A Path To Understanding

Chapter 3

context: this is the part where we see what joke Christopher made that hurt him so much.

Xavier's pov

(in the past)

I went to spend time with them as usual. At this point, I knew Christopher wouldn't come talk to me if I didn't talk to him at first. And as usual, as I entered the class, they were sitting together as usual.

"Hey," I said and sat down beside them. I had already eaten my lunch and then I realized something: I forgot to take my meds in the morning.

"Shit," I muttered.

"What happened?" Christopher asked.

"Oh..." At that time, I didn't think it would be bad to tell them about my medication, that I was taking as I was diagnosed with depression in my early teens. Yeah, being diagnosed at such as early as that sucks, but I thought they, at least, would get me.

So I said, "I forgot to take my medicine today."

"You take medicine?" Nick asked.

"Yeah."

"Can I ask why?"

"I was diagnosed with depression at 15, and since them I have been taking meds. Mostly because my psychiatrist doesn't want me to stop taking altogether, but rather take smaller dose slowly, so...yeah."

Christopher didn't say anything. We become silent then. I was feeling a little uneasy, because I hadn't told this to anyone in the class, and they were the first one I told that to, and the silence meant like they were uncomfortable too.

"Oh no, where is my pen now?" Nick started saying. 

"What happened?" I asked, as he was being too stressed. 

"I haven't done this equation and I don't know how to and now the damn pen is lost for second time today and I'm so angry..."

"Are you okay?"

"Maybe you passed on some of your depression to him," Christopher said then, looking up and smirking at me. "Right, Nick?"

.........

Nick didn't say anything. I didn't say anything.

Then I said, "what did you say?"

"I said, that you passed your depression to him," he said again, laughing. 

"Haha," I said, then. 

He then laughed harder. "Don't stay close to him, ok, Nick?"

"Lame joke," was all I could form from the surface of the anger and hurt that I was feeling. I couldn't say anything. I even laughed with him ,what was wrong with me?

"I'm just teasing, you know. It's so fun to tease you like this," he said back.

Nick was very silent, and I didn't want to talk to either to them. I was thinking one thing. That he always made jokes about me. Yes, he made joke about other stuff too. like how I'm younger than him, so I'm a baby, and that he has more experience than me in life. And that only one of the many jokes he made because he loved to "tease" me.

But that moment was the last straw. I could handle anything but not something that invalidated my experiences with depression. I am a fucking survivor, do you know anything at all that I went through my school days? How people avoided me like plague, and was nicknamed, "depression guy"? was what I wanted to scream at him.

But I was afraid I would ruin the friendship.

It would take me months that there wasn't any.