You Must Remember This

Chapter 18: There Is Nothing Like The Brain

Regina was unsurprised to see John sitting on the same bench as last time in the Japanese garden, staring directly at a peculiarly shaped rock that jutted out of the pond. If he weren't wearing a different outfit, it could have been the exact same day. Tom was with her somewhere, technically speaking—he had seen some old middle school friends and gone to catch up; he wagged his finger at Regina, warning her not to talk to strangers. Regina sat down next to him, mimicking his posture, and waited for him to speak.

"You know, this rock has probably been there since before we were born. Hundreds of people, some of whom are dead by now, have sat on this bench and admired the same rock. And chances are, this rock will outlive us too. It's comforting to know that some things never change," John offered after a few minutes. "Where's Tom?"

Regina looked around once more, and groaned: "He's somewhere."

"Even when we sit still, the Earth spins around its axis, the Earth around the Sun, and even our solar system still spins furiously quickly around our galaxy's center. Wherever you look, we move. There's nothing we can do about it."

"So... how are you?" Regina assumed John would answer "depressed," but she asked anyway, turning toward John with relaxed posture.

"I don't know. How are you?" Regina felt a moment of emotional connection that she had not experienced in quite some while—Tom never asked her how she was, except in a perfunctory manner that told her quite clearly from his tone of voice exactly how she was supposed to feel.

"Well, I do have some exciting gossip that should cheer you up. Beth and Ted are no longer a couple." John showed no response, so Regina continued her narrative. Ted had slapped Beth during an argument, in a joking matter, not hard enough to draw a bruise, but Beth decided then that he was nothing but a scoundrel. "We're done," she said, and she had left the room before Ted's sweet apologies and empty promises could convince her otherwise. By instinct, Regina and Juliet were nearby, and they immediately consoled Beth as she cried into Juliet's shoulder. The questions immediately began:

"Why did you date him in the first place?" Regina had asked, now free to share that Ted had been an awful person the entire time and Beth completely brainwashed.

"I dated him because I thought he was a gentleman," Beth explained, and the others immediately chimed in to tell her that Ted was absolutely not one.

"If you want to know who's a gentleman, I can think of nobody more chivalrous than Frank," Juliet triumphantly explained, and Beth assured Juliet that this insight was not improving her emotional well-being, and Regina decried that answer as nonsense: nobody epitomized chivalry more than Tom.

"I don't know what to do," Beth continued ragefully, "everyone I meet is an idiot, or worse. Maybe they're all good and I'm the monster."

"You want to feel sorry for yourself, don't you? With so much at stake, all you can think of is your own feelings. One man has hurt you, and you take your revenge on the rest of the world. You're a coward and a weakling." Juliet raised her hand to signal her objection to Regina's tough love, but Beth nodded her head in acknowledgement.

"It is true. I must be a coward and a weakling. You're right."

Regina continued her pantomime for John, using different voices for each of her friends, and John began to suspect that Regina was an unreliable narrator. John put his hand to his chin and appeared engaged, for once completely in the moment. This was no time for meditation—he would have to strike decisively while the iron was hot. Beth was out there somewhere, lost, vulnerable, exploited, clearly in need of yet another exploiter. But not in the mean way, the way that made Beth unsure if she wanted to cry herself to sleep some nights, but in the nice way.