Six Years Ago

Six years ago, it really has been a while but yet it only seems like yesterday I was walking around the hallways of a new school starting out in grade ten. High school, a terrifying time for an introvert such as myself. I used to get high just to mask how scared and alone I actually felt. Plus the only friends I had when I started at this new school were stoners anyways. I fit in with them, since they were sort of outcasts like myself.

I was so shy, but my best friend introduced me to all of these stoner people on the smoking stairs one morning when we got dropped off. They didn't ask questions and want to know every detail of your life, and if they knew you wanted to be left alone they would leave you alone and not pry into your life. I liked that. I liked keeping to myself. They were all accepting, and they would stick up for you if you got into any shit.

So little tenner* me would usually hang out on the smoking stairs during lunch break and before school with the stoner crowd to make myself seem less introverted. During classes on the other hand which I usually attended high were a nightmare for me, having to participate in activities and discussions were far back on the list of things I wanted to do. This is why I would get high, to help with the anxieties of having to what the teachers expected.

I would usually ask at least once a class to go to the washroom, or I would purposefully forget a book or paper that I knew we needed for a class so the teacher would let me go and get it. This was my opportunity to get away and be alone like I wanted to be in the first place. I would take the long way to the washroom or my locker, kill as much time as possible.

This one day, six years ago I was walking my usual route back from my locker to class particularly glum this day (I also have depression and even the weed couldn't mask this), some one stopped me in the hall. I was on my phone looking down so that I wouldn't have to make eye contact with anyone if they happened to be in the hallways the same time as me. When this person stopped me, I was expecting a teacher telling me to get to class or to get off my phone but instead when I looked up I seen this young man standing there. I was not sure if he was in grade eleven or twelve but I knew he wasn't in my year.

Immediately I went red in the face because I hated talking to strangers. He noticed I went red which made things so much more awkward for me. He smiled at me and said to me, "You must find all of this hard to take in," talking about coming from a small junior high school just down over the hill to this massive high school with over a thousand people which was big for my town. I nodded my head like an idiot and mumbled an mhm under my breath.

Still smiling he said, "Don't worry, it will get better I promise. You'll do just fine." At this point I started to smile and the redness had started to diminish from my face. He then said that I should smile more often and don't let the stress of this place overwhelm me. Then he said his, well I don't know what to call it, catch phrase I guess, "RemainTasty"**. He gave me a pat on the shoulder and smiled then walked away.

This man, he was a complete stranger to me, but noticed that I was in a sad state of mind, and he took time out of his day to reassure me that everything will eventually be okay. It might not have been that day, or the next but eventually it will be.

That day during lunch, I was with my best friend behind the school in the trees, just the two of us smoking a joint and I was telling her what happened that morning. Then all of a sudden this group of older teens came back to where we were and I was smiling with my friend while telling her. I was in a better mood than I was that morning. Then I noticed him, the guy without a name to me at the time and little did I know that I would never see him again after this moment. He smiled at me, winked and said, "I told you things will start to look up."

The next few days, I did my usual walk around school during my classes, hoping to run into him again because he was just such a nice person and I wanted to say thank you. I never seen him. I don't know if he was in school or not the last few days leading up but all I know is I never seen his face in person again.

Every year, my high school has two spirit weeks with the Friday of that week being a full days worth of games and activities for what ever team you were on to win points. Not long after this Friday started, while we were all in the gym finding out what was going to happen next, I looked over and seen a bunch of girls crying in the corner of the gym with a teacher. This teacher walked over to our vice principal who had the microphone and whispered something in his ear.

The look that came across his face was almost startling. We were instructed to go back to our classrooms immediately. When everyone was back in the classrooms, a teacher came on over the PA system. A student at our school had taken his own life that morning. I was in shock. I heard of things like this happening, but I never dreamed someone would actually do this in our town. I was a naive grade ten and didn't know much about what actually was going on. But I was in shock.

They said the name of this student over the PA system, and asked that everyone respectfully have a moment of silence. When the name was said, it meant nothing to me. We were in a school with over a thousand people, I did not know who they were but I felt absolutely heart broken for his friends and family. We were all dismissed early this day.

I called my grandmother to come pick me up and explained to her that we got out early and when she came to get me I would explain what was going on. While I packed up my bag and got my coat out of my locker I seen a lot of students from every grade, and every gender crying. Teachers were even crying. I must have looked heartless, because I was not crying. I didn't know the kid... but I looked sad, and I was. I felt a great deal of pain for everyone who was crying, and for all of this guys friends and family.

As I was waiting in the porch of the school for my grandmother, I seen more clusters of students and teachers crying. Some people were praying even. I was on my phone scrolling down facebook and I seen a lot of statuses saying "RIP Johnny, stay tasty." Still the name didn't mean anything to me, until I saw a picture someone had posted.

Johnny was the kind human that stopped me in the hallway earlier that week telling me to keep my head up and that things would eventually get better. Now I was devastated. I didn't get a chance to thank him for brightening up my week. I started to cry. I could not believe what had happened. Just a few days ago he was telling me all of these kind words and now he was gone. How was I supposed to think things were going to be okay, if the one human in the high school who was kind enough to stop me when I was having a bad day to cheer me up had taken his own life?

Then I realised something. No, he didn't seem sad to any body. But no one knew what his home life was like. Maybe he just wanted to make someone else feel better about their life because he couldn't feel better about his own.

Six years have now gone by, I still think about this kind human. And when I see people who seem to be having a bad day I try and pick them up like he did to me. And when I am having a bad day, I look back and smile because this caring soul took time out of his short life to make sure that I had a better one. I guess it’s true what they say, only the good die young.

Thank you Johnny, remain tasty.

*Tenner- Grade ten student

**Remain Tasty- Not actually his catchphrase this was changed for the story.