Peculiar. It is a certainly accurate word to describe this boy.
"L?" a voice enters the nearly-empty room.
"I'm here, Jamie." My head turns to face the tall girl. For the first time I notice that she has a birthmark in the shape of a triangle above her right eye.
Surrounding us are a few suitcases.
Her eyes focus on the smallest one. It is almost as if she is trying to make it disappear before our young and innocent eyes. "You're leaving?"
"Yes."
Jamie's eyes bubble with tears and her bottom lip softly moves with trepidation. "But...I don't want you to leave."
"I know. But you said I deserve a better future, right?" I flick a small piece of lint off of my shoulder.
I have seen his anger, his firm outer shell. But inside is a boy who is small and afraid.
It's funny how people come and go. But this is freedom. Life is merely a slideshow in which people are the slides. When the time comes, the new ones shove away the older ones.
My hands twitch. Is Mr. Wammy merely a slide ready to be removed from the projector?
Jamie's eyes are now flooded with tears. "Yes, but-"
"Then it's settled, then. I'll be leaving now." I turn to the side to press the button that summons the housekeepers. They will be helping me carry the luggage.
She grabs my arm. "No, L!"
Instant images of the bullies pile into my head. Their ugly, smirking visages, excited to pummel me into the wall. They grabbed my arm to harm me...what is Jamie doing, then?
As if on instinct, I gently push Jamie away. "No." I murmur calmly. "Go."
He is an introvert, one who does not reveal him or herself.
"But I love you L!"
L stands for love, said Benjamin Green. Of course L remembers.
Is this love? No. Impossible. How could this daunting, negative feeling in my stomach be love?
"I don't."
This is the boy, the first one I loved.
Her grip on my arms loosens and she watches the housekeepers enter the room to pick up the suitcases. Jamie's eyes don't leave me until I step out of the room, leaving her alone in the dim room where the orange sunlight illuminates her back.
His name shall not be written. But it shall be known; he is loneliness himself. A vagabond, wayward in his lonely life.
-written by Jamie Rhea Smith, 12 years later