Tick.

The Thought of Patched Hearts

I manage to deal with Ryan for the rest of the period. When we are finally dismissed from Chemistry, I am clinging to whatever shreds of sanity I have left. The ticking and the yellow sweater battle for dominance. I swing my arms as I walk to my next class. My legs feel like stiff cardboard and like uncooked noodles at the same time. I feel almost as if I am wading through an ocean.

I should have put on a life jacket. I'm not as strong a swimmer as Evelyn or Aunt Taylor. I'm not even sure I've learned how to swim. I wish someone would have told me how to do the straps correctly. I can never manage to keep my head above the water.

Lunch arrives, much anticipated. When I first get to the cafeteria, Evelyn has not yet arrived. I sit down and I watch. I wonder what it is like to live life with your head above the water. The students swarm and I watch them. The girl with the purple highlights is Emma from P.E. The boy in the beige hoodie is Leo from last year's history class. Many of them are nameless to me, but I choose one physical detail and let my imagination fill in the rest. The short girl with the necklace that has a C on it is Camila or maybe Catherine or Cecily. The people at her table are her friends, and they're experiencing high school together for the first time this year. They swim in perfect unison.

Evelyn plops down beside me with a cheerful greeting. "Thea!"

I grant her a rare smile.

"How's your day?" she inquires.

The common human instinct is to reply to this question with an emotionless "good" because the interrogator often does not care to hear a longer answer. This polite inquiry does not warrant the truth. Whether your grandma died or you won the lottery, you still say, "Good." That's the way things are.

"Normal," I answer. Aren't they synonymous? "How about you?" I add the customary phrase.

"I'm so excited for rafting!" She opens up a thermos and begins to eat.

"You've never been either?"

"I barely convinced my dad to sign for me!"

"Doesn't your mom know?"

"No, and I hope it stays that way," Evelyn giggles nervously.

As she plunges her spoon into her macaroni and cheese, I can't help but stare at her right wrist. As always, the clock is permanently stuck and the number seems to have run away years ago.

I'm so stupid.

I could've known all about her wrist over an hour ago if only I hadn't been so stupidly stubborn. Evelyn probably would have been able to handle the situation with Ryan. Evelyn has remarkable buoyancy. However, there's times that the current tugs at her a bit too much it seems. Twenty dollar bills are the currency of overturned rafts and sinking souls. Call the lifeguard. Call the Coast Guard.

And then I notice something that makes me lose focus on the metaphorical ocean of life and injects me with a stinging dose of self consciousness: I'm still wearing the sweater. Why don't I take it off? It isn't glued to my skin. This yellowness isn't me, no matter how much I wish it was. But I still have to get through the rest of the day, and so the selfish indulgence continues. Maybe, Evelyn has noticed and she just doesn't mind. What a shocking thought! She doesn't mind. It seems as if someone always minds.

"Your wrist?" I ask, changing the subject of the conversation that I've been holding between me my own thoughts.

Evelyn shakes her head and smiles apologetically.

At this moment, I know that I can never ask her again. Twice is testing her limits, but it doesn't help that I want to know so damn bad. I won't look it up. I want to hear it from her. Science doesn't do justice to love. Love is abstract and, more importantly, imaginary.