1989 School Magazine

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WINNER OF THE BETry WOOLCOCK CHALLENGE cuP (YEARS tt/t2) - 1989 FRIEND

I had a friend. Well, more of an acquaintance reallg. Actually he was probably somewhere between the two. He belonged to a large group of people I used to call the "Bright Young Things". These were the good-looking ones, the ones who smoked and drank but still manoged to get good grades at school. They were the coptains of the sporting teams and were inuolued in the music programme. They were the people that large companies hired before they had euen finished their degree. Theg were the group that eueryone hated ond despised but wonted to be a part of. I didn't quite belong to this group, and nor, I guess did James Montgomerg. Oh, James was hondsome and smart and popular and witty - but he was different from the rest ot' them. The others used to shine like neon signs in Las Vegos, while James was more the moon on a crisp and wintry night. He was someone who hugged dogs because he like them rather than because it was good PR.. He was the sort of person who would cry during E.T. and giue his mother flowers just because he loued her and not because it was her birthday. He had a smile that spread from the corners of his mouth to the blue of his eyes. It was a smile that enueloped you in a glowing cocoon of warmth. It was a smile that gaue you butterflies in the stomach. It wcs a smile that mode him os ottractiue to women os the moon is attractiue to the waues - and ! loued him euer since I was old enough to know what the word meant. Of course, he didn't loue me because he didn't euen really know me. Yet, wheneuer he sow me, he smiled and said hello and asked me how I was. He remembered little things. He remembered that I played the clarinet and had a younger brother named Tim. Little things that, t'or me, seemed like big things. No one else euer seemed to remember or euen core. But James wos different. He was genuine. One usuallg gets to know who's genuine ond who isn't in that sort of group. So I hung on the fringe of this group like the ruffles of a bedspread ond watched the Bright Young Things as they made their way through lit'e. Occasionally I was happy, but most of the time I was bitter and jealous. I asked my mirror the age-old questions that eueryone osks: Why con't I be prettg? What's she got that I hauen't? Why can't I belong? Whg do I haue to care so much whether I belong or not? Because I did care. I spent long nights crying into my pillow and spent hundreds of dollars on bars of chocolate that I used to drown my sorroLus in. I desperately wanted to belong to that group. I longed for it and deep down I knew that, reolisticallg, I neuer would belong. Not really. Not truly. Not genuinelg. I couldn't be witty when I was merely intellectual. I couldn't laugh when I felt like crging. In the end, I guess James couldn't either.

His parents went away t'or the weekend, and when they came back, theg found him lying in his bed with the empty bottle of Scotch and two empty bottles of ualium on his bedside table. "l'm sorrg," soid his note. "l loue gou, but I didn't know whot else to do." So once I knew o person in between an acquaintance and a t'riend. Someone I loved. He neuer knew it, and maybe if he had....who knows? I didn't tell him I loued him, and l guess no one else told him they loued him either. For days olter it happened the Bright Young Things were in shock. Jomes had euerything: money, Iooks, brains, personality and popularity. And theg were angry. Angry with him instead of angry with themselues. James hod spoilt their bright, little world. He'd smashed some of their light bulbs. He'd done the unt'orgiuable - he'd acted without group consent and deserted the fold. lt wasn't socially acceptable to commit suicide. He'd broken the code. Neuer show weakness or emotion. Be proud to the point of stupiditg. Be lonely but neuer alone. Be inwardlg crying and outwardly smiling. You can listen to the words but you don't haue to hear them. And don't euer, euer, euer, expect genuine warmth, comfort or loue in a time o/ crisis. We may be sgcophantic but we ore neuer sympathetic. The Bright Young Things went to the memorial seruice and sat at the back ot' the church in a close-knit group. The boys looked suitably unmoued and handsome in dark suits, while the girls wore elegant black dresses and cried in a suitably ladylike lashion that put their looks at their best aduantage. I wore blue because James once said it uos his fouourite colour and I didn't cry one tear. I couldn't cry. There was too much emotion t'or me to share it in t'ront of strangers - for that was what these people now were. I didn't know them. Theg didn't know me. I doubt if they euen really knew each other. The seruice ended, and I was euentuallg left alone in the church to watch the dust motes swimming in the warm sunlight. I t'elt a deep sadness engult' me, qnd it made me feel so small ond inconsequential in that huge building. The world seemed so full ot' unhappiness that there seemed nothing else to do but to lay your head in gour arms and cry. "You loued him, didn't you?" The uoice come out of nowhere. So /osf in my own emotions and in the atmosphere ot' the church, for a tiny portion of o moment I thought it wos God talking to me from Heauen and He was obout to reossure me that there rros o Plan. There was a method to all this madness. Obuiously it wasn't God and it took a while t'or me to actuolly assimilate the fact that there was someone in the church besides me. I looked up and was shocked to see the person addressing me. It was Justin Montereg, Jomes' best friend and the brightest ot' the Bright Young Things. The biggest and best light in Las Vegas.

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