You don’t like me. But I’m not sure why. As he pulls me out of my gift bag, your smile falters, and you tilt your head. Immediately, I start to wonder if I’ve done something wrong. But I haven’t done anything. He doesn’t seem to notice your disappointment as he holds me up, smiling wide, and you hesitate before accepting me in your arms. The two of you are sitting on his bed, next to a guitar and a green pillow shaped like a frog. There’s a small heart in my arms and a tag on my right ear where he struggled to write your name in cursive. You hold it between your fingers and stare.
“A teddy bear?” you whisper to yourself, examining me from every angle. Your face scrunches up, but soon enough, your smile returns and you stuff me into your purse. “It’s adorable, thank you so much.”
You don’t take me out of your bag until we get to your dorm. It’s very small, with beige walls and a single window. The blinds are drawn, and there’s a small white lamp on the desk nearby. A calendar hangs above your bed; most of the days are filled from top to bottom with reminders and events, but one of them has a single red heart drawn in the center. Apart from that, there aren’t any posters or art on the walls, just a single Polaroid taped to the back of your door. In the photo, you seem to be sitting in a booth, and on the table in front of you is a small cake with “18” stabbed into the frosting. You’re wearing a light pink dress with your hair tied up in a bun. The person who bought me is sitting next to you in a black suit; your head is on his shoulder and his arm is around your waist. You’re smiling toward whoever’s taking the picture, and he’s looking down at you with a smile of his own.
You take a deep breath and lean against the door. For the next few minutes, you hold me by my legs, fiddle with the tag on my ear, and check if the shirt around my chest is removable. Then, you place me on the dresser at the foot of your bed. I sit between a stack of textbooks and a bottle of water, and that’s where I stay for a while. A few days later, you walk in with crimson cheeks and a small bouquet of flowers. You empty the bottle beside me and use it as a vase, placing it on your windowsill. The blue petals light up the room, matching the color of my shirt and your eyes, too. You look at them from time to time, gently playing with the dark green leaves, but you never give me so much as a glance.
Not until the day your friend finds me.
She walks over and picks me up, tossing me in the air a couple of times. I don’t think you even notice I’ve been taken as you scribble away in your journal.
“Cute bear,” your friend says. “Where’d you get him?”
You glance up at us, then close the journal on your desk. “Jamie gave it to me.”
“Aww.” She holds me tighter. “That’s so sweet of him. I didn’t get anything for Valentine’s Day.”
“Didn’t you break up with your boyfriend last month?”
Your friend shrugs. “Does your little guy have a name yet?”
You sigh, setting down your pen, and say, “No.”
“How about Cocoa?” I’m tossed into the air again, and you say nothing as she holds my face inches from hers. “Or Benjamin. He kinda looks like a founding father, right? Look, he’s got such a serious expression.”
She tries to frown and narrow her eyes, perhaps to imitate me, but she ends up laughing instead. For a moment, I wish I could intervene. I’m not sure what I would say, but the thought that I could be making such an awful face irritates me.
“I never knew you liked plushies,” she says, sitting down on your bed.
“I don’t.”
“Oh.” Your friend looks around the room and perhaps notices how out of place I am. Finally, she turns back to you. “Well, if you don’t want him, maybe I can give Benjamin to my brother—”
You stand up, surprising both of us when you pull me away. She laughs again, but you ignore her and set me down on your desk. Your friend continues to ramble on about the ongoing drama in her life, and you chime in every few minutes with your own thoughts. While you talk to her, I sneak a peek at your journal, curious about what you’ve been writing. I don’t recognize most of the words, but there are small doodles in the margins. Hearts, flowers, and—
There’s me. Or at least, what I hope I look like. A round bear with dark eyes, a small nose, and a gentle smile. The tag on my ear is missing, but there’s still a heart in my arms. For the first time, I can see what’s written on it. It’s the same few words you’ve written over and over across the pages.
I wonder what they mean.
It hasn’t been long since then. A year at most; I watch spring, summer, then autumn pass by as the leaves outside your window change and fall. I still spend my days on your desk, usually staring out the window, next to a chocolate bar you’ve never opened and a broken clock that’s always a few hours behind—you said, once, that the clock was a gift from your grandmother. Oh, and there’s an alarm on your phone that wakes you up every morning. You’re out of bed before the sun rises, then you straighten up your room and prepare for the day. Sometimes that means stretching on the floor before class, or planning out your schedule for the week ahead. There’s a guitar you keep next to the door; you tune it every day, but you only play it on weekends—that is, if you’re here. You haven’t been spending much time in your room these days. It’s always late in the evening when you return, even later if it’s a Friday.
And the nights you spend with him? Well, you don’t come back at all.
When you do return, your eyes are always brighter, and there’s this content smile that lingers with you into the next day. You jump onto your bed and hold a pillow to your face as you stifle a scream, your feet kicking the air. This is when your dorm feels alive—like a home. I hope there are more days like these.
Some mornings, you smile at me, then pat my head before you leave. You never take me with you, but I don’t mind. You start to read pages from your journal before bed, recounting the best parts of your day, so I get to feel as if I’m living them with you. And every now and then, you return with something new. A fresh bouquet of flowers—pink this time—a bracelet with silver charms, a green scarf wrapped tightly around your neck. Slowly, these gifts bring more and more color to your room.
Polaroids start to fill the walls, each taken in a different place. I recognize his face in all of them. There’s a picture taken at the beach, where he’s waving at you from the water. There’s one where you’re pointing at him from behind the camera while he balances a coin on his nose. There’s one where he’s making a snow angel in a pile of leaves, grinning up at you. There’s one where his face is red, and a bottle of hot sauce sits on the table between you. There’s one where he’s holding up a pumpkin with your name carved into it. Someone else must have taken the most recent picture, where he and you are standing hand-in-hand in the snow. You’re looking at the camera, and he’s watching you, as always. But he’s not smiling anymore.
It’s been a while since you’ve come back with something new. The flowers by the window have started to droop, and you’ve been spending even less time in your room. When you do return, you sleep for just a few hours and occasionally write something down in your journal, only to rip out the page and throw it away. It never occurs to me that something might be wrong. You’re always so busy; there must be another project on your mind, or an exam coming up. I’m sure of it.
But today, you look different.
You come home with your hands pressed to your eyes. The door slams behind you as you fall into bed and scream, not bothering to muffle the sound. The flowers on your windowsill, drooping in the winter sun, shake, and I guess you notice them, too. You jump up and grab the bottle of water you’d once carefully placed them in, then you open the window and empty the flowers outside.
You close the curtains and turn to me next. Finally, I get a good look at your eyes. They’re red and puffy.
You walk over to me, and your hand hovers above my head before falling back to your side. You turn away and go back to bed, where you wrap yourself in blankets and sleep through the rest of the afternoon.
You don’t leave your room for days. When you do, you return with bags of chips and bottles of soda. You sleep in until noon, and I watch you scroll on your phone until the sun sets, then scribble something into your journal all night. You pretend to be asleep whenever anyone comes looking for you. You ignore your friends, always knocking on your door, and your family, sending missed call after missed call. It’s strange. You’ve never done anything like this before.
Piece by piece, you take down everything from your walls. You pluck each photograph and look at them all carefully, before shoving them into your drawer. Next is the scarf, draped over the back of your chair. You hold it up, bring it to your face, and stand there for a minute or two. Eventually, you open your closet door and toss it inside. You walk to your laptop, check the time, then pick up a pen and spin it between your fingers.
While you’re at your desk, your phone rings.
You look at the name that appears and let a second go by before scrambling to pick it up.
“Hello?” You sound exhausted. You don’t seem to care. I recognize his voice on the other end, but I don’t know what he’s saying. “Yeah? Oh. I… I forgot about that.”
Someone knocks on the door. You don’t answer. Instead, you look at me, and I see tears building up in your eyes. You try to blink them away, then clear your throat. To your credit, your voice remains calm.
“You can throw it out. I never liked that sweater, anyway.”
You hang up. The pen falls from your hand.
It’s a restless night.
You’re tossing and turning, cursing at the ceiling, sobbing into your pillow. You look at me again, and for a moment, I’m sure I’ll meet the same fate as those flowers.
But when you pick me up, you don’t bring me to the window. You return to your bed and pull the blankets up around us. As we’re surrounded by warmth, protected by the darkness they offer, you hold me close, burying your nose in my fur. I want to tell you I’m sorry for whatever happened. I want you to know that I’m here for you, and you can cry as much as you need to. But I’m useless in a situation like this, aren’t I? All I can do is listen.
“Why can’t I just let this go?” you ask me, and your voice is so much smaller than it was before. You seem to be having a whole conversation behind your eyes, and I wish you’d let me in on what’s happening.
Footsteps echo on the other side of the door. You tense up, pulling me tighter, then let out a deep breath. After a few minutes pass, you push the blankets away and sit up, resting your chin on my head as you hold me. I wish, more than anything, that I could ask you what’s wrong.
Someone knocks on the door, and I expect you to ignore it again. Instead, you swing your legs over the edge of the bed and stand up. You walk slowly to the door, your hand hovering over the handle before finally pulling it open. Light floods into the room, and I recognize your friend’s voice on the other side. She calls your name, then pulls you into a tight hug, and that’s where you stay for a while; the two of you, holding each other in the doorway. I feel satisfied knowing that there’s someone who can do what I can’t. Eventually, she follows you inside, and we all sit on your bed.
She doesn’t speak. Neither do you. But you lean your head on her shoulder, and she pats your back as the ticking clock on your desk fills the silence. Part of me hates that she’s wasting her voice. Why isn’t she saying anything? Then again, I’m not sure what I would say, either. I’m still not entirely sure what even happened, but when your friend leaves, you stare at your reflection in the window as if analyzing the person looking back.
“What am I supposed to do?” you ask quietly.
“You’re perfect and beautiful just the way you are,” I want to tell you. But those aren’t my words; they’re his. That’s what he said when describing you to his friends, right before he gave me to you. Every day since, I’ve learned you’re so much more. You’re a mess. But you embrace your emotions, your talents, so confidently that I’m not surprised he never noticed your flaws. There are a thousand different sides to you, and I can’t help but admire them all. You write songs for your friends and help your little brother with his math homework. You call your mom every weekend to let her know how you’re doing and to say you miss her. You’re human, and it’s okay to get overwhelmed, because you’re not alone. I want to tell you that we love you.
I love you.
I know I can’t say any of this, but still, I try. For a moment, I think my voice might have carried. You use your sleeve to dry your face, then thank me for listening. Eventually, you close your eyes and lie back down on your bed. Your breathing softens, and as you drift further into sleep, I hope that, somehow, you heard me.
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