Back at the room, I went through my homework quickly but gave Sarah the impression that I had lots of it to escape dinner in the lobby. Once alone, I decided I should change into pajamas to be more comfortable. There in the closet I discovered my forgotten apple. It was wrinkled and lifeless, almost black. I picked it up and took it to the little table near my bed. I stared at it for about an hour, sad that it was no longer green.
Chapter 7
death
everything hurt is black, dark, and ugly. This apple had sacrificed itself for my survival. So many things and so many souls are sacrificed without appreciation; if only we knew the damage we create even by just existing. The only part of the apple that had actually survived was the one bite I consumed. It was the only part that was going to live longer, although in a different form. The next morning, I saw that the apple was totally black. I picked it up and placed it in my backpack.
Of course there wasn’t a need to wear anything special; it didn’t matter now that Eric wasn’t looking at me anymore. He did sometimes peek at my drawing, but at least I was sure it wasn’t me that interested him. Thirty minutes later Sarah and I were walking toward the university. While she spoke about all the stuff I missed in yesterday’s dinner at the lobby, I was thinking of how stupid I was to even think that Eric would find in a girl like me something special. What special feature did I even think I possessed? I had none. I was like the Dead Sea, trapped in a desert, pathetic and lifeless.
Sarah’s voice was louder than the thoughts of my deep depression. She spoke of some new girl that had joined the residence on the same floor. I nodded, frustrated, and glanced at the hill where Eric usually stood with Luke and Marc. He wasn’t with them. They looked irritated. Why was I so concerned about their body language? I didn’t need to care any further; I looked around anyways just to make sure the area lacked the angry boy.
“Would you?” Sarah stood before me raising both her eyebrows.
“Excuse me?”
“Would you accompany me for my first swimming lesson after classes?” she repeated.
“Sure. I mean I’d love to, Sarah.” I tried to sound encouraging although I had lost interest in any kind of activity; even as I pictured myself watching her I felt bored and depressed.
She smiled through the corner of her mouth. “After your drawing class, wait for me by the gym. We can go to the pool together.”
“That sounds great.” I nodded.
“I’m not sure.” She shrugged and we both laughed.
The day passed quickly. Eric had missed classes. I knew that because he didn’t show up for drawing, nor was he anywhere around. I on the other hand finalized my first piece of art. It was a tree drawn in coal half broken and dead on one side, the other half alive and green, except that it was colorless. There was my perfect nonsense of black and white. I wrote under the tree “The Tree of Life” and drew a small apple on one of its broken branches, an apple that was missing a bite. The teacher was happy with my drawing, but he was still wondering when I was going to use the colors. I explained that I would do that next week during our next session since the rest of this week was off and the campus was closed. He nodded anxiously.
I sat watching Sarah for about an hour dipping her toes into the pool and withdrawing them quickly, while the instructor gave her encouraging words. My job was to raise my thumb near my face and smile, a pathetic friendly job. Fifteen minutes before the session ended, I sneaked out and went to take a look at Eric’s secret book in the library. When I reached the chamber, the book was gone. I pulled up a chair and stood on it, trying to see if it was anywhere on the upper shelf, but it wasn’t. I worried that maybe someone had found it and placed it on the correct shelf in the science section. I looked for it there too, but when I didn’t find it I finally understood that Eric must have taken the book home. Disappointed and dead curious, I walked away in despair.
“Where are you going?” Sarah asked, running toward me as she crossed the road.
“Just walking.”
“Well, it was not that hard.” She paused as she usually did. “I was even able to let my whole head underwater from the first session.”
“When did that happen?” I was surprised that within the last fifteen minutes after I left, she actually did more than just dip her toes into the water.
“Yeah, by the way, where did you go?”
“Oh, well, I knew you could do it,” I said, avoiding her question.
“Thanks.” She walked with her hands in her sweatshirt pockets. We looked exactly alike.
“Where are you heading to?” she asked again.
“I’m not sure.” I pressed my lips together and shook my head.
“Would you like to eat somewhere?”
“I’m hungry,” I agreed.
During dinner, Sarah dared for the first time to ask me about the reasons for my constant sadness. Only then did I realize I wasn’t so good at hiding it. Of course I wasn’t comfortable talking about my past and how I felt about it, not that Sarah wasn’t trustworthy, but mostly because the consequence of that talk was going to bring shocked expressions that I didn’t like.
“I…,” I murmured, “will make things short.”
She looked at me with wide open eyes that made me want to run away. I picked up the straw and stirred the ice in the soft drink.
“Five people from my close family died within a few years. Well…six if you’d like to add the death of Mr. Sebastian.”
“Wow, that’s a big number.” She tried to sound surprised. I understood through her exaggerated expression that Elionora had filled her in on this information previously. I was glad I didn’t need to deal with too many emotions; she obviously had them when I wasn’t around.
“Mr. Sebastian left a note prior to his suicide; particularly I thought he addressed his words to me.” I had no idea why I was speaking my thoughts out loud. “He wrote, ‘It’s not so painful to die, when death brings an end to pain.’”
“I think what he wrote was basically an encouragement to himself to actually commit it. By writing this he encouraged himself to sound like a hero. It’s always a good cause to die.”
“Why?” I was surprised with her reaction.
“Death is always scary. He wanted to make sure that people’s reaction to his death would encourage him to overcome his fear of it.”
“Mr. Sebastian never planned his suicide,” I countered. “He was a happy man.”
“I don’t see why he would commit suicide then,” she objected. “His note did express misery, you know.”
She was right even though I didn’t want to admit it. He did ask me once how I was feeling and how the rest of my family felt every time I reported someone’s death. Although he seemed to sympathize, he also seemed scared and concerned with what people were feeling. How could he want this for himself?
Chatting with Sarah was like telling wolf stories near a campfire. She spoke about her life as if it were an ancient legend of war. I could imagine her father on a hill wearing a helmet and having a number of wolves standing behind him as soldiers, and she standing on another with fairies and elves. I could picture her mother holding her little sister standing near the war field, crying and asking them not to fight each other. So we spent the next two hours talking about everything we didn’t know about each other. Sarah handled my part of the story like an audience; at least she wasn’t involving herself in the play. She was definitely easier to handle than Clara or Elionora; somehow nothing was a big deal to her. I tried though to keep my stories short and summarized; Sarah filled me in with all the boring details of her childhood until our arrival to the restaurant. She ended her long speech with a sigh.
“Well then, that’s about it.” She exhaled, smiling.
“So you don’t speak with your dad anymore?” I worried that my question was about to bring even further long details.
“I wished him a happy birthday just this summer.” She paused. “He is not a bad man, only I wish he had l
ess of an aggressive attitude.”
“Well, he’s just being himself. I wouldn’t blame him.”
It was colder in the afternoon; I couldn’t feel my toes as I walked to my favorite place between the trees where I slept on the ground my first day in Denver. I reached the open space and rested my back against the trunk of a large tree. An hour passed quickly while I swam in deep thoughts about everything in my life. I felt hopeless, like living was an obligation. I wanted to lie in bed for a month without having to leave it at any time. Life was created for people who had joy and happiness in their hearts; life was not made for me. I loved watching happy people enjoy their lives, watching them feel the true joy of life. There wasn’t anything I needed that Dad wasn’t prepared to provide me with. The problem was that there wasn’t a thing I wanted in life; nothing seemed to bring joy to my heart. Maybe a bit of attention from a guy like Eric or Robert would’ve made me happy, but I was the stupid kind who couldn’t handle a bit of joy from a source like this. I was the type to fall in love quickly.
Breathing had become painful; I could constantly feel my heartbeats. This negative energy that I brought to myself through ugly thinking was attracting more of it. I couldn’t possibly think of a way to stop my thoughts and divert them into something that I loved. The most painless memory was Robert’s, and it was fading. His facial features were disappearing from my lively imagination, and it wasn’t much use anymore.
The feeling of dehydration spread toward my throat. I searched for water in my backpack, where I found the apple instead.
“Great,” I whispered.
I moved to the center of the open space, dug a small hole in the dirt, placed the apple in it, and buried it. I pushed a little stick in the ground as a marker for how to spot the apple whenever I felt like coming here again. It kind of reminded me of Mom’s grave, which I never visited. It even scared me a little. Suddenly I felt sad; I was looking forward to visiting the grave of my apple and had never visited Mom’s.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered loudly.
The place was calmer than usual; the grass was still green despite the cold dry weather. It was already very hard to bear the cold as little freezing breezes sneaked under my jacket and burned my skin. I walked back to the residence faster than usual, feeling like ice was pinching my toes.
On Saturday there was a mountain biking trip near Glenwood Springs, about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Denver. Sarah and I partially joined in the sense that we waited for the boys at the starting point with the other girls and one guy named Jeffrey. He was responsible for the telecommunications between the starting point and the group for emergency purposes. Jeffrey was very stylish; he wore flashy colors. He had a blue jacket the color of a clear sky and a yellow sports hat. Every now and then he’d place his lips on the speakerphone and say “What’s the situation, what’s the situation?”
I wondered why he said it twice; it was clear enough the first time he said it. I realized though that every time he finished this sentence he blinked while looking at Sarah, and she blushed.
“It’s fine,” the speakerphone replied. It sounded like Daniel’s voice, but I was sure it wasn’t him because Sarah told me that he and Michka were busy with other things today.
“How long will they need?” I asked Sarah. Of course she found this a perfect opportunity to ask Jeffrey.
“Hold on.” She walked toward Jeffrey.
“Hey Jeff…” She paused. “How long do you think they’ll need?”
“Umm, about an hour and a half.” His voice sounded older than his age. Sarah seemed to like it.
“About an hour and a half,” she yelled to me, obviously to imply that she was asking on my behalf. I was able to hear both of them as they spoke anyways; she didn’t need to yell. In all cases it seemed like an excellent approach not to show direct interest.
“Why didn’t you join them? You look well-built and strong,” Jeffrey flirted, and Sarah blushed again.
“Well, my friend here is too much of an adventurer, only today she wasn’t in the mood,” she commented.
“She doesn’t look like much trouble.” He stared at me as I started walking away. His weird looks irritated me.
The trail was surely one of the best for bikers. It was called the Glenwood Canyon Bike Trail, which led to Hanging Lake located in Glenwood Canyon, about seven miles east of Glenwood Springs. The guys were saying it had the most amazing view of the Rocky Mountains. When the team was back, we all grouped together to watch the photos they had taken on a digital camera. I was fascinated by the sunset pink colors of the sky around the Rocky Mountains. It was absolutely as great as they described it. Some of the sites they showed us had become my target for my next walks, although I was going to need a ride to get this close first—that, I knew, I could claim was from Sarah. Now I was more interested to take Sarah with me than I ever was.
“That’s an amazing photo,” Sarah said of a site at Hanging Lake.
“Where exactly is that?” I asked.
“An hour twenty minutes away, east of the city,” one fat guy said. “Just pass by the long trees. But I wouldn’t go alone.”
“Why not?” Sarah asked.
“The bears,” he said in a serious tone, turning toward Sarah. “They were spotted by campers last week. They attacked their tents.”
A moment of silence passed before the group started laughing at Sarah’s scared face. She blushed as Jeffrey laughed along.
“Nice!” she said, humored. “Was it the bear or was it you they spotted?”
“Ohh,” the group screamed.
“The girl’s got a point!” Jeffrey said as everyone laughed even harder.
By the time we were back to the dorms, Dad had called a few times and left a message with Elionora that he wasn’t going to be reachable for two days as he was taking a trip to Milano. Sam was going to stay with Uncle Charles and his wife, Claire, until his return. I shrugged indifferently; as long as they were okay I didn’t need to know anything.
Sunday was unusually calm. Eric didn’t show up at church mass at ten; even Sarah noticed it, but I acted like I didn’t. We had an early lunch at one of Sarah’s favorite crowded restaurants where Robert was with his Asian girlfriend. Sarah seemed less bothered now that Jeffrey was around.
“What did you order, skinny one?” Jeffrey asked.
“A salad,” I answered shortly.
He smirked. “You’ll need to eat more than that if you’re planning to put on some weight.”
“Yeah, you’re right.” I tried to smile.
“She’s not much of an eater,” Sarah said, “but she is stronger than what it might appear.”
“Thanks,” I said and noticed Jeffrey eating double the normal quantity for his body size, devouring the food with great enthusiasm.
Sarah watched surprised too. “You have a strong appetite.”
“Oh, yeah, I exercise a lot.” As he finished he asked for dessert.
“So,” I interrupted, “I was planning to check this site this afternoon, Sarah.”
“Which site?” She tried to stop herself from looking at Jeffrey’s eating manners.
“Well, the Hanging Lake.” I tried to fork two pieces of lettuce and some beans. One piece of tomato slid off my plate over the table. I covered it quickly with a tissue, glad they didn’t notice it.
“The one from the bikers’ excursion?” Jeffrey said with a full mouth, sinking his teeth into another bite.
“Yeah.” I sipped from my soft drink, whose ice had melted by now.
“You are correct, Sarah, the girl’s got adventure,” he mocked.
I found one remaining ice cube in my drink as I stirred it with the straw. I slid it out with the fork and started crushing it with my teeth, trying to divert my attention away from Jeffrey’s disastrous eating behavior.
“Well, would you like to join?” Sarah asked.
“How are you planning to go? You’ll need a drive,” he replied.
“You are,” s
he said firmly.
He spooned the last piece of his dessert while scanning the menu again. “Of course.” He chewed for a few seconds. “You’ll need my professional help anyways.”
“Cool, so what time are we departing?” Suddenly Sarah sounded excited.
“Right now,” I said quickly.
The two-and-a-half-hour drive was easily made in one hour and forty minutes. Jeffrey’s driving skills were crazy and so was his sports car, but I wasn’t scared. Sarah was very tense but tried to act like she wasn’t. She had her back stuck to the seat, not really saying much throughout the whole drive.
After an hour of walking we reached our destination. During the walk we spotted mountain goats climbing a sandy hill. Their white coats were beautiful, obviously thick enough to block the cold. Even the baby ones seemed fine; it was only Sarah and I whose teeth were chattering.
“You know if you ate more you would have reserved heat,” Jeffrey teased again.
“If either of us had eaten the amount that you did, we would have been in an emergency,” Sarah joked, and we all laughed.
“Once upon a time,” he said, singing and walking in a dancing manner, “there was a man searching for gold in the canyon.”
Sarah raised her eyebrows and listened to him as he continued.
“The man found a dead horse at a nearby gulch. He followed the gulch up to this hill…” He ran a little faster, bypassing us till he reached the hill, and continued, “Until he found these amazing waterfalls underneath that led to the discovery of the beautiful lake.”
We followed quickly and found a stunning view of the falls on the right of the hill. Sarah’s mouth gaped opened.
“You are absolutely joking,” she said.
Different Minds Page 9