Children of Memories

by Matthew Fish

  “Thank you for getting him to sign the T-shirt,” Anna said with a smile. “I’ve never been good about going up to people I don’t know. I mean, I’ve been a TC fan since I lived down in Chicago, but I’ve always felt awkward just going up to people and talking to them. My ex…he always used to handle that kind of thing.”

  “It was no problem,” Andrew said as he stared up at the oatmeal-like white ceiling. There had been a lot on his mind over the past few months. Still, he hid it away out of both fear and the knowledge that he cannot change the current situation.

  “Do you think you’ll ever drive again?” Anna asked as she turned onto her side to face Andrew.

  “I…I honestly don’t know,” Andrew replied as he looked away to the window, to the sound of distant fireworks. He reminisced back to a similar night with the sound of thunder.

  “You should,” Anna added, nodding with her head in her hand, her elbow propped on a pillow. “I mean, once you feel that you’re ready to. I understand about the whole dying thing, but that was an accident.”

  “Are we having a serious talk?” Andrew asked as he chuckled at the thought. For the most part their conversations that night had been comprised of dildo-armed panda bears and how futile they’d be in a fight, though still quite threatening.

  “I suppose so,” Anna said as she looked saddened for a moment.

  “Then can I ask you something?” Andrew said as he turns to face Anna once more. For a moment he loses himself in those familiar features. A face that he has slowly come to realize reminds him of Emily so long ago.

  “Possibly,” Anna replied with some apprehension. She usually tended to change the subject if things got too serious, or too personal.

  “Do you think it is worse to be in love for a short time, and lose someone; or worse to be with someone since you were young and lose them, but they’re still here in a sense….”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  “Would you take him back if he came back?” Andrew asked.

  “No, not ever,” Anna began, “I relied on him too much. I loved him and he took that and just left one day without a reason. After he left, all I was left with was just… depression and my anxiety—which got so much worse. I should have never relied on him so much. Maybe that’s why he left. We couldn’t do normal things. Had the concert not been in such a small venue I doubt I could have even done this…. It just makes me feel so broken. This is the first time I’ve even left the area since then. Since we broke up….”

  “You remind me of her…,” Andrew whispered, instantly regretting saying such a foolish thing.

  “How so?”

  “You are both kind, and you both make me laugh. You are so accepting of who I am as a person despite all of my obvious faults that I…I just haven’t been afforded that kind of kindness in a very, very long time,” Andrew said, feeling extremely nervous and anxious. Talking about his feelings made him uncomfortable, especially knowing that Anna probably did not feel the same. After all, she had made it quite clear before that Andrew should not expect anything from this—still, there was part of him that could just not accept this. With all their similarities, their shared sense of humor, there had to be something more. Or perhaps he just needed something more to come out of this.

  “People are assholes,” Anna said as she collapsed onto the bed and faced the dim yellow ceiling lamp that hung from the center of the room. “People just don’t understand people like us. They don’t realize we hide behind our humor because we’re damaged on the inside and that’s all we have left. People don’t realize what it is to have a panic attack or be depressed—they just expect us to get over it, like you said before.”

  “Would you…,” Andrew began and then paused. Was he really ready to do this? Really willing to take a leap and risk ruining a friendship?

  “Drive you home? Of course. I just can’t leave you stranded here. You’ll get molested violently by all of the seagulls. I know they look quite the harmless sort, but they’ve got vicious psychosexual tendencies,” Anna interjected as she feigned laughter.

  “Are we done being serious?” Andrew asked.

  “Seagulls are very serious business.”

  “It has been almost nine months since we met, I just want to know—would you ever consider us…consider me…more than just a friend?” Andrew asked, finally releasing the frustration that had been on his mind for many months. It was as though he was standing atop the edge of a cliff, finally making that leap—knowing that it was a leap into doomed territory.

  “Don’t…,” Anna quietly said as she turned away and curled up into a ball against the bed.

  “I’m sorry I asked,” Andrew said as he got up and sat at the edge of the bed. He wanted to comfort Anna, to put his arms around her, but he knew better.

  “Don’t be sorry. If that’s how you feel then you should be able to say it.”

  “You don’t feel the same, though,” Andrew said sadly as he removed the bottle of Xanax from his pocket and placed a pill on his tongue, letting it dissolve. He could not quite fully understand why he felt the need to do this, to push her when he knew that she was still troubled.

  “I…I don’t know,” Anna whispered in a barely audible voice. “I know that you want an answer but I don’t have one. I am not okay with myself at all. I don’t even like myself and I don’t think that I could like anyone without having some self-esteem. I think you’re the same way, too. We both need to figure things out first before we can think about that.”

  “I just want to know if we have a future,” Andrew said, sitting against the bed as rogue fireworks boomed outside the window.

  “I don’t want to rely on someone again. It just leads to getting hurt.”

  “I won’t hurt you.”

  “You don’t know that for sure. People just change. People change all the time. I expected that me and my ex would get married. It seemed like the logical conclusion, the next step. Still, he left without any consideration for how I felt, went for someone else, someone who wasn’t broken.

  “You’re not broken. Everyone is afraid of being hurt,” Andrew said, practically pleading. Normally he would have backed off, but things had come to a boiling point with the fact was that he loved Anna just as he had loved Emily before. It had been a long time coming. It was not just that she reminded him so much of Emily, but that Anna was someone he could see himself having a future with.

  “I know what you want,” Anna said as she looked to Andrew with tears in her eyes, “I just can’t give it to you. I can’t give you an answer. I’m sorry. I just don’t know how I feel. I wish I could answer you.”

  Andrew got up from his bed. He began to walk toward the door, looking back to Anna, who was still visibly upset.

  “It was stupid of me to bring up, to think that you could like someone like me. I am sorry that I said anything. I won’t bring it up again.”

  “It isn’t you.”

  “That’s the problem.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I’m going to go for a walk,” Andrew said as he reached for the door. “Let’s just forget about it. Do you need anything while I’m out?”

  “Andy….”

  “Like I said—my fault for asking; I am sorry for ruining a great evening,” Andrew said as he walked out, shutting the door behind him. He paused for a moment outside, wanting to go back in—wanting to somehow fix the situation that he had caused. However, his foolish sense of pride and injured self-esteem would not allow him to do so. Instead, Andrew walked off the hotel grounds and down the street. He walks to the lakeside where he takes a view of the steel bridge that is under construction not far from the hotel. He stares out at the water, watching as the reflections of the city dance upon the rough surface of the lake.

  The next day the ride home began uncomfortably void of conversation.

  “I really liked the new song he played,” Andrew said, attempting to break to uneasy silence.

  “‘
Begin’?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was good,” Anna said as she kept her eyes fixed on the road.

  “You can see the lake from here,” Andrew said as he pointed off into the distance. “Almost looks like the ocean, doesn’t it?”

  “I’ve never seen the ocean,” Anna said quietly.

  “Would you like to stop?”

  “I’m fine; besides, it’s not the ocean.”

  Anna drove up to Andrew’s apartment building and shifted the car into park. He got his backpack from the backseat and smiled at Anna as she smiled back.

  “Are we good…in the hood?” Andrew asked, partially joking, but more needing a serious answer.

  “Of course, dawg,” Anna replied with another smile.

  “I’m sorry again,” Andrew added.

  “I’m sorry as well,” Anna whispered as she nodded.

  “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “We’ve always got the bus,” Anna said as she let out a small laugh.

  The next day, Andrew caught the early morning bus headed to work. As the bus came to stop at Anna’s usual pickup, she was nowhere to be seen. Andrew worried for a moment that something might have happened to her. After all, it wouldn’t be the first time.

  Where are you? Is everything ok? Andrew texted. He rode the morning bus all the way to work, yet there was no reply. It wasn’t until he was home, exhausted from another day at work, that he got a simple message back: Sorry woke up late, drove in.

  The next day, the same thing happened; no Anna. Then the days had stretched on into weeks, a month, and then finally two complete months had passed since he saw her. He sent messages, always wondering if she was all right and constantly apologizing for the divide he had caused between them, usually getting back one word responses like I’m fine or Don’t worry about me.

  Finally, one night, unexpectedly, she showed up at his apartment with dinner.

  Andrew remembers the surprise as he opened up the door and saw her smiling face in his life once more. He fought back an extreme urge to hug her.

  “I got Chinese,” Anna said as she held up two large paper bags. “Kind of a peace offering, I suppose. This place is really good I hear; they only use fifty-percent cat.”

  “Where have you been?” Andrew asked, grateful to see Anna again, yet still very upset that she had stonewalled him for a two full months.

  “I’ve been seeing a new counselor. She’s said that I needed to take some time to myself and kind of fix things. I’m sorry I kind of flaked out on you. I just had to clear my head,” Anna said as she put the bags on Andrew’s table.

  She looked over to the trash, seeing its contents overflowing.

  “What is this?” Anna asked as she pulled a drawing from the garbage. “Why would you throw this away?”

  “I just wasn’t feeling it anymore,” Andrew said as he sat down against the table and buried his head in his hands. “I think I’m done with art.”

  “That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard,” Anna said as she threw her hands in the air. She began to pull out crumpled drawings from the trash that once adorned the walls of Andrew’s apartment. She rolled them up and shoved them into her purse. “These never belong in the trash.”

  “I didn’t think you cared.”

  “Didn’t think I cared…,” Anna whispered. “In all the time we’ve been friends have I ever led you to believe that I didn’t care? The truth is I care too much.”

  “Just not in that way, right?” Andrew spitefully added.

  “Look…I’m sorry I haven’t been around in two months. The truth is that I felt too uncomfortable about what happened. You were starting to rely on me too much. I couldn’t…I’m not strong enough for the both of us,” Anna said as she shook her head and bit her lip in frustration.

  “You look like you’re doing well,” Andrew said as he smiled. “Thank you for the food, and for coming back.”

  “You look like hell, Andy,” Anna said as she looked around the apartment, noticing that he hadn’t cleaned it in weeks. “What have you been doing? Are you all right?”

  “I don’t take my meds as often as I am supposed to. I don’t feel like eating much. I quit my job, and I quit drawing,” Andrew said as she rested his hands against the table and let out a sigh.

  “I can’t…I can’t be here,” Anna said as she turned away from Andrew and began to head for the door without her purse.

  “I love you,” Andrew said as he placed a hand on Anna’s shoulder. “I… can’t do anything without you.”

  “I can’t…I really,” Anna whispered as she brushed away Andrew’s hand from her back. “I can’t be better around someone who has given up. I can’t be okay with myself with someone who only causes me more depression…. I’m sorry. I wish I could.”

  “Don’t you even care about me at all? Not even a little? Was I just here to make you laugh, and make you feel better about yourself? Why can’t you just…”

  “Just what?”

  “Change.”

  “Just change,” Anna said angrily as she picked up her purse from the table. “Of course…why can’t I just change and be a normal person. Just like that. I don’t know why I never thought of doing that in the first place. I am so fucking sorry, Andrew. I am so fucking sorry that I am so selfish that I could not flip that switch and change and be a complete person for you. I guess I should have just ‘gotten over it.’”

  “I’m sorry. I wish you could.”

  “You’re not, just get over it, just change is something we’ve always been told. Never something we were meant to tell each other,” Anna said as she stormed out of the kitchen and headed toward the door.

  “I am sorry.…”

  “If that’s how you feel, then that is how you feel. You can’t help it.”

  Another cold morning, Andrew gets out of bed feeling slightly hung over from the triple dose of Xanax the day before. To counteract the terrible feelings he heads to the bathroom and takes another one to subdue the anxiety that has awoken him from his vivid dream of Anna. He notices that he is now down to merely four pills. It seems to him like there should be more but he has kept such poor track of his dosage that he cannot even remember if that is a correct number or not. He searches around the sink to see if he has dropped any, but cannot locate any strays. It has been a full month since he has last actually seen Anna. He begins to realize that the likelihood of seeing her is nearing impossible. He has made a mistake that he cannot take back. No amount of apologies or worried texts will bring her back—no more than it will bring Emily Jones back from the grave.

  As Andrew remembers the dream the night before of his final memory of Anna, he finds himself chuckling, perhaps out of madness, about the joke about the Chinese restaurant: “Fifty-percent less cat.” If there is one important thing that he misses in the absence of Anna, it is the familiarly of her sense of offbeat humor. He remembers his reception her of “peace offering”. As the words that he had spoken to her in that last face-to-face moment sink into his mind, he begins to realize what a horrible train-wreck of a mistake he has made. This growing sense of how foolish he has truly been prompts him to sit on the edge of the bed and bury his face in his hands.

  After a few moments of self-pity, Andrew gets up and heads for his bookshelf. He pulls out the familiar old yearbook that bares the eulogy and the only photo he has of Emily Jones. He thumbs open the page and smiles as her face smiles back at him. He does not know why he does this to himself; perhaps it is an attempt at punishment. Despite the many relationships in his life he has been graced with, only two could he honestly consider involved love; one was taken from him, the other he pushed away with his selfish need to have things work his way or not at all. Andrew runs his fingertips over Emily’s photo one last time as he closes the book and tosses it into a waste bin. It lands open, its pages splayed, a note falling out. Andrew reaches down and retrieves the folded, brown, age-stained piece of lined notebook paper.

  On the p
aper, there is a drawing of a stickperson with a very large erection and impossibly large testicles. Written across the top is Don’t ever change, Andrew—love, Emily.

  “Don’t ever change…,” Andrew repeats as a feeling of complete disgrace overwhelms him and he begins to cry. He crumples the note into his pocket as the truth of the situation comes upon him like a deluge of cold water. He looks to the antique clock on the wall, but then remembers that he has stopped time. Andrew goes to the window, noticing that the sky is dull and grey. Flakes of white snow are falling down from the sky—winter has truly come early again this year. Finally, he powers on his laptop, seeing that the time is already nearly three P.M.—had he really slept so long? It did not feel that long. He searches for his phone, finding it buried beneath his pillow. He flips the phone open, noticing that the battery icon is flashing—power’s low. He quickly dials Anna’s phone number and, per usual, it rings twice and goes directly to her voicemail.

  “Anna, I…I really am sorry. I understand something now that I didn’t earlier. Emily taught me something very important when I was young, and that was to never change who I was because of other’s expectations. I followed that the best I can, but now I realize…I never gave you the same consideration. I expected you to change for me, to just push past what you’d been through and accept a relationship under my terms when you were not ready to do so. I am so sorry for that. I should have been more understanding. I should have never tried to change you—you were perfect in your own way. You made me laugh, and I realize now that you did care. I know that you were afraid, and I pushed you past the point of what you were comfortable with because I was selfish. I know you only went and tried to do what you thought was best and sought help, and you came back when you were ready and I pushed you away again because I had given up on myself. I understand now. I know it is too late. I just wanted you to know that I finally understand. I won’t call again. I have caused you enough pain as it is and I completely do not blame you at all for leaving that day. Thank you for…everything. If I could take back telling you that you needed to change, then I would in a heartbeat, however, I will always love you, Anna. Don’t ever change…. Goodbye,” Andrew says as his voice cracks and he tosses the cell phone into the waste bin next to the yearbook.