Away From Here_A Young Adult Novel

by Christopher Harlan

  Son, while everyone should love you for who you are, most people won't. They'll find you a little odd, a little too quiet, a little too apt to tell the truth no matter what. But don't worry, life isn't a game of quantity, and for some people, like you, it's about sorting through everyone until you find the handful of people who will actually love you for who you are. That process won't be easy, son, and sometimes it'll just plain suck, but if you know that up front, maybe it'll suck a little less. Good luck, we’ll try to help you whenever we can, but mostly you’ll be on your own.

  By the time I hit high school, I was sick of being who everyone else wanted or needed me to be. I used to think, couldn’t I just, you know, be me? Isn’t that enough? Usually it wasn’t. But sometimes, I realized, you actually do find that person that your parents should have told you existed, the one who’ll love you for who you are, the one who’ll see the real You underneath the You that the rest of the world sees.

  For that person, who you are isn’t just acceptable and it isn’t just good enough, who you are is everything.

  Three

  Where I encounter two potential serial killers, nearly freeze to death while sitting on some rocks, and learn the complexities of the word potato.

  So there I was, a truant, sitting in front of Anna’s place, waiting to take her to some undisclosed location as we skipped school together. We had ended our conversation the previous night around 9:00 p.m. After she texted me the most random text ever, I replied equally randomly with:

  Yeah, absolutely, I love nature. Why?

  To which Annalise texted back:

  There’s a place I know, not too many people, really beautiful. Thought maybe you could pick me up and we’d go. If you wanted to, that is.

  Of course I wanted to go, which I texted back before agreeing to pick her up the following morning when we would normally be going to school. As neighborhoods went, the one Anna and I lived in was weird. Not Stephen King, small town weird - no killer clowns in the drains killing kids or vampires buying up real estate, nothing like that. But it was a place that had changed a lot in a short amount of time, and in many ways it was like two neighborhoods in one. About twenty years before I found myself parked outside of her home, the streets where Anna's house sat were completely undeveloped. My parents told me once that the whole area used to be real live farms. A local politician had made housing low income families his platform for getting elected, and the entire area on the other side of our high school had been transformed from farm land into a neighborhood of cheaply constructed, cookie-cutter row houses where poorer people lived. They’d rezoned the school district not long after the housing development was built, so there was this weird mix at our high school of kids who came from all different backgrounds and social classes.

  The whole situation had caused all the problems you’d imagine happening when low income families sent their kids to the same school as upper middle class families sent theirs. Most of that tension had come and gone by the time I went to pick Annalise up, but I wondered how growing up in that neighborhood had given her a very different life than I had just a few blocks over. Everything was different in that part of town. The houses were smaller, and subdivided among different families, the stores sold cheaper items, and whenever you heard a cop or fire siren vaguely in the distance it was usually headed over there. As I sat in sociological contemplation, she walked out of her house staring at her phone, and as I watched her come towards the car I had two unrelated thoughts:

  Thought 1: She was clearly the most beautiful girl who’d ever lived up to that point in history, hands down, no argument and. . .

  Thought 2: I wondered how the hell she didn’t trip or bump into something as she walked staring at her phone

  She seemed able to navigate the street like a blind person whose other senses have been heightened, like some straight Daredevil shit. As she got closer to the car Thought 2 faded away, and Thought 1 became more and more acute, because her face had me mesmerized, even while she was looking down, and I got lost in the sway of her hair, and in the way she shifted her weight back and forth while wearing her jet black, knee-high boots. I should’ve stopped staring, I was descending into creep mode fast and I didn’t want to freak her out. Not that she would have noticed, she was still staring down at her phone, so I stole a few more seconds before she got in the car.

  Sometimes during the really important moments in my life I experienced what I used to call slow motion moments. They were basically the times where the time in my head and actual time didn’t overlap, when I could have a whole inner dialogue in my messed up mind while in actuality only ten seconds had passed back on Earth. Sounded like science fiction, right, like the lamest Marvel superhero power ever, but it happened all the time for real. One of those moments happened that morning, as I watched Annalise walk towards my car. In what must have taken about fifteen seconds of normal people time I had a slow motion moment. In it my own voice echoed in my mind, and it whispered to her,

  So we’re finally somewhere, together. If you were to look up at me I probably wouldn’t look excited but, like they say, looks can so easily deceive. It’s 6:30 in the morning after all, and this Dunkin Donuts coffee just isn’t doing anything for me, but I didn't need any caffeine to get my heart and mind racing. I don't need anything at all because I'm here with you, and that's everything. I doubted we'd even make it here. How my heart fell into my stomach when I finally answered your email and texts, but here we are. You're the most beautiful girl I've ever seen in my life. I can't just blurt that out the moment I see you, but it's all I can think of as I look at you. It's all I ever think when I look at you... You're so beautiful, and you've chosen to be here with me... I didn't really wake up this morning, because this doesn't happen to me. This doesn't happen at all. I'm asleep and dreaming, and I never want to wake up.

  “Hey,” I said as she finally got in the car, “What’s up?”

  “Potato.”

  “Huh?”

  “Potato,” she repeated in a softer tone than the first time. I was totally confused and she had only been in the car for five seconds.

  “You want a potato?” I asked, not yet being schooled in the ways she used that term. The look on her face didn’t change one bit when I asked, but she was looking right into my eyes, as if to study my reaction. I was thrown off by her eye contact. Her eyes were this deep, magical sort of brown, and they robbed me of my ability to think properly. I continued to stammer, “I mean, I can…get you a potato, if you want a potato. There’s a grocery store…”

  “So let’s go,” she interrupted. I’m not sure what just happened, or if she actually wanted a potato, but I was fully prepared to plant and harvest potatoes if need be. It might have taken a season or so, but I would have gotten it done for her. She grinned, and I started driving, realizing that she was joking.

  Pause the narrative. Hit the brakes. We don’t need a full interlude here but let me tell you all about this word she used. She said potato to confuse me, but sometimes she said it because she didn’t know what else to say. It could be filler, the way some people say ‘umm’ when they need time to process before speaking. Other times it meant that she was happy. Sometimes she said it when she was sad as hell, too. It was confusing; don’t ask me any follow up questions because the truth is I don’t know why she used that word. I don’t know if it was something she did with everyone or just something she did with me, but to this day I can’t hear the word potato without thinking of her. Like I said, complexity. Back to the story. . .

  “So, where am I going?” I asked.

  “Just start driving, I’ll let you know.”

  We started driving to I didn’t know where, and from time to time she gave me a verbal direction (go left, turn right, get in the left lane, the exit’s coming up) and a few times she just did the nonverbal point to a parkway sign I was meant to pay particular attention to. We drove for about fifteen minutes or so, making some small talk along the way, with me wondering j
ust where the hell I was going.

  “That really was amazing yesterday,” she said again.

  “Oh, thanks. Got me in a little trouble, though. And now I’m in double trouble.”

  “Right, ISS.”

  “Yeah, our school’s answer to the prison industrial complex. Have you ever been?”

  “Once,” she said. “It was awful.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “I called my Earth Science teacher a bitch. It was wrong of me, but she kinda was. At least she was with me.”

  “How come?” I asked. “What did she do?”

  “It was more about how she spoke to me. I wasn’t like the other kids. She called me Emo.” I laughed and Anna didn’t know why. “What’s funny?”

  “I got that the other day, too. My homeroom teacher.”

  “These teachers need to come up with some new expressions. It’s like anyone who isn’t happy all the time is some damaged teenager who needs a label. Do they not remember what it was like in high school? Were they walking around with huge Joker grins on their faces all day?”

  “They definitely don’t remember,” I said. “If they did they wouldn’t say things like that. I bet they were pretty Emo themselves. They just have that adult amnesia where they forgot everything that they ever did or felt before they got full time jobs and families.”

  “Adult amnesia, I like that. Do you think that’ll happen to us one day?”

  “I hope not,” I said. “But who knows. I’m sure they never thought it would happen to them either. I guess they just started living in that real world they keep telling us we’re about to move to after high school.”

  “I hate that, too. My life is pretty real.”

  “Same.”

  “Why’d you react so angrily, though? You don’t seem like the guy who just starts fights like that.”

  “Are you saying I’m a wimp?”

  “If I thought that about you I wouldn’t be in the car. From what I can tell you’re anything but. I’m just asking because you seem gentle. You can be tough and gentle at the same time, you know.”

  Tough and gentle. I liked the contrast of that. “Thanks,” I said. “Touchy subject. He hit a nerve with what he said and I just saw red. I don’t like acting like that, however much he may have deserved the beating.”

  “Maybe you’ll tell me more about it when we get where we’re going. It’s a place that almost begs you to talk.”

  I didn’t know what she meant, but about five minutes later I pulled off exit 30 on the parkway we were driving down. “Here?” I asked. She nodded. “Where are we, exactly?”

  “The rocks,” she answered.

  “Oh, okay, sure. Why not,” I said. She smiled.

  I saw a series of parking spots that overlooked the most beautiful body of water. When I pulled into one of the spots I saw the rocks. On the edge of the water sat a few hundred feet of giant stones that fit into one another like a naturally occurring jigsaw puzzle that looked directly onto the sparkling water. “So when you said rocks you meant rocks, huh?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I love this place. It’s my place.”

  Even though it was a beautiful morning, I realized right away that I should have dressed more warmly. I was wearing a long sleeved tee shirt and a thin jacket, but I could still feel the autumn air pretty intensely. As we got out of the car I felt a powerful gust of wind, and the second it hit me I felt the cold get inside of me, but Annalise didn’t seem to notice, so I pretended not to also. We approached the rocks together and I couldn’t help but notice how beautiful she looked in that light, how the sun hit her in just the right way to accentuate everything that was amazing about her face. How did we get here, I asked myself, realizing that it was both a literal and figurative question, and it occurred to me how easily this opportunity could have been missed. What if good-old Mr. A had grouped us differently for his dumb project? What if he didn’t ask us to exchange contact information with each other? A thousand ‘what-if’s’, but who cared, I was there with her, and the what-if’s were irrelevant.

  “It’s really pretty here,” I said as we stood in front of the car. It was pretty early in the day, so most people were either on their way to work or rotting their brains away in a classroom somewhere. We were doing neither. We’d stolen this moment for us, and the rest of the world wasn’t invited.

  “It’s the best. You ready?”

  “Ready for what?”

  “To go out.”

  “Out where?

  She pointed out onto the rocks themselves. “To the rocks. That’s the best part. There’s plenty of room to sit, don’t worry.”

  “Why would I be worried? Let’s do it. You lead the way.” I was so full of shit it was coming out of my ears. I didn’t bother to mention that I was terrified of the water because I never learned how to swim, that it scared me so much that I had to look elsewhere to not have a panic attack right then and there. But I wasn’t about to express any sort of fear. Instead I just followed her, watching her move fluidly from stone to stone in those crazy ass heels she wore. Girl was a gazelle on those rocks, navigating the terrain like someone who knew it well, carefully avoiding the gaps where the rocks met and countless people surely sprained their ankles. To avoid anxiety I kept my eyes fixed on the back of her feet, on the heels of those boots, and moved my feet to mirror her. We walked in lock-step, and every now and again I’d look down into those cracks to see the garbage people left there. “So, you wanna stop here?” I asked, noticing how far we’d gone down the strip.

  “I’m going all the way to the end,” she said without even turning around. The gust of the wind made her declaration almost inaudible. The end, as she put it, was already occupied by two random men dangling fishing poles into the water. I couldn’t see them too clearly, but I knew that I didn’t want to go anywhere near their shady asses, so I attempted to talk her out of it.

  “There are some people down there already, why don’t stop here and talk?” She stopped and turned around.

  “I like people,” she said. “I like talking to new people, let’s keep going and talk to them, what do you think their names are?”

  “Thing is, they’re probably serial killers, and they come here every day waiting for teenaged girls to come hang out and ask their names, at which point they’ll ask if you want to help them fish. You’ll say yes, of course, because you’re friendly, at which point they’ll blindfold you, kidnap you and you’ll end up bound and screaming in their basement.”

  “I will not,” she said causally. “No, they’re nice, I can tell. I think the one on the left is named John. He looks like a John, I’m gonna go ask him.” Paying no attention to my elaborate sarcasm and dark humor, she started to walk towards the serial killers.

  “Seriously, how about here?” I asked, stopping in my tracks and motioning down to the rock below my feet. She turned and faced me, and I could see her studying my face. I really didn’t want to go to the end; people freaked me out in general, and strange fishing men on rocks even more so, particularly if there was a reasonable chance they’d chop us up into pieces.

  “Okay,” she conceded. “Here’s good.” I couldn’t tell if she did that for me, or if she never really intended to befriend the strange men on the rocks to begin with. Regardless, we stopped and sat down. I became more aware of the wind, and how cold it was making me, as it blew from what seemed like every direction at once. I look at Annalise, but she stared off into the distance.

  “Why would you think those guys are killers?”

  “Because it’s not even 8 o’clock in the morning and they’re doing that. Don’t need more evidence than that. It’s practically the beginning of an episode of Law & Order. So do you come here a lot?” I asked. “How did you even find this place?”

  “My sister brought me here one night with her boyfriend. After that I started coming here on my own. Usually when I’m feeling bad late at night.”

  “You come here at night? Are there other pe
ople here?”

  “Yeah, depending on the day, it can either be like it is right now or crawling with kids. Couples, mostly.”

  “I can see that. It seems like a romantic spot.”

  “I just come to get away,” she said. “It helps me clear my mind.”

  “Well it’s good that you have a place like this. Thanks for bringing me here.”

  “You don’t have to thank me, you know. I’m happy to be here with you.” I was a little shocked by her words. I realize now that I had built her up so much in my mind to the point that she’d become mythological. Everything good that happened between us was met by some kind of disbelief on my part at first, like, how the hell could she be happy to be here with me? Sometimes insecurity just screamed in my ear because it got bored. We sat quietly for a minute, just taking in the geography and breathing in the air. I was still freezing, but I kept that to myself a little longer.

  “It’s my turn to ask you something.”

  “Okay,” she said, finally making eye contact.

  “What was with all that dropping out stuff? I mean, I get it, I hate school too, trust me. But we’re in our last year. Why would you even consider that?”

  She paused after I asked that, as though she was choosing just the right words to express herself. And then she spoke, looking me right in the eye. “I’ve just been having some issues at home,” she said, “I kind of mentioned them in the email a little bit.”

  “I know the feeling,” I said. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”

  “No. I told you, this is the place for words. You can say whatever you want here because the wind carries your words and thoughts away, and they float along to a place where they can’t hurt you anymore.”

  “But what if they’re good thoughts?”

  “I’ll let you know,” she said. “I’ve never tried.” Then she started telling me about things that I’m sure she wished the wind would have taken away. She was super open with me that day, even though, at that point the totality of our time together included her witnessing an assault on my part and sitting on some big rocks together. She told me that her mom had been having some psychological problems the last few years and took them out on Annalise on bad days; how her and her sister didn’t really get along, and how the combined stress of all this unwarranted life experience had given her a few issues of her own that she was dealing with. I listened closely to everything she said, and its familiarity wasn’t lost on me at all. At the same time I felt really happy that she chose to share that part of herself with me. We both had sick moms, and we both had responsibilities most teenagers didn’t have to even think about. All of a sudden I felt very close to her, even though she knew none of the specifics of my own home drama.