A Necessary Struggle: Fall Semester

Part 40

     Lela could do miracles with eggs, sugar, and butter but give her a knife and she was clueless. After Alyssa's intervention went straight to hell, Lela needed someone to talk to. So, she found herself at The Russell's. It wasn't uncommon for her to just show up at their house. Sylvan even welcomed it, bestowing Lela with a house key. She had even been known to camp out in the guestroom, which the youngest Russell dubbed Lela's room.

      "She's not herself anymore." Lela slowly sliced the cucumber on the tan granite island. "She looks like a hobo."

     Sylvan stopped gliding the wooden spoon in the sizzling tomato sauce mixture. "Is she bathing?" Concern hijacked Sylvan's makeup free face.

     "Like brushing her teeth and cleaning her face?" Lela stopped wielding the knife to think back on Alyssa's appearance. She shrugged as she started back slicing, "She didn't look dirty to me. She just had this fell out of bed and threw on whatever was lying around look. You know what I mean?"

     "I do know." Sylvan went back to stirring her creation that filled the air with notes of turmeric, cumin, and rosemary. "I really wish she would schedule another session."

     So did Lela. She prayed for it. A part of her thought about opening up to Alyssa, telling her friend her story and how therapy helped her through the dark times in her life. It was a thought she pushed away with careful deliberation. Lela wasn't quite ready to tell her long sordid story to her friends. She liked the tough, independent young woman persona they believed about her. She wasn't ready to lose that just yet.

      "Maybe you could run into her..." Lela scooped up the unevenly sliced cucumber pieces and dumped them into the wooden bowl. "And strike up a conversation. Get her talking!"

     "I can't help her until she wants to get help." Sylvan sprinkled a dash of salt in the skillet. "You know how it works."

       Lela rolled her eyes at the textbook answer knowing all too well how it worked. She wiped her hands on the yellow apron tied around her waist. Her thoughts drifted away from the sun bathe French farmhouse kitchen to her Pepto-Bismol painted room in Chicago. 

      Twelve-year-old Lela hadn't been out her room in days. It wasn't that she didn't want to leave the ten by thirteen foot cell; it was because, she couldn't. The first snowfall should've brimmed her with excitement. Snowball fights, tobogganing, ice-skating, hot cocoa by the fire none of it excited her; not this year. This year all she had was fear, sheer fear of what those things could bring. Death. 

     It was irrational but she couldn't shake the thoughts overflowing her mind of what could go wrong. She was predicting her own grisly demise like a Final Destination movie. If she skated on the ice she could slip and hit her head falling into a coma. If she sat by the fireplace an ember could fly out, ignite the rug and burn down the house. If she went tobogganing she could fly down the hill too fast, hit a tree and snap her spine or slid into traffic and be hit by a speeding car. 

     The thoughts went on and on. So, she stayed in her room where she was safe. She knew it was safe because she checked. She checked the windows, the door, and the outlets; made sure things were unplugged. You know in case any electrical appliance overheated and caught on fire. Seven was the number of completion and if she checked everything seven times no harm would come to her. It was what she thought. It was the number that ruled her life. So, she had to stay in her room for seven days after the first snowstorm and then she would be safe. Unfortunately, on the fourth day, her mother called Sylvan and disrupted her pattern.

  "Come back." Sylvan clapped bringing Lela out of her thoughts.

   "Uh?" Lela looked away from the window. Stars danced in her eyes but she could still see Sylvan's furrowed eyebrows and questioning eyes. "I'm fine."

Sylvan ran two lemons under the facet, "I didn't say you weren't."

    "You're looking at me like...I'm relapsing." Lela watched Sylvan squeeze lemon juice in the glass jar.

   "Are you?" She didn't stop working to look at Lela

     Lela picked a cherry tomato out the bowl, "No." She tossed the fruit in her mouth and crushed it with her molars.

     "Are your friends' problems causing you too much stress?" Sylvan looked over at Lela's quizzical disposition.

     "No." Lela pushed up the bottle in Sylvan's hand. "Don't make it too oily.

     Sylvan sat down the bottle of olive oil, "You can tell me if the unpredictability of life is getting to you." She stopped constructing the salad dressing to peer at Lela through a professional lens. "We can move you in here or I could pay your tuition maybe take somethings off your plate."

      "Unpredictability is apart of life and tuition woes is something every college students faces." Lela stuck her finger in the mixture and dabbed it on her tongue. "Too oily!" Her face twisted.

     "Give me another lemon," Sylvan instructed raining black pepper into the dressing. "You're not every college student."

     Lela peeled off the sticker on the plushy lemon before running it under the water, "I know. I'm crazy." She rolled the lemon over to Sylvan.

     "No, you're not!" She stopped the sour fruit before it fell to the floor. "You just overthink. Hyper analyze. We all do it, you just think you can save lives if you do things a certain way."

     "Which is crazy." Lela winked before turning off the facet. "And I know I can't fix any one's problems but that doesn't stop me from wanting too." She sighed thinking about Alyssa again.

      "Don't let their problems cause you problems," Sylvan instructed before turning back to the stove.

    "I won't." Lela got her sweater wet reaching over the counter for her buzzing cell phone. There was no way she could stop her heart from dropping to her feet as she read the text on the screen

Trevor

Come outside. We need to talk.

"Fuck!" Lela exclaimed running out the kitchen.

"Watch your language!" Sylvan shouted out. 

Is Lela going to finally tell Trevor about her illness? What do you think?