Invisible Empathy

Invisible.

I feel invisible. I feel like no one here cares about me, not even my friends. I feel like if I would die right now, in front of everyone, no one would notice. Why am I always feeling bad about myself? Why can’t I just enjoy what I have before it’s gone?… It’s already gone, isn’t it? Why can’t anyone else feel bad for me? Why do I crave their pity so badly if I don’t even like the people here? I don’t understand this, I don’t understand me. 

I’m sitting on the table outside the cafeteria, multiple voices can be heard in one conversation. I don’t know what they’re talking about. I’m oblivious to my surroundings. The blue table sitting in the grass is big enough for all of us, but I still feel like there is not enough space for me to fit in it. The sun is bright, up in the sky and warming my skin. The people in the cafeteria’s terrace are loud, their voices mixing up with one another. I just hear a crowd talking, but the sound is faint. We’re not sitting that close to them. The grass beneath me is green, a green not taken care of. I remember how a few years ago in class we buried a time capsule in it. We are supposed to open it in our senior year, but I don’t know if I will make it till then. Some people don’t remember what they buried in it, but I remember mine vividly. It was a page with my name on it, the letters written with decorations in them, a colorful written name, a name that today means nothing to me or the people around me. 

A name that today means nothing to me or the people around me. 

Brown hair slaps my face, that was probably Rachel, she gained the habit of doing that these past few months. I know she does it unconsciously but it feels as bad as when she did it the first time. I turn my head to look at her. She is talking with the others. I still don’t know what they are talking about. My eyes go back down, my fingers playing with the holes of the surface of the blue table. I don’t why the tables around the school are filled with holes. They were made that way, but what’s the point of it? I can’t even figure that out. It feels like I don’t know anything at all.

I hear my name, someone’s calling out for me. I’m so out of it, I don’t know who’s calling me. Did I imagine that just because I want someone’s attention?

 “Sara” There it is again. “Hey, are you listening?” It’s a girl’s voice, she sounds worried, why is she worried?

 “Sara!” 

The loud voice snaps me out of my thoughts. They feel unescapable sometimes. I look to my left, big, warm brown eyes are looking directly at me. It was Rachel again. 

“Hm? Sorry I zoned out” I speak for the first time since the lunch period started. Lately, if my friends don’t ask for me, then I don’t speak. I learned that my opinion is irrelevant until someone asks for it. 

“I was telling you about Isaac. He called me last night.” Oh, it’s about this again. Her crush on Isaac and how he, obviously, doesn’t like her back. I don’t think that guy will ever settle for anyone, at least not right now. We met him in a camp last year, and ever since Rachel has liked him. He is also one of the people I feel like I can talk to without caring about what he thinks. “He sounded worried about you,” Wait, what? “He told me that one of his friends that is in your class told him that they saw you really sad lately.” My eyes snapped open. Someone from my class noticed me? They noticed and cared about me? Who? I can’t think of anyone in my class who would do that. All of them are a bunch of  fourteen-year-old imbeciles, who care about no one but themselves. But if so, who cares enough to talk to Isaac about me? It was someone, but who? 

“Huh? Who?”  

“Oh, I don’t know. He didn’t tell me.” Suddenly Rachel’s attitude turned standoffish. When at first she wanted to talk to me, now she wouldn’t even look at me. Her hair slapped my face again when she turned her head to talk to whoever was beside her. I don’t care enough to check who it is, not with what I had just heard from my friend. Who could it be? It has to be someone in my class, and a guy since it’s Isaac’s friend, but who from my class would care enough to worry for me when they don’t even look at me?

A loud ring brings me out of my thoughts. Lunch is over, and so is this conversation. 

I decided to call Isaac to talk about it. I’m sure he’ll tell me who was worrying about me. I can’t stop thinking about it. It feels like not even my friends care about me, so why would a random guy in my class? It makes no sense to me. The sun is starting to set. I can only see the sky slightly change color through the living room’s window. The place turns darker by the second without the artificial light on. 

Sitting at the edge of one of the gray couches I look for Isaac’s number in my phone. One ring- maybe he’s still in the sports center and won’t pick up because of it- Two rings- maybe this was a bad idea and I should just let it go, he probably lied to Rachel about it- Three rings- but if he lied to Rachel then who told him? Well, his friend would be the obvious answe– “What do you want, mutt!?” The aggressive voice that sounds through the phone pulls me out of my thoughts. Huh he did answer. 

“Nothing, rat!” I retort, just as aggressively as him. After a few other sarcastic comments and remarks, I get to the point of the call and ask him who the person that’s concerned about me is. 

“I can’t tell you” he answers me back in a much more calm way than before. And I don’t know what he means, why can’t he tell me? It’s not like that person will know that I know, so why can’t I know? Why is everything a secret being kept from me? 

“What do you mean you can’t tell me?” I’m desperate enough to know that I will believe anything that comes out of his mouth and won’t question it, like I did last year, like I’ve always done. 

“I can’t really”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I promised him that I wouldn’t tell you,” So it is one of his soccer friends “And I don’t get anything from telling you”

“Neither do you gain anything from keeping it” I hope this could convince him. I want to know, I want proof that somebody cares for me, and I want to know who it is. Because if the people that are supposed to be my friends since third grade don’t, then who will? 

“Okay, let’s do this”

“Do what?”

“If you send me nudes, I’ll tell you” He said seriously in a joking manner, and I know I shouldn’t be as surprised as I am because I’ve known he’s like that since I met him.

“Oh, Fuck you!” And that’s the only thing that comes out of my mouth after my pathetic plea. I know after that that this is going nowhere, that I’m not getting an answer, at least not today. 

“You wish you could” His laughter fills my ears as I try to forget my disappointment and move on to a new topic to talk about. 

‘I wanna be somebody else’ My body sways back and forth with the movement of my legs, the chains that support my weight clank every time the yellow swing goes up and down. It’s eleven P.M. My family is having dinner beside the dim light of the pool. I’m not there with them. ‘Somebody who’s not scared as hell.’ The lyrics from the melodious song flow into my ears, a melancholic tune that describes my life perfectly. ‘Somebody who don’t second guess themselves’ A drop falls into my hand, a hand that is tightly holding onto the metal. A single tear is what fell into my hand, is what came out of my empty eyes, that hold nothing but sadness in them. I think back to a few weeks ago– or was it a month already?– when there was a mystery person who worried for me. I still don’t know who it is. First Rachel told me about that call she had with Isaac, but she doesn’t know either. He didn’t tell her. And it all clicks, from one second to the other I know the truth, the truth is that this person doesn’t exist. It was all Rachel’s lie to not let me know that she told another person about it, and I foolishly believed it. I actually thought somebody cared about my pitiful existence. ‘Yeah I wanna be, I wanna be, wanna be like that’. 

The phone rings twice before it’s answered, the movements of the swing are faster than the calm rhythm of a few minutes ago. A soft “Hi” can be heard from the other side of the speaker, and my blood boils, cause she’s been lying to me this whole time and I know she’s not going to tell the truth now.

“Rachel,” my throat feels dry and I don’t know how to ask her, I don’t wanna hear what she has to say next, being that a truth or a lie. 

“What’s up?” 

I don’t know where I muster the courage for but the words come out of my mouth before I’m aware of it.

“Were you the one that told Isaac about me not being well in school?” There’s no going back now, and I dread what’s next because I know that, no matter the answer, I won’t be satisfied. 

“No,” It’s an instant answer that comes after my question, and I know she’s lying “You know I wouldn’t tell him, it was somebody else, one of his friends probably.” A hurried, generic, tone is all I can hear; still, I can’t seem to discover why she did it.

I hum after, I have nothing to say, not anymore, because that’s the answer I’ve been hearing and it only took some thinking to unravel the mystery. I hang up after a few exchanges of words and the next thing I know as the music starts playing again is that a quiet sob comes out of my mouth. 

Because of my recently found apathy, I can’t think of anything to write about for my class. An essay about empathy, what am I supposed to write about if I don’t have any ideas for it. I don’t want to keep writing about my old school, but it’s also more than half of my life, which is a shame. If I need to talk about empathy, then why not turn it around and talk about when somebody felt it towards me. I guess that works, too. Thinking back to two years ago I remember what happened with Rachel, and now I understand; I understand that she was just worried about me and didn’t know how to approach me. Even though we have talked about this before, I still decided to call her, for the sake of my grade. 

She answers the phone and I start to mention the past few years and the truth we both now knew. “Of course it was me who told him, which one of the other assholes would’ve done something?” At that I half-smiled, because I know she was right, because I know that I was so blinded by my self pity and self-loathing that nothing outside of it would actually matter, and I know that, even if she handled it in a bad way at the time, she still cared for me and tried to help me, because I was her friend, because I still am her friend. 

“None of them,” I answer her question “But also they stopped caring a while before that so”

“Yeah, but also you never realized that I did try to help you, maybe not in the best way, but still, you know?”

“I know” I do. “And I’m thankful you tried” I am. There’s nothing to hide from the past few years anymore, not to myself or anyone else. 

“Yeah, why did you think every time you stayed inside your classroom in lunch I went with you?” A rhetorical question with a story behind it that I didn’t know.

“Wait, what?” 

“You actually thought all of the time I just went there to watch movies?” 

“…Yeah” I’m unsure of what it was then, didn’t she just come to watch movies because her Netflix account wouldn’t work?

Sitting at my desk by myself, I should get used to it by now, but it still stinks when I see that no one will come looking for me, not for a good reason at least. The door opens and Rachel comes in. She can’t seem to leave me alone sometimes, and I don’t know how I feel about it. 

“Hey” She says while she walks up to my desk and grabs a chair.

“What’s up?” 

“Not much, wanna keep watching the movie we started in Hebrew class?” Of course it would be that, there’s no other reason for her to be here. 

“The fake, high school, prostitute one?” I’m starting to hate that movie and I haven’t watched it completely. 

“Yup, that one” and for some reason Rachel seems to love it. I barely know what’s happening in it ‘cause it’s so boring. Heck, I don’t even know what it’s called. 

I narrow my eyes while looking at her and sighed “Can we watch another one? That one’s boring”

“Let’s finish it and we’ll start another one” My friend insisted

“Why can’t you watch it on your own?” I’m starting to hate that her Netflix account is not working on her computer.

“Because my mom blocked Netflix on my computer, you know that”

“I do”

“Well, after finishing that one we can watch one that I found. You’ll like it” Sure I will, I won’t. 

“You don’t know that Rachel” I reply tiredly, I just want to go back home. 

“But I do” And so lunch period went on. 

“Wait, you’re kidding me, did you really just go to the classroom for me?” 

“Yeah! I wasn’t gonna let you stay by yourself all the time and sulk” Laughter escapes my mouth; a shocked, but happy, laugh. 

“I’m happy you did” Just as I’m happy she stuck with me through it. 

“Oh you better be” 

And I’m glad that she’s my friend.