Stand Alone

by P. D. Workman

  The next thing she knew, someone was poking her in the back, and Justine tried to shake off the drowsiness and figure out what was going on. Students were exiting the room. Obviously, the class change bell had already rung. The teacher was walking purposefully toward her. Justine stretched, rolling her shoulders and yawning widely, not even trying to cover it up. Mr. Peters stopped in front of her desk.

  “Interrupting your nap time, are we, Miss Bywater?” he questioned sarcastically.

  “Sorry,” Justine said, smothering another yawn, “I was up most of the night, and at the doctor’s this morning. I had  … a procedure  … and I’m still kind of groggy. I guess I shouldn’t have come in, but I didn’t want to miss class.”

  It was close enough to the truth. Mr. Peters looked mollified.

  “Oh. Well, that’s understandable. Is everything okay, then?” he questioned tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure whether it was okay for him to be curious about what medical trauma she was going through.

  Justine nodded, and milked it for a little more sympathy.

  “Yeah  … they say I will be, anyway. Just a few more treatments. Then hopefully  …” she trailed off.

  Mr. Peters nodded understandingly.

  “Well, you let me know if you need anything. Extra time for assignments, or extra tutoring, or anything like that.”

  “Okay. So far I’m keeping up okay. I was following today  … until I nodded off.”

  “We’re all rooting for you, Miss Bywater,” he said sincerely, as if the entire staff had already been talking about her health issues and were all up on what was going on. It was funny how people were so much more understanding about physical health than mental health. If she’d told him she’d been at her therapist’s discussing psychological compulsions and weird dreams, he would have reacted a lot differently.

  Justine nodded.

  “Thanks. I’d better get to next period. I don’t want to miss anything else.”

  He helped her to gather her books together and escorted her to the door, looking as though he thought she might faint dead away at any moment, and needed someone to look after her.

  “All right then, good-bye,” he said.

  “See you tomorrow,” Justine agreed, and walked away.

  Justine managed to make it through her last period class without falling asleep again, but it was an effort. She doodled on the side of her notebook, drawing fractal-like patterns instead of taking notes. She still felt groggy and unreal. She managed to stay below the teacher’s radar and not get asked any questions. Then class was over, and she made her escape.

  “Hey Justine,” Mark, who had his locker next to hers, said as she dumped her school books and grabbed her board, leaving her backpack there. “I didn’t see you earlier. Where were you?”

  He was something of a cross between a drama geek and a goth. Lots of earrings and black clothing, black lipstick, but no eye shadow or white makeup. He was casual and friendly, never participating in any effort to mock or bully Justine, but not really a friend. Just an acquaintance. Someone she saw often but never got to know.

  “Just skipping,” Justine told him.

  “Oh. Cool. See you tomorrow.”

  Justine nodded.

  “See you,” she agreed.

  Justine put her board down and rode it through the hallways, weaving in and out between the crowds, drawing a number of irritated exclamations and curses from the students. She managed to avoid any teachers or administrators seeing her, occasionally hopping off the board to walk by an adult, and then getting back on once she was past them.

  Then she was out of the school. Escaped. Free. This was why she had insisted on coming to school. So she was free to skate the streets at the end of the day without having to get past Em. After the long session with Dr. Morton, she needed the wind in her face and hair, her muscles working, and the road stretching out endlessly before her. There was no escape quite so sweet.

  After a couple of hours, she found herself at the cemetery. She and Christian had come here a few times, making use of the long pathways, grinding the curbs and stone benches. But never the gravestones. They agreed that the gravestones and statuary were off limits. Neither wanted that kind of karma. Justine hadn’t been back there for a long time. Once, a year ago, after a drenching downpour. She had wound through the pathways slowly, not looking for a thrill. Looking at the freshly filled graves. She rode by each one, checking the names on the little markers for each one. Until she found the one that said Christian Derron Fletching. She had never known his full name. He was just Christian to her. Justine hadn’t come back to the graveyard since.

  Justine didn’t remember exactly which grave it was, but she remembered the general area. She moved slowly, looking at each of the gravestones until she found it. There was a permanent marker now. Justine didn’t even have to look at the name to know that it was Christian’s. It was a big black marble slab, with a skater etched in mid-ollie. It wasn’t a picture of Christian, but it did resemble him a little bit. His slight frame, his longish, curly hair. Justine sat down on the grass in front of it, studying it. The requisite name and dates. The epitaph ‘off the hook.’ She was impressed that his family had sprung for a fancy marker and actually memorialized his skating. They’d never given him anything while he was alive, and his skating had been a major point of contention. As she sat and gazed at it, she wondered if there had been some kind of public collection for him that had paid for the fancy headstone. The story had been in the papers. Maybe it had garnered some sympathy and someone other than his family had raised the funds and chosen the tombstone.

  Justine’s throat was hot and tight. Christian had been gone for almost a year now. It seemed like forever, and it seemed like just yesterday. Justine had heard that the pain of loss grew less over time, that it became easier to move on with your life and to go without thinking of the person every day. But it didn’t seem to be true. The loss of Christian still felt raw and open, like she’d had the heart and guts ripped out of her while she watched. It was like half of her had been killed, and the rest was just an empty shell walking around like a zombie. She didn’t have the words to express how much she missed him. How much it hurt. No one could understand it. No one could hurt as much as she did over his loss. His family had planted this monument and moved on, patting themselves on the back, losing themselves in the day-to-day business of taking care of his siblings, making money, and watching TV. For Justine, the pain never ceased. It was a wide, gaping wound in her soul.

  Justine scrubbed at her eyes, squeezing out the hot tears and wiping them forcefully away. Time to get up and move on. But when she stood up, it was too much. The thought of leaving him there, in the cold unforgiving ground was too hard. She should stay here. Curl up at his feet like the loyal dog. Stay there until she died too. She couldn’t leave him, live without him anymore. Here was where his mortal remains lay. Here was where she should lay. She fell back to her knees, the tears gushing from her eyes now, full force like someone had turned on a faucet. No sedate, womanly tears to be dabbed at with the corner of a tissue. Boiling hot, streaming down her face, her nose running, her mouth open and drool drawing two lines down her chin. Raucous, unleashed tears, devastating her face like the force of a tropical storm.

  She covered her face with both hands, sobs racking her body, and just let it all go. The dam had burst. There was no more keeping the water contained. Afternoon gave way to evening. The sobs stopped. The tears stopped. The pain did not. Her shirt was soaked in tears, snot, and drool. She didn’t care. She lay at his feet, waiting for God to take her too. She and Christian belonged together. Why couldn’t he just come and get her now? She had nothing left to do in life. No reason to go on. Why couldn’t she just die too?

  “Are you all right dear?” An old gray haired woman bent over her, tugging her to her feet, and giving her a firm, bony hug. “It’s hard,” the woman said. “It’s always hard to be the one left behind.” She look
ed at the picture and inscription on the headstone, looked at Justine’s board on the ground. “Almost a year now, and the pain doesn’t go away,” she acknowledged. “But you’re alive. You have to find a way to go on.”

  Justine shook her head.

  “I can’t,” she protested, her voice hoarse.

  “Come on,” the old woman insisted. “Walk with me, I’ll introduce you to Alfie.”

  She took Justine by the arm with claws of iron. Justine picked up her board and went with the hag. She had no will of her own. The woman’s destination wasn’t far from Christian’s grave. A little gravestone. Cheap. Already weather-worn and getting harder to read. Justine glanced over the inscription and the dates apathetically. Fifty years. Alfie had left his wife fifty years ago. Justine looked at her with new respect.

  “We’ll toast him,” the woman said, pulling a flask from the capacious black purse slung over her shoulder. She opened it and handed it to Justine. Justine put it in her mouth and tipped it up and took a couple of swallows. The fiery liquid burned all the way down. Justine handed it back, and the woman drank down a mouthful as well. “Love you, Alfie,” she said simply, tipping the flask toward him. “It won’t be long now.”

  Justine looked at her companion. The alcohol steadied her a bit. She didn’t feel like she was going to break down again.

  “We go on,” the woman said, “because we have to. He doesn’t want you there, lying on his grave. He wants you out there,” she gestured to the world beyond the graveyard, “popping three-sixties and doing other gnarly moves.”

  Justine laughed in surprise at her knowledge of skater slang. The old woman grasped her arm again and gave it a squeeze.

  “It’s not over, dear. We have to just go on. And when you do finally go on to meet him, you can tell him you did enough living for both of you.”

  Justine took a deep lungful of air.

  “Have you?” she questioned.

  “You bet I have, honey,” she chuckled. “I’ve got so much to tell him.” The old lady looked at her sweetheart’s gravestone. “The doctor told me last week I have terminal cancer.” Her eyes shone weirdly in the dimness. “He thought he was telling me I was going to die. But he was telling me I’ll finally be able to start living again.” She smiled. “Soon.”

  Justine nodded.

  “Thanks.”

  “He’ll be waiting for you. Don’t you worry about that. You just go on and make him proud. Live life to its fullest.”

  “Okay,” Justine sniffled.

  The woman thumped her on the back.

  “You take care now,” she offered. And then she retreated and was gone, like a ghost, leaving no trace. Justine studied Alfie’s worn headstone. Then she put her board down on the nearest pathway, showed off a couple of ollies for Christian, and kicked off.

  Justine didn’t go home. She hopped the fence at the outdoor kiddies pool and jumped her board into the empty wading pool. It was too early in the year for it to be filled yet, and all of the dips and swells in the smooth concrete made it an excellent place to skate. No one else was around. She took the curves at speed, made jumps, worked on a few new tricks. She was almost frantic, trying to get all of her living in. She skated for Christian, but she also skated to forget him. That didn’t work too well. His face was constantly before her. The way he laughed exultantly when he nailed a new move. His constant ADHD restlessness. Bravery in the face of bruises and broken bones, not all of them from skating. Skating brought her nearer to him, but also nearer to the realization that he was gone. That, like the old woman, Justine wasn’t going to see him for another fifty years, and then only if there really was an afterlife.

  The park was a whirl around her. She didn’t see it, though she could hear the wind blowing through the trees and the distant noise of traffic. She was going too fast. She shut the rest of the world out. Forget Em. Forget Dr. Morton. Forget school. Forget court. Just her and her board, doing the one thing she did well.

  It had grown rather dark over the hour that she had been working the course. There were lights around the pool, but of course they were turned off because it was not open yet. A flashlight cut through the darkness at her.

  “You there! Get out of here, you’re trespassing.”

  Justine slowed and looked toward the light and the yell. It was not a private security guard, but a policeman.

  “Yeah, you!” he shouted.

  Justine skated to the edge of the pool, then stepped off her board and headed toward him. She climbed the fence and walked up to him. He frowned, obviously confused at Justine approaching him instead of running the other way to avoid being arrested.

  “Sorry,” Justine said with a shrug, “I just needed somewhere to work it out.”

  He shone the flashlight at her face momentarily, and Justine squinted and shaded her eyes. The light flicked over the rest of her body.

  “Are you okay?” the cop questioned.

  “Yeah, sure,” Justine said with a shrug.

  She wondered if her eyes were red and puffy. They certainly itched and felt strained and gritty after so much crying at the graveyard.

  “You’re bleeding,” the officer told her.

  Justine looked at herself, surprised. Both elbows and a forearm were skinned. Both knees too, and if her jeans hadn’t been torn before, they certainly were now. One particularly awkward fall had landed her on the corner of her forehead and her cheekbone, and she touched the throbbing mass now, wondering how bad it was.

  “It’s nothing,” she said, “I’m fine.”

  “You know you’re not supposed to be over here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “The gate’s locked. That means it’s closed. There are ‘no trespassing’ signs up all over the place.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What if you really hurt yourself over here? Knocked yourself out or broke a leg or something? What then?”

  Justine shook her head in amusement.

  “Officer  … I don’t care. Really. I just  … I really don’t care if I get hurt.”

  “Well, you need to do it somewhere else. Not here. Come with me.”

  Justine walked along with him without protest. She wasn’t sure if he was going to arrest her and Em would have to pick her up at the police station a second day in a row, or if he just wanted to make sure she got far away from the pool. They got up to his car, and he opened the front passenger door and motioned to the seat.

  “Sit down. I’ll get an ambulance.”

  “An ambulance?” Justine repeated. “For a few scrapes? I don’t need an ambulance.”

  “Well then, at least let me get you cleaned up.”

  She sat still while he got out a first aid kit. She hardly winced when he cleaned the various abrasions with the stinging pads. He put dressings over the places that were bleeding more freely. He frowned looking at the lump on her head. He prodded around it with gentle fingers.

  “You really should have that looked at,” he said. “Are you sure you don’t want an ambulance?”

  “No, it’s fine. I’ve had plenty of bumps before.”

  He cleaned it carefully, trying not to hurt her.

  “I’ve picked you up before,” he commented.

  Justine nodded.

  “Yeah. Officer Joe, right?”

  “That’s right. I don’t remember your name, though.”

  “Justine.”

  “So what are you doing skating over here if you know it’s off limits and that you’re going to get picked up, Justine? Isn’t that sort of stupid?”

  Justine grinned.

  “Not when I get to see you,” she teased. She liked Officer Joe.

  He smiled and shook his head. Justine held still while he gently applied a bandage to her head.

  “Seriously. What’s going on? You don’t generally look like this after a skate. Extreme skating with no one around to help you if something happens? What’s up?”

  Justine stared off into the gathering darkness.<
br />
  “Just upset, I guess. I was  … being sort of stupid.”

  Officer Joe nodded his agreement.

  “How am I supposed to keep you kids safe? You want to end up like that boy last year? You want to kill yourself?”

  She couldn’t have been more stunned if he’d tazed her. Justine stared at Officer Joe with her mouth open, unable to find the words to respond.

  “What?” he questioned, misinterpreting her look. “You know the boy I’m talking about. Used to skate around here. Killed doing stupid stunts-“

  “Christian,” Justine croaked, attempting to stop his flow of words. “Christian was my best friend.”

  He stopped and gazed at her, re-evaluating.

  “Yeah,” he agreed, “I remember you guys hung out together.” He was silent for a few minutes, pretending to examine her wounds. Pushing her hair back from her face to look at her. “Don’t do it. Please. Do you know what it’s like for an officer, cleaning up after an accident like that? Or cutting down a kid who’s hung himself? Or telling some poor mother that her daughter’s overdosed and won’t be coming home again? Get counseling. Get prescribed an antidepressant. Don’t kill yourself. Please.”

  Justine didn’t answer at first, letting his plea hang in the air between them. She touched his hand, still on her hair.

  “I’m not going to kill myself,” she said finally. “I admit I was being stupid, and I wanted to get hurt. And to get attention. But I don’t want to die.”

  “There’s help. There’s lots of resources out there. People that can help you feel better.” He took her hand, and held it between his two big, warm, strong hands. “Trust me,” he said earnestly, “lots of people want to help.”

  “He was my only friend,” Justine said, a hot lump in her throat. She was not going to cry again. She had no more tears left to shed. “He’s the only person I ever loved.”