Friendship

It was May 12th. Charlie was on the train, standing even if there was a seat. She was going somewhere, with one goal in mind. The place? Grace's house. The goal? Finding out how SHITTY she really was, once and for all. She was tired of trusting her, of being patient with her, of trying to justify her actions. She wanted the truth. She needed the truth. And she would force Grace to tell her.

Then she got off the train, its gray doors closing behind her, and went up the stairs. She walked and walked until she reached that narrow lane, and walked further until she found Grace's small house.

There, she knocked on the door. Once, twice. She ran out of patience. She knew Grace was there, and just didn't want to open the door. It was always like that. Grace thought she didn't notice, but she did.

"Grace! It's me, Charlie!"

Grace opened the door, her face tired.

"NO! Seriously?! Who else is going to visit me all the way here, Charlie? You're the only annoying one who spends all her time at my house as if it were her own," she greeted.

"Oh, thank you for greeting me so kindly, Grace. Seriously, thank you, you're so nice," Charlie responded sarcastically. "Look, I have a lot of questions to ask you."

"Oh, of course, like always, right, interviewer?" Grace sighed, letting Charlie in.

"No. This won't be the same as always. Not anymore," Charlie began to explain.

Grace sat down on her sofa, cup of tea in hand, looking as indifferent as ever.

"Oh? Something new?" she asked, smiling.

"Yes, Grace. Look..." Charlie began to think about how to explain this. "Can I ask you a question?"

"No." she replied sarcastically. "Just kidding, of course you can. Isn't that why you come here every time? Ask so you can leave faster."

Charlie thought about how to put into words everything she was thinking at the moment, everything Rocio told her, and everything she was feeling right now.

"Grace, why did you become friends with Rocio?" she asked.

Grace remained silent. Was she really asking her this? Hadn't she already told her?

"I already told you, Charlie, because my friends had fought back then, and I wanted to see if I’d stop judging people so much," she replied, accompanied by a sigh. "Your memory is trash..."

"That, or did you do it because you felt sorry for her? To make fun of her?"

Grace went cold.

Who the hell told her this?

There was no escaping this.

"Well, well, it's impossible not to feel sorry for Rocío. That's what we're both in, right? Pity isn't completely bad."

"Pity and empathizing are different, you know, Grace?" Charlie looked at Grace with a different look than usual. She couldn't really trust her anymore. She couldn't do it anymore.

"Oh, really?" Grace acted confused. "What's the difference?"

"Empathizing is deeper, a feeling of profound sadness that one has for someone else. And pity is just a superficial feeling, which can even demonstrate superiority to the other," Charlie explained, and then looked deeply at Grace. "You know this, don't you?"

"No, I didn't know that." Grace was lying. Charlie knew it.

"Stop lying to me," she asked, her gaze intense with something that was turning into anger. "Are you friends with Rocío just out of pity?"

Grace sighed. There was no way out.

"C’mon, we're assuming things too quickly, you know?" Grace took a deep breath. "Let's see, where did you get this from? Why do you think my friendship with Rocío was just a result of pity?"

"Well, I talked to Rocío yesterday."

"Yeah...?"

"She decided to open up to me, decided to tell me something."

"So?"

"Grace... Show less indifference, please," Charlie asked.

"What do you want me to do?" Grace rolled her eyes.

"Show more interest!" the other one exclaimed, slowly losing patience.

"I'm showing as much interest as I can." Grace looked away, crossing her arms.

"So you don't care." Charlie sighed. "All this stuff about finding Rocío, helping her recover, it all doesn't matter to you, right?"

Grace was honest:

"Yeah. I don't care. You're absolutely right."

And that was the final straw.

"Don't you have empathy?!" Grace got startled. "You don't care about anyone, do you? You didn't care about me, you didn't care about Rocio, you didn't care about the truest friend you've ever had in your entire life! Grace, you preferred to defend your friends who you know are fake instead of at least simply being with Rocio, who genuinely liked you!"

"OF COURSE I DID! ROCÍO’S CRAZY! C-R-A-Z-Y, DO I HAVE TO EXPLAIN THIS TO YOU? Grace screamed. “WHO THE HELL KNOWS WHAT ROCIO COULD HAVE DONE TO ME?! WHAT IF SHE HIT ME?! WHAT IF SHE KILLED ME?! YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT THOSE KINDS OF PEOPLE DO! THE BEST THING WAS TO JUST WALK AWAY! BUT OF COURSE YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THAT! BECAUSE YOU’RE JUST A STUPID LITTLE GIRL WHO’S STUCK IN HER STUPID FANTASIES AND THINKS EVERYTHING WILL BE FIXED WITH RAINBOWS AND MAGIC AS IF THIS WERE...A STUPID KIDS’ SHOW!”

Charlie fell silent.

She...

Grace...

"You... you really believe that, don't you?" She asked. "That Rocío was a danger, that she was nothing more than a...monster. You don’t try to see what’s behind that wall…”

SHE DIDN'T UNDERSTAND.

Charlie now understood everything. It wasn't that Rocío didn't matter to her; maybe, deep down, Grace did care. But she didn't have the same gaze of Rocío as she did. She didn't see the wounded soul, damaged by all the things that had happened to her.

She saw a monster.

"Rocío WAS a danger!" Grace exclaimed. "She started getting so aggressive, yelling at you, treating you badly, who knew what else she could do to you!?"

"That's all true," Charlie said, thinking. "But... Have you never wondered WHY?"

And Grace remained silent. Why? ...She never thought about that. But why would she?

"Have you never wondered why she got those outbursts? Have you never wondered why she yelled? Have you ever wondered where the Rocío you were once friends with went?”

Grace was silent. The last part hit her like a bullet to the heart. Where did she go? What happened? These were questions that came to mind a lot. But she had never tried to delve into them.

"I..." she stammered. "I always thought, but I never tried to really know why... I spent sleepless nights and nights, wondering, why did that happen? But I never tried to..."

"You never tried to see beyond the surface, beyond what was at the top."

"It's just... I was scared, okay? Rocío scared me. All her screaming, I thought she might do something to me..."

Charlie sighed. She understood Grace, she really understood her better now.

Grace never tried to see beyond Rocío's surface, beyond her screams and outbursts of anger, not because she didn't care. But out of fear. She thought Rocio would hurt her.

And she understood, she truly understood. What Grace didn't understand was that Rocio was going through a difficult time, and that what she needed most right now was support.  That was the reason why she didn't want to help Rocio heal, to open up to them, to recover. Because she didn't understand exactly WHAT she was going to heal from.

And Charlie didn't know either, but she knew Rocio was hurting, and that she needed help. And that was enough to try to help.

Maybe, just maybe, she could make Grace understand. It wouldn't be easy, but maybe if she explained it to her properly... maybe if she insisted... Grace would try to see beyond what she saw in Rocio…

They remained silent, each looking at the other, as if having a conversation with their eyes. Grace began to speak:

"Why... why do you think I became friends with Rocio only out of pity?" she asked.

"Well..." Charlie began, though it took him a while to answer. "You see, when I was talking to Rocio, she told me that... she once heard you say that to your friends..."

"My friends? Oh, but I say all kinds of things around my friends..." Grace looked down, starting to get worried, but Charlie didn't know why exactly. "What exactly did she tell you I said?"

"Well... she said you said you only became friends with her out of pity, that she needed ‘someone to teach her how to be normal,’ and that you found it almost laughable how pathetic she was..."

"Oh..." Grace already recognized when that was... "A lot of things happened before that, which forced me to say that to my friends... I used to keep my friendship with Rocio a secret, but then something happened..."

Charlie sighed. "You recognize that keeping your friendship with Rocio a secret is wrong, right?"

"...I mean...then our friendship got exposed, so..." Charlie cut her off.

"Still. It was wrong. If you're going to hide your friendship with Rocio, then don't even make friends with her."

Grace sighed.

"Rocio never got along with my friends...in fact...there was one time she got into a fight with them..."

"Why?" Charlie asked. She knew she was trying to change the subject, but she wanted to see if she could find anything new in whatever she had to tell her, or maybe if it had anything to do with it.

"Well...one day, I walked in on her fighting with the boyfriend of one of them, Philie."

That day, Grace was talking with her friends. Everything was going well. She spent years and years being friends with Rocio. And yet, her friends still didn't realize it. Or so she thought.

They were laughing; Grace didn't know what they were laughing about exactly. But she wanted to fit in, so she laughed with them. It was because of something she said, she knew, but she didn't know what exactly was funny about what she said.

Then she laughed, without knowing why, she was confused. Being with her friends was confusing, but hey! She had friends! It was something, right?

"Nowadays, I don't talk to them anymore, you know?" Grace began.

"Really? Finally," Charlie sighed. Grace fell silent.

"I'd rather... just have no friends," Grace continued. Charlie looked at her, surprised, but before she could say anything, Grace continued.

The bell rang, and she went to class. That day she sat with Philie, who asked her every two seconds to help her understand something. And what choice did Grace have but to help? She didn't want to be seen as a bad person.

Then the hours passed, Grace was getting tired. She always helped her. ALWAYS. But there was no other way. That was her role in the friendship, and she didn't want to lose it no matter how...bad it was.

They talked, complaining about any poor girl who didn't even know they existed. Until finally, a miracle happened, and class ended. But after that, they had another class. And she'd have to sit with another one of her friends.

Then, her day continued. Class after class, passing slowly, helping her friends. Until finally, the last class arrived.

For the last class, she was alone, without Rocío, without any of her friends. And that meant boredom. But she could get through it, she could make it. So she took notes and left as quickly as she could, looking for her friends.

But she couldn't find them, not anywhere. They weren't there. Or so Grace thought. Then she started looking for Rocío in places she usually was: In the library? No. In the courtyard? Neither. In the bathroom, hiding, drawing something? Nope. Maybe she had something to do and had already left.

Or so she thought.

What she didn't expect was to find them both in the same place.

She walked and walked until she heard her friends voices, but what she heard left her cold.

"Yanina Rocío, huh?" Una laughed a little. "I want you to know, dear, that this is NOT your business, so why don't you go do your emo stuff somewhere else? Leave us alone, will you?"

"First of all, I'M NOT EMO! Second, it is my business. Because you're talking about a friend of mine! And I will NOT let you talk about her like that! If you're going to say all that, you might as well say it to her face!"

"Oh, we could." Philie laughed. "But what's the fun in that?"

"Exactly!" Una exclaimed. "Besides, what are you doing talking to our Grace? Do you want to... CORRUPT HER?"

"Yes!" Millie exclaimed. "Are you going to show her how to cut herself? C’mon! Show us your arms!"

"Oh! I'll show them to you!" Rocío approached and walked up to Millie. And when she was in front of her...

She beat her on the face, almost knocking her to the ground.

"Oops! I got it wrong, that wasn’t my arm! Sorry! Do you want to see the other one?" She smiled. The other girls took a step back. Philie quickly grabbed her phone, while Una started yelling at her:

"ARE YOU CRAZY?!" She exclaimed. "YOU'RE IN COLLEGE! YOU CAN'T JUST HIT US! WE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING TO YOU!"

"Oh, you don't know who you're messing with." Philie put her phone away, a look of pride on her face.

Rocio approached Philie.

"Of course I know who I'm messing with. I'm messing with stupid, spoiled little girls who can't defend themselves." Rocio pointed at Philie's phone. "Does the poor little princess have to call her prince?" She mocked.

"HA! You'll see!" Philie exclaimed, her tone trying to sound proud, but she was scared. "H-he'll rip you to pieces! Just you wait!"

"Yeah, yeah, I think I can wait..." Rocio rolled her eyes, then grabbed her things. "Waiting is boring, and at the end of the day, you're just pathetic, fake girls who'll waste my time, so I'm leaving."

But she barely took two steps when a boy bigger than her grabbed her shoulder.

Oh god, Rocio was doomed.

Then, Grace watched as Rocio fought a boy named Steve, Philie's boyfriend. She felt totally humiliated. The worst part? Rocio was losing.

Grace wished someone would show up and shoot her. Grace wished the floor would open up and swallow her whole.

Then, Rocio grabbed her backpack, with all her books she'd borrowed from the library to study, and threw them in his face. She grabbed it again while the guy was distracted and left.

The girls started laughing, insulting Rocio, calling her weak, stupid, among other things. Grace had gone to the bathroom; she was going to hide there until she heard them leave. She couldn't talk to them. Not after this. What would she say?

Grace had to come up with an excuse.

So, as she left, she began to form a plan. She thought. At first, she'd thought of saying that Rocío was just crazy and that they weren't friends, but after that, all eyes would be on her, and she didn't want to leave Rocío. Then they'd notice it was a lie. She thought about disappearing, but no. A bad idea. She couldn't just...disappear and block everyone from her life. Stop being friends with them? Even less. A horrible idea. They'd bully her the moment she left.

Then she got an idea: From the next day on, she'd be more open about her friendship with Rocío. They'd talk loudly about what they liked, they'd go out everywhere together, and then, when Millie and the others approached her, she'd tell them she didn't really like Rocío, that she just felt sorry for her. It was okay, right? It was half true.

"And you lost me there, Grace." Charlie sighed. "Just... Do I really have to explain this to you?"

"What? Feeling pity for Rocío is inevitable."

"Grace. The difference between pity and empathizing.” The other sighed, rolling her eyes.

"Why do you even care? Charlie, Rocío traumatized you. Shouldn't you resent her?" Grace took a sip from her cup of tea.

Charlie wanted to scream.

"I can't say what Rocío did was right, but what you did isn’t either, Grace. You didn't do anything. You're just another accomplice." Grace remained silent.

"It's just that…can’t you see? She's aggressive! Don't you think about what she could have done to me?”

And then Charlie lost her patience.

"Grace, SHE WAS DEFENDING YOU. ROCÍO WAS DEFENDING YOU BECAUSE THEY WERE TALKING TRASH ABOUT YOU, AND THIS IS HOW YOU THANK HER? BLAME HER FOR EVERYTHING AND USING THIS ACT OF LOYALTY TO MAKE HER LOOK LIKE THE BAD ONE? SHE WAS JUST BEING A TRUE FRIEND! Yeah, violence isn't the answer, but is this really how you react when someone defends you?"

Grace wasn't responding, but she was angry

“BUT CAN’T YOU SEE? SHE’S AGGRESSIVE! VIOLENT! AND IT GOT WORSE AFTER THIS! SHE YELLED AT ME, IGNORED ME, AND EVEN HIT ME ONCE!”

“AND YOU NEVER ASKED YOURSELF IF YOU DESERVED IT?”

"SHUT UP, CHARLIE! SHUT UP AND GET OUT OF MY DAMN HOUSE!"

"Wait, wait, wait! We can fix this. You don't have to yell at me like that!"

But Grace stopped and pointed at the door.

"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND ME! YOU'LL NEVER UNDERSTAND ME! CHARLIE, YOU'RE JUST A STUPID LITTLE GIRL WHO KNOWS NOTHING! GET OUT OF MY HOUSE NOW!" Grace yelled.

Charlie got up with her things, understanding that Grace wasn't going to talk to her anymore, and walked toward the door.

When she left, she walked toward a square, because the train station was nearby. She sat down on a bench and sighed.

She couldn't try with Grace anymore. She was a lost cause. She didn’t believe that she could ever do anything wrong, and it was impossible to deal with her like that.

She was going to talk to Rocío herself, without Grace’s help.