The War Game (11 page)

             
Though he said “we.” Maybe I would be included in that “we.”

             
“Sure,” she smiled. He smiled back.

             
I felt distant. Like a piece of paper, crumpled and tossed into a corner.

             
Though, I had to admit that the possibility of another girl liking John shouldn’t have surprised me. He was kind and not weak. He was physically fit and gentle. He was handsome and not cocky. Well, I guessed he could be cocky but in a different way. He was the type of guy who doesn’t realize how attractive he is and, therefore, can’t exploit it.

             
The day went on as usual. Laura disappeared soon after that, thankfully.

             
I tried to be the best liar I could be because you never knew when you needed to be. The situation arose because John asked me why I was “especially quiet” today.

             
I was caught off guard for a second and said it must have been something I ate. I wished we could have switched the subject but he wouldn’t come off of it.

             
“I eat the same grub as you do and I feel fine.” That was the truth, unfortunately. There wasn’t a lick of anything in this camp except for the crap they served us once a day in the cafeteria.

             
“I guess my body chemistry reacts differently to certain things,” I said, sort of quickly rehashing what I read about medicine and adverse reactions in my human anatomy book.

             
“Yeah, but all of a sudden?”

             
I shrugged my shoulders. Why did he need to question everything? “Or maybe I’m coming down with something.” I think he was pushing me to open up and just say that I couldn’t stand the possibility of another girl coming between us or some crap like that. But people are always coming down with something. Colds, coughs, the flu, death. It was best when the lie was close to the truth.

             
The next day began as usual, except I actually woke up before John did. We went through our usual routine but not with much conversation.

             
After lunch, he asked me if I cared if he went away to hang out with Laura. I reminded him that I was sick and that moving around made my stomach feel worse. He started to go on a tangent about how she didn’t seem to have any friends here and blah, blah, blah.

             
I simply said, “I’m not your mother. You don’t need my permission to do anything.”

             
Then he said that he never had a mother. It was just him and his dad. And that he knows that he doesn’t need my permission. He left.

             
Well, whatever.

             
I spent most of the day napping in the sun, on the hard cement. Getting shuffled to camp to camp, I have now acquired the ability to sleep on almost any surface and in any awkward position. I was in that state of sleep where you are still somewhat awake, when you start to have nonsensical thoughts. Drifting would be the best word for it. I was drifting. Drifting far from here, far from the time that I met John, and I almost settled on sleep.

             
I dreamed that I was on my own personal island and I didn’t have to worry about food or where to go to the bathroom or being bored. There were tons of trees that bore fruit, dead chickens (already plucked), and even sandwiches wrapped in waxed paper. There was a television in the sand that didn’t need to be plugged in. Wireless, I think that’s the term. I was sitting in a chair watching it. Always something entertaining playing, no stupid flags. I can’t recall now what I saw on the television but I remember hearing voices. But there was no one but me on that island.

             
Until I heard some planes or a helicopter in the distance. Not sure what was flying in the air, but it was gradually becoming louder and louder but I didn’t bother to look. I was watching television and drinking some cold water with a straw. I was thinking how I was going to keep this straw so I could reuse it any day I went back to the camp but then I remembered I wasn’t at the camp. I was at the island. I didn’t have to worry about keeping a little stupid straw safe.

             
But then the noise from the planes became louder, like it was swooping down close. The force blew the hat on my head down over my face. I couldn’t see where the plane was coming from but I felt the vibrations in the sand. I reached to the sand but it didn’t feel like anything. I only felt the ground bounce. But somehow I knew it was going to drop a bomb and ruin this paradise because people started screaming in unison, like a choir of hell’s angels or something.

             
But there were no people on this island. I could only hear voices calling out, I couldn’t find the source but I knew it wasn’t coming from the television. It was strange, I was surrounded by this serenity and yet it was filled with ugly, awful invisible cries.

             
Then I started to think that I should run and take cover just in case. I tried lifting my legs but they wouldn’t move. Then the ground starting to bounce again and I felt the chair hit my head a couple of times, but it felt like a cement block was being thrown at me.

             
Then the bomb hit and I woke up for real.

             
I must have dreamed all of that within a span of a second. I jumped a bit and my anatomy book went flying off my chest. Lots of people were running back to the bed area to take cover but what was the point. A bomb a mile away could rattle that building and make it fall down like a pack of cards.

             
Some man’s tibia bone was sticking out of his skin. I didn’t know who the man was because he was no longer attached to it.

             
Then my thoughts immediately centered on John.

             
I ran to where the bomb hit, the marketplace. People were running out and it was nearly impossible to navigate my way through the flowing people. One man tried grabbing my hand, must have thought I was confused and lost my sense of direction. But I wouldn’t budge and he went on running.

             
There was a lot of death in there. And a brand new sun roof.

             
People were already dragging casualties from underneath stuff and to the side of the building. Not out of respect, of course. Mostly because they would eventually get in the way of things. I saw several searching the dead’s pockets for goodies. I should carry a bunch of razor blades or sewing needles in my pocket. Thieving bastards. There were legs, arms, and even a head scattered all about. I ran past them. I was too much in shock to barf, even though it was like a morbid jigsaw puzzle.

             
I saw Laura right away. Her hair was covered in blood and debris but her lip gloss was still intact and gleaming. She came up to me, screaming, “It’s so arbitrary! It makes no sense!”

             
“Where’s John?” I screamed back at her.

             
“I don’t know!”

             
I ran in the direction that she had come from but no John in sight.

             
I stopped running, turned around, and saw him embracing her. We made eye contact briefly but other than that, he didn’t seem too concerned about me at the moment.

             
Then jealously won out over rationality. I knew that a bomb just hit, that dozens of people just lost their lives, and I was probably just a few yards from meeting death myself. But he was in love with her.

             
How do I know this? Because he went to find her first and not me. That, and he kissed her. Where exactly his lips landed on her face, I don’t know. I couldn’t tell from where I was standing like a fool.

             
I started crying. Great big, fat tears. I couldn’t help it, I was hurt. Wounded. Injured. Emotionally damaged.

             
The mother and the little boy found me. I found out their names. Luann and Ricky. She was brushing the hair that had fallen in my face behind my ears with her fingers. She started telling me that I was safe, God was protecting us, and the usual stuff people said in a time like this.

             
She was mistaken though. I wasn’t crying about all of that.

             
Just because it was working still, pumping blood through my body, doesn’t mean my heart wasn’t broken.

             
I felt stupid, crying over him and at the same time, recalling random facts about the human heart that I read in my anatomy book. The heart produced enough energy over the course of a lifetime to drive a truck to the moon and back. I had no idea where it was at the moment. Shouldn’t leave it around so it doesn’t get traded. My heart or the anatomy book. Both were missing or stolen right now, who cared anymore.

~~~

             
I avoided them not because I hated her (although I would admit that I tried to find things wrong with her) but because I wanted to live a little bit longer in denial. I didn’t want to know anything more about them. I didn’t want to see them holding hands because that would just kill me. I reminded myself I’d been alive for almost fourteen years without knowing who the hell he was and I could live another fourteen more without him. Stupid boy. I knew I didn’t
need
him but that didn’t make me want him less.

             
I gave myself some time and distance to get over him. But I couldn’t. I didn’t sleep at night, I barely slept during the day. There were enough little tasks during the day to keep myself busy. Making bandages, spooning slop into the mouth of people who couldn’t feed themselves, talking to that little kid and his mother, making more sense out of my anatomy book, hanging out with the Ladies, and so on.

             
At night, I tried to time out the moment I stepped into line because those around you would be your bed mates. Often, Luann lets me cut in line with her and her little son, Ricky. Most people didn’t mind, they did the same thing. People tried to stand next to someone in the line who looked relatively healthy and whose injuries were wrapped good and tight enough so nothing could poke the wound during sleep and make it bleed again. The people who looked infected and gross didn’t even notice what the rest of us were doing, too defeated to have any hurt feelings. 

             
But it was at night where he crept into my thoughts and consumed them. Devoured them, even. I didn’t even allow myself to think about where and whom he might be bedding down with at night.

~~~

             
I was looking through my anatomy book when Ricky wandered over, trailed by his mom. Before I had a chance to close my book, he was already pointing to different organs, laughing at the “naked” people.