A Life for Myself

I was lost. Well, I mean, not like, for real, but that strange, misty, dreamy sort of lost. My dream was one of those confusing ones. You know, the kind where you know instictively that you're one place, but your surroundings say you're in another place. I knew I was in Cousins. I could feel it around me; the way the air smelled sweet, like summer, and the feeling of being away, away from everything that just didn't matter at Cousins beach. I could hear Susannah's soft laugh caressing my ears, the sound of the boys arguing over whose turn it was to play the video game, my mother's clear, sharp whistle carrying some rhythmic song to my ears. However, despite the feeling of the beach house all around me, all I could see were massive walls about me. Sturdy, concrete walls that twisted this way and that way usurped my path. I tried to reach the end of this tangled pathway, but everytime I thought I had discovered the exit, I found myself at the beginning once more. All of a sudden, the sounds in my head all went silent. I waited, desperately, for them to come flooding back once more; I didn't want to let go just yet. Then, another sound started, a voice that set my heart to beating wildly. The walls echoed Conrad Fisher's smooth voice all around me, as if daring me to try to find, in this twisted dreamland, the boy whom I had loved practically my whole life.

"Belly," the voice whispered in a hypnotic rhythm. "Come get me, Belly."

I began to run frantically, trying with all my might to find the way out of this cursed maze. The voice continued to harass my ears.

"Stop!" I yelled, pressing my hands forcefully to my ears. "Just, please, shut up!" I begged, urgent tears escaping down my cheeks. My whole body was filled to the brim with a hopeless despair.

The voice only got louder and louder, and I sprinted down the gnarled pathway faster and faster. I felt positive that I was going crazy. Suddenly, an ugly, screeching sound filled my ears. I was thankful, so thankful, for this terrible din that drowned out the haunted cries of the boy I loved. In my dream, I fell to my knees, gasping for breath. In an instant, though, the ground beneath me collapsed, leaving me falling into a dark, deep pit full of gloom and darkness where nobody could hear my screams...

I jerked awake in my bed, gasping for air, sweat beaded on my forehead, my dream utterly forgotten. My alarm clock blared in the background, rapidly beeping, urging me awake.

"Ugh," I groaned, slamming the off button and rubbing my eyes with my hands. "Why the hell do I subject myself to this?"

This happened to be my daily 6 a.m. wake-up that I despised. My shift at the office on-campus started at 7:30. I had applied for the job at the beginning of my senior year, proud of myself for taking the iniative. Now, I wondered why in the world I had thought working at college would be such a wonderful thing. However, as much as I disliked my early mornings, I had to admit that my job as a student-secretary had brought in at least a steady flow of cash; well, more like a steady trickle of cash. Still, it was something. Most of my day consisted of filing and sorting paperwork, setting up appointments for various staff members, and going on frequent coffee runs for said staff members. Not exactly the kind of thing I enjoyed, but, then, who really enjoys their first real job? Besides, I only had a week until graduation. After that, I would be looking for something more permanent, mostly because my mother didn't let her kids freeload off of her. Just ask Steven, my brother.

I hopped in the shower, the feeling of the steaming hot water against my frigid skin causing goosebumps to rise all over me. I had my morning routine down to an exact science. I always did the same thing with my hair and what little make-up I wore, and I usually picked out what I was going to wear the night before, making my mornings so much more efficient. Well, as efficient as anything in my life could be, anyway. I usually watched some TV while I ate a meager breakfast and sucked down a cup of hot tea. I detested coffee, but I didn't mind having something hot to drink in the morning. It's funny. I used to make fun of my mom for drinking all her "gross" organic teas, and now here I sat, desperately trying to make the ascent into consciousness by drinking the self-same tea. It was at times like these that I begrudgingly realized just how much like my mother I was starting to act as I got older.

My drive to work and school took less than fifteen minutes, especially since I rarely ran into any heavy traffic on the highway. I pulled into the college parking lot, displaying my parking pass in the windshield and stepping out of my car. As I trudged toward the main office, I looked around the campus that I had become so familiar with after all these years. The little picnic tables that were nestled under groves of spruce, the fountain in the courtyard with its statue of some historic figure standing proud in the center of the sprays of water, the library where I had spent many a long night cramming with Taylor and Anika, my closest friends. I found it hard to believe that I would be leaving this place for good in a week. So much of my life had happened here. I had really grown up, really matured, become a young lady. I sometimes wondered if Susannah would be proud of the woman I was becoming. I liked to think so. I mean, I wasn't just little Belly anymore. I wasn't that little girl who desperately needed to be included, who sought after attention every chance she got. No, I had, I don't know, found myself, or something; I had become Isabel Conklin. My life had been kind of redefined, for lack of a better word, by college and the experiences it had to offer. I learned how to survive without those I loved being close to me, even though learning that survival had been a long, hard road. Especially after what had happened between me and Jeremiah. That incident had caused me to really take a long look at my life. And it made me realize that for the first time, I needed to become someone other than my summer self. Oh, that girl would always be there on some level. I would never give her up completely. But now, I also had another life. A life that I had created all by myself.

After work, I had a couple of final exams to take. They were nothing serious, so I got them over with quickly. My work load senior year had been blessedly light which gave me plenty of time for other, more important things. Like my social life.

Unlike Taylor, I didn't spend copious amounts of time at parties, flirting and dancing and drinking. I did, however, sometimes enjoy going out with Taylor and Anika; that is, if Anika was in the mood. We'd hit up some club where Taylor would usually find a guy to take home and where Anika and I danced ourselves silly. As a rule, though, I kept these outings to a minimum. It wasn't really even my scene. I mean, sure, I didn't mind having some carefree fun, but I also didn't enjoy having random, drunk guys try to find an excuse to feel me up out on the dance floor, either. So, we typically just met up for dinner at some restaurant, or had a movie night at one of our apartments where we'd binge on rom coms and junk food. I thought my life was pretty great.

This particular night, though, I was alone. Taylor had some sorority gathering, and Anika was on her period, and she preferred to be miserable all by herself. I didn't mind. I needed to get some laundry done anyway. Which I didn't do; I never did. I absolutely hated doing laundry, and I put off doing it for as long as I could possibly scrounge up some sort of outfit to wear.

Instead, I stretched out on my couch, flipping through the channels on TV before finally settling on To Kill A Mockingbird. You know, the movie with Gregory Peck. I had always loved old movies. They seemed to have so much more meaning and depth to them than movies nowadays. It was like, at the end you always felt that deep sense of satisfaction, like you had just solved a really hard riddle that your teacher had given you. Of course, another one of the reasons that I was fond of old movies had to do with the fact that they reminded me of Susannah. She'd had a glorious collection of movies that had been filmed in the 30's, 40's, and 50's. At the summer house, we'd sometimes spend whole days watching movies out of her collection. The boys always hated it when we did that, but it had been one of my favorite things ever. It was Susannah's and my special shared love.

I sighed. Of course, thinking of Susannah led my mind straight to the summer house. And, from there, my mind would wander closer and closer to that place. That area in my mind that I hated and yet sometimes yearned to remember. I could hear his voice so clearly, see that smirky smile that I wanted so badly to kiss away so perfectly. I hadn't heard from Conrad since I'd come home from Spain, since I'd sent my one and only letter to him, actually. A part of me had desired, more than anything, to keep some sort of correspondence going, to keep communication flowing freely between us. Yet, I also knew that I couldn't do that yet. I still needed some time to breathe, to grow, to figure things out. I missed him like crazy, though. Despite the fact that all he'd really done was hurt me and humiliate me, somehow I knew he was, once again, that boy I had fallen in love with once upon a time. Oh, of course he'd changed. We all had changed. But he wasn't shut off from his feelings anymore. He knew what it meant to love, and he knew how to cherish love in a deeper way since his mom's death. His letters to me told me that.

As I changed into my most comfortable pajamas, and brushed my teeth in my tiny bathroom that night, these thoughts whirled around inside my head. I buried myself under a heap of covers, trying to force my mind to stop working. But I couldn't get away from them. The memories, I mean. All I knew was that I didn't know. I didn't know when or even if Conrad and I would ever be together again. I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to give him my heart again. It was all the not knowing that killed me. But with Conrad, the not knowing was just a risk that had to be taken.

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