oatriance
“If you can love someone with your whole heart, even one person, then there’s salvation in life. Even if you can’t get together with that person.”
Last night the girl dreamt of driving in a red truck.
With him.
His hair was much shorter, and he hated it. His long dark locks had been cropped close to his head. The girl could see more of his face, and she liked that.
They’d been sitting together in a long pale room. Someone served them tea and cheese sandwiches. The cheese was rubbery, and the girl asked for an ice cream cone instead. The cone was caramel and chocolate, but it looked vanilla, the dark fudge tucked in the center of the scoop.
They had sat at a long table, he with his sandwich and she with the cone. He put the food in his mouth while she stuck her tongue out to catch the sweet.
The girl had dropped out of school. She didn’t finish her exams. She didn’t see the point- the booklist was not provocative. The teachers droned on and on about the war, and the girl didn’t want to submit herself to their ideals.
The teachers wore red whistles around their necks on a silver chain. The girl had written to Gina in her notebooks, asking for her guidance. She never heard back; she never mailed the letters.
She quit school on the third day of constant rain. Her pants were wet at the hem, and her shoes squeaked. She’d gone to the bathroom to use the toilet and a line of girls was at the mirror putting on different lipstick shades. Bright pink, dark blue, brown, cherry red, and beige.
Not one shade would familiarize the girl with her own face.
She used the facilities and waited in line to get to the sink. The floor and wastebasket were littered with tissue kisses. The girls in the mirror watched their reflection as they blotted their skin and braided each others wet hair.
A whistle shrieked long and hard, tearing the twittering birds away from the light. As the bathroom emptied, the girl tucked herself into one of the corner stalls and squatted on the toilet lid. She left the door unlocked. A locked door was too obvious.
She heard footsteps in the hall. Someone entered the washroom and the girl spied the librarian's shadow through the door’s crack. She held her breath and counted to ten to herself. One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand, four-one-thousand….
Before leaving the washroom, the librarian assessed her visage under the soft light. Her hair was thick and grey. Her long nails had been painted mustard yellow.
The girl remained perched on the toilet for the entire second period. She passed the time by drawing circles and symbols of light with her hands in the air.
At lunch, when the cafeteria was noisy and hallways jammed, the girl would leave and never return.
She held her promise to herself without Gina’s counsel.
The girl met him later in the day and told him her plans. He didn’t agree or disagree. He had sat quietly with his head cocked, and when the girl was done explaining, he had said he wanted to sleep in the woods.
She said yes, even though it was a statement, not an invitation.
They packed the car with dark blankets and pillows, bags of chips and bottles of soda. She had forgotten to bring water, and he had no socks.
On the ride to the forest, she thought of her sister, who wore cherry red lipgloss and shiny beads around both wrists. Cocooned by fir trees, the thick grey road was divided by a mustard yellow streak that declared the arrivals and departures. The atmosphere was damp, and rain beat down on the truck as they drove.
Their vehicle was the only one on the road.
As they surmounted the peak, the rain stopped. The girl leaned her head against the truck’s heavy door to peer outside the wet glass. As she pressed her weight to the plastic, the door swung open.
It’s broken, he had said; the plastic is broken- you have to hold it shut. He looked at the girl sideways, his long dark lashes absorbing the light.
Are you ok?
The girl nodded and gripped the side handle to pull the door tight to the seal of the vehicle.
We don’t have to sleep outside if you don’t want to, we can sleep in the back. There’s a mattress; it’s mushy, but it's wide enough for us both to fit.
The girl nodded.
One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand….
The girl was sick of hiding.
When they arrived in the dark womb of the woods, they sat side by side in the back of the truck, eating the crisps. The girl reached out to comb his hair with one palm, but it was gone.
He sighed.
I’m not who you want me to be, he said.
The girl took her hand away and looked up at the sky of broken promises. Some stars were a little brighter than the rest. She’d made so many wishes, and none ever manifested.
He and she slept on that one mushy mattress on separate edges of the vehicle. She lay on her side, with her head on the leather seat and a pillow between her legs. He reclined on his back with his face turned away from her and his hands on his abdomen.
The girl watched his chest swell and settle as the stars fell onto the wet blanket.
At dawn, the sun could not be seen through the fog. The girl pushed her hands deep into each pocket to warm her fingers. She could not send light unless she cleared the cold of the shadow.
The dream had come to an end.
He was gone, and the had swung wide open once again.
As the girl rose to set her feet on the tiled floor, she wiped her salty cheeks with the cherry kisses.
The walk home through the woods would be a long one.
And the colorful birds were laughing, laughing….
Photo source.
