You'd been absent from where you usually sat, that picnic table that used to be so full to bursting there'd be about five people just eating standing, but today you came back, and I swear I was going to talk to you.

But then we made small talk for all of a minute, and something in me chose caution over kindness.

What I almost said:

If you go all the way down the hallway, to the very back of the building, the area where only the theater and music kids have any real reason to go, turned right of the proper theater, and enter the room at the first corner, you'd find all of us. And I'm not sure if you know of that room's existence in relation to us, so I just wanted to let you know that you are welcome, if you ever get too lonely out here.

And if I'd told you all of that, maybe you'd have followed me back to the room in question, maybe you'd have sat on the floor with the rest of every one else and watched today's pick of Star Trek or Doctor Who or something other episode.

But I think I'd have lost the courage to speak my entire my mind, and that's why I never said anything at all.

Before you do, though, I want you to understand something.

And I'm not trying to be mean, I'm just being honest. As well as trying to protect mine own.

Because that room, hidden away, with mint green carpet and chairs, and too few posters on walls; with dozens of pianos stood side by side against each other with only space for a computer beside them; with dirt brown curtains that don't match the rest of the room, and mugs hidden sporadically throughout; with the nicest, most caring, trustworthy, and brilliant music teacher you will ever meet - that room is our sanctuary.

That room is where we watch movies, burst into song, tell jokes, and occasionally do homework, yes, but it is also to that room that we flee when we're so consumed by life that we have trouble doing anything but reminding ourselves how to keep breathing.  
When we're sick.
When we're miserable.
When we're exhausted.
When everything is wrong, and nothing will ever be the same again.

What I'm saying is that that room, is our safe haven. And, granted, it could be yours too, someday. But at the moment, it's just ours.

I needed you to understand how important that was, but I wasn't sure I could really get through to you, not without offending you in the process.

No matter how strongly I felt about it, it wasn't as though I was going to threaten you, say,

Don't you dare *do anything to sabotage it.