The Red Thread (13 page)

He smiles at me once more, and I miss the feeling of his body against mine as I watch him enter the coffee shop. I lightly touch my lips and smile to myself. I walk home to hear my parents watching a movie in the living room with my sister.

It’s some bad romantic comedy that I would usually have no interest in.

“Do you want to join us?” my mom asks.

“Sure.”

I like that she smiles as I sit down on the couch next to her and Dad, and she lightly hugs me.

“Love you.”

“You too,” I respond.

The movie is quite bad. The lead actress, who can’t act, ends up with the once-douchebag actor but is now magically nice. It’s predictable, but I guess it’s fun. It fools people into believing that true love exists and that there is redemption for everyone. Maybe that is why so many people love these kinds of movies. Either way, it was nice spending an hour and a half with my family. I also liked that I made my mom happy. Clara’s face was glowing and I think I even saw a hint of a smile on my father’s face.

When I go up to shower, it feels like I’m floating on a cloud. It’s as if I am just gliding up the stairs. I feel as if the darkness could never reach me here. I’ve escaped the dungeon, and now I’m running off toward something better, something brighter. I’m running toward Adam. I sound like I’m in some terribly clichéd romance novel. Well, if my life turns into one, I’d be okay with that. Don’t those characters always have happy endings and find contentment in life? I could use a content life.

I wonder what that would feel like—to be completely and utterly happy and content with everything. I would imagine that it feels like there is no darkness inside. It’s just lightness, and everything feels good. It won’t hurt to smile. It won’t hurt to live.

I shower and head to bed, only for my night to be full of dreams about Adam and his magnificent lips and that bewitching gaze. I’ve only one thought when I wake up, that I’d love to drown in his eyes, and in my dream I did. Those eyes took over my sleeping mind, and as I wake, they’re all I can see even now. I’m drowning in a sea of blue, but it’s the kind of drowning that a man could get used to. Instead of death I’m finding life in his eyes. There is a small spark of something. Is it hope? Is it the will to live? I think for the first time in my life, I want to live. I want to see what happens next in my life.

For the first time I feel something close to happiness.

I get up and dress, and as I enter the kitchen, my father and Clara are sitting at the kitchen table. Mom is at the stove, and I smell eggs and bacon. Everyone stops and turns toward me. I’m met by surprised eyes and immense (my word of the day) smiles.

Immense; adj.

Huge, vast, massive, enormous, gigantic, colossal, great, very large/big, monumental, towering, tremendous; giant, elephantine, monstrous, mammoth, titanic, king-size(d), economy-size(d), whopping, humongous, jumbo, astronomical, cosmic, Brobdingnagian.

My mom’s smile especially shines bright.

“Good morning, love.” As a young boy, before the depression got really bad, I used to love when she called me “love.”

“Hey, Mom.”

It’s then I realize why everyone is shocked to see me this morning. I catch my reflection in the window, and there is something different about me. Something people don’t see as often. I am shocked to see that I have a smile on my face.

I sit down to breakfast and eat with my family, and I watch as everyone laughs. Everyone looks so happy. Clara talks about her friends at school and tells us how she wants to start running in the morning again—she used to but stopped when school just got too busy. Dad talks about his office job and how his boss is an asshole and is “up his ass” (his words) all the time. When he starts talking about insurance it goes right over my head. He deals with computers on a daily basis. I just don’t trust any of it. I think books are going out, and it’s a shame because they are so much more reliable than computers ever will be. Computers can crash and you can lose everything. Books never change. They don’t crash, nor do you need to go searching for a website. You don’t need to save any of the information, because it’s never leaving those books. People don’t realize it nowadays, but there
was
a time when people used books and not computers for school or work. I know, crazy, right?

Meanwhile throughout breakfast, Mom just watches and smiles. She’s always been more of an observer. She’s like a silent angel—always watching and listening. When I was in the hospital, Mom would make sure to come every week, sometimes even more than once. We didn’t talk much. Or at least I didn’t talk much. She would tell me how everyone was doing, as if a lot changed in a week, and then we would just sit there. She’d stroke my hair and tell me she loved me and how much she missed me. My mom has always been there for Clara and me. She’s dealt with all my craziness, and now I just wish I could make it up to her. I wish I could do something for her to thank her for never giving up on me.

I check my phone to see that I have a text from Adam.

Good morning, boyfriend : )

Boyfriend. I have to get used to that. I’ve been on dates before, but I’ve never had a boyfriend before. It’s a new feeling, one I like. One I can
definitely
get used to.

“I’ll be back,” I tell my family.

Before they answer, I’m up and I’m texting back. I walk up the stairs and fall right back onto my bed. My blanket is curled into a ball at the edge of my bed, so I just stick my bare feet underneath to keep them warm.

Hello! How are you?

I’m BEYOND swell thanks to you

Thanks to me, he says. I’m making him
beyond swell
. As happiness fills my heart, it is as if a pit is opening in my stomach and swallowing everything. I don’t feel empty, though; I feel limitless. The pit seems to swallow the darkness, and right now I’m only with the light. Right now I feel like I could take on the world. I feel like I’m Ash, but
Evil Dead II
Ash, when he has the chainsaw for a hand, and he doesn’t let anything stop him. That’s how I feel right now, minus the chainsaw of course.

I’m glad to hear that! I’m feeling pretty good, thanks to you
, I finally respond back.

We go on texting for a while, and with each text that comes, my smile seems to grow wider, and my heart continues to beat faster and faster. If he continues to make me feel this way, there’s a chance I might have a heart attack before I turn twenty. At least I’d die happy, unlike the last time I tried to die.

But today I’m feeling good, and I don’t want to think about what I tried to do almost nine months ago.

My day goes by in a bit of a blur, but it also goes by rather smoothly. Work isn’t as slow as usual, and Peter spends it in a drunken stupor. I do wonder how he manages to keep this shop going, though. I have a feeling it will get closed down soon, if he continues to act this way. Peter hasn’t always been like this. There was a time when he cared about this shop and about his business. I don’t know what happened. That was before I started working here.

Today I work with Laurie, and she mostly carts around the books to keep the store in order, and I work the cash register. Honestly, I prefer to do the other job. I like to walk around and make sure all my precious books are where they are supposed to be and in good shape. I mean, when I do the cash register, I can read my book or look through my thesaurus, but when I’m on the sales floor, I feel like I’m with my books. I must seem crazy, talking about books as if they are people, but in a way they are. Each novel has a personality, one quite different from the other. Each one has a story to tell, and the only way is to get to know the novel in a way. So yes, novels are similar to people… or maybe I’m just crazy.

We have a nice steady line of customers today; just enough to keep me busy but not so many where I become overwhelmed. These are the days I like best. It gives me a purpose, but I can also take it easy. You can’t do that at Barnes & Noble.

When I get home, the first thing I do is text Adam. It’s like that is always the first thing I want to do these days is talk to him. He’s the first and last person I want to speak to every day, but I’m still getting to know him. I feel that this is too early for me to feel all of these emotions. Shouldn’t that happen weeks or even
months
after dating a person? Maybe I’m just thinking I like him this much because he’s the first person to ever really seem to want to be with me. Could I actually be fooling myself into thinking I like him? Is this my mind tricking me? What if none of this is real?

No. I refuse to think like that now. I demand for these thoughts to stop. Why can’t my mind just let me be happy for a change? When something good begins to happen, my mind must add doubt to the equation, and doubt is always only the beginning. Once doubt is added to any situation it’s like a disease. It starts slowly, and then it makes its way through your body, never ebbing away. But it takes its time, making sure to plant its roots in so deep you can’t pull them out. It poisons your entire blood and soul until you think everything to be false. I will not allow my doubt to win. Not this time. I want to be happy. I
deserve
to be happy.

At least I hope I deserve to be happy. Why don’t I? Maybe I’ve done something in my life and that is why I can’t be happy. This is all punishment.

Why am I thinking like this? I have never in my life believed in karma or any of this religious crap, so why am I starting to doubt it all now? There it is again, that merciless, abhorrent word once again. Even as a child I didn’t believe in Santa Claus. A fat man in a red suit fitting down a chimney never made sense to me, and in fact it creeped me out. He’s an old man leaving presents for young children. That screams pedophile more than martyr to me. I would wake up crying on Christmas Eve saying how I didn’t want Santa to come, thinking of him as a story from a nightmare instead of childish fun.

My phone once again pulls me away from my thoughts. I see Adam’s name on the screen, and for a second there I forgot I texted him.

I can’t wait for our next date
, his text reads.

See, I shouldn’t allow doubt to take over. I think he truly likes me, and the way he makes my heart feel, I must like him. No way could my mind trick my heart into believing a lie as well. Why not just allow myself to be happy? Why must I always crush it? I always talk about my mind as if it’s some other entity, but it’s a part of me. So it’s me who ruins all my happiness, and I don’t even know why. I’m the way I am, and I have no control over it, I feel sometimes.

I try to shake away the doubt creeping in, and I text Adam how I feel:
Me too. I like you, Adam.

There, I said it. I’m still alive, and the world isn’t crashing down around me. Adam texts back almost instantly.

I like you too, Jess.

In fact the opposite happens. It’s as if my world is coming together for the first time. I read over our past texts, and I’m coming to realize that Adam is so much more carefree in text. When we talk in person, it’s as if he holds back somewhat, but in text he lets everything go, and that somewhat immature-cute personality really shines through his words.

You’re so much more personable in text.

Maybe I shouldn’t tell him that. That might be considered rude. Why am I the most awkward person alive?

Yeah… I’ve heard that before.

Why is that?
I ask him.

It’s pathetic.

Try me.

It’s my stutter. I’m embarrassed by it.

Don’t be
, I reassure him. I like his stutter. It makes Adam, Adam.

I can’t help it. I’ve always been judged by it, and I hate listening to myself talk. When I speak, I just want to yell at myself to speak like a normal person. Go ahead and judge away.

But I don’t judge. Instead I find understanding. Adam is a person who’s battled his own demons. His are different than mine, but they are still there haunting his life. He’s not perfect. He’s human, after all. I further find myself a kindred spirit.

You shouldn’t be embarrassed. It’s honestly nothing.

Yeah, try saying that when we go out. You should look at how the waiter or the people around us stare next time. It makes me want to claw my eyes out and rip my hair out.

Don’t!
I text,
I love your eyes too much :-P

LOL Thank you, Jess. I love your eyes too. : )

This goes on until the late hours of the night, just harmless flirting. After reading Adam’s confession, I know that there is more than just a happy, dapper young man there.

We wish each other sweet dreams, and I know mine will be sweet because I guarantee he’ll be in them. He’s been in many of my dreams the past week or so, and most of them have been so amazing. I feel like Wendy finding Peter Pan. In my dreams I just want to stay there and never grow up. I want time to freeze so Adam and I can dream and be happy. When I wake up, I just want to return to my own private Neverland.

I pop some pills, 300 mg worth, into my system, but before I even get into bed, I hear a soft rap against my window. Who could be there? I live on the second floor. I ignore the sound, blaming it on the trees. They always seem to scratch up against my window at night. Outside my house is this tree that reminds me of the creepy tree in
Poltergeist
. As a child it used to frighten me, and I honestly thought it would crash through my window and take me away or swallow me whole. Is there anything worse than being swallowed whole? You’d have to go through an
entire
digestive system, completely conscious. It’s pretty revolting. I’d much rather be chewed up first if I’m going to be eaten. Tell that to any of the cannibals, planning their dinner.

The sound is at my window again, and as I look over, I notice a small pebble hitting my window. I walk over to see Tommy on the grass. Blood is streaming down the side of his face. I quickly open the window.