The Write Way

Chapter 7: Past Tense

   We met at the same booth Tuesday and Wednesday morning, sporting running shoes and athletic clothes, using the time to continue our conversation on our childhoods and sit in a sort of mutual, comfortable silence.

   Annie and I grew up in two different worlds, yet the similarities we share are profound. I find myself wanting to return her gesture from Monday, reaching over to gently squeeze her hand as she tells me about growing up feeling unheard and misunderstood. But I don't. She seems to have considered that gesture a mistake, keeping her hands preoccupied with the rim of her glass or twisting the ends of her sleeves in lazy knots.

   I know how she feels.

   As elementary turned into secondary, the gap between myself and others increased, and so did the opinions of others on who and what I was. I'd been painted as different, and all the usual connotations seemed to apply.

   I told her that and her eyes took on a knowing look, bright with what could have been restrained emotion. It feels like she looks right through me in moments like this, into my mind, into the cavernous shadows where I hide the things I will never share.

   As if on cue, she asks, "You ever feel like there's things you'll never be able to talk about with anyone else? Like . . . like nobody will ever really understand?"

   "Every day," I say, my eyes far, far away. "B-but I've sort of found a way to cope with it."

   "How?"

   "I write it all down. As often as I can. It h-helps to make it physical, real. When I look at it on a paper, it's simply . . . a word. A sentence. A paragraph. Something I can turn a page on."

   Annie is leaning forward over the table, her fingers have gone white on her coffee cup. "And does it help? Like, does it make a difference?"

   "Sometimes," I say truthfully. "Sometimes it makes it more unbearable. Sometimes I tear out the page and toss it in the garbage. And sometimes I feel better for the rest of the day until I wake up again."

   She's silent for a while, her eyes absently watching a man in blue overalls unload boxes from a delivery truck across the street. Then she says, "I get that. I don't write. I dive into new things, the more complex, the better. Anything and everything to stay ahead of the feelings. It's part of the reason I left California. I just couldn't be surrounded by it anymore. It wasn't . . . good for me. It was pulling me down."

   "It's like being stuck in a riptide," I say softly.

   She just nods, the compassion in her eyes threatening to spill out.

   "I'm happy you moved away from it. I thought I tried to. Really did. But I've been realizing that I didn't do it the right way."

   Annie looks like she wants to ask about it, but instead gives me a smile. Perhaps it's this simple, genuine gesture, but I feel compelled to continue on.

   "I'm not sure if I'll ever really be ready to talk about it, a-at least not y-yet," I stutter, trying and failing to get the words out. Annie's hand slides across the table and rests next to mine. Close enough to help me recollect my thoughts and aid me onward. I try again, "I put myself in a place, far from here, to remove myself from it all. But mostly because I felt I deserved it. It didn't make sense that my Dad died, my family fell apart, and I simply got to be here, unscathed, with nothing really to complain about."

   Again, Annie doesn't push me. She waits for me to continue and when I don't, she tells me about her own experiences that mirror mine so closely.

   "I lost someone too. Someone I was working with. It was like everything right I had ever done was instantly swept away. It -" she stops as her phone vibrates on its perch next to her coffee cup. She flips it over, lips delicately twisting in thought as she looks at the screen.