Pretty Follies

Throughout my whole childhood, Lorraine was always there. Always. And even though we had a huge resentment towards each other, Lorraine was the one of the few people that I felt comfortable around. Her familiarity and presence was just something that was natural. It was so natural that sometimes I missed her. Not our friendship, or lack of one. Not our enemy-like state. Just her.

It was like a bed. The longing of wanting to sleep in your bed after a long week or a large amount of time from home. Once you lay down on it, your body sinks into the mattress and you feel the most at home you ever could.

That was what Lorraine’s presence was somewhat like. I wouldn’t say I liked her like I liked my bed but just how comforting her by me was. Her leaving for college and me leaving to pursue my band was something we thought as a good thing; we wouldn’t have to see each other or listen to the other’s banter. But I would admit that when my mom told me about this trip with the Johnsons, for some reason I was excited, and not just for family time.

Now I understood why. Just the presence of Lorraine gave me good memories and I guess she was the one thing that I could always count on. Whether we were blasting each other with our stone cold glares or bickering rudely, we wouldn’t waver.

It took me this whole time wandering around the woods to make me realize this. To see how much I valued Lorraine. Or more, my bitterness towards Lorraine. When we were first lost in the woods, we both had agreed that it was the worst possible combination the universe could have created. But now, I guess it was good that Lorraine and I were stuck together.

This forest was teaching me a lot about Lorraine.

“This forest is getting hotter,” Lorraine said groggily from the spot on my back. I felt her forehead across my back, rubbing the sweat beads off of her and on to me. It wasn’t like it made a difference; my shirt was soaked with my own sweat anyways.

“Do you mind if we just take a break and rest?” I asked sluggishly.

To my surprise, Lorraine willingly agreed by nodding against my back and I dropped my hands from her legs to lower her down carefully, not hurting her ankle even more. I sat down next to her, panting a little and taking off my shirt to wipe the sweat off of me.

We sat there for a while, mostly quiet and dozing off a couple of times. When I opened my eyes from the tiny nap, I saw Lorraine lying on her stomach, playing with some leaves.

I turned to join her and watched as she picked apart a weird looking nut. Once she did, she was left with a couple of seeds. I watched as she rolled them around in her tiny hands, sometimes letting them slip through the spaces in between her fingers.

I picked up one of the tiny brown circles and studied it. “We could eat the seeds,” I said joked, flicking it out of my palm and into a bush nearby.

Beside me, Lorraine smirked. I was expecting her to shoot down the joke I had made and say something about how it was stupid to joke about the situation, but instead she laughed a little. Maybe it was the heat exhaustion and food deprivation, I wasn’t sure. But what I was sure about was that a joke I had made didn’t start a war between the two of us.

Lorraine picked up another nut and started picking at the shell to get to the seeds inside. I watched bored, resting my head on my hands as I did. “Do you remember when you were little and you wouldn’t eat any food with seeds in it?” A smile broke her concentration and she reminisced. “You thought that the seeds would start growing in your stomach.”

That got Lorraine to laugh, and a dainty giggle came from her throat. I thought back to when we were little, before we had any grudges, and we would play at daycare together. We were supposed to be sleeping, but instead we snuck out to the garden and picked pea pods and nibbled on rhubarb stocks.

She wouldn’t eat anything with seeds though. Even when her parents tried to explain it and I reassured her, she still wouldn’t budge.

“Even strawberries,” I added, a smirk tugging on my lips.

“Hey, shut up!” Lorraine tried defending herself through her laughs and shoved my shoulder gently. I laughed along weakly, trying to find more energy to do so, but coming up short.

Our laughter died, each of us letting out a tiny chuckle here and there. Lorraine’s thumb was still picking at another nut, trying to get down to the seeds again. She tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear and smiled down at the nut, like she was reminiscing.

“I eat seeds now,” she whispered, amusement from the memory I brought up still floating in her recollection. “Watermelons, peanut M&Ms, tomatoes, apples…strawberries…”

I nodded, noticing the distracted look on her face. She had her eyes glued to the shrinking nut in her frail hands. I knew she was thinking about something. It wasn’t about the forest, or our camping trip. Not her hunger or annoyance. It was like she was fighting back an emotion and if she kept her focus on the nut she was peeling, it would go away.

“I didn’t eat seeds for a while, you know,” she commented, still staring at the nut, which was now another pile of seeds in her palm. I nodded, even though I actually hadn’t known that. “It was just some irrational fear I had. It was just a stupid thought that I couldn’t let go,” she scoffed at her past self. My head bobbed up and down again. Lorraine wasn’t like that anymore. She was logical and sometimes I wondered if her imagination had been put to work lately.

The tiny seeds were now rolling around in her hands, and she was still looking intently. Watching how they bumped together when she tilted her hand a different way and the abstract pictures the formation made against her scrubby skin. “Which is weird, because…I’m pretty rational,” she said quietly.

“I know,” I said softly.

This was a moment. A moment I never thought Lorraine and I could ever settle down enough to have. We were sitting in the middle of a forest clearing, picking at seeds and Lorraine was opening up to me. And I just listened. I didn’t mock her; she wasn’t being mean to me. I wasn’t annoyed simply with our close proximity. I wasn’t infuriated with her presence and she wasn’t either. And I was actually intrigued and wanted to hear what she had to say. And even more surprisingly, she wanted to talk. To actually talk, not banter, name call or yell.

Lorraine stared at her hand and the look on her face started to turn sour. Soon, I was watching the seeds being thrown into the distance.

She looked at me, her deep brown eyes staring deep into mine. Oddly, it made me want to shrink back. It didn’t make me satisfied that I had upset her, for once in my life I felt regret for whatever I had done to upset her. “Yes, you know,” her words were more harsh and louder. “But did you know when I actually started eating seeds again?”

I cocked my head, confused at why she was suddenly so upset. The seed comment was just a funny memory, not anything to aggravate her.

“No?”

“Yeah. Exactly my point.” And just like that, everything went back to how it had been twenty minutes ago. Lorraine stood up, struggling a little, brushed off her knees not like it did much, and waited for me to get up.

I lay in the same place, stunned and confused at what had happened. Why was she so upset I didn’t know when she started eating foods with seeds in them? It was just a tiny little quirk she used to have. What was the fucking importance of that? No way in hell was it significant.

“Let’s go, Gaskarth.” Her voice held venom again and I could feel the tension radiating between us again.

“Right away, Johnson,” I said sarcastically. I was irritated with her again. I didn’t feel like being nice anymore. She was being so moody; I could be a bitch too. Instead of considering her injured ankle and bending down so she could secure herself on my back, I stood stick strait, waiting for her to hop on, somehow.

“A little help would be nice.”

“Tell me about it,” I said nastily, reluctantly bending at the knees to allow her to hop on.

“Ow!” Lorraine yelped. She unhooked her arms from encircling my neck and smacked my hands, which were gripping her thighs too tightly, pinching her skin. “What the fuck was that for, crotch face?”

“Oh I’m sorry. Didn’t you know? I was mad at you because you didn’t remember what I had for dinner on January 22, 1998.”

“Why does that matter?”

“Exactly my point,” I mocked.

I could feel the glare on the back of my head after she had rolled her eyes and her voice was tense as she spat. “Fuck you.”