Love and the Sea and Everything in Between

chapter ten

The weekend is gone in a blur and I make it back to campus just in time for my counseling session with Dr. Keller, which I skip anyway. What good does talking do when the person you're talking to doesn't even know who you are beyond the chemical imbalance in your brain? Dr. Keller isn't real. My relationship with him isn't real. But Liz... Liz is real.

I text Lix: I'm back.

Her: Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there.

Me: Rumi. Be right out.

I travel the sidewalk until I come to the field. I see Liz out there, lying on her stomach on top of a blanket and as I draw closer I see the book in her hands is a collection of Edgar Allen Poe's complete works. She chews on her thumbnail, staring down at the pages through a pair of glasses.

"Hello, stranger," she says as I lie down on my back next to her.

"Edgar Allen Poe, huh? Favorite work?"

She flips forward a few pages and gives me a sideways glance. "I've read and re-read his works a few times," she says with a giggle. When she finds the right page, she recites, "It was many and many a year ago, in a kingdom by the sea, that a maiden there lived whom you may know by the name of Annabel Lee; and this maiden she lived with no other thought than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, in this kingdom by the sea; but we loved with a love that was more than love – I and my Annabel Lee; with a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me."

I smile up at the sky, my arms hands rested comfortably under my head.

"There's more to the poem, of course, but that's the best part, in my humble opinion." She closes the book and rolls onto her side, propping her head in the palm of her hand.

I yank her glasses from her face and prop them up on my nose.

"Hey!" she squeals and jabs at my stomach with her fingers, I roll away and grab her wrists, wrestling her to the ground. I am on top of her now and we're staring at each other and God, I want to kiss her.

I see movement out of the corner of my eye and look up to see Jeremiah walking the trail that circles that field. Our eyes meet and I pull my eyes away from his stare.

I move off of Liz and sit back down next to her.

Confused, she turns around. She raises an eyebrow when she sees Jeremiah following the trail into the distance. She looks at me. "What's up with that?"

"It doesn't matter anymore," I say, staring intently at the ground. And it's true, what happened between Jeremiah and I is in the past. "He's just someone I used to know." But I can't deny that the hurt remains, a festering wound that even time has proven unable to heal.

She puts her hand on mine and leans forward until her head is nearly touching the ground as she tries to look up at me. "Whatever it was, it's over," she whispers. "You're here, now. With me."

"You are absolutely right." I pick her glasses up from the grass and hand them back to her. "Words, give them to me, now." I point at the Edgar Allen Poe book.

She laughs. "Did you just make a Terminator reference?"

"I did."

"You uncultured swine," she says, sticking her tongue out at me.

"Hey, you understood that reference. So what does that make you?"

"Uncultured swine. Apparently."

I laugh and roll onto my stomach as she opens the book to where she'd left off and begins to read aloud.

And I just listen.

* * *

My Intro to Philosophy class Tuesday morning is not nearly as interesting as it usually is, except that the seat next to me is taken.

Liz scribbles furiously in her notebook while Professor Garcia lectures on Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz and the "Problem of Evil."

As class ends, Garcia says, "Mr. West, if you would please stay behind after class, I have something I wish to discuss with you. Everyone else, you may go. Don't forget your first essay on the differing views of life after death is due next Tuesday at the beginning of our class. Enjoy the rest of your day."

As everyone starts to leave, Liz shoves her notebook into her pack and says, "Catch you later?"

I nod.

Once it's just Garcia and I, he walks over to me. Even though I'm still sitting his short, pudgy frame does little to overshadow me. His face, though, more than makes up for his body's inability to intimidate.

"Why did you leave the prospective student luncheon? And why didn't you tell anyone where you were going?" he asks.

"I wasn't feeling well."

"Adam, I need you to tell me the truth. Otherwise, I'll be forced to go to the Dean with this. And God only knows what his reaction will be. But if you tell me why, then maybe we can keep this between us." His face softens. Admittedly, Garcia is my favorite teacher. His classes are always the most engaging and he isn't afraid to talk about every philosophical point-of-view. He challenges me to think, even when not thinking would be easier.

And now he's giving me the opportunity to share a burden I've been carrying for a long time and I'm tempted to take him up on the offer, but I keep these secrets for a reason; only I can bear them.

"I can't answer that," I mutter, looking down. I fold my arms across my chest, my jaw tense.

Garcia sighs. "Have you ever heard of the idiom The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back?"

"No."

"It alludes to a proverb that says 'it is the last straw that breaks the camel's back' and means a seemingly minor or routine action can cause an unpredictably large and sudden reaction, because of the cumulative effect of small actions. But if you let someone else carry a straw – just one straw – maybe, just maybe, we can work together to make sure this burden doesn't become more than you can bear. But if you don't let me help you, I can't promise that the next straw won't be the last straw."

I stay silent.

"I'm going to give you one more chance, Mr. West. Come by my office Thursday after class if you change your mind. You may go."

I shove my laptop into my pack and stand to leave, but Garcia grabs my arm.

"Don't be afraid to bare your soul to those who would love you," he says, his brow furrowed and I think I see genuine concern in his eyes. A foreign thing to me, though it may be.

"I'm not afraid," I mutter. "I just do not know how to. Not anymore."

But the truth is, maybe I am afraid.

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