Sonny knew his way to Joel's house. After all, the two teens used to spend every day together at Joel's house when they were children. Sonny had always envied the other teen's house though because it was an actual spacious house and he had been living there for as long as Sonny could remember. During his childhood, Sonny and his mother would always be moving from apartment to apartment because his mother's job never paid her enough to help her be able to keep the apartment they were staying in at the time. There were even times when they would have to stay at a homeless shelter for a few weeks until his mother could find an affordable apartment.
Sonny frowned. Those were really bad times.
As the black-haired teen kept walking, he ended up in Joel's neighborhood. He looked around at the scenery and sighed, reliving old memories that he wished he could go back to.
Sonny saw the small neighborhood park where he and Joel first met.
Little six-year-old Sonny was sitting on the park bench beside his mother, reading a book and ignoring the other kids running around in the playground area.
"Sonny, why don't you go play with the other kids?" his mother flashed him a sweet smile.
Sonny looked up from his book. "The other kids won't like me."
"You don't know that, sweetie. Just go try, okay?"
Sonny sighed, but obeyed his mother's wishes. He put down his copy of Goosebumps: Welcome to Dead House beside his seat on the bench and walked over to the playground area. He found a swing set and sat down on one of the swings.
Sonny was annoyed to say the least. He didn't want to waste his time playing with the other kids when he could just read his book. He loved reading books so much because it took him away from all of the bad things in his life. His books didn't bully him, tell him that he had to move to a different apartment yet again, nor did the books judge him being an introvert.
"Hey, you're new here," a voice spoke up.
Sonny looked up from the ground to his left to see a boy with short blond hair and sharp green eyes. He was wearing a Pokémon baseball cap and an orange t-shirt.
"My mom and I just moved here," Sonny whispered.
The boy frowned. "I'm sorry, I didn't hear you."
"I said 'My mom and I just moved here,'" Sonny said a bit louder.
"Oh, cool! Do you live close by?"
"We live over there," Sonny pointed to a cheap looking apartment complex just down the road.
Sonny was always told by his mother to never tell a stranger where he lives, but he figured that telling a stranger who was around his age where he lived was okay.
"Hey, I live close by, too! That's my house!" the boy pointed to a brick house a few houses away from the park.
"I'm Joel!" the boy smiled and held his hand out to Sonny.
"I'm Sonny," Sonny said. He hesitated before nervously shaking Joel's hand.
"Nice to meet you, Sonny! I hope we can be best friends!"
"Best friends…" Sonny muttered out loud.
The teen ended up walking into a door. He looked up and his cheeks flushed in embarrassment. He was so deep into his thoughts that he didn't even notice that he was already on Joel's front porch. Sonny had to breathe deeply and relax before he could knock on the door.
Sonny thought he was going to piss himself as he waited for someone to open the door. It had been so long since he visited Joel. Now that Joel was bullying him, he honestly didn't want to be here – even though this was his favorite place to be when he was little.
Sonny heard loud footsteps running to the front door. The door was swung open and the person inside the house immediately frowned when they saw poor little Sonny on the doorstep, looking as terrified as ever.
"Get in here, fag. My dad isn't home right now, so just go straight up to my room," Joel sighed.
Sonny nodded and rushed upstairs and turned left. He reached the door at the end of the hall and almost smiled when he saw the "No Girlz Alowd!" sign on the door that he and Joel made when Sonny was about seven-years old and Joel eight-years old.
"Girls are so gross!" Joel exclaimed, putting down his Super Nintendo controller. He looked away from his TV screen and faced Sonny, who of course had his nose in a book.
Sonny looked up from his book and nodded in agreement.
"We should make a sign for my door saying 'No girls allowed!'" Joel smiled and walked over to his small desk. He picked up a piece of paper and some markers.
"Come over here and help me make the sign!" Joel said, tugging Sonny away from his bed.
Sonny frowned as he dropped his book, but paid attention to Joel and the silly art project anyways.
Sonny didn't know whether or not it would be acceptable to sit down on Joel's bed, so he just stood up, clutching onto the straps on his backpack. He looked around the room and noticed that almost nothing had changed – with the exception of a couple of swimsuit model posters. Joel even had his Super Nintendo in front of his TV just like in the good days – the days when Joel and Sonny were best friends.
Sonny was pulled back to reality when he heard the bedroom door close. He looked over to see Joel with what looked like a bunch of rolled up paper in his hands.
"Since my dad isn't home, I'm going to smoke a few blunts. Get to work, faggot," Joel said. He opened the bedroom window and sat down on the windowsill.
Sonny sat on the floor and opened up his backpack. He grimaced once he caught scent of Joel's burning blunt, but quickly ignored it and turned his attention back to the school work.
"How's your mom?" Joel spoke up after about twenty minutes of silence.
"What?" Sonny asked, surprised that Joel would talk to him without insulting him.
"I said, 'how's your mom,' you fucking retard," Joel snapped.
"She's good, I guess. She works at Denny's now as a waitress," Sonny said as he answered one of the questions from the small workbook.
"Thanks for the heads up. My friends and I go there to smoke weed all the time," Joel said after he let out a puff of smoke.
Sonny simply nodded and pulled his copy of Julius Caesar out of his backpack. He also accidentally pulled out his bandages, but didn't notice until Joel pointed it out.
"Why the hell do you have bandages in your backpack?"
Sonny's eyes widened in fear as he quickly shoved them back into his backpack.
"I have no idea what you're talking about," Sonny said a bit too quickly as he zipped up his backpack.
Smooth, Sonny.
Joel put out his blunt and climbed off of the windowsill. He walked over towards Sonny.
"You've always been a horrible liar, you know that?" he stated, snatching Sonny's backpack.
"Hey, give that back!" Sonny exclaimed. There was so much adrenaline rushing through his system that he didn't even care that Joel might punch him in the face for standing up for himself.
Surprisingly, Joel just ignored Sonny and opened up the backpack, dumping its contents onto his bedroom floor.
The bandages fell on the floor first, then a few pieces of paper, a couple of text books, and finally, a small drawstring baggie fell on top of the pile.
"Oh ho-ho, what do we have here? Drugs?" Joel asked as he picked up the baggie. The sound of thin metal clinking against each other came from the baggie.
"Tsk, tsk, Sonny. I never thought you'd be the type of person to do coke–" Joel's face automatically fell when he saw blood-stained razors in the baggie instead of clean razors and cocaine.
He turned to face Sonny.
"You–You're emo?" Joel laughed a bit nervously, but Sonny didn't catch onto it.
"I'm not emo," Sonny grumbled. That was his second most hated word – the first obviously being 'fag/faggot.'
"Let me see your arms," Joel said, grabbing Sonny's arms.
"L–Let go of me!" Sonny exclaimed, trying to get away from Joel.
Unfortunately, Joel was a lot stronger than Sonny, so he was able to keep his grip on the panicked teen. He rolled up Sonny's left sleeve and studied the bandages on his arm.
"I bet you don't even cut that deep, you emo poser. Let's see how horrible these little scratches are," Joel teased, his tone making him seem panicked.
Sonny again, paid no attention to this because he was trying his hardest to get away from Joel. Joel tore off the bandages.
Sonny winced in pain, but stopped struggling. It was no use and it was too late anyway. Joel was probably going to tell the whole school about Sonny's self-harm, which will only result into more bullying. Then, the teachers would find out and tell the principal, who would call Sonny's mother and tell her about it. Sonny's mother is the last person he wanted to know about his cutting addiction.
Joel's face fell again and his mouth almost dropped to the floor as he saw a huge bloody mess on Sonny's arm. Bruises outlined numerous deep cuts and dried blood was all over his arm. But what caught Joel's attention the most was the big, fat carving of "FAGGOT" right in the middle of Sonny's arm, which started bleeding again.
By now, Sonny's face was covered in tears.
"Pl–please let go," Sonny begged as he choked on his own tears.
Joel only tightened his grip on Sonny's arm.
"No, you're bleeding. Come into the bathroom with me," Joel said with a surprising amount of worry in his voice.
Sonny's eyes widened in surprise when he heard Joel speak to him with such a caring tone. He allowed Joel to drag him into the bathroom down the hallway.
Joel sat Sonny down on the toilet and then proceeded to wet a cloth from the pantry in the bathroom. He knelt beside Sonny. Joel placed the wet cloth over his arm and applied pressure to it. Sonny winced from the stinging pain.
"When did you do this?" Joel spoke up.
"Last night…"
"Was I the reason you did this?"
Sonny stayed silent as Joel looked up at him.
Joel grabbed Sonny's shoulder with his other hand and started to shake him.
"WAS I THE REASON YOU FUCKING CUT YOURSELF?!" Joel screamed as if his life depended on the answer.
Sonny let a few tears slide down his face as he quickly nodded.
"Oh fuck…" Joel said as he pulled his hand away from Sonny's shoulder. He gripped onto his own hair, obviously stressed out by the silent answer Sonny had given him.
"Why are you worried about it? You hit me all the time, it's no big deal," Sonny muttered.
Joel sighed and removed his other hand from Sonny's arm. Fortunately, the cuts weren't bleeding anymore. He walked over to the pantry and grabbed the first-aid kit, then knelt beside Sonny again.
"My mom was diagnosed with clinical depression when I was thirteen," Joel said as he wiped down Sonny's arm with an anti-bacterial pad.
"She was so depressed that she had to quit working her job and she had to go to therapy twice a week," Joel wrapped up Sonny's arm with the bandages he found in the first-aid kit.
"The medication her psychiatrist prescribed her only made her depression worse. She ended up killing herself in the bathtub right beside us. She slit her wrists open and because of the blood-thinners her other doctor prescribed her. The bleeding didn't stop," Joel had to pause his story to catch his breath.
Sonny looked Joel in the eyes and saw tears forming in them. Sonny could feel himself crying as he watched his childhood friend cry. Joel Zimmerman – the boy who never cried – was crying right in front of Sonny right now and Sonny honestly couldn't believe what he was witnessing.
Joel had caught his breath and began talking again. "The police said that she didn't die a very painful death, but I think they were only saying that to make us feel better. I know for a fact that she died a very painful death. I saw her face as the paramedics rushed her out of the bathtub – I could never forget that look on her face.
"Her face was pale and her eyes and mouth were wide open. It looked like she was trying to scream, but nothing came out. It just made me think back to whenever I had given her a hard time. Oh, God, I just wanted to take all of that back. I had never felt guiltier in my life," Joel sobbed, his tears keeping him from saying anymore.
Sonny wiped away his own tears and did something that he never thought he would ever be able to do again – he hugged Joel.
Joel held onto Sonny and cried into his shoulder for a few good minutes before pulling away.
"Promise me you'll never cut yourself again, Sonny. I can't let that happen to someone else. Please."
"I won't, I promise," Sonny said.
To be honest, he wasn't sure if he could keep that promise or not, but seeing Joel like this – he didn't want to make things worse.
"So is that why we stopped talking in junior high?" Sonny asked, looking Joel in the eyes.
"That's part of the reason. After my mom's death, I fell into a state of depression. I met a guy at school who offered me some weed to buy. I was desperate for an escape, so I accepted his offer and smoked it with him on the school roof during lunch. I hung out with him and his friends and one day, they were talking shit about you.
"One of the guys said, 'aren't you friends with that weird faggot Sonny?' Obviously, I said no because I wanted to look cool in front of them. Then, we planned a prank to push you into your locker before the last class of the day. After I did that, I felt so much power, Sonny. You have no idea. I felt like I was on top of the world again.
"And then I began to believe in what they were saying about you being a nerdy faggot. Sonny, I am so fucking sorry. I didn't think that it would lead to this," Joel looked at Sonny's bandaged arm.
"It's okay…" Sonny muttered.
"No, it's not okay! I caused you to do this!" Joel almost yelled, "I won't ever call you that again. I can't believe this, Sonny. I just…"
Joel couldn't finish his sentence due to the tears running down his face again. Sonny frowned at this site. Of course he thought of bad things happening to Joel because of all the bullying – doesn't everyone think about bad things happening to their bully? – But Sonny couldn't stand the site of his childhood friend crying a river right in front of him.
"Can we be friends again?" Sonny spoke up.
"What?" Joel looked up at Sonny, completely caught off-guard from the random question.
"I miss you, Joel. I miss coming here almost every day and hanging out with you. I miss having a friend. You and my mom are my only friends and I really want you back."
Joel stared at Sonny in shock, but quickly relaxed.
"Sure, we can be friends again."
