The Lonely Ones (2 page)

For weeks and months

I'd heard snatches of conversations,

caught words like

recession

hard times

unpaid

until a short while later

we moved.

The new house

was so old

so small

so wilted

like a person marked by wrinkles,

withered by time and memories.

As we

hauled our life inside

in dented boxes,

I stood on the sidewalk

looking up at the place

I was expected to call home.

The windows

watched like eyes,

peering into my sadness and fear.

I tried to imagine

what kind of family

we would become inside those walls,

so much smaller and fewer

than in the house I'd always known.

“Why do we have to live here?” I'd asked.

“I don't want to move.”

My mother sighed,

knelt down in front of me,

touched my cheek.

“Because sometimes,” she said,

“people have to do things they don't want to do.”

Before I could ask her

what she meant,

Mom stood back up

and went inside.

Leaving me to wonder when

if ever

people get to do

what they actually want.

For so long

it was just the three of us.

Fain,

Dana,

Tyler.

Skinned knees,

missing teeth,

open roads.

Passing through the sunlit days

in blissful unawareness.

When my legs

couldn't keep up,

they waited

with expectant smiles.

When night fell

and I cowered from the darkness,

they were there

to guide the way.

It happened

so gradually,

I didn't see the changes

until it was too late.

My sister discovered

mirrors

phones

boys.

My brother found

sports

parties

girls.

I tried to follow them

to these new places,

and it shocked me

when I stumbled.

Before long

my siblings had run

so far ahead,

they disappeared from sight.

After that

I searched and waited

for someone else

to walk with me.

When she came along,

she wore ribbons

and smelled like sunscreen.

I didn't know

that Katie would be the last friend I'd have

without scales or yellow teeth.

In the summers

Katie's mother would take us to town

and buy us ice cream,

dripping treats that ruined our clothes

clung to our skin.

We licked our sticky fingers,

made forever vows.

In those days

forever felt like

such a sweet promise.

One day

I heard

the rumble of a truck.

When I went to the window

I saw my friend

with the ribbons and forever vows

climbing up, going away.

By the time

I ran outside

it was too late.

She was gone.

I stood there so long,

I felt myself fading

with the sun.

Katie had moved away

and it felt like

the end.

I didn't know that soon

the monsters would arrive

and everything was about

to begin.

At first I thought

the people in my life

were too busy

too distracted

to respond

to the sound of my voice.

Eventually I realized

that they didn't hear me

at all.

It started with my feet,

which slowly disappeared.

Then the rest

began to vanish,

my legs

my chest

my face.

Soon

no one could see me, either.

When I approached others

on the playground,

they looked right through.

When I spoke

to my family,

they didn't raise their gazes.

When my baby brother arrived,

my parents fought,

Dana and Tyler escaped.

All the while

I stood in a corner,

screaming at the top of my lungs.

At first being invisible

was terrifying

sad

lonely.

Shadows had teeth,

curtains had claws.

I lay in my rickety bed

listening to Dana's snores,

so loud they shook

the world.

Tears dripped onto my sheets

in tiny wet circles,

the only mark of sadness

that anyone could see.

Then one night

a voice hissed, “Don't cry.”

Luminous eyes

peered through my window,

but instead of fear,

I only felt wonder.

“What are you?” I asked,

my face drying.

“Friend,” the creature replied.

“Come with us.”

“Where?”

“To the sky!”

Hesitating,

I told him about the dangers

lurking in the dark.

I didn't know then

that my new friends

were confined to the night.

“But without the dark,” the little monster protested,

“you could not see the stars.”

So I followed him outside,

enjoyed our time so much

that I ached for those stars

when the morning came

and ate them.

First day of school,

a new year begins.

Now I turn away

from the sight of my sister

with all her friends,

pretend I don't care

that my classmates find me

strange and awkward.

They don't need to know

that in one brief moment

my hopes

of this year being different

have been dashed against their

uncaring faces.

Outside of our school

that combines every grade and age

I find refuge

beneath a courtyard tree,

focus on the friendly lines

of my notebook.

Getting As is easy;

it's everything else that's hard.

A butterfly lands on my hand,

distracting me from the paper,

and for a wild moment

I'm tempted to rip off its wings.

Humans are capable

of such ugliness.

The creature quivers in the breeze,

unaware that its fate

rests with me.

I stare and stare,

trace the intricate designs on its wings

with my eyes

until the urge passes.

For a few brief moments

I'm at peace.

Then,

without warning,

the butterfly launches itself off my skin

and into the clouds.

There was a time

when it felt as though

my own wings had been torn off.

I was seven years old,

too young to know about

the uncertainties of growing up.

We were playing a game,

my siblings and I,

trying to capture a flag

made of paper towels and sticks.

The sun was so bright

the sky so blue

the birds so euphoric

our hearts so light.

In a burst of ambition

I leapt toward the flag,

and my brother soared after me,

his arms wrapped around my legs.

We crashed

like a sputtering rocket,

two sounds shattering the air.

A crunch.

A scream.

When we landed

I knew something inside of me

had broken.

I remember the flash of pain,

a burning agony.

There were words filled with alarm

rushing engines and doors

white walls and strange smells

a man with a white coat and cool hands.

At the end of it all

my brother came to me,

laid his head in my lap,

drenched me with tears.

I patted his silken hair

with my good hand,

murmured words of comfort

while our family looked on.

That day I learned

what it is

to hurt

to love

to forgive.

It is a lesson

I have learned

every day since.

I didn't always dread going home.

But when my family

began to collapse

I learned to stay away,

avoid getting trapped

beneath all the debris.

I discovered it on a Tuesday,

a place of comfort

I didn't know I was looking for.

I walked

with my head down,

counting cracks

in the sidewalk

when I noticed the trickle.

It led me

away from the road,

through the trees

to the other side.

The quarry

was gray and kind,

still and quiet;

no deaf ears

or unseeing eyes.

I sat on the hard ground,

pulled out my notebook,

and wrote

of triumph

wonder

beauty.

Stories that are

so vivid

so real

I could live inside them.

Water lapped against the rocks,

rising and climbing,

trying to escape,

wanting so badly

to be part of something else.

It always fails.

“I know how you feel,” I said

to the river that day.

The only reply

was the struggling water,

and that felt

like answer enough.

On the way home from school,

I stop in front of a wide store window,

plumes of breath

swirling from my mouth.

There's an envelope in my hands

containing birthday money

I've been saving

to buy new notebooks.

Passersby

probably think I can't decide

among the shoes on display.

They're right,

but they're wrong, too.

They don't know

that when I helped Peter

put on his shoes this morning,

a toe peeked out at me

through the worn cloth.

I know that Mom and Dad

won't have time to notice,

can't give us what we need.

The money in my hands

could keep my brother warm

or take me to whatever world

I dream up.

Finally I go inside;

a bell over the door

announces my entrance.

“Can I help you?” an employee asks.

His long sideburns

look like wool.

I think of shoes

of writing

of choices

of dreams.

Then

I take a breath

and smile.

“I'm looking for a pair of shoes.”

At home,

I show my brother

his new shoes.

He tries them on,

but his interest

is elsewhere.

“Will you build a house with me?”

little Peter asks.

I look down at him,

at the red and yellow building blocks he holds.

Through the closed bedroom door,

I can hear our mother.

She muffles her sobs,

sounds of regret

that we have heard

many times before.

Dana and Tyler have vanished,

become fuzzy and transparent

as they so often do

when I need them most.

I kneel in front of my brother.

“We won't just build a house,” I tell him.

“We'll build a whole city.”

He smiles.

My mother keeps crying.

Next door

there is another family.

Sometimes

when the sun touches the horizon

I creep through our yards

and watch them through the window.

They eat their perfect dinner

wearing perfect smiles,

filling the stillness

with their perfect words

and unbridled laughter.

Sometimes I stand in full view,

right in front of the glass,

part of me hoping

part of me fearing

that they will look up and see me.

They never do.

In the room we share,

filled with my sister's posters

and discarded clothes,

there is one thing I despise the most.

The night-light

shaped like a shell.

I wish

I could throw it back

into the ocean.

Dana has always feared the dark

and all that it brings.

There was a time

our mutual wariness

drew us together.

But that was before.

My sister doesn't understand

that without the darkness

we couldn't see the stars.

Every night

as I'm lying in bed

waiting for taps at the window,

the world narrows down

to a smattering of sounds.

A fan whirring

in my parents' room.

My sister snoring

in the next bed.

A clock ticking

in the hallway.

As I listen

I become a part of it all,

a gust of air

a hitched breath

a single moment.

I am suspended,

hovering above everything

on top of the world

too big and brave to fall.

So by the time

the magic comes

I've already created

some of my own.