Passing Notes

You and your best friend are walking into your first of two classes together. Y’all have been texting back and forth all morning. You look at them and can tell they are not having a good day. Luckily you are in a class where you are sitting beside each other and can pass notes back and forth.

I start off by writing Hey and what's wrong. They write back that they had a fight with their significant other. Yall write back and forth as much as you can during class while still paying attention to the class.

We not only pass notes during class we would do it between classes also. Usually, we would write thinking questions as we leave that first class. I wrote to them, "Are you sure that you are happy with the person you are with?" They wrote to me are you happy? That was a difficult question to answer. Did I have a good life? Yes I did. I had friends. I was doing well in school all except for math. There was just something that wasn’t right.

They had started to sense that something was wrong. Walking into lunch we gave each other our responses. We did eat lunch together but it was with all our other friends and I was at the end of the table not really a part of most conversations. Which I was ok with because at the time I was still shy even though I had known most of these people all my life. Ironically the one that I had not known my whole life was my best friend.

After lunch we did not have a class together until the last class of the day. This worked out most days because it gave us time to write a response to what we received at lunch. Their response was that they were happy but they were getting tired of fighting over small things. They said it was great to start with but as time has passed they are slowly realizing that this person may not be for them.

My response to them had to be worded carefully. I was not ready to tell them my secret. I responded that overall, I am happy but sometimes I have periods where I just don’t feel right. That was a half-truth.

When we got to our last class, they looked at me really concerned. I gave them a smile and we traded our responses to each other and went to our seats. There was no chance to pass notes in this class because our seats were on opposite sides of the room. We just wrote our responses to each other.

I wrote I think it is time for them to break up with their significant other. I look across the classroom at them. They look up and have a concerned look on their face. When the bell rings they wait for me in the hall. They grab and hug me, and we hand each other our responses and they walk away.

This was a strange encounter because we usually don't hug at school. This makes me worried. I hurried to my car and read their response. It takes my breath away and I am in shock. They knew my secret. First thing it says is that they have seen me getting worse the last few months. They had noticed the bad moods and the trying to pull away from people. The last line was the gut punch. They had noticed the scars on my wrist and knew that I was cutting. They were waiting for me to say something, Then decided it was time to say something before I got worse. I picked up the phone and texted her two words. Thank You.

A few days later I gave them a ride home and when we got to their house, we had an important talk where everything came out and I started my healing journey after that conversation. I am so grateful that they noticed what I was doing and going through. They saved me.

This is based on a true event in my life. They did save my life. We were the kids that wrote notes to each other over the three years of high school. That was a little strange then but now it would be unheard of. They did write me one more thing that really helped me and something I still look back at when I am down. It is a list of everything I would not get to do if I was gone.