Dawn's Abyss

It had never been so hard for me to wake up at six in the morning. I had figured I’d only gotten maybe three hours of sleep as opposed to my usual seven. Truly, I wasn’t worried about lack of ‘beauty sleep,’ but rather that my weariness would affect my learning ability in school.

As I trudged along to school, I feared tardiness as well. The faster I tried to walk, the more sluggish I felt. I should have just driven for once. Of course, at that moment, I should have also remembered the saying “Be careful what you wish for.”

This time, I was spared the obnoxiously loud rap music when Ashton pulled up next to me on the sidewalk. “You realize you’re going about one mile an hour, don’t you? You’ll never be forty-five minutes early if you keep up that pace,” he chuckled and I almost picked up the rock I’d been kicking along and threw it at him. That would not be polite though, and he was my ticket to getting to school on time.

I shot him a sideways glance and he told me to get in. I hid a smile with the navy hood of my sweatshirt. I’d decided to go out on a limb and wear a color other than black today. My corduroy pants were even dark gray.

“Whoa, call the cops!” Ashton gasped facetiously, echoing my thoughts. “You’re just wearing way too many colors to be acceptable.” I took in his army green long-sleeve t-shirt and blue jeans that were both probably from Abercrombie if the logos were any indication of that.

I climbed up into his monster truck and buckled my seatbelt; safety first. Plus, this car looked kind of like a death trap. I would have been more worried if I hadn’t figured that there was now way any other vehicle could possibly make a dent in this one.

He resumed driving and turned the notch on the volume up of a song I’d never heard of. It wasn’t rap, but it did have a nice melody and soothing lyrics. I guess he was trying to make sure I wouldn’t start hyperventilating and throw up all over his expensive leather interior. I wondered if having super big cars was some sort of jock fetish. They all had either humonguous trucks like this one or shiny, foreign-looking SUV’s. Never in my life had I seen a football player driving a mini-cooper. I could be completely wrong, too. After all, I didn’t pay all that much attention to the automobiles in the school parking lot.

“What do I get to learn about you today?” he asked as the song on the radio ended. I hadn’t thought much about it, but I wasn’t going to tell him until lunch anyway.

Pondering for a moment about how best to explain this to him with the least amount of words, I finally came up with “Not yet.”

I saw him give his windshield a cheeky grin and was relieved to know he kept his eyes on the road. “You don’t talk to anyone else. Does that mean I’m a special case?” he asked. I guess I kind of dug myself into that hole, and now I had to figure out a way to climb back out.

“Or a nutcase,” I mumbled, surprising even myself. I’d never made fun of someone aloud before. I didn’t even like to do it mentally, even if in this case, I was only kidding around. I never joked. What was Ashton doing to me?

“A nutcase?” he exclaimed wildly. “I knew it; you do have a personality. Just admit it, Dawn. You feel this weird connection with me, too. Am I right? Because I’m going to feel totally lame if this is a one-way street.”

I stifled a giggle. He was completely correct, but I didn’t think his ego needed a boost. As he pulled into Hazelwood High’s parking lot, I thought of something else to bring up instead.

“You have an Australian accent, but use American slang,” I noted hastily. That was like a speech for me. Talking never held much appeal before, but everything was different with Ashton. I was less shy, more talkative, and able to show some of myself to him. That was a scary thing. Secrecy was practically my entire identity, and I didn’t know if I was ready to lost that or not.

“That was like, an entire sentence! I’m impressed. The reason for that is I took speech class after all my football buddies were on me for talking like an Aussie. They’re not very bright, you know? I have to spell things out for them,” he explained. If that was so, then he obviously didn’t think very highly of his ‘buddies.’ I would’ve said something about it, but I didn’t want to overwhelm him, or more importantly myself.

Ashton parked his car in what I assumed was his assigned parking spot. I hopped out wordlessly and hauled my book bag over my back before disappearing into the hustle and bustle of students milling around before class. There was no reason for me to stick around and embarrass Ashton in front of all of his supposedly dim-witted friends.

It was 7:45, which meant I’d wasted fifteen minutes attempting to walk to school. Routinely, I grabbed my things for English and made my way to Mr. Mason’s. As I was walking, I opened my notebook to the void-like chasm I’d drawn yesterday. I wanted to fill up its emptiness and make it look like a real picture instead of just a lonely abyss. When push came to shove, I wouldn’t mind going into the art industry for a career. Lots of artists were a little bit off like I was. I might not be such a rare find in that world.

With my head down, I couldn’t see where I was going. I only knew the tentative path to the English room. Therefore, I should have been less surprised when I bumped into somebody and went tumbling to the ground with a cry of “Sorry!” on my part as well as on the opposing party’s.

“I only wanted to walk with you to class,” a shockingly familiar voice repented. I almost laughed at the irony as Ashton stood up and brushed himself off before offering his hand out to me. I smiled politely but proceeded to pick up my books and his before standing up on my own.

“Here,” I handed his books to him. “I’m sorry.” I continued walking. The door was just down the corridor now, but he walked beside me anyway.

“Don’t worry about it,” he shrugged, but there was more. I guess he was just a big fan of cheekiness. “I’m used to being mauled over by crazy fan girls. By the way, where’d you go after I drove you here? It was like you vanished.”

I snorted uncharacteristically at the first part and then immediately covered my mouth. My already red, from bumping into him, cheeks turned a deeper crimson. “I’m not a fanatic.”

We’d finally arrived so Ashton opened the door and motioned for me to go in. “Of course you aren’t. I’m the crazy Australian stalker, remember?” he reminded me with fake cattiness.

My eyes found themselves rolling back into my head when I walked past him. Mr. Mason greeted the two of us with a smile, seemingly unfazed that I was arriving twenty minutes later than usual and with another person nonetheless. Satisfied, I made my way to my seat.

Ashton, however, did not. His usual seat, as I had perceived yesterday, was at the back of the room. Now, he took the seat next to me which otherwise remained vacant. This small world was full of surprises that seemed less and less coincidental as time progressed.

This, of course, led to more deep thinking and I knew now was my cance to further my drawing. My eyes were directed at the paper, but they weren’t really seeing anything. The vision became blurry and unfocused as I lost concentration of all the confusing lines. I think someone may have spoken to the right of me, but I wouldn’t be able to relay what they said for the life of me. I unleashed my feelings in a frenzy of fluid strokes across my notebook paper. Nothing else matter now. Neither Ashton, my parents, Mrs. Kurl, nor my sudden life alterations were of any importance. All that matter was me, and how much I could put into what I was doing right now.

Then, confound it, the bell rang. I was unwillingly pulled from my haze and brought back to the far less perfect reality of Mr. Mason’s English class. I felt lots of eyes on me and instinctively shrunk in my seat. I realized my teacher was holding the clipboard and looking at me expectantly. From there, it wasn’t hard to infer that he was calling attendance and I hadn’t responded to my name yet.

I hastily poked a finer up in the air unnecessarily. Mr. Mason could clearly see that I was no absent but calling role was mandatory, so there was really not way out of it. If a student didn’t make their presence known in some form or another, they were marked absent.

“Are you still with us, Dawn? I told you something about that,” he pointed to my notebook lying open to my progressed drawing. “And you totally blanked out.”

I shot him an appreciative glance for his concern that was also supposed to reassure him. I didn’t think I was very good with this facial expression communication thing. I would half to watch myself try it in the mirror sometime. Even through all of my silence, I never had to really try to express myself with a mere look. Talking would probably be a good deal easier, but I wasn’t such a big fan of that activity. I don’t think it was that I was afraid of being a poor conversationalist, either. It was more of a fear that once I started talking, I wouldn’t be able to stop, and then everything I’d worked so hard to conceal would come spilling out. I couldn’t imagine anything worse.

Returning my attention back to the front of the room and today’s lesson, I flipped to a new page in my notebook. I could look at my picture later. It was time to take notes now, and I couldn’t risk missing anything. Finals would be coming up in another two months or so, after all. I hadn’t even started highlighting yet!

I could describe the rest of the classes leading up to lunch in unbearably boring, descriptive detail, but that would be pointless. My days actually had acmes now, instead of consecutive uniformity. It was either a giant relief to know my social life was sort of sky-rocketing, or this piece of knowledge scared me into a puddle of plaintiveness.

Besides, my lunch on this unbelievable Tuesday put everything else I’d ever experienced to shame. Once again, I could give credit to Ashton Voss for being the source of my mid-day meal entertainment.

I walked into the cafeteria the way I always did coming from World History. I spotted my table and felt my face fall. I hadn’t ever actually expected Ashton to follow through and sit by me day after day when I barely said a word to him. All I knew was that I wouldn’t want to hear myself talk all day long.

Apparently, Ahston didn’t mind because he came up behind me and whispered “Are you looking for somebody?”

I shrugged my shoulders, but let out an inward sigh of relief. He hadn’t forgotten; he was actually still interested. Somehow, I knew I was more excited than I should be. I began walking toward my able, but was stopped when a hand tugged on the back of my sweatshirt and practically made me fall flat on my back.

“Dawn, where do you think you’re going?” he asked me as if I were utterly ridiculous for going to sit down. I nodded my head toward the table and his eyes clouded over something I hadn’t been able to identify at first as false confusion.

“No, I’m pretty sure you’re coming with me to lunch, so that nobody else will discover your special secrets. Wouldn’t it be tragic if everyone knew that you loved to walk? I think I might pass out if someone found out something like that about me,” he kept his voice low and teasing as he lead me to a door with an Exit sign over the top of it. He was looking around wide-eyed and acting like a four-year-old playing ‘Secret Agent.’ That’s what he looked like to me, at least.

I chewed my lip nervously as I followed him to the door that led to the parking lot. Weren’t we supposed to have passes if we were going off-campus for lunch? I’d never done this before and I really did not relish the idea of getting caught and having bad marks added to my permanent record. That was the last thing I needed.

He looked back at me when we’d reached the door that could change the course of my future and frowned disapprovingly, but also somehow reassuringly. I hadn’t known that was possible.

“We won’t get caught, trust me. Oh, and don’t bit your lip like that. I heard you can chew off all of your lip tissue that way,” he told me, opening the door and gesturing for me to go first. I did as I was told and released my lip as we began the journey to his behemoth of a car. We had to duck in and out of the other vehicles so that any stray faculty member who happened to be looking out the window at the wrong time wouldn’t catch us.

Trust me, he’d pleaded. I didn’t know if I could do that all the time or not. However, right now, it was too late to turn back, so I didn’t have any other choice but to put my faith in him. I just hoped he knew what he was doing.
I spotted his truck a few cars away, but relief didn’t flow through me as I’d expected it to. Doing something risky like this was actually kind of fun. I didn’t want it to be over. Spending time with Ashton was like nothing I’d ever been through before. It was just one big adrenaline rush that I didn’t know what to do with.

We got into his truck with the satisfaction of triumph on our backs. No shouts of success or victory dances exploded out of my driving companion as I’d anticipated. I studied his face as he put the car in drive. He seemed to be having some sort of internal struggle behind his misleading smile.
Before I could stop myself, I blurted out “What are you thinking?” at him.

Evidently, I wasn’t the only one caught off guard by my bluntness because Ashton’s mouth dropped open a little for a brief moment before he could regain composure and shake his head as if to clear his mind and wake himself up.

“What were you drawing a picture of yesterday and today before English? You know, in Mr. Mason’s room? I saw your notebook just before the bell rang. I wanted to ask you about it yesterday at lunch, but I was side-tracked,” he said.

He was thinking about my drawing? I’d almost forgotten he’d seen it until just now. To be honest, I wasn’t sure exactly what it was supposed to be a picture of. I knew I had more to add to it, but I hadn’t even checked on the progress I’d made on it today. I couldn’t explain all that to him, though. I was still taking baby steps. A description I’d used for my unfinished creation a couple of times already came to mind, so I used that.

“It’s my abyss,” I told him. That was really the only way to explain it with words. I remembered then that I’d stored my Writing notebook in my bag so I could work on it tonight at home. I didn’t want to show it to him, though.

“Dawn’s Abyss . . .” he murmured. I rearranged my feet so that they hid my bag a little more fully. It didn’t work. “That’s interesting, but what if you showed it to me instead of attempting to hide it with your sneakers.”

I glanced down at my old, black Converse high-tops in astonishment. How id he know that? I turned in my seat to look at him as he drove. It never occurred to me to think of asking him where we were going. He just tapped his right pointer finger to his temple in a coy indication that he possessed hidden intellectualism, I supposed. I didn’t want to call him out on it and direct his eyes from the road where they belonged, so I just did what I did best and kept my mouth shut.

“Not that I’m complaining or anything, but it seems odd to me that you would accept my offer to come here with me with so little of a struggle. I sort of expected to drag you out of there, but you followed awfully willingly,” he commented. I felt the blood rush to my face at thim finding out how much I enjoyed spending time with him.

To change the subject, I instead asked “Where is ‘here?’” Now that I’d gotten to thinking about it, I was genuinely curious as to our final destination. I realized too late that my question was pointless because just then, Ashton parked in front of a large wooden sign that read HAZELWOOD COMMUNITY PARK. He’d driven ten minutes to the park so we could eat lunch?

We hopped down out of the car because that was the only way to get out of the thing and I slung my bag over my back in haste. I needed to follow him because I’d never actually been here before. I wasn’t so keen on getting lost on my first trip to the local park.

“Yesterday you told me you loved to walk. What better place to take a walk than at the park on a perfect autumn day?” he asked, heading toward a picnic table near the playground. “How about you show me that picture now and tell me something else about you.”

I sat down across from him and took my sack lunch and notebook from my backpack. Ashton did the same with the exception of the notebook. I was pretty sure that I was the only one who carried around school supplies unnecessarily, but I guess you never know. He could have some crayons in his bag somewhere for all I knew, but it was doubtful.

I took a bite of my peanut butter and banana sandwich after I’d obliged to his suggestion and handed over my notebook reluctantly. It was too bad I hadn’t thought to look at it myself beforehand. That was probably a mistake, seeing what his reaction was.

“Is that supposed to be you, there in the center of all those gray lines?” he asked, squinting his eyes and going in for a closer look. “You look different, but I can still tell who it is. I’m not sure I understand why you would draw yourself that way, but I think I have a good guess.”

His tone wasn’t patronizing, but that was about the only thing I was grateful for at the moment. I allowed him to finish his examination while I finished my lunch, anxiety rippling through every fiber of my being. I couldn’t very well react, considering I hadn’t even looked at it yet. Seconds ticked by like hours, and I couldn’t take it anymore.

“May I see?” I asked quietly, holding my hand out. He looked up in surprise, almost as if he’d forgotten where he was and that somebody else was with him.

“You haven’t looked at it yet?” he asked. I shook my head and he handed it over. “Does that mean you drew this with your eyes close?”

I shrugged, not knowing how to reply to that. I knew my eyes were open and facing the paper when I drew, but they weren’t actually seeing anything. It was like my brain created a picture in my mind and my hands followed orders.

“I can’t even draw half that well with my eyes opened!” he exclaimed with a hug, like life was so unfair. Woe is him.

Then, I looked down at the paper. He was right. It was me in the center, but never as I’d seen myself before. I was dressed in all white and one hand was held out inviting someone to join the paper-me. The eyes on my character held a look of deepest melancholy that scorched the viewer and made me, personally, feel as if she had eyes for me and me only. Her hair was three times the length of mine in reality and flowed out around her in every direction. It looked somehow fiery even though sketched in gray pencil. Surrounding the Dawn in the drawing was a swirling, bottomless vortex (or abyss, if you will) just as I’d explained to Ashton. The whole thing would be completely unfathomable to an outsider. But, Ashton had understood a portion of it. He was getting to know me.

“Walk,” I croak-offered in a throaty voice. Ironically, the picture had rendered me speechless. Ha! This – coming from the circumstantial figure involved, i.e. me.

“Good idea,” Ashton agreed, finishing off his own lunch. We headed to the path meant for walks just like this one. It was for anybody really, but felt especially appropriate for two teenagers desperate to clear their minds a little bit. “You have your daily secret to reveal.”

The reminder caught me off guard, albeit it got me to thinking. I was going to save anything too personal for later, but I figured I owed him an explanation for the drawing. I wanted him to understand. Therefore, I said “I live alone.”
His head popped up from where it had been drooping against his chest. “I have something to sing for you!”

We kept on walking and I figured he was joking until he began snapping and clapping out a beat with his fingers and hands. I shoved my own hands in the single pocket attached to the front of my sweatshirt. I needed to prepare myself to run in case he was getting ready to mock me with a chant about somehow who had no family. I think I knew he wasn’t the type of person who would do something like that, but I found out when he began vocalizing.

No father figure in the house
And I'm wondering how I'm gonna work it out, Oh
My friends keep on tellin' me how I don't need that man but they don't really understand

There's far too many pressures in reality
Dealing with the pain, stress and poverty
And I gotta be myself because there's nobody else for me, no

(Hang in there with me) Sometimes it takes a different love to raise a child
(So don't give up) So don't give up
(When pressures come down) Sometimes it takes a different kind of truth to make you smile
(So raise it up) So raise it up
(Hang in there with me) Sometimes we need another helping hand to show the way
(So don't give up) So don't give up
(When pressures come down) Sometimes it seems impossible and that's why we pray
(So raise it up) We raise

Seems to be nothing left for me
Momma's gone, daddy didn't wanna be
And now I'm all by myself, wonderin' where is love
Or should I just give up, you know

Life falls down on me, cuts into my soul
But I know I got the strength to make it through it all
Cause I'm still standin' tall
Breaking through this walls
I'm gonna give my all

Feelin' like a motherless child
Pain comes into my soul, it's bringing me down
Can't find a smile on the face of a motherless child
I'm gonna break down these walls
Gonna give it my all, ya know
yeah yeah yeah yeah

(Hang in there with me) Sometimes it takes a different kind of love to raise a child
(So don't give up) So don’t give up
(When pressures come down) Sometimes it takes a different kind of dream to make a smile
(So raise it up) So raise it up
(Hang in there with me) Raise it up
Sometimes it takes another helping hand to show you the way
(So don't give up, when pressures come down)
(Sometimes it seems impossible, that's why we pray
So raise it up!