6 Seconds of Life

by Tonya F Fitzharris

  His voice is entirely too loud. Does he not notice the wet rag I’m pressing against my head?

  “I said DITTO. As in I wanted to say the same exact thing to you.”

  “Are you drunk?”

  He steps towards me. The room’s dark and I can’t seem to make out his facial expressions.

  “I don’t know what I am,” I say, pissed off at how my voice sounds weak and wobbly.

  I open my hand I push the not-quite dry rag as hard as I can into my face. I’m breathing in the spring fresh fabric softener Mom uses—it’s almost like I’m hanging out in a recently watered garden instead of this claustrophobic room with my ass of a dad.

  “You can’t get off track now, Maura. You’re almost a senior. You’re about to embark on the most important year of your life.”

  He’ll never change. This is the way he is. Forever.

  “The time has come to finally buckle down and keep the focus. For good this time.”

  Sooner or later I’m just going to have to give up on him.

  “Can you leave me alone? Thanks!” I snap. His face freezes. I watch as he stumbles and tries to concoct his newest demands and restraints on my life.

  Just like he gave up on me.

  “Oh, and fuck you Dad. If we never speak again, I would be perfectly fine with that.”

  00:00:04.829

  I’m so utterly exhausted.

  This is the best decision.

  The only decision, when it comes down to it.

  I just couldn’t go on, letting myself be a burden to everyone.

  My parents will be better off. They’ll be sad at first, but in the end, they can focus on themselves. Each other if they actually want to.

  Someday they may even be thankful that I’m gone.

  0:00:04.638

  The day I met the one person who became my light in all of the darkness

  Dear Samantha,

  So it’s no secret that I’m considered an anxious person—hell, I was even diagnosed with anxiety disorder when I was fourteen. And today in my Psychology class, I think I ultimately figured out why.

  So we’ve been studying this famous psychologist named Karen Horney (I know, I know. All of the juvenile, pre-pubescent boys in my class couldn’t stop snickering each time the teacher said her name. I go to school with geniuses, I tell you). And she evidently developed this theory that anxiety can result from parents having a lack of respect for their child’s individual needs. Some examples (which I am copying straight from my textbook right now) include lack of guidance, disparaging attitudes, lack of reliable warmth, having to take sides in a parental disagreement, isolation…could these things describe my parents any MORE perfectly? I swear, if this woman didn’t die in 1952 I would insist she is my therapist, developing new psychological theories based on my ridiculous life story under a pseudonym. Now I know there’s some concrete evidence showing exactly how my parents permanently fucked me up.

  “What are you writing?”

  The voice jostles me out of my concentration and I recoil, pulling my arms around me like a threatened jungle animal. I’m fairly certain that I haven’t slept in two or three days, so my mind is susceptible to wandering off into obscure thought. I assumed this was the safe place where I was free to do exactly this, away from the prying eyes of cafeteria hell—but no.

  I slam the notebook closed and jam it underneath the scratchy red couch cushion that has been holding up my arm. The faint smell of mildew wafts up as I rustle the ancient piece of furniture. I’m pretty sure I’m the only person to utilize it—like, ever. I do a quick scan and realize that besides the yellow-haired librarian who is gradually nodding off as she eats her egg salad sandwich, we are the only two people in here. Forget the couch—I’m pretty sure I’m the only person to use this entire library, period.

  “No…Nothing. It was nothing,” I say, looking up at him. My eyes start dancing, unable to focus.

  “Ok,” mystery boy says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and jangling around loose change. A chain connects his belt to his wallet, and his jeans look like he nabbed them right off of the little boy’s rack at the local thrift store. His t-shirt displays a screen print image of some childhood cartoon and his left eyebrow is pierced. In essence, he is the epitome of everything I try so hard NOT to be in this hellhole known as high school—pigeonholed. By simply scanning my eyes over his body, I immediately classify him as a ‘whiney wannabe emo-rocker.’ The way he’s bouncing his left leg as if he’s trying to keep the beat of some obscure indie song in his head justifies my observations. My identification system has yet to be wrong.

  The common teenager is, in reality, quite easy to classify. Which is precisely why I always seem to gravitate towards the plainest attire possible—my usual get-up consists of jeans, generic sneakers, a plain colored t-shirt, and my trusty purple hoodie. I’m entirely un-catagorizable to the average eye—I’m merely background matter.

  He seems to sense the fact that I’m analyzing him and takes a step closer, way too confident in presenting everything for me to take in. I try my best to give off a vibe of being a person he couldn’t possibly understand, and therefore I’m not worthy of even pursuing. But he takes another step closer and reaches out to paw at my Psychology book. He picks it up and reads the back cover, unaware of the numerous boundaries he is blatantly crossing.

  Listen, wannabe rock star, the library is my sacred spot. My sanctuary. So please back the fuck up and go back to wherever that may be…

  “So…we’re in a class together…”

  “Really? Huh,” I say, way too abruptly. I don’t want him to think I’m truly interested in having a conversation. I pull my eyes away from him and focus them on the yellowed poster hanging on the wall behind his head, which reminds me that ‘Reading is Awesome.’

  “Yeah…calculus. You’re always the girl who gets called last on role—the one with the crazy last name. Yama something?”

  Please go away. I’m (silently) begging you. Are you really this thick headed? I’m giving you every possible sign I can…

  “Yermakova,” I say, keeping my tone emotionless in the hopes of portraying my complete lack of interest.

  Aren’t there some fellow emo kids to meet up with so you can read some poetry and talk about how devastating the music industry is because your favorite so-and-so band sold out by letting their song be released on the radio?

  “Yes! Yermakova! Which really is the most complex last name I’ve heard around here. Are you foreign or something?”

  I roll my eyes and glance up at the clock, doing everything I cannot to hide the fact that I’m monitoring the time. He pulls up the chair next to me. This kid has obviously never learned about the concept known as subtlety.

  “I mean, of course you’re probably American, because of your accent, but…”

  Jesus, I can’t take this anymore.

  “It’s Russian. My dad’s from Russia.”

  He smiles and gives me a playful punch in the upper arm. He looks a tad disappointed when I don’t react with a coy giggle. “Now that is pretty damn awesome. I would love it if one of my parents were from a different country,” he says, trying to recover from his failed flirting attempt.

  “Sure, I guess…”

  I reach down to my backpack and grab the first book I can wrap my fingers around. My Literature textbook.

  “What’s your first name again?”

  It seems that the whole look-at-me-grabbing-a-book-I-have-so-much-studying-to-do bit is pretty much lost on this guy. I bite my bottom lip as his breath brushes across my neck. When did he get so damn close?

  “Maura. And you?” I snap as I flip through the pages. I don’t care to know. But I feel obligated to return the favor. This kid is nothing if not persistent.

  “I’m Owen.”

  He pauses for a response. I read the first sentence in a paragraph about Henry David Thoreau.

  “Owen Kittelsen...”

  Huh, the cabin where Thoreau li
ved while writing Walden is still around and open for tours outside of Boston. Which might just be an interesting enough trip to take this summer. And it would get my dad off of my ass for a few days…

  “…And I’m getting the impression that I’m bothering you, so I’ll be on my way.” He reaches his hand out, and I assume he wants me to shake it. I let mine fall limply into his, and his soft fingertips brush the inside of my palm. For some inexplicable reason, I shiver at his touch. Some strange emotion—which I can’t even think enough to describe with adequate words—fills me up and swirls in my head. Warm liquid replaces my brain. Words. What are words? What is all of this? I’m worried I’m going to drown. And now he’s flashing me this toothy, heart-warming smile and…

  “Is that what I think it is?”

  I tear my eyes off of his face and see his glare focused on my bracelet. He’s already using his other hand to reach for the gold chain before I can stop him.

  “No way. No fucking way,” he says, turning it over in his fingers. I should explain everything to him, but I need to wait for my entire being to be drained of this mystery emotion overload before I can function again. I try to pull my hand away to prevent any further conversation about the now worthless piece of jewelry, but his fingers are wrapped securely around the ring now. He brings his face closer. His emerald green eyes are darting all over me. All of the blood rush out of my body through my toes, soaking the ground underneath us to an embarrassing shade of crimson.

  “Is this really a 1994 Rovers Super Bowl ring?”

  His warm breath makes the tiny hairs on the back of my hand stand up on ends.

  Open mouth. Form words. You can do it.

  “Oh…yeah. I mean, yes. It is. My dad used to play for the Rovers.”

  His eyes expand to the size of shimmering Frisbees. They whisper to me that it’s okay to share this with him, because he’s trustworthy. I can almost look right through them and into his soul, amiable and full of a vibrant energy. My fingers electrify as he holds on to the metal.

  “Wow. By far the coolest thing I have ever heard…” he whispers, his voice full of genuine excitement.

  My phone starts ringing and vibrating my backpack, which is resting between our feet. I close my eyes and focus all of my remaining energy on wishing my father out of my life, once and for all.

  “Should you get your phone?”

  Please don’t ever let go of my hand.

  “No, it’s okay.”

  He resumes staring at my wrist, and I resume imagining what it would be like to…

  “I think someone really needs to talk to you.”

  My phone. Again.

  “Yeah, I should answer…”

  “It’s okay, I’m supposed to meet my buddies in the cafeteria for lunch anyways. Catch you around sometime?”

  He releases his grip and my arm falls back to my side, the ring bouncing off the inside of my sweaty palm.

  “Yeah, sure…”

  His back is to me when my phone rings for the third time. I grab it before it has a chance to go to voicemail again. There’s no use in making him any more pissed off than he clearly already is.

  “Maura. Where the hell are you?”

  “In the library, Dad. I was studying and we’re supposed to keep our phones on silent…”

  “Get out here now. We’re already going to be late to your appointment as it is, which means I’ll be late getting back to work. God dammit…your mother is going to need to pick you up and bring you back to school…”

  I watch as this Owen character pushes his way through the library doors and jumps up to greet his friends with a high-five. I can’t take my eyes off of him. What the hell just happened?

  “Maura?!?”

  “I’m on my way out Dad.”

  ****

  “So, let’s talk about how you’re doing this week.”

  Carolyn is my ‘psychologist.’ I use the term loosely because she barely looks any older than I am, and I have a hard time convincing myself that unless she’s some sort of child prodigy, there’s simply no way she’s completed all of the schooling necessary to listen to a stranger’s fucked-up problems and give them a pill to cure it. Her reddish hair is chopped off into a soccer-mom style bob in attempt to make her look older, but it doesn’t do enough to counter-balance the neon yellow sneakers she’s sporting on her feet. She catches me looking at her and clears her throat several times while straightening the silky green scarf hanging from her neck.

  “Has the new medication been working well for you? Any nausea?”

  “Ha,” I blurt. She poises her pen, ready to make me engage—whether I’m willing or not.

  “Tell me, Maura. I need to know the side effects you’re experiencing.”

  Shit. I should do a better job of monitoring the crap I let slip out of my mouth.

  “Well, I’m still having insomnia. Also a few days a month where all I want to do is sleep.”

  “Mmmhmmm,” she mumbles, not looking up from her diligent writing.

  Ok. I guess I’m expected to continue.

  “There’s still is some nausea, though. A little dizziness. And sometimes I’m lightheaded.”

  “What about those piercing headaches you were getting?”

  “No, not often,” I say, pulling lint off of my sweater and rolling it up into tiny rice-like droplets in my fingers.

  “Well, I’ll alter your prescription a tad for you.”

  I nod. Then I’m silent. Then she’s silent. Which is in turn followed by both of us sitting in a mutual awkward silence and staring at the walls behind each other’s heads. She’s so damn good and playing the quiet game. I bet she was a champ when she was in elementary school.

  “Seems like there’s something on your mind,” she says, automatically forfeiting herself from the game. I do a little victory dance in my head as her eyes narrow and try to look into mine. Here we go. She’s going in to full-on therapist mode now. I try to mask the fact that I’m rolling them at her by lowering my head and focusing on a hangnail on my thumb.

  “Remember Maura, this is a safe space. I’m only here to help you out,” she says as she raises her hands and traces the air above her head. “And nothing we talk about gets back to your parents.”

  I try to suffocate a stray laugh as she continues to analyze my facial responses. This whole therapy thing is such a damn joke. I wait every week for the reality show host to jump out from behind her bookcase and announce that I’m on hidden camera.

  “I’m not sure what you want from me. Do you need to hear about how I’m some clichéd abused child with a deep dark secret about how my daddy touched me in a naughty spot?” I ask, widening my eyes and doing my best to turn that sarcastic knife just a little bit more as it stabs through her psychobabble bullshit.

  “Maura,” she says, trying to not look defeated by sitting up straight.

  My eyes catch the clock hanging above her doorway. Thirty achingly long minutes until freedom. It’s gotten to the point where I must force myself to say SOMETHING or she might just put me on yet another medication.

  “This…guy. He talked to me at school today.”

  “Okay…”

  Her pen scratches across her notebook for at least a minute. I stare at her many diplomas donning the wall behind her desk, shifting back and forth in my seat while waiting for her to finish.

  “No one ever talks to me at school. At least not on purpose,” I say, hoping to get at least some sort of conversation going. One thing I have learned during my short stint in therapy is this: the more I can talk and keep her occupied with my mundane life problems, the less time she spends ruminating on what’s exactly wrong with me and writing everything down on her trusty pad.

  “Oh I’m sure you’re not telling the truth. You’re such a beautiful and sweet girl…”

  I blatantly roll my eyes right in her face this time.

  “It’s true.”

  “I have a hard time believing that.”

  She’s
back to writing. Dammit. I said the wrong thing. Must think before I spew out anything. Must seem as normal and happy as possible.

  “Well did you enjoy your conversation with him?”

  “No. He dresses like a ten-year-old. And he’s trying to form his hair into some sort of pseudo Mohawk.”

  She smiles and puts her pen down.

  “Well, it sounds to me like you find him quite interesting, Maura,” she states, lowering her voice below its normal octave in an attempt to sound more authoritative.

  “Well, he’s not. He’s annoying. And a huge fan of violating one’s personal space.”

  “Any possibility of you just going up and talking to him?”

  “What? Why?” I ask, shifting in my seat.

  “Because you spend entirely too much time alone. Don’t you find it important to have other people in your life?”

  I cross and uncross my legs. I can’t seem to get comfortable in this cheap, Swedish-made, puke-green plastic chair.

  “No, not necessarily. Adding more people to my life ultimately means I’m adding more heartache and disappointment. I get enough of that from my so-called parents.”

  Her eyes narrow and study me as I put my hair up in a messy bun and pull a chunk of nail polish off of my fingers.

  “Do you have any friends, Maura?”

  I don’t think those dreadful words will ever stop stinging like a cloud of angry wasps.

  “Of course,” I say, sitting upright with a fake confidence. “Who doesn’t have friends?”

  I don’t mention to her that the majority of my social life consists of arguing with my parents or conversing with a three-inch doll as I paint tiny furniture for her tiny house. She didn’t give any constraints on what the term ‘friends’ means, anyways.

  “You should be honest with me.”

  “I am!”

  She leans forward. I avert my eyes down to her dirt brown carpet and run my feet back and forth, turning each tiny thread light brown and dark brown and back to light brown.

  “Look, I know you don’t want to be here. But if you can figure out a way to cooperate with me more and dial back the vicious sarcasm a tad, you can get through this whole thing a little faster.”