In Memory (3 page)

T
hink there was a fence or something in the snow there.

Once they saw all that blood, they backed off. Obviously their threat about actually
killing me was a hollow one. H
eard them running away as I managed to get to my feet with
my hand clamped to my neck. D
on’t think they hit an artery or vein or whatever, but bleeding from the neck is always an alarming sight.

The clinic was on just the next
block,
I just had to make it there…

One step at a time.

Oh man, I’ll finish this story tomorrow, I’m
gonna
sleep now.

173 Days, 7 September, Sunday

My gosh
,
can’t believe I
cliffhangered
my own diary.
Geez
.

I’ll pick up directly from my last recollection and then write about the junk that happened today.

O
nly had a few steps left until I got to the clinic. I remember just counting the puffs of breath crystallising in front of me until I g
ot to the door. T
hink someone asked me if I was
alright
, they might have helped me get in the door.

When I got in there, I kept saying my sister’s name, spitting blood into my hand.

“Terra, Terra, Terra…” Whoever brought me in here, an older man, I think, relayed my gasping words to the nurses on staff. He was kind of
fatherly looking
, black moustache and hair, silver on the sides. They brought me to a room, and sat me down on a wide chair.

Terra was by my side eventually, her warm hand cupping my face and asking me what happened.

I blinked slowly, wiping my mouth on my sleeve. I could still feel the hot blood running down my face. “I got beat up.”

“I can see that! But by
who
? Why?”

“Guys from school… because…” D
idn’t want to tell her, I don’t know why. Oh.
Because I wasn’t sure if it was true or not.
They beat me up because they thought I was gay, when I wasn’t even sure of it myself.

“You know what? Tell me later. You need stitches, and oh my god.”

My hand dropped from my neck, revealing the long jagged cut where the fence had scraped it. Blood ran down my neck and over my collarbone, dripping down the front of my coat.

Terra steadied me, as I almost swayed right off the chair.

“Aerian. Stay awake, okay?” She grabbed my
hand,
pressing it to my neck, “Hold your hand here. Keep pressure on that.”

She called for someone else, saying something a
bout me losing a lot of blood. G
uess I did.

Terra stitched me up herself, keeping me ste
ady. Other people were around,
wish I remembered everything better; this part of the memory gets a little fuzzy. I remember being warm, the pain, then sleepy… so sleepy.

She wouldn’t let me sleep, though, and finally got the bleeding to stop.

In total, I got 27 stitches in my face and neck. The scars are gone now, except for the one on my neck and one below my right eye. The one on my eye pulls the corner of it down a little more than the other side. The one on my neck is still a weird brown-pink smudge, forever keeping the memory of that day.

Every time
Terra sees it, like when I’m wearing a muscle shirt or something, she turns away with her eyes closed. I know she remembers how scared she felt that day.

Remembering how close I was to dying.

C
ouldn’t die that day
, come to think
; it wasn’t when
Mum
said it would happen.

When I was sufficiently recovered enough, she gave me some juice, and promised a sandwich, then sat down across from me. She leaned forward, her blue-grey eyes soft with concern.

“Aerian…” her voice is so soothing, like a blanket wrapped around me, “What happened? Why did those boys attack you? What started it?”

“They… they don’t like me.” I drank some of the juice, looking away from her soft eyes, “…They just followed me from school, and when I went into the alley as a shortcut, one of them threw a rock.”

“What aren’t you telling me, Aerian?”
Oh no, she knows I’m leaving it out, she knows…

“Nothing.” I lied, keeping my eyes firmly away from hers, my chest filling with knots. If I looked at her now, I knew I would probably cry, just from the frustration. Tears burned in my eyes, “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing? You call this nothing?” She grabbed my chin, forcing me to look at her. As predicted, two big tears tumbled from my eyes, rolling over the stitches.

“It’s nothing.” I maintained in a strangled voice, looking away again, very aware of the tears falling hot and fast down my face.

She sighed deeply, got to her feet, and gently wrapped her arms around me. I clutched at her shirt, burying my face in the crook of her neck, choking out those words. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing,
it’s
nothing…”

In retrospect, it really wasn’t
nothing.
This was a huge deal. Now that I’ve seen Noah in pain like that, I know what it
was like for Terra that day. W
ant to apologise to her still, but I just don’t know how I should.

Maybe tomorrow I’ll cook her a nice dinner and when she inevitably asks what all the fuss is about, I’ll tell her it’s an apology dinner.

It sounds like a good plan.

But I am
wayyyy
tired now, so I shall retire.

172 Days, 8 September, Monday

Perhaps one of the most singularly frustrating things about writing is that it is virtually impossible to depict every minute detail about what is happening.

For instance, while I am writing, somewhere, he got hit by a car, and he made a cup of tea, and he bought a pack of pencil crayons from a guy who had stolen them from a drug store that went out of business, and put them on a shelf in the office supply store, when all the while he’d stolen the pencil crayons for his younger sister, who had bought her own at the office supply store and the thief met her there, and absentmindedly put the pencil crayons down and the went to lunch together.

Do you see my point? If we were to write everything that was happening in relation to other things, writing would be nothing but run-on sentences. That’s why it’s difficult sometimes, to choose only the relevant details to include.

And time is also irrelevant. We can write about the past and the future simultaneously, for they are the same thing, depending on the perspective in which you perceive a single event.

Therefore, everything written must be taken as the present, as there is no way to disprove it isn’t, and the written word
always
becomes the read word, which exists solely in the present.

I think about that when I put a date on my writing. Who’s to say I wrote the correct date? Only I would know.
Could
lie to the page and pretend it’s yesterday, and no one but me will know the difference because they’re not here. Writing is the ultimate form of lying to the world.

I hope he’s at school tomorrow. Maybe he was vacationing with his family over the weekend, so he’ll be at school tomorrow, definitely. Yeah.

171 Days, 9 September, Tuesday

He wasn’t at school again. I
kinda
feel disappointed.
Where is
he…?

And this many absences at the beginning if the year can’t be good… Maybe when he comes back to school I’ll help him catch up. It’ll give me a reason to talk to him anyway.

Today I stayed an extra hour at the hospital to go chill with some of the older residents. M
et the new nurse, her name is Gertrude. Yes, she’s old. I don’t think any parent would name their child Gertrude nowadays. I guess if you do… um… way to keep the past alive?

Ehhh
… I really should co
ok that nice dinner for Terra… M
ade stroganoff for dinner tonight. I have to buy more
cornstarch
tomorrow.

170 Days, 10 September, Wednesday

S
uppose it would be good for you to know more about why I have to work at the hospital. Terra and I live together, just the two of us. Our parents died a l
ong time ago, I was about ten. Mum
died first, then Dad after her.

I really don’t know the circumstances of their deaths, and to be honest, it doesn’t bother me very much. I’m happy with Terra. She’s raised me well.

So we have to work to make all of the income for my house. Occasionally, I do wonder what it’s like for all the other people at my school. They must not have as much to worry about, since
their parents are supporting them
. I do get annoyed when I hear them gripe about how hard their lives are
,
I just assume they don’t have to work to keep their house.

Of course, when you make an assumption, you make and ass out of you… and…
umption
?
………
yeaaaahhhh
. That do
esn’t really make any sense. S
hould have worded that more carefully.

W
as only assuming they don’t have to work harder than me, but who knows, right? Maybe they have an unhappy home life, or live alone;
can’t really
judge people based on how I see them at school.

So I do my best to be nice to everyone I meet.

If Terra ever asked if I minded working to stay here, and pay for stuff, of course I would say no. She works so
hard,
I have to help her as much as I can.

169 Days, 11 September, Thursday

Hahaha. My day today certainly was interesting.

D
idn’t have work at the hospital today, so I ended up going straight home
after school
.
Had
a lot of
free time I don’t usually have. D
ecided to make some tea and toast and read the pape
r. W
as in a weird mood, where I wanted to be in the living room.
It’s weird
,
I get like that sometimes
.

Anyway, when I was reading the paper, I came across an ad in the Classifieds, requesting h
elp at the Fine Arts Centre. C
alled them up and they said if I could get there as soon as possible it would be great.

I hurried over there, naturally, and was greeted by a group of old ladies. Apparently, they were setting up a Drawing class in the studio in the Fine Arts Centre, and needed someone to help carry things and stuff like that.

The teacher of the class, Ruth, reminded me of the stereotypical kind old woman. Her hair was thick and snow white, and was piled on top of her head in thick curls. She smelled of cookies.

All the ladies liked me very much I think. I could tell they were the kind of… frisky types.

Since it was so hot today, I opted to wear a white muscle shirt to deflect some of the sun, which appare
ntly they liked rather a lot. W
as getting some boxes from the top shelves when I first noticed the group of redheads,
Bethie
, Mary, and Marian, all giggling behind their wrinkly hands.

C
ouldn’t help but blush when I figured out they were… checking me out. Old ladies! Really! I find this pretty funny now, but I was genuinely embarrassed earlier.

Those old ladies.
Geez
.

After being looked up and down by them for a while, I finally asked lightly what they were looking at.

“Well, you, of course.”
Bethie
replied unblushingly, “Have you ever considered modelling, dear?”

I have never considered it in m
y life. T
old them so, and they all tittered in appreciation.

G
uess I’m okay, looks-wise. I’m not someone who makes babies cry or anything. I’m pretty
tall,
I’ve heard that’s a good thing. But I’m not really in
shape,
I don’t have amazing abs or crazy awesome biceps. Honestly, I’m pretty average.

I think my best feature is my eyes. I like my eyes.

Apparently, according to
Bethie
, my best feature is my ass.

Her telling me this was the most embarrassing part of today for me.

The best part was the pretty big wad of cash from the ladies for helping them. I restocked the whole kitchen with it.

At least I had an amusing day. Terra had to work really late, so I’m waiting up for her.