dreamland

twenty-five

Each class day blended into the next because there wasn't anything that popped out and helped me distinguish each one. The days were awfully ordinary and I think that's what really struck me as strange. You didn't come by again after that day. I had expected for you to return, I really had, as self-absorbed as I could have sounded and maybe even gullible, I did believe you had come back from wherever you went, for me. You couldn't have given up that easily, not when I had finally given you somewhat of a reaction. That had to have made you even hungrier and even encouraged you to pursue me even more.

Of course my best friend attempted to speak to me and even I almost made my way to her.
It just wasn't possible because she didn't understand. All she did was sit there and judge and judge and judge like she really had a clue. It didn't matter how empathetic she could be, this just wasn't something you could point fingers at. So I stayed back and went home where I ate oranges and sat in my living room, expecting someone. I sat on the couch closest to the window and set my eyes on the sidewalk and driveway, waiting and seething. Even my mother asked me who I was waiting for and I told her, no one. But the real answer was that I didn't know. Maybe I would have been fine with anyone coming by. My best friend, him, and yes, you. I just wanted to see someone I think and maybe when that person came by then I would know if it had been them that I had waited for all along. Or maybe I would have realized that it wasn't them at all.
I had nothing but spare time so I shoveled snow out the driveway.

I dropped my shovel after awhile and went back into my house where I stared up at the ceiling with my head upside down, inches off the floor and my feet dangling off the other side of my bed. I thought about my best friend's eyes as she saw a girl that she thought was insanely pretty. And it really had to be a pretty pretty girl, he standards were high because she knew that she herself was really insanely pretty. The way she would scream during the first five seconds of a song she said was her favorite when it came on unexpectedly on the radio. Her long piano fingers that never did actually play a piano but only played with her hair and the pendants on other girls' necklaces. I missed her the way you miss summer after a repetition of freezing days.

I sighed and stretched my arms above my head, my pink sweater rising and showing the skin of my stomach.
It didn't feel like Thursday. It didn't feel like January was ending; the first of the new year, was fading into February. It felt like my life was a mob of essays and breakdowns and disorientation. The time ticking away felt limitless and boundless and so careless to those of us that wanted more and those of ya that held it heavily in our hands.

It even felt like if I really pulled away from one of my many dreams then I could see a tiny light at the corner. A light that I wasn't sure if it was just another image from the dream or maybe even an outlet into a alternate reality. A reality I would never know about. And whatever was occurring in that reality, whoever was living in it, wouldn't know about this reality ever. It was strange and mean how life could be that twisted and mind-bending. It was like that roller coaster my best friend loved and I hated. Even you loved it. It was old and green and rusty and it didn't feel at all safe. It is what you both loved about it I think. You didn't fear death. The roller coaster rattled and shook and made me hold onto the edge of my seat as you both grinned excitedly and teased me. The worst part though, was the one that literally made my stomach turn over, and my whole body for that matter. It would loop and my hair would fall everywhere under me or above me—I couldn't even tell when it flipped us upside down. The thin bars that sat at our abdomens felt even looser and god for those split five seconds I was so sure I would slip right out and break my neck and die. It was exaggerated maybe, but still, I always felt that when I rode that stupid thing.

You said to me, that it was your favorite part and with that and so many other things, I knew you didn't fear death. I knew this without you having ever told me straight out. I had asked you what you thought happened to us after we left once.