Then it got tough. And uncomfortable. And we talked about my mom. And dad. And hearts. And how unfair it was to be alive.
The way she looked at me in that particular session was so different from what I’d grown used to. Her eyes were heavier, her breaths slow and carefully drawn. Maybe her dad had a sucky heart. Maybe she could relate. Or maybe it was just me needing someone. I probably needed someone to understand so badly that I convinced myself she did. I guess there was no way to know.
She laid her glasses on the floor beside her, leaning forward to generate an environment of welcoming, or whatever it was the doctors called it. And then she didn’t say anything for a minute. No inspirational speeches or exaggerated psychotherapy terms or pretend reassurances. It was just her eyes, which I had never noticed were brown, and her careful inhales that sounded sharper than most, and silver-painted nails tucked under her chin.
“Let me tell you something I wish someone had told me when I was your age,” she said, her tone peaceful and honest. Genuine to a fault. She reached for a piece of paper and a pen on the table next to her and drew a mark. “This is life. We exist on a straight line. There’s point A, the beginning. Point C, the end. And point B, all the crap in between. And this tiny line, a drop of ink on paper, this is our line. This is all we get. It’s our one shot. And it’s terrifying, isn’t it? Because it ends. It’s not a circle that will loop us back around for another chance. We get stuck in point B, where we grieve and cry and get scared and fall in love and get left and wish that we could outlive our line or draw a better one.” She pointed to the center of the mark, her finger lingering on the page. “But that’s the beauty of point B. No one’s is exactly the same. This is the only line you’ve been drawn, Reggie. And it’s unfair that one line is all you get, but it’s all any of us get. The only way to waste it would be to not live it. And to not love the people who walk their own.”
“Like a tightrope,” I said.
She stared at the page, her expression puzzled. “Huh. I guess it is.”
Monday, I returned to the gossip-fueled bane of my existence (see: school). Karen had suggested getting back into my usual monotonous routine to help me cope with what she called this “spiritual hurdle” I was jumping over. It was funny, because it felt more like a crushing boulder the size of a very familiar house by the pond. But I wouldn’t dare insinuate that my “spiritual hurdles” were linked to more than physical forms of dying.
A girl named Taylor in my U.S. history class told me her family was praying for my dad. My chemistry teacher gave me an article to read that felt a lot like Coma Facts for Dummies. Here and there, someone who knew a guy who knew a guy told me how sorry they were and promised to do anything they could to help. I wanted to tack a banner to my locker that said LEAVE ME THE [non-Karen-approved expletive] ALONE. I wanted to scream and beat the desks with baseball bats and kick the walls because my dad was dying, and the guy I hated in the best way was having a baby soon, and my chosen hobby was quickly becoming staring at the cracks between hospital tiles and hating the mere act of inhale-exhale. But people needed to feel like they were helping, I guess.
Carla didn’t show up to school that day. It kind of made sense. I wouldn’t have gone to school either if my friends abandoned me the way hers did, and my baby’s dad didn’t want to be with me, and my stomach was heavy enough to sink me to the bottom of the pond. The more pity glances I got, the more I wondered how Carla had done it all this time. I hated to consider it, but maybe she was stronger than I’d ever given her credit for.
Polka sat with me at my house that night while my mom and Frankie stayed at the hospital. Karen made me take the home-alone teenager oath that I wouldn’t party it up with my extensive group of friends (see: Polka), and that I would finally get around to typing my paper. I could hardly argue. It was due Friday and the only words I’d typed were my name.
And I did work on it. Sort of. I typed random thoughts that kept me up at night, random thoughts that wouldn’t shut up. English enthusiasts like myself called it “brainstorming.”
Not everything leaves
Point B
The only life we’ve got
Wild hearts
Twizzlers
“How’s your paper coming?” I asked Polka. After I typed Twizzlers, I knew I was getting nowhere.
“Done,” Polka said, smiling behind his MacBook. He sat in my dad’s recliner, propped so far back he was practically lying down.
“Did you go with freedom?”
“Yeah.”
“I bet that was hard to define.”
“Not really,” he said, wrinkles appearing on his forehead as he studied the screen. “It make sense to me. Easy to write when it make sense to you.”
“I still don’t know what to write about,” I said, clicking my fingernail against the mousepad.
“Well, what make sense to you?”
I leaned my head back, watching the cursor blink on the page.
Nothing made sense to me. I had so many thoughts I could have drowned in them, but they all felt betrayed when I tried to force them into words. I didn’t know how to grab ahold of one and define it so simply. All of my thoughts felt vast and infinite, like the thousands of stars shining above the Ferris wheel. That night, the only thing that had made sense to me was that I was holding Snake’s hand. And that I was scared of dying. But more than that, I was terrified of being alive.
“Polka, can I ask you something?”
He sat up and looked at me sideways. My mother’s shag rug separated us, and it seemed weirdly coincidental that something always did. Whether it was a picnic table, a desk, or a rug, we were always close enough to reach out and touch each other, and distanced enough not to. I didn’t want to upset the delicate system we’d created, but I wanted to know why Polka was so content with being less than a friend and more than an acquaintance. It was strange that he didn’t demand more the way most people did.
“Why don’t you sit with your friends at lunch?” I asked.
“I don’t have friends at lunch.”
“Yeah you do. The other exchange guys who eat in the cafeteria. I’ve heard them invite you, and you never go.”
Only briefly did he look up, and just as briefly did his dark eyes reveal a sort of unusual softness. “Because I want to sit with you,” he said.
“Why?”
“Because if I don’t, you sit alone.”
“It’s just lunch.”