Burden of the Soul

8.

“Oh my God, Clara, you’re not going to believe what I heard!” Allison’s voice was a little shrill as she skipped toward me down the hall. I was at my locker putting away my History book and gathering up what I needed for English, which she and I had together.

“Oh my God, Allison, what?” She could see in my exaggerated expression I was making fun of her overly enthusiastic greeting.

Alli and I used to be connected, but over the course of the past year, as I drifted further and further into my emotional isolation she drifted closer and closer to the people we had once despised together. Mainly people like Trischa Fitzgerald and her group of female followers.

The shinier girls who were exempt from the evils of puberty, kept mostly to themselves as if a protective barrier separated them from the less desirables through the school. But every now and then the force field would open up and allow someone to pass through into their giggling sorority. Trischa was their queen bee and she was still completely irritating in my opinion. Smugness emanated from her perfectly bronzed skin.

Alli and I used to share a common ground of rolling our eyes at the way the other girls flocked to her and followed her around like minions, doting on her every forced sign of approval or, even worse, disapproval. But this past summer, Trischa and her coven of followers had reached out to Alli, inviting her along for weekends in the Hamptons and bonfires at the beach. Alli had always tried to include me in on the invitations, but Dad wouldn’t allow it. I had basically been locked in the brownstone all summer.

When school started back up just a few weeks ago, I could hear the shift in Alli’s voice, the change in her demeanor… the bottomless need for approval, and not just from Trischa but also from anyone she interacted with, including myself.

“Trisch said that Joy said that…”

“You’re calling her Trisch now?”

“Shut up, Clara. I’m trying to tell you something important.”

“Did Mr. Debaske say if the quiz was going to be open book, or can I leave this sucker here?”

“Oh my God, Clara!”

“Oh my God, Alli. Trisch said that Joy said that… I’m listening. Go.”

Her arms were now crossed in front of her chest in a show of frustration, her English book tucked under her arms, so I took that as an answer to my question. I probably wouldn’t need it anyway, but going through the motions had become second nature for me as a way of blending into the scenery of adolescence. It’s where I was most comfortable now, content to dissolve into the walls of teenage life with Alli, but her newfound interest in the popularity spotlight put my invisibility at risk.

Heads were already turning from the constant river of bodies moving down the Juniors’ hall, taking in Alli and wondering about the person she was talking to—me. People wanted to know more about the new jewel Trischa had acquired over the summer break and judge her through their envy.

I felt so displaced among them, unable to fit in anywhere. Things they considered to be of highest priority like boys, who kissed who, or social standings didn’t even register in my mind. It felt as if I was naturally traveling against some sort of unseen current, unable to simply mold myself in. So I did what I could to stay invisible and keep a safe distance, to follow them and force the edges of my square peg into the round hole of High School. Alli was botching that up for me.

She glared at me in silence waiting to make sure my mockery was complete.

“Okay, I’m sorry. What did Joy say?”

“Okay, she said that Chris told her that Dave is thinking about asking you to Homecoming!”

Oh crap. We’d only been back for a few weeks and already I was being pulled into the new world Alli had chosen for herself. The tentacle’s path seemingly started with Joy’s steady boyfriend Chris, but somehow the whole thing tasted of Trischa.

On the other hand, it was Dave. We never spoke again after that day in the darkroom a year ago, and had seen each other less and less until not at all. But I was still guilty of visiting his Facebook page and blog on a fairly regular basis. I justified the behavior to myself because he had great taste in music, but the first place my eyes went each time his page loaded was his relationship status. Thankfully it had never changed.

There was still a part of me obsessed with Dave, craving the comfort I felt when he said my name or stood close, but to openly feel what I did for him meant opening my heart to every other feeling that hid behind the curtain of self-protected numbness. The thought of being so close to Dave and dancing with Dave sent ripples though that protective barrier, risking its security. Then I envisioned the stares and whispers of the crowd turning their attention to me. The consequences, both emotional and social, would be unbearable.

“Well tell Trisch to tell Joy to tell Chris to tell Dave not to.” I closed the locker and maneuvered past her to slip into the river of bodies, but I could feel the difference even from just a few short weeks ago. Before, I could merge into the stream and flow with it, but now like a stone dropped into the current, bodies altered and moved to accommodate my presence as Alli turned and followed, causing a ripple effect of people who stood back and watched.

“I can’t believe you, Clara. It’s so like you to just piss away an opportunity like this. Don’t even pretend you haven’t been completely gaga for Dave Shaw for years.”

She was right, of course, but I wasn’t going to take the bait. “An opportunity? I thought it was Homecoming.”

“You know what I mean. Why you insist on playing the role of the sulking teenager is beyond me.”

That’s when she caught herself, because she did know, deep down. Somewhere at her core she was still Alli, my Alli. Underneath the high-pitched tone she was still my friend who knew who I was before my sixteenth birthday, and who I was after it. She always knew why the change existed. Well, she knew the story she was given.

I could see she felt guilty about saying it. We never talked about it, because I never wanted to and she respected that. But she still felt for me, so I wanted to lighten the mood for her sake.

“I don’t sulk, I just don’t cackle.”

“God, you make them sound evil. They’re really nice and you would realize that for yourself if you would just give them a shot.”

I could see the Alli I knew bleeding through the façade as she reached for my approval. I had to hand it to her—most other acquisitions would simply dump the old friends and embrace the upgrade without regret or apology. At least Alli was trying to pull me with her. She could have just cut me loose to continue my teenage life as part of the backdrop and none of the mob would have thought less of her for it. But at this moment, envisioning the awkwardness of surviving a conversation about Homecoming with Dave, I had to admit it was a toss up which fate I would prefer—a friendship with the shinier and bronzed Allison or the backdrop without her.

We took our seats in the back right corner of the room. On the first day of class I chose my regular seat knowing it would be mine for the semester. I wasn’t a first row kind of girl. Allison had joined me, but alas the Bronzed Brigade had joined her shortly after, so here I was now trapped in the corner on the outskirts of popularity as heads turned to take in the shifted dynamic, assuming the weird quiet girl had slipped through the popularity force field, or had agreed to let them cheat. My money was on the latter. Little did the rest of them know all of the popular girls had higher grades than I did.

“Just promise me you’ll be nice to him if he brings it up.”

I could tell from her expression she was vouching for me, that any misstep on my part would be met with disapproval from the Bronzed Brigade and would go against her just as much as me.

“Alli, I’ve never gone to the dances. You know that.”

“Maybe it would be fun, ya know? We could go together and do the whole dress and hair thing together. If you went with Dave then maybe…”

Her expression took on a sheepish tint as she looked at me pleadingly. I guessed Dave’s best friend Cole was at the heart of her request. I doubt it would have mattered to her in the end if I went or not. She would have her new group all glitzed up and she would have fun. But her sincere intent was written on her desperation. Though a lot had changed about Alli over the course of the year, one thing had stayed the same. Just as a part of me still carried a flame for Dave, she was still completely obsessed with Cole.

As the light went on in my head I glared at her sideways. “Allison… what are you plotting? I swear to GOD a tiara better not be involved.”

She leaned in closer and explained her improved chances of being asked to the dance by Cole if I agreed to go with Dave. I could see the sparkle of hope in her eye and I hated the thought of denying my friend something she wanted, but not more than I hated the thought of trying to force my hair into a French twist or the bobby pin headache that was inevitable with such torture.

The thought of spending a night as Dave’s date was tempting, but that thought was tempting to every girl at Hunter. Every girl thought he was hot. Which he was, but even more than that he was mesmerizing and charming. I couldn’t help but stare at him in class from time to time. But, since that day in the darkroom at least, he never gave the impression he knew I existed.

He was “cooler than,” which was part of the attraction. He was cooler than the cool kids, he was cooler than sports, he was cooler than the pedestal they had all put him on. And he was brilliant, which ironically was the pinnacle of “cool” at Hunter.

His continued apathy to the reverence just brought on more and more attention. He wasn’t part of the crowd, but one of their coveted additions. No matter how little he seemed to care, they kept at it. The moths turned to the flame of his mystique, and always got zapped if they attempted to get too close. He was nice to everyone, but never sought anyone out or allowed anyone in. He never dated as far as I knew, and didn’t really hang out with anyone other than Cole.

Dave and Cole generally came as a package deal. Their relaxed approach to fashion earned them even more points in the eyes of the Bronzed Brigade. Their faded t-shirts and naturally distressed jeans were the standard for what other guys tried to mimic.

Their notoriety heightened with Trischa’s undying infatuation with Dave. Though her infatuation seemed to start somewhere between our Freshman and Sophomore years, there had never been a point in which the girls in our class hadn’t been aware of them. When it was just the girls obsessing over Dave and Cole, they remained outside the direct gaze of the guys. But ever since Trischa made her preference clear, the guys started to take notice as well.

They razzed them out of envy and mimicked them out of hope. All of which made them retract even deeper into loner status, making them that much more appealing.

Trischa had made multiple attempts last year to get Dave to ask her to a dance, turning down other invitations, even from the student General Organization president. He was a senior and at the absolute peak of the pecking order. A senior asked a sophomore to prom, and she said no.

It just wasn’t heard of.

By the end of the year she finally gave up and settled for Daniel Richter, the incoming president—a junior at the time they started dating, but now living the “top of the food chain” glory every day. He was a senior now and the pride Trischa took in that fact was painted all over her face as she walked the halls with her arm through his. Granted, she would drop him like a base line if given the chance to parade a college guy around on weekends.

Dave never went to dances though and, as far as I knew, wasn’t exactly friends with Joy’s boyfriend Chris, so everything seemed off with Allison’s explanation, which was luckily cut short by Mr. Debaske’s entrance into the room, shutting the door behind him.

“Everyone put away your books. This will be short and painless if you did the assigned reading for this week… ah, Mr. Shaw, so kind of you to join us.”

Heads popped up with a flicker as Dave walked through the door and nodded apologetically at Mr. Debaske before crossing the room and taking his seat in the back just a few desks across from Allison and I.

He slid into the desk dropping his bag to his side, then extended his legs out as far as the desk in front of him would allow. He rested his head against the back wall and started tapping out a rhythm on his desk with the pencil in hand. Even Mr. Debaske, more than likely in annoyance rather than reverence, paused to allow the distraction.

Mr. Debaske passed out the quiz, which he instructed should take no more than the first twenty minutes of class. Four essay questions on Walt Whitman’s poetry. It didn’t take me long. Not necessarily because it came easy to me, but because I didn’t really care about school anymore.

I took my completed quiz up to Mr. Debaske’s desk at the front of the room just as Dave was bringing his up as well. Our eyes met briefly as he paused to allow me to set my quiz down first. His eyes seemed to smirk, with one corner of his mouth lifting. “Ladies first,” he said.

It was the first time Dave Shaw had spoken to me in a year. His voice was a bit grainy and gruff, like he hadn’t gotten enough sleep, but his eyes continued smirking.

Appropriate responses flittered through my mind – “Thanks,” “Thank you,” “How kind.” But all my stupid mouth could construct in that moment was, “…ummm, yer-um, ok.”

I went back to my seat in the corner with my head hung low and my cheeks flushed. The eyes in the front row that had been close enough to see the exchange followed me as I passed. The gazes made my cheeks flush even more. I took my seat as the wall of eyes was beginning to dissolve, and flattened my sweaty palms on the desk. Alli’s head turned to me and mouthed the words, “You okay?”

I nodded a couple times trying to look as nonchalant as possible and then let my head fall back against the cinderblock wall behind me. My eyelids suddenly felt heavy under the blushing that had sure enough spread throughout my entire face.

The room darkened as my breathing became more rhythmic and evenly paced. Then, through the gray mists behind my eyelids came the glints of green and rays of bright sunlight.

I was in the field. It was as familiar to me as my own backyard. Rolling green hills like ripples on a pond’s surface. The brilliant, thick tree off toward the horizon that bloomed an array of colors, leaves or flowers depending on the day.

He was there again, off in the distance. He would show up in the field, either already there when my dream would start or he would join at some point during. But he was always off in the distance.

I could feel him before I could see him, and could even sense his mood through the air, as if carried by the wind between us. I would feel a pull to him, but my feet would be unable to move, or if I could move in his direction the distance between us would multiply and I would cover no ground. A few times I would try to trick the dream and set out at a sprint, but even then the horizon would pull him farther back.

I could feel him, his mood coming to me with a tinge of sharpness. He was anxious. Something was wrong. I turned to my right and saw his shape backlit by the sun. He stood straight with his arms down at his sides.

“Clara.” It was a whisper in his familiar cool voice, spoken a great distance away and pulsating on the air. At the mere sound of it my heart began to thump louder in my chest.

“Clara.” Right on the beat of my heart his figure disappeared and reappeared, cutting the distance between us in half. My heart pounded against the inside of my ribs, faster and harder. “Clara.”

With a click his figure evaporated and reappeared, cutting the distance between us in half again. He was now closer to me than he had ever been before. He looked older, a young man roughly my age but his expression of anxiety and grief pulled at the contours of his face with their weight.

I took a step back pulling on my heart to keep it from leaping out of my chest. I could sense my heart’s motivation—it wanted to be free from its barrier. It wanted to be with him. He was home.

The realization spread terror though the rest of my body, stinging through my veins making me dense and heavy.

“Clara.”

Again, the distance was cut in half. I could make out his features now, his face. The rounded eyes that reached out with concern, leaping off the curved angles of his jaw, punctuated by the sway of cheekbones. The slightest bit of stubble cast specs of shadow at his chin. His eyes, a grayish blue, stood out vividly against the drab colors of a standard school uniform of black slacks and a brick-red sweater.

Then snap, he was a mere feet in front of me, piercing me with his agonized gaze.

“Clara.”

My chest began to hurt as my heart kept pounding away at my insides, and then I noticed it—a ripple in his chest. His heart was pounding along with mine, in sync. And then there was silence. The pounding stopped and the air stood still between us. And then I heard it, the sound that had haunted me for a year. A tearing and cracking so deep it could shake time itself.

His head tilted back and his eyes closed as his chest cracked open. Rays of light pierced out through the jagged opening, tearing at the fabric of his clothes.

I screamed and lunged forward, but his eyes snapped open and stared me down. In a flash he was inches from me. I could see every line of his face, his long lashes and the run of his lips. I could feel his breath against my cheeks as he towered just slightly over me.

“Clara,” he said with severity, his eyes pleading with me. “It’s time.”

“Devin, no!” My body thrashed as the words ripped through my lips and my eyes shot open. A field of eyes stared back at me with amazement, some peering over shoulders, others looking straight on from the line that had formed off of Mr. Debaske’s desk—other students handing in their finished quizzes as the wall clock ticked away at the few minutes remaining.

“Miss Gaber? Is there a problem?”

Mr. Debaske’s voice cued the giggles and snickers from the class, even from those still hovered over their incomplete quizzes.

I pulled myself straight up in my chair, closed my mouth and shook my head, unwilling to let my voice out for fear of what it would do.

“Oooh, Devin. No, you bad, bad boy.” A round of full out laughter came on the heels of Jason Wheeler’s exaggerated replay of my humiliation.

From the corner of my eye it looked like Dave leaned slightly over his desk glaring at him. I don’t think I would have registered the sight except that Jason immediately seemed to cower and look back to the front of the class.

“I wouldn’t laugh if I were you Mr. Wheeler, given you have only two minutes left. From where I’m standing you’ve barely made it through half of the questions.” Mr. Debaske got up from his desk and cut over to Jason then tapped his pointer finger twice on the top of Jason’s desk in the front row.

“Two minutes people, I mean it.” The heads turned back to the front of the classroom or turned downwards toward their unfinished quizzes. Alli was glaring at me wide-eyed to my left.

“What’s the matter with you? Who’s Devin?”

“I don’t know. No one.” It was true on both counts. I assumed Devin was the guy from the dream, but he had never actually said his name. In the years he had appeared randomly, his name was never used, but some part of me was sure it was his name.

I ran the side of my hand over my forehead to wipe away the sweat that had built there. I was still shaking a bit. I had recalled images of the light in my dreams since that horrible day, but it never left the realm of memory and sunk deep within my subconscious, manifesting within completely unrelated images or dreams.

And then as I blinked, I could see it, flashes like snapshots—the light piercing through Devin’s chest, engulfing my Mom’s figure, inches from my face moving like liquid.

It would have been beautiful if it didn’t scare me senseless.

The rest of class went by in a blur and finally when Mr. Debaske excused us I was almost convinced my little episode was forgotten.

Not by Alli, though.

“What’s going on with you?” She was keeping pace with me while I rushed to my locker.

“I don’t know. I must have fallen asleep or something.” I opened my locker and started swapping my English materials for Advanced Algebra while she kept rambling on, giving me a full account of what everyone in the class probably thought of me at that moment.

As I pulled the books and folder from my locker, a Gerber daisy fell out and landed on my feet. I turned to Alli. I was able to tell she was the culprit, breaking into my locker and leaving the gift by the guilty yet prideful expression on her face and a slight shrug of her shoulders.

“Happy Birthday…?” She said it softly and a bit timid, waiting to gauge my response. She hadn’t wanted to be here when I found it just in case my reaction was bad, but given the commotion in English and her curiosity, she had forgotten about the birthday flower.

I softened my face and bent to pick the flower off the pale green linoleum, but a familiar voice made me freeze.

“From Devin?”

The voice startled both Alli and I. Dave took another step closer to us out of the stream of bodies.

“What?” It’s all I could think to say, unable to make sense of his question.

“I didn’t realize you had a boyfriend,” he said, gesturing with his chin to the flower.

“She doesn’t have a boyfriend,” said Alli, running interference. “I gave her the flower. It’s her birthday.”

I glared at her and felt my cheeks warm with embarrassment. Quickly, I turned my head and bent down to pick up the daisy and then hid it back in the shadows of my locker, bending it in the process and hoping Alli registered that as a sign to back off.

Dave watched the exchange between us and shrugged past it with ease. “Okay, well happy birthday, Clara.”

There it was again. My name on his lips said with more care and delicacy than any other word. An aching spread through my bottom lip and before I could pull back on the thought I wondered what the skin along the shadows of his neck felt like. I had to forcibly plant my feet to keep myself from finding out.

His right hand gripped the strap of his bag and he began twiddling his fingers around a loose thread. “Clara, I was wondering if you were…”

“Hey people!” Her overenthusiastic trill made my spine crawl. Trischa never spoke to me or approached me, even with Alli as a mutual friend now, so I could only assume her greeting was meant for Dave.

I went back to busying myself with my locker, deciding to stuff the necessary books for the next few classes into my bag. If this type of scene would be attracted to my locker, I would suffer carrying the full load around to avoid it. I could feel the sweat returning to my forehead as heads turned to take in the scene of Trischa, Dave, Allison and “the weird girl” chatting in the hall.

“Clara, we missed you so much this summer,” said Trischa as she put one of her hands on my shoulder. For having never paid any attention to me before, she was putting up a pretty good performance of an actual friendship. “We should totally do something for your birthday. You have to throw a party or something.”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t really do much for my birthday. It’s just not really my thing.” I was looking for a way to get out of the semi circle that kept me trapped at my locker. “Thanks for the thought though…, Trisch.”

Crap, now I was saying it. And I could tell Alli had noticed. She smiled as if all of her wishes were coming true.

How Trischa even knew about my birthday was beyond me. Alli must have mentioned something and I immediately cringed at the thought of her innocently giving Trischa information about me.

“Oh don’t be stupid, Clara. Dave, your house would be perfect. Do you think your parents would mind?” Her other hand trickled up his arm to his shoulder to rest there, but not for long. With a dip and a turn, Dave reached out into the stream of rushing bodies and pulled Cole into our growing hub, slipping out from under Trischa’s touch.

“Hey, Cole!” Allison’s brightness at the sight of him turned all of our heads toward her with speculative looks.

“Oh, hey,” he said, stumbling for a name but coming up dry. “Hey, Clara… Trisch. Dude, Mrs. Harrison is going to lock us out if we’re late again.”

His hand was pushing at Dave’s shoulder to get him moving.

“Right. Okay, well maybe I’ll see you later, Clara,” he said, taking a few steps back allowing Cole’s force to get him going.

“Let me know about the party, Dave! It’ll be so much fun.” Trischa’s body turned and followed Dave like a flower following the sun. He nodded quickly before turning and following Cole down the hall, and when he turned the corner out of view, Trischa’s charade ended. Her shoulders dropped and her tone became bored.

“Are you ready, Allison?”

“Yeah. Um, Clara… think about it, it could be fun.” Alli stepped across to stand just behind Trischa’s shoulder before throwing me one last smile. “It’s not like you have other plans.”

Trischa scoffed, turned and took off in the opposite direction down the hall with Alli skipping her first few steps to catch up and keep pace with her.

I stood motionless for a minute dazed by what had just happened. Somehow I had just been pulled into the eye of the Hunter High School social storm. I had been ripped from the background and hung out to dry for all to laugh, criticize and observe. I felt completely on display and aware of the glances from the few people remaining in the hall before they scattered off to class.

“Great,” I muffed under my breath. “Just great.”

“It’s a little disgusting, isn’t it?” Scott was at my side, leaning against the lockers. We had Advanced Algebra together, which was a saving grace to me. He was just as tall as a year ago, but less lanky—and so kind. He was a constant in my life, and basically the only one I had.

“You mean Trisch?” My voice mimicked the high-pitched squeals of the Bronzed Brigade. “Or the new Allison?”

He chuckled, rolling his shoulder off the lockers. “Take your pick.”

“Yup, pretty much.”

On the way to class, he mostly talked. He chatted about different articles he was working on for Chapter 11 and various clubs he had joined this year to try and spruce up his college applications.

Things were really easy with Scott. He never asked questions. He never tried to alter our natural dynamic.

He just let me be.