The Reason: How I Discovered a Life Worth Living (6 page)

S
eventh grade is a whole new universe. It holds the world of junior high, the world of romantic feelings, the world of being forced to shed your childish identity and scramble to search for a new one. There is heat, pressure, chaos, and the setbacks of finding foolish ruts.

Attending a new school with strangers was nothing new to me. I was almost snuggling down in the comfort of being the girl no one knew or cared to know when I walked into Mrs. Mackelway’s science class for the first time. There was one seat left in the corner behind the door when I slipped in just after the bell rang. It was the perfect seat, the kind most likely to help me blend into the wall. Blending into the wall was one of my main objectives in school. I didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than I had to because
I knew I was fair game for bullying. My height, physique, thrift-store clothes, nerdiness, and thick glasses, coupled with my gross feelings of being ugly and stupid, seemed to produce the perfect homing device for bullies. So I was happy to find a spot where no one noticed me.

But Mrs. Mackelway gave me a look that said,
I notice you. And I also notice that
you’re tardy
. It also indicated that she was going to let me slide, just this once. As she addressed the class, I slid my hand into my partially opened backpack and quietly removed my paperback copy of Anne Rice’s
Interview with a Vampire
. I held the book under my desk as I pulled out the pen I was using as a bookmark. I then opened the novel to where I’d left off. But before I could situate myself to see the open pages in my lap, I heard Mrs. Mackelway change her tone.

“This is a science class, and it isn’t very friendly toward vampires.”

I looked up like she’d caught me. I was relieved to find she was looking in another direction. I followed her gaze to a boy who was leaning back in his chair, holding the sequel to the book I was reading,
The Vampire Lestat
, boldly in front of his face.

“Well, as a science teacher, you should know that blood is an extremely important part of biology, and I can assure you that vampires are very interested in blood,” said the boy without putting his book down.

My stomach turned into a ball of knots at his impudence. This is the kind of behavior that warranted swift, angry discipline in my house. “You wanna be
smart? Who do you think you’re talking to?” my mother would yell as she stormed toward me demanding respect for her authority.

I was nervous to see how the teacher would respond.

Mrs. Mackelway smirked. I was amazed. Had this guy overruled her with his carefree attitude?

“Well, unfortunately for you and your argument, biology is currently a ninth grade course. I’m afraid you’re going to have to put your vampire books away while you’re in seventh grade physical science.”

The boy didn’t move as he finished the page he was on.

“Ryan Burris?” said Mrs. Mackelway, in a more authoritative tone.

“Oh, huh? Yeah, yeah. Touché,
Mrs. Mackelway, touché.”

He smiled at her with a look of victory on his face. His teeth were crooked. He wore braces but they hadn’t fixed much yet. His big, proud, crooked smile seemed to be another way to flip off society’s idea of perfection, and I found this to be absolutely beautiful. His dark brown hair fell just above his shoulders, long, straight, parted down the middle, and shaved underneath. The only things that had a brand on him were his well-worn Airwalks. His oversized blue flannel shirt looked like he could have gotten it from the same thrift store I got mine from. On the side of his shoe he had a small scribbled drawing of a marijuana leaf. I had almost the exact same drawing on the inner sole of my Converse All Stars.

Ryan was still leaning back in his chair when he tossed his book onto his desk and crossed his arms over his head. He flicked the pen in his hand the way someone would flick ashes off of a cigarette.

Ryan did not fear authority like I did. This intrigued me. He respected being taken seriously, even though he was being
a total smart aleck. He liked Mrs. Mackelway for being willing to be a smart aleck back.

Ryan tucked his hair behind his ears and finally looked in my direction. Embarrassed, I quickly looked away, hoping he didn’t notice how long I had been staring at him.

Stale Cigarettes and Cheap Deodorant

Every week Loretta’s mom hosted a Bible study at her house. Loretta was my friend, so I went to hang and hear about Jesus. A group of us got high before we headed over to her house. Ryan came too.

We devoured her mom’s freshly baked banana bread. Then we sat in the living room while Loretta’s mom talked to us about God and Jesus and all of it. Although I felt welcomed and loved, I could never remember anything she said about him. After she finished talking, Ryan invited me into the backyard to have a cigarette with him.

“Did you finish the book I let you borrow yet?” he asked me as we walked around the side of the house.

“Almost,” I answered as we sat down on the grass with our backs against the brick wall.

He lit my cigarette and took a drag before he handed it to me. The crickets seemed like they were making some passionate speeches about life being deeper than we knew it was.

I wasn’t looking at him, but I could feel him staring at me. He wasn’t going to stop until he had my full attention. I was so nervous I felt like I was going to throw up. Finally, I looked up to see that he was completely sure of himself, even a little intimidating. His mature eyes held me still while he spoke his mind.

“I’m not interested in dating a bunch of girls. If I’m gonna go out with a girl, I want something that’s going to last.”

I thought about the story he’d told me about his parents. They’d stayed together since high school. What a legacy. How romantic.

He looked at me like I was supposed to answer. I didn’t really know what to say. But every movie I’d watched since I was little had taught me that it was time for me, as the girl, to make the move to kiss him. I hesitated, not sure if that was the right thing or not. When I finally made up my mind, the moment I went in to kiss him he turned his head and I landed the kiss on his cheek. He turned back to me with a surprised smile.

“Did you just try to kiss me on the lips?”

He was making fun of me now, the way he did to everyone. I was so embarrassed. He put his arm around me and pulled me closer to him. He smelled like stale cigarettes and cheap deodorant. I found it lovely. His smile got bigger, then giddy. I still wasn’t sure whether he was making fun of me or not.

Then he kissed me.

I knew in that moment I was wanted. It was one of the first times in my life I felt
chosen
and
wanted
. It was the deepest emotional experience I’d ever felt.

Real Friends Don’t Light Themselves on Fire

Ryan and I had been dating for two years. There seemed to be thousands of traumatic events that I managed to survive. One day we were skipping school and hanging out at my friend Adam’s house. The party was pretty small, but I guess we felt like we were a pretty good group of friends. Until the day Mike Hall invented the phrase “You just pulled a Mike Hall.”

He’d just bought a Zippo he was proud of. He kept flipping the top open, lighting it, and swiping his hand through the flame. I guess he got bored with that because he started
lighting the fringe of his jeans so he could watch the flame run up his pants and burn out. Suddenly he was stomping around the room with his leg completely on fire. My friend Amy grabbed a pillow and smothered the flames. When she pulled the pillow off, all of the skin on his leg came with it. He was in a lot of pain. I felt awful for him.

“You’re an idiot! What, do you have no brain at all? You could’ve burned my house down!” Adam yelled.

The profanities flew.

“Hey, stupid! What’s wrong with you? You almost killed yourself and got us all busted!” yelled Ryan.

More and more profanity was spewed.

“We have to call someone to take him to the hospital,” I protested.

“No! That stupid moron has to get out of my house now! He’s got to go sober up so no one thinks we do idiotic crap like that here. Let him find his own ride to the hospital.”

Adam and Ryan had no sympathy for the whimpering boy. He was a stupid idiot and that was that. They kicked Mike out and made him walk home.

That was the first time I had seen such a horrible thing among my group of “friends.” I wondered for a split second what dumb party foul I would have to pull in order to get kicked out and left to walk home by myself with a serious injury.

It was my first taste of just how shallow and fake drug-centered relationships can be. I used to think partying together was a legitimate way to connect with people. Suddenly I got a vague sense of just what a cheap façade it was.

But when I looked at Ryan, he consoled me by urging me to laugh at Mike. It was supposed to make me feel like I was different from him. It was supposed to reassure me that Ryan didn’t just use me because I was convenient, like he seemed to use Mike. I was on the inside of his heart and it was
us
against the stupid idiots. He loved me. We were each other’s first love, and he was committed through thick and thin.

Right?

Christmas Break

I hadn’t seen Ryan since I’d left two months earlier. Even though my mom had sent me to live with my grandparents a few states away, we both promised to stay together.

“I’ll see you at Christmas,” he said.

“What a perfect Christmas present,” I said through tears as he kissed me goodbye.

He had cried too that day.

Christmas break had finally come. I told my mom I was staying the night at Loretta’s. As soon as she dropped me off I called him.

“Surprise! I’
m here. Come see me! I’m at Loretta
’
s.”

“You
’
re here?” he said slowly.

“Yes!”

Pause.

“Lacey, I need to tell you something.”

“What is it?” My heart sank as I recognized his bad-news voice. I hoped no one had died.

“You were gone so long, Lacey.” He sounded like he was going to cry.

“What do you have to tell me?” Now I felt like crying, not sure what he would say.

“I slept with Alicia.”

I was completely shocked. The phone dropped out of my hand and I didn
’
t realize I had stopped breathing until Loretta asked me what was wrong. That
’
s when I finally caught my breath enough to weep, to mourn.

When Ryan said he slept with Alicia, it was like he had said the name of dozens of people. I had art class with Alicia, and therefore was forced to overhear her loudly and proudly tell her detailed stories of who she’d slept with that week as we worked on our projects. It was always a different guy. She was disgustingly flippant about a subject I really wanted to believe could be sacred. I always felt relieved to have barely missed being the way she was, because I had met Ryan. I was so thankful for him. But I was naïve.

Maybe Alicia already had her heart broken the way mine was now breaking. Maybe she was flippant about love because “love” had been flippant with her. Maybe she didn’t care about love, because love had not cared about her. In this moment I realized how someone could stop caring about sacredness, because in this moment sacredness felt deceitful.

The sacredness of my relationship with Ryan poured beautiful promises out of our hearts and into each other. I believed with everything in me that we were so very different. Every other relationship out there in the world had nothing on our love. They didn’t know us. They didn’t understand us. They might fail, but we never would. We were perfect together. We were perfect.

That’s how much certainty I had about our relationship. I believed everything we said to each other. All of our “forever” and “never” promises were true, at the time. Ryan taught me
to stop caring about what people thought—authority figures, my friends, who cared what they said.

But on this day he taught me to stop caring about the sacredness of romance. If time can change a promise, no matter how well-intentioned or how heartfelt and meaningful, then all the promises we made were lies, right? From perfection to lies in the span of one short phone call.

I believed in Ryan the way I now believe in God: I worshiped him. But that is too much weight to place on someone you care about—too much for anyone. It turns out no one is god enough to be God except God himself. Ryan was just a sixteen-year-old boy who needed a savior just like I did. But in that moment, all I could do was mourn the death of my idolatrous relationship. I longed to die with it. I had one less reason to care about living.

I’m so thankful that my story does not end here. Romance, friendship, leadership, and love have turned out to be so much more than I ever thought they could be. All earthly versions of these things are merely dark reflections of heavenly ones. At the time I could not fathom there was something deeper and more real than the love I had felt with Ryan.