The Lonely Ones (3 page)

There is one monster

more gruesome than the rest.

He is a crooked thing

made of rough skin

and red eyes

gleaming with mischief.

Something

that does not belong,

something

just like me.

He was the last one

to press his strange hand against

my bedroom window.

When I asked his name,

the creature only grinned.

He is my favorite.

When they tell me

where we're going tonight,

I feel my nose wrinkle

in confusion.

“The desert?” I say. “Why?”

In response,

they whisk me through the neighborhood

down the streets

through the city

past the trees

toward the edge of the world.

“There's nothing here,” I insist.

They tell me

to look closer.

I put my hands on my hips

and look.

This time I see

how endless the horizon is

how determined the plants are

how serene the wind feels.

The sand

is cool and hard.

We stand beneath the moon,

watch a tumbleweed

roll by.

In a world

that is constantly moving and shifting,

filled with things that are constantly changing,

this is a place

that doesn't.

My friends are right;

there is beauty

in desolation.

As we stand under the stars,

the distant cry of a coyote

reaches our ears.

We tilt our heads back

and join in its call.

And I swear,

just for a moment,

the moon answers.

There was a time

I tried to be silent

as I climbed back into my family's world.

But now

I swing one leg over the sill,

loud and reckless.

I cough,

I stomp,

I sigh.

Dana snores on,

the fan hums,

my parents fight.

Though I do my best not to listen,

sounds drift through

the open door.

She cries accusations,

he mutters insults.

The mattress creaks

when I sit down.

I stare at the wall,

struggling to recognize

the people we've become.

Once in a while,

if the arguments are particularly loud

or the silences especially heavy,

I go to the closet

and pull out my dollhouse.

It's old

with beaten corners

and fraying pieces.

The dolls inside

eyes unblinking

smiles fixed

remind me of how

things used to be.

A time before want ads

before my mother cried behind a door

before my sister spent hours on the phone

before my brother started kissing and driving.

Once in a while,

I'll reenact scenes

faint in my memory,

of dinners around a table

movie nights in front of the TV.

The dolls don't avoid one another;

they are magnets

drawn together

again and again.

The house is full

of laughter and light.

Once in a while,

I remember who we used to be.

Once in a while.

Besides writing

and dolls

and adventures

and quarries

I find escape

in art class.

In a room

that reeks of paint and ink,

each table contains

only two chairs.

On the first day

I sat in the corner

and waited for someone to claim

the seat next to mine.

The door continually opened,

the room buzzed with chatter,

the teacher told us to be quiet.

That empty seat

filled with my dread;

I tried to distract myself

with a new story.

As I wrote and poured my hopes

into a tale of diamonds and thieves,

the chair creaked;

a boy named Carl

settled beside me.

“Hi,” I said.

The word

hovered between us

as Carl hunched over a piece of paper,

wordless and intent,

pen moving furiously.

He draws worlds

the same way I write them:

reverently.

They call him slow

say he is hollow.

But when I watch Carl,

all I can think

is that an empty person's drawings

would not be so full.

A wave of perfume

crashes over me

as Mrs. Olsen

leans close.

“What are you writing?”

No one

has ever bothered

to ask me that question before,

and for a moment

I don't know

how to answer.

I look around,

realize that somehow

I missed the end of English class.

“Just a story,” I say

to Mrs. Olsen.

“May I take it home to read?”

she asks.

I don't know

if I want anyone else

to read my words,

gain a peek

into my soul,

but I slowly nod.

She picks the pages up carefully,

holding my heart

in her wrinkled hands.

Beating harder

louder

faster.

Then Mrs. Olsen

puts my heart in her desk drawer,

and in that moment

it stops beating entirely.

It did not start

on a special day

or at a significant age.

My writing,

my need to create worlds with words,

started with a moment.

Christmas

had come and gone,

and I'd been given a notebook.

For days and months

I carried it everywhere,

bothered by the blank pages

and empty lines.

One afternoon Mom took us to the park,

a place of deep green

and sharp sounds.

She spread out a blanket

unpacked our lunch.

In the distance

children played tag,

a girl tugged at the strings

of a yellow kite.

Suddenly

Dana and Tyler began to argue,

their voices rising higher

than that toy up in the sky.

Mom shouted,

Peter cried,

insults flew.

The sidewalk to our left

guided a young couple

past our chaotic picnic.

I focused on them,

their ordinary faces

and linked hands.

As if Mom's anger was contagious,

they stopped;

I watched

those two hands

separate.

The girl's face twisted,

the boy's veins jutted.

The boy turned his back

and walked away

without another word or glance.

The girl cried

as she watched him go,

and for a moment

it seemed as if that was it.

But when the boy reached

the end of the sidewalk

he faltered,

and the trees themselves

held their breath.

Slowly,

so slowly,

he turned around and walked back.

She hiccuped and smiled,

they embraced.

My fingers twitched for a pen.

The kite kept flying,

the children kept running,

my family kept fighting.

None of them saw

knew

cared.

But it was the first time

I wanted to write

in that notebook,

the first time I realized

there could be more than one ending

to a story.

Balls bounce,

feet pound.

Voices clamor and rise,

as if everyone is fighting for something.

The instructions are to play basketball,

but I can't play

if no one passes to me.

I lose myself

in imaginary worlds until

the ball hits my head

with a deafening
thwack
.

Mary Mosley,

the girl everyone wants to be,

laughs with all her friends.

The sound

echoes in my ears,

and it's all I hear

for the rest of the day.

Today

when I arrive at my haven,

lethargic waves

lure me away from my stories.

I lean over

the water that runs through the quarry,

try to submerge myself

in those brown depths,

drown out

all the doubts.

But without my monsters,

I'm not sure

how long I would last

down below.

During the day

my lungs feel

so weak and fragile.

Then it occurs to me that

the ability to breathe

is not the same as

the ability to live.

So I dip my face

below the surface

and stay there

until my fragile lungs

force me to reemerge.

All at once

I am alive.

My mom

is a woman in mourning.

There are shadows in her voice

as she says good-bye

to my siblings

in the other room.

She's wearing

the color of grease

the color of smoke

the black she always wears

as a waitress.

Unaware of my presence,

Mom enters the kitchen.

She puts one hand on the doorknob;

Dad stands to kiss her cheek.

She pretends not to see him

and shuts the door behind her.

All night I watch Dana

talk on the phone,

curling her finger through the wire.

When she catches me watching

my sister turns away.

“Nothing,” she says. “Fain is just being a freak.”

Then she stretches her legs

toward the ceiling,

aiming for sky.

My sister doesn't know

that I've already been there.

Leaving Dana

to her endless conversation,

I take my post by the window

to wait for moonlight

silence

friends.

A red scarf

flies and swirls

down the street,

followed moments later

by a frantic girl.

Without thinking,

I jump up

run down the stairs

throw open the door

dive down the sidewalk

into the twilight.

The scarf tucks itself

around my ankles,

as if it was looking for me all along.

Breathless,

the girl stops short.

Her hair

is the same color

as the scrap of material

in my hands.

“Oh, thank you,”

she says.

Suddenly I recognize her:

my neighbor,

the girl who sits at the table

with her family every night.

The one I watch

envy

wonder about.

With a smile,

I hold out the scarf.

She quickly takes it and turns away,

but it's too late;

I glimpse the sadness in her eyes.

“Thanks again,” she blurts,

runs back to her house

before I can answer.

The door slams

but I'm frozen in place,

thinking about that once-perfect family.

Maybe

I'm not the only one

with monsters outside my window.

That night

I wait.

When the numbers

on the clock read 12:00,

my little friends arrive.

As always,

they announce their presence

with sounds and taps.

I drop eagerly

from the sill

and the curtains flutter

like fingers reaching for me

even after I'm gone.

I gasp when I see it:

the forest behind my house

has become a jungle.

Plunging inside

without hesitation,

we run and weave

through leaves and vines,

more wild than anything around us.

I hear the roar of a tiger,

the calls of a toucan,

the screeches of a dozen monkeys.

We climb a great tree,

swing alongside them,

imitate their calls.

It would be so easy

to get lost

in this place

of green chaos.

When the sun

touches the horizon

I follow my friends home,

grateful that someone

can show me the way.

On my way to class

I spot a familiar figure,

someone with my golden hair

and a thirst for something more

than we've been given.

My brother has a girl

pressed up against his locker.

It's Iris Anderson,

a cheerleader with flawless skin

that other girls probably imagine

ripping off and putting on as their own.

She giggles,

and for a moment

I forget that it's strange

to be watching my brother like this.

I have never understood kissing,

the lure of lips and slobber,

the meaning of tongues and heat.

It looks as though

he is searching for something

in her mouth.

I wonder

if he'll like what he finds.

While everyone

eats their sandwiches

drinks their milk

chatters loudly

I sit silently beneath my tree.

Carl rests in the grass

far from everyone else,

drawing as always.

The blank pages in my lap

quiver

as if to get my attention.

I am too busy

staring at Mary Mosley

and her friends

to write anything.

Like every other day,

they talk and laugh.

I imagine myself

talking and laughing, too.

But I never noticed until now

my neighbor

sitting with them.

She sees me staring,

quickly looks away.

“That girl is by herself,”

I hear her say

about me.

“I feel bad for her.”

“She's too quiet,” Mary replies.

“It's like she's plotting our demise.”

The others laugh,

all except my neighbor,

who is entirely focused

on plucking a blade of grass

free from the ground.

I want to inform them

that I am not silent

because I have nothing to say.

I am silent

because no one is listening.