The Comrade

People always ask why he is friends with me. They never ask him directly of course. They ask it with their eyes. When we are walking together at the hallway. When we are sitting together at lunch. When he chooses the empty seat besides me I stead of dozen invitation waiting for him elsewhere. The questions hangs in the air everytime. Why him? Why me?

I understand the confusion. He is the kind of person people naturally gather around and the kind of boy who makes every room feel brighter without even trying. Teacher trusts him. Parents adore him. Kids want to be him.

He is smart enough to solve problems no one can. Strong enough to win fights he never starts. Charming everyone enough that strangers smile after a single conversation.

Meanwhile I am...me. just me.

Took skinny and too small and too lound and too so stubborn. The boy whose uniform quite fits enough. The boy who somehow ends up in trouble even when he is trying to help. The boy who gets laughed at more than being listened to. I have spent most of my life being underestimated.

But if life thought me anything it is that after getting knocked down is not the same thing as staying down. Every bruise becomes lesson and every insult becomes fuel and everytime some one told me I could not make a difference I found another reason to try.

Maybe while everyone told me I could not make a difference I found another reason to try. I still remember why we became friends.

A group of older boys picking on a younger kid. Everyone was watching and nobody moved. He was not there at that time first. I wad there and I moved. Not because I was brave and but I was terrifief and I knew that I could not win. I knew they were bigger and stronger and meaner. I stepped in anyway. That results was what you would exactly expect. I was thrown into dirt. My lip split open. My glasses broke and while I was trying to stand up again someone elseo stepped beside me. It was him. The handsome boy everyone lived and the boy who could have stayed out of it and the boy who had everything to lose and nothing to gain. He smiled at me and wiped my blood from my cheek from his hand and said "You are terrible at picking fights punk". Then he stood beside me...not behind me or not in front of me.

We have been best friends ever since. People think I need him because he protects mem sometimes that is true. When someone crosses a line he becomes something terrifyingly calm. He believe in kindness with all his heart. But he also believes in kindness should have a backbone.

And if someone hurts the people he cares about he does not hesitate to remind them of that. But the truth is I think I need him for a different reason. He sees me. Not the awkward body and bruises and the mistake. But the person underneath that. Me .

And if tomorrow the whole world stood against him I would stand beside him exactly the way he stood beside me that day. Not behind him or in front of home. Beside him. Till the end of the line.