to wilt, with petals that opened wide, only to turn back in on themselves. By the time that I completed enough drafts to transfer the thing to canvas, the outer white had diminished to an irregular fringe and the wilting had increased dramatically. The final product was, according to Ms. Faber, “expressionistic,” full of pathos and lacking in perspective.
O UR DAYS in the sun were numbered. I knew it and, if the additions to Mr. Steadman’s wardrobe were anything to go by, he did too. Nevertheless, until mid-October, we were still having Fridays outdoors: a pleasure that he reserved for his seniors.
There was something traumatic about the beauty of those Fridays in the sunlight, where we could not touch. Sometimes under the enchantment of his words, I would let my legs open a little wider than I should have, in hope of enchanting him with a glimpse. I didn’t know how much he saw, if indeed he ever looked (facing me across the circle, could he have avoided doing so?), yet no amount of shadowy thigh could have been an accurate measure of what I felt for him. My whole body could not have been an accurate measure. What I wanted was to merge with the grass, to be there under his fingertips, every nerve laid bare.
In the sunlight, however, I was untouchable, as was he. I knew this when I saw him closing his book, but also when I saw him laughing, joking with the other girls. One Friday, I even saw him stand up from the grass, to stretch and skim a stone across the glittering surface of the lake. Never again did he ask if anyone wanted to help him carry the books upstairs. Never again did he put himself within my reach.
Every Friday brought with it a new defeat, a new cup of sorrows. It got to the point where I couldn’t even sit through Thursday’s lesson without a certain awful fluttering in my stomach, a tightness in my chest, which was a premonition of the loss that I was to suffer the next day. The tweed suit became an object of ambivalence. Not to mention the willows, which caused me to fill whole pages of my notebook as follows:
I watch the willows weep and cannot breathe
I watch the willows weep and cannot breathe
I watch the willows weep and cannot breathe
It was the closest that I ever came to versifying my love, though now and again the instinct to express myself in words seemed to grab me by the throat. More than once, I had to stop myself from taking up a pen and making a journal entry in one of my notebooks; emotional expression was for the weak and, besides that, far too risky. I didn’t even consider confessing my predicament to another girl, although I often longed for an ally—a perverse nurse or fairy godmother who would conspire with me to administer him love potions, and kindly lead me to the slaughter.
I had no illusions about my friendships with Marcelle and Amanda. Had I been less shadowy, more open about my aberrations, I might have dispensed with them entirely. As it was, I didn’t have the courage for that; I required a cloak of conventionality. It had been the same before Steadman, when I was a student at Sacred Heart—though as my attendance became poorer and my eating habits more abstemious, the cloak began to slip. Sometimes, I wondered whether I would not be happier forming ties with a different variety of girls: girls who were not so shallow; who weren’t constantly clowning and gossip-mongering; whose IQs weren’t so much lower than my own. Casting my eye across the school grounds, however, the girls who attracted me weren’t the solemn ones, but the shiny ones: the Jessica Brittons, Kaitlin Pritchards, and Jade van Dams of the world.
These girls would’ve sensed in a heartbeat that I didn’t belong among them. It wasn’t only that my GPA was lower than theirs, or that I had an aversion to committees, club memberships, and charitable pursuits. There was also that other thing—the shifty aspect of my admiration, which made me vie for the seat behind Kaitlin in history
O UR DAYS in the sun were numbered. I knew it and, if the additions to Mr. Steadman’s wardrobe were anything to go by, he did too. Nevertheless, until mid-October, we were still having Fridays outdoors: a pleasure that he reserved for his seniors.
There was something traumatic about the beauty of those Fridays in the sunlight, where we could not touch. Sometimes under the enchantment of his words, I would let my legs open a little wider than I should have, in hope of enchanting him with a glimpse. I didn’t know how much he saw, if indeed he ever looked (facing me across the circle, could he have avoided doing so?), yet no amount of shadowy thigh could have been an accurate measure of what I felt for him. My whole body could not have been an accurate measure. What I wanted was to merge with the grass, to be there under his fingertips, every nerve laid bare.
In the sunlight, however, I was untouchable, as was he. I knew this when I saw him closing his book, but also when I saw him laughing, joking with the other girls. One Friday, I even saw him stand up from the grass, to stretch and skim a stone across the glittering surface of the lake. Never again did he ask if anyone wanted to help him carry the books upstairs. Never again did he put himself within my reach.
Every Friday brought with it a new defeat, a new cup of sorrows. It got to the point where I couldn’t even sit through Thursday’s lesson without a certain awful fluttering in my stomach, a tightness in my chest, which was a premonition of the loss that I was to suffer the next day. The tweed suit became an object of ambivalence. Not to mention the willows, which caused me to fill whole pages of my notebook as follows:
I watch the willows weep and cannot breathe
I watch the willows weep and cannot breathe
I watch the willows weep and cannot breathe
It was the closest that I ever came to versifying my love, though now and again the instinct to express myself in words seemed to grab me by the throat. More than once, I had to stop myself from taking up a pen and making a journal entry in one of my notebooks; emotional expression was for the weak and, besides that, far too risky. I didn’t even consider confessing my predicament to another girl, although I often longed for an ally—a perverse nurse or fairy godmother who would conspire with me to administer him love potions, and kindly lead me to the slaughter.
I had no illusions about my friendships with Marcelle and Amanda. Had I been less shadowy, more open about my aberrations, I might have dispensed with them entirely. As it was, I didn’t have the courage for that; I required a cloak of conventionality. It had been the same before Steadman, when I was a student at Sacred Heart—though as my attendance became poorer and my eating habits more abstemious, the cloak began to slip. Sometimes, I wondered whether I would not be happier forming ties with a different variety of girls: girls who were not so shallow; who weren’t constantly clowning and gossip-mongering; whose IQs weren’t so much lower than my own. Casting my eye across the school grounds, however, the girls who attracted me weren’t the solemn ones, but the shiny ones: the Jessica Brittons, Kaitlin Pritchards, and Jade van Dams of the world.
These girls would’ve sensed in a heartbeat that I didn’t belong among them. It wasn’t only that my GPA was lower than theirs, or that I had an aversion to committees, club memberships, and charitable pursuits. There was also that other thing—the shifty aspect of my admiration, which made me vie for the seat behind Kaitlin in history
Similar Books
