I found Rachel to be a reasonable
companion in the months that followed.
She was quiet, but thoughtful, as are most reserved people. School was eating me up and my class mates
were getting on my nerves.
My friend Holly had a brother who
was killed in a car collision with a drunk driver. It was one of those hit-and-run things; just
like that, he was gone. It happened a long
time ago, before I met Holly, but it kills her every time she thinks about
it. Some people get angry, shout and
beat things when they think back on something tragic. Others just shut up like a clam and won’t say
a word unless you pry them open with a crowbar.
Holly is more like the latter; except all the time.
The first time I really met her, we
were sitting through our physical science class and learning about Newton’s
second law of motion when she suddenly slammed her book shut. I sat behind her, usually, and was especially
startled by her reaction. When I asked
her about it later she said that there was a picture of a guy pushing a car
that looked awfully like her brother’s car.
I laughed and rolled my eyes as I usually do when I find something ridiculous. It’s terrible how involuntary rolling my eyes
has become. She got incredibly upset and
didn’t say a word to me for a week.
I pestered, nagged, then begged her
to tell me more so I could understand; that my eye-rolls mean nothing and that
she should ignore all my reactions.
Finally she got sick of me asking all the time and told me, “I’ll talk
to you later” since we were in the middle of history class at the time. At lunch time she pulled me over to a table
that was basically empty except for one random girl who was chewing on a
pretzel thoughtfully.
“Look,” she said as she stared me
boldly in the eyes, “my brother died, when I was eight, in a typical car
crash.”
“Okay.” I said thinking that it
couldn’t have been that bad; most brothers I hear about are annoying twerps who
don’t know when to get out of their sister’s hair. Then again, I’d never lost anyone I really
cared about in my life. Most of my extended
family lives far away and we don’t travel to see them ever. I’ve never gotten attached to anyone outside
my mom and dad and even then, their arguing all the time makes me not want to
know them. “Is that all?” I said as I
pulled a hamburger out of my lunch bag.
She sighed impatiently, “He was a
good brother and we rarely ever fought with each other. He always was there to listen to me. We had a tree house in our backyard and we
would go up there when our parents quarreled with each other.”
Ooh, I thought, someone who might
get me.
“So,” I interrupted rudely, “cool
brother, evil car crash, the end.” Some
days I wish I would think twice before I say anything.
“No!” she said smacking my thigh. I jerked back in shock, but she continued,
“You don’t get it! You won’t listen. You’re just like everyone else. They all think, ‘get a hold of yourself,
Holly’, ‘time to move on: what’s past is past move on with the present’. Even my parents have moved on.” She sighed
heavily, trying to calm herself down, “It didn’t take them long to fall back
into their usual pattern of dispute.
They’ve since argued themselves into a divorce and now I don’t even see
my father anymore.” This is when I
noticed how hard her heart must be. If I
were relaying these details, instead of her, I would be in tears. I felt sorry for her, but I knew she probably
didn’t want that. I looked away from her
cold, white face and at my hamburger which I had been squishing until my hands
looked bloody from the ketchup that had oozed out of it.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled as I dropped
the sad burger onto its wrapper, “I didn’t realize…”
“That’s the point,” she continued,
“no one realizes anything. No one gets
my pain.”
“But I do!” I reached for her hand,
she hit a spot I’d tried not to touch on much.
“No you don’t, you think it’s
ridiculous. They all do.” She pulled her
hand back and studied it, seldom glaring at me.
“I do understand the whole parent’s
arguing thing. Mine fight all the
time. Yesterday, my father mentioned
that our spaghetti didn’t have its usual parmesan cheese sprinkled atop it and
my mother went on some dramatic tantrum, she teaches acting at the local
theater, you see, so it gets really overwhelming. I can’t stand it so I—”
“But you still have both of them.”
She cut in.
“Well, yeah…”
“You’re a lucky one.” She got up and left me there at the
table. I stared at my sticky red hands.
What had I done? Why can’t I say
anything right the first time? I rolled
my eyes, again, this time at myself.
“Be patient with Holly. She’s been through a lot without anyone
standing as her backup.” The lonely kid
at the table was still nibbling at her soft pretzel, “You have friends you can
count on and she doesn’t.”
Okay, weird. Just a tad bit creepy. Has this kid been spying on me all this time;
a stalker? I didn’t want to stay to find
out.
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