Inspired by Rob Thomas' Wonderful as well as my own experience with Depression.
He doesn't cut. He doesn't stick his hands in hot water. He doesn't do anything to hurt himself. Riku just lives his life, struggling to get from one day to the next without losing his mind. While walking to class, he thinks to himself, I must be going crazy when the pain hits him. It's all in his head, he says, and he can overcome it if he can just ignore it and not address it. He'll make it; he just needs to be strong, strong like his siblings.
At the end of the day, Riku doesn't feel strong. He only feels drained of all energy, tired and miserable. When he finishes his homework, he packs up his backpack and retreats to his room. His mother calls him downstairs for dinner, and it takes him nearly half an hour to make it downstairs to eat. His father shows concern, but it disappears quickly when he starts on another helping. Riku can barely eat, and spends most of dinner staring at the food on his plate. It looks unappetizing even though the rest of the table is enjoying it, so he only eats a little before he offers the rest of his food to his family. The food disappears quickly.
"Did you have a good day at school, Riku?" his father asks after swallowing some meat.
Riku hums with his fork in his mouth, barely dirty from the food he tries to eat. "Yeah. I got my project grade back. I got an A."
When his parents congratulate him, he feels something other than disgust and discontent. The good feeling fades quickly, and he's left feeling sorry for himself. Riku offers to clean up the table, and he does, quietly and slowly. He does everything slow lately. He used to run at school, and do so many things with his friends. Now he can barely survive a day at school.
The last dish slides into its space in the dishwasher, and Riku closes the door. The table and kitchen is wiped clean, as if dinner had never happened, and the room is deserted. He doesn't know where the rest of his family has gone except his father, who is probably in the other room watching television. He knows where his mother is when she calls him, because he's walking into the laundry room where she is.
"Help me fold this," she says, though it's gentle; her "please" is always understood. Riku picks up shorts and folds them, then moves on to socks while his mother handles the rest. Then she hangs shirts and pants up on the rack behind them. Riku is spacing out, staring at the hangers as they swing on the rack, wondering if they ever get weak and break. Probably not.
His mother notices him staring and frowns. "What's wrong? Honey? Riku?"
Her voice brings him back, and he makes eye contact with her. "Yeah, mom?"
She worries. He sounds so robotic, so animatronic that he doesn't seem himself. She remembers how he used to be, full of energy and just a little bit competitive. Now he doesn't seem to care about anything, though he must care about school to pull off amazing grades. She wants to talk about the changes she's seen, but all she does is hand him the basket of laundry and says, "Take these upstairs."
Riku takes the stairs slowly. At the top, he turns and walks into his room to begin sorting laundry. They're all sorted by family member when he's finished, and he delivers each pile personally. Then he returns the basket to the now empty laundry room and heads up the stairs again.
His room is the only place he feels safe. Here Riku can bury his nose in a book or watch television on his own or play a game without someone interfering. He does none of those things, and stretches out on his bed instead. His cell phone is on the table beside his bed, and it rings in short bursts of noise. Upon looking at the display, he sees all the text messages he's missed. Almost every text says the same thing, he realizes. They're all over the span of a week. He skips several each time he reads one.
'Movie this weekend?'
'Party Saturday night down the street!'
'I can't believe you ditched me! We were supposed to get pizza!'
'It's lunch time. Where are you?'
'Hey, did you leave early? If you're not out here, I'm walking home alone.'
'Are you ignoring us? Did something happen? What's wrong?'
'DUDE. :('
That's all Riku can read for now. His friends Sora and Kairi, as well as several others, have been trying to get in touch with him. He doesn't pick up his phone when they call and he stopped answering their texts. He can't bring himself to speak to them. They're perfect, and he's so messed up on the inside. Always panicking, always feeling sorry for himself and never feeling right. Nothing feels right anymore, not even his own house. Only his room. Eventually, his room will feel wrong, too.
It's eight pm, too early for any teenager to want to sleep, but Riku gets ready for bed. When he's questioned, he says he isn't feeling good, and that's that. No one asks what's wrong. By the time he's in bed, sleep doesn't come, so he lies there staring at the dark ceiling. The pain gets worse at night when there's nothing to distract him. His eyes burn because he wants to cry, but men don't cry and Riku wants to be a man and not a sissy. His chest hurts and he can barely breathe. He wants to scream and throw things.
But Riku doesn't. He leaves everything alone and stays in bed, suffering in his head for hours until sleep finally takes him.
The next morning is like every other morning. He wakes up, takes a shower, dries his hair and keeps it straight and frizz-free. He eats a banana for breakfast, packs his lunch (which is just a sandwich and some water these days, he doesn't have the stomach for more) and brushes his teeth. Once finished, he brushes his hair one more time then slips his arms through his backpack straps.
On the edge of school property, Riku watches the other students walk into the school. He thinks he sees Sora and Kairi walking together, Kairi laughing while Sora tells a story. He used to be on Sora's other side, laughing and making jokes about Sora's jokes, but he isn't. Instead he's alone, even on school grounds with hundreds of other students.
It hurts so much.