Untitled: Part 1: Rememberance and Renewal

I could feel the nervous butterflies welling up inside my stomach. They fluttered and their wings of tension pounded so violently; I was certain I’d be sick any minute. Simultaneously, the sea of faces swam in my vision so that the familiar figures of students, peers, and friends all blended into one unrecognizable blur of color. I sought out one face in the mud of the swirling river"one face that I’d longed for months to see again after over a year of worship, and the face that had haunted my dreams ever since it left the confines of my protective little life. He said that he just needed some time, so perhaps on this day, the first day we’d meet again, he would be satisfied.

            My heart pounded wildly and I scanned the swirling, misting painting that hazed my vision. Every time I caught a glimpse of dark, shaggy hair, I stopped to examine it briefly, but the image was never quite right. Then, in the corner of my eye, I saw him. I turned and allowed myself a few seconds to gaze at his figure.

            He looked different somehow, darker, more reserved and fake at the same time. It was still that dark hair and brown eyes, though. It was still him"still the very same boy who I cared for and looked after for months of my life; the first one to ever profess to love me. I gathered my courage and set aside the unsettling feeling that something was changed in him, in me, in the atmosphere, or all of the above. I began to walk his way and with each step the memories of our relationship flooded into my mind: his scars, his drawings, the smell of his breath when he kissed my lips. I gained confidence. If I remembered all of these things, he must too…

            He turned my way, his body shifting to face my nervous frame. I stopped dead in my tracks and my unsteady breath caught in my lungs. I raised my hand to wave and a smile slowly crept uncontrollably over my dry lips. In my unusual stunned state, I stumbled and attempted to catch my balance when a weight slammed into my side and brushed past me. A backpack whacked the bony edge of my shoulder and briefly broke my reverie. I looked down quickly and held my arm, examining the new resting place of a beautiful bruise. Returning my gaze to the boy a few yards in front of me, I rubbed the burial ground tenderly. When I finally replaced my eyes, something inside me shattered silently into a million, sharp pieces. I could feel my internal walls collapsing and the tearing feeling as the wreckage sliced open my interior.

            There he was; there was the boy who held me, kissed me, promised to love me and keep me. And there she was; the girl who had taken my place, with her perfect little face and hourglass body smiling up at those brown eyes. His hands slid around her waist and over her clothes as he pulled her closer. With each movement, I broke more. I could feel my heart struggling to beat, my mind swelling under the pressure of shock, my body collapsing as my lungs struggled for oxygen. I could feel the noose around my neck, the knife in my heart, the drugs slowly working their way through my veins. All I could think were three words:

            You’ll be sorry.

 

            My eyes tore open; I could feel the sweat gliding over my trembling skin and my arms straining to support my upturned body. With my breath unsteadily flowing from my gasping lungs, I wiped my blurry eyes and the salty edge of tears. Slowly, I readjusted my position on the cold blankets of my bed and buried my face into the pillow.

            Damn it, Matthew. My mind screamed. Leave me the f**k alone.

            It had been six months, six long months since I woke up from my childish dream world and realized that he was never coming back. It was six months since I realized that the whole last year of my life was wasted, 182 restless nights that I spent contemplating the reason of pain, 4,382 hours that were used up on mindless vegetation, drawing, and writing, and 262,974 minutes that I neglected to live my life simply because I had wasted a whole 613,606 on someone who didn’t give a s**t about me. That is a total of 52,594,876 seconds of my life that I would never get back… or twenty whole months. That, if you ask me, is far too much time wasted on a lost cause, and, if I’d learned anything from all of those seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months, it was that love was, most definitely, a lost cause.

            Grumbling, I rolled over and checked the time on the alarm clock. After blinking my sleep-heavy eyes multiple times, I could decipher the blinding blue numbers on the screen.

            5:02. Lovely. Just enough extra time to lay in bed and contemplate the meaning of life before I had to stumble out of bed and struggle through another unbearable day of high school.           

            Downstairs, I could hear my parents fluttering about the kitchen and preparing for their mindless day jobs. There really isn’t anything all that straining about sitting in offices all day and ordering people about. If that was what high school was preparing me for, I figured that I might as well abandon ship while I still had the chance. Unfortunately, that was no option with my high-strung, college-bond family. It was college or nothing in that house. Load of hypocrisy, really, considering the fact that my mom never even graduated high school because she was pregnant and my dad dropped out of college to help raise the little s**t. Yeah, that kid was me. Was it worth it, guys? You think you find love, and BAM: One extra mouth to feed and instantaneously exterminated happiness.

            I practically had to slap myself to shut my unfortunately derogatory brain off. It was like an attack dog with the mail man. You could give me any innocent event or conversation and I’d tear it to pieces with my “life is all a piece of s**t” philosophy.

            Decidedly, I hit the off button on my unruly alarm and crawled out of bed at 5:23. Dragging my feet, I hobbled to the hallway, snatched two towels from the closet and sluggishly wandered into the bathroom. It always smelled like Clorox and I absolutely resented it. Absently, I shrugged off my old t-shirt that was much too big for me, and one of my many pairs of ancient soccer shorts. I tried not to look in the mirror as I climbed into the confines of my musty shower, but I couldn’t help catching a glimpse of my tired grayish eyes. They were the color of fog, and just as bland.  I slid the curtains closed behind me and turned on the scorching hot water. For minutes, I just let the water cascade over my limbs and closed those hazy, unforgiving eyes of mine. But, the comforting nothingness of the black behind my eyelids did not last long. I began to see faces, objects, scenes, that I tried so hard to block from my memory…

            A broken razor blade, deep brown eyes, a trail of blood, tears…

            I reopened my eyes in agitation and disgust; slumped down to the bottom of the shower and held my legs tight against my body as the hot water flowed over my skin and plastered my tangled hair to my folded form. I give up. I simply give up. My mind was involuntarily making itself up. But, I’d been there, I’d done that, and I wasn’t going there again.

            After summoning the last of my strength and determination, I stood, finished my shower, and punched the knob for the faucet back against the shower wall. One day at a time.

 

 

       z z z z zz z z z z z z

 

When the blurred state of the morning finally drifted and I found myself sitting silently at a table in the cafeteria, all I wanted was to go back to my cold, but comforting bed. At least there, I didn’t have to pretend to be enjoying the sunshine that I couldn’t feel anymore, or smile at all of those silly naive boys and girls who drifted through life knowing nothing about being broken. I really just wanted to get my work and get out.

People seemed to sense that I didn’t want to talk much; I wasn’t interested in flirting or building new friendships. I just wanted to get through the day and do so in one piece. Of course, there were always my old friends standing around me. Their conversations were always lighthearted and goofy… but I never felt like I had anything to add anymore. They didn’t know, and they didn’t understand.

“Ha! I remember that part… you know when Heath Ledger takes the pencil and slams the other guys head down onto the table?”

“Oh. My. Gosh. That was sooo intense. Hey, Alyx, what was your favorite part?” Leave it to Austin and Stefan to be caught up in a conversation about comic book movies. “Alyx?”

            Oh, right. That’s me. I looked up from the intricate swirls of the wood table. “Hmm?” I mumbled, only half listening and comprehending.

            “What was your favorite part of the movie?” Stefan asked again. He looked as excited as a little boy who just got a new dump truck toy.

            “Um… I don’t really know.” I glanced away briefly and then looked back up at him. He looked unconvinced and gave me scoff on the shoulder.

            “C’mon, Aly, you loved the movie. You have to have a favorite part.”

            Right…have to my sorry non-existent butt. I faked a smile.

            “Sure, Stefan, I liked the ending. It’s realistic; good guy gets the s**t end of the deal and all that jazz.”

            Austin and Stefan looked at each other a moment and shrugged. Even though they didn’t get why I was such a sour grump all of the time, they never gave up hope. Austin ruffled my hair with his fist and Stefan just gave me another whack on the shoulder.

            “Whatever, sour puss, I’ll get it out of you when you’re more awake and look less likely to eat my brains out.” That’s Austin for you; he can be such an a*s.

            I returned to examining the wiggles in the table in front of me. Please just spare me the jokes and let me sit here for a while. I should have appreciated their efforts more, but I just… well, I didn’t. They couldn’t give me what I was looking for because it simply didn’t exist. I came to terms with that months ago.

            When the bell rang for class, I stood up and looked out at my friends. They were all still standing around, engaged in their many meaningless conversations: Erin with her skinny little arms around Patrick’s  thin and bony waist, Audrey smiling in her consistently Barbie doll fashion, clueless, across the group at Max who, with his arms folded over his thin muscular chest, was laughing at some funny expression on Robert’s face. They all looked so happy and their movements were so effortless. I wished with all of my heart that I could feel that way again. I longed to forget the pressure that was always weighing down on me like a pancake crushed beneath a spatula. But, no one saw that pain I felt. No one could really truly take it away, and I knew that like I’d never known anything in my life.

            I got up from the table and glanced around. “See you guys later.” I told the whole gathering, and received a rumble of farewells in return. I began walking away, content with my solitude, when I realized that someone was walking with me. I turned my head.

            “Oh, hey, Stefan… I thought you stayed back there, sorry.” I managed to get out of my mouth.

            “Nah, no biggie. You just look a little down and under the weather. I thought you might need a hug.” He smiled at me gently. It was one of those genuine, caring, concerned, and all around innocent smiles.

            “Yeah, well, if hugs could solve my problems, I suppose I wouldn’t be so down.”

            Stefan shrugged. “Well, hugs can never hurt. I can tell you’re going through a lot, and, you know, if you need anything, I’m always here.”

            I looked up at him as we we’re plodding along and the look that he gave me rather confused me… it was so indescribably pure. A little taken aback, I stuttered and looked away. “Yeah, I know.”

            We stopped right outside my classroom before I realized he’d walked the entire way with me. “You should probably go to class before you are late. Where is your class anyway?”

            “Nah, I’ll be fine.” He responded, avoiding the other half of the question.

            I didn’t quite know what to do with that. “Uh, okay… if you say so…”

            “I say so.” He laughed and pulled me in for a big hug. I couldn’t help but notice how warm he felt.

            I smiled a little and turned to go to my class. As he walked away, I turned back and watched him trace his footsteps the way he came.

            Little schmuck… I bet he’s late for class now. I felt myself laugh on the inside, despite the pessimistic disapproval of my mind.

 

 

                                            z z z z zz z z z z z z

 

 

Sitting through biology, however, was almost unendurable. For the first hour, Miss Millbrook insisted on re-explaining allelic frequency and genetic probability: a subject we should have been tested on weeks ago.  Perhaps it would have been a somewhat pleasant and relaxing beginning to the day if it weren’t for her unfortunate mumbling that was reminiscent of a robotic grizzly bear that had an excess amount of phlegm in its throat at all times. Just the repetition of that voice was enough to make me want to jump off the bridge near my house, and I really didn’t need one more excuse to do so.

To spare myself from enduring the redundant lecture we were receiving yet again, I turned my flimsy notebook to a blank page. The lined paper seemed to call my name as I lifted the tip of my pencil to the beckoning white. I let my senses take over.

Drawing, for me, was an escape and a venting process. I wasn’t the strategic artist who planned out every single picture and detail. No, I let my mind wander and my hands aimlessly glide over the surface, creating lines and curves wherever they pleased until a picture took hold. I could feel my fingers pushing the pencil along the lightly textured surface and my gaze locked absently on the desk"not really seeing the images that were slowly forming themselves. I was in my own universe; I was free from lectures, pain, heartbreak, and falsified smiles. Ah, the power of art.

“Miss Fischer?” My world crumbled when the sound broke through the temporary walls. “Alyx Fischer!”

That terrible grizzly voice was straining to squawk out my name. I tilted my head up quietly and immediately locked eyes with Miss Millbrook, who, fittingly, was glowering at me like a wild animal.

“Yes?” Subconsciously, I could feel two dozen pairs of eyes swivel to lock on me. Thanks a heap, Madame Grizzly. Now everyone knows who I am.       

“Do you have any speck of insight pertaining to the subject?” I hated her with every fiber of my being for that one sentence. With so few words and that miniscule brain of hers, my teacher had instantaneously made me look like an insignificant moron in front of twenty kids who just learned of my existence in the preceding few seconds.

Seeing no other viable option, I simply gave her, “Sorry, Miss Millbrook, I wasn’t listening.”

“Well, that much is apparent,” She grumbled. “You may be smart, Missy, but you aren’t that smart. I’ll tell you once: Pay attention.” With that, she turned her pudgy short frame back to the white board where she, apparently, had been making pathetic attempts at sketching punnet squares. Annoyed to no end, I, too, turned back to my previous engagement. However, when my eyes met that sweet little escape of paper gazing back at me from the desk, a shock wave rolled up my back and clawed the space from my shoulder blades to the base of my neck.

At the bottom left corner of that innocent little page was the outline of a hand. Resting lifelessly on the floor, the palm was up and open… almost as if it still wanted to grasp something. A few inches away from the reaching fingertips, a crumpled note lay pinned to the floor with a shining, sharp, and bloody butcher knife. The words scrawled on the note were few, but the meaning was inescapable: P.S. I Love You.

Tearing my eyes away from the scene, I flicked them back at the front of the classroom. Miss Millbrook was still hopelessly squiggling away on the board and muttering explanations to herself all the while. Relieved that neither she nor anyone else had seen the shock on my pale, tired face, I kept my gaze shifted forward, but let my hands slowly slip to the binding of the notebook. Inch by inch, I carefully tore the page from its carcass, but each slight movement seemed to make the most hideous racket I had ever heard. The ripping sounds, multiplied by my anxiety, made me cringe continuously until I managed to sever the unruly image from the limbs of the thinning notebook. Instinctively, I crumpled the lined paper inside of my fist and kept in clenched there so tightly that I could feel every bend in the paper nipping and gnawing at my cold skin.

When, finally, the slowly plodding clock produced the bell for passing, I remained glued in my seat a few extra seconds. I waited for most of the other students to exit before standing up, throwing my gigantic backpack over my sloping shoulders and shifting my gaze to the floor. Willing my feet to move through the gaping door, I braced myself for the circus of the hallways.

Immediately upon opening the door, I felt as if I had been hit by a wave. People were bustling through the hallways that were tightly packed like a can of sardines. The noise of a hundred separate conversations fought to overpower each other, and I simply fought to walk through the middle.

I turned the corner to exit the science hallway but got pulled back from the shoulder before I could continue wading my way through the maze of backpacks. I turned, to shrug off the hand that I felt tugging on me, and succeeded only in swinging full on into the broad chest of the imposer. Before I could react, I felt arms wrap around me and pull me tighter… into a hug. I had a blurry recognition of that emanating warmth…

“I was wondering where you were. I’ve been waiting out here.” With each word, I could feel the vibration against my cheek that was now resting on the shoulder of the familiar figure.

“Why were you waiting, Stefan?” I asked, resisting the urge to smile a little.

He released me from his grasp and pushed me back a little so he could look me squarely in the face. For the first time, I noticed that his eyes were not a solid blue; they were tinged with a washed-out green that reminded me of the sea. “What? I can’t wait for a friend?” He smiled that innocent smile, and I couldn’t help feeling that I was missing something… an inside joke of some sort, perhaps.

“I wasn’t saying that,” I attempted to defend myself. “You just scared me, that's all.”

He looked at me in a way that made me feel like he could see past that fake smile of mine. It made me uncomfortable and defensive, but I didn’t look away.

“Oh, my bad. Didn’t mean to scare you. Sorry,” He smiled again. Why did he always smile?

“Yeah, I guess I’m just easily scared,” I shrugged a little and walked backwards slightly. “I really should get to class, though. I’m even scared of being late.”

He laughed a little and tilted his head. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so serious about everything. You have to enjoy the little things in life, Aly.”

“Yeah, well, I’m still learning, I guess.” I turned and waded back into the sea of backpacks. The little things? There aren’t any little things left to enjoy…what the hell is he talking about?

The rest of the day, I couldn’t get that statement out of my head… there seemed to be something overwhelmingly important about it…

You have to enjoy the little things…

 

                                   z z z z z z z z z z

 

My body convulsed. It hurt to breathe, and the pain in my throat felt like fire. I pulled my hair out of my face and shifted my weight so that I sat heavily on my heels. My knees were pressed against the cold tile floor and my shaking hands pushed against my thighs. As I coughed heavily, tears ran down my cheeks. They felt almost warm and comforting, but they didn’t ease the pain.

Through the blur of water in my blood-shot eyes, I could see the outline of the white toilet immediately in front of my face. I hated it. I resented it for what it allowed me to do, and I envied the fact that it could just flush away the evidence. I could spend twenty minutes bowing in front of it, forcing away my worries and fears until my stomach had nothing left to surface, and in one second, it could wash it all down the drain.

Acid burned into my mouth and I leaned forward in disgust and spit into the gaping white hole. I wiped the tears from my eyes and, using my hands to push myself upright, I stood on my shaky feet. Without looking, I pressed the handle to release my latest regrets into the unknown swirl beneath the earth. In the same motion, I shuffled over to the sink and turned on the faucet. The cool water rushed over my fist and I release the toothbrush I still clasped into the pooling clarity. I watched the calm waters flow for a few, unrestrained minutes.

Eventually, against my will, I could feel my chin tilt upward millimeter by millimeter. The slow motion suspended until my eyes could see the wood framing of the ominous mirror hung there. Then, slowly, the edge of the glass appeared, and in it, the colors swirled. When my face rested square with the mirror, and my chin parallel to the ground, I could see the reflection: the image that was supposed to be me, and, in a sense, was me… a frail, weaker, darker version of me. The skin of the face was grey, and purple shadows hung heavy beneath red-rimmed, colorless eyes. Tear stains lined the hollow, shapeless cheeks and the figure blinked with sleeplessness. Then, in a slow, intentional movement, the reflection tilted her head and lifted one finger to her pale, dry lips as if willing me to stay quiet…

 

For the third night that week, my eyes flung open and my body slammed forward and upright. I could, once again, feel the clammy sweat clinging to my limbs and taste the salt of my forgotten tears. Just a dream, Alyx… It was just another dream. But I knew it wasn’t. That was the sad truth in my nightmares: they were impossible to escape and neglect because they were, more often than not, memories of a life not long forgotten.

I ran my cold fingers through my tangled mass of hair and let out a small groan. My body ached from rolling endlessly in bed, and a small headache began nipping at my eye sockets. Thank God for weekends.

I rolled over and looked at the clock, for this had become routine. The electric blue numbers flashed at me “12:00” and did not change for a good two minutes. It was like my clock wanted to taunt me.

The power must have gone out sometime in the night. I thought wearily. Resorting to option B, I extended my arm and snaked my hand over my nightstand, searching for my cell phone. When my fingertips finally slid over the cool smooth casing, I wrapped them around the device and pushed the front button. Since I was expecting to see the time on the display, it took my groggy mind a few extra seconds to comprehend the words “New Text Message” and the name underneath: Stefan Whitman. Of course.

I flipped open the phone to the QWERTY keyboard and clicked the “Open now” option. My eyes slowly fluttered over the words and my mind processed a few seconds slower.

Aly I know ur probly sleeping but I cant shake the feeling that sumthing is wrong. Im worried bout u.

Sent: 4:56 AM

 

I blinked a few times. 4:56? Why was he up at 4:56? I closed the screen and looked at the time. Ironically, it was only 5:02… again. My internal clock loved waking me up at two minutes after the crack of dawn. Normally, I wouldn’t be responding to anything so early in the morning, but I was curious. I flipped back open the phone and typed out the response: Why are you awake at 5 AM?

I closed my enV and set it down on my pillow before rolling over to stare at the ceiling. The grey light of the dawn was just starting to flutter through my window and I let the serenity of the dusky tones flow over my relaxed face.

A loud vibration startled me and I snatched up the phone. The screen’s bright light was almost blinding.

I told u. Im worried. U just haven’t been urself lately and I dunno I can’t sleep.

My mind was too tired to fully comprehend the words. I clicked out the question “Why can’t you sleep?” before resuming my study of the yellow ceiling bathed in grey light.

Sure enough, I received an answer not even a minute later: I told u. Im worried bout u.

Why? I couldn’t think of anything else to say. No one ever truly worried about me… or at least not to the point of insomnia.

Cuz Ur not urself. And I luv u, so im not just gonna let it go.

            I rolled my eyes. It struck me that I didn’t even know what it meant to be myself anymore. I didn’t know who I was, and neither did Stefan. But, I wasn’t going to say that to him, not in a million years. And, as for the love part, that one I had to straighten out.

            Yeah, I know. In a friend kind of way.

            I don’t know what kind of response I was expecting to get from that, but for some reason, I felt oddly dejected when I received the simple confirmation: Yeah, thats what I meant.

            It felt like a logical time to end the conversation, but it seemed rather rude to just leave when he’d gone out of his way to check on me. I managed to type out a Well, thanks for caring.

            Sure enough, he responded instantaneously: Of course. Like I said, I luv u, Alyx.

            For whatever reason, all I sent back was, I luv u 2.

           

            I reopened my eyes to the bright yellow light cascading over my face from the window. The sun was now fully in position, smiling at me from just above the tree line. I guessed that I had fallen asleep again for the screen on my cell phone read 9:39.

            I lifted my arms above my head and arched my back in my attempt to stretch out my tired limbs. Then, I rubbed my eyes multiple times with closed fists. Routine, routine, routine. When I sat up, I swung my left leg out of bed first, even though the ground was on the right side of the bed, and tested the ground lightly with my toes. To me, the carpet felt softer than usual.

            After running my fingers through my unruly auburn hair, I waddled out the door, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. It seemed illogical for me to be in there; I wasn’t particularly hungry and I hadn’t eaten breakfast in months. Nonetheless, I stopped at the counter where the coffee pot was pulled out and turned on, and searched for the two bottles of vitamins. When I found the ones labeled “Women’s Multi Vitamins”, I shoved the container aside and picked up the gummy bear option. I had always refused to eat the vitamins that were made for adults since they all smelled, and probably tasted, like hay.

             As I popped two of the fruit flavored gummies into my mouth, I heard heavy footsteps falling behind me. I turned to face out of the kitchen before, few moments later, my dad appeared, lumbering around the wall of the staircase and holding some paperwork. His round face was turned downward, reading some of the typed script held loosely in his rough hands, and his excessive belly jiggled when he walked.

            “Hey, dad,” I greeted him.

            He looked up at me from where his hands gripped the pages. “Well, good morning. Finally decided to crawl out of bed, I see.” He was the kind of man who, even on weekends, got up at the crack of dawn.

            “Yep,” I responded and turned back to the counter to replace the bottle of vitamins.

            “Hey, honey?” I heard my mom’s voice rounding the corner, too. “Where’d you put the stapler?”

            Just then, my mom seemed to notice me standing in the kitchen and stopped walking. Her face immediately changed into a confused and shocked state that I couldn’t for the life of me understand. Before I could be a smart a*s and throw out some witty remark, the words flew out of her mouth and it was my turn to be paralyzed.

            “You’re still here? I thought you were supposed to be at some band thingy today.”

 

S**t. S**t, s**t, s**t, s**t, s**t.

           

My mouth stayed open and the words were delayed and silent. She looked over at my dad, who was now thoroughly engulfed in his paperwork. “I thought you took her this morning!” She wasn’t mad, “just irritated”, as she would say, but I took that as my cue to fly back up the stairs and get properly dressed. For being a five two little gnome of a woman with a dark brown bob hair style that liked to poke out in random directions all at once, my mom could be intimidating when she wanted to be.

I ran around the short figure of my mother who was still standing in her state of shock, and fluttered up the staircase to the first room on the right. Not like there were many options up there anyway. Since there were only four doors, everyone had a 25 percent chance of picking my room on the first go, and very few people would guess that it was the bathroom"which heightens the chances even more.

Nearly tripping over the rubble scattered over my floor, mainly school papers and books, I stumbled to my closet door and flung it open. I reached in and pulled out the lone dress on its solitary hanger. I really didn’t particularly like the thing… it was black, and cut to fit anyone from Avril Lavigne to Oprah, and, since I fell somewhere in between the two, it sat rather loosely on my form.

As quickly as possible, I stripped off my night clothes, unzipped the tent dress, and pulled it over my head. As uncoordinated as I am, it took a few extra tries to zip the unruly material back up. Yet, I managed nonetheless and in one fowl swoop grabbed my shiny black high heals in one fist and my flute and music in the other. I couldn’t believe my luck. I’m going to be late to our first real contest….

In a matter of minutes, I was flying back down the stairs and calling out for my dad at the same time. “C’mon, dad. I’m already late.”

Unfortunately, my dad is not the kind of driver you would select to get you somewhere in a time crunch. He’s more of the ‘Sunday drive’ type: one of those people who drive ten miles under the speed limit, arm around the passenger side head rest, and eyes watching every leaf that passes.  Not what I needed at the moment. It’s a miracle that I survived the entire car ride without exploding from nervous tension.

When we finally pulled up to the school, however, I was in one piece still… more or less. I opened the door before the car fully stopped and flew to the front entrance of the building, still holding my shoes. I didn’t even have time to tell my dad goodbye and, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t entirely sure that I’d even shut the car door. As I flung open the heavy glass entry to the front hallway, I felt the warm air of the building engulf me. I was in such a frenzied state that I never even noticed the chilly edge of the spring weather.

Just inside the entryway, I stopped to adorn my shoes. When I released the death grip of my clenched fist, the heels toppled to the carpet with a click and a thud. I used the toes of my right foot to prod them until both stood upright. Then, I attempted to wiggle my feet into the tight confines of the black death traps before hiking the bottom of my dress back up and rushing forward. The silky black material felt so soft and comforting in my hands, but the shoes, on the contrary, were tight and unusual. I missed my white converse.

When I turned the corner and reached the familiar doors of the music hallway, I ceased my awkward gallop. Taped on the door was a cheaply designed sign that read:

“Sight-Reading Room. Close Door Quietly, Please.”

Obeying the sign, I gently grasped the handle of the door, swung it outward, slipped inside, and replaced the heavy frame with care. I then proceeded to tip-toe across the tiled floors until I reached the choir room immediately on my left. We had been told to assemble there upon arrival. Peering inside the glass window, I was able to observe several people randomly dispersed throughout the room; they all appeared to be waiting for instruction. I slipped inside to join them and, after abandoning my handle-less flute case and well-worn folder at the far wall, I let out a sigh of relief allowing the nervous anxiety and tension to flow out of my limbs. No one cares that I’m late. Most likely, no one even noticed.

Breathing deeply, I turned around to find myself, surprisingly enough, face to face with a senior that I’d met a few months back. His face was contorted into an eccentric gawking stare that, for an unexplainable reason, gave me butterflies. He held this composed and irrational stare only a few inches from my nose, unblinking.

Impulsively, I reached out and punched his bony shoulder. He wasn’t muscular, but he wasn’t incredibly lean and lanky, either. He had that almost attractive, athletic, body type that didn’t quite match his average facial features. He wasn’t handsome, yet there was some unusual charismatic charm that flitted about him at all times.

“Geez, Jackson,” I chided him. “Why do you have to be such a jerk to me?”

He pouted a little in an almost cute fashion. “Awe, I’m sorry,” He mumbled and held his arms out expectantly for a hug. I simply pushed his lean arms aside and walked forward.

“Oh, whatever,” I sighed as I rolled my eyes ever so slightly. “You shouldn’t say that when you don’t mean it.” I paused and glanced back at him for dramatic effect. “It won’t mean anything when you actually do.”

I continued to walk back toward the door and he followed me. “But, I do mean it, Alyx.” He said as he rested his hand on my shoulder. It felt pleasantly warm on the silky blackness of my dress. I couldn’t resist looking back at him and our eyes locked when I did. In his light brown depths, there was some emotion that escaped my recognition.

Suddenly, the door next to me creaked open and Amanda’s unruly black curly hair poked around the side. Her brilliant green eyes twinkled as her perfectly formed trumpet lips released the sentence, “We need two more people to help set up for the next band.”

Feeling guilty about my late arrival, I immediately volunteered to assist with setting up chairs and stands. Jackson, like a puppy dog, followed right behind me. As we walked down the short hallway connecting the two similar, but warring music classrooms, I could practically feel him waltzing close behind me. His presence was impossible to ignore. It didn’t hurt that he smelled irresistibly of peaches, either.

To keep myself from going insane, I turned, walking backward, to face him. Jackson was swaggering along in a unique walk that wouldn’t have worked for anyone else but, somehow, it did for him.

“Jackson, you’re such a dork.” I laughed despite my better judgment. In return, he just shrugged and continued walking.

The band room was set up messily in a concert arch"a multitude of chairs and stands were arranged in a semi circle facing the director’s podium. Off to the side, there stood the judging table and a few extra chairs. In front of this, Amber, our drum major, stood with a binder full of diagrams and band sizes. Her dark, Pilipino eyes were scanning over the pages as she toyed absently with her short black hair. When she noticed we were standing in the room, she instructed us, “We need 35 chairs, one stand for every two people.”

Since there were already twenty-some-odd chairs laying around from the previous band, setting up the few extras was rather simple. I grabbed the nearest chair and started adding to the middle row. While I was awkwardly carrying the heavy black object to its new section, I felt a sharp poke in my side and glanced in time to see Jackson smirking and gliding away. I bit my lip to hold back a smile. Why did I have the urge to smile?

In a matter of minutes, the whole room was set up, and we were dismissed to go back to the choir room. Wind Ensemble, the group that I was a part of, didn’t play for another three hours, so I had plenty of time to mill around or help out with little jobs. I had decided to go back to the choir room, however, just to sit for a few minutes.

I was walking down the hallway when I felt that same irresistible presence and smell of peaches. “So, what job did you sign up for?” He asked me as he came shoulder to shoulder with my figure.

“Um, well,” I stumbled, “I didn’t really sign up for one. I just volunteered to do whatever anyone needed help with…”

I kept my gaze on the floor as much as possible and avoided his gaze. “I wish I thought of that. I’ve been here since 7 setting up everything. My shift is done now though.” I could feel him smile and stare at me. I looked up to meet his gaze ever so slightly. He was pulling green headphones out of his tux pocket with a small silver iPod attached to the end. The motion made his lean muscles stand out. I couldn’t resist the curiosity that tugged at my breath.

“What kind of music do you listen to?” I asked lamely. I felt like I was trying to induce conversation against the natural will of the universe.

He shrugged again. “I dunno… lots of stuff.” Lifting his blonde eyebrows slightly, Jackson handed me one earphone. “These guys are crazy. I love the musicianship.”

I put the ear bud in my left ear obediently. The music was complex, with guitar riffs, drum patterns, and piano solos, but it definitely wasn’t my style of singing. I pulled the headphone out. “How can you listen to songs when you can’t even understand what they are saying?”

He slumped down against one of the white, bumpy walls and looked up at me. “Because I respect their musical abilities.” Simple enough, I guess.

He continued staring at me from the floor. “What?” I asked, looking around.

In response, Jackson cocked his head a little bit and attempted to look offended. “Well, aren’t you going to sit down?”

That same feeling of tense butterflies exploded in my stomach, I wasn’t used to this kind of attention… especially not from someone two years older than me. Not trusting myself with the ability to form a cohesive response, I backed up against the wall and slid down next to Jackson’s toned, crossed legs. I, reasonably, kept a fair amount of space between the two of us, however.

Jackson handed me the iPod in addition to the headphone this time. “Pick something you like,” he told me.

I held the slick device in my hand and scrolled through the list of artists. Many, or most, of the names flashing by I did not recognize, or only vaguely remembered from some long lost conversation. At the very bottom, however, I encountered the name “Trans Siberian Orchestra”. I only listened to their music at Christmas time, but I knew the group, and I loved them nevertheless. I clicked on the banner and selected the song, “Christmas in Sarajevo”, my ultimate favorite. It had no lyrics, but the rhythm and tone of the strings tugged at my heart. The song seemed to tell a tragic tale that I connected to on endless levels.

When the bass entered with it haunting melody, Jackson turned his head to gawk at me. “You know these guys?” His soft voice sounded astonished.

I smiled, proud of my choice, “Know them?” I laughed, “I love them. This is my all time favorite song.”

The look on his face said that he easily approved. “Most people don’t even know who this group is, let alone appreciate their music,”

“Yeah,” I sighed, “I just like the stories they all tell, they’re so sweet and sad and pure.”

Jackson looked at me with his head a little sideways, as if trying to comprehend what I meant. At the same time, he reached over and slid his hand beneath mine to grip the music player. The touch of his skin gave me shivers when he pulled away.

His eyes were still locked on mine when he asked, “Have you ever listened to An Angel Came Down, Old City Bar, then An Angel Returned… in that order?”

I felt my face contort into a puzzled expression that spoke my answer silently. He laughed to himself. “You should, sometime. It tells a really neat story. I did it on accident one day and it blew my mind. Now, I always listen to them in that order.”

“Okay,” I responded slowly, “I will do that sometime.” I turned away from Jackson and faced the opposite wall while resting my head against the one that I was slumped against. Gently, I closed my eyes and let the music wash over me. The moving chords swayed me like a boat rocking on the unsteady ocean tides, and the deep rumble of the timpani coincided with the rhythm of my aching heart. I could feel warmth slowly brushing over my extended leg, a heat wave that gently cascaded over the side of my thigh. Consciously, I began to realize that this last feeling, however, was not a sensation caused by the droning music.

I opened my eyes slowly. At the bottom of my vision, I could see that Jackson’s leg, now closer than before, was brushing up against my own and his hand lay inches from my fingertips. There was no mistaking that the proximity was intentional. To test it, however, I opened my eyes, stretched, and in the same movement, slid slightly to my left and away from Jackson’s radiating warmth. I took note that his eyes were closed now, too.

A few seconds later, I shut my eyelids and attempted to let the music engulf me again. This time, however, it was impossible to allow myself to become fully washed away. My senses stood on edge and the outside world droned in a medley with the orchestra music. I could hear Jackson breathing next to me, and the slight rustle as he shifted his weight. I cracked my eyes open a fragment and attempted to see if he had moved.

In the miniscule window of vision that my eyes allowed me, I could see his hand flexing in such a way that it moved, ever so slightly, toward mine. My breath caught in my lungs as I watched the soft movement of the tendons beneath his skin, and I allowed myself a brief moment of confusion. Why would he be doing this? I don’t understand. Even if I couldn’t comprehend what was happening, his hand still inched closer to my upturned palm. I could almost feel his heat flowing over my fingers when his head fell onto my shoulder. His rough blonde hair tickled my neck and, if I hadn’t seen his hand flexing, I truly would have believed that he had fallen asleep.

I kept my head pinned tightly against the wall and watched his chest rise unsteadily. His attempt to appear asleep was not fooling my detailed gaze. I could see the twitch in his wrist, and the controlled breaths that he exhaled. When his hand fell onto mine, I was unsure of what to do. Stunned and confused, I simply sat there and let his warm palm rest heavily and awkwardly against my own.

He shifted his weight with the rise of his chest and let his hand slide forward to that our fingers were staggered and almost entwined. I couldn’t force myself to move, and I couldn’t relax fully either. It was a state of such severe uncertainty that my mind could not wrap around what was happening… We weren’t together.

As if my body was investigating the situation on its own, I fully opened my eyes and yawned. In the process, I purposely shrugged my shoulders so that Jackson’s head had to lift off of its temporary pillow. He had no grounds to fake a state of sleep anymore, and he realized this, opening his eyes. Deliberately, I lowered my head as if inspecting our clasped hands with confusion and disarray. When I looked back up to meet his eyes, however, he looked away.

The song had finished its drawn out tale, giving Jackson an excuse to turn his attention to selecting a new one. Avoiding my stare, he slipped his bony fingers from mine and ran them over the glass screen. My mind whirled helplessly. I don’t understand. I continued just staring at him without comprehending what had just passed between us, if anything. Sensing that I wasn’t going to let it go, Jackson stood up in a swift movement with his gaze fixed on the music player.

“I have to get ready now, good luck with your performance.” With that, he walked away, and I watched him go, shock still written on my speechless lips.

 

For the rest of the night, I couldn’t forget the seemingly intimate moment that had passed between Jackson and me so quickly. Never had I been the type of person to instigate or approve of any physical relationship without the confirmation of a mental connection first. I did not participate in friends with benefits, and I ran on strict parameters and rules… all of which Jackson had shattered in a few moments. What bothered my restless brain the most, however, was that I was incapable of resisting. I didn’t stop him when I had countless chances to shift away, confront him, or simply ask the questions that rattled around in my nervous brain. Why? The question taunted me as I tossed and turned in my bed. Why did I let him do that to me?

Against the black screen that was my wall, a flash of a memory scattered. I lay buried in a sea of soft grasses, gazing blissfully up at the clouds as people flashed by, all running and screaming in their bathing suits, zooming from one attraction to the next. My hand lay at my side, entwined in Mathew’s familiar, strong grasp. He gazed over my slim body shamelessly, causing me to blush. Naturally, I turned my head away and breathed in the deep musky scent of the grass. Before my cheeks could cool, however, those forceful hands tilted my face back.

Mathew looked at me and almost through me. It was like he wasn’t seeing me at all. Then, he pulled my mouth towards his. The gentleness to his kiss was gone, replaced by a rough and urgent edge that startled me. He pushed his wet tongue against my lips and I leaned backward. I could feel the eyes of the public on me. Not here, not now.

I managed to breathe the few syllables, “No, stop.”  Shakily, I moved my head to return to the safety of the grass. Before I could feel the blades tickling my face, however, the grip tightened on my cheek. I could not physically withstand his strength.

“Hey,” was all he had time to say before our mouths met again and his weight kept me helpless. I resisted for a moment, trying to absorb and deflect the force of his hard lips. But, my willpower only lasted for a millisecond before I stopped fighting. I relaxed my body against his grip and let him have his way. I gave in.

 

Angrily, I rolled over to face away from the wall. How could I always allow myself to be so powerless… so victimized? It’s your own fault. You let them. You always let people have their way with you… but when will it stop? When you’re laying on the floor, blood streaming into your eyes? When you have bruises from their fists and scars from your own guilt and anger? When will it stop?

My mind screamed at me and taunted me. But, it spoke the truth. When would I stop letting people go against my will and when would I start looking for answers when I had a right to them?  I picked up my phone. Under contacts, I found Jackson’s name and quickly texted the message: Jackson, what was that all about?

I stared at the screen on the phone, waiting for a response, for an answer. When the screen went black after a few seconds, though, I stared up at the ceiling. The image of his body sliding closer to mine, his hand inching its way into my palm kept replaying over and over again. Every time, I got an unsettling feeling that gave me Goosebumps and sent my mind reeling.

I rolled over and checked my phone again: still no response. I was agitated, restless, confused, and sleep deprived. I couldn’t think, and I wanted to cry. Hopelessly, I held my head in my hands and tangled my fingers in the roots of my hair. To calm myself, I focused on breathing until I formed a steady rhythm of deep breaths that flowed deeply in and out of my weak lungs.

The light flashed through my room as the phone vibrated in my ear. I flung it open in the same motion that picked up the device. The words on the screen did not ease my tension: I am not sure exactly.

I stared vacantly at the screen. What the hell does that mean? His indirect words flustered me, confused me, and even angered me. It wasn’t fair.

Decidedly, before I could loose the nerve, I sent back an accurate and direct summary of my grievances. I wish you wouldn’t do that again.

The short and less than apologetic response I received said innocently, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know it bothered you.”

I could almost hear him speaking the words and see him avoiding eye contact. Bothered me? It wasn’t exactly that it bothered me… It went against my beliefs for appropriate behavior. I told him this in a fashion: It’s not necessarily that it bothered me… it’s that we aren’t together and I don’t approve of doing that kind of stuff outside of a relationship.

The response “Oh, ok,” was not exactly what I was looking for, but it was all Jackson would give me. Certainly, my mind was not eased. I still did not understand where we stood, how he felt, or what he wanted"let alone my own opinion of the situation.

My mind felt as if it would burst from all of the questions and thought screaming, answerless inside my skull. To smother my restless brain, I buried my head in the pillow and prayed for sleep to overcome me. Eventually, the words and images rattling in my thoughts gave way to the black abyss of a dream world.

 

z z z z z z z z z z

 

I was screaming at the wall, my voice straining and cracking with its violent wails. My fists slammed uselessly against the sheetrock, and my voice just rebounded into my own ears to rattle around in my skull for eternity. The white menace would not fight back. It would not comfort me, consol me, or shelter me. It withstood my taunts and questions with no casualties.

Why? I screamed through clenched teeth that pressured my jaw like a wrench on bent iron. Why, after all I had done so selflessly, after the nights I spent reassuring people, caring, loosing sleep, mending things that I didn’t have any obligation to touch, why did I deserve to feel so helpless… so used and abandoned… so frail and torn and forgotten?

My gasping lungs let out a violent shriek that was wordless but meaningful against the silence of the empty house. The tears, matching the fits of moaning flailing from my body, cascaded unchecked over the entire surface of my face. They fell so heavily, so angrily, that my vision was reduced to a swaying watercolor picture of white, black and grey.

I couldn’t see anything clearly, but that didn’t much matter. What did matter was the pain. What really truly made my voice quake and my tears explode from my grey eyes was that unbearable throbbing inside my skull, the ring of a thousand voices all screaming insults, questions, and none providing answers. Like echoes in a cave, all I could hear was my own voice, delayed and distant. All I could sense were the reverberations that the pitch sent cascading like an avalanche along the expanse of my room. All I felt were the tears.

Why did it hurt so much, and not at all? I hated that the anguish of my mind was so unbearable. I would give anything to replace those echoes with real pain, the kind of pain that has a legitimate reason to cry and scream… And then I remembered…

His forearm… that long brutal scab that trailed over the skin…

I looked down at my own arm, and the soft paleness that was unscathed. If only I could feel it… If only I didn’t have to keep it inside…

I stumbled to the dank hallway where the light created pools of sun in my sea vision. Trapped by the demons of my mind, the effort to find the tile bathroom was delayed and clumsy, but I found my confused way, nonetheless. In the glow of the shower, it rested: that little yellow razor. It beckoned to me, and added to the racket within my internal divide.

Obeying the calls of my tormentor, I curled my fingers around the metallic blade, running my fingertip across the edge to test it. Beads of crimson blood welled up in dots the instant after the blade had kissed the skin. In a demented way, the slight sting was like ecstasy. The blood reminded me that I was alive, and that I could control the fate of my own body. I was not a victim to my laborious mind.

Sitting on the ledge of the shower, I pried at the plastic casing. My fingers sought greedily to tear open the razor carcass and behold one silver rib from the shimmering chest. With a snap, it shattered in my palm, flecks of yellow scattering through my vision until all I could see was that blade… that hideous, biting piece of metal.

The grinning jaw of the broken razor blade was menacing against the pale snow of my soft skin. The images were so different, but poetic in their fateful encounter. It made my mind smile in an unruly manner that felt dirty and evil. I could almost feel the freedom in my veins.

With one hand, I slowly pushed up the sleeve of my soft black shirt, exposing the gentle slope of my inner arm. The skin sparkled, challenging me to mark it. Like a possessed doll, I obeyed.

The sliver danced over my skin in a jagged line but I could barely feel the gnawing teeth until the little speckles of blood surfaced. They created constellations on my flesh, little disconnected arrangements of life that stung. The blade retraced the path, and every time, I watched the crimson tears that followed closely behind. They replaced the salty rivers flowing from my eyes. Instead of streams of water, my body now expended little brooks of red that, like a wandering creek, cascaded over the curves of my forearm and dripped onto the tile floor. All I could feel was the sting of the blade. All I could see was blood.

 

When my dream shattered into the room around me, I could feel my fingers squeezing the tender width of my left arm so tightly that I could a bruise was forming beneath the surface. Reacting naturally, I released the tension in my hand and rubbed the area softly. It still ached, despite my efforts.

In front of my face, my phone was still resting. I didn’t want to talk to Jackson again, but my nightmares made me believe that sleep was going to be nearly impossible. The worst part remained that I had, in reality, only been asleep for an hour or two. It was barely past 11:30 and the whole night lay ahead of me. If I had to face those few hours alone, I was sure that I would lose my mind. Decidedly, I needed someone to talk to me. I wanted someone there.

I opened the phone and scrolled through the contact list wistfully. All of my friends’ names passed, one by one: Austin. He would most likely just make fun of me… if he answered a text at all. Audrey. Even though she was a natural sweetheart and easy to talk to, she had no idea what was going on in my life and I had no desire to alter that fact. Robert. I loved him and his quiet, subdued, individuality, but I did not need an analysis on my life situation, I just needed someone to take my mind off of it. I paused at Erin momentarily. She was a sweetheart, easily understanding, supportive and uplifting. The only downside was that she told her parents everything, and she went to bed long before I did. Maxwell was another option. Max knew everything about me and had been there for me through thick and thin in the preceding years, yet I felt unreasonable asking him for more support after he had given me all a person could offer and I broke his heart in return. Patrick wasn’t really even an option; he was a package deal with Erin: What he knew, she knew. Then I came to Stefan. It felt right to click on his name for some reason.

Hey, can you tell me some jokes or something? It wasn’t my best introduction to a conversation, but it was all I could come up with at the moment. I knew for certain that I needed a laugh.

When I seriously began to doubt that Stefan was even awake, the phone vibrated obnoxiously on my stomach.

Ok, so there’s a bear chasin a rabbit in the woods. They trip over a lamp, a genie pops out and says “You both get three wishes”, the bear goes first. He says, “I wish all of the bears in the forest were girl bears.” His wish comes true. The bunny says, “I wish for a scooter” and he gets a scooter. Then the bear says, “I wish all of the bears in the state were girls”, the bunny says “I want a helmet for my scooter,” and both wishes came true. Then the bear says “I wish all of the bears in the world were girls”. The bunny puts on his helmet, gets on his scooter and right before he rides off says, “I wish the bear was gay”.

I couldn’t help but smile. He always had random, stupid jokes like that, but it meant so much more this time. He didn’t even interrogate me as to why I made such a request. It was like he could tell what I needed.

Ha. That’s cute. I really wished that I could have come up with more to say than that but it just wasn’t coming to me.

Yeah. Hey, how do you entertain a blonde?

I had heard that one before, but I decided to just let him have the punch line. Idk. How?

I could almost hear his childish side saying back in a giggle: You put her in a circular room and tell her to find the corner.

Even though I knew the joke, I couldn’t help smiling. Perhaps it was just the fact that Stefan was doing all of this just to make me feel better, even if he didn’t know what was going on.

You know, I don’t appreciate the blonde jokes. I was being sarcastic in a sense since I hated when people said I was blonde. I. Was. Not. Blonde. Apparently, though, he took it literally.

Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it.

That response made me laugh even more. He apologized for everything, all of the time, even when it was not close to being his fault… or anyone else’s for that matter.

I was kidding. I told him simply and I knew instantly that he would send back the message: Oh, I knew that.

Thank you. I wrote, speaking my mind. It means a lot to me. As if that wasn’t the understatement of the century…

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I could feel my heartbeat steadily pulsating and my lungs in taking air at a steady rate once again. I felt almost normal. Almost.

Of course. I just want you to be happy. In that instant, I was happy.

It was the simplest thing… but it held so much more meaning.

 

z z z z z z z z z z

 

The beginning of Sunday was a blur. The entire morning, as I lay in bed, I couldn’t stop thinking about the band competition, Jackson’s hand wiggling into mine, and my late night conversation with Stefan. Unfortunately, the memories ran into an unrecognizable blur that forced my nerves to stand on edge at every possible second. I didn’t know if I wanted to see Jackson but I realized that, inevitably, I would run into him before band class on Monday. Why I was so nervous about seeing him again was beyond me; he had implied that what happened was an accident and an impulse, nothing more. Additionally, I didn’t understand why I kept thinking about the conversation with Stefan; they were just jokes… and pretty stupid ones at that. Then, to top it all off, my nightmares had stolen yet another beautiful night of sleep from me. I was, all in all, a disaster.

I rolled over, like usual, on my bed when the sound of my phone buzzing claimed my attention. The light flashed in black letters: Erin Fleming. I barely had time to smile before it buzzed again with Stefan’s name, too. Laughing a bit at the timing, I flipped open the phone to be met with a wave of rustling music from the former.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday dear” followed by a brief pause, “happy birthday to you…”

I smiled and laughed at myself. I had totally forgotten that it was my birthday. February 14^th, Valentines day.  I knew immediately that Stefan’s message would say the same thing, but I opened it anyway. I couldn’t help loving my friends despite my gloomy disposition. I must have been the only person on the planet with friends who remembered my birthday, even when I did not.

I suppose that forgetting my birthday, however, was not a complete accident. Like so many other things in my life, I chose not to remember. After all, what’s one more year on the planet when you felt like I had for so long? It was oxymoron to celebrate the day when it just marked another year in my life that I had accomplished nothing, lost everything, and felt very little. And then there was the part where it was Valentines Day: the day of love. Whatever God decided that it would be funny to mark my life with the holiday of cupid was either sadistic or had one hell of a sense of humor.

There is no such thing as love... at least not the unconditional brand. I thought to myself as I wiggled my cold toes out of bed. When my feet edged over the old grey carpet, I looked out across my room in a daze. My observations made no sense:

The floor was spotless. There were no papers, no clothing, no shoes, or pens. The closet was tightly shut, not overflowing with jeans, t-shirts, and socks, and the furniture was nowhere to be seen. I had no desk, no shelves"nothing but the bed I lay in. When I scanned the walls, their blank whiteness nearly blinded me. My posters, notes, pictures, and awards we all missing and replaced by blue painters tape along the edges of the walls. I could not comprehend what was going on.

Confused, I stood warily on my feet, hobbled over to and out the light wood door where I found my shelves and desk pilled in the hallway with my various other belongings, and skidded down the stair case. “Mom, Dad!” I called out simultaneously. When there was no immediate response, I called out for them again.

Finally, I heard an echo across the wood floor down below. “We’re out here!”

Grumpily, I bounded down the last few stairs and flung myself into the room with the voices. “Wh…” Before I could get out a full word, they shouted together the all too common phrase, “Happy Birthday!”

My eyes took in the second most surprising sight of that morning. Several square feet of the light flooring was covered in newspapers and three cans of paint were opened and staring at me. Their bright colors danced in my uncomprehending eyes, creating a whirlpool of red, yellow and orange. My mom held a mixing stick in her stained fist with her smile slowly becoming a little strained. When I ceased to respond, my dad tried to clarify, “We’re going to paint your room. We got the colors you wanted…”

The moved furniture, the painters tape, the blank walls. It all made sense and I couldn’t believe that I didn’t catch on sooner. I pulled my lips into a forced smile.

“Awe, thanks, guys.” I said as convincingly as possible. I don’t think they bought it.

My dad looked tentatively at my mother, who shrugged in return. “You can start whenever you are ready. We mixed everything up and got all the tape down…”

I smiled slightly again. “Okay, thanks.” I tapped my thighs with my cold palms a few times rather awkwardly. I really didn’t feel like painting my room all by my lonesome. “Uh, well, I’m just gonna go eat some breakfast first, okay?”

“Sure, honey.” I walked back out of the room without waiting for any other confirmation. Immediately, I felt heavy and unmotivated. Damn depression.

I walked absently into the recesses of the kitchen and stared at the white countertop. Vacantly, I dropped my phone on the tiles and watched it clamber to a halt. The phone was like me, dull with a blackened screen, immobile and scratched. Yet, the color was so full of beauty, and so unique… it was intriguing. I wasn’t.

A sudden impulse made me run my fingers over the shiny surface. As my nails brushed over the dark screen, it flared to life and the sudden pulsation tickled the ends of my nerves. My hand hovered over the familiar text that flashed Stefan’s name. I felt some of the pressure lift from my body as I clicked the center button and read the short message. Hey. Sup?

Without thinking, I typed out: Not much. I guess I’m painting my room today. :/

Usually, I was careful to mask my dreary, unenthusiastic disposition around my friends and family. It didn’t feel right to make them pretend to worry and strain themselves with suddenly caring. I did not want pity. But, with Stefan, I never felt the need to hide it. For some reason, I felt like he could understand.

Awe. I wish I was painting today. I could help if you wanted.

That made me laugh. I’d never met anyone who offered to give up a Sunday afternoon to paint a depressed teenager’s room. Fearing that his offer was a sympathy vote, I promptly stated the obvious: Nah, You don’t need to do that.

Being stubborn, he asked me one question. What if I want to help?

Help? Help with what exactly? There were so many ways to take that one simple question. Was he offering the obvious: to help paint my boorish white expanse of a room? Or, was there a deeper meaning to his words than he wanted me to see?

Well, I don’t see why you’d want to…

It was a statement that was true to my thought process.

Because I like stuff like that. And I like helping people. There was that tricky little word again. He probably was just being upfront, but I couldn’t help thinking that he meant something else… there was something that I was missing, still. It made me curious against my will.

I knew that my parents would be thrilled if I took initiative to have people over anyway, so I welded myself an internal excuse with this knowledge. Well, I guess if you really want to, then I could see if maybe Erin would want to come, too.

Erin had already offered to help me paint if I ever got around to the task, so I knew she’d be wandering up my driveway minutes after I called her up. Looking back on it, maybe she actually knew my parents’ devious plan the entire time.

Cool. When should I be there?

I was never one for setting parameters. I responded with a simple: Whenever.

“Who’s buzzing?” I somehow managed to miss the footsteps as my mom rounded the corner but her voice brought me back to the world.

“Oh, just Stefan.” I looked up briefly. “Oh, um, he wanted to come help paint for some reason, so I told him that he could just come whenever. I was thinking maybe Erin could come, too…”

Just like I expected, my mother’s face lit up a bit. She even smiled, genuinely this time. “Of course. Just make sure they bring painting clothes.”

“Alright,’ I smiled and picked up the phone to dial Erin.

The phone rang obnoxiously in my ear and I waited for the familiar high pitched voice to answer the phone. Instead, the voice to answer the phone was the deep rustic voice of her older brother.

“Hello?” Forrest called into the phone, half laughing.

“Hey, is Erin there?” I asked rather awkwardly. For some reason, his laughter made me feel out of place.

“Sure. Hold on a sec…” I waited while the rustling and static flowed through the telephone lines. In my head I started humming tunes until Erin’s sweet voice rang in my ear.

“Hello?” She asked, laughing like her brother. I suddenly felt sorry that I had missed the joke.

“Hey Erin, its Alyx.” It had been a while since I’d called.

“Oh!” She exclaimed, obviously surprised. “Hi there! What’s up?”

“I know, it’s been awhile, huh?”

The laughter in the background was still tickling my ears. “Yes, yes it has.” She replied matter-of-factly.

“Yeah, I know. So… my parents got paint for my room and Stefan’s going to come over to help, so I wanted to know if maybe you’d join us?” Somehow, my intended statement morphed into a question of sorts.

“Oh my gosh, yes!” She exclaimed to my surprise. “I’d love to. I really need a fun day…”

Since her statement made me feel as if I’d missed something else, I inquired, “Oh, why’s that?”

“Well, you know how Preston and I have been having some issues lately?” Yes… remembered hearing about that… “Well, we finally decided to split up. He thinks it hasn’t affected me, but, believe me, it has.”

“Awe, well, I’m definitely sorry to hear that. Then come on over. I’ll be waiting for you, Dearie.”

“Will do, Will do.”

 

                                   z z z z z z z z z z

 

When Erin showed up, standing on my front porch, I was in my old Jones Soda tee from soccer and some green Nike shorts. I resolved to just pull my hair up in a messy ponytail and clip my golden bangs back with a pin.

I rushed down the stairs and pulled the door open for her. Her skinny frame was dressed in light blue jeans, and a blue and white striped shirt. Her blonde, wavy hair fell messily about her bony shoulders and her pale green eyes were soft against her make-up free face. I swung my arms around her small waist to give her a hug.

“Hey you.” She said in her sweet little voice. “It’s been awhile.”

“I know, I know.” I responded as I released my grip, locking eyes with my best friend. “It’s been too long, and I know I have no excuse…”

She rolled her eyes and interrupted me, “What matters is that I’m here now, right?”

I shrugged, unconvinced. “Sure, Erin.”

Laughing like a little girl, she slapped my stomach as I bent to avoid the blow. “So where’s the paint?” She was always straight to the point.

I took Erin’s tiny, dry hand in mine and pulled her out to the newspaper pile in the living room. Three cans of paint were lined up, their lids back on, but a mess of color dripping over their sides. The new rollers lay untouched in the packaging, too.

“Ooooh.” Erin gasped bending over the orange speckled canister. “I like this one.”

“Me, too.” I said, joining her. “What I’m thinking is that the bottom half of the walls, or there about, will be orange, the tops and ceiling will be yellow, and there will be a strip of red right in the middle.”

Erin looked back at me and said with vibrant intensity, “I like it. So when do we start this little shindig?”

“Um, whenever you’re ready. I don’t really know when Stefan is going to get here.”

“Okie doke. Well, let’s get to it!” I found Erin’s sudden initiative rather odd. Usually, we were the type of people who got into arguments like the vultures in The Jungle Book. We could never fully decide on what to do, or when to do it.

However, I was grateful that someone had the initiative today, so I swiped up one package of rollers and tore it open with my fingers. Pulling one out, I sighed at the soft texture against my skin.

“Feel this!” I exclaimed as I pressed the fluffy roller against Erin’s cheek. “It’s so soft…”

Erin squealed a little bit with her excitement before tearing the roller from my grasp and hugging it tightly to her frame. I laughed a little bit and got myself a new one.

“Alright, girls,” My mom began as she strolled back into the room. “Have you ever painted anything before, Erin?”

Erin looked up innocently before shaking her head, the roller still pressed to her soft cheek.

“Alright,” My mom assembled one of the rollers and pulled out a painting tray. “What color are you going to start with?”

“I’m thinking yellow,” I told her, processing a loud. “because the yellow is going to take the longest since it’s the ceiling and a chunk of each wall.”

Opening the yellow canister, my mom poured the soft pigment into the silver tray. “Okay, so… when you paint, you want to get the roller nice and wet first, like this,” She took the roller and rocked it back and forth in the tray a few times to demonstrate. “Then, when you paint the wall, you want to go up and down and then the opposite way so that you can get all of the angles. Does that make sense?”

Eager to paint, Erin and I simply nodded our heads and seized the painting utensils before heading up the staircase.

The echo of my mother’s voice chased us as we went, “Don’t spill on the carpet!”

I didn’t bother responding.

The floor of my room was already covered in clear plastic and taped along the very base of the walls, courtesy of my dad. The bed frame had also been stripped of my bedding and covered to avoid dripping paint from the ceiling. We set the paint down on opposite sides of the room and stared at each other. Where to start?

After a few minutes of glancing around, we both agreed that staring with the ceiling was the best idea. I wanted to get the hardest part done first. So, we each grabbed a stool and began painting.

After a few minutes, we began to create games with which to entertain ourselves and pass the time. “Hey, do you keep getting a glob from the roller when you turn it too fast?” Erin asked me once.

“Yeah, why?”

“Well, because I’m counting points for every glob that I fix of yours and deducting five for every glob I make. Oh, GLOB!” she shouted and ran her roller over my section. “That minus five for you, plus one for me.”

I sighed. “Fine, then. But I’ll catch your globs soon enough.”

The next half hour consisted of alternating shouts of “GLOB!” and the naming of point values. Pretty soon, the ceiling looked like a solid lemon, but the yellow was so bright that it nearly blinded us. We couldn’t tell where the spots of white were any more.

From the hallway, I heard my phone vibrate on the hard surface of my desk. Thinking that it might be Stefan telling me when he would be arriving, I dropped my roller and ran out to fetch it. However, when I opened it, I was met with a wave of sound.

It took a few minutes to distinguish what the noise was exactly, but when I sorted it out, I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?!” Erin called from inside the lemony room. “What’s so funny?”

“It’s Preston.” I could barely get the words out through my laughter.

“What? What about Preston? He still won’t leave you alone? What a creeper.”

“Haha. Yeah, I know. I figured that after I dumped him, he’d stay away from me, but he literally told me that he was ‘obsessed’. If this doesn’t say obsessed, I don’t know what does…” I turned the volume up, held out the phone, and restarted the message.

There was a fuzzy sounding of piano before a shaky baritone voice chimed in with an elongated choral version of the happy birthday song. Erin immediately started laughing, too.

“Oh my god. You have to be kidding me.” She coughed. “That’s pathetic.”

I just chuckled. “It’s embarrassing, it was it is. I can’t believe I dated him for ten months.”

‘I can’t either.” Erin said, “Patrick and I always made fun of him. I don’t know how you could stand it.”

“I don’t either.” I shook my head. In the back of my mind, a voice chided: You couldn’t.

That was the sad truth. I couldn’t stand him. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, I wanted to wire it shut. Every time he laughed, I wished that there was a mute button for his voice box, and every time he touched me, I could see the message the first time he told me what he did. It was all I could think about when I saw him, those words and the image that came with it: I’m addicted to porn.

“Hey,” Erin shouted at me, “Does Stefan have a purple van?”

“Uh…” I rushed to the window to take a look at the vehicle pulling up my rickety driveway. “I guess so.”

When the van squeaked to a halt, the door swung open and Stefan slipped outside. His golden brown hair was getting longer and it flopped helplessly in random directions. Before closing the door, he briefly paused and said a few brief words to the concealed driver.

From downstairs, I could hear my dad calling for me. Erin and I exchanged a glance and then rushed for the stairs. Nearly falling as I swung around the corner, I missed the last step and paused at the foot of the staircase to regain my balance and composure before opening the door.

He was wearing a loose baby blue shirt that read “Seattle YMCA Marathon” and a pair of old jeans, nothing pretentious. It suited him.

“Hey. Sorry I’m late.” He genuinely looked distressed by the notion.

“Don’t worry about it.” I said, smiling. “You didn’t miss much. Want to see it so far?” I was actually beginning to feel excited about the new paint in my room.

“Sure,” He shrugged.

Nearly running into Erin, who I had forgotten was standing right behind me, I headed back up the stairs. “Don’t mind the furniture all over the hallway; we had nowhere to put it.”

Stefan’s voice resounded behind me, “No worries.”

When we reached the top of the flight and navigated passed the assorted wood obstacles, we entered my empty, brilliant room.

“Nice,” He said enthusiastically. “It’s so bright.”

“I know, “I confirmed. “I guess my parents think that it should help with the depression or something.”

I realized suddenly that I had just created a really awkward atmosphere; I didn’t even know what to say. Unfazed, Stefan selected one of the rollers. “So, how can I help?”

I looked around. There was still one wall that needed to be painted yellow. The rest were completed.

“Well,” I started, “that needs to be done.” I pointed at the white expanse next to him. Without further delay, Stefan began to roll paint over the wall unsystematically. It made me laugh, but I didn’t say anything.

Since there were only two rollers, Erin, Stefan, and I alternated with using them. One person would take a break while the other two painted away.

“You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” Stefan asked in the middle of a long silence. I was sitting on the stool, on break, and turned to watch him. Every time he moved the roller back and forth, the muscles in his arms stood out. It distracted me.

“What’s that?” Erin responded from the corner of the room.

“I’ve always wanted to paint a shirt.” He looked away from the wall and over at Erin. He was so childish in a masculine kind of way.

“Wait… what?” I asked, not really hearing him.

“You know, like… a souvenir kind of deal…?” He shifted his gaze to me.

I raised one of my eyebrows questioningly.

“You’ve never done anything like that?” He asked me.

Erin and I looked at each other before I answered, “Uh, no…”

Then, Erin, being her spontaneous self, dipped a paint brush that had been used for detailing the edges and smeared it down the back of Stefan’s shirt. His shoulder blades pinched together with the touch and his lips contorted into a smile. It must have tickled. Laughing, I rose and snatched the brush from Erin’s fingers and turned Stefan to face me. In the middle of his shirt, I painted a gigantic smiley face that stretched over his broad chest.

When I looked, up, he smiled at me. It was that same smile that felt like an inside joke. What was I missing?

I glanced away again and looked over the walls of my room. The yellow stretched over the tops of all four walls and illuminated the ceiling. From the floor to the strip of blue tape marking the middle of the wall, a rusty orange now rested. It reminded me of a Mexican cantina. The first thought to float through my head was the word tacos.

“I’m kinda hungry,” I mumbled haphazardly.

Erin, like always, was all over that invitation. “Food is good.” She interjected.

I looked at Stefan. “You want something to eat?”

He glanced at me and shrugged his shoulders. “Nah, I’m fine.” He was covered in paint.

“Well, I’m hungry.” Erin insisted as she tugged at my arm. “Let’s go get some food.”

Not caring to resist, I let my best friend tug me out the door and down the stairs. She released me no sooner than we reached the tile kitchen. I opened the fridge and did a quick scan.

“Um…” I studied all of the options, “We have… uh… well… I can make quesadillas… that’s about it.”

“Quesadillas sound good.” Erin was peering over my shoulder. I pulled out the package of uncooked tortillas and a bag of Mexican blend cheese. After setting them on the tile buffet, I opened one of the mahogany drawers and lifted the griddle from its gaping mouth.

Plugging it in, I looked across the countertop at Stefan. “I’m going to make them anyway, do you want one?” I was absolutely convinced that he was hungry. He was, after all, a teenage boy.

I could tell by the light in his eye that I was correct. “Well,” he began, “I guess if you’re gonna make some…”

I smiled to myself. “You’re a dork.” 

I carefully peeled three tortillas off of each other and plopped them down on the searing hot griddle. They immediately began to heat into soft flour circles, so I flipped them over and added cheese. Stefan looked amazed.

“You cook them? That’s sooo cool.” His voice matched that little-kid-dump-truck-toy expression once again.

I smiled briefly. “Yeah. They’re much better this way.”

After ensuring that the cheese was melted, I flopped one of the half circles onto a plate and handed it across the counter to Erin, and the next I served to Stefan. When I scooped the last one onto my plate, I offered, “We can go out in the other room and watch a movie. My mom got me UP for Christmas.”

 “UP?!?!?!” Erin squeaked. “I love that movie.” She pranced around with tortilla in hand, all giddy with excitement.

“I’ve never seen it.” Erin and I looked at Stefan.

“You’re kidding.” We accused in unison but Stefan just shook his head.

“Well then,” Erin began as she tugged Stefan’s arm in the direction of the television, “that settles it.”

Together, the three of us paraded into the hardwood room and collapsed randomly onto the large brown sectional. I gathered together the multitude of remotes and slipped the DVD in the silver media player. Soon, the previews began scrolling across my flat screen. I turned to sit in my self-designated corner of the couch and, surprised, found Stefan sprawled out exactly where I wanted to sit. I put my hands on my hips and glared at him until he noticed me.

“Hey,” He threw his arms up in surrender, “It wasn’t me!”

I giggled a little, trying to stay composed. “You’re in my spot.” My attempt to be menacing dramatically failed. I could tell by the way Stefan tried to hold back a laugh. Despite this, he still slid down a few feet and gave up.

“Thank you,” I sat down again. The movie finally began to play as I made my self comfortable and removed all of the extra pillows from behind my back.

My mind wandered as the little characters of the movie flittered about the screen in vibrant colors. I saw the animation come to life, heard the sound flare around me, but I wasn’t watching, really. I was thinking, reminiscing, composing. I was in such a separate world, one so distant from the earthly one that I hadn’t noticed Stefan’s phone ring, or been aware that he was talking rather loudly on it until he tapped my shoulder.

“I’m really sorry, but my friend just called, and he wants me to go over there, and I’d feel bad leaving..” He was rambling hopelessly.

I did feel a sudden pang of disappointment, but I just piped up, “Nah, don’t worry about it. You didn’t even have to help at all. When do you have to leave?” I turned to Erin.

She checked the screen of her phone briefly. “Probably some time soon.”

Figures. I couldn’t help wondering if she really had somewhere to be, or if she just didn’t want to be stuck alone with me anymore.

Soon enough, the big purple van came rumbling up the gravel to my house and I pulled myself off of the couch to say goodbye. I felt a little rejected that he was leaving so soon and ditching me for another friend, but I didn’t blame him, either. I would have done the same thing if I had to deal with me.

When I stood to give him a hug, he looked at me only briefly before turning around and dashing to the door. “Hold on,” he called backwards, “I have something for you.”

I was stunned. What on earth could he possibly want to give me? I followed him over to the open front door and watched as he bent over the front seat. He glanced back over his shoulder and called for me to close my eyes. With I groan, I did as he asked.

The seconds seem to automatically slow down, like a clock with a dying battery as I waited for him to tell me I could look. I shifted anxiously from foot to foot. Why was I so excited? It’s just another present. I could literally hear his footsteps getting closer until they stopped right in front of my form and a hard, cold surface was pressed against my folded arms. Without waiting for permission, and almost out of a reflex, I looked directly at the gift. After a split second of processing I started to laugh. In that instant, I could not believe that I had been so unreasonably excited and anxious"it was Stephan. What did I honestly expect?

In my outstretched arms, I held a slick cardboard box with a corny picture of a woman curled up on the couch in a blue fuzzy blanket with sleeves. Her smile was as artificial as the product itself. The large fat letters on the box read “SNUGGIE”. Had he really bought me a cheep rip off or a bathrobe? If you were to take a robe and turn it around, push your arms through the sleeves in front of you, you’d have yourself a nice little SNUGGIE. There was no way I’d ever wear it, but it made me laugh nonetheless.

“Put it on! Put it on! I want a picture of this!” Erin demanded obnoxiously.

Alright, getting an embarrassing, and obvious joke of a gift was one thing, but having to take pictures and be blackmailed by it was another thing entirely. There was no way I was putting that on. Everyone in the commercials looked so cheesy with their Barbie smiles and terrible acting skills. It just wasn’t going to happen.

“No.” I rejected lightheartedly, trying to play off my total rejection of actually wearing it. “Not right now.”

Coming to my rescue, Stephan jumped in, “Well, uh, I kinda have to go. My mom’s waiting for me in the van.”

Relieved and grateful, I plodded after him, “Wait!”

Obeying, he stopped in his tracks and I wrapped my arms around his broad body in a warm embrace. “Thank you,’ I said sincerely.

“No problem,” He gently released me and smiled. “Enjoy it, and happy birthday.”

            With that, he turned around and walked out the door, pausing only to wave at the door of the van. I went back to rejoin Erin on the couch, and, yielding to her demand, slid the present onto my body. Watching the rest of the movie, the warm fuzzy blanket created a wave of peasant heat that engulfed me and my mind. Soon enough, I fell into sleep.

 

z z z z z z z z z z

 

            The blackness surrounded me, its fingers caressing my tired body in silky, soothing darkness. I could feel the walls drawing tighter around my body and my lungs rising to the rhythm of the abyss. There was nothing but blackness… nothing but the deep void of sorrow gaping in front of my unseeing eyes… nothing but the room of night and my slowly beating heart, rising chest and tired form. Yet, beneath the placid shadows that danced in my vision, I could sense something else, something hidden"something sinister. In my body emerged a throbbing ache spilling from the center of my chest and racing its way through my splintered veins… I was not alone.

            A new heightened awareness possessed me. My eyes flew about the abyss… searching… searching… for something that could not be seen in the veil of darkness, that, once so protective and placid, now submerged and strangled me. I couldn’t breathe. My lungs could not produce the air and my body panicked as the rise and fall of my chest became detached, jagged, and irregular.

Pain… it pierced my frame; the ever fragile fingers of my ribs compressed, bending under the pressure that weighed them down. Still, my frantic eyes continued searching… searching… and my ears strained to hear but the silence held me down like a leaden weight upon a fragile fragment of paper.

I opened my mouth to cry for help, to plead for my attacker to spare me, to release the fear welling up in my lungs so that, perhaps, I would not drown in the rising waters of my own nightmare. But, as my cold lips parted, there was no air. I willed myself to cry out but only the silence echoed around me, taunting my helpless voice, laughing at me. I could hear the silence cackling, yelling at me, sneering, criticizing, the thousands of silent voices rising like the ocean and crashing around the black walls. The overwhelming floods tossed my body like a possessed doll, but I could not fight, I could not cry, I could not scream. My open mouth flooded with the water of insults, and I choked upon their salty waves.

Helplessly, I clamped my jaws shut against the batteries, my teeth grinding heavily against themselves, my neck straining to rise above the pressure, my eyes pursed angrily to blot out the inescapable darkness… Yet behind my eyelids, the same movie played. My nails dug deeper and deeper into the length of my thigh, clawing their way along the skin, trying to squeeze out the horror bewitching my body… to no avail… and only unleashing more pain.

As the nails drove further into my skin, my eyes squeezed tighter and tighter… the silence got louder and louder, the darkness brighter and brighter. I couldn’t control it, I couldn’t escape it, and I couldn’t fight it… but against my will, I knew that I would survive it. The torment would continue… the battery, the insults, the unendurable pain… but it wouldn’t kill me… even as I begged for the waters to drown me, even as I cried for the weight to shatter my ribs, and willed the silence to rupture my ear drums… it would not happen… I was doomed to agony.

Yet, in the blink of an eye…

 

It stopped. The ocean depths vanished, the silence ceased to scream, and the leaden weight upon my chest dissolved into a pile of ash. Air flooded into my lungs and my chest expanded, throwing me forward onto the cool, hard, blackness of the ground. My body convulsed with my gasps for air until, out of nowhere, the silence was broken.

I held my breath, still painful, unsteady and desperate, inside of my aching lungs. Nothing… just the silence… the ever heavy silence. Relieved, I let the air spill graciously out of my chest once again, the sweet taste of the air breathing life into my soul. The rhythm of my lungs, deep and dark, reverberated through the lightless cavern. Inhale… exhale… inhale… at the top of my breath, the air caught and a deep sound echoed over the momentary soundlessness. I let the air back out slowly, shallowly, quietly… and the deep sound thundered again…

Footsteps… the clank of heavy boots on the cold pattern of cement… they grew closer, lighter, more eager. The ground shook with their weight, and my breath, as I struggled to regulate it, began to tremble. Face down on the cold black floor, I could feel the tears boiling under my skin and the antagonist in my mind demanding a reason for this shameless torment.  Realizing that the blackness would never allow me a glimpse of the approaching form, I closed my eyes and braced for an assault, hot tears already searing my skin.

One resonating thud after another, the footsteps approached my head until, as my body shook silently against the floor, they ceased right next to my ear and silence mingled with the echoes. Cold washed over my body, and I willed myself not to feel… not to hear… not to listen.

Disobediently, the skin of my back shuddered under the unexpected touch of rough skin. I could feel a hand, warm, and heavy, gliding along the smooth indent of my frozen spine, the touch sending shiver along my skin and crawling through my limbs. Involuntarily, I quivered, but I could not move. Frozen in place, my body was isolated from my mind, heavy as lead.

In response, the hand fell heavier against my form, like the weight of an entire entity had been placed there. I convulsed under the pressure until it rolled me awkwardly onto my side. My eyes clamped tightly"praying not to see.

In the distance, I could decipher whispers… daunting, shuffling, and nearly inaudible over the sound of my frightened lungs and staggered heart beats. The sound of a dozen voices sneering, like white noise clamoring on an ancient radio, echoed through the vacancy of my mind. With the heat of the body flowing over my side, I strained to decipher their words…

“Hush…”

The warm hand snaked its way up my back to caress my cheek and the voice breathed deeply, hollowly into my ear. I froze, frightened, blind, and voiceless once again. I wanted to cry, to move, to somehow be free of this violator, this perpetrator who so easily rested against me, touching the cold, worn skin of my face.

The fingers danced over my closed eyelids, the soft slope of my nose, my lips… if only I could move, if only I could see this person… if only I wasn’t so helpless…

The screen behind my eyelids flashed red, brighter… no longer a vacant abyss of black but lightened by something in the outside world. Testing my muscles, I slowly opened my hazy grey eyes.

The light was blinding, brilliant in contrast with the void of colorless black. Stinging from the vibrant whiteness, my eyes shuttered, open and closed, against the light beating down from above. My body collapsed to protect my sight, coiling together in shelter from the whiteness. Rocking back and forth, I held myself, like a suspect in an interrogation, on the still cold, dank floor, tears cascading over my checks, partially out of fear, partially out of pain. And then, I heard it. That voice… that evil, resonating, memory of a love once lost.

“What’s wrong, beautiful?”

I squeezed my eyes tighter. “No.” my whisper felt like a whine floating helplessly over the wind. “You’re not real. You can’t hurt me. You’re not here.” My body rocked harder, desperately, violently.

The rough hand gripped my chin and held it firmly in place. I could feel the breath on my cheek. “Oh, but I am. I’m always here, aren’t I? I’ve never left… and you know why, don’t you?”

“You’re not real. You’re not here…” With every word, my voice got softer and I grew colder, weaker, and more afraid. It was like trying to convince myself that the world itself did not exist… like burying a long forgotten truth.

“Look at me, Alyx. Stop trying to blame me all of the time. You know why I am here. Look at me.”

“You’re… not… not… here…” I gasped, my breath barely surviving in my lungs. Tears broke like the ocean from my eyes but the hand brushed them away disregarding them like dirt on a window frame.

“Look at me.” The voice was stronger, angrier… I couldn’t fight it anymore…

“You know why I am here… you know why I can’t leave…”

My eyes slowly opened, readjusting to the light. The tears made the images stream together as if water had poured across the canvas of my vision.

His face flashed through my mind and with it came the memories. That hair… those eyes… those lips… My eyes flashed shut again.

“Mathew… stop… leave me alone…”

I tried to pull away from his grip but he was too strong, too powerful. “You know why I can’t do that, Alyx. Why is that?”

“No,” I wailed. “Go away, d****t.”

“Why is it, Alyx? Why can’t I leave?”

“I don’t know… please…” I pleaded aimlessly. The grip tightened, pulling my chin upward. Heat flowed over the exposed skin on my neck, and I could hear him breathing. The time seemed endless, nonexistent and frozen at the worst segment of my horror film. The hot flow of his breath stopped right over my lips. I breathed in the sweet scent of sugar and fruit.

“You won’t let me…”

 

z z z z z z z z z z

 

            When I awoke the house smelled heavily of herbs and roasting chicken. The room around me was dark, but the blue soft Snuggie draped around my frame kept the heat flowing through my veins. Shakily, a smile peeled over my lips.

            Behind me, I could hear my mom laboring away in the kitchen and footsteps creaking over the floor toward the couch where I lay huddled in the drapery of soft blue material. I did not particularly feel like eating, and I really didn’t want to talk to anyone. Therefore, I resolved to let my head flop back into the musky brown pillow, close my eyes and resume breathing slowly and deeply. When my dad entered the room, his loud, unmistakable footsteps creaking over the wood floor, he rounded the couch beside my head and roughly shook my shoulder.

            “Alyx Bear, wake up. It’s dinner time, Sweet Pea.”

            Keeping to the pretense, I gave a little bit of a jump and a groan. “I have a stomach ache. I think I’m just going to go to bed.” I mumbled awkwardly. My dad rubbed my shoulder.

            “Okay…” he said reluctantly. “You should really eat something though…”

            “I’ll eat first thing in the morning, Dad… when my tummy feels better.” I rolled off of the couch and gathered the Snuggie about my body.  As I hobbled out towards the door and the stairs, my escape to freedom, I mumbled, “Night, Dad”, and disappeared to my newly painted room.

 

            The racket of my alarming screaming in my ear the next morning was a very rude awakening. The same nightmare that had played over in my head for the past few nights came billowing back through my mind, those last few words resonating in my ears.

            You won’t let me.

            For some reason, that small little statement haunted my entire thought process, almost as controlling as the entire dream itself. Shoving the thoughts from my mind, I rolled over and reached for my phone. When the screen flared to life with its blinding power, the clock read 5:10. Awesome, ten minutes past my shower time again.

            With unusual speed, I flung myself out of bed and scuttled to the shower, following the same pre-school routine that I always did. Shower, dress, teeth, thinking, bus, and survive the high school… no breakfast, and no lunch money in hand. When I stumbled off the school bus and into the droning commons, life resumed its usual chaotic manner. The people swirled around me, talking, laughing, and smiling. I concentrated on the empty solid feeling in my stomach and the escape of collapsing in homeroom.

            To my relief, the bell rang not too long after my groggy arrival, and I thankfully ascended the stairs leading to the language department. With each step, my legs fell heavily against the stairs. I watched my feet plod along, not watching people or conversations around me. Immediately in front of the staircase, I sought my refuge. Room 200D: the Spanish class with Sra. Mackinnick, also my mandatory homeroom for the next three years. Well, only mandatory everyday until I finished the next few weeks of school really. As a junior, I only had to attend Fridays. I was praying for that day to come.

            Pulling open the door, I quietly took my seat in the back corner of the room. It was my own personal refuge in a place where it was very difficult to be alone and undisturbed. Ninety percent of the students in that class drove me absolutely insane. Another nine percent were reasonably tolerable, and the last one percent was composed of the very few people whose company I actually enjoyed. Stephan and Patrick, mainly.

            Sitting alone at my corner with a few minutes to spare before the rest of the crowd clamored in, I opened up my backpack and pulled out a well-worn copy of Memoirs of a Geisha, one of my favorite books of all time. Perhaps the book was so dear to me for its beautiful imagery and passion… but I would place bets on the love stemming from the main character’s abuse and innocence. It is always the nicest people that get screwed over in the end.

            With the soft delicate scent of worn pages lofting through my nostrils, I braced myself for the dive into the world of Sayuri… what I was not bracing for, however was what I received instead. Only a few unsatisfying sentences into my escape, Stephan’s hand thudded down on my desk.

            “Good morning.” He said in his usual upbeat rhythm.

            I was slightly annoyed, but I hid it rather well for my standards. I attempted to smile. “Hi.” I mumbled and turned back to my awaiting text.

            Stephan, being Stephan, didn’t get the hint. “You look tired.”

            Well, gee, thanks. I thought. Isn’t that the type of compliment that every girl just begs to hear every morning? It’s pretty much the biggest unintentional insult a girl can get from a guy, really. You look tired implies: you don’t look rested; which lends itself straight into: you don’t look good today. Awesome start to my morning, dear friend. Just awesome.

            “Uh, thanks?” I mirrored my unthankful internal complaints well.

            Stephan ignored me, though, or at least appeared to do so. “So, I have something for you.” He said"cleaver change of subject really.

            I was confused; he had just given me a present. What could he possibly have now?

“Oh, really?” I inquired quizzically.

“Yeah,” Stephan slung his tiny excuse of a backpack onto the desk in front of me and began weeding through its contents. I felt rather awkward sitting there, gawking like a little girl, so I busied myself with my book once again. There was always something intriguing about the assembly of words on a soft page of a book, something rather comforting really. They all seemed to flow so easily together in a harmony of tales that my mind could soak up with relative ease…

“Ooooh. I found it.” In a swift motion, Stephan’s hand slid a piece of paper in front of me. It was folded into a slightly lopsided square.

I looked up from my book. ‘What is it?” I asked as I picked up the soft white printer paper.

Stephan smiled and backtracked away from my table. “Just read it.” He turned and walked over to his seat across the room and began talking with some kid whose name I never bothered to memorize. I hadn’t even noticed anyone else was there yet.

I shrugged off my sudden unobservant nature and looked back at the paper clasped in my cold hand. Slowly, I unfolded it and glanced at the black ink that was scrawled over the surface. I found myself surprised at the neatness of Stephan’s hand writing. It was an odd thing to notice, really, but I am an odd person, I suppose.

I began to read the little note and I could not help the rather large and contagious smile that flowed effortlessly over my entire face. The note was so random, so unexpected… so simple, yet so meaningful all at the same time. It read:

I know you’ve been feeling down and all under the weather, so I tried writing this for you to help you feel better. I’m not good at rhyming and I’m not good at writing, but I was walking down the street and saw two penguins fighting. I don’t know what they’re fighting for, but then I looked down on the floor. I saw a great big penny, and in its shiny reflection, Michael Jackson stood right behind me. I ran for my life, because I didn’t want him to touch me, so instead I went and hid in a giant chimney. I was stuck and I couldn’t really shimmy, so I looked up and there stood Jimi (Hendrix). Jimi took me on his flying carpet and began to sing a song when I said “Why not burp it?” So we burped “Purple Haze” through a marshmallow maze. I know I sound HELLA stoned, but believe me, I’m  just at home. You might not find this funny, so just call me a dork, and I just want you to know, I just ate a fork. I hope this makes you smile and I just ran a mile. I say everything in jest, and if this don’t work, just think of me in a dress.

            When I finished reading, a smile almost forgotten by my lips had taken hold of my features. I looked up from the paper and glanced across the room at Stephan. He was leaning on the table, head rested on his arm, looking straight back into my eyes. The smile there was so pure and uplifting that something inside of me turned. The feeling was one that perplexed me at the time, and, admittedly, still does. Something so purely innocent and full of good intent can never be captured in even the most elegant sequences of empty words.

 

z z z z z z z z z z

 

            Like always, the week of school passed heavily and generally unremarkably. The same lengthy, boorish routine of classes, study, and sleep engulfed my life. It was like drowning in an endless pool of thought. The problem with it was that the thoughts, they were never organized and focused on all of the subjects that they should have been at the times when thought processing would have been most convenient. No, the rebellious and mischievous demon of my mind would only concentrate on the most insignificant facts and details of my courses, but would analyze to the most obscure and minute corners of my imagination those things which I did not wish to acknowledge.

            I could count calories in the lunches of every single person around me in the cafeteria. I could estimate their weights, their levels of exercise, but for many, I could not recall their names. Most of the people in my classes still, only a month before the end of sophomore year, did not even know that I existed; yet, I watched them from the rescesses of consciousness every single day. It’s remarkably weird to be a part of something as integrated as my high school was, yet never actually feel like even the tiniest fraction of anything.

            Perhaps it is this absence of belonging and contribution that led me astray in the first place. More importantly and pivotal, however, it is probably also what shaped the few, yet momentous events that erupted my life for a brief but seemingly endless stretch of time. If only I knew then how much the next few days would change things…

            I suppose you can imagine this sudden internal switch in my mind like the hour hand on a clock. Sure, it eventually will make a full rotation around the face, but the movement is so subtle and controlled by the internal circuit of screws and cogs that it never appears to budge at all. By itself, that little but essential piece of the clock never would make any progress. Yet, all of those tiny, unseen and miniscule interconnections beneath the surface are what, albeit slowly and tediously, make that full turn for that one little hand.

            For me, this revelation was like that. It was composed of many small little events that overshadowed the obvious and made the little hour hand in my mind slowly plod around in a full circle: 180 degrees of change. Yet, every little movement is initiated by a spark of energy, even if that spark is not what, in the end, finishes the job. For me, that tiny little spark, that domino at the beginning of the chain, was Jackson Anderson.

            Somewhere between my school work and grumbling, I had found time to notice Mr. Popular. In all fairness, this attention began before the point where he had so thoughtlessly decided to hold my hand in the hallway. It reached quite a ways back, really. Back to when I was still dating Preston. In my defense, however, I was dating Preston. That’s reason enough to notice someone that you know won’t be good for you.

            Even so, the memory of that sweet little moment we shared on the night of OMEA ran through my brain like wild fire. Sudden and unexpected attention is a dangerous and contagious flame. He was mysterious, a little out of my league to say the least, but that is what made it so interesting. He was a challenge.

            Every time I talked to him, he acted interested. He followed me around like a little puppy dog trying to gain its footing. Yet, there was something not quite right about the whole thing, and I could feel it deep down inside my soul with nothing more than pure instinct. I could never tell how he really felt.

            All of these thoughts flooded through my mind as the car bumped over the road to hell"also called “counseling”. Whoever named it the damn thing must have never attended a single session, or I’m certain the name would have reflected its satanic nature. Fortunately for me, whenever I went to that sad little facility of rubble, my brain over ran the entire session. I never paid any attention to how I got there, or even what they said to me. Most likely for the reason that the conversation revolved around questions to which my answer would forever be: “I. Don’t. Know.” That and the whole facility smelled like dust bunnies and old women.

            Briefly glancing through the window I watched the buildings of the city flooding by, only noticing how ugly and dirty they all looked. Although there was not a plethora of visible trash lining the streets or sketchy people hanging around, the city always gave me a depressed and rather disappointed feeling. It’s sad to witness the purity and beauty of nature turned poisonous and sour. Although, what did I truly expect the road leading to and from the fiery pit of doom to look like?

            My leash buzzed in my pocket. Yes, leash. Cell phones in my generation were a marvel and a blessing, but also a curse when you felt like avoiding humanity. Nevertheless, I obeyed the tug of my restraint and pulled the scratched and worn phone from the dark recesses of my pocket, expecting to find Stefan’s name smiling at me, instead the world decided to play a fun little joke on me. Hello Jackson Anderson, I was just thinking about you and how terrible you are going to be for me in my current unstable state…

            I couldn’t resist.

            Hey Alyx. :D

            My mind went to mush right there. I might be in the center of the ugliest section of town, just released from the prison of brimstone and interrogation, and I may hate everything about myself, but Jackson Anderson just said my name. Well… typed it.

            Hi Jackson. I was just thinking about you.  If only I was actually functioning enough to create conversation that wasn’t going to set me up for disaster. That would have been a miracle and a half.

            Oh, really?

            At that moment, I had no idea what to say. I settled for a simplistic “Yeah” and prayers to every possible god and goddess that he would just forget I ever said anything.

No such luck.

            Why is that?

            Maybe because I think you’re attractive…? Or, wait, it might have something to do with the fact that you held my hand and then never mentioned it again… No, perhaps I really just like screwing myself over. I had every intention of just avoiding the subject with a simple, “Oh, no reason” but is that ever what happens? Of course not.

            Just a little confused I guess… Oh, way to go, brain. Sometimes, I really just wish that my brain, hands and mouth had the inability to function under stress. When most people have the good sense to walk away from uncomfortable situations, it would appear that I am programmed to fall into them face first and drown.

            About what? Jackson, Jackson, Jackson. You always did love to play the innocent and clueless little creature, didn’t you?

            I don’t know… how you feel about me, I guess.

            Ever since Mathew, there was not a single guy on the planet that did not confuse me by the way he interacted with me. However, Jackson was definitely the worst. What kind of guy actually makes one move and then never makes another? I guess I’d have to learn that lesson the hard way.

            What do you mean? That was Jackson’s favorite question. Wasn’t there only one obvious explanation for my statement and why was he overlooking it? Dear World: Why can’t men ever just be straightforward? I would much rather hear the words “You are ugly and smell like cheese” than be dragged along on a useless chain of avoidances.

            I just don’t understand. I don’t feel like you care about me at all, at least not in the same way I do for you.

            Looking back, I really regret that statement ever coming out of my mouth. Did I even know how I felt? Jackson was a fascination, not a love interest. He was a challenge that I knew I could never win over and that was why he drew me in… What was I doing messing with the rules of the game when I never intended to change them?

            Well, how do you feel about me?

            I thought that I had made my feelings obvious by this point… at least the ones I chose to project. How does someone interpret constant communication and inquiring about feelings as anything less than a deeper interest?

            Let’s see Jackson how do I feel about you?

            I like you a lot, Jackson. I don’t know how else to explain it. I care about you and I always want to talk to you. You make me feel better. (Wait… what was I thinking…?)

            I suppose I hoped that this response was going to get me somewhere, but I should have known that Jackson wasn’t the brightest bulb around.

            And you don’t think I care about you like that?

            I felt like hitting something. If I thought that you did, would we really be having this conversation? I settled for the simplistic one word failsafe: No.

            The way Jackson made me feel was so complicated, so uncertain. Part of me was fascinated by him and his charm, but the other half was utterly annoyed by his shortcomings. Sure, Jackson was attractive, he was cute in that older boy kind of way and his personality was so solid that it felt like it could fill you up. He was one of those young men with a stream of girls behind him because of his charisma. But there was nothing underneath that surface. He was a toy for attraction, not an intellectual, or a problem solver. He was not a natural supporter or provider, but he was nevertheless a constant addiction. Why is it that girls are drawn to the most frustrating types of the male species?

            It took Jackson nearly a half hour to respond. In those thirty minutes my mind waged war with itself on whether or not I should walk away, delete him from my phone, and spare myself the poison I knew I was drinking, or text him back and demand an answer. In the battle between the two halves of me, no ground could be gained or lost. The draw resulted in a completely silent and empty shell of my being. And then, he responded and the battlefield completely blew up for both sides.

            Alyx, I wish you could see how I feel about you. I care about you and I like you more that you realize. I just can’t help fighting myself because I’m going to college in a few months and I don’t ever want to lose you.

            Perhaps those last few words took a deeper rooting in my soul than they had any right to claim. None the less, they resonated in my brain like a chorus of bird in the spring morning air and sent shivers up and down my spine.

            I stared at my phone, not knowing how to answer. He still hadn’t given me clarity… at least not really. It was a vague depiction of feelings. But I didn’t know how deep those feelings went.

            Yeah, lose my as a friend. But that’s not what I meant, Jackson.

            I wished deep in my heart for something to happen, but I had no idea what exactly I was hoping for in the long run. Perhaps the best term was simply ‘happiness’ and I hoped that Jackson would be the road to reaching it.

            Neither did I.

            My mind literally heard the sound of a record being scratched…. Paused and rewound. My next text completely summarized my thought process.

            Wait… What?

 

z z z z z z z z z z

 

            The conversation that ensued after Jackson’s first open admittance of feelings for me beyond friendship became an utter blur. It was like consuming a drug that takes over your entire system and blocks the following memories. Or like a really long dream that becomes myth when your eyelids finally reopen to the dullness of the real morning light. The only difference between the two was that I could recall the gist of the conversation and I could not pretend that it never happened. Everything felt utterly strange from that point forward.

            For the most part, the only true revelation was Jackson’s declaration that he did, in fact, like me in the same beyond-friends fashion that I assumed I felt for him. However, beyond this, nothing was well established. After all, I had just received unexpected news that I had no idea what to make of and did not want to push my luck. He liked me and that was good enough… for the moment.

            However, for someone like myself with an impeccable habit of needing solidity, it became inevitable that I should try to make things edge forward. In the preceding three and a half years, the longest I had been out of a relationship for was possibly three moths. Inside of me, there was an unceasing passion for relationships and need to have the illusion, for it was always a mere illusion, of love. Ultimately, perhaps, this is what pushed me toward Jackson… what drew me to him with such unyielding persistence. Or maybe it was something else entirely…

            So what do we do now? I couldn’t stop myself from asking the question that lingered silently on my lips and, I hoped, on his as well. I couldn’t force myself to confront him about it…about the prospect of us… in person, for I knew I’d never be able to stare into his eyes and face possible rejection. So, like the cowardly lion residing in my soul, I hid, once again, behind the flicking screen of my cell phone.

            I’m not sure. What do you want? The question seemed so harmless and so sweet at the same time… but not entirely wholesome for some reason that I couldn’t understand at the time. After all, it wasn’t just about me anymore. The notion filled me with nervousness.

            Well, I’m pretty sure you know what I want. It’s a matter of you. As I clicked out the message, my emotions were so blurred and confused that I could not tell whether I wanted to smile or cry, let alone why I was feeling these reactions. To steady myself, I rolled over on my small bed and let the dusky evening light fall over my shoulder blades. With my face buried in the softness of the pillows, I breathed deeply and heavily. It was a Sunday night and school loomed ahead of my on that always dominant horizon. All I could feel was the absence of warmth and the emptiness of my indecision and uncertainty.

            I’m pretty sure that I’d like to be with you. I’m really tired of basing things off of what other people say and I want this to be a decision just between us.

            Oh, Jackson, if only you understood. There were so many things that I wanted to say but knew I never would. This decision would never be between us. It would be between me, my conscience and my pessimism; and when we had reached a conclusion, the verdict would fall to us. However, in that whole wonderful explanation, there were only two words that really mattered, and until revised, they would never pass my internal jury to even get to him. Those two bastardly little words:

            Pretty sure? I asked. Maybe you should take some time to make sure this is really what you want then. I really need a definite answer.

            All rise… the jury is in now session.

            Ok. How about you give me until the end of the week, then?

            A week sounded like just about enough time for me to process the real reasons for the criminal proceedings flustering in my head, and just enough time to reassure myself that they didn’t matter. After all, this was Jackson. The one guy that I was absolutely certain I would never have a chance to be with in any universe or time period. All I could do was agree, and like that, the sun went down on my life and the week began…

 

 

z z z z z z z z z z

 

            “So how do you feel today?”

            The smell of old women and dust mites attacked my nostrils. That in and of itself was enough to make me feel angry and sick. I glanced only at the floor, examining the ugly textures of the grey carpet like nothing in the world could have been more interesting. The floor probably had never been washed in years.

            I glanced upward to where she sat facing me: that hideously overweight woman with dark glasses and pebbly eyes. I never knew her name and I never cared to learn it. The fact that she had one didn’t much matter to me. What did was the fact that I was forced to sit in her office like a child, facing the dollhouse for poor confused little boys and girls who had real problems to worry about. Sometimes I wished that my parents had been awful to me so that someone would understand why I felt as lowly as I did.

            My neglect to answer was followed by more useless comments. “You look sad today.”

            I looked at her with annoyance. “Yes.” Was all I said, although I really wanted to scream and ask her exactly why she thought I was here, then. I didn’t need to be told how I felt. I was the one living with it.

            She looked at me as if I was some sort of puzzle that needed to be solved. In that one glance, I hated her with every fiber of my being. I was not a gerbil in a little cage to be poked and prodded and studied.

            I could hear her air respiration squeaking out from her crushed lungs. I wanted to tell her that her fatness distressed me and that her questions made me angry. I wanted to tell her to go to hell… I wanted to say a lot of things. But, I didn’t. I just sat there, like an animal being studied by children passing the zoo of my life.

            “Why don’t we talk about your family first, so I can get to know you?” That analytical glare intensified, and so did my hatred of her.

            “Ok.” I bit my lip and tired to keep the vile words from spilling out of my mouth.

            “Tell me a little bit about them. Are your parents married?”

            “Yeah, they have been for my whole life.” I looked out the window, but there was nothing to see; nothing but the vacancy of the sky that mirrored my mind.

            “Good. Alright, what about brothers and sisters?”

            “I have one sister. She’s a year older than me. And my mom was married before, so I have one half-sister and one half-brother. They’re both married. My half-sister has two kids.”

            “What is your sister like? The one that lives with you?” I could not see how any of this was relevant.

            “She’s a Straight-A student, takes AP classes, top of the line.” I felt detached. I wanted to leave. 

            “What about you? How do you do in school?”

            Now, I hated her. “About the same. I have a 4.0.” If I had come there to talk about school, I would have stated that fact. But her questions were so off base, so out of tune with my mind set…I knew then that she wouldn’t understand.

            “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Images of Preston, porn, razors, and rain flashed into my head.

            “No.” I almost laughed.

            “When was the last time you had one?”

            Why is this any of your business?

Pasadena, Jackson, blood, and roses…

            “Late January… about a month ago.”

            She knew that she had hit something here, although I was sure that I had not even winced. “Any particular reason that it didn’t work?”

            I looked her square in the eyes for the first time and felt my absolute fury flow into those dark tiny eyes. “He was addicted to porn.”

            She looked at me with an impossibly intense glare. If I could have willed her to explode, it would have happened in that instant.

            “So are you looking for another relationship?” I stared at her. Her she was, sitting across from me, analyzing my life and pretending to be my best friend. I had just met her about thirty minutes ago.

            Like ice, I put forth one word: “No.”

            “So, are you still interested in men…?”

            So now I’m a lesbian?

“Yes, I’m definitely straight. I just don’t want a relationship anymore.”

“Do guys frequently like you?” I’m sure a larger percent liked me than liked her, but I wasn’t going to say that.

“I guess, maybe. I don’t know.” I looked out the window again. Washington’s grey whether illuminated the room with a tint or dank depression. Everything was grey and colorless" everything except the children’s doll house. Ah… sweet innocence of childhood.

“Do you do this so that men won’t be attracted to you?”

Excuse me? What kind of woman wants to make herself unattractive and what does that statement say about me? F**k you, lady. F**k you and your degree in psychology. You don’t know me or anything about me.

All I said was “No.”

 

 

z z z z z z z z z z

 

            As I walked into school on that Monday morning, I didn’t know what to expect. I was nervous about seeing Jackson, but at the same time, I was excited. It was the first time I entered that building feeling semi-decent in my entire high school career. Despite the fact that the winds outside were harshly nipping away at my skin, I dragged myself up the steep concrete steps that led to one of the side entrances to the school. With my arms hugged tightly against my chest, I reached the doors and tugged open the frozen metal entry way.

            Met with the wave of comparatively warm air in the ill-heated school building, I took a deep breath of air and braced myself. I knew that, just down the hallway and around the corner, Jackson would already be sitting with a group of his friends"including his pretty little ex, Katrina. I was certain that I wouldn’t be able to approach him if she was sitting there. I couldn’t. Seeing her gave me a wave of too many conflicting emotions: jealously, admiration, envy and guilt. She was so pretty and perfect, and I felt like, without even knowing her, I had betrayed her.

            My feet continued there monotonous movement onward and down the hallway to the cafeteria. When I reached the corner, I pulled out my phone and tried not to seek his gaze. Instead, I walked up to the table full of band kids that I knew and pretended to be engaged in a very interesting conversation. From once glace around, I could see him sitting just across from the table where I stood. And Katrina sat, as always, by his side. If he noticed me, he didn’t show any signs. Suddenly filled with dejection, my heart sank into the bottom of my stomach and that usual wave of melancholy tugged over my soul. Nothing had changed. Just like nothing ever would change for me.

            Staring at the empty inbox of my cell, I looked over in the direction where the rest of my friends usually stood. After sending one more hopeful glance Jackson’s way, I trudged off in the direction of my normal gathering. After all, we humans are creatures of habit.

            Weaving my way through the sea of people and backpacks, my mind dodged the jury of my head. That morning, the vote had been cast, although not unanimously, in favor of Jackson and the “us” factor. Now, in light of the unchanged neglect I felt, the jury had resigned itself back to the slight favor of fleeing the premises and dropping the case altogether.

            As I approached the circle, I realized that Erin was nowhere to be seen. It was just Patrick, Max and Robert gathered around not really talking or focused on any one thing in particular. They all looked completely absorbed in their own universes and daydreams, I felt rather sorry to interrupt, but I felt like I still needed to reconnect with Erin. So, assuming that despite Patrick and Erin’s recent break up, the two were still on good terms, I asked the former for the whereabouts of my friend.

            Patrick looked up at me dejectedly. “I’m not sure. I think she went upstairs with Denis.”

            Denis… why did that name sound so familiar to me? When Patrick caught the thoughtful look in my eye and his expression changed to one of shame, I immediately remembered. Denis was the “new guy”, the one that Erin had taken fancy to when things with her and Patrick got rocky. I should have guessed that eventually things would have to change between our groups. I just didn’t expect it so soon.

            “Oh,” That was all I could manage to mumble as I turned for the stairs. I felt rather awkward trying to consol Patrick since I had never, not even in the two years he had been dating my best friend, really gotten to know him. So, adhering to the instinct that I always followed, I once again, fled the scene.

            Wandering up the stairs my mind tried to unveil all of the places that Erin could be hiding with this mysterious Denis character. If I was an Erin hiding from my recent ex-boyfriend with my new buddy, where would I be? 

            I didn’t even have a chance to answer my own question. As I rounded the corner, I practically tripped over the foot of someone lounging on one of the benches next to the History Hallway. I looked up from the glittery silver shoe and over those model-like skinny legs, comical Sesame Street T-shirt, and straight into the ever smiley face of Erin McDaniel. She, always unmoved by life’s circumstances, did not look surprised to see me.

            “Hola, chicka.” She smiled at me.

            “Hi there.” I responded and took a chance to glance over at her companion. Denis was tall and lanky, but not exceptionally thin. He had a face that reminded me of a teenager caught smack in the middle of childhood and manhood. He still had those rounded cheeks and a dorky grin. His hair was long, blonde, straight and shaggy. He wasn’t bad, but I definitely thought that Preston had him beat in almost every way. Except for the eyes. Denis had the most piercing ice-blue eyes I had ever seen on a person. They looked deep inside of me and something felt cold within my soul. I broke his gaze and looked back at Erin. “I was looking for you. Preston said he thought you’d be up here.”

            Denis spoke up for the first time and I got to hear his voice. It matched the rounded cheeks and bleach-blond hair. “Ha ha, Preston.”

            I looked at him confused. Had he even met the guy? “What’s funny?”

            Erin smacked him on the shoulder flirtatiously. “He has a thing against Preston because Preston still hasn’t gotten over me.”

            I didn’t blame him. It had only been a few weeks. Breaking off a two year relationship takes some time to adjust to. I didn’t express my thoughts.

            Denis flexed his bony fist. “I should teach him…”

            “Hey,” I cut him off defensively. I might not have been close to Preston, but I certainly knew him better than I did this new guy on the block. “Just relax and give him some time. He’ll come around.”

            Denis looked irritated but he shut up. I turned back to Erin and tried not to care about the piercing blue eyes burning through my temple. “Anyways, I came for some advice.”

            Erin immediately looked excited at the prospect and anxiously urged me on.

            “Well,” I stammered out a little bit. “Did I tell you about Jackson at all?” I felt very strange having this exchange out in the open in a school with nearly three thousand students. It was like announcing your inner secrets to the world. Although, there were so many people that no one truly ever paid any attention to others.

            Erin mused over the name. “Yeah, a little bit I think. That’s the senior, right?”

            “Yeah.” I managed.

            Denis looked over eagerly and I could see that stare from the corner of my eye. It was rather distracting. “Ooohhh. A senior.” He mocked. Erin whacked him again, laughing like a chorus of bells, then stared at me for further information.

            “I forgot where I was going with this…” I mumbled, suddenly very uncomfortable with the notion. With Erin, though, she never needed the words. She always managed to understand. She got up and left Denis alone on the bench with a baffled stare.

            “I’ll be back later,” She called over her shoulder as we began to walk away. Then, talking just to me in a quieter tone she said, “You know, Denis asked me to go to a movie on Saturday, but I’m not sure that I’m ready for a date yet…. I really want to go, though. Just not alone. Maybe you should invite Jackson to come too, and then I can tell you what I think of him. Kind of like a double date, but not?”

            She looked at me eagerly and I immediately smiled. “I think that is a great idea. I’ve been really hesitant with the whole Jackson thing because I don’t know how he’d fit in with you and our friends. This would be perfect.”

            Erin and I smiled at each other and she gave me a quick flighty hug right before the bell rang for class. With a smile on my face, I turned to go to my first prison session, but I felt lighter than I had in awhile. I would ask Jackson to go to the movie with me. That’s what I’d do.

            However, it was Monday and the movie was Saturday. As I was about to discover, a lot can happen over the course of a few days…

 

z z z z z z z z z z

 

            I returned home in the afternoon with that same new life floating inside of me. Jackson liked me, we would probably be together by Friday and we could go to that movie with Erin and Denis on the weekend. For the first time in a very long stretch of life, things seemed to be falling into place in my universe.

When I walked in the door of my house, I felt unusually hungry. I never ate until diner, but just then, I felt good enough about myself to snatch up some crackers and cheese. I dug through the draw of the fridge until I found a small bag of sharp cheddar and hunted for saltines in the vast jungle of the family pantry. When I found them, I retired myself to one of our big fluffy recliners and began to snack away. I pulled out my phone, immersed in the euphoria of cheese, salt and happiness, and summoned up Jackson’s name.

Hiya Was all I clicked out. I clamped the flip phone shut and sat back in my chair, observing the ceiling and all of the minute details in my house. From where I sat, I could see two huge shelves adorned with an assortment of gadgets. The shelves themselves had actually been a part of a computer consul, but my mom found them more attractive split up and used for all of our knick knack items. All of my most memorable childhood pictures were sitting at various angles at the top. They were gazing at me as if begging to be examined and their memories relived.  Many of these thought provoking pictures came from when I was about four years old, back when we had lived in South Dakota on our family farm. The memories of those effortless times for me were very few, but those that survived were dear to my heart. As a gazed at one of these photographic memories, one that showed me dressed in cute red, star-print shorts with a raggedy white t-shirt petting a little goat in a field of grass, I began to remember the smallest details of that long ago life. The things I could recall were so small and vague, but somehow so pivotal in my mind: A thunderstorm eased away by the image of a hand-painted rainbow ceiling,  an ominous black dog standing alone in the vacancy of a field, a kiddy pool filled with water and the rush of cool wetness as my brother dipped me in. I always looked so happy in those pictures…

Beneath the array of photographic memories were various art projects that I had made as a child. From lop-sided clay dishes, to glass painted tide-pools. I was quite the artist as a small child. Even if my creations didn’t look so great to my grown eyes, when I was in elementary school, my projects were the envy of all my peers. I could clearly recall the one day in first grade when we had to do a picture story on a book that we had read. Although I could never recall what the book was or even the full details of the project, they weren’t what was important to me. What mattered was the art. Each student took his or her little booklet home and created their imaginative drawings. Unlike most of the first graders who spent a few minutes on each one, I spent hours perfecting my realistic, for a first-grader, depiction of a whale. When we returned to school, our teacher paired us up and we were instructed to give constructive criticism on each other’s work. My partner, a rather cute young kid really, looked at mine and nearly burst into tears. All he told me was, “Yours is perfect.” Boy how I missed those days.

My gaze shifted from the memorabilia on the shelves to the adjacent window. From the chair, the sunlight cascaded through the glass at the perfect angle, illuminating the shadows of the room with yellow vibrancy. Gazing out the worn glass, I could imagine the past summers where I would play out on that deck in my little bathing suit, rejoicing in the summer heat and basking in the chilly relief provided by our sprinkler systems. Summer was always my favorite time of year when I was younger. The heat, which annoyed most people, was the joy of my life. Frolicking in the grass with the small fuzzy caterpillars and dancing through sprinklers in nothing more than shorts and a swim top made the heat a reminder of boundless freedom and energy more than anything. Looking through that window to my past, I could practically see the purple flowers of our wisteria plant crawling over the arches of our deck, blotting out the sun or raining petals down on my dancing limbs. In all of my childhood memories, the sun was always shining.

I re-centered my gaze on my lap where my phone sat silently perched. No response had flooded its waiting system yet. I opened it, fidgeting, just to be certain. Never had I been a patient individual, and I certainly wasn’t going to become one while anxiously awaiting news on my relationship status.

            Flipping through the absence of texts, I became ever more anxious. The contrast between my vivid childhood happiness and my current state of agitation seemed to weigh on me. Sure, I thought I felt happier than I had in a long time, but if this was the gateway back to that childhood innocence and happiness, why did something still feel so heavily weighted on my chest? The idea of anxiety took hold in my soul like a virus. Suddenly all of my certainty melted away to be replaced by a new wave of self-destructive doubt.

            Why wasn’t he answering me? Would it always be like this? Why didn’t he talk to me this morning? What about Katrina?

            The paranoia took hold of me, just like fear and anxiety always had. I began to feel confused, misplaced, anxious, and unpredictable. The tension in my soul rose and I felt like crying, I wanted to cry. Drowning in an unreasonable rain of complex confusion, I hugged my legs to my chest, tighter and tighter. The feeling of overwhelming chaos always made me feel crazy, as if I was eligible to be carted away by nice men in clean white coats to a room made of clouds for the remainder of my life. Perhaps, it would be safer there.

            Instead of collapsing into an unrecognizable shell of existence, I steadied myself and drew forth my ever-trusty phone once again. After hovering over Jackson’s name for more than a few seconds, I turned instead to the small box of Stefan’s messages. Clicking on a random old message, I didn’t even bother to read it, I replied with an entirely new conversation beginning with my usual: Hey, You there?

            Unlike Jackson where it took unpredictable eons to respond to any text that I sent, Stefan always responded quickly and without fail. Of course. What’s up?

            In my world, what’s up usually meant “what is wrong”, not “what are you doing”. However, this interpretation was entirely my own and usually not how the dialogue was intended in most cases. Either way, my response made sense:

            I just need to talk to someone.

            As if that wasn’t the understatement of the century. Little pools of water were gathering in the bottom of my eyes as I stared at the screen, longing for a response. My eyes immediately wandered to the white plane of the bleak ceiling. I vaguely observed the dimmed lights with little interest only for the sake of holding the tears within my body.

            Sure. You okay?

            When I looked at the response, it immediately became blurry with the haze of water. Fortunately, I had become skilled at the art of reading through tears. I’d like to think it is an acquired skill rather than an unfortunate defect.

            The part of me that was falling to pieces sought refuge in my dear friend. It was so hard for me to let anyone know when something was wrong, when something inside of me felt like tearing my heart out and beating it into oblivion. Maybe the hardest part was knowing that I could never explain myself. I did not know why I felt most of the things I did, only that they were burning to life within my soul. Somehow, though, I felt like Stefan could bring it out of me. Like letting him in on my mind and problems might bring the beast from its eternal hiding. 

No. I’m not okay. It took a lot of fighting inside of me to be able to type those words, to be completely honest with not only myself, but someone close to me as well. Instead of letting the words “I’m fine” stand for “not necessarily okay” in my own personal code, I let Stefan see me in that moment. Me and the black void of my soul.

The concern he felt for me blazed through his simplistic words, no matter what they were. I could feel his emotion on the screen in front of me.

What’s wrong, Aly? I could almost imagine that look in his eye he would have gotten if this conversation had been in person.

With tears in my eyes swelling over the brim for no apparent reason, I tried to come up with an explanation.

Mathew, the other girl, a bottle of pills, razors, blood, Preston, tears, the toothbrush, Jackson, Katrina…fire. The images flashed through my mind like a flip book as it created a moving picture. I cringed and the hot tears slipped over my skin of ice.

I don’t know. I couldn’t do it. I simply could not explain the universe of confusion setting fire to the forest of my mind. It was impossible to describe all of the flames and individual trees, each limb, leaf and stem as it caught ablaze with angry pyromania. I felt myself falling into the heat of the flames, begging to turn to ash. But, he wouldn’t let me go… at least not alone.

            Hey, Aly, you can talk to me. About anything. What’s going on?

            If only I could take a picture of my tormented brain, show him a picture of the chaos and rioting bursting from the interior of my head. Maybe then, he would understand.

            I don’t know. I’m just over reacting. Blame yourself, its fool proof�"or so I used to think.

            Over reacting to what? I should have know that Stefan was smarter than that, he knew me better than most people and I should have foreseen that he would never just let me lay the blame straight on myself.

            I looked up at the lights again, blinking at the now steadily flowing water-works spewing from my faucet eyes. The ceiling swam with the likeness of ripples cascading over the surface of the ocean. If only it was that beautiful when I cried. If only I was that beautiful. 

            My eyes fluttered back down to earth where Stefan sat waiting for a response. Jackson, I guess.  I had mentioned Jackson on more than one occasion to my friend, but I never really elaborated. When Stefan asked me exactly what I was talking about, I told him all about the OMEA incident, Katrina, and the state I was in waiting for Jackson Daniels to make up his mind about dating me.

            That’s why you’re so upset? Over this guy?

            Ouch, Stefan. I was just a teenage girl. Guys were more than just guys and he made it seem so immature of me to be upset. Maybe… maybe he was right.

            I know… it’s stupid… but he means a lot to me.

            When Stefan responded, I realized, however, that this is definitely not what he meant.

            No, I mean… This guy is making you upset? I just want you to be happy Aly. I want you to smile and laugh. But… this senior, he’s just making things worse for you, it seems like.

            For some reason, I felt the need to defend Jackson rather than listen to reason. I did not understand why Stefan had to take my emotional insecurities out on this one guy.

            It’s not his fault, Stefan. I’m just being stupid. No, that was not just my answer to fall back on when I wanted the subject to drop. The fact of the matter is that I truly felt like I was stupid. Not just with Jackson, not just with relationships. Despite my exceptional reputation in school and my straight-A record, I believed with every fiber of my being that I was a stupid and worthless human being.

            Alyx, you are NOT stupid. Why would you even think that?

            I’m sure there was a multitude of reasons for the way I thought about myself. Somewhere between Matthew and the prospect of Jackson, I had come to accept the dullness of my, brain, soul, and mind. At that exact moment, however, I concentrated on one cause only:

            Well, Jackson kind of asked me out… but I told him to take a week to think about it. Now, I don’t know what’s going on.

            Silence filled my world. It was as if the air around me ceased to move, ceased to be. Like even the smallest atoms configuring the furniture beneath me had frozen and nothing was alive with any shifting movement, no matter how slight. Silence was in my world, in my heart, in my lungs.

            Silence, it appeared, had conquered Stefan as well. I’m going to go for a run.

            The statement left me taken aback. Why would he do that to me? Why would one of my vest friends just leave when I desperately needed someone to talk to?

 

            Why was everything in my mind suddenly about me?

 

            I felt disgusted with myself for complaining to him about everything inside of my head and making the whole universe spin about the axel of my problems, my grievances, my world. Letting go of me, concern for him flowed into my breath. On impulse, I felt that something was terribly wrong. Something that I had said flipped Stefan inside out. Something…

            Are you okay? The conversation turned, but my tears had stopped flowing. In the frenzy of concern for that one boy, holding his phone in his rough hands a universe away in cyberspace, the chaos of my mind vanished without a thought.