by Stacey Quinn
She’s decided not to reply to Lewis Stowell’s last message until she’d read at least a small portion of the book he had recommended, just to make sure that she had something interesting to say - something he could relate to and that would spark an in depth conversation. It didn’t take her too long at all - as expected, Rilke’s letters and accompanying examples of his poems were a gripping, entertaining, educational and emotional read, and Sienna had been hooked from the very first sentence. Rilke often repeated and reinforced his statement that solitude was a key aspect of life - a necessary pursuit in order to understand, connect with and expand upon your individual ‘creative soul’, and in doing so understand and expand upon your own existence. Sienna reveled in this fact - proof that her shunning of most of the people in the outside world was the right thing to be doing, no matter what her mother or any of the other imbeciles out there tried to tell her.
It had been difficult to tear herself away from Rainer’s mesmerizing and enthralling words, but the pull - the yearning to message Lewis, to let him know she had taken his advice and to share her many thoughts on the novel he had recommended - that desire was too strong. And so, fingers trembling with excitement, she quickly slipped her new best friend from her backpack and flipped it open, tapping her fingers impatiently on the table as she waited for her laptop to load. As soon as her facebook page was up and running, her fingers tapped and slid along her keyboard, pouring all of her pent up thoughts into the message. After clicking send she waited patiently for his reply, hoping his message would pop up as quickly as it had done the night before. But the seconds ticked by, turning into minutes which then turned into half an hour before Sienna gave up hope of an instant reply. Sighing with defeat, she realized that he must be teaching, he was after all an academic lecturer - he wouldn’t have the liberty of time during the day. She closed her facebook window dejectedly and re-opened the book at the page she had folded, trying to push Lewis Stowell to the back of her mind as she continued to read.
She continued reading for the rest of the day, stopping only for toilet breaks and to get back on the bus to take her home. She thoroughly checked the kitchen and her bedroom for another scathing note from her mother, but her search yielded nothing - apparently her mother had said all she wanted to say and had now reverted back to silence. Sienna was glad of this - while she usually reveled in confrontations with her mother, she had far too much on her mind - too much to concentrate on to be distracted by petty arguments. She clomped up the stairs to her bedroom, slamming the door behind her purely out of habit, and flopped to her bed eager to re immerse herself in Rilke’s magical words once more.
She’d finished the entire book by 11 pm that night and, feeling somewhat more educated and enlightened than she had done that morning, returned to facebook. She’d refrained from checking it again that day, preferring to wait and build her anticipation over Lewis’s reply rather than check it every half hour just to suffer disappointment after disappointment. And sure enough, her patience was rewarded with a little red icon in her inbox. She eagerly devoured Lewis’s words, relishing his insights and opinions on the novel she had just thoroughly enjoyed, reading the message three or four times over, her smile growing wider each time.
Their correspondence carried on in a similar vein for the next couple of weeks, moving on from Rainer Maria Rilke to discuss other high brow authors and individuals of notable intellect. But after those first few weeks their conversations began to morph slightly, taking on a more personal and intimate tone. Sienna saw her plan beginning to fall into place, but it was no longer revenge or anger at her mother that now drove her. Though she wouldn’t admit it out loud, Sienna was falling for Lewis. At first she had tried to convince herself that it was simply his remarkable similarities to Jack that drew her to him, but as time wore on, Jack began to drift further and further to the back of her mind, and Lewis began taking precedence in most of her waking (and many of her sleeping) thoughts. Without realizing it, Sienna began opening up to a virtual stranger, and found she didn’t mind one bit.
It was four weeks later, nearly a month to the day of that first message Lewis had sent her, that Sienna really began to let her barriers down. Their conversations were no longer about books or other pieces of literary art, but rather about their personal lives and feelings, and Sienna had been explaining to Lewis just how much she loathed her College, and how difficult it was to be surrounded by moronic, lesser educated, immature cretins. For the first time ever, she spoke about how alienated and alone she felt being the only person in a building of hundreds that was actually mature enough to understand the harsh realities of life. She ended her message with a flirtatious and heartfelt -
“That’s why I’m so glad I’ve got you Lewis - you’re the only ray of sunshine in my otherwise dark and miserable world, and I will be eternally thankful to you for that.
Sienna xxx”
She hadn’t made a conscious thought to start adding kisses at the end of her message, she simply realized somewhere in the middle of their third week of messaging each other that she’d subconsciously started doing it. And she had no intention of stopping - Lewis had also begun adding kisses at the end of his messages, three little x’s at the end of his name that made Sienna’s stomach flutter and her cheeks redden whenever she looked at them. She waited nervously for his reply, afraid that she’d said too much and that, for some reason, Lewis would now look down on her like everyone else in her life seemed to. But her fears were short lived, quelled by Lewis’s prompt and caring response -
“Tell me about it - I have to teach their sort every day of my life, so we’re definitely in the same boat there! It amazes me too how oblivious most of them are - young and foolish and blind to the real world, but I suppose they’ll learn the hard way one day or another - we all have to in the end. You, Sienna, are most certainly set apart from the crowd - you’re so young yet so full of knowledge and wisdom. Tell me - why is that? What happened to make you rise up and ahead of your peers? If you don’t mind me asking that is - please don’t feel like I am being pushy, that is the very last thing I want. You are also my only ‘ray of sunshine’, and I have no desire to lose you.
Lewis xxx”
Sienna could feel her heart pumping in her throat as she considered her response. What should she tell him? She knew he deserved to be told the truth, and that if she wanted their relationship to continue in the same vein and to blossom then the truth really was the only option. But the whole truth simply would not do - she didn’t think that anybody, not even someone as kind and understanding as Lewis, would be impressed with the whole truth. She had, after all, had an affair with a married man, and while she felt no need to justify it to herself (love didn’t need to answer to anybody’s judgment as far as Sienna was concerned), the rest of the world had so far been somewhat less accommodating. And so, taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Sienna prepared herself to tell the new man in her life about the old one, with a few choice facts omitted of course. Her fingers trembled as she typed the words, her emotions still raw whenever she thought about Jack, but these days even her darkest feelings held a silver line of happiness thanks to Lewis.
“You certainly aren’t being pushy - there is no harm in asking so please do not worry yourself. You have been open and honest with me, and have made my life a much brighter place over these past few weeks, so you more than deserve the truth. But please understand - I have never spoken to anyone about this, and it is still very difficult and emotional for me, so please be patient.
Last year I was at a different College, far enough away from my current one that nobody here would know me. I enjoyed that College, partly because I was a different person back then - a person with friends and a family that loved me, a person who could laugh at all the menial things that now annoy me and seem so pointlessly trivial. But the main reason I enjoyed that College so much was thanks to my English tutor. He was very much like you really - kind, incredibly intelligent and wise t
o the ways of the world. He taught me everything I know, he was in fact the person that introduced me to Rainer Maria Rilke. But more than that - more than being an amazing English tutor, he was my lover.
Now, I know what you might be thinking - evil, cunning tutor luring in young girls, but it wasn’t like that, I promise you. I was the first student he’d ever done anything like that with, so it wasn’t as if he made a habit of it, we were simply, truly and deeply in love. And I mean real love - not the pathetic type of pre-pubescent love that you read about in angst teenage novels. He was my world and I was his, but of course nobody else would have seen it like that, and so we were forced to keep our love a secret.
We arranged secret meetings and late night escapes as often as we could for as long as we could. Those months were the most glorious of my life, but like all good things it was doomed to come to a crashing end. My mother found out, and in a marvelous display of disloyalty, she turned on me. By the next morning half the town knew, and my love was forced to leave - to vanish without a trace. I don’t blame him for it - his career would have been in tatters and I know he had no other choice, but that didn’t exactly make it easier. I lost everything that day - my lover, my mother, even my lifelong best friends turned on me and me and my mother were driven out of the town. All anybody could see was a middle aged man sleeping with one of his students, none of them seemed to understand the concept of true love, and because of that I have never been able to see my soul mate again. I have no idea where he is, whether he’s in this country or abroad, I can’t even be sure if he’s alive or dead.
And so, if you can understand my perspective I’m sure you’ll understand that I had no choice but to grow up - maturity was forced on me, the harsh truths of the world served up to me all at once. How can that not change a person? How can that not force you to grow up before your time? I truly pray that you do not judge me for this, and that you can see it from my perspective. I couldn’t bear to lose you over this as well - it’s only thanks to you that I’m starting to slowly recover from it. Please don’t hate me.
Sienna xxx”
She didn’t read over the message - she could already feel her nerves faltering and so clicked send as quickly as she could, before she simply deleted the entire thing. In the back of her mind she knew that Lewis would understand - he was after all, just like Jack, but that did nothing to extinguish her nerves. She sat stone still on her bed in anticipation of his response, watching the seconds ticking away on the clock, sure that each one stretched longer than the last.
CHAPTER 9 – CONFESSIONS
Sam stared at the words on his screen in shock. He didn’t judge Sienna, not even for a moment - after all, how could he? It was thanks to Sienna that he’d recently come to learn firsthand that love follows nobodies rules, it just hadn’t been the reply he was expecting. Her words had struck close to home, reminding him of his father and bringing emotions to the surface that he tried so hard every day to keep hidden. The girl he loved had just taken on an entirely new angle, and somehow he loved her all the more for it. This was her pain - this was the answer he’d been looking for, and her honesty compelled him to make a confession of his own. Wiggling the life back into his shocked fingers, Sam hit the ‘reply’ button, and began typing up his own secrets.
“First things first - I could never hate you, Sienna, especially when you’ve committed no crime other than falling in love. The world is a cruel place and the people in it are even crueler - they shun and fight against things they don’t understand. But you and I know better than that. I too experienced a great loss of love when I was younger, and in light of your honesty and openness with me, I would now like to share my story with you.
It happened when I was seventeen. Like you, I was in College and was loving every minute - I had great friends, good grades and a pretty happy home life most of the time. My father was my idol, my role model and my best friend. Much like your lost love, my father was an incredibly intelligent and accomplished English tutor - he taught me everything I know today, and me and my mother loved him very, very much. But despite all his wonderful qualities he was, at the end of the day, just a man, and like all men he had his weaknesses. My father had been having an affair. My mother never told me who it was with, but it was enough to make my father leave - to vanish without a trace and never contact his family again.
I had been out with my friends that night and came home around 10 pm. I noticed that my father's car wasn’t in the drive, but that wasn’t unusual - he often stayed late at College to do extra work or to mark papers (or at least, that’s what he claimed he was doing). And so I had no reason to suspect anything as I walked in through the front door. But the second I stepped over the threshold I knew something was amiss - the house was deadly silent and the air was filled with a sickening dread. I remember hearing myself calling for my mother, wandering through the silent house feeling somehow detached from my own body, as if I were watching it all happen to someone else.
I eventually found her on my parents bedroom floor, an empty bottle of rum in one hand and an empty bottle of pills in the other. I have never felt so alone or helpless in my entire life. She was out cold, but I could still feel a pulse, and so I tried desperately shoving my fingers down her throat, to force her to throw up the poisoning contents of her stomach. No matter how hard I tried nothing would come out of her limp body - whatever she had swallowed didn’t want to come back out easily. From there on out that night is still a terrified, hopeless blur to me. I vaguely remember trying, again and again, to call my father, the tears in my eyes blurring the buttons on the phone so I could barely see them. But every time I dialed all I was met with a long, flat, beeping noise.
I somehow managed to drag my mother’s lifeless form down the stairs and must have phoned an ambulance, because fifteen minutes later I was sat in the back of an ambulance, sirens blaring in my ears, answering the medics questions in an inanimate monotone. They gave my mother a stomach pump, and it wasn’t until the next afternoon, when my mother groggily came around, that I actually found out what had happened. The moment my mother spoke the words, I knew that I would never see my father again.
I spent every day over the next few months with my mother, looking after her and making sure she didn’t try and end it all again. I did the best I could, but after all, I was only seventeen, and while I kept my mother alive, I could not stop her from slowly killing herself with alcohol. My days were spent wiping vomit from her chin, bathing her, cleaning the house and rocking her to sleep every night while she cried in my arms.
When I did eventually go back to College, it was as if nothing had changed - everyone else's lives seemed to be carrying on as normal - they laughed and joked, attended classes and played football just like they used to. But those concepts, along with all the other concepts of teenage life, were alien to me now. And so, to avoid the misery of my life from spreading it’s dark fingers any further, I began to pretend - My friends need not know the truth, and to be honest I wasn’t sure how many of them would stick around if they did. So I began practicing smiling in the mirror every morning, taught myself how to laugh again. But it was all fake - inside I was as empty and miserable as I had been the night I’d found my mother.
And so that is my story. I have not told you this in the hopes of pity, or to make you feel sad for me. That was many years ago, and I’ve gradually learned to be happy again (which, I hope you don’t mind me saying, you have helped with enormously). I simply wished to tell you so that you would no longer feel alone - as hard and cruel as fate has been to us, we have each other now, so we no longer need to feel forsaken or abandoned. I hope my words have brought you comfort and hope. Know that I am always here for you Sienna.
Lewis xxx”
With tears in his eyes, a mixture of both pain at the relived memories and joy and finally making a breakthrough connection with the girl he loved, Sam hit the send button and his body instantly slumped, relieved but drained from the sheer effort and emo
tions of his admission.
His mind and body were suddenly weary and exhausted and, unable to resist, Sam curled up into a ball at the bottom of his bed and sobbed quietly until his exhaustion overcame him and he fell into a deep sleep.
Sienna was also crying on the foot of her bed. Never in her eighteen years of life had she heard a more horrifying or heart wrenching tale, but that was not the only thing that forced the streams of tears from her eyes. Stabbing, twisting, clawed fingers of guilt had gripped at her innards tightly as she had read of Lewis’s fathers affair, for that had been the one small fact she had excluded from her narration - the fact that her true love had been a married man. To hear such a detailed, graphic, harrowing account of it from the other side’s perspective tore Sienna apart - one half of her reeled and hated herself, picturing herself as the ‘other woman’ from Lewis’s childhood, while the other half of her refused to let go of her pride, insisting that in her and Jack’s case she had been in the right - their love had been in the right.
It took the best part of an hour for Sienna to quell her violent tears, arguing with herself in her head the whole way through until finally, exhausted and breathless, she managed to console herself with the fact that despite it all, Lewis had still said he could never hate her and that he would always be there for her. No matter what she had done, she still had Lewis, which (she realized as she gratefully fell into a restful sleep) was more than she could say for Jack.
CHAPTER 10 - YOU HAVE TO LOSE A FEW BATTLES TO WIN THE WAR.
Sam awoke the next morning at am, feeling uncharacteristically fresh for such an ungodly hour, and with an idea, an urge set firmly in his mind. For the first time in close to a month, Sam was going to go to College. The urge wasn’t born of any desire to see his ‘friends’, Sam now felt he had long outgrown that bunch of rowdy, crude, pitiful jocks and had come to realize that Sienna had been right - they were all just a group of clones, each one as bad as the last. When his rapidly progressing plan came to fruition and Sienna was finally his, he would make new friends, better friends, mature friends.