I Wish The Whole World Knew

The night was just setting, the cars were crawling home and the wind was blowing a warm breeze across my face. As I sat on the roof my toes gripped the cold slate, and I watched the car lights streaming endlessly across the highway. For some strange reason watching the cars always seemed to leave me with a strong sense of calm pulsing throughout my body.
Despite originally being a country girl, I did enjoy living close to the city. Every day without fail the cars would stream in and out like little ants returning with food, and every night I’d sit there watching people go home.
I’d imagine mothers rushing home to greet their children, fathers returning to their wives after a long hard day at the office. And on Fridays I was always particularly happy to imagine these same hardworking parents taking their children to the beach or to some nice quiet place for the weekend. Just like my mum and dad had done for me.
It was nice though just to sit there on the roof and feel small, not the kind of insignificant small that made me feel worthless, but the kind that told you that you were normal, you weren’t that abnormal loser that the kids at school always told you you were. It was sort of like that feeling you get when you look up at the night sky, the feeling of being part of something bigger.
I decided that it was best to climb back into my room. I didn’t want grandma to catch me up there again, she’d caught me doing that once and boy! I thought she was about to have a heart attack. I think she thought I was trying to kill myself, or something crazy like that. Of course I knew I didn’t have the heart to do that, I’d been through enough pain that I wasn’t going to give up now.
But still it was that moment when you look down from a deadly height and you sort of lean over slightly too far. You can’t help but wonder what would happen if you just let yourself slip and maybe some stupid part of me wanted to see what would come next.
I didn’t blame her for being angry though, after losing her daughter and son-in-law in a train incident, I think she was afraid that she would lose me too. And after that I promised to never go up there again.
Sighing, I lay down into my bed and I couldn’t help but smile at its sag. It wasn’t like my old home where the bed was firm and the pillows were high, in fact it was probably the exact opposite, empty, old and worn. There was a small wood table next to my bed, with a small lamp sitting on it, my things were all in one corner of the room, in my suitcase which I hadn’t dared to unpack.
Everything in my room seemed to have an old smell to it too, but for some strange reason it didn’t bother me like it once would have, it grew on me like a scar that you could never get rid of but you learned to love because it made you, well you.
As usual, we had a late dinner, it was always a small affair, just me and my grandparents. As always it was corned beef, with broccoli, overcooked carrots and mashed potato. I really did hate the stuff, but I didn’t want to offend anyone so I kept my mouth shut.
As we ate the silence was strong except for the occasional clatter of cutlery against the faded plates. We had run out of things to say since I was 11 and now that I was living with them the small talk was really running out, but I knew she was trying her best so I always played along.
“How was your day?” asked grandma politely,
“Good” I replied politely, “I went to the museum, walked around for a bit”
My grandfather blew his nose loudly into his hanky and promptly waking everyone up. “Did you see the world war 1 section?” he demanded, “they’ve got it hidden away in the back corner as if nobody cares” he complained.
I nodded guiltily, I hadn't really spent much time there, that sort of thing didn’t interest me like it did him. He was the type of man who could spend hours browsing over war history and polishing war medals like it was the only way to be a hero.
“Did you see part of the tanker?” he continued.
I nodded again, “they were playing a clip on them when I was there”.
He seemed pleased that I paid attention, he was always going off about how they didn’t teach enough war history at schools.
After dinner I returned back to the silence my room. I reluctantly mused over my calendar. The holidays were almost over, I wanted them to stretch on forever, but the more I looked at it, the faster the days seemed to go. If uni was anything like high school, I knew I wouldn’t enjoy it.
In the last few days of the holidays, I tried my best to enjoy them fully, often I would just get on a train and ride around the underground for a while, watching all the people come and go and making up little stories for each of them in my head. Since the park was not far from us I spent a lot of time there too, sometimes just lying under the large pine trees and watching the birds dart from branch to branch. I even went to the cinema once, but I didn’t enjoy it much, not by myself, I just felt like more of a loser; even though the film was fine.
Since moving from the country, I didn’t have any friends at all in town, not one. So the holidays were pretty lonely, but deep down I didn’t really mind, I liked to go places unnoticed and unobserved, something I’d never been able to do at home and I didn’t have people asking me ‘how I was coping?’ all day.
I’d had a few texts from some of my old friends, and I’d replied vaguely, but suddenly considering the distance they didn’t seem to be worth it anymore. It wasn’t like they were real lifelong friends, the way they would gossip about each other and complain about their lives, it made me realise just how much I didn’t miss them. I was always different from them to begin with, I liked a bit of adventure and I was never a real feminine shoe shopping kind of girl. And considering everything that had happened, they didn’t really have much to complain about.