A Portal to Leya (15 page)

Trudy’s kiss felt like I was floating. I wonder
where she is now. I remember feeling an urge to crush her with my body. I don’t
know if that’s good. Maybe I am a stalker. Maybe it was me, the one that
crushed my best friend. No, I could never do it. What’s wrong with me? I need
to go to the police. Edward Leedskanlin tried to manipulate gravity. We all are
born with an innate desire to control. I go to the police, tomorrow.

Lance

COMMENTS

Heather
I
got your message. I will meet you at the park. Just say the word. No, you
didn’t do it.

Susanne
Holy
Toledo. What is the world coming to? Come on Lance! There must be some bright
spots, right?

2
cents
yeah, that Lourdes head on a platter, justice,
that’s the bright spot.

WORDS

Three
weeks left. Took the math test and barely passed. Dorian said I should get a
tutor for the summer. I agreed with him because I didn’t want to argue or
listen to a lecture. Leya always said
study hard
. I never understood
what
study hard
meant. I just pretended to know. It made her happy. She
loved reading and poetry. She loved words. I guess I do too. I loathe math.

Lance

COMMENTS

Heather
I
think you are a doll…xoxo I’m a math person, so I can help if you’d let me!
Words are cool too but not as much fun as numbers. Thanks for ykw.

@heather
teach me.

Heather
you
got it.

FLIP
FLOPS

I
think of the oddest things. When Neal was taken away, it was mid-afternoon. The
police came to his house, and took him away in handcuffs. I saw him on channel
3 news His head was down. He was wearing a light blue tee-shirt and dark jeans.
He was wearing black flip flops. I thought about how (if convicted) he would
never wear flip flops. His flips would be part of some past life that would
fade like those strange bits of light that hang on after you turn off the
computer. He had on the same flip flops when he was with Trudy, the night her
grandfather passed. I’m going to call the detective division tomorrow. This
time it’s for real.

COMMENTS

2
cents
flip-flops in prison…maybe. He can wear them in the
shower room. Love my flip flops. That would suck.

Heather
yep, I live in my flips all summer. Coming over tonight? Xo

PTSS

I’ve
been reading, lately. That’s good. I’m returning to an old self with revisions.
I read the government will help soldiers with PTSS or Post Traumatic Stress
Syndrome. Before soldiers would have to prove an incident caused their anxiety
and soldiers became agoraphobic, didn’t leave his house. I’m glad Francis won’t
have to worry. If he has PTSS he can get some counseling and whatever else he
needs until he gets better. I’m going to the police today.

Lance

COMMENTS

2cents
yep
been there done that no way to avoid that PTSS after deployment; it changes you
in ways you never expect it will.

FADING

No,
I didn’t call the police. Don’t ask me why. I can’t explain. School is coming
to an end. It’s supposed to be a relaxed time, but no, it’s utter chaos. Kids
are louder and teachers seem to give up control. We’ve had at least two
end-of-the-year
fieldtrips that I passed on. I miss Leya. She is fading
and it scares me.

Lance

COMMENTS

Heather
I
missed you today xo. I wish you had come to the park. It was gorgeous outside.
I’ve got lots of pics. Dorian slipped and fell into the pond. It was hilarious.
McDermott had on shorts and her legs were like a sixteen-year old!!! It was
bizarre. Surgery?

TRICKY
GREY AREAS

Leya’s voice is in my head all the time these past
few days. I keep trying to ignore. Maybe she wants to say a final goodbye.
Maybe I’m not ready. I won’t even look at her house. I can’t. I’m trying so
hard to move forward. Leya is not making it easy.

I found Neal Lourdes’s FB page. He had photographs of
his dumb truck—Neal standing by his truck and one with Leya standing by his
truck. Then there’s one with him at the beach, a wave breaking in the
background. He’s not smiling (maybe he missed his truck). Instead of his truck,
there’s loyal Leya leaning on him, wearing a pink tee with cut-off jean shorts
(her favorite shorts). There is a patch of a peace sign sewn onto the back
pocket. I think she liked me because I talked her about the waves, the future,
how we are all controlled by energy. I said she had positive waves.
That’s
cool,
she said and slapped my arm
. You’re so neat,
she told me. I
didn’t know how to respond. I wanted to kiss her. But I was a coward. I just
kept talking about cyber waves the speed of data traveling through a copper
wire. In the pic Neal had his big arm slung over you. He’s a weight lifting
kind of guy. He could have easily used that strong arm to hold her, crush her
long, soft neck until she couldn’t breathe. What did she see in him? Maybe he made
her feel safe? I know that sounds like a major contradiction. Grey areas leak
in and they are powerful and tricky.

COMMENTS

Jabberwocky9
grey areas leaking in…a neat idea and explains our inability to always know and
make the right choices.

HEAVY
STATIC DAY

Head was calm, serene today. Days like these are
magnificent. I felt okay getting out of bed. I avoided looking at your house
last night and this morning. I don’t want to see you, Leya. No more. I just
can’t do it.

The last day of school, kids were stuffed into a hot
auditorium watching video clips of the past year. Poorly shot clips by the film
crew who aren’t exactly talented but have always been considered
the
film
crew. I’m typing this, and I’m alone, and I feel displaced. Last year, you
walked home with me. This year, I walked home alone. It’s okay though. Hard to
believe I’m officially done with ninth grade. I am no longer a freshman. It doesn’t
feel much different. Leya would have been graduating, going off to college. She
was going to major in English and become a professor or journalist. Now, she’s
dead. It seems so unfair. No one ever said life was fair. No one ever said life
was fun. Life is pain, loss, sadness.

 I
didn’t want to go to the end of the year party. I stayed home and blanked out,
tried to clean the drive, clear my mind of all excess. I’m stuck. Lost the
cottage we had reserved for in July because Benny boy had to postpone vacation
time for some work stuff. Now we can’t go until August! I’m really stuck and
hot. Did I already say that? Static is heavy.

pm

I
know there’s something I need to do. I know I need to go to the police. I
can’t. What if it’s me? What if they can tell? I’ll be arrested, it will all
come flooding back to me, a repressed memory, how I was angry at Leya for
deceiving me, for pretending to want me and then being with Neal. Maybe I got a
ride to the park, told Leya to meet me there. She would never have suspected.
Maybe I confessed, told her I wanted her, loved her, and then tried to kiss
her. Leya would have been flipped out; she would have been so scared of this
person, this maniac that she thought she knew. I can see her face now. I see it
in my head. It’s horrible. I can’t get it out. I can’t think anymore. Why did I
go that far? If I did do it, I deserve to be dead. I really think I’m crazy.

Lance

COMMENTS

Heather
OMG, please stop, Lance. Where were you? I waited for you. UGH!! You didn’t
have to walk home alone you know!!

@heather
–sorry. Got held up with stuff. Please come by tonight.

NEAL’S
HARLEY

Head
was quiet, clear today. No bad dreams. I’m feeling slightly better. I had to
take a Benadryl to get to sleep. It knocked me right out. I swear I saw Neal
Lourdes riding his Harley in the center. I think it was Trudy Markus on the
back. She was holding onto him and resting her head on his shoulder. I don’t
know how he doesn’t get caught. I’m sure he’s not supposed to be driving his
Harley around town. I guess he doesn’t care. It made me think of the day he
bought it, tried to get you on the back:

We
are sitting on the curb. It’s hot, close to 90s. Leya is wearing jean shorts,
cut-offs. It is the first really hot day of the season. She has on a cotton
shirt with a big sunflower on the front. She has a band aide on your left knee.
We are eating licorice.
I wish we had black licorice.
She wants to ride
bikes to the center to get some black licorice. I think it’s too hot, I tell
her. But, then, I am going to change my mind and it’s too late because Neal
drives up on his new Harley Davidson. The sound is deafening. He pulls up
alongside me. The heat from the engine burns my knees. I stand up and move
away. He tilts his head to say hello. He doesn’t call me wimp boy. Leya ignores
me then (I hate when she does that) and hits Neal on the arm in the same way
she had hit me moments ago:
where did you get this thing?
She likes him
better, I decide, because he has a Harley. He tells her to hop on, and she says
no, and that she is too afraid. I walk away. She never gets on the back. I
worry the whole rest of the afternoon that she might. We never did ride our bikes
to the center that day.

COMMENTS

Susanne
I
hear you’re going to the beach? I’d love to see Francis (and you of course).
It’s been SO long. When are you going and for how long? Maybe I’ll visit for
the day. Btw: Leya did love black licorice and jelly beans : ( I still miss her
so much.

INTENSE
WAVES AND PRECOGNITION

It feels weird to not go to school. I’ve even been reading
the newspaper. Ben and Dorrie stare at me. I can feel their eyes on me. I think
they like that I’m reading. I hate that. I want to be left alone so I avoid all
eye contact.

I read how an Australian psychic led a search team
to a missing woman; it was supposed to be a little girl. The woman psychic had
what’s called a precognitive dream. I know when the phone is going to ring, and
I can complete Dorrie’s sentences. I used to complete Leya’s sentences too.
Waves can be so intense that they shut down electrical appliances or make the
computers run slow. Too many misfires or disconnects might just shut down air
traffic control one day. The Australian woman said she had a sense. She looked
tired. I bet it makes you tired, this kind of knowing—and scared too. I can
relate. I’m tired. And I’m scared. I bet Sir Lancelot was never tired or
scared.

Lance

COMMENTS

Jabberwocky9
My
dreams come true. One time I dreamt that a tree was falling on me. The next
day, we had a wind storm and our car was hit by a tree. I was the only one in
it. But I didn’t get hurt. Another time, I dreamt that my dad got hit by
lightning. The next day, he plugged in the coffee pot and well you get the
drift.

@jabberwocky9
freaky

WILLIAM
BUTLER YEATS AND WI-FI

I woke up and thought of Yeats…”Out of intellect and
sight…And sinks at last into the night.” I remember Leya saying her dad loved
William Butler Yeats. So she said that he was her second favorite poet. Death
of body is final, but not so with waves that keep going—over mountains, oceans,
cities and towns and countries, over us all, pulsating like an infinite beat or
an untamed beast. One day we will be a Wi-Fi world. It will move through us,
spread like a tidal wave or a tsunami—a rush of energy of satellite waves over
our homes and trees and parks and cities. In a perfect world, Neal Lourdes will
be convicted of murder. Ben said they will probably try to get him a more lenient
sentence due to his crumby upbringing. That is new information. I thought that
wouldn’t make a difference. But maybe they have more on him. Before the Lourdes
took him, he was genetically wired to become bad like his parents who were
addicted to gambling and drugs and could care less about him. I must be blessed
to have a mother like Dorrie, really blessed. I never considered that until
now.

“We must dance and we must sing, We are blest by
everything.” William Butler Yeats.

Lance

COMMENTS

Jabberwocky9
Oh
yeah. Yeats rocks baby! I’m a fan!

Anonymous
Yeats
was a great poet. Just like your friend, Ed. Leedskalnin, he suffered from unrequited
love, too and her name was Maude Gonne.

Heather
you surely are blessed and so am I to have found someone like you xoxox

THE
TEARS

I
dreamt about Leya. We were younger, wading in the brook behind her house. We
were talking about the little boy, Mason, who fell and hit his head on a rock
and died. She bent down to pick something up, and then was gone. I spent the
rest of the dream looking for her. I woke up in a panic. I couldn’t help
myself. I opened the blind. I looked. There was nothing. I saw the For Sale
sign, the shed, and an overgrown flower garden. I looked at her window. I
stared and stared as if I could will the blinds to Leya, will her to me. She
didn’t hear me. I just fell back on the bed, and I cried. I’ve never cried so
much in my life. I heard Dorrie shout up the stairs. She must have suspected.
So, I quickly pulled it together. I wonder if Sir Lancelot cried like that when
Queen Genevieve was condemned to burn to death for adultery (with him). I doubt
it because he saved her. But maybe later, when she joined a nunnery at
Amesbury; he supposedly lived as a “hermit” so that means he couldn’t have been
a happy camper. Leya is fading. I feel it; so I can live like a hermit, like
Sir Lancelot, or I can accept love and friendship and live a full life without Leya.