Footprints to Footnotes
by Jojo
My mother’s phone tinkles.
It is a sweet sound, like air caressing windchimes. Signalling rain. A sweet scent, jasmine-like, burrowing deep into soil, nourishing life underneath.
Heat burrows in me too. A secret kind, a lovely saccharine.
I know it’s her.
“Ma,” I get up from the bed. “I think it’s Joy texting me.”
She blearily cracks an eye open. Juvenile guilt is momentary yet powerful: a brief waved of shame hits me for a second- my mother had slaved away for eight hours in her school where her importance only eclipsed her presence at home, so she’s perpetually in need of rest; an unbroken time of solitude which I am interrupting- and she reluctantly hands over her device.
My guilt fades when I confirm that yes, it was my only friend who had texted me.
My mother was not done.
She glares at me. “Not for long.”
“Not for long,” I agree.
“You will text only that what she missed in class and you will hand my phone back to me.”
I bite my lip and promise. The wicked little part of my mind knows my mother will fall back asleep after this and I only need to return her phone before she wakes.
“Good,” she mumbles, and lays back down. Soon, I’m rushing out, flames dancing inside my lumpy blue sweater, phone in hand like priceless treasure.
I cannot keep the smile off my face as I text Joy.
Hey.
She was a strange girl.
Quiet, nondescriptive. She had pictures of K-Pop idols in her rough copy. Strange words arranged in strange ways under the pictures that she stuttered was Korean. She was so shy that even the rowdiest boys of the class wouldn’t pick on her.
But she drew. Oh, was she a great artist. Granted, most of what she drew was from an anime or the other- but they had a quality about them, something so- fragile. Soft pastels carefully applied so that they wouldn’t mesh with the borders. The lines she drew were pale, easily rubbed off, as if she couldn’t bear to waste the page she was drawing on.
There was this quality about her- the economy. The quietness. As though she couldn’t bear to take up more space than she deserved.
Deserved?
She deserved a lot, I felt, watching her hands swirl with a pencil, expertly, over a blank sheet of paper, leaving dark trails behind. She certainly deserved more than the last bench in the classroom where her head would be bowed, eyes closed, as if she wanted to disappear.
Go where? Her home?
She wouldn’t tell me about her home. I knew she had two other siblings, one younger and one elder. I knew she had almost unrestricted internet access. I knew she had a printer which only printed in black and white, leaving splotches behind on the white sheet.
I wanted to know about her.
She wouldn’t tell me.
Instead all I could do was to watch her hands, smaller than mine, pretty, delicate, trace circles on white paper.
I could only watch her bangs fall over her long-lashed eyes, glasses perched on her nose, catching golden light as heat burned merrily inside me, jolting, travelling to my throat.
I could only watch her mesmerised.
ur doggo looks demonic
feed him some holy water pls
You look demonic, Leo looks handsome
Stfu
lmao
btw dads company is shifting
Oh?
yeah
Where to? The basement? LOL
will u pls be serious im trying not to cry rn
Yeah cuz you’ll miss me sm
stop lying
How can I lie when it’s you?
TT
I hate you. I hate you sm.
OKAY
WELL I HATE YOU MOTE
mote
STFU
…
When are you moving
after the final’s over
Oh
Well that’s still five months from now
Yeah
(Your message was deleted)
what did u delete mofo
Nothing.
World domination plans
LMAO
(Your message was deleted)
What did YOU delete
stfu
ur my gorloa
don’t talk back to me
Okay
When she leans on me, head on my shoulder, her scent brushing my nose- I don’t move. My heart thunders in my chest, roaring, screaming, scratching my insides.
Shesleaningonmeshesleaningonmeshesleaningonme-
I sit still, not daring to move, not daring to breathe.
“I hate you,” she whispers to my chest.
Can she feel just how hard my heart’s beating?
I lean my head on her shoulder and sigh.
“I hate you too.”
The boy sitting opposite to us blinks and looks at us like we’re crazy.
She moves away from me in secrecy, it felt like. Refugee in the middle of the night, not leaving traces behind of her own existence.
We carried on our conversations online. By then, necessity had dictated the purchase of my own phone, which, I used, of course, to text her most of the time.
Our conversations were inane. Banal. But each word left me with so much it burned.
It ached my insides that she wasn’t there with me.
I couldn’t feel her smaller, softer weight on me.
Her voice. The little lisp, the way she couldn’t roll her ts in our mother tongue.
Her scent.
Her, her,her-
She confided in me her isolation. How lonely she felt, how scared, how violence etched its mark inside her; the screaming matches, the thrown utensils.
How she would lay on the floor, tears falling. Her chest would tighten; she would be unable to breathe. Sometimes, her messages would find me; unintelligible, jagged.
I would text her back, consoling her. I couldn’t call her.
The guilt would eat at me; but this guilt didn’t seem like the gentle lick of water at the ankles. This was a tsunami, a perpetual deluge. I would be dragged under its watery embrace, gasping, chest constricting, her silhouette on the other side, dark, unmoving.
Her school was set to open soon. She would text me, crying. How she didn’t want anyone else but me beside her, how I’d be the only one for her-
I felt disgusted by the sick, twisted part inside me that revelled in that confession.
Yes, yes, yes. I’m the only one for you.
But outwardly, the angel spread its wings and replied with admonishment. Yes, I’ll always be there for you. No, you dumbass, you need other friends. You can’t be alone in that place, understand? Look, at least you got out of this hellhole. Make the best of it! What’s the worst that could happen?
the ppl here are so cool
esp the girls like
OMG THE HAIR THE SKIN
UGHHHHH unreal
Well, nothing’s unreal if you got money
My aunt’s sick
IVE BEEN HIT ON FOR THE FIRST TIME
THE GUY’S SO UGLY BUT LMAO
Oh…?
What’s his name lmao
idk but it was funny
he sat next to me and started singing randomly
and everyone was laughing
He a good singer?
nah
CUZ I’M BETTR HELLO
Remember the time I sang AOT’s op to u
Sunita glared at us so bad
Man I miss those days
lmao yeag
that was funny
the opera part
ur aunt’s sick?
Yeah
oh
She was happy in the big city, I knew it.
She would go out with her friends regularly to cute cafes.
She would wear pretty clothes and pose with shiny, well-dressed beautiful girls in a way that would make me feel hollow on the inside.
The shiny new city was fading me like a dream you wouldn’t remember when you woke up the next day.
Shiny new city, shiny new friends.
Me? I was a string of letters on the phone that would appear whenever she needed me to.
The string was looped through my heart, twisted into a tight knot, that cut till it bled into my chest. It stretched all the way to the other side of the country to her old Android that she used less than her shiny new iPhone.
I was fading. Like bad memories, I was fading.
So uh
The thing is I have feelings for you
…
For quite a while, actually.
…I rlly don’t know what to say
You don’t have to say anything.
Nothing will change.
You’re still my best friend.
okay
I couldn’t cry.
All of them had seeped out of my body a month ago.
My aunt laid in front of me wrapped in a white cloth, cotton stuck to the insides of her nose.
I stood there in a daze, half-alive, as she was carried away in a wooden bed, never to open her eyes again.
She doesn’t text me anymore.
Possibly because she isn’t very good at consoling others.
But I waited, and waited, and waited.
A small im sorry for your loss.
im here for you.
text me if you need something.
ill be here for you.
There was nothing.
hello
Your number has been blocked by the recipient. Tap here for more information.
Hey
You know that Ily, right?
LMAO THAT’S GAY
but yeah
and ily too
ill come back to see you when im financially independent
Not if I get to you first
LOL
Keep dreaming buddy
hey i gtg
father’s being crazy again
okay
be safe Joy please
and no matter what, I’ll always be ther for you
I love you
About the Author
Jojo is a young writer from a small corner of North Bengal, the kind of place where you know more faces than you don’t. It’s comforting—unless you’re queer and trying your best not to be found out. Invisibility has become a language for them: the tug-of-war between wanting to risk everything, be discovered, sever every tie, and disappear somewhere far, far away.
They enjoy hot chocolate, tragic yaoi, and humming along to video-game OSTs.
About this piece
Footnotes to Footprints is about a love that never had the chance to be spoken—unrequited, unfinished, and short-lived. Though unresolved, it continues to shape me, leaving me with equal parts warmth and heartbreak.
Omg this piece😭 ❤️❤️