where to begin with that one, so I just
walked away, right out the door. I didn’t even wait for the dismissal bell.
Fortunately,
that afternoon, I had track to focus on. You couldn’t really be upset while
distance running. You had to be able to breathe. All through track, I tried to
focus on myself, my body, my running. On the track, I felt like I was literally
running away from something or someone. I even imagined a slightly portly,
out-of-shape Doug trying to catch up to me as I finished my mile. It was the
best time I had in months. Somehow, as I ran, the thought of Doug didn’t make
me feel upset like it had over the past twenty- four hours. I felt energized,
as if I were finally able to do something about the whole mess. As if running
mattered. As if the distance I ran was not, in fact, a circle.
That night,
after dinner, Mom told me Mr. S. had called concerned about me. I explained how
I studied the wrong chapter, and I was just pissed about the whole thing and
that was why I left the classroom early. Mom shook her head. You could tell she
was getting alarmed. “I don’t think it’s that simple, Andy. I think Dad and I
need to talk about this. You’ve never been in trouble in school. Not even in
kindergarten!”
“It’s nothing,
Mom. You’re turning a spaced out little mistake into some catastrophe. I am not
having a major melt-down. I was tired. I got the chapter wrong. That’s all.”
“Ok,” Mom
relented. She didn’t seem totally convinced, but then again, I can be pretty
hard on her when I want, and you could see she didn’t want to go to the mat
with me. I wasn’t ready to go bawling on her shoulder again either. I needed to
pull myself together. I needed to push Doug and all that happened permanently
from my mind.
I would have
succeeded too, if it hadn’t been for my stupid, insane dreams, and that
two-faced bitch, Sharon.
It was a couple
weeks after the thing with Doug, and I still hadn’t been over to Eve’s. I had
been planning on seeing her on Sunday, but then I got a text from her -- Can’t do it
today. Sorry. I practically wanted to pull my hair out, freaking out about why
she was avoiding me, how she must hate me, how she must know all about Doug.
In a panic, I
texted her back asking why she was canceling, and then she had to explain how
she’d gotten her period, and it was a real horror show, since she couldn’t get
in and out of her chair or bed anymore without someone with her at all times. I
didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem exactly like what she would come up
with as a cover story. So then I had to feel like crap for having made her tell
me the humiliating truth, for having made her have the nurse or her mom text me
her deepest secrets.
In my dream that
night I could hear her whispering in my ear. It was so real, could feel her
breath on me.
Get the keys, she said, get the keys.
I drove her in a
sort of makeshift car - half motorcycle with a sidecar, half VW Bug. I knew in
the dream the place we’d arrived in was heaven, but it looked like a giant
bathroom, with a white tile floor that was cool on our bare feet, and huge
white marble columns. I wanted to help Eve walk, but when I reached out to hold
her up, she danced away toward the stainless steel maxi-pad dispenser mounted
on the marble wall, which I remembered thinking looked entirely real. It was
one of those strange moments when you can tell, even as you dream, which images
are from real life, and which are weird dream fabrications. What confused me
was Eve walking. I wanted to know how it could be, what was the miracle that
had cured her? But she wouldn’t answer me. Suddenly, I was afraid. I realized
the reason she wasn’t explaining herself was that she was only better, could
only walk again, because she was actually dead - that we both were - only she
didn’t care, didn’t mind a bit that she’d died, and had taken me with her, so long
as she could walk again. She shook her
walked away, right out the door. I didn’t even wait for the dismissal bell.
Fortunately,
that afternoon, I had track to focus on. You couldn’t really be upset while
distance running. You had to be able to breathe. All through track, I tried to
focus on myself, my body, my running. On the track, I felt like I was literally
running away from something or someone. I even imagined a slightly portly,
out-of-shape Doug trying to catch up to me as I finished my mile. It was the
best time I had in months. Somehow, as I ran, the thought of Doug didn’t make
me feel upset like it had over the past twenty- four hours. I felt energized,
as if I were finally able to do something about the whole mess. As if running
mattered. As if the distance I ran was not, in fact, a circle.
That night,
after dinner, Mom told me Mr. S. had called concerned about me. I explained how
I studied the wrong chapter, and I was just pissed about the whole thing and
that was why I left the classroom early. Mom shook her head. You could tell she
was getting alarmed. “I don’t think it’s that simple, Andy. I think Dad and I
need to talk about this. You’ve never been in trouble in school. Not even in
kindergarten!”
“It’s nothing,
Mom. You’re turning a spaced out little mistake into some catastrophe. I am not
having a major melt-down. I was tired. I got the chapter wrong. That’s all.”
“Ok,” Mom
relented. She didn’t seem totally convinced, but then again, I can be pretty
hard on her when I want, and you could see she didn’t want to go to the mat
with me. I wasn’t ready to go bawling on her shoulder again either. I needed to
pull myself together. I needed to push Doug and all that happened permanently
from my mind.
I would have
succeeded too, if it hadn’t been for my stupid, insane dreams, and that
two-faced bitch, Sharon.
It was a couple
weeks after the thing with Doug, and I still hadn’t been over to Eve’s. I had
been planning on seeing her on Sunday, but then I got a text from her -- Can’t do it
today. Sorry. I practically wanted to pull my hair out, freaking out about why
she was avoiding me, how she must hate me, how she must know all about Doug.
In a panic, I
texted her back asking why she was canceling, and then she had to explain how
she’d gotten her period, and it was a real horror show, since she couldn’t get
in and out of her chair or bed anymore without someone with her at all times. I
didn’t know what to say. It didn’t seem exactly like what she would come up
with as a cover story. So then I had to feel like crap for having made her tell
me the humiliating truth, for having made her have the nurse or her mom text me
her deepest secrets.
In my dream that
night I could hear her whispering in my ear. It was so real, could feel her
breath on me.
Get the keys, she said, get the keys.
I drove her in a
sort of makeshift car - half motorcycle with a sidecar, half VW Bug. I knew in
the dream the place we’d arrived in was heaven, but it looked like a giant
bathroom, with a white tile floor that was cool on our bare feet, and huge
white marble columns. I wanted to help Eve walk, but when I reached out to hold
her up, she danced away toward the stainless steel maxi-pad dispenser mounted
on the marble wall, which I remembered thinking looked entirely real. It was
one of those strange moments when you can tell, even as you dream, which images
are from real life, and which are weird dream fabrications. What confused me
was Eve walking. I wanted to know how it could be, what was the miracle that
had cured her? But she wouldn’t answer me. Suddenly, I was afraid. I realized
the reason she wasn’t explaining herself was that she was only better, could
only walk again, because she was actually dead - that we both were - only she
didn’t care, didn’t mind a bit that she’d died, and had taken me with her, so long
as she could walk again. She shook her
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