To The Place I Belong

ETHAN

It escaped my mouth, not to forget the confidence with which I said it. I thought it would bring devastation with it, but no. She blushed. Just blushed.
Ben said he wanted to drop Myra home, who hesitated a little but acceded even after hearing the white lie Ben had to say.
“I have work there, at the stores.”
Myra must have really liked him, for she didn’t remonstrate the idea of Ben dropping her home. Her liking didn’t seem sudden to me, however the look on Sylvia’s face searched for the reason behind this sudden liking. I believe, somewhere between orange skies and purple clouds, there is a transition, always, only we fail to see it.
I accompanied Sylvia back home, making small talk about her family, the place she lived earlier and all but the one topic she always managed to evade, is her sister. She told me how she has an affinity towards, lakes and seas and oceans, and how she had almost drowned in beach once.
Strange enough her name-Sylvia forces me to think of the poetess, I told her how I could really associate Sylvia Plath with her. As a matter of fact they did have something in common- the affinity towards water bodies.
I walked with her till we reached her door step, where I hesitated a step or two, before taking my usual path home. “Bye” she had said, but my melodramatic side forced me to feel that she didn’t want such a quick goodbye.
God she is ruling my brain!
…
Eleven minutes before the bell rings and she is not yet here. Perhaps she won’t be here today. And that really makes me sad. For in the time span between looking at the watch and staring at Professor Cormac’s round face, I would take a glance at my gothic Victorian heroine. Today, it was boring. She wasn’t here.   

The second class would almost doze me off had Sylvia not entered within the first five minutes. I sat up straight, even The Wife of Bath seemed interestingly beautiful when I saw her. It had life to it. My vigour was renewed and George could feel it. He even smirked once or twice. Isabel, as usual had her head buried in the pages of her notebook and wouldn’t notice anything else other than the teeth shattering words of the prologue of Wife of Bath.

After long time we were exercising our rights as college goers, for Burger Hunters found us in. The group seemed to have additional members today as Isabel invited Sylvia and Myra to accompany us.
“You impress me , girl.” I whispered over her shoulders.
“You impress me too” Ben added and Isabel rolled her eyes.
“You impress me always nevertheless” said George. Isabel almost gave a whacky laugh.
“So are we going to discuss something on the topic?” asked Myra shifting her glasses.
“Unfortunately, the topic is burgers today and I am afraid I have more than just ‘exceled’ in this art called : Eating Burgers.” Said Ben rubbing his hands on his tummy, “shall we order?”
Myra laughed and Sylvia gave a feeble smile. I’ll tell you what, the sun wasn’t that bright today, but her smile was enough to melt me. Boy, it really did.
“You will be a little shocked” I said distracting my eyes away from Sylvia.
“Why?” Myra asked in a serious tone.
“’Cause you will be witnessing someone who just missed the Guinness Book of World Record. He can stuff 5 burgers in his mouth and within a second all of them will be extinct in front of your eyes as if they never existed.”
There was a gaggle of laughter. But they really did see what I meant. Ben savoured his burgers in the most uncouth ways, dropping sauce here and there, and crusts were strewn all over the table. Isabel had just started eating her piece when Ben had finished his fourth.
“Dichotomy” said Sylvia sarcastically looking at both.
“We are actually quite used to it” I said winking.
“Hey I was thinking, how ‘bout visiting the graveyard today or some other day. Like it would be nice to get a feel-”
Sylvia looked straight at him with eyes that were nothing less than shocked.
“No” she said.
George who had just finished on blabbering on the advantage of the visit said “What?”
“No.” she repeated, this time she looked a little dismantled.  “I don’t go to graveyards.”
Startling. What does that mean?
Ben who has a knack for speaking the wrong things at the wrong time said with his bloody sauce dipped hands hung in the air, “Are you afraid because…” he whispered, “it’s spooky?”
Sylvia narrowed her eyes at him and said “Who is afraid of ghosts when humans aren’t any better than them?”
“Oh come on, Sylvia it’s a nice idea. George’s right actually.” said Isabel.
“I think it is a good idea.” Said Myra still looking a little frightened at how Sylvia might react.
“I know what it is all about. I don’t think getting a “feel” would help me finish my paper.” She said blatantly with specific stress on the word ‘feel’.
“Let’s put it on vote. Since it’s a team work…” said Ben. That’s it. I was in some of the hardest predicaments of my life. For the first time it felt that I had to choose either Sylvia or my friends, anything diplomatic would not end well.
“So those for the motion, I mean going to the graveyard, raise your hands…”
All. Every single member including Ben who wasn’t a member and yet had to poke his nose in, raised their hands. I did not know what to do, for a long time everyone was staring at me as my hand didn’t go up. Instead it got stuck mid-air, and Isabel gave me a shrewd look. Ultimately Ben raised my hand forcefully up into the air saying, “two on one side and four on the other wouldn’t be of much use you know. Its better to go with the herd.” Damn. Sylvia had that palid expression restored, a signal for a bomb to explode.
Interestingly enough she said, “which day?” quite acquiescingly and that, boy, was an even graver warning. A Red Alert.
“Next week maybe? This week ‘am way too full” said George.
“Ok, decided then.”
  The buzz of people continued, George-Isabel-Ben everyone was happy, was it only me who could notice the discomfort on Sylvia’s face. Pain or discomfort I knew not but Myra too had noticed it when she shot up  viciously from her seat as soon as she had finished her burger. She said, “I’ve got to leave”
“But it’s more than an hour left. We don’t even have a class in the next one hour. Where do you wanna go?” I asked.
“I have some work in the library. Am going there.”
My hand automatically tugged at hers, clutching it firmly, but she managed to pull it away. Infact, I think- she cringed at my touch.
…
Library – didn’t she say that? But not to my surprise she wasn’t there. She lied. Of course she would. Evidently she didn’t want to go to a graveyard at any cost. Was it because of her sister and mother, all those incidents? But she said “which date?” quite acquiescingly.