Chapter 30
Still reeling from my intimate encounter with Reece just hours before, I removed my headband and brushed my hair until it shone. I looked agitated and I thought about canceling my plans with Haven. When he had called I thought about saying no. Time seemed to be dulling my connection with him and I didn’t know if it was because we both weren’t putting the effort into talking, and relationships require two, or because our moment had passed.
I smoothed my blue v-neck shirt and rubbed lotion on my hands. I didn’t like what I saw when I looked in the mirror. I saw the dark features of a sad and lonely girl. I didn’t resemble the happy girl I had once been - the girl who smiled so cheerfully from a framed photograph in my room.
It had been taken when I was fourteen. My dad and I had been camping in our back yard and with Pandora by our sides we were sitting on a log in front of the fire pit holding drinks; dad had a beer and I had a root beer. We were trying to smile but burst into laughter as the self-timer on dad’s old Kodak went off.
Had I smiled and laughed like that since his death? I looked at my reflection again. I couldn’t even remember…
Life was much less complicated before love entered the equation. If Reece and Haven had feelings for me, I honestly couldn’t understand what it was they saw in me.
“You seem different. Did something happen?” Haven asked as he drove past town towards his place.
He looked at me with worry but I was busy tracing, albeit mindlessly, the curves on the passenger door. We had spoken few words and all I could do was shake my head.
“You may not realize this,” Haven began. “But do you know why I found the painting so attractive?”
I shook my head.
“The girl in the portrait wears the same expression that you so often do: thoughtful but mystifying. She reminded me of you. I thought about keeping it for myself for that reason alone but I knew you were drawn to it and the painting seemed to be made just for you.”
I looked over at Haven and gave him as genuine a smile as I could muster; it was weak as my heart was heavy, but he smiled back.
“I have a lot on my mind is all,” I explained. My problems, which seemed important to me, were really quite trivial. I thought about what Haven had once told me about not feeling like he had a place in the world either. I decided to question him about it.
“How can you not feel a part of the world when all of you will be in it longer than anyone else?”
There was a brief silence before he answered. “Just how much do you think we can really enjoy life? We’ve watched people we love die, we’re different and can’t draw attention to ourselves, and we are unable to escape the miseries of the world.”
Haven looked somber, “People are not meant to live that long.”
I nodded slowly and offered my own thoughts. “I know loneliness and I know death…I’ve only felt it a short time. I can’t imagine experiencing it for a generation or two…that and the horrors we know go on each and every day. I’m really beginning to wonder how much longer it will be before God says ‘enough is enough’ and puts an end to this.”
Haven glanced from the road to my face with a pensive gaze. “If you were God,” he proposed. “What would you do?”
I turned in my seat to give him my full attention. “I would most likely be a dictator and a short-tempered one at that. I don’t possess the kind of wisdom, patience or love that could give a world free will. I don’t think there can be real love or generosity of spirit when force is involved.”
I looked down, ruminating. “I see and hear enough. I wouldn’t want to see what God sees…I can’t even find the right path in my life so I can’t pretend to know how to solve the world’s problems.” I raised my eyes to meet his. “What about you?”
His eyes darkened as he looked at me through his lashes. In a voice so low I could barely make it out he asked, “Do you really want me to answer that?”
I nodded.
“I’ve seen enough. Most like us have been hardened over time. How can we care about humanity when humanity doesn’t even care for one another? The things people do to each other, the mistakes that each generation makes without learning from the one preceding…I’d have no mercy. I’d look at them as beings worth punishing for wickedness as vile as our own. But then, every once in a while, I catch a glimpse of something that reminds me of the good: A father playing tag in the yard with his son; a mother tenderly cradling her baby as she nurses her; a teenager assisting a stranger without being asked; a child looking at her surroundings in awe and wonder; the stranger that gives his life for another…Heroes lurk in the hearts of some but could I save the world for the few? That’s a question I can’t answer because the beast inside me wants to see most of them annihilated and when I say that, I mean eradication is far more merciful than existing in this kind of state longer than necessary. Humanity-” he said as he pointed to me, “They’re the lucky ones.”
“Well,” I said softly. “We need to make sure we live for the good.”
“Let me ask you something else,” he put forth. “How much pleasure do you think we get from life?”
“As much pleasure as we allow ourselves.”
Haven raised his brows as if he wasn’t expecting that kind of answer.