(August 14, 1992, in Missouri)
“Class, please listen carefully as I announce your new partner,” Mr. Hillman said as he got out his clear plastic clipboard from under his desk.
His voice should be used as one of those sleeping discs I listened to at night so that it was easier to fall asleep.
The sunlight blazed in from the big glass windows on the side of the classroom, giving the green chalkboard a bright glow. The funny thing was, the light also reflected off Hillman’s face, but unlike the chalkboard, his face just remained the same: stone cold and emotionless.
I had always hated math. Maybe it was teachers like Hillman that just made me want to bang my head against the table, or maybe it was just math in general. Don’t get me wrong, I was okay at math. Not the best, but not the worst, either.
I guess I should have been listening for my partner’s name because I completely zoned out and when I zoned back in, Hillman was already done announcing the list.
“Now, everybody, change your seats so that you’re sitting with your partner. Spend the rest of class discussing about this project. After this day, we will no longer work on this project in class so spend your time now wisely,” Hillman droned on.
I awkwardly sat in my seat as everyone moved around. My head was spinning, trying to see who was left without a partner.
“Demi, let’s do this thing.” Noelle appeared out of nowhere and sat on my table.
“Oh, great. You’re my partner,” I said with relief.
“Wow, you never listen in class, huh?” she said.
“So what should we do?” I asked her. The project was to design a building or a house with correct measurements and angles of everything. Creativity was graded so we also had to think of a unique way to display the structure.
“What about a gingerbread house?” she suggested and drew a tiny house structure on a sheet of paper. The pen wasn’t working, leaving gaps in between the lines.
“Isn’t that just, like, a few squares placed together? That’s too simple,” I said.
“No. Well, yeah, that too. But also the measurements for the candy cane and gummy bears, windows, sprinkles, and everything.” Noelle added the candy canes, a door, and some other random structures on the roof.
“That’s going to be a lot of random stuff to figure out.” I looked at the piece of paper. Noelle wasn’t exactly good at art. It looked like a jumble of scribbles trying to figure out how to untangle themselves.
“Well, you got a better idea?”
“What about a clock tower?” I said. I thought about the clock tower from Krems an der Donau. If I closed my eyes, I could still see the raspberry-colored sky with streaks of gold covering the blue cotton-candy clouds. I could still feel his strong presence next to me and smell the crisp summer air of Krems an der Donau. I wanted to go back. If I had the chance, I would fly back without even a blink of an eye, even if I had to leave everything behind.
“A clock tower?” Noelle’s voice pierced through my thoughts. “We’re going to have to figure out a bunch of angles. Let’s see, a cylinder as the base, a circle for the clock, arrows for the hands, and the roof’s the hardest—a cone. I’m lazy, dude.”
I wanted to scream until my vocal chords shattered. I tried not to think of Alaric, but my mind always seemed to be clouded by his ghost, and the deep despair hit my chest like a heart attack that brought me closer to death. I usually ignored pain like that, you know, live like a dead person in ignorance. But with him, the feeling was more painful than anything I have endured, and strangely enough, I felt so alive.
I looked around the classroom. I felt so confined, as if every wall was going to collapse on my body and just stay there forever. I needed to escape.
Escape. Alaric’s words came to me suddenly and echoed in every direction of my thoughts.
“It’s all about the possibilities. They’re rare. Precious,” he had said.
“But what if they never come?” I asked.
“Then make your own,” he answered me.
No. I needed to find an escape. Someplace secluded that nobody in this town knew. Someplace high up, where people can spend their days with their heads up in the clouds. A place where secrets can be shared and held and a place where one can get lost in their own fantasy.
“A tree house,” I suddenly said.
“We’ll have to measure out the tree limbs as well,” Noelle said.
“No. Let’s build a tree house.”
“What? You do realize we only have to put this thing on paper, right?”
“Yeah. But let’s actually build a tree house. A place where no one else knows. Our second home high up off the ground.”
“Sort of like our hidden spot behind the grill?” Noelle said.
“Not like that. Some place legit that’s away from all the stores and people of this town.”
“Our own little kingdom.”
“Exactly.”
Noelle looked at me as if I was crazy. “I like the idea, but we’ll never pull it off.”
“What if we do?”
Noelle sighed and nodded. “We better get an A on this project.”