Part Three: Chapter Eight
April 5, 1987
"Maybe I don't deserve to live. Maybe I never did." Sara muttered in a depressed monotone. She, Emma, and Arilyn were sitting on the grass in the middle of the schoolyard, a slight breeze blowing amidst the waves of students wandering the grass.
"That's crazy thinking Sara. Of course you deserve to live." Emma responded sternly.
"If you had any good enough reason not to live, we would have deserted you long ago." Arilyn added with a slight scoff.
Sara was staring unblinking across the grass, allowing the breeze to cool her neck from the beating sun.
"I would believe you guys. I really would."
"Then why not?" Arilyn questioned.
"I've lived through too much."
"Yeah, yeah, we know, mom and dad, death, jail." Arilyn muttered.
"Thanks for caring." Sara replied with seething sarcasm.
"Well geez, Sara. You've got to get over it eventually. There's really no point in dwelling on things like that."
"I'm not dwelling on it." Sara muttered scathingly, still staring over the grass, squinting against the sun, and rubbing her neck as it grew increasingly sweaty. "It's a part of my life."
"We know it's a part of your life Sara. It'd be a part of anyone's life." Emma piped in. "But what I think Arilyn's trying to say is that you can't revolve your life around it!"
Arilyn nodded in confirmation.
"Look, what Leroy said to me…it hurt. It hurt really bad. I know…" She paused and let out a loud breath through her nose. "I know I've said that…that I don't believe in love. But I know it's a part of life. Would you really be living if you never loved somebody?"
"C-Could you repeat to me what he said? Just once more?" Arilyn interrupted with a curious tone.
Sara sighed heavily then mumbled, "He said that no man would ever love me, no one would ever want to live with me, have me for a wife, or anything."
"Yeah, well, that's bull and you know it." Arilyn defended, raising her eyebrows as far as they would go, glaring at Sara sternly.
Sara let out a small breath of amusement then pulled her knees to her chest as she continued gazing at the grounds.
"Look…" Arilyn began. "Sara, everyone has something that's gone terribly wrong with their life."
"I just ended up getting an extra short straw." Sara muttered, finally looking away from the sunlit grass and staring at her knees.
"A lot of people get short straws Sara." Arilyn said, her voice turning surprisingly to a secretive whisper.
"Take me for instance." Emma mumbled, picking at a piece of grass. "My parents are never home. I never get to talk to them. It's one thing having a dead parent, or a locked up parent Sara. It's completely different to have two live and kicking ones who won't stop to tell you they love you at breakfast in the morning. It's completely different to have parents who don't tuck you in at night, though they definitely could if they didn't put so much overtime into work. It's completely different Sara."
The three girls sat silent as another wave of wind swept through the ground, cooling them from the Californian rays.
"What about you Arilyn?" Sara questioned. "You were the one who said it after all. What's your shortened straw?"
Arilyn continued to speak in a discreet tone, looking at nothing but the grass, the clouds, or the line of trees by the school building. Her blue eyes seemed hazed over, losing their normal cheerful, perkiness.
"Everyone has their short straws…," she muttered absentmindedly.
"Yeah, I know. You've said that. What's yours?" Sara asked with more feeling and curiosity. She could tell Arilyn was stalling.
Arilyn continued staring anywhere but at Sara and Emma.
"I…was…on a date." Her voice cracked slightly and she gulped. "A movie," She chuckled slightly. "I thought it was cliché, but he didn't. He wanted a movie—drive in movie to be exact." She shook her head, licking her bottom lip distractedly. "The date went out of hand. He went out of hand."
All three girls were silent; Sara and Emma's mouths hanging open shocked.
"Who, Chandler?" Sara cried.
Arilyn scoffed. "No. He was too far up his own behind to think about it." She shook her head again. "I should have known…"
"Where is he now?" Sara questioned.
"Jail. Turned out it happened to three other girls. They were too scared to tell anybody."
Tears began falling steadily down Arilyn's cheeks and she wiped them away with a shaky hand.
"You're not the only one with a short straw Sara. Trust me."
Sara reached out to Arilyn's shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly. Emma, who was sitting on Sara's left, stood up and walked over to Arilyn's right instead, reaching her arm out and embracing her warmly. Arilyn smiled.
"I decided to get over it though. I knew it wouldn't help to linger on it."
"How long did it take you?" Sara questioned, dropping her hand back to the ground as Arilyn's last few tears cleared.
"I'm still working on it Sara. I'm still working on it. I will be for the rest of my life"
"How'd you start?" Emma asked, letting go of Arilyn as well.
"You know, I don't really remember. I think one day I just went and said 'You know what? I'm not going to let this rule my life anymore.' And that was that. I went back to the original me—brushed the problem into a closet. Sure one of these day's I'm going to have to reopen that closet and clean it out, deal with the dust-bunnies but…you know, it can wait. You're only young for a few years of your life right?" She turned her gaze to Sara and Emma in turn, smiling at them.
The two returned the smiles and all three looked out over the grass, Sara lingering on a small scufflenearthe basketball court.
"You know what?…" Sara began quietly. "Teams."
"What?" Emma scoffed in a questioning tone.
"Teams work best together."
"Thanks for the enlightenment Sara. Aren't you supposed to be the brilliant one?" Arilyn asked.
"You know…three short straws make one long one."
"Mmm…metaphors. I think they're going to your head Sara." Emma acknowledged.
"I suppose, if the world were made of tons of short straws and they all banded together, they'd make one long one."
"Yeah, too bad some people haven't the slightest inclination to share their straws."
"You know what else?"
"Hmm?" Arilyn inquired, slight smile on her face.
"We're pathetic."
"Why?"
"Look at us! We're talking about straws for crying out loud!"
Arilyn and Emma laughed heartily as the bell rang across the grass courts.
"They're metaphors Sara, not straws, metaphors." Emma said through chuckles.
The three stood up from the ground and began striding towards the door in a horizontal line.
"You still think you don't deserve to live?" Arilyn questioned, half-smile, half-concerned look on her face, giving Sara a playful nudge in the shoulder.
"One missing short straw makes the long straw that much shorter, right?" Sara said with a smile.
A/N: Well...One more left. :( I'm expecting it to be one of the longest yet, so that's a bonus. It IS happy. Umm...THAT'S ALL I'M GIVING YOU. I had a conversation sorta like this with my friends once. Kinda...sorta...in a way.
