The College Series

Blind Breakup

“There is no way I’m getting in that car with you, Jason. Not after what you did to me.” A girl with fire in her eyes and anger in her heart addressed a tall slender man with nothing but the weight of the world to hold him back.

“You know it’s not like that, Janet.” He spoke with verve and substance beyond what his youthful hands led you to believe he was capable of expressing.

“Then, please, tell me. What is it like, Jason?” she paused to glair in the direction his scent was emanating from. “What the hell is wrong with you?” she screamed now, no longer betrayed by the haze of societal constraints. Being blind had to buy you a certain amount of anonymity sometimes. She figured this was the perfect opportunity to completely ignore the crowds of people she knew were beginning to form to her left and right. She quickly noted how many footsteps she heard in the black beyond and smiled. She was pleased with her desired accomplishments.

“Janet...” she could hear the embarrassment dripping from his lips. She imagined his warm lips tenderly forming her name in the darkness that all her fantasies sprang from. “Please, I’m begging you.” Through the black she found that he moved her hand to touch the top on his head. He was on his knees, in front of her. “Feel me, here, at your feet, begging. Please, Janet...”

“That’s not going to work this time.” she was strong in her resolute to resist his invisible wounded expression - even though the air carried every clue that he was in true pain this time. She smelled salt, and anguish with each gush of pleading he sent her way.

“I will never be complete without you. Never.” The people swarmed to watch the blind girl dismiss the pale man in a sunlit parking lot in the middle of a Connecticut summer. “Don’t you people have lives or something!?”

She ignored the masses of people and his plead for privacy. “Then you will never be complete.” She felt him break. She heard the snap that she caused from inside him. There were a million other things in that instant that she could have heard, but her sensitive ears paid no attention to anything but the crack that came from the broken man who knelt at her feet for the last time. He wouldn’t be back after this.

“Don’t...” his young, strong hands trembled as he clasp to her sleeve, like a desperate child trying not to lose their mother. “...don’t leave me like this. Not like this.” His desperation was beginning to weigh on her now. She took pity and laid her hand on his.

“This is the way you wanted it, Jason...” as she began to speak to him from her perch of ultimate power, towering over her shriveling conquest, she was quickly reminded of how much power he still had in him. He could still control her lips if he wanted to. He did so by removing himself from her gentle hands - and she was more lost in an instant than she was in the beginning, when the blackness took over.

“Stop! Stop saying my name like you’re trying to remember it!” now he spoke to her from his new mysterious location. She could smell him and hear him like he was everywhere. He was in the air she took in, he was in the darkness that stole her light; he surrounded her and bathed her in his presence. Even if she could no longer touch him or find him, she could hear his anger, and it only grew stronger with each passing word.

“I’m not!” she told him as he encircled her with his putrid distain for all that she had become to him, mistakes and regrets. “I’m saying it like it’s the last time I will ever say your name!” She swung one hand through the air to steady herself as he blasted her with waves of hatred, but she couldn’t seem to find her bearings. Without his touch, she felt like she was slipping into an oblivion she wasn’t familiar with. She was sinking faster and deeper than she had ever thought possible before.

“This can’t be it, this can’t be the end.” he no longer cared about all the people who watched his aching heart squeeze a little more to hold him in his arms. “What about Paris? What about the London Bridge?” They had planned, he had dreamed and hoped. There used to be wedding bells in his head, and foreign languages in their future. But now, all he felt - all he saw was the blackness that he was sure she felt all the time.

“That doesn’t matter anymore. You think I care about going to new countries when I can barely remember your face?” Instinctively, she pulled her arms into dramatic gestures around her head. But to be honest, even if she had her vision, she wasn’t sure those movements had any meaning to her or them.

“Don’t let it end like this.” He responded a tiny, injured, and broken shell of his former self. It was sickening to think that he was the cause of all this, almost so much so that it was impossible to free his mind of the guilt that had begun to consume his every waking thought. It wouldn’t be too long before it spread like a cancer to his slumbering thoughts as well, and he knew there was nothing he could do to curb the anger he caused himself.

 ”This is it - this is way it’s going to be not because I’m cruel and I want to punish you. It’s going to end like this because that’s the way it’s ending. I had no choice. If I had gotten to choose the way this would have ended, it wouldn’t have been in the middle of a parking lot with strangers listening to our every word.” She turned to the people she knew to be all around her. With a tilt of her head she addressed the eagerly awaiting public. “That’s right, I know you’re there.”

“Janet, I... I don’t know what I’m going to do without you.” his quivering lips and shaking hands vibrated the air around her and gave her a sick feeling in her stomach. But the sickness had already taken him. It was finally beginning to sink in for him. She was really leaving, and there wasn’t a single thing he could say to stop her. If he was in her position, he was sure that he would do the same. He had earned every second of torture this was giving him.

She thought for a moment, and decided the best way to answer that was something he had said to her a long time ago when she could see his green eyes and they were too young to know what it really meant to love or lose. “The same thing you did before you met me. You’ll live, and love, and die alone - just as if I had never existed for you.” through the darkness she made her way, groping and stumbling, to escape the tears she could taste on his breathe.

 Change

“Do you think you’re any different?” a young girl poignantly asked the olive-skinned boy who stood a few feet in front of her. His dark brown eyes wavered while he considered her question. After a moment the clouds moved to cover the mid-day sun and he took a step closer to her. She took a step back and asked again. “I said, do you think you’re any different?”

He tilted his head to the left and smirked. He was going to have to play along. He sighed and looked past her to the building in the distance. “Changed how?”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest and looked directly at him. A shiver ran down his spine as he could feel her gaze seeping in through his grey shirt and khaki pants. “Do you think you’ve changed from how you used to be?”

“I used to be a lot of things.” He quickly replied as the sun sent scattered rays through the clouds behind her. She tightened her eyes and looked past him to the rain in the distance. A sudden wave of regret and pain swept over her face and through her eyes. This was not lost on him as he reconsidered her previous question.

“Of course I’ve changed.” She let the pain she was harboring sail past her and fly on with the passing wind and allowed his answer enthrall her for a moment.

“Why?” she asked as she uncrossed her arms and let her hands fall to her side. Her hands looked empty to him. She looked like she was missing something from the last time he saw her on this path. It pained him but he tried not to let it show that he was sad for something she had given up. She hated pity more than a liar so he would do neither to offend her.

“Pardon?” all the school lessons and cotillions of his childhood poured helplessly from his lips as he begged for clarification.

It was her turn to smirk. She gently recalled him in all his glory at the tender age of 13 in his new suit, fidgeting at the doorway as she made her way down the stairs to greet him. She slightly recalled what he looked like in that hour of dark stars and failed hopes. But now was not the time. “Why did you change?”

“That’s ridiculous. That’s like asking why the sun rises. Change comes and goes as it pleases. It needs no permission and it asks no forgiveness. It has no regrets and it strikes it random patterns that no one can predict or prevent.” He took another step to her as he felt the cool breeze of the wet air behind him. He sought warmth as she once again retreated to the dry air that lay behind her.

The sky was torn down the middle between the two old friends but dare not mix over their heads. The sun looked down at him threw the clouds and smiled because it knew what he meant. But it sighed because it knew that she was still too young, too close, and too hurt to understand it yet. But someday she would.

“Liar.” Daggers would have been less painful than her words. He would have done anything to stop the look that swept from ear to ear on her face as she resigned herself to believing that the man she had known her whole life, shared age and a history with, the man that she once could have loved would now stand to her west and lie to her tear-stained face.

“Never.” He retorted as he let the disappointment of misunderstanding drain from his fists into the pavement under his bare, calloused feet. He recalled a time when they were younger and stood here having the same argument, back then it was just different words. “You know that I’m not going to lie to you.” He soften his voice and instead of letting his brown eyes simply look into her green ones, he picked a spot equal distance between them, suspended in space and allowed her timid eyes to come to him. Their eyes mix in midair and swirl until both distinct colours have blended and created a shade that is an equal portion of brown and green.

“I know” she said as she was pulled from the wind around her and shoved back into her cold body. She shivered as she felt the fabric of her shirt move over her skin. She wished she didn’t remember a time when she knew what it was like to kiss him. That only made all this harder.

“I sorry.” He let his guard down for a split moment to send her all the love he was never quite able to tell her he had all these years. But she knew. She was too intuitive to ever think there was another reason for the single rose he left on her locker every morning for four years in secret.

“I know.” She paused. It had to have been a pause, her face still screamed of unrest. She hadn’t said all she wanted to yet. So he paused with her, out of respect and curiosity. What a peculiar turn this conversation had taken. It wasn’t the oddest they’d ever had but it certainly was up there on the ‘Never thought I’d say that sentence’ spectrum. “I wish we hadn’t changed.”

For all her stoicism, he was not prepared to hear that from her. Not because he didn’t think she was capable of showing vulnerability. He knew she was; it was just a rare occasion when she did. It was then that he really took into account how different these years apart had made her. She let the remorse slide from her lips as if it had always been there; she just wasn’t able to say it before.

“Would that make any of this any easier?” the cool air behind him pushed him forward again. But this time she stayed firm in her stance. There was no sign that she was going to move anymore. He got the distinct feeling that all these years that he hadn’t been in contact with her, she had done a lot of running. He was glad that she decided to finally stay put for a little while, and he was glad that it was with him. Even if that little while was only long enough to have this conversation about change and regret.

“I don’t know.” She took a step toward him and his breathe caught in his throat as he blinked and tried to decide if he was hallucinating. Her ability to have and display emotion was one thing. But her willingly drawing attention to the fact that the tears in her eyes weren’t going to stay hidden much longer was not even an option for the girl he used to think he knew. “All I know is that everything I thought I knew, everything I based my existence on might not exist.” He was puzzled by this. “I think I’ve made too many mistakes, run for too long, and changed too much to ever make any of this right.”

For the first time in his life, he looked at the beautiful proud woman that stood before him and felt everything he told himself he shouldn’t. He let all the love he couldn’t express bubble to the surface as he tried not to cry for how wonderful she looked as her hair blew in the wind. “Why did you come back?” he asked just to hear the quiver in her voice when she answered the complete truth that he had faith that she would now.

“For this.” As the words slipped from her lips, she pulled her arms around him and pressed her quivering lips against his. As her body touched him he flung his arms around her and held her tightly. She leaned back as he pulled her hips to press against him and moved his other hand to her neck. She twisted her fingers threw his hair and fought to let him swallow her from her soul up.

It had been years since she felt lips like that and love that made her so crazy she would risk mixing brown and green with desert and rain. It had been years since he’d seen her; the girl he knew was incapable of admitting she was wrong or needed help. But the girl that explored his mouth and held him as tightly as he did her was a welcome visit. She was still the girl he grew up with and loved from a distance, but she had changed.

Loneliness 02

“If there is one thing in this world that I am sure of, it’s that you love me! No matter how much everything changes around me, no matter how many years pass; you love me! Please don’t do this to me!” A young girl, in her late teens was shouting into her cell phone. It was a windy, dark November day. She stood on the elegant steps of a University building, screaming into her brightly coloured cell phone while people walked around her. She was quiet for a moment. She looked like she’d been through hell. Her hair looked like it would have been soft and smooth on any other day, but today it was tangled and thrown into a messy bun. Stands broke free from the black elastic band. Some of the stands blew hap hazardously in the wind, while a few stuck to her lips while she stood silently - listening.

The sky looked like it was going to fall at any minute. Students, young and old ran for cover; while still others griped miniature umbrellas for fear of the impending rain. She stood in the middle of the gently slopping steps while she nervously turned her ankles outward so that she precariously teetered on the sides of her feet, and back to the traditional standing position. She did this a few times as people pushed by her. A young man gave her a dirty look, and she gave him a death glair right back. He kept on walking and she sighed loudly with frustration.

“Yes.” It was such a drastic change from the previous tone she had used to shout into the phone, it scarcely resembled the same conversation. She shook her head in confirmation, and then glanced at the floor. She wiggled her toes from the confines of the black, plastic sandals. Then, as if she no longer likes her toes, she curled them under her foot, and twisted the ball of her foot on the floor with a kind of nervous anticipation. She was silent again.

Her eyes began to look bigger, and she meekly glanced at the passers-by to see if any of them had noticed. When another girl made momentary eye contact with her, she immediately looked away. “I know that.” She again spoke to her vibrant phone with a quiet sadness that spoke volumes in iris ways. Her left hand was gripping the bottom of her back pack as she swayed from side to side. Another stand of hair blew across her face, and she blew it away with a dramatic, “Poof.”

“Nothing, my hair was in my face.” she had almost a chameleon ability to imitate completely polar human emotions in voice and facial expression in a matter of seconds. It was truly remarkable to watch - memorizing.

I sat at one of the bookstore’s round, metal, coffee tables and watched as her lower lip began to quiver.

“Fine.” She was practically in tears by the end of the conversation. She pulled the phone from her face and looked up for the first time since I had noticed her standing on the steps. That was nearly twenty minutes ago, I noted as I glanced at my watch for a third time. I had just witnessed this girl having her heart ripped out on the steps of school, while the whole world just went on about it’s business. I felt like I was the only person who just saw the devastating sight. As if I was the only one who saw her at all - as if she existed only for me to know her pain.

There was something comforting about her sadness. It was also a relief when she ended the conversation and had managed not to cry. Her face was flushed a reddish tint, and her eyes resembled rain drops - but she had avoided public crying. I was proud of her. But what’s more that feeling comforted by her or close to her - I felt her. I watched as she hung up the phone with unspeakable sadness and profound confusion. And I reveled in her loneliness.

I glanced down at the sketchbook that I had resting on the tabletop. On it, I had managed to hurriedly put into pencil, her form; in an effort to preserve and capture her essence. Next to the pad was my digital camera. I had about 20 pictures of her, and 2 mini, silent movies. It was enough to watch over and over again - it was enough to fall in love. And that was all I needed.

‘She probably wouldn’t be too happy if she knew someone had gotten all that on film’ I thought to myself as I let the breeze rustle my hair and push a chill down my spine. Something about that girl drove me to shiver.

She was plain, normal - an average teenager. She was wearing jeans, sandals, and a Hurley’s shirt. She had a grey backpack with something written on it. She had pretty good sized chest, reddish/brown hair, and a lot of rings - at lest seven. She wasn’t all that beautiful - okay looking, I guess. She looked a little on the plump side from here, but not pudgy. But that wasn’t it - she wasn’t anything spectacular. What got me about her was the way she moved. The way she touched her hips, the way she swayed with the wind, and let her hands wander through the air. It was sexual, and cosmic.

That and her eyes; I couldn’t see their exact colour from so far away, but by the design of her face, they had to be just magnificent. She wore a heavy layer of black eyeliner. It made them stand out - even from fifty feet away. Just like I knew her heart was breaking, I know that there was pain and regret in her eyes long before she stumbled into my line of sight. She was fascinating to me.

She put the phone into her backpack and sauntered down the steps in no hurry to appease the masses of swarming people pushing behind her in a futile effort to make her walk faster. She dipped her hand and rotated her arm for a moment to glance at her watch. I think it was then that I decided to follow her. I don’t know why - or what could have possibly possessed me to become a stalker. But at that moment, I just didn’t care. I wanted to know everything about this girl. I wanted to know where she was from, what music she liked, who that person on the phone was, why she cried when no one looked, and how she came to be so overwhelmingly lost.

I quickly scooped all my books and camera into my bag, and zipped it as I trotted to catch up. She walked slowly, and let her hips sway dramatically when she descended the stairs. It was hypnotizing watching her move. I memorized how her arms swayed in the wind, how her hips seemed to hang in the air a moment before she took another step, the way the tiny tendrils of hair on the back of her neck beckoned to be touched as they waved in the breeze.

She was shorter than I had first thought she would be. She was pale, for someone in such a tropical setting. Not the way someone from Norway is pale, but the way someone from North Carolina is pale - the sun is there, and they come into contact with it, but make no effort to seek it out and bask in it. She was no model that was for sure. She was short and what I can only describe as stubby. She didn’t have flawless skin, but it did look really soft and warm.

I got a little closer to her, and I could hear a jingling. Like change in her pocket, but her jeans were too tight to allow and loose change to jingle.

‘What’s making that noise?’ I wondered to myself as I walked behind her. I don’t know why, but I assumed that she was on her way to her car, and I desperately wanted to be closer to her before she gets into a metal box and drives off. ‘What if I never see her again?’ I ask myself. For the first time, I actually realized what I was planning on doing. It was always there, from the moment I saw her walk into the sun, and sneeze silently as she flailed her right hand. I was going to talk to her; I was going to interact with her.

She was real, and she was so close to me I could hear the crisp ache in her breaths. She had a rhythmic flow in her step and a primal instinct in her innate directive. Her whole body flowed with perfect harmony as she glided along the sidewalk and let the bottoms of her sandals scrape along the cement. She was mysterious and exquisite.

As she broke away from the crowd of people walking to take a smaller, less populated path, I hung back for a moment. I didn’t want her to know that I was stalking her - that probably wouldn’t go over so well. And as I stood there, alone, I began to question my actions.

‘Does this make me a psycho?’ it seemed to me, to be a very reasonable concern at the moment. ‘I don’t think so.’ Came the reply from myself. ‘That’s great, now you’re talking to yourself, and following a stranger to her car.’ I shake my head, and dispel all the doubts cluttered there. ‘You can’t chicken out now - you may never see her again.’ And that was enough to propel me ahead. She was twenty yards away from me, but she walked so slowly, that I began to catch up to her.

So I hung back again, pretending to check my watch. And that’s the way we went for ten minutes. I would walk too fast, and catch up, so I’d stop. I started running out of things to do. After tying my shoe, checking my phone, looking though my backpack, and reading a few lines from a book - it became a challenge to find something to keep me occupied while she gained distance from me. I could have just walked slower, or let her get farther away before I started walking; but I couldn’t bear to be too far away from her. I was scared that I might lose her.

The whole time I could hear the jingling and a quite humming. She was humming something to herself - something that I recognized. It was familiar, she was familiar. Her hair, her skin, her backpack - which now clearly read: Roswell, her blue jeans with a light blue heart embroidered into the right back pocket.

‘Why does she have Roswell on her bag?’ I wonder as I begin to walk again. It is obviously written with several layers of marker - I can see the ink streaks where it has run from the rain. ‘Speaking of rain,’ I look up at the sky. ‘It’s going to rain soon.’ And I looked back to her. ‘Is she from Roswell?’ I think to myself. ‘No’ again comes the reply from within. ‘She’s too all American looking to be from Mexcanville.’ So what then, aliens?

We had just rounded the walkway that came from behind the Library - where practically no one walked, through the path in the grass along the lake, and now we were headed to the Chemistry and Physics building. I noticed that she took special care not to walk on the grass. Even when there were shorter paths that cut though, she’d walk the long way on the paved path. ‘Maybe she doesn’t want to get her feet dirty.’ I thought for a moment, but then it passes. ‘No, she’s wearing five dollar sandals from Payless, and her feet are already dirty - it has to be something else.’

That’s when the skies opened up. As soon as I got one foot on the larger path, the rain thundered and shook the campus. I quickly gabbed my bag and held it in front of me while I huddled over to protect it. I looked through the driving rain, and marveled at the simplicity of her actions. She slowly took off her bag, turned it around, and put in on backwards on her chest. She turned the waterproof side outward - genius.

She continued to walk as slowly as before. Nothing could make her run for shelter, or allow the people with umbrellas to force her off the path. She gave some of the rude people an evil look, and I thought about pulling out my umbrella and offering to walk her to her car.

That was it - that was how I could meet her. It was perfect. I opened my bag carefully, and rummaged through it with my hand. No umbrella. ‘Great, your only in, and you leave it in your car. What good is it going to do you there anyway?’ Then another thought came to me. I could join her in her soggy walk, and offer putrid disgust for the people who did have cover. We could be united in our front against umbrellas.

I looked up for her, but with all the people, and umbrellas - I could only vaguely make out her figure as she turned the corner to where I think one of the parking lots is. I close my bag, and run after her. But as I rounded the corner - she had disappeared. There was no one. It was deserted, and that parking lot was closed and under construction.

I panic. I have been watching her for half an hour, I know she was real. But she was no where to be found. My heart ached to see her swaying hips, or look in her eyes. My head screamed for me to move. I scanned the building’s edges to see if she had taken refuge there. No luck. She isn’t that kind of girl.

‘Think like her, think like her.’ I chant as I demand myself to find her. I desperately scan all around me - nothing. ‘Maybe she went inside, maybe she has class, maybe she doesn’t exist, or maybe she didn’t even come this way.’ Of all the scenarios, the last seemed most likely. I was mistaken.

She didn’t come this way. So I stood there in the rain, slowly turning in small circles, trying to figure out where to go. I am lost with out her. I can’t bring myself to walk back into the huddled people, or go to my class that started 5 minutes ago. I glance at my watch, seven minutes.

I lost her in the rain, and now I feel as alone as she looked. I stop spinning and slowly make my way over to the overhang of the building. The rain is cold, and I am glad to be free from it. ‘What should I do now?’ I an the only person around here, so I slowly let my wet back slide down the concrete wall and crumbled into a soaking ball of disappointment and loneliness.

Mark & Ella

MARK: Ella, what’s wrong?

ELLA: What’d you mean: ‘what’s wrong?’ Nothing’s wrong. I’m fine; just fine. In fact, I’m perfect - dandy even. Why? Why do you ask? What’s with the ‘yeah right’ face?

MARK: Face, what face?

ELLA: Oh, nothing. Forget it. I just meant why do you ask?

MARK: No reason in particular. It’s just... well I’m not sure - I mean I can’t be 100% positive about this - but I’m pretty sure I’ve ever heard anyone actually use the word ‘dandy’ in a conversation; and certainly not to describe themselves. I thought it was an urban ledged.

ELLA: Cute, Mark. Real cute.

MARK: Oh come on, Ella. I’m just jonesing you. You know that. I’m just worried about you. That’s all.

ELLA: Well don’t be. I’ll be fine. I mean I am fine. Why? Don’t I look fine?

MARK: You look great... it’s just that...

ELLA: ‘Cause ya know, it’s not easy. I mean... you can tell... can’t you? Oh God, you can see it! Are my eyes all red and puffy? I knew I shouldn’t have buzzed you up - I knew you were going to hound me. Are you hounding me? Stop hounding me!

MARK: Wo! Time out. Let’s take a tinsy step back from the crazy train and breathe for a minute. Okay?

ELLA: Okay.

MARK: Okay, now breathe with me... that’s good. See, it’s good to take a minute to settle ourselves before we reach full on neurosis. Okay, now what I was going to say before was that I only asked what was wrong because I’ve never seen you eat ice cream before. I never really took you for an ‘ice-cream-person.’ You always seemed more like a soy latté kind of girl to me.

ELLA: Well, I’m not an ‘ice-cream-person’ as you put it. I never... hardly ever eat it. Just sometimes - you know. Sometimes, when you just feel like you need it. Hey, and for your information - I don’t drink soy lattés. I prefer cranberry juice to all other beverages.”

MARK: You are an interesting woman, you know that?

ELLA: Believe it or not, that has been brought to my attention several times. James always used to say that I....

MARK: Oh so that’s what this is.

ELLA: No, that’s not what this is. This isn’t anything. What are you talking about? Why? What do you think this is?

MARK: No, nothing. It’s ok. It’s obvious that you’re still... I mean I can see that you’re still not over the whole thing that happened with... that other guy.

ELLA: Mark, no. that’s not what this is, at all. I swear.

MARK: Don’t lie. It doesn’t suit you. Besides - I hate lairs.

ELLA: I’m not lying. I mean, okay. I am a little bit, but it’s not my fault. Mark, you have to believe me. I’m over him. I mean I was over him - until he showed up today.

MARK: What? He was here? He came here today? Why? What’d you do?

ELLA: Nothing. I didn’t do anything. I pretended like I wasn’t home. I missed chemistry and biology - I didn’t want to leave. I was scared that I’d find him lurking outside the building or something.

MARK: What’d he want?

ELLA: I dunno. I didn’t really talk to him or anything. It was more of me hiding kind of situation than an actual confrontation.

MARK: Liar.

ELLA: Excuse me?

MARK: You heard me. You’re lying. You’re lying to me right now.

ELLA: How? How do you do that? Is it like some super human, secret super power? ‘Cause if so - you know that’s not fair. I don’t have any crazy super human abilities to oppose yours.

MARK: Don’t do that.

ELLA: Do what?

MARK: Don’t try to change the subject. Flattery won’t get you anywhere.

ELLA: Fine.

MARK: What’d he say? No! Let me guess. Was he: making a desperate attempt to regain boyfriend status? Trying to win you back - begging for forgiveness for walking out on you over two months ago. Oh! Was there groveling? Please say there was groveling!

ELLA: I’m glad this is so humorous for you. I’m so overjoyed that my excruciatingly painful experience is of such great entertainment to you. I’m happy to be of service.

MARK: I’m sorry Ella. I didn’t mean for it to come out so...

ELLA: ...truthful, happy, satisfied? Anything coming close? I bet this is just a laugh riot for you!

MARK: No, it’s not. Really - I’m sorry. It really didn’t sound like that in my head. Believe me - it was much worse!

ELLA: Oh, ha ha ha ha ha. I am so amused.

MARK: Sorry, inappropriate humour: a forte of mine.

ELLA: It’s ok Mark. I can’t say that I’m all that surprised. After all, it’s not really a secret that you never really liked him to begin with - even before he and I started dating.

MARK: What? I am appalled that you would even imply such a thing! Poor, little, innocent me - not liking someone? INCONCEIVABE!

ELLA: I don’t think that means what you think it means.

MARK: Princess Bride. It’s a classic.

ELLA: Yup, definitely a classic.

MARK: You didn’t really think that I’d forget what we were talking about, did you?

ELLA: I was hoping.

MARK: Come on, it’s me you’re talking to. What happened? Did he beg?

ELLA: No.

MARK: Well, he should have.

ELLA: He’s weird. You know that. He’s not that predicable. Ya know?

MARK: Not really.

ELLA: Okay, well take today for example. You asked if he groveled. But you just assumed that he came here to try and get me back. But in his mind, it doesn’t work like that. He comes and goes when it suits him. He has no recollection of leaving me. Or if he does - he just assumes that I would have forgotten about it too. He expects us to just pick up where we left off; like he left me on pause or something. He acts like it was only a moment ago that he last saw me; like he just went out for some milk. Now do you see?

MARK: Yeah, I got it. So did it work?

ELLA: No, I’m not like him. I can’t just pretend that nothing happened. I remember all the...

MARK: It’s ok, Ella.

ELLA: I know. I know that. It’s just - my heart can only take so much, you know. And so this time, I had enough. I can’t go through this again: hence the ice cream.

MARK: Okay, I didn’t quite follow you around that curve.

ELLA: This time I decided I’d be ready for next time. My heart can only be broken so many times. And so before next time, I’ll need insulation. You know - a thick layer of ice creaminess goodness to protect me.

MARK: Okay, see and here I was worried that it was going to be something wired.

ELLA: Don’t be malice.

MARK: Sorry, I just meant that maybe next time, if there even is a next time...

ELLA: Oh, there will be a next time. Trust me.

MARK: Okay, well next time instead of the thick fatty layer approach - what if you had another kind of deflector.

ELLA: What do you mean?

MARK: What if next time he walked into your life he had to walk past someone - what if he had to walk past me. I could be your human heart shield.

ELLA: No doubt you would make a fine human heart shield - I mean I’m not questioning your capabilities or anything; I just can’t bring you into this. It wouldn’t be right to involve you. It’s complicated. But thank you.

MARK: Oh, it’s no problem. Don’t mention it. DON’T mention it.

ELLA: Okay. Well, let’s change the subject, PLEASE.

MARK: Sure.

ELLA: Ummm, oh! What’s going on with you? What brings you here? You said you had something to talk to me about?

MARK: Oh, yeah. Yeah... well I could explain, but then I wouldn’t be mysterious anymore. And I’d lose at least half of my sex appeal.

ELLA: Is that so? Well excuse me Don Juan. I had no right.

MARK: All is forgiven.... Anyway. So yeah, I wanted your help with a school thing.

ELLA: NO! Don Juan, your sex appeal!

MARK: All is ok my child. I have not yet revealed the nature behind my school thing. I still maintain my upper hand.

ELLA: Oh yes, I see. I am drawn to you.

MARK: Yeah, so ummm.... Math; I wanted to ask your help with my calculus?

ELLA: What? But you have the best grade in our class.

MARK: Yeah, but this new section is kicking my ass. I heard you talking to the professor, and you said that you understood this stuff really well. And I know that you tutor math, so I thought you were the obvious choice.

ELLA: Is that so?

MARK: Yes, I believe it is.

ELLA: Well then, let’s get started. Shall we? I am here for your disposal.

MARK: At, don’t you mean at?

ELLA: Pardon?

MARK: ‘...at your disposal.’ You said for, don’t you mean at?

ELLA: Oh yeah. I suppose I did mean for. Sorry.

MARK: No problem. So can you help me? I mean I can’t really pay you too much...

ELLA: Oh, don’t worry about it. It will be good practice for me anyway. So do you want to get together tomorrow around one so we can get started?

MARK: Oh, we can’t do it now?

ELLA: Well, I was in the middle of wallowing in endless self pity. But I guess we could do it now.

MARK: Thanks, I really appreciate it. And if there is ever anything I can do for you - don’t hesitate to ask.

ELLA: Actually, there is something you can do for me.

MARK: Really? Okay. What is it? ‘Cause I’ll do anything, anything at all.

ELLA: Could you hand me my bag, it’s over there next to the counter?

MARK: Oh, yeah sure. No problem.

ELLA: Thanks.

MARK: No problem. That’s what I’m here for.

Parking Garage

I know that there is nothing I can do to change what happened. I know there is nothing I can do that will make him any less appealing to me. And yet, still I try. I try not to look back at him as we walk to the elevator. I try not to stand right next to him as we wait, and ‘accidentally’ graze my arm over his. I try not to close my eyes and imagine kissing him when he calls that guy giving me the inappropriate looks and asshole.

“You can’t hurt me; you couldn’t hurt me if you tried. Trust me. I’ve been hurt so many times before, I’m like, invincible.” He stands there in front of me, smiling. I tilt my head down and smile at the asphalt.

“Like Superman?” I ask the floor with girlish anticipation, and a nervous twinge in my shaky voice.

“Yeah.” He laughs, I laugh. It is uncomfortable and true.

‘How can you be joking after what you just did?’ I ask myself as I look at him like he is the only thing that exists in the world. We are standing in the middle of a parking garage, and the ground shakes as another car drives by. And it occurs to me how dark it seems, how cold it seems, how sad it seems.

Wait, this is all wrong. Everything is out of order; this is all too mixed up to understand, too jumbled to start with. If you want to see us I have to go back to when it all began. You have to see the completely distinct and individual people we became to be without each other, and how completely miserable we were before we met. You have to see what it was like to live so alone when we were only half and hour away from each other our entire lives.

He was 18 and alone. I was 18 and attached.

To be honest I don’t remember him until about two weeks into class. We had to write a poem and then read it to the class. I was the first to go because I love to be the center of attention and I wanted to start off by showing everyone that I could write really well. My poem wasn’t that good - poetry was never really my thing. But I wrote it the night before at my boyfriend’s house and I was semi proud of it. I read and everyone loved it, of course. Everyone always loved my writing it was kind of a given for me.

But then, this guy got up to read. I remember him saying he was Salvadorian-Lebanese. And the professor said something stupid like “Yes that is a very popular mix. Do you know the Blah Blah Blah family, I tutored their daughters.” He was always saying something completely ridiculous like that: making some kind of ADD leap to the totally unrelated subject. ‘There are only like a million people in El Salvador, not to mention the half a million living here in Miami, sure why isn’t it totally conceivable to think that this poor, quiet boy personally knew one family and their two daughter’s who were unfortunate enough to cross paths with you.’ Jerk.

This guy, this half Spanish, half Arabian guy stood there and briefly described the foreword to the poem. That’s right; there was a three page foreword to the poem. That is when I started to look at him differently. Then when he opened his mouth and out came those words. I can’t describe it.

He spoke of divorce, and growing too fast. He spoke about hate and betrayal, loyalty and most of all: God. This man, this small, almost handsome man spoke about God like most men talk about pussy. I listened to him. I soaked in all this boy had to say. I closed my eyes and let the images of cedars and pain wash over me. I let him take me in his proverbial arms and wrap me in a blanket of hurt and desperation that I have only ever seen in the mirror.

Is it wrong to say that I wanted to cry for him? I wanted to break down for the emotions this boy conveyed threw those words knocked me on my ass. I was sitting in the front row, and when it was over - I wanted it all again. I wanted him to speak to me like that again.

I said something like “Wow. That kicked my ass.” Of course, I had to make it something about me. But what else should I have said. “You’re God?” yeah that’s the right way to look sane, act crazy!

I was totally unprepared for him. I didn’t expect to go to class that day and walk out new again. He didn’t take compliments well and I watched as he scurried from class before I had a chance to say anything else to him. What would I have said anyway? “Can I have your unborn children? I bow down to you, oh mighty one?” like I said, acting crazy isn’t the right way to look sane.

I watched him walk that day. I stayed behind him and saw him walk alone. I tried not to let it shake me. I tried not to think about him too much in the car on my way home. But somehow I kept finding my mind wandering back to him. And by the time I got home I was all excited to tell someone about him. I had to tell everyone about the great treasure I had found. It was like he was mine. He was my discovery and I claimed him in the name of art.

So I told my mom. I told her about the unusual boy who surprised me. I told her in a three fold pact why this boy had shocked me. Yeah that’s right. I don’t know if you caught that or not, but let me explain it. I thought about him so much so that I had actually managed to pin point three very distinct and exact points that made him stand out to me. And I had found the time to order them into rankings of importance. So here they are:

One: he was a guy. And guys shouldn’t have the emotional capability to talk so openly and profoundly about their past experiences and pains. He was a guy that should not have been contemplating on such things. Because not only was he a guy, but he was like a Spanish guy. I fully expected and prepared myself to listen to an ode to his car or the rap artist he admired most.

Two: he was good. He was really good. I had no idea; I mean I have never heard anyone speak like that. He had talent. He had that innate gift for language. That isn’t something that you can pick up along the way. He was born with that fire in his soul and that passion in his heart. And that was not something I expected to walk into a room at FIU and find. Maybe I was being judgmental and prodigious. But it is true. I just didn’t think, by looking at him, that this boy had that much talent wrapped up in him.

Three: he spoke about God. It wasn’t only the fact that he was so good, but that he could be that devoted to god. He was modern, he was normal. He was average, but there was something in him that made him more inclined to call out to a benevolent deity than another person. I just had no idea that this boy could stand up there for a minute and pour his heart out about God and all his love for the divine. And then at the end when he spoke in Arabic - that just killed me.

And there you have it, the three reasons why I watched him walk alone that day and wish that I was standing next to him that day and everyday to follow it. He was like an anomaly. He was like a blip on the radar of ‘Once-In-A-Life-Time’ people.

I told my best friend about him and when I was done explaining about the three reasons; she just looked at me with that condescending, disapproving, arrogant, face that I am convinced she had permanently attached to her - like a mask - every time she knew I was about to do something stupid. She knew back then that this was going to be something more than it should have. But I couldn’t see it just then, it would take a while for me to realize that.

“Don’t do it again.” She said to me. “Just don’t.” I pretended like I didn’t know what she was talking about. But the truth was I knew exactly what she meant. All she had to do was look at me and listen to my inane, lame attempt to mask my newest crush with admiration, and she knew that I was a goner for this guy. She knew before I did. She knew like she always did that this was not just ‘some guy’ any more. The moment his name passed over my lips and I soaked her in it, she knew that I was going to get hurt again. I always got hurt in the end.

So I went back to class and in between work and my other 6 classes, he sort of faded into the back ground for a while. He went back to the ‘some guy’ that he was before he read the poem. Ok, well not really. I still noticed him in class and watched him walk alone. But I thought I had let it go. I was too busy swooning over forbidden fruit to obsess over him at the moment.

But gradually I found my eyes wandering back to him. I moved my seat so I could be closer to him. We passed notes and I eventually sat right in front of him. It was nice to be so close to someone. I had been too isolated before - so cold and alone. We started to talk and share stories. I gave him something of mine to read, and he actually wanted to read it. That is something that I don’t get to experience too often. We exchanged email addresses with the hall-mark reason for comparing and aiding in each other’s writing. I don’t think either of us really believed that. Or maybe we had to believe it in order to stay as platonic as we could. And things were back to the façade of normality; for a little while at least.

I read and critiqued his work and he read mine. When he sent me his first story I let it sit on my desktop for like 3 days before I even touched it. Then one Saturday after I got home from work, I sat down to read it. I always call my boyfriend when I get home so we can go out and do something. But this day, I got so caught up that I completely forgot about him and just read his whole 30 page manuscript. In the beginning his work was long, and arduous. It was rigid and didn’t flow well. Not at all like the poem had he read. I could tell there was something wrong with it. So I gave him some pointers to make it more realistic. And success, on the next try - he had finally managed to use his own distinct and creative voice to create a world and characters that I could wholly see and feel.

In the mean time he read some of my things and kept asking for more. So I sent them, but it seemed like I couldn’t write them fast enough for him to read. I’m not exactly sure when things changed. But I think it was around the time that I’d see him and hide. Why would I hide from a complete stranger? Because I was scared that I’d see him with all his friends and realize that the man in his stories were made up. And I had grown so fond of that boy that I was scared to let anything kill him - that included the source.

In his stories, he was glorious and unhappy. The boy in all of his stories was average and extraordinarily sad. And that is something that I could connect with, that was something that I could mirror in my own way.

And there seemed to me, to be something more than what he presented himself as. There was more buried under the surface of this gentle, Spanish/Arab man that didn’t fit the traditional Christian he appeared to be. There was defiance, there was sadness and grief and something that I wouldn’t be able to identify for a long time.

The suffering, the pain - he was such a sensitive soul. Even though he kept insisting that there was nothing I could have done to hurt him. But I was more to him. I was far too much than I should have been. He seemed to be ashamed of him self. Not the way that I hated myself and thought I was pathetic; no he had an actual humiliation of what he was. There was an almost innate fear of his father and the idea that he was not worthy. I don’t know what happened to this boy, but I think that me being so close to him was something that he never expected to happen. It was when he looked at me, he was trying to figure out if I was really there, if I was really felt anything for him. He didn’t believe my eyes - only my words. Only through stories could I convince him that in his arms I felt more alive than I have in so long. But I can’t do it - I shouldn’t have done it again. So I took a cowards way out and feigned friends. I gave him the guise of a moral exterior, when all the while I was dieing on the inside. But if that wasn’t enough - to add insult to injury - I didn’t seem to reciprocate all the emotions he had for me. I think that if I could, he would have told me that he loved me. But I just wasn’t there. Maybe if I didn’t have anyone waiting at home for me, but I did - I still do. I couldn’t say it and mean it.

“You know, if things were different, I think right now I’d tell you that I loved you.” I say as I give a weak smile and climb into the cushy interior of my little white car. I let the smell wash over me and soak me in until I feel it. I don’t move until I am firmly sure that this is safe. My car - Pippin, is safe. It’s like home base; it is somewhere that I am protected. It is mine, I paid for it. I maintain it, it is mine. And that is worth more than all the national security in the world. So I put in into reverse when I feel the safety wash over me and wrap me in home.

“I’ve never felt this way about someone before.” He admitted with remorse and regret for ever having met me. At least I hoped he did. I wanted him to hate me; I wanted to give him a fire to burn my memory with. I wanted him to vanquish me from his memories and burn the sensation of my lips on his from his mind forever. I wanted him to live without talking to me and be happy with it. I wanted him to wish death upon me, and never look back when he ran me over with his green Toyota SUV.

But I don’t think I quite got that threw to him. “I’m no good for you. Why do you think all my old best friends have turned into drug addicts who hate me? That isn’t a coincidence. I chew people up, and when I spit them back out again they are totally different, completely unrecognizable to the people they were before they met me. I destroy people, and if you give me the chance, I would do it to you too.”

Oh, would you look what I’ve done again? I’ve gone and mixed it all up again. What is about this boy that makes my brain fly off into random, non-sequential thoughts? We were an unusual pair - the two of us. We never did make sense; we never could get it together enough around each other to act normal.

So there it is. Nothing about this singular boy can make me doubt his queer sincerity. He is pure; he is still innocent and un-jaded in the ways of the world. And when I look at him all I see is a future that I gave up so long ago. I see hope and joy. He loves without question or bound. He trusts almost innately, and his passion rules his waking thoughts. His slumbering dreams are his alone, and I’m not even going to sit here and try to figure out what he has lived through, or analyze the pain the he feels. Everyone is different, and we are different. But there are just some things that make me think that he was created to compliment me perfectly. He is appealing and charming, and safe. He is lovely and kind, and he is scary. His passion and unattached removal from the world that I have walked in for too long is almost eerie. There has to be something there that I can’t see. There has to be something there that I’m not picking up on yet - but if he does have a flaw I have yet to see one. Perfection is such an annoying quality in the unattainable. And dreaming is a poor substitute for the tangible longing that he instills in me.