A Sadness Within (7 page)

Celia was waiting up for
me when I got back to the house, as I knew she would be.

“How are you,” she tentatively asked.

“I don’t know.” The words tumbled out, and I ran my hands nervously through my hair, feeling restless while pacing back and forth.

“Just sit, Will,” Celia commanded. “You need to stop pacing… and I have something to say.” I stopped and sat on the sofa across from her.

“What?”

“I don’t know why, but I can see what she does to you. You were different there.  I could feel you were at peace. And the light in your eyes... it’s a little brighter.”

“I am so frustrated. I don’t even know her and she has affected me in so many ways. I guess that I’m just confused with who I am. I don’t know how to become a better person.” I could feel the anger at myself begin to rise up again. A hand squeezed my shoulder and I reached up to touch it. My sister was so good. I couldn’t help but envy the control that she had. She never had been and never would be a monster.

“I don’t know how either, Will. I can try to help, but I can’t tell you how to feel. Does that make sense? I want this so much for you, but I can’t make these choices for you.” She wrapped her small arms around my shoulders for a quick hug. “I’ll never give up on you, Will.”

“I know, Cee. I know.” This I believed. I knew that no matter what, she would always be able to see the good in me. She always had. It was probably the reason that I stayed in contact with her through all these years.

After I was alone, I stared out into the darkness. I could still hear the music in my head. The ache in me was powerful. I thought seeing Julia would help, and it did at the time, but there was now an empty void to fill when I wasn’t near her. I had barely said three words to her, yet I couldn’t stop thinking about her. I wanted to know everything I could about her. However, I would have to wait until Monday.

Today was Sunday, and it
was a day that I dreaded. Not because it was Sunday but because it was
today.
The anniversary of the day my life began to fall apart seven years ago. Seven years since my life changed forever. I shook my head of the memories and reached for the TV remote. I needed to find something insignificant to fill my mind, in order to keep my thoughts at bay. If only I could just sleep the day away and avoid it all. I wouldn’t be able to, though. I had tried before. There were just too many jumbled memories in my head for me to sleep them away.

I mechanically flipped through the channels, looking for anything that would serve as a distraction. Mundane infomercials and old reruns of cheesy talk shows where they search for the true father did nothing for me. Neither did the news, so I switched the TV off in a huff and tossed the remote down on the bed. And the news was always so depressing. There was something about a boy found after being lost in the woods for two weeks and another story about all the murders happening in Chicago. It made my head spin, and made me happy that I lived across the lake in a sleepy little tourist town. Big cities did nothing for me.

Eventually, I crawled out of bed, knowing I should get up and do something despite my inner turmoil.  If I tried to focus on daily tasks, maybe I could ignore the bubble of emotion that lay just below the surface.
Push it down, just don’t think. Don’t think. Don’t think.

I hopped in the shower. The air was chilly and I let the hot water run over my skin warming me.
Don’t think.
Steam swirled around and enveloped me.
Don’t think.
But I couldn’t help it. Even standing in the hot water with my eyes closed tightly could not stop the emotional fissure in my heart. I tried to hold them back, but the tears came anyway. Within seconds, I was leaning against the wall, sobbing. I pictured his face. My brother, Aaron. He was 18 when he committed suicide. My mother had blamed everything on my dad, claiming that he was constantly pushing Aaron to succeed and was too hard on him when he didn’t. She said my dad wasn’t letting Aaron be a teen, and that’s why he had been so depressed all the time. Of course, none of us ever saw the signs, and those that did, chose to ignore them. After Aaron died, my parents began to grow apart, until eventually, my father came home and announced that he was leaving us. He had been having an affair and was leaving to be with her. He abandoned us to start a new family because ours was so broken. At least, that’s how I saw it. My dad was an asshole for leaving us. I had even begun to side with my mother, believing that he had been the reason for Aaron’s suicide. After that, my mom had been in an inconsolable stupor. She went through the motions of being a mom, but I knew that she wasn’t the same. When I graduated from high school, I left home for college and never looked back. A year later, my dad and his new wife died in a car accident. Not long after that, my mom was diagnosed with cancer. She was relatively young but died six months later, her body never responding to treatment. I think she was consumed with grief over her lost life. I never forgave my parents for what they did, and as a result, I rarely spoke to them from the time I was 16 until the day they each died. And just like that, within a few short months, I was completely alone. My entire family was gone. Both of my parents were only children, leaving me no kind aunts, uncles, or cousins to live with. All of my grandparents had been gone for years. These feelings of loss, feelings of abandonment, and feelings of anger were constantly being stuffed down to a place that I didn’t want to acknowledge. When it all came out, I didn’t know if I was sobbing out of anger or sadness. The tears were all the same lately.

Eventually, the hot water ran out and I was forced to get out, my fingers and toes as wrinkled as prunes. My skin was steaming, and I knew that my eyes were red and puffy. I was exhausted and it wasn’t even
noon! Slowly, I dried myself with a towel and wrapped myself in a robe. Suddenly, the phone rang, making me jump.

“Hello?” I answered tentatively, wishing I hadn’t gotten rid of the caller ID.

“Hey, how are you doing?” A sigh of relief. It was Kara. “Do you need anything today?” My best friend always remembered the important things, today being one of the days when I needed a friend the most. She never needed to come right out and say it. I knew what she meant.

“No, I’m okay. I just got out of the shower. I think I will go to the cemetery and then maybe go to school to get things ready for tomorrow. I just need to keep busy, you know?” Sitting at home would not be an option for me. I needed to keep my mind occupied, so going to school seemed like the logical choice. Anything to distract me. And I wouldn’t need to interact with too many people.

“Would it be okay if I came over later? I can bring you dinner.” I didn’t think that she was asking me and it would be nice to not be completely alone all day.

“Yeah, that would be great!” A little girl time would help keep my mind off of things as well. “How about six? I should be done with everything by then.”

“Okay, I’ll call you in a while.”

I waited until I heard the click of the phone hanging up, and then I gently placed the phone back into its cradle. My eyes wandered to the living room where the piano was calling me, and I couldn’t help but sit down to play. Music had been in my blood since I was a child, but after Aaron died, it had been hard for me to play because he had always loved to listen to me. Music was what tied us together. He played the violin and I played the piano. We were going to be a famous duet someday, playing concerts all over the world for sold out crowds. We had big plans. For a while after he died, just looking at a piano would make me cry, but after a few months, when everything started to happen with my parents, I couldn’t stay away from it. I needed music to heal. When I
did
finally play, I avoided
his
song, the song he had written for me.

I stared at the keys for a long time before I placed my hands on the smooth ivory, just waiting for the right song. Closing my eyes, I felt myself leave my body for a moment and the melody I had been avoiding for months found me.  A memory flashed in my mind. Aaron was smiling and looking at me, asking me to play his favorite song. There was a light in his eyes and he laughed. He danced around the living room as I played. I was only 10 years old at the time. The vision left, and I was pulled back to the present. Tears streamed down my face, and I was shaking. My breath came in short spurts as I stared blankly. I didn’t know what made me want to play it, but I wasn’t sure that it had been a good idea. I placed my hands on the keys again and tried a different melody. This one was more relaxed, and I let its sound take me. My fingers moved effortlessly over the keys, and I let my heart lead the way. When the song finished, I felt much better. I believed
that I would have the strength to make it to the cemetery.

It was a nice enough day so I decided to walk. When I reached the end of the road, my eyes were drawn to the Bradley’s once again, and I was immediately reminded of Celia’s brother, Will, and our chance meeting in the auditorium on Friday. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t attracted to him. His grey eyes drew me in, but there was also something else about him. I had played in front of him. I didn’t play in front of anyone, let alone a stranger. I felt at ease with him around. And then I ran away like a coward when he asked me a question. The strange thing was, it wasn’t because I didn’t want to answer him. It was because I felt comfortable enough
to
answer him and that scared the hell out of me. Now, I was embarrassed by my reaction and knowing that I would see him again made me really feel like an idiot. At least thinking about him had taken my mind off of my own problems for a short time.

I realized that I hadn’t been watching where I was walking, or how far. I looked up suddenly to see where my feet had taken me and realized that I was already at the iron gates of the cemetery. I looked around, sadly sighed, and pushed the gates open.

The cemetery was very large and very old. It had a gothic beauty to it. Old family crypts dotted the rolling hills. Angels and saints and gargoyles stood watch over the tiny structures. Solitary gravestones filled in the spaces in between. I meandered through the various plots on winding trails, trying to take my time, but it still only took me minutes to get to my destination. The wind swirled in the branches above, sending red leaves tumbling all around me. The ground was damp but I sat anyway, hugging my knees to my chest.

“Hi Aaron,” I whispered to the cold stone in front of me. “I miss you.” The tears began to flow freely now. It was much harder to keep up my wall when I was here. I missed my brother so much.

“I wish you were here so that we could talk. I just wish… I wish you were here.”

I told him all about my life and what was going on now. I could almost hear him answer me in the silence. I talked for what felt like hours, and when I ran out of things to say to him, I lay down in the wet grass, my cheek touching the cold hard ground to feel close to him. I closed my eyes and breathed in the autumn air deeply. I felt drained, like I had nothing left to give.

I don’t know how long I lay there before I got up to walk home. The cemetery was getting dark. I glanced at my watch and saw that it was 5:30pm. I had been here all afternoon.  Kara would be over soon. So much for going to school and getting any work done today. The evening air was growing colder, and I wrapped my arms around myself. Somewhere in the distance, an owl called out. Shadows began to play across the stone crypts and their guardians. I shivered a little and glanced around nervously, hastening to the entrance. The iron gate clanged loudly behind me and I hurried home, sticking to the brightly lit sidewalk.

I only beat Kara by 15 minutes. Just enough time to put my comfy sweats on, grab a blanket and book and head out to the porch. It wasn’t until I saw her that I remembered that I was supposed to call her.

“Knock, knock, anyone home?” She was on the porch smiling at me a few seconds later. “I tried calling, but you never answered. I just assumed that you were busy and that I would get to pick our dinner,” she teased.

“Hey! Thanks for coming over tonight,” I said standing up to hug her. Her moods were infectious. She was always able to bring me back from the darkest of places. “I know, I sorry. I actually spent the entire afternoon at the cemetery. I totally lost track of time and never made it to school. So, what did you bring me for dinner?” I grinned back.

“Chinese. And it’s from your favorite place!” She held up two brown paper bags and the scent of deep fried deliciousness swirled around them.

“Did you make sure that they gave you enough sweet and sour sauce?” I asked, digging into the bags.

“Of course! What kind of friend would I be?”

We went inside and set up our dinner. We talked about school for a while and then Kara prattled on about her latest dating disaster, all the while avoiding the untouchable subject; the reason she was really here tonight. Kara and I had known each other for years. She had known my family back when we were whole. She had stuck with me through it all. Kara would let me talk about Aaron and my parents if I really wanted to, but I didn’t want to talk about them. She already knew the whole story. She knew how I felt without me having to remind her. Besides, there was something else that I had been thinking of. Or someone, I should say.

“So you have anything to tell me?” Shock must have registered on my face. Clearly, she knew that something besides my brother had been on my mind today. 

“What do you mean?” I tried to be coy, as I wasn’t really ready to talk about the cute guy with the dark hair and gorgeous eyes yet. I was still trying to sort things out in my head.

“Oh come on, you know what I mean. You’re hiding something. I know you better than you know yourself. Something is on your mind. I can see that you’ve been thinking all day and it isn’t the something I would expect on a day like today.” She was trying to be nonchalant, but her eyes reflected her enthusiasm. She was dying to know whatever it was that I had to tell her.  I sighed loudly, guessing I had better just get it over with. I could unload it all. Maybe she would give me the badly needed advice I was seeking.

“Okay.” I paused for a minute, not really knowing how to continue. How was I going to tell her that I couldn’t seem to stop thinking about Will Bradley, a guy that I had only talked to once and who I had run away from? “Do you know who Celia Bradley is? She is one of my students.”