Different Minds

by Joyce E. Rayess

  “All right,” she replied.

  I knew my escape was eventually going to bring her closer to Jack; I was correct. Glad that my plan was working, I took advantage of my lonely time and gave permission to my thoughts to take me wherever peace was. It had to land on Robert. I remembered this one time when our teacher committed suicide. It was the most horrible day at school. Robert was very affected by the loss of Mr. Sebastian, but despite the shock he went toward all the students that were crying and started hugging them compassionately and talking to them. I couldn’t forget his hug, which lifted my soul and made me forget the reason I was crying. His voice was very soft as he placed his hand on my face, telling me that it was Mr. Sebastian’s choice and we should not be sad for that. I don’t remember ever being hugged so lightly; yet it felt so warm and pleasant. He didn’t know who I was; he just felt compassionate and loving toward everyone that was emotionally drowned, gazing into their sad eyes and patting their shoulders.

  I was frozen cold when the news hit me and started comparing the death of Mr. Sebastian with those of my family. At least my family didn’t choose to die. Mr. Sebastian did! How can death be someone’s choice? No one knew if Mr. Sebastian had any major trouble in his personal life so everyone blamed it on the school. Some blamed it on the students; some blamed it on the administration. There were rumors afterwards that the school gave a raise to all the teachers in order to keep them happy, but no one was able to prove if that was correct.

  The cafeteria in the residence hall smelled awful from some cooking that was going on. The smell of garlic made me want to throw up. I ran up the stairs to our room and closed the door immediately. I exchanged jackets and took a large breath that would enable me to run all the way down two floors without needing to inhale again. Suddenly I received a text message from Sarah not to go back because they were following me to the residence. I looked across my bedroom window. Some people were busy removing the stones of yesterday’s bonfire. Aside, under the shade of the tree, was the boy I’d seen last time during my lonely walk, holding the chain of his dog. His dog was sniffing around the remains of the fire. The boy was the only one not helping with the cleanup.

  When Sarah and Jack were back, the day quickly folded into darkness. Sarah finally confessed her biggest fear.

  “Back at high school, my best friend, Denise, and I were invited to a party in my neighborhood along with many others at school.” She inhaled. “Some parents were at the party including Dad. Friends were pushing each other into the pool, and I had told Denise several times that I didn’t know how to swim and reminded her the same night not to let anyone push me into the pool.”

  “But someone pushed you into the pool?” I tried to guess.

  “Denise did.” She paused. “She pretended that she didn’t know. Dad pulled me out and shouted at Denise. She took it so personally and started joining teams against me at school.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  “Dad didn’t like that I was humiliated in front of my friends. It was too hard for him to accept that his kid was being laughed at.” Her eyes tightened. “He enrolled me in swimming courses and made sure the teacher was tough on me so it wouldn’t take much time to prove everyone they were wrong. It was too much for me to handle, so I moved to Colorado the next year.”

  “You’re here by your own choice?” I questioned.

  “My cousins live here. Jessica, my closest, moved to San Francisco just last year.”

  “She was your roommate?”

  “No, I preferred to live alone. She was in the residence though.”

  “Well, there isn’t much to worry about,” I said. “The past is gone!”

  “Yeah.”

  “But, Sarah, something like this might happen anywhere. Jack’s idea of facing fears is great in fact. It does lessen the nightmares at night.”

  “What nightmares?” A kind of smile appeared on her face. “Your fears, nightmares.”

  “I don’t have them.”

  I suddenly felt as though I said something irrelevant, like I was merging my case with hers.

  “All right, so it’s not that bad. I think you should try some swimming courses,” I encouraged.

  “You mean you should!” she emphasized. “What do I have to do with it?”

  “I remember your first day here, Cassy. You came back to the room like a wet cat.” She smiled.

  I laughed, remembering.

  In the evening, just before I went to sleep, Dad called to check on my last week’s experience at the university. I explained that everything was going well. During his call I felt the need once again to be alone. I wished at some point I would be able to disconnect from everything that reminded me of how hard it was to have attachments and lose them. It was like when it came to death there were no second chances. Dad’s voice was really upbeat at the start of the phone call, but by the time we hung up he sounded sad. I knew my presence and my voice reminded him so much of Mom. His sadness came into me easily; I could almost forget how far away I was. Any conversation with him had to end by him asking me to take care, and I repeating “You too, Dad.”

  Just before I went to sleep I looked again for the dimmer, but the bulb was dead. There was another light in the room, but it was too direct and too strong. For me it was impossible to sleep in complete darkness. If it was impossible to see what was in the corners, I couldn’t close my eyes. I sat for a while thinking of what I could do as an alternative solution. I had the option of keeping the light turned either on or off. If I had to keep the light on it would almost feel like daytime. I went to the bathroom and turned on the light inside, then closed the door halfway. I asked Sarah if she minded the light; she said she didn’t although I knew she preferred sleeping in complete darkness. I appreciated the sacrifice and went under my blanket struggling to fall asleep.

  Chapter 6

  fantasies

  i was taking my lonely walks more frequently as time passed. Elionora was worried that I was spending too much time on my own. Dad was calling more often now, and I grew tired of sounding happy and alive at all times. It was easier to convince Dad that I was okay than it was with Elionora. She had invited me for dinner one night intending to listen to me and help me speak. No matter how understanding she sounded, something told me that I must just smile and act happy and calm. I was in fact very scared to speak about my own world of fantasies and how it was easier to imagine good things than fight for them. It was hard to explain how frustrated I was of trying, and it was sure very hard for anyone to understand that a big part of me had just given up already. Every morning I didn’t even feel like going to the university, but I did it anyways just so Elionora wouldn’t report the news to Dad.

  “I’m fine, Elionora. It just takes time to make more friends.” I chewed on the steak nervously.

  “But I think you’d make more friends at the School of Music. How about getting enrolled into guitar courses or dance?”

  “I already tried once to memorize the sound of the piano keys, and it was just too hard for me.” I exhaled with worry. “I don’t think it helps anyways. Most of the time I’m around people when I’m with Sarah at the university. It’s not a bad thing to actually enjoy calmness and being alone for the rest of the day.”

  She sat silently holding her chin and watching me closely.

  “I just wish you wouldn’t worry so much. I need to feel free,” I complained politely.

  “Well…” She blinked several times before she was able to continue her sentence. “You are free, Cassandra; I can’t help but feel a little worried for you. Just walk less alone; at least have company.”

  “I can’t force anyone to walk with me,” I said, and she closed her eyes, a gesture that could have meant she thought I was being stubborn. “However I’ll suggest it.”

  “Thank you.” She sounded like she was glad she had reached a kind of resolution with me.

  Just after dining with Elionora, I couldn’t help but notice how Sarah became the ann
oying companion again. She didn’t let me go anywhere on my own. I tried several times to leave before she woke up, but I couldn’t get out of the room even once unnoticed no matter how early it was. Waking up for years feeling worried about what might come next somehow trained my inner self to always wake up early. Even when there was nothing going on, a chain of unwelcomed events, which didn’t need to be severe, would easily bring forth excessive nervousness. I was tired, I was frustrated, and I had constant anxiety. So many times I just wanted to be left alone, so I didn’t need to exert the effort to act as if everything in my life was great and I was enjoying myself. Now it was even harder having Sarah hunt me all the time.

  I wasn’t the only one who was frustrated though. Eric was too. I saw him once sitting alone in the playground; he was rubbing his head with one hand and digging in the ground between his feet with the other. He looked pathetic. I encouraged myself to go and talk to him, but I was too afraid to try. He looked stressed, constantly wiping his hands on his jeans to take off the sweat generated from anxiety—all symptoms I was familiar with. It was confusing though because when friends approached him he sort of smiled, even hugged them and walked around with them. Maybe Eric just didn’t like being alone. If he would only be nice to people he wouldn’t have to be so alone though. He even seemed to hate his only two friends, Luke and Marc, sometimes. They stood beside him whenever they could and held him back when he was about to fight with someone. It appeared that Eric appreciated their presence, although he fought with them sometimes. But they never hated him; they were the only ones that dared stay around him no matter what.

  One day his familiar voice attracted my attention as it was so near that when I looked above my right shoulder he was standing there, looking into my eyes.

  “Umm…” He stood in what I imagined a state of shock while looking at me and holding his pencil. Suddenly one boy seated just before me reached out with his hand, holding a sharpener. Eric took it, thanking the guy, and moved away. I acted like I didn’t care.

  Weeks passed by; Eric never talked to me again, or even tried to. I became lonelier when surrounded by people. The sound of my thoughts went from whispering to extremely loud, so much so that sometimes I spoke a few words of what was going on in my mind. Sarah and Jack had asked me a few times what I was saying; I realized by then how loud my thoughts were becoming. I linked this extreme loneliness to Eric’s behavior in ignoring me. He walked by me every time in drawing class without any expression. His eyes focused on reaching his seat. He was very loud as usual, very angry and intolerable. He made me feel lonelier than I ever did. I couldn’t communicate with anyone properly. I sort of needed to hibernate and forget the reasons why my sadness ever existed.

  In the afternoon Sarah told me that Jack finally told her about how he felt toward her. She was worried that she made the wrong decision in pushing him away. Jack was angry as well; he wished he hadn’t gone that far. At least he could have kept her friendship.

  “I’m so stupid,” he said while pouring tea into his mug.

  “Don’t say that, Jack,” I encouraged. “You needed to know.”

  “You could have told me, Cassandra.” He smiled sadly. “That would have spared me the rejection.”

  “I couldn’t possibly know. Plus it would not have been enough for you.”

  He gave me a mocking look of disbelief, biting his lips. “It would have been better than this.”

  “Well, don’t you think you should try again? I mean, sometimes we make a quick and wrong decision, but after taking the time to think about it, it seems acceptable.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “What? No,” I lied.

  “If she failed to see things in me, I don’t want to make her see them,” he said firmly.

  I gazed into Jack’s face wondering how he did manage to feel special. “Wow, Jack.”

  “What?” He stopped himself from licking the honey from the spoon.

  “Did you say that from your mind, or does it come from somewhere?”

  “What?” He shook his head, finding my question very weird. “Do I look like the kind that reads books?”

  “No, I mean…” I forced a laugh. “Your mind is beautiful.”

  His eyes tightened as he smiled. “You should tell her that!”

  Throughout the following days, Sarah and Jack talked less and hung out less. Jack became busier every day and Sarah became more available to hang out with me. I recall trying to convince her to give Jack a chance; maybe he wasn’t so adventurous when they were closer. Sarah worried about losing his friendship in case things didn’t work out. She spoke nonstop for weeks about how he was becoming so busy and didn’t care for her anymore. There was nothing I could say that was going to change her mind, so I resigned myself to advising her just to cool down and not think too much about things.

  I’ve always suspected that Sarah and Elionora joined powers to keep me busy. By the time Elionora was insisting that I enroll in music lessons at her new School of Music, Sarah got enrolled into one of the classes and asked me to join her because she felt that music was good therapy for her stress. I finally joined one, although it appeared to me that music and I didn’t do well when I had to create it. Moreover, I couldn’t bring a group of people to listen to me if I wanted to say something. How was I going to bring a whole audience by the end of the year to listen to something stupid I was playing? My fingers on the piano keyboard were stiff, and it felt like I was forcing the sounds to come out. Soon after my third lesson I gave up and never tried again.

  On the other hand, my painting was developing well. The teacher was now spending most of the time behind my shoulder talking to me and asking questions about what the outcome was to be. I even saw Eric peeking at my drawing; he was curious like the rest of the students about what I was really doing and why the teacher was so interested in my drawing. I of course acted as if I never saw him raising his head above my shoulder and watching the expansion of my art.

  I had finished the broken part of the tree and was starting with the healthy part. Day by day the tree looked more appealing, even to me. Every time I came back to my drawing I was surprised with how good it looked. I almost didn’t believe it was me who had done it, knowing that I had never drawn anything before in my life. The teacher was very excited with every lesson he gave that I worked on my masterpiece. He wondered though when I was going to use colors. I told him that would be only in the end. I wasn’t going to disclose that I didn’t know how to use colors just yet.

  Sundays I went to church because Eric was there; the few people that attended looked sleepy. The priest was reading and explaining the Bible as if it was a bedtime story. People lacked faith while church lacked motivation. Only Eric stayed longer than the exact time for the service. I left him alone there of course, every time. I did feel a kind of peace after church every Sunday. Sarah started joining soon after my first several visits. If anyone at the university had known that Eric was attending church every Sunday, the church wouldn’t have been so empty.

  After church, Sarah walked with me in the parks. Whenever I wanted to go into the forest she was a little worried and scared, so I compensated. Rarely, however, she accompanied me into the site of my wonderland, and soon afterwards she’d ask that we come back to a public place. Sometimes I had myself confused as to whether Sarah was one of the characters my mind had created in my own world’s fantasies or whether she was for real. I think I let her join my own fantastic world where occasionally she thought I was crazy.

  “What are we doing, Cassandra?” She sounded a little scared.

  “We’ll just make the long distance shorter.”

  “Passing through the forest again!”

  “You can always go back; I can do it alone. I’m not scared.”

  She was silent for a moment. “No, I will come along. I just don’t know why you like it so much in strange dangerous places.”

  “It’s calmer.”

  “It’s spooky.”r />
  I turned to Sarah with a smile and she instantly started walking, trying to avoid any further comments.

  “Do you think it will rain?” I hoped it would.

  “No, not this week,” she assured me.

  “Well, too bad. The trees need to drink.”

  “What?” By her reaction I could tell she wasn’t sure I had actually said that. “Are you worried for the trees?”

  “A little,” I said with a low voice.

  “Well, they seem fine, and scary,” she added. “Oh, by the way, I have other plans for next weekend.”

  “Ah, that’s good.” I hoped they didn’t involve me.

  “You’re included. It involves nature and all.”

  I turned toward Sarah; she was walking just behind me and breathing heavily. It was obvious she wasn’t much into sports. “Let me guess, it involves a crowd too.”

  “Well, it involves nature.” She raised one eyebrow.

  “What else?” I negotiated.

  “Well, there will be food.”

  “Oh,” I said, laughing, “will you be hunting?”

  “It’s a little barbeque.” Sarah wasn’t a good liar. She kind of sang while she lied.

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Well, I’m not going without you.”

  “Why not, Sarah? It will be fun.” I tried sounding positive.

  “Michka and Daniel are not coming, and Jack is now too busy to join.”

  I stayed quiet and walked faster now.

  “What about others?” I said after a few seconds. I knew she didn’t have other friends.

  “Who? Elionora?” She laughed. I started laughing too.

  The walk wasn’t very scary, if at all. Sarah was always too troubled and very much on the safe side. I think Elionora taught her to be like this. I wanted to understand what the link was between them, why they coordinated so well in making my life so hard. Surprisingly, I could tell she was enjoying our walks a little more every time she accompanied me. This time she decided we could sit a little on the side of the mountains for a rest. I was happy with the progress she was making in hating my world less, although it was still very strange to her.