Four Days Ago
Though I had no fever, the night I saw the massacred family I had fever dreams. Not dreams; nightmares. I woke in a sweat, trying to grasp what they were, but for the life of me, I couldn’t remember. Only hollowness remained where something terrible had visited and gone. My room was the same, moonlight streaming through my window, everything unmoved, untouched and yet, I knew something was different. I couldn’t tell you what. I was left with a feeling, a lingering sense that something was undeniably off. That feeling scared me. Like I’d woken up in a room that was taken from my memory and rendered in exact detail, but was not my room. Not my body. Not my life.
I slowly sat up in my bed and as moonlight became sunlight, the sounds of ordinary life began: the padding of feet outside my door, the kitchen cabinets opening and closing, the smell of my mother’s herbal tea. I stood in the room, feeling silly.
In the cage, my hamster had given birth. Four red creatures no bigger than my thumb suckled at Igor’s side. Hairless, their eyes closed, they looked like gummy bears and were just about the cutest things I had ever seen. For a few a minutes, I felt optimistic about the future. I was about to shout to my brother and mother.
But I held back, keeping the moment for myself. I kept quiet and watched them until I had to go to school.
In class, a few empty seats dotted the room. The community was so spooked some parents must’ve kept their kids at home until the killer was caught. Rumors swirled: the family was killed on the orders of a drug lord in South America. Crazy, I know, but pot farms were not an unusual occurrence out in the forest, farms no one took credit for when the sheriff found them. Other kids thought the father, Mr. Solomon, had taken a batch of bad acid and his brain melted. Others wondered if the family was part of a cult and killed themselves in an elaborate ceremony. Even devil worshipping made the rounds. No one knew the truth. I was as curious as anyone, but I found all the speculation distasteful. Sad, too, that the family had been reduced to mere gossip. I wanted to shout I knew them! They weren’t freaks!
I met up with Max in the hallway. He started to share the latest theory.
I interrupted, “I don’t want to hear anymore.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. It’s just until the sheriff knows what happened, I don’t want to know.”
He said, “Why don’t you just ask Sasha? I’m sure her dad told her something.” He could tell from my face that wasn’t going to happen. “Just be the bigger person and end your Silent War.”
I thought of how guys dealt with problems amongst each other with their fists. Maybe that was better than the games girls played. “Easy for you to say.” I opened my locker and looked for some lip moisturizer. “By the way, Mr. Scronce and my mom don’t think I can handle myself.”
“What are you talking about?”
I explained the curfew.
“Don’t worry. I’ll protect you.” Max comically flexed his thin arms and I laughed.
Across the hallway stood Sasha, her locker open. She was touching up her make-up. No matter what, I had to know about the Solomon family. I found myself walking toward her. She turned toward me, our eyes locking for the first time in over 2 years. Sasha looked suspicious, and then there was a flicker of what we used to be: two best friends, growing up on an island, her parents divorced, mine heading that way. Back when she went by her nickname “Fitzie” for Fitzgerald.
I was right in front of her. She looked wonderful, her teeth perfect. Of course Theo had no choice but to fall for her.
“Hi, Sasha,” I said.
“Hi, Ruthie.” I admit I loved hearing my name coming from her mouth and in that space, there was hope for reconciliation. Instead, I pictured her choosing my brother’s relationship over my friendship, and I grew distant.
“Do you know what happened?”
She paused, weighing some internal calculation and then spoke to me as if no time had passed between us. “I don’t know. My dad hasn’t told me anything. I’ve barely seen him. He’s been acting real strange, though. Hasn’t said a word since it happened.”
“Maybe he’s in shock.”
“Maybe. It’s not like him.” The bell rang. “Gotta go.”
I’d wanted her to stay longer. I don’t know what it said about her that she left because of a measly bell, that avoiding being tardy was more important than talking to me. It only reinforced the sense that I didn’t belong anywhere.
Max and I watched her walk into a classroom. Max turned to me. “Was that so hard?”
Only now did I feel the adrenaline starting to subside, my heartbeat slowing, and I thought, actually…yes.
The school day passed mostly in a fog. Teachers taught; students could barely pay attention. Classes continued as if nothing had happened, as if it was better to pretend that life was normal, and in doing so, it would be. We knew better. Outside, monsters roamed.
Even with my supposed curfew, I couldn’t wait to get home. The false “normalness” of high school was too much. It made me think of my parents covering their collapsing marriage, burying their lies with normal behavior, and if you dared think it was weird, they turned it around to make it seem like you were the one with the problem.
When the final bell rang, I walked out and watched once again as Theo and Sasha got into the car. After today, I had a minuscule hope that Sasha would wave me over. I waited.
There was no wave.
By the time I got home, Theo’s Roadmaster was parked in the driveway. Inside, his bedroom door was closed, music playing. Carmina Burana—O Fortuna, to be exact. You know the song, the one in movie trailers whenever an army on horseback is charging somewhere. Très dramatic. I should’ve felt lonely, but I wasn’t. I liked being alone, the independence, the strength in knowing I didn’t need anyone to complete me. Everywhere I looked, I saw people doing anything to be with other people. Making bad choices, putting their own needs above everyone else’s. All the kids I saw holding hands in school, the public displays of affection, the drama of who liked who, I wanted to shout at them: what do you think is going to happen when you both graduate? Do you think you’ll go to college together and live happily ever after? All the joy you feel is a lie.
It’s like I was the only one who could see the truth, a Nostradamus of dating: relationships were poison. Why date if people invariably, inevitably cheated? Why put yourself out there if it led to pain?
And yet, I desperately wanted a relationship. I wanted the fairy tale, even if I didn’t believe it. I wanted someone to write poetry about me, to make me a mix of songs that told the story of our love, to throw pebbles at my first floor window just for the hell of it. I wanted to talk deep into the night, sharing secrets and fears. To have him—whoever that imaginary man was—squeeze my hand during the scary parts in a movie. For him to say you matter to me. You make a difference in my life.
The heart is meant to beat in time with another, like a symphony. I know this.
But what I wanted more than love, more than anything, was to stay safe. I didn’t want to get hurt. And I had a feeling the world was filled more with hurt than love. I’d seen it first-hand.
Some people are scared of heights. Others, spiders. Me? I’m scared of what others will see: me, and find I wasn’t enough.
Or worse—see me for a while and then, somehow, not, as if I’d faded away.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew some guys at school liked me. But I’m not sure they ever saw me. Not really. They saw a girl or some version of me in their mind; some body, perhaps, to rub against. But I never felt as if they saw into me. Except for Max. I asked him once while walking home, “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” We must’ve been fourteen or fifteen.
He said, “I would.”
“Then why don’t you?”
“Because….” He clammed up.
I nudged him. “Is it ’cause you like guys?”
He stopped. “No, I’m into girls.” He looked at me, confused. “You think I’m gay?”
“No. Not really. But you never mention girls and stuff.”
He was quiet for a couple minutes. “Maybe I don’t deserve it.”
“What?”
“A girlfriend. Happiness. All the stuff that goes with it.”
“Of course you deserve happiness. I just don’t think a girlfriend would provide it. You know,” and I remembered my therapist’s words, “because happiness is an inside job and all.”
He seemed to digest what I’d said. “The other thing is….” He made sure we were all alone. “If I tell you, promise not to tell anyone?”
I made a gesture of crossing my heart. “Hope to die.”
“I have no idea what to do.”
“What do you mean?” When he didn’t answer, I understood. “Oh.”
“I know the mechanics of what goes where. But when you kiss, I don’t know, you got this tongue and teeth and saliva, and it just seems like…you ever see a fish out of water? Its mouth gets all weird?”
I laughed.
“I don’t want to be a fish.”
“I totally understand.” I could tell he didn’t believe me. “How many guys do you think I’ve kissed?”
“I don’t know.”
“Guess,” I said.
“Ten?”
My eyes went wide. “Ten?”
“Figured you had a lot more opportunities.”
I put up my hand in a gesture of zero.
“Really?” he said.
“Really.”
“Wanna practice?” My face must’ve changed because he quickly added, “Not for us. For whoever we date. So we’re prepared.”
This was what happens when your best friend is a guy.
“Just once,” I said. “Okay?”
“Just once.”
It was nice. Wet and awkward and he tasted like…boy. In a daze, he reached for my body, his hands on mine, lingering above my hips.
There it was: an inkling rising through me. A knowing.
I could love him. He could make me a mix of songs. He could throw pebbles at my window.
But I pulled away.
Max stood, his eyes closed, waiting to see if we would do it again.
“Come on,” I said. “It looks like rain.”
Max could’ve been my first boyfriend. But he wasn’t. I had no regrets. Nothing would ever be ruined by taking our clothes off; Max would never break my heart and I would never break his. I found comfort in that.
I hoped he did, too.
Back in Mr. Scronce’s house, music played from Theo’s room. Loud enough that I could hear it in my bedroom. But not loud enough to mask Sasha’s sighs. I couldn’t stand to listen and sure didn’t want to picture what they were doing, so I left.
“Dad?” I held the smart phone to my ear, turning in wide circles, trying to find the near magical spot on the island with the best cell coverage. Whether in the forest or on the road, it was spotty at best, which often reduced my phone to a fancy paperweight.
“Ruthie?” My father’s voice crackled through the earpiece and he sounded a million miles away. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, Dad.”
I could picture his confusion, sitting on his leather chair in his university office with its scent of old books. “I can’t talk long. I’ve got office hours and my students’ll be here any minute.” He taught biology. When I was a girl, he’d take me all over the island, explaining evolutionary biology, invasive species, and nutrient recycling.
Now that he was on the line, I didn’t know what to say.
“Ruthie, you there?”
“I’m here.”
“You’re breaking up….”
My dad hadn’t dated anyone seriously since the divorce, and if he did, he kept it to himself, not choosing to foist a stranger into our lives the way my mother did with Mr. Scronce. Spending time with my dad was like living in an alternate reality, a place where divorce never happened and my mother was simply away, maybe at the store or a girls’ weekend.
I said, “Can I live with you?”
His voice crackled, garbled, and I only heard the end. “….next weekend.”
“Dad, did you hear me?”
“I said, I’ll see you next weekend. It’s my weekend. We’re still good?”
He hadn’t heard. “Yeah, we’re good.”
“Listen, Ruthie, there’s a knock. If I run late, then it bleeds into the rest of the day.”
“Love you.”
His voice was garbled once again and then the call ended.
I looked up in the sky. An airliner was crossing, a vapor trail behind it, and I imagined where it was going. If only I could be up there, looking down, on my way to someplace, anyplace else other than here.