that we were. Were. Always remember that word, Sunshine, when you feel down about your old school. Were."
