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You can do this Davis, you tell yourself. Davis P. Right is no pussy, he can handle getting lunch. Deep breath in, deep breath out, pick up the lunch tray and pay for your food. You won’t eat most of it anyway, but what does it matter? You get reduced meals. With a sigh, you snag your bag from the chair where it sits and go find a quiet spot alone to ‘eat’. This time, it’s in the courtyard at a rickety old picnic bench. Taking a seat, you set your tray down and stare at your food.
A few chicken fingers, green beans, mashed potatoes and an apple. You pick up the apple and take a bite, chewing slowly as you debate over what you’re going to eat today. You rule out the chicken fingers. Meat makes you puke nowadays. The mashed potatoes go next, there’s too much of that on your plate. The green beans look okay, you decide. You’ll try to stomach those. Finishing off your apple, you take a swig of apple juice and start on the beans.
You only make it a few bites before your brain grinds to a screeching halt. You’ve eaten way too much, it tells you. Too much for today, you’ll get fat like this, now you have to skip dinner, fucking great. Can you do any worse, Davis you piece of shit? Your stomach rumbles and you ignore it, dumping your tray just like usual before returning to your spot outside.
It’s nice out, you muse to yourself. The sun warms the slightly chilly January air, and the wind is whistling pleasantly through the trees in the nearby yards. It’s...peaceful. You let yourself drift in the calm and relative quiet until the bell jolts you from your thoughts, reminding you that yes, school is still a thing and no, you can’t just ditch because your older brother would have your fucking head. You still glance longingly towards the street as you pack your things and head to choir.
The hour passes uneventfully, and you’re quick to shelve your music and grab your bag before a hand on your shoulder stops you. Turning, you see it’s the school’s resident genius. Hal something-or-another. He’s tall like you, but whereas you’re all wiry and skinny he is muscular and broad shouldered. Your tangerine eyes meet his warning light red ones in a questioning stare, and he releases your shoulder.
“I was hoping I could walk you to class,” He starts. “I want to talk to you about something.”
You shake your head, hefting your bag higher on your shoulder. “Sorry man, but no can do. Your class is in the whole opposite direction. That would be mad wrong of me to make you late.”
He frowns, not liking the fact that you’ve said no. You walk away with anxiety churning in your gut before he can press the issue. Your stomach rumbles under your ocean of a hoodie and you sigh. It is going to be a long rest of the day.
The next day, Thursday, is much the same as the first. Except this time, Hal is waiting for you at the end of the lunch hour. He walks with you to choir, not bothering to make small talk. He moves to sit next to you in class as well, diligently taking notes during the brief music theory discussion the class has at the beginning of the period. You snort at his chicken scratch handwriting, even worse than your own barely legible scrawl, and return your attention to getting out your music.
“Class,” The teacher speaks, drawing your attention. “We will be holding solo auditions for our concert piece next Wednesday. If you’d like to audition, please see me at the end of the hour.”
You almost fall out of your chair from shock when Hal leans over to whisper, “You should audition.”
“W-what?” You stutter stupidly. “Why?”
The Junior shrugs, sweeping a piece of dyed white hair from his eyes. “It seems like you have an excellent singing voice, compared to a majority of our classmates.”
The compliment makes your cheeks burn. “Thanks,” You mutter, turning back to the choir director as she begins to coach the class through warm-ups for the day. You feel sick to your stomach, and hurry out of the room without asking about auditions. You feel like you’re going to throw up your meager lunch of pineapple chunks and apple juice. Luckily, you manage to keep it down for the rest of the day.
Friday rolls around, and you slump through your classes with a pounding headache. You threw up that morning, but you came to school anyway. Can’t let your grades slip after all. Come lunch time, you don’t even think about grabbing a tray. Instead, you move outside to the old picnic bench you sat at a few days ago and put your head down. Part of you knows you should at least try to eat something, but another part rears it head and snarls a vehement ‘What’s the fucking point?’. You agree with the latter part of your brain, and refuse to move.
You drift in your thoughts for awhile, until something thunks on the wooden table top in front of you. Lifting your head, you find a shiny red apple sitting in front of you. Looking up a little further, you find Hal taking a seat on the opposite side of the bench, munching his way through an orange wedge.
“You didn’t get a tray today,” He points out. “I brought you something to eat.”
“...Thank you,” You mumble half-heartedly, ignoring the apple as you drop your head into your arms. You feel Hal nudge the apple against your sleeve.
“Please, just eat a little bit of it.” His insistence is starting to piss you off. “You don’t look very well right now. I would say there is a 92 percent chance food will help.”
You sigh heavily at his words and pick up the apple, taking a bite. After you finish it off you are not surprised to find that yes, the food did quell the sickness in your gut. You give the boy across from you a small, grateful smile. “Thank you,” You repeat again, much more sincere than the first time.
“You know,” He says with an incline of his head, “If you ate more, I doubt you would get sick like that at all.” His tone is pointed, blunt, and it sends a cold ice cicle of fear stabbing into your gut and twisting around in a way that makes your blood freeze. How had he noticed? You were always so careful, how on Earth had he picked up on it?
Tears begin to prick your eyes and you pick up your bag all in a hurry, bumping notebooks over the ground. With a frustrated growl you snag as many as you can and shove them in your bag before fleeing the scene. You are embarrassed, frightened, and frankly you are pissed off that he just pointed it out like that. Not pissed off at him, but at yourself for not being more careful. It is only a matter of time now before he tells more people. You can already hear the teasing remarks in your ears as you rush to the bathroom and collapsed in an empty stall, tears tracking down your face silently as you heave a quiet sob.
Minutes pass, and a set of footsteps can be heard entering the bathroom. You press back away from the door, but their owner finds you anyway. Hal swings open the door and looks down at you with...anger? Fear? Worry? You can’t tell, but that doesn’t stop you from allowing him to pull you to your feet and into a bone crushing hug.
“That was highly inappropriate of me. Mad rude. I’m sorry man, you didn’t deserve that.”
You blink dumbly, nodding your head against his shoulder as you raise your arms to hug him back. “It’s fine,” You tell him. And then oops, you’re crying again. “I-I’m fine.”
He pulls away a little bit, holding you by the shoulders. “It would seem you are being highly disingenuous with me Davis. You are, after careful analysis spanning a handful of days, certainly not fine.” Hal sighs and pulls a neon orange notebook out of his bag, and hands it over. “That is not why I am here however. You dropped this.”
You quickly snatch back the book, clutching it to your chest. “Y-you didn’t read anything in here, did you?” You ask quickly, voice almost frantic.
“Not at all,” He assures. “You can be assured, 100 percent, that I did not read anything of yours in that notebook.” The bell rings, signaling the end of lunch, and Hal offers a small smile. “Would you like to walk with me to choir?”
Looking back on it, you are pretty sure you fell in love that Friday in the boys bathroom, regardless of if you knew it or not.
You flop down on your bed at the end of the day, pulling the battered orange notebook out of your bag to flip through it. Song lyrics flash by in quick succession until you reach the page you last left blank. To your shock there are words curling across the page in very familiar handwriting. The only set of writing that looks worse than yours. Hal’s. Hal wrote in your songbook. Your eyes light with indignant rage, before you start scanning the passage he left you. The more you read, the more your anger dissipates into gut churning fear and...happiness? You scan the words again, mouthing them to yourself.
In the mirror sits an angel, with missing wings.
Too thin to stay on the ground regardless...
He tumbles through the hazy air on the most fragile of things,
And I don’t see how I could love him any less.
He’s a little bird, with a song to sing.
I heard it once, a pretty thing. But it made me sad to see,
The pain behind the melody...
And I vowed that day, to make a happier harmony.
And I vowed that day, to help a broken bird sing…
Of better times, of happier things.
Chin up Bird, things will get better.
-- Hal S.
A tear drop hits the page, and that’s when you realize you’re crying. An ugly sob tears from your vocal chords and you muffle the noise in the nearest pillow. You cry until you have no tears left, and when you’re finished you feel...lighter. You feel happier. Your stomach gives a loud complaint and you find yourself laughing. With a final glance at Hal’s little poem, you go to get something to eat for the night. It’ll be hard, you know it will...but you have someone rooting for you now. That thought helps the half a bowl of ice cream go down a little easier.
Monday comes around, and for the first time in a long time you find yourself looking forward to lunch. When the lunch bell rings you stride into the room with purpose. Your hands still shake a little when you pick up your tray. Too much food, your brain screams, and you silently agree. But you look over the spread of pizza, an apple, and corn and you grin a little to yourself. You can stomach at least half of it if you really try. And you are really, really going to try. For Hal, for yourself.
Speaking of Hal, you spot him walking outside and call his name, jogging over. “Hey! Hal!” He turns, holding the door open with his foot as you slip outside with him. “You want to eat with me today dude?”
He gives a nod, taking a bite of his pizza. “I would love to eat with you Davis.”
The two of you take a seat at what you are beginning to deem your usual spot at the picnic bench outside. You fall into easy conversation and before you know it, you’ve polished off your entire pizza and half of your apple all while trading shitty puns with the red eyed boy. By the time you finish the apple, you’ve found out that his favorite color is fuchsia, and he really really loves robots. In turn, you tell him your favorite color is blood red, and you want to be a dj when you grow up. He tells you to ask the choir teacher about auditions again, and this time, you agree to do it. On one condition.
“You have to audition too.”
Hal grins. “You have a fucking deal, Right.”
“We better have a fucking deal Strider,” You shoot back with an equally as shit-eating grin. The lunch bell rings and you dump your two-thirds empty tray, silently priding yourself on the small victory for the day. You are going to get better.
You glance at Hal, smile, and sneakily reach for his hand. He squeezes your palm in his gently, and flashes you a tiny smile. Yeah, you think to yourself. You are going to get better...and Hal is going to be there to help you through it every step of the way.
The thought fills your heart with bird song.