When
I got home late in the afternoon, my friend Tereza, whom I call Terka, texted
me: You free tonight? Can we meet at my place at six? Urgent! Thnx. I
couldn’t say no to her, I needed to cheer up and she was always talking about
herself and her problems so her interlocutors never had time to think of
theirs. I loved her anyway. She was always smiling and was so funny. Nobody
would ever guessed that she had come through so many bad situations and had
schisms in her own family. Terka attended a medical high school, had great
grades in the elementary school, which we attended together, but got worse when
she got into this high. Anyway, I texted her back: Yes, what’s going on?
Shall I bring something? It took her a while to answer. I started preparing
a quick snack– two toasts with butter and blueberry jam and a glass grog tea.
Yummy! Then checked the bus schedule and sorted out I didn’t have enough time
to eat it all and get ready to go.
I was flitting around the house and preparing for
leaving the house, when my Mom came home from work.
‘What’s going on?’ she said, watching me
desperately looking for my keys. ‘I’m ‘bout to visit Terka. Do you know where
my keys are?’ I asked her without even glancing at her. ‘No,’ she rejoined. ‘You
should stay at home studying and revising for school,’ she cried after me but I
was already gone running down the stairs.
As soon as I ran out from our house, I found
out it was raining. ‘Damn it!’ I mumbled. Looking at my telephone watches I was
deciding whether to go back and get an umbrella or not. Eventually, I didn’t
carry one. I also noticed another message from Terka however didn’t read it
till I got on the bus.
It’s alright, I’ve solved it, you better stay at home,
it’s fucking raining out there. You
don’t say?! The wrinkled expression in my face was supposed to look surprised
however it made some guys sitting against me laugh. I immediately transformed
it into you-better-stop-staring expression and got off the bus in the centre.
I had no idea what to do. I felt down, jaded, my hair
was getting wet. Usually when I had nothing to do, I used to light up a
cigarette. But being alone, I was scared of that somebody could see me and tell
my parents and the rain prevented me from going somewhere else.
Suddenly, I heard my phone ringing. It was Terka.
‘Hey, Ase, I need to talk to you. Sorry for alarming you without a reason,’ she
said with a dubiously calm voice. ‘You know, you attend a prestigious school
and...’ I stopped her: ‘What? The school is so lame, it’s just that...’
‘Listen!’ she shouted and went on: ‘You are so beautiful, I cannot look at you
without thinking that I’m way too ugly to be a friend of yours,’ she started
sobbing. I immensely reacted, stepping away from an eld man trying to catch
something from our dialogue: ‘No, stop saying this! I’m not pretty and you know
th…,’ she went on like I didn’t say anything: ‘You are thin and I’m fat and
stupid. I wanted you to come here I needed to talk to somebody but didn’t want
to see you! I’m done! I don’t want to live anymore,’ she hung up.
I tried calling her back but she didn’t pick up the
phone…
