PLEASE NOTE: The following is a poorly written work of fiction. It does draw on some events in my life, but it is nothing more than fictitious.

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On Tuesdays between classes, it’s what he’d always get for breakfast. Always the same thing.

He said once that it “wasn’t great but what are you gonna do?”.

He’d always go into the classroom, walking as though he was the tallest man on earth, go straight for the rear corner next to the windows and eat there, despite his having an hour before the class started; an hour to sit anywhere he wanted.

He’d sit there eating and looking like he was losing himself in thought far more than anyone should, although sometimes he’d read instead. He’d usually look very content either way.

Usually he was late to the first class. He’d come in panting and drop into the nearest seat he saw and get straight into study as though he had been ready for a while, although as the semester went on, he started arriving earlier and would look less prepared.

Some days before the second class you’d see him go up and down the stairs, looking for the classroom,  despite it always being on the same floor. I tried to think of it as some ritual dance he would do before he’d allow himself to eat. It made it less annoying to watch.

Every week he would never deviate from the same food choices. I did begin to wonder why. Maybe he grew to like it. Maybe he couldn’t afford anything better. Maybe he didn’t have taste buds.

He’d have this smile that didn’t look like a smile in any way. It looked blank, yet at the same time it was his smile. You’d have to look closely at the corners of his lips to see if they were ever-so-slightly curved or you’d think he never saw a smile in his life. It was stupid.

He was always quiet in class. Usually the most you’d hear from him is his confirming his attendance in class with what sounded like ‘here’. You’d get a few sentences out of him if you asked him something but beyond that he was always quiet.

Always keeping to himself.

Around mid-semester, after break, something was different. Everything seemed the same. He still bought the same things for breakfast. He’d still go up and down the stairs looking for the classroom. He was arriving earlier to the first class and looking less prepared. He was still quiet. He still had the stupid smile. He even had his tallest man on earth walk still. Nothing looked like it had changed, but there was something different about him. I don’t know if anyone else noticed or even cared, but I could tell. He seemed so uninteresting for the most part that he stood out.

It began to bother me a lot; seeing him run through the same routines but knowing something was off. The whole thing seemed stupid and backwards to me.

One day I went into the classroom with him. When he began to eat, I sat near him and asked him if everything was alright. He looked me in the eyes and asked me if I wanted some of his bagel. Why would I want any? I wanted to know if something was wrong.

And then I began crying.

When he looked me in the eyes, I felt he was looking into me and reaching in, instead of just looking at me. In his eyes I saw anguish and sadness and it made a lot of things I’d been through recently come to the surface. He asked me if I was okay, so I proceeded to get everything off my chest. I ranted and raved and cried about all of my problems whilst he sat there and listened the whole time, only offering an arm around me once I was done.

After class, he asked if I wanted to talk some more, so we went to a nearby park and we did just that. I talked about how I was scared about my future, as well as a great deal of pressure to succeed from my family and how I felt like I was being left behind by my friends who had already finished uni.

He told me about how he was failing with uni but he still had hope to succeed and how he lost someone he cared deeply about recently and that it was burning himself out but that he was still keeping his head up because “There’s no point in drowning now”.

And we laughed and cried and listened for the rest of the day in that park, talking until well after the sun went down, getting much off our chests.

I wouldn’t call the two months after that the best of my life. They were what I needed at the time though and subsequently very satisfactory. I made a friend I could trust and as I grew to understand him more, he became less annoying to me.

We hung out a lot and saw a lot of things together. We grew very close to the point where we felt safe with each other. We were even able to help each other pass our courses with ease.

But we were always friends and nothing more.

One day, about two days before the beginning of thr next semester, I came home and there was a letter he sent me. I found it odd as he was going to be meeting me in a few hours time. When I opened it, I didn’t know whether to smile or cry.

It was the last time I heard from him.