Prompt Week Ten: It was only a dream.....

                I looked at the clock on the wall. Only two minutes had gone by since I last looked. My english teacher was still rambling about the précis we were supposed to write, clicking her mouse periodically to change the slide. “Any questions?” she asked.The room was silent and she smiled brightly. “Great! Remember, they’re due on Friday. No exceptions this near the end of the semester.”

                I threw my notebook into my bag and rushed out the door. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. It was the beginning of May and the sun was high in the cloudless sky, the breeze blew slightly and it smelled like spring. The City Forest had opened back up and Meaghan, Shane, and I had plans to walk the trails. It had been a long winter.

                The previous semester we went there every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday between my psychology and english classes. It was our ritual, my favorite time of day. Some days we walked a couple miles, other days we sat on “our” bench and talked. Either way, it was always fun and none of us ever missed it.

                The custodian had just cleaned the floor in the corridor and the bright green and beige tiles sparkled. The floor was slick and I lost my balance as I turned the corner, grabbing on to the wall to steady myself. Looking down at my feet I saw I was wearing impractical, open-toed heels with a leather strap that hooked on the right side of my foot.  It didn’t seem like it was going to be a day where we did a lot of walking.

                Meaghan and Shane were waiting for me in her silver Honda outside my building. I smiled. They never kept me waiting. I never knew if it was because they were as excited as I was or if they were truly that bored. I liked to think it was the former. Shane opened his door and got out of the car to get in the backseat. He was wearing his uniform of khaki cargo shorts and a short-sleeved striped polo shirt, his Red Sox hat atop his head. He shoved a pile of clothes out of his way and sat down in the back. “Pull the seat up, Sam. I pulled it back earlier to stretch out.”

                We drove in silence down Husson Ave. Nobody said anything until Meaghan almost hit a white-haired man driving a SUV when she ran the red light. “Maybe I should drive,” Shane joked from the backseat.

                “Sorry, I wasn’t really paying attention….” Meaghan murmured and she adjusted the mirror to apply her mascara.

                Typical.

                The silence returned. There was nothing new to talk about; we’d just seen each other last night so we just watched the businesses disappear in the distance as we traveled down Stillwater Avenue. Meaghan blasted the volume when Guns n’ Roses Paradise City came on, one of our favorite songs. Shane knew every word and he sang it, yelled it, from the back, his deep, raspy voice overpowering both of ours.

                When we got to the forest, cars were everywhere. It seemed everybody with a dog had the same idea we did. The ground was muddy and we only walked about twenty feet before we sat down on our bench.

                One day last fall Shane had carved his initials into the top of it, they way schoolchildren do. S.P.S. It was still there, right next to MARK LOVES LISA and Val was here!!! We sat there in the shade and watched dedicated joggers run by with their dogs. Retired couples walked cautiously along the muddy path. The birds chirped, everyone was happy and we were so comfortable together we barely spoke.

               

Prompt Week Ten: Doesn't matter where you begin, you'll always end up back here.

                I crept into the silent house, scared I was going to wake her. School was over for the day and I had a ton of homework and I was excited to have some peace and quiet. The babies were napping and that meant I could start on my work before I had to help my mother take care of them. Dishes were piled up in the sink and dirty laundry was piled high on the top of the washer. I slowly opened the door of the refrigerator so it wouldn’t squeak and wake up my mother and saw it was empty. She’d forgotten to go shopping.  I found a pizza in the freezer and popped it in the oven to cook. The oven shut harder than I expected and the loud clanging of metal filled the eerily quiet kitchen. Holding my breath, I waited for my brother’s piercing cry or her yell, but there was nothing.

                She slept all afternoon and through dinner. The babies woke up and I brought them in the living room so she could sleep. They were cheerful and ready to play and kept themselves occupied on their colorful quilted play-mat that covered the floor. The teletubbies pranced across the television screen as I worked on my algebra homework.

                When she woke up the house was still a mess; the laundry wasn’t done, the dishes were still in the sink and toys littered the living room. My homework was almost done and the babies had tired themselves out. They were whiny, ready for bed again and her patience quickly wore thin. As she slammed the dishes around in the sink, she muttered under her breath about having to do everything, that she never had any help.

************

                My stepdad called one day to tell me she wasn’t working anymore. “It’s just temporary,” he said. “Until she starts feeling better.” We both knew that meant nothing, that it could be months or even a year before she came out of it. His voice was dejected, and I remembered the last time I saw him, how much older he had seemed. His beard had turned pepper gray and the wrinkles around his eyes were more prominent. It wasn’t easy for him to be married to her, to know there was nothing he could do to help her feel better but be her punching bag.

                Worried, I called her but she didn’t pick up the phone or call me back when I left messages so I tried a different tactic. I emailed her, asked her how she was doing. Did she want to go to lunch? I wasn’t shocked when she didn’t reply so I kept trying. Nothing.

**************

                The phone rang and I jumped up to grab it. The babies were sleeping and I didn’t want them to wake up. I was exhausted.  “Who is it?” my mother asked.

                I looked at the caller ID. “It’s Uncle Keith,” I said and placed my hand down on the receiver to answer it.

                She stared at me blankly. “Tell him I’m not here,” she said before turning back to Jeopardy.

**************

                I had a busy day planned. Work in the morning followed by class and essay writing in the evening. I barely had time to breathe but my spirit was lifted by a pleasant email from my mother inviting me to go to Portland to visit my brother. We hadn’t spoken in months and it was a surprise to hear from her. I immediately responded promising to request the weekend off from work. It wasn’t often I was invited to do anything with her and I wasn’t about to give her a chance to change her mind. Maybe things were finally changing.

                Weeks went by; it was almost time to go to Portland. I was tired and I signed onto Facebook like I did every morning. My messages were overflowing, five emails from my mother. Scared, I clicked on them. She had written a book, the story of her life. Graphic details about the hardships she’d endured and her struggle to get through each day. Shocked and overwhelmed by the story I already knew, I politely told her I hoped she was getting better and left it at that. I was sure if I said anymore, told her what I really thought, I would damage the fragile relationship we barely had.

                More emails, more recollections of bad experiences and alternate diagnoses. It was too much. All I wanted was a mother, someone who asked about my day but these emails were all about her. I wanted it to be over; my sympathy was gone, replaced by anger and resentment. I couldn’t try anymore or hide how I felt.

**********

                “I can’t believe you’re not going to my competition,” I whined.

                “Samantha. I can’t,” she said. “I’m tired, I worked all week and now you want me to drive all the way to Gardner for your cheering competition so I can watch you dance for five minutes? I don’t know what you expect from me.”

                “I know…but you never go to anything. I work really hard and we have an awesome routine. I think you’d really like it. If you saw it,” I ventured.

                “I. Said. No. I have a headache.”

                I stifled my tears, unwilling to let her see how much it meant to me. “Well I hope you feel better,” I said, smiling at her.

                “Me too,” she groaned, forgetting to tell me good luck. I walked out the door and forcing myself to forget about her dismissal, I tried to focus on winning the competition.

Prompt Week Ten: You said....so how was I supposed to know you meant....

                “I never thought I deserved somebody like you,” he said.

                She looked up at him, her brown eyes wide with surprise. “Why? You’re the best person I’ve ever met. You deserve everything.”

                She meant it. He was nice to everybody and when he smiled he made you feel like you were the only person in the world. He wasn’t naturally smart, school didn’t come easy to him, but he worked hard, spending hours with tutors doing extra problems. He was gentle, never raised his voice. Patient and understanding, reliable and trustworthy. He was perfect.

                She knew it the first time she met him. It was freshman year and the first football game of the season. He was sitting a few rows behind and didn’t see him until the game ended when she ran into him. They collided at the top of the steps and he grinned, asked if she was alright. She nodded and walked away, shaky and unsettled, wishing he was still smiling at her. She didn’t even know his name.

                She didn’t think she deserved him. He was sweet, always thinking of her. Flowers just because, he always held her hand. He always answered the phone in the middle of the night when she was fighting with her parents and talked to her until she was ready to fall asleep. He let her feel what she wanted, never gave unwanted advice and always listened.

*********************

                “It’s so easy with you; I feel like a day hasn’t gone by that I didn’t see you. It doesn’t seem like it’s been three months, does it?”

                They were curled up on the couch at his house for the first time since college started in September. He softly rubbed her palm with his thumb and she loved the comfort of his hand; she had missed it so much.

                She sighed happily and closed her eyes. It was nice to be home. “No because nothing will ever change between us. It’ll always be there, no matter what,” she said, believing every word she said. This love was real. They had endured so much together and five years later, their feelings had only grown.

                “You’re my best friend,” he whispered. “I love you so much, I always have.”

                Tears filled her eyes, she was lucky to have him. She squeezed his hand. “I love you too.”

*******************

               
             The wedding pictures are beautiful but painful to look at. She can’t help it and scrolls through every single one, torturing herself by the images of him and his wife. He is grinning ear to ear, his blue eyes sparkle brighter than they ever have before. He’s gained weight, the extra pounds with come with being comfortable and happy. His hair is longer than it used to be and he has a full beard. His wife is beautiful; her long chestnut hair is smooth and shiny. The dress looks like it was made for her. The beading underneath her ribcage makes her waist look tiny and the ivory tulle skirt falls to the floor showcasing an ornate lace train. She’s wearing a lace veil and hardly any makeup. Beautiful. There is no question they’re in love but she knows it should have been her in those pictures. Should have been their wedding. That night she falls asleep wondering what could have been if she had moved to New York with him.

***************

                She picked up the phone, hand shaking, and dialed the number she still knew by heart. It rang four times and she breathed a sigh of relief, he wasn’t going to pick up. “Hello?”

                Her heart began to pound faster and in a falsely cheerful voice she said hello back. “I was just calling to say congratulations on your wedding. How are things going?”

                “I’m great!” he said. “It’s so nice of you to call. We were just talking about you the other day, Mom and I. How’s life? You’re still in school, right?”

                They chatted for a while, small talk and catching up on the last three years. Nothing had changed; it was like they’d talked on the phone yesterday. “Really Brady. Congratulations on your wedding. You deserve everything in the world. She’s a lucky girl.”

                They hung up and she was torn between crying and smiling. Her best friend, the one nobody would ever live up to, was married and she had lied, said she was happy for him. She hoped that if she said it enough, eventually she’d mean it.

Prompt Week Nine: The best part of the story I can't say....

                The first time I met her she was six. She averted my gaze and looked around the kitchen before running down the hall and up the stairs. She cried when her parents left and refused to talk to me until it was time to go to bed when she voiced her strong opinions about why she should stay awake.

                We spent every Saturday night together and for months, they all went the way the first one did. One night she stole her brother’s Nintendo DS and blamed it on me; there was so much chaos I had to call her parents because she wouldn’t cooperate with me. She pushed every button and the harder I tried to break down her walls, the harder she resisted.  Her silence didn’t fool me. She was smart and I was failing her test.

                She rarely smiled and laughed even less. She’d lose herself in the television; it seemed her only joy came from the Hannah Montana repeats on the Disney channel. She’d plant herself on the floor, cross-legged, and stare at the TV but sometimes she seemed lost, like she was staring at nothing.

                Every night before bed we battled to get her through her bedtime routine. Teeth brushed, inhaler, anti-depressant, sleeping pill. The dose on her anti-depressant fluctuated; occasionally new pills were added and old ones were taken away.

                She was acutely aware she wasn’t normal and the uncertainty that came with that caused her to be insecure and riddled with self-doubt.  For as long as she could remember she had heard her mother on the phone with doctors about her behavior or whispering in the living room after she’d gone to bed about her latest diagnosis. Reactive Attachment Disorder, Asperger’s, Borderline Personality Disorder. She’d been bounced around from therapist to therapist, never spending enough time with one to make any progress. At school she had no friends. Her only playmate was the two year old boy who lived next door who she bossed around.

  Six months later, she still refused to make eye contact with me and a flood of happiness overcame me when she grabbed my hand one day and asked me to go outside with her. It was freezing cold and drizzly but I agreed. We hooked the dog up to the runner and watched him prance around. She played on the swings and laughed when the dog went to the bathroom. As she played, I led an easy conversation about her favorite things, school, and her brothers. I had finally broken through.

She didn’t talk to me the next time I babysat. Instead, she threw a temper tantrum when I asked her to eat and told me I had a bubble butt. For the first time she looked me dead in the eye, her glare so intense I turned my head. She pretended she didn’t know my name and said she liked her other babysitter better. Another test.

The push and pull went on for years. In the beginning she was surprised when I came back, not understanding how she could be so horrible and still be forgiven. She eventually learned the art of apology and over time, she learned guilt. Most importantly, she learned how to trust, not fully like most children, but enough to show real emotion and laugh.  

She’s eleven now and every time I see her, she gives me a big hug and a bigger smile.  I still don’t know what’s wrong with her and that’s how I like it. The only thing I need to know, and I know it without a doubt, is that she will continue to thrive. Her story’s just begun.

Prompt Week Nine: A list of things about me

1)      I am named after a television character. My mother was inspired to name me after Samantha from Bewitched because my birthday is the day before Halloween.

2)      I love eggplant.

3)      I killed every fish I ever had.

4)      I am terrible with money, in large part due to my shopping addiction.

5)      I never listen to my voicemail.

6)      I love watching trashy t.v. The best show going right now is Big Rich Texas on the Style Network.

7)      I never remember my dreams unless they scare me.

8)      I have horrible allergies but an aversion to taking medication which makes me miserable for a large part of the spring, summer, and fall.

9)      I hate clutter.

10)   Lilies are my favorite flower.

11)   I was raised Catholic; we only went to church on Christmas Eve and Easter but my Nana always made me give up something for Lent anyways.

12)   I want to own a hedgehog.

13)   I refuse to buy a kindle because I think there’s something special about physically having a book in your hands.

14)   I haven’t travelled very much and my list of places to go is long.

15)   I love to clean.

16)   I am very forgetful and lose things all the time.

17)   I am most comfortable in a dress and boots.

18)   People find it easy to talk to me and say I am a good listener.

19)   My dream job is to be a feature writer for at a food magazine but I’d settle for any job that paid me to write.

20)   I would never want to be a journalist on the news even though I’d make more money doing it.

21)   I used to be a psychology major and wanted to work with children who had been abused. My inspiration was a little girl I used to babysit who struggled mentally due to the neglect she experienced as an infant.

22)   I really enjoy writing research papers.

23)   My favorite nail polish color is black.

24)   I have died my hair four different colors: blonde, black, red, and brown. After ten years of dying it, it has finally grown out to its natural color and I love it.

25)   I am still friends with my best friends from high school and even after months of being too busy to speak, every time we do it’s like no time has passed.

26)   The night is the best time of day.

27)   I bought mice after I learned about operant conditioning in psychology. I was going to do experiments with them until I came home one day to find the black mouse had eaten its friend; when I replaced the dead mouse with two more, the little carnivore at them too.

28)   I can’t fly without having a drink first.

29)   I have never gotten into a fight and avoid controversy at all costs; usually I'm the peacemaker but playing this part doesn't always make me happy.

30)   I am late to everything even though I try so hard to be on time.

31)   The only place I will swim is in a pool.

Prompt Week Nine: You don't know what you have until it's gone...

                The summer before eighth grade I went on a diet. I counted my calories and portioned out my food. I lived off dill pickles dipped in mustard and dry cereal. I didn’t need the added calories from the milk. For a treat, I allowed myself to have popsicles. They only had sixty calories and I savored the sweetness in my mouth. I was constantly hungry, tired, and irritable. I spent hours keeping a meticulous journal of everything I ate. I weighed myself five times a day and if I gained weight I would go for a run. I wore a size two.

                My mother was thin with a dark tan. She was beautiful; her hair was long and curly. To me, she was perfect. Her favorite food was homemade granola with almonds; it was the only thing she ate besides salad.  She was constantly complaining about her weight, said she was fat.

                One day I heard her talking to my uncle on the phone and the conversation turned to me. He hadn’t seen me in a while, our family wasn’t that close. My mother didn’t know I was around and she told my uncle I was great, beautiful with blonde hair and long legs, tall. I was short with dark brown hair and muscular legs from gymnastics and cheering. I was nothing like the daughter she described.

                We moved after eighth grade and I spent the summer getting ready for cheering tryouts. I was nervous but I made the team. At the first practice my new coach sized us up, trying to figure out who would fly and who would base during stunts. The girls on my team were tiny, smaller than me and I knew I wasn’t going to be a flyer anymore. At a size two, I was assigned the position of a base, something I had never done. At our first competition I ran into my old teammates and they were shocked to find out I wasn’t flying anymore but their surprise didn’t make sense to me. It was obvious I wasn’t thin enough and I spent the next four years at the bottom of the pyramid, a size too large to fly.

              In college, it became harder to maintain my weight. I wasn’t cheering anymore and the food in the cafeteria was so good. Things I never let myself eat before, like fried chicken, pizza, and bread suddenly became a part of my diet and for the first time, I realized how much I loved food. It was fun to eat without thinking about my pants size, though I spent plenty of nights in front of the mirror disgusted by my weight gain. It was a hard transition but I eventually decided I enjoyed food more than I valued the thin, ballerina’s body I strived to have. I was never going to be a Barbie doll with blonde hair and long legs; I wasn’t the girl my mother described and for the first time, I didn’t want to be.

                I wear a size six or eight now; I’m not as toned as I used to be and I’ve become an expert at dressing to hide my imperfections. I eat a lot more and don’t waste hours recording every calorie in a book or weighing my food. I’m happy.

When I look at pictures from high school I see a pretty girl with porcelain skin and a thin frame. She forces a smile as she strikes a pose she hopes is flattering because she has no idea how gorgeous she is. I want to slap her for wasting her time worrying about a pound here and there, for never accepting a compliment. I want to scream at her for never once wearing a bikini with pride because that body’s gone; I’ll never have it again and I never got to enjoy it.

Theme Week Nine: Literary Pointillism

I don’t remember wearing my first pair of shoes, tiny white slippers with thin strands of ribbon for shoelaces. There’s a picture of me as a brand new infant in these shoes; my eyes are closed and I’m bald but I make up for my less-than-impressive looks by being dressed so well.

I was always excited for winter because I got to wear cute boots. My favorite pair were bright purple with rubber soles that almost hit my knee. Different shades of purple ran in stripes up and down the boot and the inside was fuzzy; they always kept my feet warm and I thought they looked pretty cool with my matching snowsuit. My brother and I would go sliding in the backyard and he’d stand on his knees to tie my boots up because I didn’t know how to do it. He tried to teach me but grew impatient when I took too long and ended up doing it himself.

The day before kindergarten started my grandmother took me to Kmart to buy school clothes. I was allowed to pick out one outfit, whatever I wanted. It took a while for me to decide what to buy but I finally settled on a pink floral pajama set and a pair of red, faux-leather shoes with a strap around the ankle. They were the most beautiful pair of shoes I’d ever owned; my mother never let me buy anything like them. She’d say “they weren’t the type of thing you could wear every day.” It quickly became obvious my mother didn’t know anything because I got a lot of use out of them. Every day when I came home from school I wore those shoes.

When I was eight I got the most spectacular pair of black leather tap shoes. They were so shiny I thought I could see my reflection in them; they were far superior to quiet dullness of my ballet flats. They had a slight metal heel and a flat metal sole and I loved the sound they made when I danced. I practiced all the time.  A thick piece of black ribbon tied around my ankle into a beautiful bow.  For the Christmas recital my tap class and I performed a routine to “Up on the Rooftop."  On the polished stage our synchronized steps played a cheery melody for the audience.

In middle school my mother and I battled over my shoes. She didn’t understand that I needed to wear heels. To me, it was pretty obvious. I was short and my pants dragged on the ground if I didn’t wear them. She said they were impractical, that I’d give people the “wrong impression.” I told her they could think what they wanted but I was still going to wear cute shoes. She said my priorities were warped, that I cared too much about materialistic things; she was wrong. I wasn’t materialistic at all, I just liked shoes.

I won the war a week before my eighth grade graduation. She bought me a pair of strappy, white sandals with a stiletto heel. They looked perfect against my tan and were made for my dress. They gave me blisters and once graduation was over, I took them off and put on a pair of flips flops. I wore them for a total of three hours and after that they spent their days in the back of my closet with all the other rejects who failed to live up to my expectations.

My love affair with shoes became serious in high school. I hadn’t really committed before but I knew it was the real thing when I slipped on a pair of black leather booties embellished with three shiny buttons that ran along the outside. They  had a zipper alongside the inner ankle and a practical three-inch heel. They cost me sixty dollars, more money than I had ever spent on anything. It was also the first time I bought myself anything with money I earned. I bought them on a Saturday and  I couldn’t wait for school on Monday to show them off. They looked perfect underneath my jeans, making my feet look tiny. Everybody loved them. By the end of the day, I could barely walk down the ramps that led outside. My toes were crunched together, numb. I had blisters on the back of my ankles that were aggravated with every step I took. But I was in love and for the first time, I wasn’t going to give up that easily. We worked it out and after a few weeks, nothing felt better on my feet. I wore those boots for four years. They travelled with me to college in Canada and back; I wore them almost every day and I cried when the heel broke. It took me three months and dozens of stores to find an adequate replacement but nothing found their way into my heart the way those boots did.

 I found love again in the most unexpected place, with an old pair of Converse All Stars sitting in the corner of his living room. They’d been there a while, collecting dust. Old, mint green high tops with a thin pink strip around the white sole. The laces were frayed; the rubber toe was stained with mud and dirt. He had bought them at a yard sale for two bucks and joked they were his glass slippers and the girl whose feet fit them was his princess. I slid them on, sure they wouldn’t fit. The tag said they were a size seven and a half, I wore an eight. I laughed when they fit like a glove and he checked my toes over and over, sure I was lying. Unintentionally, I got the comfort and dependability I was looking for without paying a dime; all it took was the courage to try on something new and see how it fit.