Kevin Tu

Story of Hal
Hey everyone, my name is Hal; I was wondering if you would like to hear my story for
today. I was born in a small suburban community based back in Colorado, it was a nice
childhood I had, and by nice, I mean it was quiet. I've always enjoyed the silence, it gave me a
sense of serenity, you know? The whole tranquil feeling, that was my life until up about my
fourth grade year in elementary. Mom and Dad used to always fight, fight about stupid things,
things that I couldn't understand because of how young I was at the time. After every fight or so,
Dad would just up and storm out of the house, but he always came back. I knew he would. There
was no way he would've just left his son like that. Each night when he left, I hopped into my
little bed and hoped that one day we could all be a happy family again, a family where no
problems arose, and a family that was whole. Eventually in middle school, Dad never came back.
I waited hours upon hours every day after school to see him come home to me again. I was told
that Dad moved to New York, to pursue a different life, effectively leaving Mom and I back in
Colorado, and that's when the bitterness started. As a freshman in high school I grew to blame
my mother for my misfortunes, yelling at her about how if she never chased Dad away, I would
be a lot happier. The thing is, she never reacted, just kept a smile and told me to "Be strong."
What a clich that was to hear but she was right, I kept going on with my life, telling myself to
be better than them, better than the parents who had not been the right example for me. You
know, for their son.
Years passed, and I ended up as a junior at my high school. One would think that with the
way I described living in a small suburban community, I would have many friends. It's not like I

didn't have any friends, I had a good social circle from years prior- most of them I grew up with.
High school just so happened to tear all of us apart. Early in the year, as I was giving my
introduction to my journalism class, my eyes met the eyes of another student, how could I forget
those eyes? Bright beautiful hazel eyes with a hint of sadness in them and medium shoulder
length dirty blonde hair that was tied up into a bun. They were the eyes and hair of a girl named
Chelsea Greenberg, we exchanged smiles then I wrapped up my introduction to the class.
Afterwards as class ended, I decided to go look for Chelsea after grabbing my books from my
locker. I roamed around the school and walked past the gym with my headphones blasting
shivering, but unimaginatively aggressive music into my ears, and that's when I found her, sitting
against a wall next to the entrance to the music hall. I smiled to myself and walked over to her,
and when I looked down I saw the loneliness in her eyes, the sadness; her desolation. I could not
help but feel compelled to say it was the most beautiful sadness I have ever seen in my entire
life. I pushed the headphones off my ears and around my neck with a fluid swing of my arm, the
music bleeding out and fading slowly as I turned the volume down. Sticking my hand out to
gesture a hand shake, I gave a light smile and started the conversation that would soon change
my life forever.
"Hey I don't believe I introduced myself formally to you yet, I'm Hal, Hal Miles. We are
in the same journalism class?" she smiled back at me, still carrying the sadness in her eyes, softly
she said while shaking my hand, "Chelsea, Chelsea Greenberg. It's nice to meet you Mr. Miles.
Andyes we are." I started laughing and slightly gave off a look of awkwardness; lightly
saying, "Mr. Miles would be my fatherif he were still around." Chelsea nodded, and replied,
"Oh, I'm sorry." I shook it off, telling her it was no problem, things happen and we all have to
move on. Right? That's how things were supposed to go? Looking down I noticed she had her

iPod in her hands, as I quickly gave a glance, I realized she was listening to an old time favorite
of mine, a band that my father introduced to me as a child, who could beat Journey? I started to
feel my face contort into a smile and sang the introduction to "Don't Stop Believin", as quickly
as she realized what I was doing, she gave off a nervous little sigh and quickly stowed her iPod
away into her pocket, I could tell that she was indeed flustered, I mean, Im pretty sure anyone
would be if some stranger came up to them and started singing randomly. I continued by adding,
"I think it's pretty awesome that you listen to Journey, I never thought that you would've just by
looking at you." You can never judge a book by its cover, why was judging her? Chelseas attire
consisted of a grunge-esque jacket, with torn black jeans followed by an old band tee. Thinking
that I was teasing her about it, she told me that her sister bought the song off iTunes" and had it
synced to her iPod along with the rest of her music library. I shook my head, "Its fine that you
listen to them, really. You can't beat the classics." Following the conversation, I asked for her
phone really quick, she responded with a quiet "Why?" and my mind went along with "Don't
worry about it", a phrase that I had often used to avoid giving a legitimate answer to questions
like why. I started creating a new contact, listing myself as "Kal-el Lord of Destruction_xXx" at
first, but then I just went along with Hal, it was an old beat up flip phone, scratches and dents, it
was an antique compared the futuristic smartphone that I had, but it totally fit her well.
Looking back down at the girl whose sadness in her eyes was what appealed to me, I
smiled warmly and handed her phone back, "You can text me or call me at any time you'd wish
Chelsea, I'll be around whenever and however you need me." At first she was a bit hesitant, I was
thinking that she was contemplating deleting my contact info but then she nodded and smiled
back to me as I made my way down the hallway and towards the entrance of the school.

When I got home that day, I looked on the fridge and saw that my mom left a note saying
she was heading out for groceries, I shrugged. Opening up the fridge I saw a lone can of soda
that I left in there a couple weeks prior to summer vacation ending; I almost instantaneously
grabbed it almost as if it were a bad habit. As I walked to my room I threw my backpack on the
floor not paying attention to the books and binder that I had in there. As my bedroom door flung
open with me rushing in, I unplugged my headphones leaving them on the desk, and ripped off
my jacket, throwing it on my bed underneath me as I laid there, phone in hand. I was waiting for
her. I was waiting for Chelsea, because I have never been interested in a person like her before.
A few hours and a can of soda later I get a text message, the way my eyes lit up couldn't
have been seen by her, but, hell, you should've seen them. I smiled and read it aloud to myself in
my room, under the cover of my music playing in the background. "hey this is chelsea" nothing
capitalized, no punctuation, nothing special, well nothing special to an average person, but this
message was special to me. It gave me hope for the day to come that, maybe this girl and I could
become better friends. You can't help but become addicted to the sadness in her eyes, it gives you
something to strive for. I wanted to do nothing else but get to know her better, and help her
because I needed her to help me.
We ended up talking for a long time, and by long, I mean over the course of two days for
one conversation, and while her replies weren't as fast as mine, I would be glad nonetheless if
she replied. This friendship bloomed from that day on, but as the both of us plowed through and
fought our way through junior year, I couldn't help but feel detached from Chelsea even though
we would see each other and talk every day, I still had this lingering feeling of emptiness, was I
not satisfied? Isn't that what I wanted in my life? Near the end of the year when our junior year
was at its busiest, we didn't talk for some time, and at first, it was killing me, but as time

progressed, I realized that it would be better not to bother her with my problems while she had
her own to take care of, or so I thought. Chelsea was out getting her life together, planning way
ahead than I, but this was because she had parents to support her, and even though sometimes she
didn't get along with them, they were still her parents, the only ones that she will have at the time
and she loved them. I don't know if I was jealous of that fact or not, but when I thought about it,
it made my heart weigh heavy, I only thought about how much I missed having a "family" I had
my mom, but she wasn't around that often because of work, and the result of that would be that I
had to rely on friends. I had to rely on Chelsea. What did I do in my time of desolation? Well,
nothing really. I came to believe that everything will clear itself up after a while, but what that
really does is just bottle up unwanted emotions. Eventually what happens is what should happen,
a burst of sadness. Could I have called it sadness?
Finals passed and we moved onto our summer break, I was able to talk to Chelsea a lot
more, but seeing as we were moving onto to being seniors, I can't expect everything to flow
smoothly for her, I mean, after senior year, will I ever see Chelsea again? What will happen to
me? I thought about going to join the military, but I can't bring myself to die for the ideals that I
don't support.
One day, Chelsea and I met up at a pool in her neighborhood. With the sun glistening on
it and her, I couldn't help but feel more and more attracted to my best friend. I stared at her and
smiled, almost as if I was praying for things to never change and for time to stand still in the
moment. I was never really the religious type, but if that was considered praying; what I did, then
go ahead and call me religious. We weren't perfect beings, far from it, but we accepted that fact
and kept going on in life. Depression, it's a beautiful disease is what it is, the same disease that
almost took my life once, the same had cause the scarring to Chelsea's body. I couldn't help but

run my hand across her shoulders, and my fingertips down her wrists, there were even some
scars on her legs. I felt the texture of the scars, the pain and sorrow that she had went through. I
felt the loneliness that reflected in her eyes. Still, even after all of that, Chelsea did nothing but
smile at me. I wanted her to cry, I wanted to let her know that it was okay to cry in front of me,
no matter what she will always be that girl I met in journalism, the girl that caught my eye with
her sadness. The girl that made living something worth fighting for. From that moment on, I
realized that I was in love with Chelsea, in ways more than I could have imagined. She was
beautiful, she understood me, we had similar interests, and even though some might say they are
ugly; her scars were beautiful, they told a story to me, a beautiful but sad story of a girl who
struggles hard to live every once in a while, and the most important reason of them all, this girl
was Chelsea. I smiled at the beautiful girl in front of me, and drew her in closer, embracing her
and tearing up. "What's wrong Hal?" she said as she pulled away and held her hand up to my
face, "The world is such a fucked up beautiful place Chel, but it's also worth fighting for, it took
me some time to realize that but its because of you that I was able to figure it out.
This was another clich moment in my life, almost as if it were a directed scene in some
romantic movie. She smiled brightly at me as I let her go, giving her some room, I noticed the
sadness that I had once looked for in her eyes starting to pour out of them, tears streamed down
her face as my own started welling up, "Dammit Hal, of course the world is beautiful, I mean
were still alive From that day on, Chelsea and I made a promise to each other, we had
promised to spend our lives as best as we could in the coming years, to never give up or give in.
And we kept our promises; I remember taking Chelsea to homecoming, prom, movies and
concerts. I remember the way she looked beautiful in each of the outfits that she wore for the
events. I remember spending our birthdays together playing video games and being drowned in

the euphoric emotions that we had never experience to this extend in our livesbut I knew what
was coming after high school. Chelsea and I were going to be separated, she applied to an art
institute in Baltimore, if I remember correctly it was called MICA or whateverwhereas I chose
to stay back in Colorado and pursue photography in its finest light. Life was getting busy again,
but I continued to strive for the best, I was excelling in my classes, hoping to either visit Chelsea
during our breaks or have her come back to Colorado to see me, thats what we owed ourselves.
One day in the middle of an English lecture I got this phone call from a woman urging
me to come down to the local hospital. It was my gut feeling that something horrible had
happened. What happened and who did it happen to for me of all people to be getting a call? It
couldnt have been Chelsea, she was still in Baltimore. As I rushed out of the lecture hall, and out
to my car, I came to the realization of which person it was that I will be seeing within the next
hour. I sped down the road to the hospital, and upon entering I was guided into a room where I
saw this woman on the bed, hardened by grief and stress, who had been through more than I
could ever imagine. Her name was Sarah Miles. She was my mother and she had collapsed hours
prior from exhaustion, but I knew it wasnt just that. I sat next to her as she smiled seeing me,
"Oh Hal, how beautiful you have grown." I started feeling sick, sick of myself for how I had
treated her after my father left. "Hey, hang in there alright? You're going to be just fine Mom."
Tears were starting to well up stream down my face as my mother spoke to me lightly, for some
reason I felt a hint of overwhelming guilt in her voice "Hal, I'm so sorry." I grabbed her delicate
hand and smiled, there was no reason for her to be sorry, I should be the one that was sorry, I, the
son who took her for granted and blamed her for everything. She was just trying to raise me as
best as she could alone and I failed to realize that. "There's nothing for you to be sor-" She cut
me off and pointed to the letter on the table next to me. Reaching for it I read the contents and

felt a familiar pain, this was an obituary from years ago. As I glanced over the names, I could
feel myself peeling away from happiness, and then I saw it. My father's name, William Miles, a
beloved husband and father who died from self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head in a motel in
Denver. I felt myself die right there in the hospital room, sobbing as I looked over to my mother
who was also crying, she explained to me that she didn't want to tell me because of how
devastated I would've been as a kid. I couldn't believe it at first, the man that I loved and cared
for as a father, whom I waited after school for to come home and tell me he missed me, was
gone, just like that. The visit, after that moment was a blur to me, I just blacked out, my emotions
strangling me as I drove home. Upon getting home and into my house, I stripped myself down to
my undergarments and fell in bed, crying. The news was just so sudden, I felt hopeless, and my
Mom, she's too weak to be at home anymore, so she stayed at the hospital. I heard my phone ring
constantly, as my saddened eyes gazed upon the name of the person who called, my instincts told
me it was Chelsea. I couldn't pick up for the life of me, my body wouldn't allow it. As I laid there
I let my phone slide out of my hand and onto the floor, I wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone, I
couldn't talk to anyone.
It's been about a year now, and my mother passed away on the same hospital bed that I
had left her on the day I found out about my father. I remember shedding the missing tears of a
lifetime in front of both of their graves; they were buried next to each other, which is what they
would've wanted. I knew my parents still loved each other even after those fights, and I wished
that they had a chance to reconcile before it was too late. But I was such a selfish child, all I did
was need and want, I never thought about her, the mother that had to take care of me by herself
and cope with the death of her estranged husband. How horrible that must've been. If she were
alive right now I would've cherished her so. I've been trying to live as best as I could, but with

Chelsea so far away, and no one around me, I didn't know how possible that really was. I took up
to the poisons of mankind, smoking and drinking to make myself feel a fake sense of relief.
There was barely anytime to take in my surroundings, my work decreased in quality, my art and
music were losing their creativity, I was losing the drive I wanted to keep. I felt as if I couldn't
put my emotions into anything that I did because, well, there was too much going on. The girl
that I loved was far from my reach, and even then we didn't talk as much as we used to, I would
stay up nights talking to her, wait for her to text me during her time between classes, and skyping
when we could. We were growing distant from each other, whenever she was busy, I wasn't, and
when I was, she isn't. It was hard to keep up with Chelsea sometimes. I just didn't feel any more
relevant in her life. Sooner or later we start having these fights that started appearing more and
more frequently than I would have liked, she didn't have to deal with me...I could barely handle
myself after all. I was stuck, stuck in this stage of everlasting grief that even Chelsea couldn't
pull me out of.
"Hal, I'm really worried about you, you know? You can't keep on living like this...its
almost as if youre not you anymore" as I heard the faint soft voice I had once loved hearing over
the speakers of my computer, I rolled around in my chair, almost mechanically; apathetic. "Then
perhaps I shouldn't be living at all, right? I mean come on, what is there for me?" I don't know
what made me say that, but I did, and what followed probably triggered the worst outcomes of
my life. Minutes, seconds, milliseconds of silence past before I heard "Do you still love me?" a
soft spoken voice broke the silence, I couldn't even look at the computer screen anymore, I
couldn't bear to see this person I had once held affection for. She asked once again, her voice
cracking as if you could almost hear her tearing up and breaking apart, "...Sorry" I said,
unmotivated, almost non-affectionate. I heard a faint cry right before the skype noise rung. She

hung up. In a sudden burst of emotion I shoved everything off my desk and onto the floor. Pens,
pencils, papers, everything was scattered throughout the area around my desk. I began reached
for the only thing I could see on my desk that was left, almost as if it was fate. Prozac, an
antidepressant that I was prescribed to take after my mother had died. The bottle was almost as
full as it was when I got it, goes to show how much it helped right? I shuffled out of my door and
walked towards the kitchen, ripping open the refrigerator door as if my death depended on it, as I
reached in my hand brushed past a can of soda and grabbed nothing, I pulled my hand out and
turned towards the alcohol cabinet, reaching in and grabbing a bottle of whiskey as if it were a
bad habit, hell- I know it was. Setting the bottle on the counter I poured a handful of Prozac into
my hand, of course I was told of the dangers of taking too much as well as the dangers of mixing
it with alcohol, but this was my salvation. I swallowed the handful forcibly, and grabbed the
bottle as I made my way back to my bedroom, taking long gulps of the 86-proof poison before
dropping it at the entrance to my deathbed. Staggering through the door I fell over on my bed,
sprawling myself over my covers as I waivered into a deep trance praying to not wake up the
next morning.
But I did.
***
It started back in high school when I met him in a journalism class, it was the last class of
the new school year, I havent been there all that long to be honest, moved from Washington in
the middle of sophomore year and the next thing I knew- Colorado was my permanent residence
for the entirety of high school. Our eyes exchanged contact like two predators locking eyes over
their prey, his eyes were a bright vivid color, his hair a jet black that I would never be able to see

in the stark night, but behind this human being was sadness and pain much like something I was
very familiar to, so I smiled to him and by doing so I believed that I had saved him. The boy I
met that day finished his introduction to the class and I was up next, very shyly I shuffled my
feet towards the front of the room, all eyes to me as I stared down to my feet. Im Ch-chelsea,
Greenb-berg, thanks for having me be a part of your class. Great, I fucked up with those
stutters. I ran my gaze towards the back of the room where the boy sat, he had a mischievous
smile on his face and I could tell that he was holding a chuckle back. With my face burning red, I
sat back down and stared into my notebook, losing myself in my sketches to pass time which
seemed to never pass fast enough.
The bell rang, dismissing us to our everyday lives outside of school and I ran to my
locker hoping to avoid the boys sure to come teasing. I reached into my locker and grabbed the
two textbooks that I had left, throwing them into my backpack I slammed the locker shut and
starting making my way down to the music hall. I always hated life, in some way shape or form,
and as I aged, I grew to hate it even more. I was the new kid in the new school, I knew no one
there, and it really seemed like no one bother to know who I was either. I was reserved, I was
lonely the first year there, and I just didn't feel like interacting with others unless it was a
required class activity. I kept to myself, and I knew that the entire experience was killing me
inside. I found comfort in my drawings and the music that I listened to. When you struggle to
live, you find yourself driven between killing yourself and killing everyone around you every
day. Actually, it's more like torn, not driven. I take that back.