Forever Mark

by Jessyca Thibault

  “Yeah, I can take it from here,” I said. “I’ll be downstairs for dinner in a few.”

  There was a pause and I wondered if maybe she was going to protest, but she didn’t. “Well, it was nice speaking to you, Bree,” she said. “Carson, dinner will be ready in ten.”

  I could hear a slight edge in her voice as she said that last part. I also heard her unspoken words: We’ll talk about this later. I had some explaining to do.

  Thanks a lot, Bree.

  I heard the click as my mom disconnected.

  “So, listening in?” Bree asked. “I guess some things don’t change.”

  Her amused tone set me off. I wanted to take one of the basketballs she so loved to bounce around and peg it at her stupid face. I could use the huge mole above her upper lip as a target.

  “Actually, I just got on,” I replied coolly.

  “Okay, it must have been somebody else’s loud breathing that I heard.”

  I ignored this. “Is there a particular reason for your phone call, Bree?”

  Bree snorted. “Don’t play stupid, Carson.”

  I almost said that according to my geometry grade, I wasn’t exactly playing stupid, but I decided against it.

  “I already know Mrs. Aito told you I’d be your tutor,” Bree continued. “So let’s just cut the crap and pick a day for your first session. I have some time tomorrow afternoon if you’re available.”

  I wanted to laugh. It was amazing how quickly this girl could drop the polite goody-two-shoes-and-gumdrops voice she used around adults. “I’m not available tomorrow, actually,” I said. It wasn’t even a lie. For the first time my crazy-kid sessions every Wednesday afternoon finally came in handy.

  “Okay, what about Thursday?” Bree asked, a little annoyed.

  “Sorry, Thursday’s no good for me either.”

  I heard a little huff on the other end of the phone. It made me grin.

  “Why don’t you just tell me what is a good day for you, Carson,” Bree said.

  I ruffled some papers on my desk as if I was flipping the pages of a calendar. “Hmmmm,” I said. “You know, my schedule’s a bit hectic right now. I’ll call you if I get an opening somewhere, but I wouldn’t wait by the phone if I were you.”

  “As funny as you think wasting my time is, Carson, it’s not. I actually do have a lot going on and I agreed to tutor you because Mrs. Aito said you desperately needed my help but if you’re going to insist on being a – ”

  “On second thought,” I said, cutting Bree off before she could tell me what I was insisting on being, “your services really aren’t needed. Have a lovely night.”

  I hung up without waiting for a reply.

  I didn’t desperately need help from anybody, especially not a bitch like Bree Rewins.

  Chapter 11

  Darkness Consumes

  It comes out of nowhere

  And hits me like a freight train

  Knocks

  The wind out of me

  The breath out of me

  The light out of me

  It consumes me

  Like a cyclone it sweeps me up

  Sends me spinning out of control

  Before dropping me someplace new

  New but familiar

  A place of total darkness

  Feeling alone

  Feeling trapped

  Left to stumble through the blackness

  By myself

  Until I realize it’s pointless

  Because I really am

  Trapped

  I wasn’t sure if the conversation was a success or not. I figured one of two things could happen. Either Bree would decide that I wasn’t worth her precious time and she’d just drop the whole thing and go about doing all of the many wonderful and amazing things she had to do, or she’d decide to run and tell Mrs. Aito first thing in the morning.

  I wondered whether it would hurt to pack some bags just in case I had to put the Vegas plan into effect, because there was absolutely no way I was letting Bree Rewins boss me around and call it “tutoring.” I would have rather sewn my eyelids shut with a rusty needle and barbed wire.

  If worst came to worst and I couldn’t hitch a ride to Vegas then maybe my mom would agree to take my place and get tutored by Bree. I mean, the woman baked cakes for a living. Surely she could use some brushing up on her geometry skills. I’d file it under a possible Plan D.

  I was pretty sure she would do it too. Based on the conversation we’d been having since I came downstairs (which had mostly consisted of my mom talking and me putting all of my focus into not stabbing myself with my fork, so as not to have it taken away from me), my mom missed Bree terribly. She wouldn’t stop talking about all of the marvelous things she’d heard about Bree. It was borderline obsessive.

  You’d swear Bree was the one that came screaming out of my mom’s lady hole seventeen years ago.

  “So what was Bree saying about you needing to be tutored?” my mom asked as I speared a piece of broccoli with my incredibly lethal fork-weapon.

  I’d known we would make it to this eventually, although I wished we’d gotten it out of the way earlier before I sat through a twenty minute long Bree-a-thon. I hadn’t been quite so annoyed twenty minutes ago.

  “It was a misunderstanding,” I said, trying not to let my irritation show. “She got me mixed up with someone else.”

  My mom squinted a little at me. I could tell she was trying to decide if I was lying or not.

  “So you don’t need math tutoring?”

  “Nope.”

  I held her gaze for a solid four seconds.

  Just drop it, just drop it.

  She dropped it.

  “Well, it’s nice to know that she would have offered to tutor you if you needed help. It’s very generous of her to do things like that, especially with how busy she is.”

  If I heard one more person tell me how busy Bree Rewins was I was going to throw something through the window, and that something could very well be the incredibly busy Bree Rewins.

  Besides, Bree hadn’t offered to tutor me, she’d barely agreed. I didn’t say this because that would’ve meant admitting that it wasn’t a misunderstanding. So I just sat and chewed my broccoli.

  “What ever happened between you and Bree?” my mom asked when I didn’t respond. “The two of you were so close and then all of a sudden you just stopped talking.”

  I continued to chew my food.

  “I mean, Bree was over here all the time. This was like her second home.”

  I wished she would take the hint that I found my broccoli more interesting than her or this conversation.

  “I’m not very hungry anymore,” I said before getting up and walking out of the room. I didn’t ask to be excused and I didn’t wait for a response from my mom. We didn’t do that in this family.

  In this family we walked away without saying a word, leaving the other person to wonder what they did to deserve being abandoned.

  I didn’t like thinking about the past. I didn’t like thinking about the girl I used to be. What was the point? The past was gone, and it was never coming back, just like the girl I used to be. She was a thing of the past. She didn’t exist anymore. She was dead to the present, to the world.

  She was dead to me.

  But for some reason I couldn’t stop thinking about the past and I couldn’t get Bree Rewins out of my head.

  The reason could’ve been that I’d been staring at the ceiling since midnight in an attempt to not think about anything, but the ceiling wasn’t all that exciting and it could only serve as a distraction for so long.

  The reason could’ve also been that my mom parked the car right in front of Memory Lane earlier and so, despite my better judgment, I couldn’t help but wander down that road.

  I blamed my mom for this.

  God, I couldn’t wait for her to decide she didn’t want to be home for dinner anymore. Not only would it keep her from finding out about my life, but it would keep h
er from wanting to talk to me about my life afterward.

  It would keep this from happening.

  I could’ve snuck out and gone somewhere, met someone and gotten my mind off of things. I could’ve done that, but my brain wouldn’t shut up long enough for me to really consider where I’d go. I didn’t really feel like seeing anyone anyways, even if there wasn’t any talking involved. So instead I laid there thinking about Bree, who was the last person I ever thought I’d be thinking about at two in the morning.

  Bree and I were really close for a long time. It all started back in the first grade when a fate known as the alphabetical seating chart put Bree Rewins and I at neighboring desks. I remember our very first conversation. Bree had a collection of sparkly pencils and I wanted one, so I asked if I could have one. Bree said no and I felt personally victimized. I decided on that first day that I didn’t like Bree Rewins.

  For the first two months of school Bree barely made a peep, which annoyed me. I tried to make conversation with her , but she just wouldn’t have it.

  “Can I have your hair bow?”

  “No.”

  “Can I have one of your flower bracelets?”

  “No.”

  This further solidified my dislike of her. I decided she was a big snob who had a sharing problem.

  One day during the third month of school, things changed. I was on the swings at recess when I looked across the playground and saw Bree sitting on the ground, crying. A boy named Bobby was standing next to her. I jumped right off mid-swing and marched over to them. Bobby, who had a pig-like nose that always had boogers hanging out of it, was laughing and pointing at Bree.

  “Bree Rewins ruins everything,” he chanted. “Bree Rewins ruins everything.”

  I told Bobby to kiss a cactus.

  Bree and I were best friends after that.

  We did everything together. We shared secrets, stories, lunches and, yes, sparkly pencils and flower bracelets too. Bree and I were practically inseparable and when we were little we even looked enough alike where people mistook us for sisters. We were both pale and short with light hair, though Bree’s was straight and much blonder than mine.

  The physical similarities were as far as it went, because our personalities were polar opposites. It’s amazing our friendship lasted as long as it did, really. Bree was always quieter, more well-behaved and proper. I was like a mini cyclone, wild and free.

  At times I’m sure my loud and assertive nature embarrassed sweet as apple pie Bree Rewins, but it also worked in her favor on several occasions. Bobby from first grade was not the last person I told off while defending Bree. In sixth grade a girl named Autumn Winters told Bree that the mole above her upper lip was a sign of a birth defect. I pushed Autumn Winters into a puddle of mud and told her that her name was a sign of dumb parents. I got a week of lunch detention for that one. I guess Autumn went home and told her mom what I said. Apparently Mrs. Winters didn’t appreciate being called dumb by a twelve-year-old because she called the school. It had been worth it though. Autumn Winters had been bragging all day about her expensive new jeans and let’s just say she wasn’t bragging all that much after I gave them a pop of muddy color.

  That was the biggest difference between Bree and I when we were growing up. My mom liked to tell me that I should mind my manners like Bree did. What my mom didn’t get was that Bree was usually thinking the same things I was. She just didn’t say them in front of other people. Bree was the brains of our friendship and I was the mouth. If I didn’t like something or someone, I’d be vocal about it right then and there, often speaking for the both of us. Bree would keep things to herself until we were alone and she could vent to me without anyone else hearing. I guess you could say she was a closet-gossip.

  Things started to change when we got to high school. Bree had a growth spurt, grew a set of boobs, and got side swept bangs while I stayed in Munchkin Land. We still looked like sisters, sort of, but I looked like the shrimpy little sister. Bree had never been popular, but all of a sudden the kids that were making fun of her wanted to be her friend. She got invited to join clubs and go to parties and at first she said no, but I could tell she wanted to.

  I didn’t want to hold Bree back, so I started insisting that she go to some of the parties. In the beginning she said she’d only go if I went too and this worked out pretty well, for a while. I’d tag along to the parties and girls were nice to me because I was Bree’s friend and guys noticed me because I was Bree’s friend. I even scored a boyfriend on the football team – Kent Braxton. He was second string and I don’t even know what his official position was because he spent most of his time on the bench. That was also because I was Bree’s friend though. I wasn’t Carson and by the start of sophomore year I couldn’t take it anymore. Bree continued to go to parties, but she went without me. I could tell that we were drifting apart, that Bree was moving on and leaving me behind.

  Things got worse when the girls’ basketball coach recruited Bree to be on the team that fall. She became the star player and waseven more popular. She was climbing the social ladder while I, on the other hand, was flailing to hang on. Things weren’t going well at home and my football boyfriend ended up being an asshole. I felt like my life was spiraling out of control and I needed a solid something to hold on to. I needed Bree.

  But she was basically gone.

  I needed her, but she didn’t need me. She’d didn’t need a protector, someone to stick up for her anymore. There was nobody to stick up to. Everyone loved her. I’m the one that needed a protector.

  When my father left my life forever, I shut down completely. I stopped answering Bree’s very infrequent calls and eventually she stopped calling. We just stopped talking. When we saw each other in the halls, we acted like we didn’t know each other. After years of friendship we became total strangers. Just like that, it was all over.

  Losing your best friend is kind of like losing an arm in a way. You’re used to having that person there for you, used to having them catch you if you trip and stumble. They become a part of you. It would make sense for a person to be heartbroken over the loss of a best friend. I thought about that a lot after my dad left and Bree and I stopped talking. I wondered why I didn’t feel so heartbroken, why I mostly just felt numb at first. Then I realized it was because I’d seen it coming and for a few months it’d been like I was just holding my breath and waiting for her to jump ship. That’s when the anger started to come into play, when it hit me that Bree had been sitting and waiting for a good time to ditch me, and she’d chosen a time when I actually needed her.

  Yeah, I’d pushed Bree away, but sometimes people did that. Sometimes people pushed the ones they needed the most, because those were the people that were supposed to be able to take it. It wasn’t that I hadn’t wanted her there. It was that I’d needed to know that she actually wanted to be there. And she didn’t.

  I think Bree was probably relieved to shake me off. I was dead weight, toxic weight actually, and I only got more toxic. I would have ended up ruining her reputation.

  So Bree got what she always wanted – to be loved by all. The same people she used to complain to me about became her new buddies. The same girl that I pushed in the mud in sixth grade became her new best friend. All the teachers loved Bree because let’s face it, she had always been a genius. Bree was living the high school dream, blossoming from a caterpillar into a pretty social butterfly.

  I didn’t become a butterfly; I’d never been a caterpillar. I’d been a cyclone. All cyclones stop at some point though. Sometimes they fizzle out. Sometimes they venture out of the water and lose their source of energy, the fuel to their survival. Sometimes they become unbalanced and collapse in on themselves.

  That’s what happened to me. All of it, all at once.

  I fizzled. Lost my energy. Collapsed.

  I spent the first fourteen years of my life as the spunky one, the bold girl that would say anything and everything that came to mind. And I just didn’t have anyt
hing left to say. Nothing I said would have brought back all the people that left, so I didn’t see the point. Words were a waste of energy and I was just so tired. I’d always been going, going, going at a hundred miles an hour but before Bree had always been there to keep my on track. Without her I spun out of control, slammed right into a brick wall. And it took everything out of me.

  So I shut down. Went quiet. Unraveled like all cyclones do.

  And I gave up on the whole “friends” thing. Friends weren’t forever. Friends would eventually leave you all alone. They couldn’t do that if you never let them into your life in the first place.

  Somewhere in this mess of thinking I was hit with a wave of exhaustion, or maybe it was just sadness. Whatever it was, it hit me hard, crashed over me and dragged me under into darkness and sleep.

  Chapter 12

  The Monsters

  I don’t want to be awake

  But I don’t want to go to sleep

  Sleep used to be my safety net

  The monsters couldn’t get me in Dreamland

  Dreamland has been invaded though

  The monsters have come

  And I wake up

  Screaming

  Shaking

  Shivering

  There’s no safe place to go anymore

  No escape

  The monsters are everywhere

  And they know where to find me

  And they know how to break me

  “Well, I woke up screaming from a nightmare. That basically set the tone for how my day has been.”

  Dr. M jotted something down. She did that a lot – listened and scribbled in her fancy notebook. I used to wonder what she was writing. I mean, I never said anything that seemed worthy of being written down and immortalized by pen and paper. Then one day I just decided she was probably doodling, so then every time I saw her jotting away I tried to guess what she was drawing. It became like a game.

  Hey, you did what you had to do to get through therapy.

  In that moment I was thinking she was doodling a giant lizard stomping across a city with feet the size of monster trucks. It could breathe fire and shoot lasers out of its eyeballs.