Short Stories

Fight Like You'll Never Die

"Who did this to you?"

"You did."

Brinly pulls her jacket around her tightly as she casts her eyes down at her once hot cup of coffee that now sits cold. Her sweatpants bag around her fragile legs, hiding how much weight she had lost in the past eight months. A healthy body now is underweight and lacks real muscle.

Jules sits across the table clutching his mug as his eyes sweep across the woman before him. He almost did not recognize her but it was the small scar across her eyebrow that he knew who she was. Ten month of therapy program had truly changed Jules mentally and physically. Over the course of those months, he grew several inches taller and even managed to pack on muscle. He managed to get a haircut which is now slicked back with hair gel. Gone were the skinny leather pants and instead was a dark washed out jeans. The weed and obscene shirts were replaced band t-shirt allowing his tattoo covered-arms to flaunt all around.

After finding Brinly, a girl whom he had bullied since grade school, trying to kill herself, he vowed that he would change. He was no longer the abusive, daily drinking, delinquent young adult. Instead, he learned to turn towards music as a way of coping with his emotions. He even managed to build relationships out of positive aspects instead of negative. In fact he even realized that he indeed loved Brinly. He was afraid to show her how he truly felt due to social pressure so he played along with his group of friends because at least then he could socialize with her even if it meant that she grew afraid of him.

"Oh god."

The silence is deafening as Brinly sits in her chair as her heart pound in her chest at the thought of Jules sitting across from her. She did not know that he was coming home, for if she did, she would have stayed far away. When Jules had found her swallowing pills in her kitchen and forced her to throw up, she cried. She cried so hard that her chest hurt and snot dribbled down her nose. She hated how pathetic and weak she must have looked to him as he finally watched her crumple before him in violent sobs yet she didn't push him away as he held her.

It was only later when she had been taken to the hospital had he finally spoken to her. She was beyond ashamed and mortified as he sat in the chair opposite of her bed, clutching her suicide note. It was all she could do to not cower under his pitiful eyes. It was fake, it had to be. Even long after he had apologized and admitted himself to a therapy program out of the city, the pain and aftermath of years of bullying still remained.

"Brinly..." She looks away.

"I cannot imagine the years of pain that I put you through during high school. I shouldn't have done the things I did, but I did. You have every right to hate me. I just can't stand to see you still like this. If you don't forgive me, that is okay, I understand, but you can't be treating yourself like this."

"You don't understand..." She whimpers.

"I am going to be honest. I liked you, a lot. Yeah I know what you are thinking. If I liked you so much, why did I treat you so horribly? I didn't know why, but now I do. I was in a horrible place and I knew I didn't belong but it was all I knew. I feared the change and the idea of being shamed. Horrible, I know. I wanted to talk with you, and be with you, but was afraid of what my peers would think. So I followed along with them as they hurt you. At least then I could talk with you. I am so sorry."

Standing up abruptly, Brinly knocks the chair over startling Jules and other patrons. "S-S-Stop, I don't want or need your pity. You shouldn't have even stopped to talk to me. I will be leaving.

With trembling hands Brinly tosses enough money to cover her bill into her waitresses' hands as she walks at a nearby table. "K-Keep the change."

Her heart thrumming like drums in her ears, Brinly pushes her way out of the cafe. After years of torment, how could he possible think that everything has changed? Yet her heart felt something soar when he said that he liked her. How was that even possible? She hated him, right?