AN: Sorry for the delay, was on spring break.
Chapter 3
I settled relatively quickly, for me anyways, into my new life. That is to say it only took me about four months to get situated and somewhat secure. I'll spare you the minutia and try to stick to the Reader's Digest version of that time. As much as I can, I like details… but I don't like to remember that time.
I went back to… the compound, I'll call it— after a few more days of recuperation and detail sorting. Evidently Lex's (I presume, I didn't want to ask) men had cleaned up the area. Except for a few piles of newly churned earth, it seemed as if the site hadn't been used in at least 50 years. I had gone because I felt the need to say goodbye. Even though everything I thought of it had been was a sham, for a too brief time it had been a home to me, and a home isn't something you can lose without grief. But I couldn't do it; I wasn't ready for closure and I ended up just walking away and going back to the mansion.
I was enrolled at Ivy University. Its small, tree filled campus nestled in the Finger Lakes resounded with my impression of what home had been. As much as I hated most change, weather was an exception and the unpredictable climate of the area was something I couldn't leave; I'm a New England girl, through and through, but this little NY town was close enough to the right atmosphere.
Plus, the school colors included purple.
Before attending, I completed my first—heist sounds wrong…— assignment on a little outpost in New Hampshire. I was in and out without any complications. They didn't even notice for three days, or at least that's how long it took for the story to make it to the news, and I only found it because I was looking. It gave me a strange sense of pride. If you're going to do something morally questionable, you might as well do it right, and I reveled at even a small blow to my former keepers.
I felt even better after examining the plans I'd pinched; it was a design for a water purification and distribution system that was relatively cheap to make and only slightly implausible. I imaged the technicalities could be worked out quickly today, yet the plans' last work date was over 15 years ago. If they had forgotten about it, why shouldn't Lex's organization be able to make use of it? Wasn't there some law like that, about patent expiration or something?
Anyways, the whole thing was barely a blip on the radar, and the job paid my tuition for a year, with a bit left over.
The actual start of college was more tumultuous. It took me some time to get situated, even though, as I said it was a relatively short time for me. I got lost a lot, I didn't really feel like doing any work even though I liked my classes, I spent most of the time not getting lost up on my lofted bed, feeling like a treed cat. The people were relatively kind, as kind as could be expected. I was used to that. I almost regained what little faith in humanity I'd had before…all that. Almost believed that at least on a superficial level, if I treated others as I wanted to be treated, they would return the favor. I might have regained this faith, had it not been for my roommate.
It wasn't that she was mean to me; that would have required continuous knowledge of my existence. I didn't even want to necessarily interact with her. I wanted to coexist, which required mutual acknowledgement of one other, and she acted like she owned the room. She wasn't in it very much, but that just made me anxious about her return, made me feel like an intruder in my own space. When she was in the room, it was usually in order to study from 2 am to 5 am, after the library closed. With the lights on. It didn't physically hurt, because during this period I was blending—hanging out as a shade would have been counterproductive—but I was working hard at school and wanted to sleep.
She also would occasionally stay up late watching some show or another and either cackle hysterically or exclaim, "No! NO WAY!" And then I'd ask her what that was all about and she'd look right through me before focusing in with a confused expression, like she hadn't known I was there and say, "Oh you wouldn't get it." And then go back to doing it. If I asked her again, there was the exact same confused response. Not a "Why are you asking again?" response, but a "There's someone else in the room with me?" response. I don't know which part was more upsetting, the non-stop irritating noises or the proof that I didn't exist.
She never talked to me. I could have asked after her, started a conversation, but there didn't seem to be a point. Most of what I know about her I knew because she talked on the phone with her mom a lot. She never stepped out of the room, and at best it was because she didn't know I understood Spanish, even after I commented on her conversation one time. In short the environment was uncomfortable if not hostile. Particularly after I was sexiled (a term I learned specifically because of this incident) at 5pm on a Monday. That resulted in an altercation I may never forgive.
I will share just one more specific little anecdote. My roommate was not a substance user (I don't want to know what that would have been like), but her friends were. They'd come by high while I was working and deep in concentration and they'd rap on the window, yelling for my roommate. Scared me shi—stiff. So my roommate opens the window, and this cloud of weed smoke comes pouring into the room, and of course it doesn't stay on her side—the room was never officially separated, but there was a strictly obeyed imaginary divider, in her favor. So then I am forced out of my room by the smell for two hours. Then I come back and I'm tired because I hadn't slept well the previous night because she had been studying with the lights on. And what do I find? She is straightening her hair to 'go out'. So now the room smells like burnt hair and I'm still on edge from the last episode. After she goes out, I kind of… whatever-the-hot-equivalent-of-a-snowball-is-ed. Picked up steam, maybe?
Thoughts roiled like hurricane waves as I hit my breaking point. I directed all my frustration at the hair straightener (which was still plugged in, major fire hazard) since I could not direct it at the object's owner, and the thing started spitting sparks.
Which just made the room smell like burning plastic.
The acrid smell pierced my frustration, made me deflate. I was left feeling hollow and alone. I made sure nothing was actually on fire, mixed up some herbs to call the lilac sheep, which I privately called Zzzz's, and stuck some tissues up my nose to block the various burning smells. The moral: people really aren't worth it, but what was? However, I still haven't let the incident go.
Even if my situation wasn't worth reprisal, I could only bear living in a space where I was emotionally backed into a corner for so long. I transferred into a single in substance free. It was a small room, maybe 75 feet squared, with aging wall paper and tiled floors. But I tried to think of it as cozy and it… it was mine. Without a roommate constantly reminding me of my invisible status, I was able to let my battered essence seep into the space in a way I had been afraid to do with others around. I made do with what little money I had left to let glow-in-the-dark stars dance across my ceiling, and was able to drag in a factory reject carpet to pad my footsteps. I did a puzzle and framed it, my sole piece of art, both for something to do and as a reminder that sometimes… things have a spot, if you look for it. Finally, I hung a dream catcher I'd made over my head on the slanted ceiling, claiming the heart of the room: the bed of midnight purple flannel sheets I'd splurged on, tucked in the corner, with Hym, every night waiting for me on my pillow.
Even with my efforts, it still felt bare and empty, only slightly lived in. A true reflection I suppose. I wrote about it, and tucked the poem under my mattress, too embarrassed even without anyone around to put it up:
Sad little nest,
Sad little nest,
Made of snapped twigs and pieces
Of an old broken life
Sad little nest,
All that's left
To hold the storm at bay
To keep the candle flame alive
All that's left to watch it fade away
Sad little nest
Little more than
An old doll and some flannel sheets
Still you'll have to do,
As there's no safety left but you.
The knowledge I'd have to dismantle even this modicum of shelter at the end of the year stalked around the edges of my mind.
Still, it was a true base to return to and it made the second semester easier. Made me more comfortable in poking a toe out of my comfort zone, looking for those few who were not quite as shallow as the herds, knowing I'd have a place on which to fall back when I failed. I went to a few events and even began speaking in class.
I was walking back to my room after a biology class in which I had actually participated. The professor had done a presentation of an article as an example and I asked a complex question about his reasoning. He hadn't thought about it and was impressed that a student had. I had just gotten beyond the classroom doors and was feeling pretty good about myself; pride is an excellent substitute companionship.
"Hey! Those were some fine biological instincts you showed there. How have I not met you?" The speaker was a young black woman with a pixie cut and bangs sweeping just above her oaken eyes. She wore simple garnet stud earrings which complemented her cinnamon completion. On the whole her voice had a quick-clip cadence to it and a very mild urban accent, yet it was warm and interested. It was a car on a long trip, paying attention to the traffic patterns around it but more engaged in its own trajectory.
There was something else there, buried in the rhythms… distance. She was interested, but it was generalized to everything, not to me; that's where the clip came from—the distal most tuft of each word drifted away from her. It didn't make her unfocused, just spread out.
Frankly, I only picked this up subconsciously and didn't put a words to it 'til much later; I was just glad to be noticed and praised. She smiled and shuffled her papers. I didn't recognize her, by sight or impression, which wasn't surprising, but she gave off an almost overpowering vibe of one of those rare people who are popular, intelligent, and somehow beyond all probability, genuinely interested in the world at large. She finished her question with a laugh built into the words, in reference to how large the school was, not expecting a serious answer. I gave her one.
"I don't like to talk much." I shrugged meekly, strangers still being out of my sphere of comfort. I don't like drawing the attention of people who always let me down.
"Well, you totally should! You've got a good brain in yo head, and the mind is a terrible thing to waste.
"I don't think you do, though," she added thoughtfully, startling me with strangely apt perception. "Hey, listen, I have class in like 5 minutes over in Wolfman, but we should definitely do this again!" She rushed off in the direction of said building, waving goodbye and chuckling at my bewildered but soft countenance. Do what again? She'd acknowledged my intelligence and my presence, which was something I could certainly stand to have happen more often. I tried to cement her details into my memory.
Part of the reason I stopped trying to connect with people is that I'm terrible with name-to-faces, and it was embarrassing and hurtful on both sides when I forgot. Better usually to just leave things be, but I would make an exception and try to commit her to memory since she made the effort.
Thoughts of a research paper due the next day interrupted my consolidation process and I switched mental tracks. The contented feeling of friendliness stayed with me for the rest of the day though, and made the flipping through pages of archaic text slightly less unbearable. This may seem a bit anti-social—coldhearted even—of me, but work was one of those constants of the universe that kept me going through everything.
I didn't see her in Bio when it was held two days later or the class after that, though I specifically looked for her. I certainly could have missed her; it was a big class and I'd only seen her once. It seemed like the encounter was going to be another one of those freak incidents that were pleasant but evanescent.
Next day at the Caf I was looking for an empty table to sit at, as usual. I had stayed a little late to ask a question of the professor and as such the lunch rush had beaten me. The odds of finding a hassle free spot to sit were firmly between slim and none.
As such, I looked for the next best thing: a relatively large table occupied sole by someone trying to ingest a textbook more than his/her food. Odds were someone like that was about to have a test and wouldn't want any more of the basic social niceties than an "may I sit?" from me. Hmmmm… textbooks yes, but clearly a group study session… He's just reading the paper, might think I wanted to talk if I were to sit down…. One girl sitting alone by the ketchup caught my eye though she lacked a textbook… dark complexion, pixie cut…Is it? Maybe? Can't tell… Then I spotted the garnet earrings and my confidence went from 40% to 95%, well with range for acting upon.
Go up to her, she's shown interest, what are you afraid of? Yeah, but what will I say? How about 'Hi! Remember me? Too awkward. No it isn't! When are you going to get this opportunity again? I know there is no convincing you when there are multiple people at a table but it's just her! You need a friend, just try? I took a step towards the table, but a muscular black man with a nearly shaved head sidled into the seat next to her. It's still only two people, you can handle that. Don't go turtle. I took another step forward, but something about their interaction made me pause. Her greeting was unexceptional, standard eye contact, smiling unconcernedly. He stretched in his chair and grinned in return. The two chatted casually and quietly as they tuckered into their food. Nothing interesting to the casual observer.
To me, their body language was speaking volumes. Both of them were utterly relaxed, and unconsciously tilted towards each other, reacting in synchronicity to the other's movements. There was no handholding, no physical contact, but sparks flew between them, and to me, their eyes literally sparkled with every glance.
Oh.
No, I wouldn't interrupt that. I didn't know if they knew they had something, but it was substantial to me. In some ways, I think connections like that are more apparent to the people who are looking in from the outside. I would leave them to their moment, and spare myself the awkwardness of introductions and the constant aching reminder of something beautiful I could never have.
Before thinking me a defeatist, a fatalist, allow me review the facts. I had so far made no friends in college. I had to bully myself into talking with one person who had already shown a friendly, offhand interest. I believed that the vast majority of the people were sheep and/or vicious bastards and the rest were selfish egocentrics with few exceptions. Not to mention my history wasn't exactly table conversation. So, to summarize, I was too shy to show interest, too disillusioned to believe they might actually care, and had too many secrets to sustain the sort of obviously honest relationship these two had. Don't tell me I could have done something, because it'd be like trying to change the rotation of the Earth; too much momentum in the wrong direction.
So I let the couple be and went to find my own quiet, peaceful corner of the Caf.
She tracked me down a few days later.
"Hey! I know that was really awkward the other day, and then me not showing up for class and all, must have seemed like a ghost!"
"No, you were busy, very reasonable."
"I'm Karen."
"Fia." I muttered, realizing this was my first introduction (name tags etc. having sufficed up to that point).
"Sofia?" She asked, thinking she misheard me.
"Just Fia."
Her face creased in mild confusion, but she covered quickly by continuing with conversation. I don't have a clear memory about what was said after that. We walked together to the campus center, got some snacks, and talked about biology for a while. Something about action potential signaling and potential advances in bio-mechanical integration. I'm not sure if it was because of our initial encounter or because she somehow knew I could go on about it, but in any case her choice in topic drew me out of my shell. Somehow, over that conversation, we became friends. Not best friends, but definitely more than I had with anyone else on the campus. I wish I could have pinned down exactly how, because I seriously needed to learn and apply this basic skill more often.
Too soon she had to rush off; she was assisting in Professor Palmer's molecular physics lab. She promised to take me with her after she'd checked with her boss when I showed interest.
"Oh," she added as she was getting up. "What's your number? I don't want to have to rely on chance again to see you again; I was shopping that bio class."
"Um… I don't actually have a phone…" Crap. How was I supposed to explain that in this day and age? You sound like and old foggie. Shut up. I mean, I could have had a phone if I wanted one, but there was no one to call and I risked shorting it out. I didn't own a computer for that matter, and regularly used the college ones. Having advanced technology on my person where it would be exposed to my every mood swing was not a wise course of action. Fortunately she came up with a plausible explanation for my technological deficiency before I had to.
"What!? No cell phone? Between that and your name, were you' parents hippies or something?"
Well, that works. It'd be lying though, and I didn't want to outright lie to my new friend. But keeping thing hidden and lying are different. So instead I muttered. "I have an unconventional family dynamic." True enough.
"Hmmm," she mused sympathetically. "Well, then what's your room number, I'll stop by. Or figure out a carrier pidgin system or something," she joked.
I smiled on the inside at her joke and gave her the information, "314 Glen-King."
"116 Feynman, if you ever want to stop by! See you later!" she said as she walked off.
"Enjoy lab!" I forced out, awkward as anything.
"How could I possibly not!" She shouted merrily over her shoulder, oblivious to my gracelessness.
Our friendship grew rapidly for a time, blooming out of our mutual love for the sciences, but it began to asymptote out below 100% on the vertical confidence axis. It hovered around 80%, which was by no means shabby, though. I met her boyfriend, Mal, the one she'd been sitting with that day in the Caf. At first it was almost unbearable to be around both of them. There was so much chemistry between them, combined with my natural social anxiety. But as I got to know Mal as a person and not solely as her boyfriend, it became easier to hang out altogether. He had sense of humor as rich as his voice, was easy to tease and slow to anger.
I also started working part time at Professor Palmer's lab. He didn't have enough money or enough work for two fully paid assistants, so I only showed up when they asked. They were working on comparing some new synthetic materials to a fragment of a white dwarf star. The fragment had some as of yet unstudied quantum effects on 'constants' such as mass. Though I couldn't add much to the quantum aspects of the study, a few of my hypotheses on the effects of the new substance on biological material proved to be sound jumping off points. An extra set of hands can also come in… handy in the laboratory.
When I wasn't helping out I did homework or threw Frisbee with Mal and let him vent about how much time Karen spent working. His dedication to her and admiration of her intelligence and work were never in question, but I could appreciate his frustration at being unable to reach her on this academic level. It resonated with my relative inability to connect to anyone. Don't get me wrong, Mal was in no way thick; he was simply more passionate about history. Future and past, opposites attract sometimes I guess.
Karen and I were studying on a Saturday night in my room, which was unusual for several reasons. One: Usually if we studied together it was all three of us, but tonight Mal had a boy's night out or something. He'd been particularly vague, which was disheartening because so many time he had told me something or another, but I lost the details, so I was really trying to focus in and remember his agenda at the time. Two: when we did study together it was rarely on a Saturday night; Karen and Mal tended to have busy weekends, I didn't know exactly what they did. Maybe date night? And in any case, why study on a Saturday, the first day of the weekend? Well, Karen said she had a long commitment at the lab on Sunday and wasn't going to have time to prepare for the Monday exam otherwise. Three: When we did study together, it was often in Karen's more spacious room or in the library. Karen had seen my room before, but she hadn't been inside much, so tonight she'd decided to mix it up and work over here.
So as a consequence of these unusual circumstances there we were. We studied diligently for an hour and a half or so, just enjoying the presence of another human. Then Karen started getting fidgety. Nothing remarkable at first, she was on the bed, I was in the hard, utilitarian desk chair that came with the room. She'd sit up, then lie down, then roll over onto her side, then sit cross legged. Finally she gave up and closed the book.
"If I have to read one more page of Freud, my eyeballs are going to fall out. Guy had some serious issues."
"Hmm," I muttered noncommittally. I was focused on studying for my Cognitive Psych class. It's amazing how many theories there are on the mechanisms of simple mental activities such as short term memory.
"Seriously, we're young, we're—" 'I'm "—beautiful, it's Saturday night, let's go out and have some fun!"
Other than the fact that "Saturday Night's Alright" started playing in the way back of my head, I didn't really register what she said, and she knew this. It didn't bother her; she knew if I'd been paying attention I'd say "I don't go out," as I had many times before. She continued as if I'd agreed with her absurd plan, undeterred.
"Let's see, I know exactly what I would wear, but what about you." Out of the corner of my eye I saw her put a thoughtful finger to her lips. "Let's see what's behind door number one." She bounced off the bed and over to my closet, which was a good size compared to the room. She pushed aside the curtain that hung in front of the wardrobe and began to flip through hangers. "Sweatpants, sweatpants, sweatpants. More sweatpants. Purple shirt, different purple shirt. Another purple shirt. Don't you have anything other than purple shirts in here?"
"There are some blue shirts farther back, maybe a dress or two" I answered automatically, still focused on my book. I heard her dig for the aforementioned items. How interesting. So is short term memory limitation based on decay or interference? And how would you know? That experiment is pretty good evidence for decay, but I'm not sure I could answer with the 100% accuracy that they claim. And then there's that Waugh and Norman study that suggests interference. But you could never actually test interference because it's impossible to have a lack of interference, time moves forwards. Wait… what did I just say to Karen? I replayed the echoic memory. Wait, that's where my—
"What in the world is this?!" Karen exclaimed, holding up the partially burnt sweatshirt.
Frig. I thought, all traces of the Cog Psych book forgotten. Stay cool.
"Just an old sweatshirt."
"It's burnt, and it's hidden in the back of the closet. Like hell its' just an old sweatshirt." She retorted.
"I don't want to get into it."
"Come'on, please don't go all mysterious and quite on me. I'm you' friend, talk to me. It'll help." I didn't answer and she added, "What's to be afraid of?"
While I contemplated how to hide that better in the future, my lips pressed together, in thoughtfulness, not in outright refusal. I wanted to tell her, get it off my chest to someone who might care, but the whole story was too much. Perhaps I could prune the tale back to something slightly more 'normal' while preserving the tragedy it represented. I sighed, resigning myself to an attempt at forging a deeper bond.
"It's was in the…"—disaster I caused, no I can't say that—"the accident"—close enough to the truth— "that killed my…"—keepers, no, closest approximation to that is—"…parents last year. The car slipped on some ice and went over the barrier. Set on fire before authorities arrived." I said in distanced, carefully chosen words.
"Oh, my God. I didn't know. We don't have to get into it." Sympathy radiated from her, but not empathy. Honestly, how could she empathize with so much falsified in the tale? Yet I knew it was possible.
"It's okay, I'm over it." Liar.
"Liar," said Karen, echoing my thoughts. Yes, but not for the reasons you think.
"Yeah. But I don't like to think about it. I'm not ready to process it yet." I said half blindly, half tersely.
She backed off respectfully. "We should still go out tonight, you're room's a little stuffy with all this morose talk. That and the guy downstairs who keeps his heater at like, 90 degrees." She said airily, trying to lighten the mood.
This time I did answer her. "No, I don't like going out."
"Do you mind if I be brutally honest?"
"When aren't you, but go ahead anyways." I sighed more of a resigned consent than the affectionate tease I'd intended.
"You, my friend, are a lonely person. I want you to be happy, but you need to go out and meet people."
"Bee, I know, I just, can't okay?"
"Can't, why not?—Wait, did you just call me Bee?"
"Yeah, should I not have?"
"Mal didn't call me that when you were around?"
"Not that I remember… it just suits you."
She laughed. "It must, because that's what my high school friends call me! But seriously, girl, why don't you ever go out?"
"It's a long story." Not that I can tell all of it.
"That just means it deserves telling."
"You won't understand."
"Give me a chance; I'm not going to let this go until you do."
She spoke the truth. I sighed and began reluctantly, "I was home schooled, until seventh grade; my family didn't want me to be in the school system. But they realized I could use the socialization." Close enough to accurate. Probably should have realized that earlier, considering how bad my skills are still. "I was nervous; I'd read books, but until that point I'd never spent any amount of time around people other than my family. People my own age. I didn't fully appreciate what friendship could be," Never felt the bonds of naïve affection, the shield of friendship that muted the troubles of the world. Seeing that, feeling that in others, it brought into focus that which had always been my closest companion, never fully resolved into coherency. Solitude, the eternal gift of the void. It had never bothered me, until I saw it in such sharp contrast. "That's the one thing school taught me that I couldn't learn at home. I made friends in time, it wasn't instantaneous." What I'd thought were friends…
Unaware of my thoughts, Karen smiled patronizingly at my statement of the time course. The expression said, 'of course it wasn't instantaneous, it isn't for anyone. But go on'. So I did, "Even though I could never have anyone home, my family let me go out with my new friends once a month. I was happier than I'd been since I found my favorite author…
"At least until ninth grade. High school and the explorations that came with it."
"'S normal." Karen said skeptically.
"I realize that, but, I was… startled when I was invited to that sort of party."
"You got a rebel streak in you, somewhere, when you're passionate about something. I'd thought you'dda jumped at the opportunity to be free of you parents." I don't know what bothered me more, the fact that she'd assumed I'd found my 'parents' controlling, or the fact that she was referring to them that way within an hour of my establishing that they'd 'tragically died'.
"I don't like restrictions that don't make sense. It makes sense to keep minors away from alcohol," I rebuffed. "The age limit may be arbitrary, but the developing brain's susceptible to its long-term deteriorative effects."
"Those only happen with prolonged exposure."
"You think I don't know that?" I angrily shrugged off her assumption that I didn't know my clinical science. "Anyways, that wasn't the problem." Not entirely anyways.
"What was?"
"I went to that party; I was willing to see what was going on, what the attraction was. It's possible I was willing to give it a go, I don't remember." Doubtful, but possible, and it might make her understand more. Might.
"But I wasn't going to go first, not when I wasn't sure what to expect."
"Everyone else… just seemed to know what it was going to be like, to be 'tipsy'. But I had no idea so I waited and watched. Things started out fine…" I paused, unsure of how to convey the next part. What had happened was that fairly quickly, the presence of some of my 'friends', that I recognized and relied on, that identified each as an individual and made me comfortable around them—that flickered. The people around me weren't quite the people I'd known anymore; their minds were masked and altered. Everything felt wrong. Slimy, grimy, like undone dishes. Everyone's feelings of 'merrymaking' made my head spin.
But that was only something I could sense, not something I could explain without sounding insane.
"Some of my friends started acting weird." They weren't just acting weird, they were off, they weren't themselves. "And I said as much. People at the party, people I didn't know, said this was normal, and that they'd be fine; give it an hour. But…
"Their behavior scared me." Would they come back?
"Sweet of you to worry, but totally unnecessary,"
Wrong answer. "It was super uncomfortable, okay?"
"The irony is that if you'd had a bit yo'self, you wouldda relaxed and seen it wasn't so scary," Strike two. This was why I never told this story. Other than that there was no one to tell it to.
"I didn't want to lose control." Didn't want to lose myself like they were.
She had the sense not to say a single drink wouldn't make me drunk. "I can respect that, but I still don't see why this put you off partying so bad."
"I lost people after that. They stopped caring about the consequences, the fact that they weren't themselves at parties. They changed. It wasn't just at parties that they were different, they became different people…"
"That's called growing up, people grow apart." Karen tried to soothe. As ignorantly as it was futile.
That doesn't make it any easier.
She continued with no concept of how her words had been received, "If you'd been more social and gone out more, you might have found people who were more compatible with you."
I lost my temper instead of collapsing in disillusionment. "I did, but each time hurt a little more. Each time being forced to see people getting drunk and losing their identity and inhibitions and defiling their minds. Even the people I didn't know, it was just… abhorrent! The more I went, the more I felt the consequences of people being so disrespectful to themselves. Voluntarily carving out pieces of personality, when they were already so hollow, leaving only empty shells. It was unbearable." Too close to the truth.
But I couldn't stop the tirade, "A perversion, a desecration, of what should be a beautiful thing. Making sport of something that should be treasured."
"Maybe I should just give up my ideals. Go with the flow, stop being left behind. Seems to work for everyone else, make them happy- I can't do that! That's who I am.
"It's all I have."
I ended harshly, so quiet I wasn't sure if it was distinguishable from a mumble. By the end of the year I'd fled back to the arms of Isolation, rocked and comforted by that shadow of my mind. Why was I trying to leave that safety now? I'd be recoiling from the attempt all too soon.
"Fi, you don't have to drink at parties and social thangs, you can just go and have fun." Karen tried gently. She heard me, sensed my conviction, but she couldn't understand the depth of my words, didn't get the point; they were on a frequency she couldn't register. Elsewise she would have understood how ludicrous her suggestion was.
Elsewise her response to my plea would have been, "You have me". I made one last halfhearted, yet somehow desperate, attempt to get through to her.
"Think about it, even here. All the events that aren't just a party, you go with your friends. I've gone, but I always go alone, you and Mal aren't ever available to go to these things, and you can't imagine how painful it is. I've sat down at a table, but I'm an outsider, ignored, shunned. I try to enter a conversation with people I've seen around campus, and they look at me like I'm a parrot and keep on talking like I hadn't spoken. Sometimes, I repeat myself three or four times, and they don't even hear me! That is how the world operates. At this point going out is just pouring lemon juice in the knife wound." My words were tight, and my eyes fixed on the balled fists in my lap, trying to keep my acrimony in check, though it was the only thing holding off my despair at her lack of understanding.
Karen left the closet sat on the bed across from me. I had the decency to look her in the eye, giving her one last conduit to connect with me. The bubble around me remained unbreached.
"It's okay. I understand." She didn't, but at least she was making an effort to be sympathetic. Bless her that was more than most people did. I wanted more from her, but this is all she could give, and I could appreciate her for that, I had to. But it hurt being so close to making the bond I craved and it being utterly impossible. I wanted to move next to her and put my head on her shoulder, feel the comfort of contact, but I couldn't. It would have been like trying to embrace a ghost.
Because though she was trying to be understanding, trying to comfort me, under that… she didn't believe me. Didn't believe I could truly feel the way I felt, didn't believe I could actually be so totally ignored and isolated as I was. I hated being able to feel what she did, or in this case, didn't. And I hated her, just a little, for making me hate something I usually loved about myself.
She continued, unaware of my anguish, "Only some of the world is like that, we'll find a place for you. Or one of your other friends will. Stay positive." She thought I had other friends here, how could she think that?…I gave up.
"I'm sorry for…" …expecting too much of you, "I'm just not ready to let go yet." I can resign myself, I can't accept. Can't settle. Can't expose myself to any more of reality than this. Can't get through to you. I signed sharply, scrubbing at my face.
"Girl, I wouldn't have you any other way." She said in a tongue-in-cheek way which let me know she was serious. The words had the seeds genuineness I craved, but the soil was barren.
She switched tactics, "Hey, let's go out bowling. Take some of this negative energy and direct it against some pins, standing there all, 'look at me all pristine and lined up like a conformist'." Tempting. Better to take out all this rawness on pins than let it simmer to the point that I did something stupid. But…
"I still really should be studying for this exam."
She gave me an un-amused look. "I know you have every page of that textbook photographically memorized by now. Any more studying and you'll start leaking out the information you already have. I need a break, and so do you whether you know it or not."
I glanced out the window to confirm my impression that the night was cloudy. No risk of unintentionally transforming. "Hmm," I assented, "Be warned, I tend to throw backwards almost as often as forwards." I said with a falsely evil laugh that masked my sorrow.
