I Hurt 2

• Winnie Lark, Grade 12
• Short Story
• 2011

'You know,' he commented, hoping his concern wasn't apparent, "he wasn't real. Not even close. He was just a figment, a fragment, a speck even. Here one day, gone the next."

Alfred glowered at him with all the anger an eight-year-old could muster. The man held his gaze steadily, neither inviting dispute nor cowering from it. After a tense moment, Alfred looked down, his face burning in shame; his friend had stuck by him for five years and he didn't have the courage to stand up by him for even a minute. His knees were shaking and he clutched them tightly as if he thought they would fall off.

He didn't speak, hadn't spoken to him, in fact, since his father had forced him to attend psychiatry sessions two months ago. He remembered his father's sing-song voice, "And you can bring your little friend as well." Ha. He knew better now. He knew now how adults could lie. How they were mean. How they didn't care.

He remembered the instance when he was five and his father suddenly decided that he was too old for stuffed animals. He had snatched Alfred's stuffed elephant and ripped it apart. It tore easily - the seams were well worn with years of love and care. Alfred still remembered the shreds of white stuffing falling like snowflakes, interspersed with a spattering of grey cloth. The elephant's eyes had not been torn, he remembered - it had stared at him filled with, he swore, wells of anguish and betrayal.

He had forgiven his father, albeit after weeks of resentment and pained silences. He thought it had all been over, that it was only a one time occurrence. He had forgiven his father - and now, now his father had betrayed him again.

His father had risen and now stood behind him, one hand warm upon his shoulder. No one spoke. Alfred felt his father’s hand shake slightly but didn’t draw any attention to it. His father blinked back tears and walked abruptly to the opposite side of the room, his hand fidgeting distractedly upon the bookshelf.

"I'm sorry," he choked out hoarsely, “I didn’t know. Other—other kids your age grow out of—they don’t have—I thought it would be for the best. I didn’t think. I’m sorry, Alfie. Really. Just—just—please just say something. Anything.”

Alfred still remembered Stevie, the friend whom he had never gotten to say goodbye to, the friend whom his father had ruthlessly cut away from him. Sorry didn’t—couldn’t—bring him back. It was like he’d been set adrift on a sea of broken promises with no rope to pull himself back onto shore. He could still feel the sharp edges of those promises poking at him sometimes, piercing his thin barrier of resolve. He wasn’t alone now, never would be with so much hurt haunting him.

He got up, not facing his father, and said, very softly, “I miss Stevie.” And left the room.