by Maria Quinn
He looks at the clock and let out a heavy sigh, "break's over. Till next time?"
I froze because I'm so suave. Biting my lip I nod my head since my mouth obviously is broken. He just smiles that damn gorgeous smile he always does, and I watch him walk slowly out the door, I think he knew I was watching. Damnit, when did he get so attractive? Stop it, those are your hormones talking. But seriously, when?
Sitting there, I couldn't help but let those memories of him come whirling back. When I was 6 and jumped off the roof because I thought I could fly, breaking both my legs. I forced him to carry me everywhere for a month straight, and he didn't complain. When I was 8 and tried to poison him for no reason whatsoever, he just laughs it off. When he would fall asleep when my mother worked nights, and I put his finger in the electrical outlet to electrocute him, he would just wake up and tuck me back into bed. I was quite literally a demon. And yet he still bothers with me.
* * *
Does he like crazy? Does he think I’ll add excitement to his life? Why does he bother with me? Oh sure, he has a thing for me or whatever; I don’t buy it. Am I making things more complicated than they need to be? Because I know I’m good at doing that. And that whole scene today; I felt like I got mugged after it happened. I would have felt better if he punched me in the face than asked me out. I just cannot wait to go to bed and dream of being a better me; maybe I’ll have some advice for myself.
I surrender myself to the sweet darkness as I high dive into bed; falling asleep is beyond divine when you wish to escape from reality. I close my eyes and hope for more.
32
I barely step through the school doors before Lea jumps me.
"I can't believe we made it!" Lea vibrates with joy as she wraps her arm around me.
"I know, thought I'd die before I graduate," I say with all seriousness.
"Hey there's still the rest of the day, you never know." She jokes.
"Thank you, very comforting." I throw her arm off me, turning the lock dial on my locker.
Strangely enough, I really did think I would die before this. As a young budding hypochondriac, I believed every single day I was going to die from some parasite or flesh-eating disease. So sure of this, I would write my will and hide it in my room for my parents to find when I did die. But every day to my surprise, I woke up not dead—not that you can wake up dead. I know now its completely irrational, but that feeling remains, like dried up gum in the back of my skull I just can't scrape off.
"Hey Greg!" She shouts, waving to him in the distance.
He pretends not to hear, quickly riding the crowd inside.
"What'd you do?" She accuses me.
"Me?" I blurt out, shocked, "he did the doing, not me!"
What happened? She moreover demands than asks.
“I don't want to talk about it.” I sternly growl, biting my lip at the fresh memory.
She continued to harass me through the day at every opportunity, especially when he didn’t sit with us at lunch. Lea would make a fine interrogator one day, she can get something from anyone with her powers of bristling annoyance, she just grates away at you like a block of cheese until only the rind remains. I fully believe in her ability to annoy the location of a bomb from a terrorist, just as she did the information from me.
Her eyes widen into dinner plates as I recounted our lusty hike. Filled with instant regret, I leave lunch early citing cramps, but she is the real cramp at the moment. Not only did I have an incredibly personal embarrassing moment with Greg, I now have to relive it through Lea—I’ll take a hard pass. I decide to cut class and follow the cat on the ceiling I’ve been hallucinating to my locker and clean it out for the last time ever.
* * *
Last day of a long, tumultuous journey where I learned quadratic equations and not any essential life lessons and I lose my backpack. Lea is going to dismember me when she finds out I lost the hand knit multicolored bag she made me last year—it matched my book cozies she created as well.
“I swear I put it right,” here I say under my breath as I line the rusty blue locker with my hands.
And so it goes the first time I lose my backpack is the last time I need it. In my gut, I feel like it was stolen, but I push my standard paranoid thoughts aside as I finish cleaning out my locker of homework debris and gum wrappers. In my periphery I pretend not to see Greg quickly rush past me and out the doors as the bell rings—he just needs time, it will get better, I hope. How long I will it take though, one can’t just erase feelings, as I know from experience.
Do certain feelings have a half-life? What about facts? Secrets? Curses? Will any of this ever get better? Perhaps things have gotten better, I just haven't realized it yet, maybe I'm too short-sighted. Its It's time to step back and take stock of things, and by things I mean my entire life. Perhaps the answer is already here, I just have to find it.
Cutting the last of my empty classes I head home. At home, I fervently page through my journal to prove things are getting better, that I’m getting better. A tide of relief floods my veins, and I relax somewhat after reading the evidence before me; I have gotten better, incrementally perhaps, but better at controlling myself. Although only if you look at my whole life, not just recently. A pattern does emerge in my entries, wherein my better periods I randomly nosedive into crazy town, but it’s like when you trip really hard and look back to find nothing; I keep tripping myself up ruining my own progress for no reason. I need to keep practicing the zen art of bitchface and emotionlessness and become the opposite of me. Just take the new pills the doctor gave me weeks ago and let it numb me to normalcy. Maybe if I’m normal I will love Greg like normal girls do with hot best friends.
Shutting my journal and throwing it across the room, letting out my last random urge, I struggle with the childproof cap and take my medication.
33
Spring flowers begin to wilt as the weather continues to warm; summer is finally here. Lea celebrates the transition by yarn-bombing the trees in the town square while I watch and make my signature trail mix of chocolate and peanut butter candy pieces on a nearby iron bench.
“You can’t call that trail mix, it’s just candy.” She says flippantly.
“It’s a mix for my trails, hence trail mix.” I shot back.
She rolls her eyes so far back she looks like one of those ghouls without pupils in a horror movie.
“So when do you leave?” I question her sadly knowing the answer.
“Tomorrow morning. But I’ll be back soon, time flies in the summer.” She defends.
“How many colleges are you going visit?”
“Five, and with my grades I need to make a fantastic first impression.” She says as she loops a long cozie around a branch and begins to knit again.
The thought is funny to me as everything she has a passion for she does fantastically and with all her heart. When building a forest bunker to hide from the government as children, she weaved long grass and branches to make a hut equipped with a pink radio and enough canned beans to last us through winter. She even had dug a hole as an outhouse and created a warning system with yarn, trip wires, and jingle bells—if that’s not fantastic I don’t know what is.
A summer breeze rains leaves on the square and turns my wavy hair into knots. “What am I going to do without you? I think Greg hates me, he’s been avoiding me.” I solemnly suggest.
She shrugs her shoulders, “Hang out with my dogs.”
Sighing I lay back on the bench popping chocolates in my mouth while watching townsfolk come and go. Cops enter the diner across the way, James is one of them. We make eye contact briefly before he disappears inside with the others, I quickly look away pretending not to see him. It’s too late, he is grinning at me through the window like a toddler in a candy store. I let out a huff, but then Greg catches my eye, he’s chatting up Mr. Miller like they were old friends.
“I think Greg is in love with Miller.”
“Yeah, he really got attached to him
towards the end of the year.” She leans on her tiptoes to finish the last part of her tree with a bold fascia stripe among the other bright rainbow hues. “I think it’s because, you know, his dad and all.” She trails off.
I did know, although his father was still alive, if you didn’t know better you would assume he died a long time ago. Always jetting off on his business trips, he is a single father who thinks money will fill his absence; Greg basically has lived alone for most of his life while his dad just pays the bills. While he’s definitely not cruel or unloving, he is just not there. Knowing this, I cannot stay mad at him for his avoidance, that’s all he’s ever known, and the one time he tries to find love it shuts him out in the cold once more.
Turning away trying to avoid my thoughts, I then see a familiar face through the back slits of the bench—Robert and his fellow trailer park bunch. If it weren’t for the bench, I would have made awkward eye contact with him as well. Every time I see him he is leering at me like I would a brick of fudge. Thinking back to what happened in the forest leaves me wondering if he wants something from me, the gun perhaps? He has a perpetual look on his face as if someone stole his parking spot. His stone grey shirt is just a hair too tight for him, but just right for any woman looking his way, which are many. That’s something we have in common, a stranger's blatant gaze, although for different reasons. Holding back the urge to charge him and question his leering motives, I slink upright, spilling some chocolate to a few grateful squirrels, and continue watching Lea weave rainbows onto the trees.
34
The first few weeks of summer lurch by dreadfully slow, the mix of wet heat and Lea’s absence stretch the days long and wide. Even work at the diner was at a snail's pace, with people slowly trickling in ordering not much more than a drink full of ice; the heat was getting to them as well. James and his justice squad make regular appearances as well as Greg, but only to chat up Mr. Miller always sitting in that corner booth, drinking coffee no matter how hot the satan heat of summer is. Trying my hardest to avoid serving these familiar faces I take a break and let Joan have them; although I can feel someone’s gaze blistering my back as I leave.
Sitting on the cobbled sidewalk out front sipping water, I watch Robert and his gang loiter in front of the mini-mart as usual. They always seem so purposeful in their milling around, as if they were hired to be there. I resist the impulse to stab myself when he catches me staring; staring is rude, stop it! A barely noticeable grin forms under the cigarette he’s holding to his mouth. I'd like to force feed him those arsenic infused cancer sticks, wait no I wouldn't, that's not me, be normal, normal thoughts only please.
As I hear the usual commotion of bodies getting ready to leave, I quickly skirt the side of the diner so they don't see me; secret agent April, the stealthy ninja successfully avoids another encounter.
“Are you hiding from someone?” James leans his body around the corner glaring at me with amused eyes and a magazine worthy pose.
I quickly disengage my secret agent stance and continue on to stretch out my arms, "no I was just getting in my daily stretches before I head back in." Please buy my excuse.
He lets out a soft laugh while looking down and then back up to me. "See you around."
A man of few words but many good angles I think as he strode away. Oh no, what am I thinking? Stab yourself!
Worse yet Greg saw me staring at him; the look of betrayal on his face abates the sticky heat instantly as I froze. Wanting to go after him, I call out his name about the same time Joan calls me back in from my break. Defeated, I watch him trail down the cobbled street as I re-tie my apron, making my way inside.
35
Slipping into my paint-stained flats and grabbing my journal, I am ready to go on a walk, baby steps before I start hiking again. Needing to do this fast before I change my mind I race out the back door, almost tripping on Pounce once again, and into the woods.
The forest is magical here; it moves with the wind, it sings, and it whispers secrets lost long ago. As the sun fell their shadows became menacing, and the trees themselves seem to become sentient, trying to claw you with their hands, with the low lying branches catching the hem of my black floral dress. Moving quickly, I decide to head for the meadows not far from my favorite forest spot.
Leaves crunch underfoot which is odd as it's not fall. Immediately suspicious, I begin scanning my surroundings and I discover a cluster of dead trees, most likely a fresh kill of fungi or the like, I can smell the fresh rot, with bark falling off in clumps. Just as I’m about to carry on, I heard the crunching of leaves close by; standing still Initiating a second scan, low and behold the wispy apparition from before is here once more.
I shrug in frustration of why my mind is doing this to me; might as well ask. "What?" I snap, throwing up my hands.
A look of horror came over her face as her slender white arms poin behind me while bellowing out an ear piercing echoing scream. Confused, I quickly look behind me. I search for a while and saw nothing, and as I turn back to her, she was gone. Having much to write about, it's a good thing I brought my journal.
A winding red dirt trail eventually leads me to a clearing between the mountains and the forest. The vast acres of wildflowers are edging themselves brown as summer turns up the heat. This place will warm the paperwhite ghost. I know she follows me because she's in my head, we are conjoined.
Flattening a patch of tall grass, I kick off my shoes and plop down while opening my journal, writing about my head ghosts and sketching her portrait.
* * *
I saw the ghost again dammit. Aside from that, I feel like someone is watching me all the time—government most likely—I know this isn't true, but I can't help feeling like it is. Maybe it’s the new medication causing these disturbances, I think they started about the same time. I would like to stop taking them, but I hate to admit it, I think they’re helping. Or maybe it’s like how your tastes buds change every seven years; your brain does too, and you see things differently, or rather for me, I see different things. I think I’ll stick with that, it makes for a better explanation than me just getting worse, not after all the progress I’ve made. And I need to keep making progress otherwise I’ll probably just fall into a deep depression and die. And not to overstate things but with how things are going with Greg and James, work is all I have and I’m definitely going to die alone.
Pausing from my depressing journal entry, I decide just to relax and exist with nature for a while. Taking in a deep breath of fresh floral scented air, I lay back and enjoy the strawberry sky. The atmosphere here is akin to a glass of fine wine, pine vented with notes of wildflowers and a refreshing mountain water finish; I drink it in as if I’ve been dehydrated a hundred years. I watch a group of disturbed birds in upheaval from their resting place ascend to the sky in swirls, finding nearby trees as their new nesting grounds. I wonder what disturbed them, hopefully not a bear, a worried bolt streaks through my insides as I arch myself on my elbows just to make sure.
The very last thing I expected to see is Greg lurching towards me, he slows as he sees me watching. He hides an awkward smile as he says“hey,” sitting down beside me.
“Hey,” I say back trying not to let it be awkward.
“I’m sorry...” he trails off as if wanting to say more but couldn’t form words. He looks distressed as he peers his eyes into mine.
Willing to do anything for him to talk to me again I not only accept his apology but take the blame. “It’s my fault,” I condemn myself, “maybe I did something to lead you on...”
“Don’t do that,” he shook his head, “I took a chance, screwed up, and acted like a jerk, and I’m really, really sorry.” He says, hanging his head.
“It’s okay, it’s not wrong to want more it’s just that, I have a lot to deal with right now and, I don’t know...” I say, almost whispering. I tear my gaze away from the sunset after minutes of silence, “ still friends?” I ask trying not to sound desperate.
“Fami
ly.” He glowingly smiles wrapping an arm around me.
We watch the strawberry sunset until it’s no more and darkness hung like a curtain in the sky. As the bats came out, we decide to head back as this beautiful meadow is coyote territory as well. He walks me home and thankfully doesn't try to kiss me goodnight. I can breathe a little easier now.
36
While Lea is away Greg I began hanging out more and more which made the time go by much faster. I pick wildflowers as we stroll along the railroad tracks in the forest and he took pictures of everything at every angle in existence. We stop to shoot the small pack of deer roaming the tracks up ahead, but the cracking of sticks breaking in the forest sent them running. We look to the source of the noise, but the thicket of foliage is far too dense to discern anything.
"What do you think that was?" He asks glancing back to me.
"I don’t know, but animals always sense danger before humans, maybe we should heed their warning," I say with caution.
"Let’s check it out,’ he begins heading towards the source of the noise.
"This feels like the beginning of a horror movie..." I say shrugging, following him.
"It’s probably just more deer, or a moose!" He says hopefully, holing up his camera at the ready.
"Or it could be a bear," I warn.
"Even better." He says in excitement.
He would do anything for the perfect image. Suddenly we hear something dart off in the opposite direction as if we were the bears. More suspiciously it sounds like it is running on two feet, not four.
We glance at each other questioningly, “maybe a hunter?” He states as more of a question.
