Scarred

When I woke up, she was sitting on the edge of my bed. My favorite pillow was in her lap; it must have fallen off in the middle of the night. Mr. Blu was pressed against my cheek again, the fur a little rough from absorbing too much salt water. “Back in the good old days I would have been standing with a mug of cold water.”

She said straightening the fur on Mr. Blu. Though there was nothing good about those days when she woke me up by wetting me in bed, I missed them. “I remember that.” I said watching her place Mr. Blu on the nightstand beside Tessie. I could almost hear her say, ‘They are so cute together’ and I would complete her sentence, ‘because you got them.’ Blu and Tessie were the only bears I ever owned.

“What’s for breakfast?” I asked half-heartedly. “What ever you please.” She chimed making a royal bow and awkwardly holding the edges of her jeans. I took a quick shower while I heard her sing Kelly Clarkson though the trickle of water. I missed her voice. I wondered whether these walls missed mine. I always sang in the shower; the only one place where I wasn’t scared to let go. I pulled up a grey sweat shirt and tied my hair. When I walked out of the bedroom door, she followed me like I knew she would. She would follow me anywhere I wanted her to.

“At least take a look in the mirror.” She urged. “I did when I brushed my teeth.” I said. “You know that’s not what I mean; you’ve got a strand of stray hair.” I looked at her suspiciously.

“Really!” I caught my reflection on the glass cabinet and my hair was messily done in a pony tail but no stray hair. I should’ve known better. I lifted a single eyebrow when she gave her triumphant smile. We trusted each other but we also knew each other well. We played how easily we could fool the other. Lately, she been leading and I let her.

“What’s for breakfast?” She called. I tip-toed to my parents’ room and heard two different set of snores. I let out a sigh and came back, “Whatever I want.” And then, poured out milk and cereal. I crunched noisily and hastily. The cereal tasted like putty in my mouth and that had nothing to do with its flavor. After two bites and forty-eight chews, the rest made its way to the rubbish can.

She sat there watching me with her hand cupping her chin and the other making horse beat taps. I checked my watch; ten minutes before school started and that’s how long it took me to drive there.

As I walked out of the front door, I turned once to look at her but she was nowhere to be seen. I slammed the door real hard and the wind chimes clung together to wake my parents up.

Once I reached the school, my stomach grew heavy. Those thirty cereal flakes rattled at a Richter scale of 8. I was the only one in the parking lot. I pulled my hood up before walking to the corridor. She stared at me from every bare nook of the walls. The same smile, her perfectly manicured nails and that yellow blouse. I knew every single detail of that photo. I had clicked it at her parent’s weekend house. I walked to the last bench in my homeroom. Every four out of five days; I was lucky enough to find it unoccupied, every four out of five days; I reached school just in time to avoid unnecessary chit-chat. But today was that one of the three sixty-five days that no one wanted to go through. That one day when I was supposed to be throwing a party to celebrate the fact that I lived through another year and not throw up during the morning assembly because they would pay a tribunal to her.

When the bell rang, I pulled in a sharp breath. The speaker made a deafening sound even though Anna, the announcer had a sweet voice. I knew exactly what she would say. As everyone stood in a single file, I let my jell-o legs carry me wherever I was pushed. I knew that people were staring at me, giving me those dreadful looks of sympathy. As I joined the line taking the last place, someone pulled my hood down and took me hand. I turned around to see him.

My lower lip quivered, fluid flowed into my nasal ducts and caused a tingling sensation making me press the bridge on my nose. The pressure on my hand increased and his other hand smeared the tears before they rolled down my cheeks. She stood near the door blocking the entrance trying to give us some privacy. Not from her, from the world. If only her presence made a difference to others. She smiled but her eyes were sad. She winked when he hugged me and I hugged him back tighter. She stared to strum on a virtual guitar and sing ‘Only See You’ by Benton Paul which was my song. We always talked about if life was like movies and the perfect song played in the background when ‘the one’ swept us off our feet. I felt a stupid urge to laugh and a chuckle escaped my lips. He let go of me and looked with a confused expression. He didn’t say anything because he might have understood my state of mind.

“You can do it.” He whispered and I thought he would kiss me on the cheek but he just put the stray strand of hair behind me ear. ‘Told you’, she said. Then, he stepped away and I could almost hear him say, ‘don’t want to take undue advantage of the situation, do we?’ To which she replied, ‘I think you should.’ She, then, disappeared as we walked to the assembly hall but I could still feel her stare from every possible angle.

Once inside, every whisper seemed like a screech in my ear, the air like dragons were breathing fire and my own heartbeat like a constant hammer, her smile a blow to my guts and her absence a pit, a hole in my heart. The silence in the room turned from pin-drop to deafening and that was all I could take. When a professor started to explain the reason we had gathered, my ears wanted to go deaf, my hands wanted to fiddle with the ‘best friends’ bracelet on my wrist, my eyes to water and block the vision and my mind instructed me to hum a tune, any tune…

“I dreamed I was missing

You were so scared

But no one would listen

Cause no one else cared

After my dreaming I woke with this fear

What am I leaving When I'm done here?

So, if you're asking me,

I want you to know

When my time comes

Forget the wrong that I've done

Help me leave behind some reasons to be missed

And don't resent me

And when you're feeling empty

Keep me in your memory

Leave out all the rest.”

NO! Not this tune, not her favorite song. My legs told me to run and my heart agreed and that’s what I did. I didn’t care that a thousand people stared at me, didn’t care that I left my crush standing there looking like a fool. “Today, we pay our tribute to Jeanette Baker on her first dea………..”

I ran and I let the words drown. I ran till my legs hurt, away from the hundred posters screaming ‘R.I.P. Jeanette Baker”. After I reached my car, I drove home. I turned the stereo loud. Amy Lee echoed, “I tried so hard to tell myself that you’re gone and…” I honked uselessly and a fifty times outside the hospital she had died in. “That won’t bring me back.” She said riding shotgun.

When I reached home, no one was there as I assumed. I parked the car in the garage and took my bike out. I drove like a maniac and reached the freeway three miles away in seven minutes. I had to cross the road to take a short cut to the ‘Strawberry Hill’. The actual crossing was another mile away. So, I picked my bike and carried it across the divider. I started running with my bike to the other end when somewhere in the middle of the road, I froze. I couldn’t get my legs to move. My eyes fixed on the ground zero. THIS IS WHERE SHE HAD THE ACCIDENT. This is the same place she was crossing when she got hit by the lorry. I heard a horn and looked up to see a mini-van heading in my direction. It was five yards away, four, three, two…I was ready.

I waited for it to happen. For my head to hit the road with a thud, for my legs to be crushed like the cereal I chewed this morning. Those few second stretched into minutes but nothing ever happened. Maybe it was over all too soon. Was death really this quiet and peaceful, like ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’ by Emily Dickinson? Then I heard a loud horn and a ‘Get out of the way, git’ in a gruff voice. I opened my eyes and ran to the safe zone. Maybe I was hoping for a lot.

Then I peddled to the slope, it became harder to keep moving as the inclination increased but I didn’t stop. “Sorry, I’ve been eating a lot since I got nothing else to do.” She said, eating an ice candy with one hand and holding the rim of the back seat with other. “It’s okay. It’s not you, it’s me; always has been.” Halfway to the top, I lost it. I peddled with tears streaming down my cheeks. I concentrated on peddling, breathing, (sniffing), peddling, breathing, (crying), peddling, breathing, (sobbing), peddling, breathing, (wailing) till I reached it. The good thing about ‘Strawberry hill’ was that you could hear/smell it before you reached it.

The whiff of fresh strawberries and waterfall welcomed me home. The water grew noisier as I got closer as if it missed me. I dropped my bike underneath the oak tree and ran to the pond. I stepped into it fully clothed, my fast track watch on my wrist, my ‘best friends’ band on the other. My shoes grew heavier with each step. I went further, knee deep…water till my waist, my chest, my neck and that’s till where it came. Five feet, that was it but I didn’t stop. I went underneath the falls and screamed. I screamed my lungs out, my heart out. “I MISS YOU,” I cried before swallowing a mouth full of water and my knees buckled. My body went flail and I liked the pressure in my lungs ready to explode, the calmness of my mind but nothing would ever be enough to wash away the guilt in my heart.

*Exactly one year ago*

“Where are you? “

“ I’m on my way.”

“ I told you to get here by five.”

“ I know. I’m sorry.”

“ To hell with your apologies. Get here in a minute.” I screamed at Jean and put the phone down.

She was supposed to be here one hour ago and being without your best friend on your birthday is like celebrating it without a cake. Abby, Luke, Kent, Liam, Chris, Kim were all here. We were going to camp here for the night and get home by sunset the next day. It was a tough call to get out parents to agree but we promised them to Skype once at night and then, the next day after waking up. Also, it wasn’t too far. They could always come get us if things went wrong.

“I got you a dog.” Liam said while I sat by the pond waiting for Jean to come.

“Yeah…what is it called?”

“ Pepper” He said with a smile that made my stomach do a back-flip.

“I got another one for you, you know…as a return gift.”

“ Really? What is it called?”

“ Salt” I laughed, knowing he was just messing with me. I had a theory for me and my ‘perfect one’ having dogs named Salt and Pepper so that they could get married. He smiled too.

Then, my phone blew up with Jean’s ‘Airplanes’ ringtone, “Jean, why are you not here yet?”

“ Casey? It’s Nadia.”

“ Oh! Mrs. Baker is something wrong?”

“ It’s Jean. She had an accident.”

“Casey, Casey” Liam shouted as I fell into unconsciousness.

“Casey,” He said again, “Open your eyes.” Someone was pumping my chest and I threw a gallon of water on that someone’s face. Liam was dripping wet as he leaned over me.

“What were you trying to do? Getting yourself to go under the falls like that?” He yelled.

“I was seeing whether I could swallow it whole.” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm just like our clothes. He ignored my comment like it had never been said, “The question is, why?”

‘You know why, because I’m a murderer. I got my best friend killed.’ My insides screamed but no words left my mouth. For a moment, I froze in time, so did he but the waterfall didn’t. It kept falling with time just like it was meant to.

After a while, he came to sit beside me. He shifted so that his shoulders touched mine and I rested my head on his shoulder. It was wet, but I didn’t mind, so was I.

“Don’t blame yourself. It could have happened to anyone.” He said in almost a whisper. I stiffened but when he took my hand, I felt myself breathe again. “All of us know how risky it is to cross that freeway with a bike. She was just there at the wrong time.” He said. I wanted him to stop. I didn’t want to re-live through it again. But I had to talk about it one day.

“If I hadn’t screamed at her, she would have never taken the short cut. You were there, you heard me.” “Like she wouldn’t do it otherwise?” He argued.

What Liam said made sense but he couldn’t see the way I could. It was me who showed her this place → me who dropped her hints of celebrating my birthday here → me who screamed at her→ me who got her to hurry→ me who got her killed.

Guilt is not easy to give away. It attaches itself like a leech to you and slowly sucks the life out; slow but effective. Then, we create a little world of our own, cop and con. We keep shooting at the mirror with every bullet possible. We cradle the pain and make it our own. With time, it becomes a part of who we are and defines us. We live for the past than for the future, for memories than in time becoming a bottled soda without an opening, fizzing inside in pain with no way out.

“Forgive yourself, Case.” He said, “Jean would be torn to see you like this.” Forgiving is easy but how do we ever forget? I wish I could hire Will Smith from Men in Black. How can we ever let go of what made us who we are today? Simple, we don’t. We should remember the good parts, the ones full of life and love. I saw her in her bedroom brushing Bruce’s hair, doing the cheerleading practice, eating Skittles by color and saving blue ones for last. I remembered her smile, the look on her face when she unwrapped presents, the way she split my name into ‘Kay-see’ when she wanted me to do her a favor. The way she said ‘Cassandra Olsen’ when she was mad at me.

My heart felt light. We always choose the easier path. Guilt is easier than closure. It is easier to blame ourselves than accepting that something really did happen according to nature’s law. It is easier to cry the nights away than wipe the tears and hold our head up high. A tremor shook me as more tears streamed my face and landed on his shoulder. His arm wrapped me and pressed me close to his chest, his chin on the head and his eyes wet too. After all, she was his friend too.

We think that after a person leaves, it creates a hollow space. Yes, it does and there’s nothing we can do to fill it up. We think that it is the end of the world and it is wrong to smile, to get over someone’s death and live our life like nothing ever happened. We wonder what they would think peeping down from heavens. What we don’t know is how much it would hurt them to see us living in a crammed hole. It is not wrong to smile, it is wrong to disgrace their memories and forget about them. We heal with time only if we let it. Or we could simply ruin ourselves. I’m trying to heal. I know that it will heal a scar but I want the smiling angel spying on her best friend from heavens to be happy.

“You remember the first time we came here?”

“ Hmm…That’s the day we met.” I smiled, “and Chris tried to jump from the falls and broke his leg and you took him home on your bike.”

“Yeah, he weighed a ton.”

“ That’s when I knew I wanted to be your friend.” He smiled as he looked at me and my stomach was back in back-flip mode. We talked about thousand other things. I laughed, when he cracked a joke, not for his sake but mine. Sometimes, all you need is a friend, a crush, or any person to come along to make things fine and if not alright, then better…way better. You just got to give him his chance.

“I got you a gift.”

“ What? A dog?” I teased.

“Yeah…” he said and took out a Labrador’s pup from the bike’s basket. “ What is she called?” I asked, stroking her fur while she cradled herself into my lap.

“Pepper”

“Happy Birthday, Case.” Liam kissed me on the cheek and once again there was static in the air and stars began to shine when the sun was taking time out from my life.