“I said he’ll probably be glad of the break from his little shadow. Following him around all the bloody time like a little stalker. He’ll probably be relieved when this year’s bloody done.”
“George!” Mum snapped. “Stop it!”
“It’s not like that…” I began, but what was the point? His words cut deep. Knocked me right in the gut.
Katie laughed. “Helen and Mr Roberts sitting in a tree… K. I. S. S. I. N. G.”
“It’s probably embarrassing for him,” Dad sniped. “He’s a grown man, he doesn’t need to be fending off silly crushes from teenage girls left, right, and centre.”
“It’s not a crush…” I said. “I really, really like him. As a person. I respect him. We’re… close. As artists. As friends…”
And Dad laughed. He laughed at me. “Artists? Friends? He’s your bloody teacher, Helen, and next year he won’t be. Pass me the salt, Angela.” Mum passed him the salt. “I’ll be glad when you meet someone your own age and stop it with all this nonsense.”
“It’s not nonsense!”
“It’s nonsense!” He slammed the salt shaker on the table, and Katie slapped her hand over her mouth to stop from laughing. “You’ve got to let this craziness go, for your own sake. It’s not… healthy. Understand?”
But I didn’t understand, and even if I had, his question was rhetorical. He turned his attention to sweet little Katie and her tales of primary school and how she came top at the spelling test, and then gabbled onto Mum about the new driver he’d had starting.
And me? I was invisible. An invisible weirdo with a stupid unhealthy crush.
But he was wrong, about Mr Roberts and me. We were friends now. Real friends.
He’d watched my video, just like he said he would. He’d watched, and he’d commented. He’d commented on it, coaching, just like he said.
And I’d told him I loved him. I’d told him that. He knew, and he was still my friend, still wanted to be my friend. Still wanted to know me. I felt that. I felt him.
How could that be anywhere near unhealthy?
I excused myself from the table.
***
Mark
A glass of wine and a pile of marking, classic Stones playing loud from the dining room, and my first real autumn fire crackling in the grate. I was enjoying the haven, relaxing into my space as an email alert pinged from my tablet. I don’t get email alerts on my regular accounts, and the hairs on my arms prickled. I clicked into my inbox. My new inbox.
ArtyHelenPalmer is recording a message! Click here to View Live. Click here to Save for Later.
I’d done all the self-talk, put myself through all the self-chastisement I deserved at succumbing to my base urges and knocking one out to my teenage student’s sweet rapture, but in spite of all this, and in spite of my better judgement, I put Jagger on pause and clicked to View Live.
Helen was lying on her bed, the laptop screen at the side of her, angled towards her head. I admired her face in profile, the sweet little point of her nose, her soft lips. She looked sad, contemplative… more than sad. She looked as though her world was breaking. It hit me unexpectedly, the sorrow, right in the gut. I pushed my marking aside, all sensibility obliterated.
“This is supposed to be honest, right? I guess it is, I mean, what point is there otherwise?” She took a breath and so did I. “I know this is meant to be about art, that’s what you want, right?” She glanced at the screen for just a second. “I don’t know what I’m trying to say. Maybe I never do. But tonight… I just want to talk. Not about art… but about me… about life. I feel… I hope… I just think you might get it. What it’s like for me…” She took another breath and I took a healthy swig of wine. “You said creatives are rarely accepted by their peers, and you’re right, except it’s more than that. Creatives are rarely accepted by anyone. That’s how it feels.”
She rested her head on her arm, eyes fixed towards the ceiling. “Sometimes I feel like I’m invisible. Like nobody sees me. They see a shell of me, a shell that spends her whole time trying to be normal. Trying to say the right thing, and do the right thing, and live up to all the expectations I’m supposed to live up to. It’s easier that way, without all the questions and the judgement, you know? It’s easier to just smile and pretend to be just like everyone else. But I can’t. No matter how hard I try, I never manage to be just like everyone else.”
My mind zig-zagged through her words, the same words I’d thought myself in years gone by, until life became simpler. Until I met Anna. Until I learned to be alone without her.
Had I really learned to be alone?
Helen’s voice had a soft melody; a perfectly reflective lilt that sucked me into the screen.
“…I don’t want to be like everyone else, and I just want that to be ok. I mean… they don’t even have to understand, I just want them to see me.”