A Portal to Leya (12 page)

How could I not have felt it? The waves never
reached me because I never suspected. I laughed and danced. I had fun at our
school party. I decided Leya was with Neal. That was that. In fact, I wasn't
even mad anymore that she chose Neal. I pretended I had lots of friends and
somewhere I imagined Leya was wishing she had come to the party, and this made
me feel even more confident sporting my 1920's gangster costume with my hair
slicked back under a fedora hat and oxford shoes. I couldn’t wear the mustache
because it itched too much. God, if you can hear me, Leya. I’m sorry.

Lance

COMMENTS

Jabberwocky9
When
my friend committed suicide, I felt as if I could have done something to save
him. I kept reliving it until I couldn’t breathe or eat or sleep anymore. You
need to forgive yourself for having fun at the party. You couldn’t save her.
Some things are just out of our control.

Anonymous
time
heals.

@all—thanks.

THE
MURDER

I think this blog is making my brain
hurt. I have a massive brain glitch. I didn’t sleep last night. I think I want
to forget. But, I can’t. I feel like I’m digging deeper into the memories, to
get as close as I can to the core, the mother board, in order to understand it.
I think Trudy is a distraction but I can’t rely on her. Trudy is not Leya. I
torture myself on a daily basis. My brain keeps replaying how it
could
have
happened if Neal wasn’t with Trudy and he did murder Leya.

This is how I see it:  Leya is riding
her bike…thinking about the Halloween party, her costume, the fun, the music,
the candy. And then he comes along— Neal pulls up alongside her. maybe she recognizes
the sound of his truck so she slows, turns around. He sticks his head out the
window, calm, inviting
“
Come on, Leya, I just want to talk.”
She
says no, initially, and keeps pedaling because she wants to get to the
Halloween party and maybe has some inkling that something is off. But Neal is
relentless. He follows, slowly, pleading. So, she agrees, reluctantly. He puts
her bike in the back, throws it in the bed of the truck in an unusually
forceful way. She senses something, turn to look, feel your heart beating
faster. Then when she is absolutely sure, Neal starts to accelerate. She tells
him to slow down. He goes faster, turns in the wrong direction, away from North
Main Street and Charles Pond High, and down Fern Road, heading towards
Elizabeth Park, the last place she’d see. And then maybe she asks him where
he’s going, and he locks the doors, goes even faster, further away from the
center, away from safety. She panics, but tries hard not to show it. She
pretends everything is fine to keep him calm. The roar of his truck is
deafening. He turns into Elizabeth Park, driving slowly down the meandering one
lane road to a secluded spot crowded with the pines and brush (the same spot
Mrs. Green would find your body, lifeless, the next morning). Tonight, because
we pushed the clocks back the night before, the sun would have set by 6:00
p.m., and it would be already dark, isolated—no walkers or joggers, no cars. She
feels odd, almost desperate but still in denial. She wants to believe it’s all
good and normal, and she imagines herself opening the door, jumping out,
getting away from him; she decides this time is for real and she will never get
in his truck again.

This time never happens. He reaches over
to kiss her. She pushes him away because now she knows nothing is normal and it
will never be okay. Now she knows for sure he will never let her go. She starts
to thrash and fight and scream. At that point, he holds her mouth to quiet her
and she gasps for air. He presses down on her yanks her pants down and his own.
Maybe he never even meant to kill Leya, initially, but he had to have her one
last time and his anger blew out like some beast, beyond his control. I’ve read
that victims become calm when being raped for a few reasons:

1)
Defeat

2)
Fear

3)
Shock

4)
Inebriated (you didn’t drink)

Once
he’s done, he realizes that she is too quiet, still. He pulls his pants up,
pulls hers up too as if it will change what’s happened. He panics, turns the
inside light on, and notices the way her lips are parted, how her eyes stare
upward. He shakes her a few times, says her name, and then swears, pounds the
dashboard with his fist.

Why
do I torture myself? I need Trudy, wine, something. Help me, Leya.

pm

It’s
hard to concentrate at school because I’m sleep deprived.

So,
during last period, history, when Daglio was sketching out the end of the year
project, I sketched out a sociopath’s (possibly Neal’s) profile:

1.
Neal never takes accountability for anything

2.
Neal would get mad at Leya for dying

3.
It’s easier when he’s mad to drag Leya’s body out of the truck and dump her in
the brook

Is
it Leya? Is she sending me a sign telling me Neal did it? I should go the
police and tell them about Trudy and Neal. What if he didn’t do it? Lately, I
can’t stop thinking of her lifeless body discarded like garbage in the brook,
next to the wooden bridge we crossed so many times when you were alive; the
bridge that led to the gazebo and the pond with the ducks. Leya always had
bread for the ducks. And after the truck pulls away, and the hum of the motor
is faint, there she is—alone and still in the dark, and air is silent; and the
last breath is moving out of her pink lungs; I can’t get these thoughts out of
my head. They just keep replaying. She was wearing  her favorite jeans with a
peace sign sewed on the pocket and her forest green hoodie with Charles Pond
and Chieftains on the front. I have to think of it now while she’s fading, or
I’ll forget her. Hate sends volatile waves into the air like a ferocious beast,
like a poisonous gush of negative charges. I hate Neal. I hate whoever did that
to Leya. So much hate scares me. I have no doubt, today, that Neal is the
murderer. I have to channel this anger, let it fall and settle on someone like
silt, let it rest there for a while until it dissolves or gets blown away. But
tomorrow, who knows.

Lance

COMMENTS

Heather
sorry,
Lance. Anything I can do please let me know. Your memories are all part of the
healing process.
Btw:  you write like a poet (fwit)

Susanne
awful…it’s
so hard to read this blog.

ABANDONMENT

I
read in the news how Neal’s parents were gamblers. They left him asleep in his
car seat in front of a casino and he woke up six hours later crying and
dehydrated. His parents were arrested for child abuse and Neal was taken out of
his house and placed into foster care. The Lourdes adopted him early on and took
great care of him. But still there is his past, his origins. He came from a
negative source and some of that was ingested.

I
still
can’t eat much lately. I’m sure I’m dropping weight. My pants are
hanging off me. These thoughts consume me, strong currents like a tsunami in my
psyche. My brain is in the middle of a reboot that never finishes. Trudy keeps
pestering me to walk home with her. I can’t do it. I don’t know why. I never
see Leya anymore. I hope she doesn’t abandon me. No one wants to be abandoned.

Lance

COMMENTS

Jabberwocky9
Yes,
that abandonment is hard to deal with no matter how much love and then there’s
genetics too. So maybe it’s not entirely Neal’s fault, but he still has to pay
the piper.

Heather
thanks
for the email. I hope I helped!

@heather
you did.

THE
TRUTH

I
just found out something big, really big. It’s about the Emmet Bryce. I always
thought Emmett Bryce was a great name. I figured h was some famous artist and
that one day he’d look for me, take me for a trip on his yacht. I imagined I’d
live on there for a year or so. I’d sail all over the world with Emmet Bryce
and I’d get inspired and become a famous artist too. After all, it was his idea
to name me Sir Lancelot. He had high hopes for me. Leya tried to warn me. She insisted
that I get over it and that Emmet Bryce could be some average blue color worker
or even a homeless guy on the street. All along, I suspected the static, the
weak line, but I didn’t want to admit it. Now I know Leya was right; it was all
one big lie and that life is random and dark waves are closer than I ever
imagined.

It all started at breakfast this morning: Dorrie was
standing at the sink in an odd way with the newspaper in hand, folded, staring
at me, looking way too serious. She said she wanted to talk to me. She handed
me the paper. Here’s what I read:

Faith tested by Lutheran church members.
One of our own… burns down Emmanuel Lutheran church. When asked why he said it
was the most practical thing to do. The church was undergoing renovations and
had just announced plans to acquire a new alter. The arson was an artist with
psychological problems, Bipolar, but still well liked and a member of the
church. He’d come every weekend and collect the tithe, or help out with the
food drive or clothes collection. Parishioners described him as erratic, but pleasant
when he was on his meds.

 
I read it but didn’t
get it. I told her I didn’t get it. None of it was making sense. Why should I
care? Then I read more: 
But Emmet Bryce didn’t always want to take his
meds, his friend reported, because he couldn’t paint when he took his meds.

Emmet Bryce was the name of the crazy man who burned
down a church, who was prone to rages and outbursts and Emmet Bryce, my father,
was arrested for assault and battery.

Even though I read it,
I didn’t want to believe it. I threw the paper down. I ran from the room,
thumped up the stairs, and slammed my bedroom door so hard the frame cracked. I
couldn’t move. I couldn’t even cry. I just sat there on my bed, frozen. When I
did finally move, an hour or so later, I found Dorrie at the kitchen table with
a cup of tea. The room smelled like cinnamon apple. She stirred the cup with
the spoon, moved the teabag in and out. My father was in a hospital in New
Haven pending a psychiatric evaluation and all she could do was let her tea
steep. Dorrie confessed it all to me—where he’d lived for the past twenty years
when he returned from Europe, how he was an artist but mentally ill and refused
to take his medication. She told me that she lost contact with him years ago.
She tried to stay with him, said she loved him but he was too erratic.

“I thought he was an artist in Paris?
What about that? How could you lie to your own son?” I was mad, madder than
I’ve ever been at Dorrie.

“It made you happy,” she said. “And when
I tried to tell you the truth, you would cover your ears, scream. You didn’t want
to know the truth.”

Her voice was shaky. I suddenly felt bad
for her. She was nervous, shaking. I’d never seen her like that. She never once
took a sip of her tea. Not once. I thought of her in the photograph clinging to
a person she couldn’t keep, smiling happily. I left her there, sitting with a
cup of tea. I should have hugged her, told her it was okay, forgave her. But I
couldn’t. My brain waves are discombobulated. I’ve always believed in this idea
of Emmet Bryce. It defined me, made me think I was important somehow. Now, it
is sinister. I am consumed by sinister. It is all around me. Now, my ground is
crumbling. Dorrie lied to me and nothing seems real anymore.

p.m.

So,
I went to see the school psych, Rodriguez, to confess how I see Leya and how she
talks to me, and how my life stinks, how I am a possible danger to society, how
I don’t want to be locked up or be like my dad, the mad artist who burns down
churches. I didn’t say any of this. Instead, I listened as talked about his new
grandson, Pedro. He had a whole roll of digital picture on his camera. I
pretended to be interested. I decided with all the positive baby waves, my bad
waves weren’t so important. After I looked at the pictures and used up all my
standard responses like—He looks like you—and—cute—suddenly shifted gears,
asked me how I was feeling. I told him school was getting easier, and that I
was feeling much more positive about everything. Then he stared at me. It was
awkward. I think he sensed I was holding back. So I decided to ask him about
being manic. I asked if it was genetic. He said it could be. He explained it as
a high level of energy that gets out of control.
I asked if you could
hallucinate too. He said yes and then asked if I have been hallucinating. I
said maybe. “Do you want to tell me about it?” he asked. I said no again. I
decided I was okay with being manic. I was still young. I could paint. Maybe it
was my legacy. “I hope I’m manic one day” I blurted out. He looked concerned. I
wanted to look at the pictures for a distraction, but the camera was put away.
He wasn’t even writing. He just sat there, glaring at me. His eyes were like
two hot irons searing. I realized I said too much. I felt a pain in my
forehead. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I folded my arms. Then I started
talking about Trudy. I went on and on about how we kissed and how I wanted more
of a relationship but that she seemed aloof and not interested. I told him I
sometimes get stuck on seeing her and how we drank wine. He explained that I
shouldn’t drink and that if I ever needed talk to come and see him. I didn’t
believe him. I felt a major disconnect. Maybe school psychologists only care if
you’re not too messed up.