Read rebirth :: Giampi and Fernando

It all started in 2018 when I was 13 in 7th grade. I went to a prestigious school in a small state where both middle school and highschool were connected. There were only 300 students. I was one of those quiet kids. I had no one. In fact, I was heavily bullied in my first year of middle school. They bullied me because I was quiet, because I didn’t have anyone, and especially because I hated loud noises. I hated balloons most of all, because you can’t really tell when they’re going to pop.

The explosion of a balloon popping was so loud, it echoed in the science lab where they kept all of the supplies for science experiments.

One day I was helping out in the science lab. The lab was a large room with 10 lines of desks. In the back were large tables with sinks in them to work in. At the front there was a platform where the teacher stood on to teach. I was working in the front of the room cleaning the platform when two boys came up to me and one of them said:

“Hey Christopher, I heard you don’t like balloons?”

I pictured what they were going to do to me, and imagined one bursting in my face. I covered my ears and tensed up, waiting and already anxious.

“No, no, it’s okay, we don’t want to hurt you. We want to help you to make sure that this doesn’t happen again!” Boy One said.

I uncovered my ears and looked from one to the other. They seemed sincere.

“Wow, no one has ever tried to help me, thank you guys-”

I was cut off by the sound of a balloon popping. I fell to the ground, stunned. I looked up at them to see the kids smiling. Maniacal smiles.

“You’re a wuss aren’t you!?” they said, laughing as they walked away.

I regained my composure and stood up. I was shaking pretty hard.

“Hey,” someone said, coming up behind me.

I turned around and plugged my ears. It was a high school junior. He was a slender guy. He was of average height with brown eyes and short, straight, fine brown hair. Like me, he was decked out in our school uniform. Boys wore grey pants, a white collared shirt and a red tie. Girls wore grey skirts, white collared shirts and a red ribbon. This guy had longish brown hair. He had brown eyes and a goatee.

He smiled at me, but I wouldn’t be fooled again. I shot him an angry expression.

“You’re just like the other kids aren’t you? You’re going to make me let my guard down and pop a balloon in my face!” I said.

His smile faded. “No, no, no! I would never do that! Those kids are horrible, they're bullies. I’m not a bully, I’m a normal guy. I just wanted to check on you. I’ve noticed you eating alone and thought you could use a friend. Then I saw what happened and I now know you could use a friend.”

“Really?” I said, I was so moved by his words.

“Yeah man, so how about it? Wanna be friends?” He extended his arm.

“Yeah!” I shook his hand.

I later learned that his name was Giampi. He was a kind-hearted guy. At the time he was my best friend, although I only saw him during lunch. I tried several times to hang out with him after school but he would usually say he was too busy with preparing for the next year, his last year. He was going to become a senior after all.

Giampi searched for ways to help me get over my fear of balloons. He found some YouTube videos and discovered that it was possible to get rid of my fear, which was called globophobia.

During the first week’s lunch breaks we looked at images of balloons on his phone. That phase wasn’t hard, since I knew they couldn’t be popped.

Week two was a little tougher. He brought a bag of balloons to school and practiced blowing them up in front of me, promising not to pop them. By that Friday I actually blew one up myself.

Week three was almost impossible. He said that, by Friday, we should try popping one of the balloons. One day after school we sat on the bleachers, attempting to blow up balloons. I could see it was about to pop and got scared.

I ran out of there and into the locker room where I hyperventilated. Giampi came into the room, saying nothing. He just sat next to me on a bench and we stayed in silence.

“I’m sorry, was that too hard for you?” he asked, breaking the silence.

“Yeah, I’m sorry I ran off like that,” I replied.

“No it’s okay. You know what? We don’t have to get rid of your phobia, people live with phobias and it’s usually fine.”

I stood up from the bench. “No, it’s fine. I want to do this.”

“You sure buddy?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, I’m sure.”

It was later that I learned what were Giampi’s true intentions. He would try to befriend quiet kids, outsiders, even bullies’ victims, because he wanted to create a social group with all of us to help. I’m glad he did that. If he hadn’t, I would have been stuck with no one for a long, long time.

I was then introduced to Fernando. One day, Giampi, for the first time, invited me to his home. Of course I went, I’d never been invited to someone’s house before. I arrived and knocked on the door. It was a big house, which was to be expected, as most of the families in my school were wealthy.

“Come in!” I heard Giampi say.

I pushed open the door. I was greeted to a dark home and a long hallway that ended in a living room area. Four rooms were in that hallway. Three of them were bed rooms and one of them was a bathroom. I walked down the hallway and got to the living room area. To the left there was a large kitchen. It was professional level with large, stainless steel appliances and a marble-topped island in the center of it. In the living room there was a large flat screen TV and two massive red couches. There were stairs that led upstairs.

“Up here!” I heard Giampi call.

I climbed the stairs and got to the top. There was another living room with the same exact layout except there were two giant abstract paintings hanging on the wall. One of them was of a dog hybrid. Half human and half octopus. On the other was a painting of a beautiful beach.

Two rooms were in that upstairs area. I headed towards the one with the light on. I walked on the carpet that was the floor and, at the entrance of that room, the floor creaked.

“Don’t come in!” I heard Giampi say.

“Why not?” I asked.

Out of curiosity I opened the door. Inside was a giant library of books ranging from light novels to comics, to manga. It was beautiful. A large light hung from the ceiling.

“You caught me!” Giampi said.

He was sitting on the floor, a pile of books next to him.

“You like reading?” I asked.

“More like I love it.”

“You shouldn’t feel embarrassed, I like to read too.”

“It’s just that, people don’t really picture me like the reading type.”

“I get that.”

“This whole top floor is mine, while my bottom floor is my mom’s’.”

“That’s really cool!”

“Yeah, I decided to make this bedroom into my personal library.”

“You read all kinds of things hu-”

I was interrupted by the door downstairs slamming.

“What was that?” I asked.

“It’s a friend I invited, I want you to meet him.”

“Y-you didn’t tell me that!”

“Would you have come if I’d told you that?”

“Good point.”

I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.

“We’re in here!” Giampi said.

The door swung open and a kid walked through. He was wearing our school uniform but had a sweater wrapped around his waist. I’d seen him before, he was in my class but I had never said anything to him. He had short black hair, thick eyebrows and brown eyes.

“Hey guys what’s up! Thanks for inviting m-woah! That’s some huge shit right there! All of those books! How much did that cost you?”

Giampi smiled kindly.

“Over $5000 dollars.”

“DAMNNN!” Fernando exclaimed.

“I wanted you to meet Christopher.”

“Short brown hair, check. Glasses, check. Brown eyes, check. Bro you’re like my ideal friend!”

At the time I didn’t know what to think of him. He seemed...interesting. He was the opposite of me. He was outgoing while I was not.

“Soooo… what are we doing dudes!?” Fernando asked.

“Ummm… I don’t know, what should we do Giampi?” I asked.

“I got the perfect idea!” Giampi said.

Giampi pulled out his phone to show us.

“Let’s watch some Rick and Morty! You both like that!”