Ether (2 page)

            My leg
throbs as I half jog, half walk along the beach. I’m willing to endure a little
extra pain to get off this beach sooner. By the time I reach the stairs, I’ve used
up all my adrenaline and am limping so badly I have to climb in stages. I take
a few steps and then rest. A few more, then a rest.  I keep my head down,
watching my feet shuffle along, first the sand, then the stairs, then the
concrete of the sidewalk. And all the way home, I resist the urge to talk to
myself. I am no longer sure I’m alone.

Chapter 2: Reality

If home was
disconcertingly unfamiliar, school looks amazingly unchanged. Three weeks in
the hospital, a week at home and what is different about school? Nothing. The
same rough-hewn, grey stone makes up the front two wings of the school, the
same overly cheerful crossing guard ushers me across the road and the same
scraggly bunch of kids hang out on the front steps. The building is almost
seventy years old and has masqueraded as everything from a church, to a
community center, a country club and now finally a mid-range private school. It
has beautiful landscape surrounding it and old, dramatic architecture when
approached from the front. The back of the building is a new addition and is a
purely modern educational facility, complete with state of the art science labs,
a double gym and an Olympic sized swimming pool.

            We’re one
of those private schools where they don’t make you wear uniforms. Except for
the teachers caring a bit more and smaller class sizes, it’s just like an
ordinary high school, in a very nice building.

            Hundreds of
eyes turn toward me as the heavy blue hallway doors swing open. I’m frozen on
the spot until a high pitched squeal shatters the silence. Mandy, head a mass
of rich glowing curls, comes bouncing up to me with the frenetic energy of a
cocker spaniel. She speaks with a fevered rush, “OMG, you’re really here! The
rumours are totally flying. Piper swears that you died and then came back.
Don’t worry, I set her straight, you just mostly died. I can’t imagine. It was
terrible right? Were your parents totally furious with Derrick or are they more
‘accidents happen’ and stuff? Can you believe how rude Matt was to me at the
hospital? We’ve been friends since we were babies! How could I possibly over stimulate
you?” 

            I
alternately smile and shrug as she races on, leading me down the hallway. Mandy
is everything I’m not; rich, popular and talkative. We’ve been friends since
before Mandy could speak, if there was ever such a time.

            We’re
sitting next to each other in first period English when Mandy finally pauses
and looks at me expectantly. “Uhh...” I stall, trying to recall her most recent
questions, but I tuned her out after the first barrage, so I take a wild guess.
“My mom is still in overprotective mode; I’m supposed to go right home after
school.”

            Mandy makes
a slight ‘tsk’ sound, “You have to see Derrick some time, you can’t avoid him
forever. It was a terrible accident but he was pretty badly hurt too. You know
it’s not his fault. It’s a completely vicious rumour about him drinking. He
would never do something like that. And besides, he was doing you a favour. If
you hadn’t asked for a lift, you’d both be completely fine right now. Not that
I’m blaming you. I’m just saying it’s not really fair to blame him either. You
know? So don’t, like, hate him okay? Or me, I would never have introduced you
if I’d known what would happen-”

            My hand
balls into a fist at my side, but I keep the smooth, impassive look on my face.
I want to scream at Mandy, tell her it sure as hell wasn’t my fault. But a
little part of me wonders. Why did I get into that car with him? I don’t even
remember that part.

            Our English
teacher, Mrs. McTab, a shrivelled, angry woman who always dresses in cheerful
floral prints and made me cry in seventh grade, glares in my direction, like I’m
the one talking. “Ms. Pierce?” she says in her clipped nasal voice.

            I ignore
her, as always, and lean closer to Mandy, “Seriously, I’m not blaming anyone.
I’m just supposed to rest and take it easy.” 

            “Ms.
Veltz.”  It’s amazing how much aggravation and venom teachers can squeeze into
two syllables. Mandy turns her bright white, winning smile on Mrs. McTab, all
at once the perfect, diligent student. Her ability to dissemble is easily her
most useful talent.

            The day
quickly turns into a series of make-up homework assignments, high speed Mandy
prattle, and whispering voices. All of my teachers and the bulk of the student
body have developed a keen interest in me. I’m starting to miss the days of
being invisible and unknown.

            By the time
gym class rolls around, my head is aching and I’m fed up with all the
attention. When Mr. Tenison (otherwise known as Coach T) banishes me to the
bleachers, I’m prepared to accept it as a blessing, until I realize that the
entire class will have nothing else to look at while they ran laps. Lucky me.

            Matt waves
to me as he passes the bleachers, which earns me a few scathing looks from the
other girls. I let my eyes wander the green field beyond the track and beyond
that, the wild wooded area. The school is very proud of the ‘natural beauty’ of
our campuses.  It
is
a pretty view from the windows but it’s usually
populated with smokers of both kinds and kids ditching class, not my normal
crowd. As I turn my head I notice a flash of colour and movement. I swing my head
around, staring at the forest at the end of the field, but see nothing. I start
to look away, and catch another flash, which again is gone as soon as I looked
for it. I rub my eyes; the headache is bad enough by now that I know I won’t
make it through lunch. Reluctantly, I stand and made my way over to the office.

            I’m entitled
to leave early, my mother has already spoken to Ms. Reins, but I’m loath to face
her round, jolly sympathy. I know from experience that I can’t escape without a
volley of ‘poor dears’ and cooing sounds better suited to pigeons than people. I
pause in front of the tinted windows of the administrative office, fighting the
urge to ditch class and go home on my own.

            As I stand
in front of the glass,
he
is suddenly there before me, reflected in the
dark surface of the window. He smiles widely when his eyes met mine. A ripple
of surprise passes over his face. He raises a hand and wiggles his fingers at
me, giving me a hesitant wave. I wave back to him, a little thrill racing
through me. It is
him,
the boy from my dream. His image begins to fade
from the edges like breath clearing from a window.

            I’m still
standing there with my hand up, watching the last twinkle of his eyes in the
glass, when the door flies open. “Rebecca Pierce, you poor dear, why are you
just standing there? Are you ill? Oooooooo, Oooooooo, it must be your head.
Come in, poor little thing, I’ll call your mom right away.” I’m whisked into
the office of polished wood and beige carpeting and gently placed in one of the
comfortable burgundy chairs reserved for welcomed guests.

            If only she
had called my mom! But Mrs. Evelyn Wade-Pierce is impossible to reach, even in
emergencies. She’s always with a client and almost never returns pages from the
school. Ms. Reins isn’t up to the task of tracking her down, especially not
when my ultra-laid back, charming, and handsome father can pick me up at a
moment’s notice.

            If the head
pain hadn’t already made me nauseous, the sight of my father dressed in a
leather jacket, skinny jeans and a button down shirt with very few buttons in
use, jaunting through the door with a motor cycle helmet in one hand, would
have done the job nicely.  Midlife crisis central.

            Still, he’s
all tender fatherly concern. He peers intently into my face.  “How are you
doing kiddo?” he asks gently. I breathe in a whiff of the cloying new cologne
he’s bathed in and my breakfast rockets up. I have just enough time to lean
into the plastic potted plant beside me. In the background there’s a flurry of ‘poor
dears.’

            The ride
home is the most miserable of my life. Between the cologne, pounding headache
and motor cycle vibrations I’ve never been so glad to see my driveway. Before
the accident, he would have dropped me at the curb and sped away. Now though,
he lingers anxiously while I pull out the keys, “You can come in if you want
Dad, Mom won’t be home for hours. It’s still your house.”

            I don’t
turn around to see his break-it-to-me-gently eyes. I know full well that their
separation is going a lot better than their marriage. I don’t even really want
him to come back if it means more fighting, but it really stings the way he
acts like our neighbourhood is a hot zone, even when there’s no chance at all
of them running into each other. It’s kind of hard not to take that personally.

“I’ll
get your pills and make sure you’re settled in before I go, okay?”

            “Sure dad,
sure,” I say as I slump down on the sofa. It takes him all of three minutes to
‘settle’ me with a blanket, headache pills and a glass of water before he lets
himself out. I don’t ask him to stay. He doesn’t want to be here, the message is
clear enough. I try not to think about how much my mom will freak if she finds
out about the motorcycle pick up and child abandonment. The most frequently used
word in her vocabulary is ‘irresponsible.’ It’s not until my headache eases up
and my stomach quiets that I notice large, drying splotches of vomit on my
shirt. Ugh.

I
turn the shower onto its hottest setting and sit in the bathroom waiting for
the water to warm up to near scalding.  I strip off my clothes, leaving them in
a pile on the floor and step into the steaming shower. The water chases itself
in little rivers over my body. I breathe the moist air in deeply, as I trace a
soapy hand over the long red lines on my right arm and the wide raised scar on
my upper thigh. I let the water rinse me clean. Lathering shampoo into my fine
brown hair, I let my fingers skirt the smooth, shaved patch at the base of my
head that edges the fissure in my skull. Just a week ago my neck had been sore
to the touch. Now the gash is completely closed and healed over. It’s amazing
how quickly my body healed. 

I
touch the edges of my scars, where the skin is still rough. There’s no doubt
that I had a close call but now that the punctures are closed and the blue and
purple bruises on my skin have faded to patches of shallow yellow I looked
almost the way I did before. Fully dressed, with my hair down you’d never know
how close a thing it had been.   

            I step out
of the shower, shaking wet hair out of my eyes and groping blindly for a towel.
When my eyes clear I looked up at the mirror and see the word, “Hello” written
across the mirror. My heart does a 360 spin in my chest and I lunge for the
lock on the bathroom door. It’s still locked. Hands shaking, I check it again.
I retreat from the door. It’s a small bathroom, just shower, sink, toilet.
There’s nowhere for someone to hide. I try to calm myself, trying on all kinds
of rational explanations. Trying to get a grip on things I take a hand towel
and scrub the word off the mirror. It’s easier to be calm once it was gone.

            At least it’s
easier to be calm until the mirror starts fogging back up again. I watch
trembling, naked except for a bath towel, as letters begin to form on the
mirror.
Don’t be afraid.
 I have never found any words less comforting.
I scream, fling open the door and hurl myself through the house.

            I clutch
the towel to me as I dive through the front door and race into the yard. Buick
comes bounding over, his eyes shining at the fun of it all. He looks up at me
with sparkling eyes, tail pumping like crazy, as I stand panting and half
crying. Buick’s tongue lolls out to the side, greatly amused by my antics.
Standing in a towel, on my front lawn, next to my big black doodle, I feel
absolutely ridiculous.

            I need to
calm down and think, but not almost naked in the front yard. “Come on Buick,
let’s go around back.”

            I skirt the
house, still not ready to go inside, and settle into the lawn chair on the
deck. With the warm afternoon sun on my skin and the familiar sounds of birds
chirping and trees rustling, the possibility of words appearing on my mirror
seems far more remote. “Let’s think about this boy.” I say to Buick, who is
still regarding me with keen interest. “Either my recent blow to the head is
causing me to hallucinate, or something is trying to communicate with me by
writing on my mirror.”  Buick looks at me with sympathy and turns his head to
the side, “which is impossible of course, but it’s still damned creepy.”

            I knot the
towel around me and force myself to lounge on the chair, figuring if my body is
relaxed my mind will relax too. I spot my diary lying under the little wooden
drink table, with my pen still tucked in from yesterday. At least now I know
what to write. I open it and hold the pen in my hand, mentally composing my
first sentence. I stare at the whiteness without really seeing the page, until
a tiny spot of black appears on the crispness of the journal page. More spots
appear like bubbles rising to the surface of a still pond. Little by little,
the spots form into words,
I’m sorry I startled you.
The sentence slowly
writes itself before my eyes. The words are written in looping, fluid cursive
that is so elegant it looks like calligraphy.

            I don’t
scream. I don’t flinch. I hold very still, the journal clutched in my white
fingers, waiting for the words to disappear, or for more to appear. I blink.
The words stay there. I ease my grip on the soft leather of the journal and
reach for my pen. Shakily, under his graceful script I write, ‘It’s okay.’
Which it isn’t, but what else does one write to an apologetic hallucination?
‘Who are you?’ I add, though I think I know.