Meadow

five

THREE HOURS LATER

AFTER DRIVING AROUND AIMLESSLY FOR WAY TOO LONG

When I pull up to the house, the curtains are open. My grandmother is in the kitchen, encompassed by the dipping sun filtering through the back door and perched over the stove. By the time my grandfather gets home from work at 5pm, she always has dinner ready to be served. This act should probably set off some feminist buzzer inside of me, but this is just the way its always been. Besides, if it weren't for my grandmother, my grandfather would eat nothing but cornflakes. Lately, the two of them eat at the table while I take my meal up to my room. Grandmother protested this for years, but I finally won once I turned 18. 

I come in when her head is down, slipping in silently and tiptoeing up the stairs. 

"Lane, is that you?" Grandmother calls from the kitchen. 

"Yeah," I yell back. 

"How was your day?" she tries, but I'm already slamming my door shut. 

In the haven of my bedroom, I sit on my bed and take it all in. Being in here fills me with instant peace, or at least it's supposed to. Magazine clippings, photos, and postcards featuring sights from every city but my own cover the entirety of my black painted walls. Strings of lights circle the edges of the ceiling, casting humble light on all of my future destinations. I have the Eiffel Tower in Paris, Devil's Tower in Utah, The Statue of Liberty in New York, miles of beaches along the coasts, idyllic college campuses along the East Coast, and much, much more. A number of these places will be my future homes. I run my fingers over the glossy postcard faces and smooth out the edges of the curling newspaper clippings about famous tourist spots. I look over ripped-out magazine articles listening the top 100 places in the world to live, all of my top choices circled in dark red ink. I circle my room half a dozen times, dreaming about my future and trying to will it into existence. When I'm lounging on a secluded beach or living in a luxurious penthouse or tucked away in a forested cottage several years from now, days like today won't matter. It will only be a forgotten memory thrown in the trash to make room for all of my new, fantastic memories about my world explorations. I won't have time to think about the tiny town that I was accidentally born in. 

And in the middle of my sanctuary, I begin the ritual that I do at the end of particularly bad days. I lock my door, put my headphones over my ears, and turn my music up loud. I sit on my bed, legs crossed, and look at the giant world map hung up on the wall across from my bed. It has countless multicolored push pins sticking out of it. I soak up that sea of color, marking all of the places I want to go someday, all of the places where I will finally connect to the world around me. As I am fantasizing about worlds that I will one day be grateful to live in, I push away all of the memories and all of the rejection that I felt from my current city and my current today. 

Most days, there isn't much to forget. School is forever monotonous, boys are always stupid and horny, and my grandparents typically give me the space I ask for. Everyone leaves me alone. The hook ups are easy to forget because they don't mean anything. Within days of meeting someone, I've already forgotten his face. 

Everyone likes to think that the world has hidden magic if you look hard enough, but they're wrong. There's no magic. No true love. No unconditional kindness. There are only 3rd graders crushing each other's dreams and people committing crimes and defiant high school girls hooking up with random guys to try and feeling something without feeling anything else. 

But today is different, and I know it. Reality slapped me across the face with my application requirements this morning. It was like the universe was punishing me for trying to take the easy way out. Then there was the creep at Buster's. I shudder at the thought of him. 

And of course, there is Ruben. Something tells me I won't be able to forget about today for a very, very long time simply because of him. In some insane way--by sucking at art and by crushing my snacks--he made me realize that I'm not as okay with being alone as I thought I was. I was content with my solitude until I tasted the beauty, the excitement, the delectable flavor of fellowship and connection on a basic, human level. Before today, I had been okay with no connections, but now I'm not sure I am anymore. Social connection is exhilarating, addicting even. I'm not sure I'll be able to resist another fix. 

Just then, there is a knock on my door, the doorknob jiggling. I jump a bit. 

"Dinner, Lane," comes my grandmother's soft voice on the other side of the door. I stand on shaking feet and shuffle over to open the door from her. She is holding a heaping plate of spaghetti and meatballs. Suddenly, my stomach growls even though I wasn't planning on eating.

"You got grandpa to eat spaghetti?"

"Oh, he wanted steak. I made this for you," she explains. And I look at her, and I realize what a sacrifice this must have been, the extra ingredients and dishwashing time, to make this for me. 

I take the food and place it on my desk. When I turn around, she hasn't followed me in. Instead, she stays outside my door, remaining in the hallway rather than in the doorway. She looks uncomfortable, like she has attended a party uninvited. She opens her mouth like she's going to say something, but her eyes change, and a look of disappointment spreads across her face. She looks at me, right into my eyes, and she gives me a sad smile. And the only reason I recognize the look that she gives me next is because I've made this face myself: it's the look of someone who is giving up on connecting. 

"Enjoy," she says with a flat smile before turning around and walking back down the stairs. And because I have no heart, I let her go. 

No, I'm not sure I can forget today that easily. So instead of forgetting, I eat my dinner silently and solitarily. I play my music loud. I look at my pictures on the walls and pray that someday I can escape the mess I've made here. I pray that I will forget today and that I will remember my future. 

Before I go to sleep for the night, I fish Pamela's pamphlet out of my backpack and squat in front of my bookshelf. From the bottom shelf, I pull out a box. Inside, alphabetically sorted by title, is every single pamphlet Pamela has ever given me. I file this one right next to Why Is It So Hard to Talk to People?. I slide the box back neatly. I keep them just in case someday I actually have problems that every other teenager seems to have.