Sid and the Last Five Years

I believe in fate; I don't believe fate does anything in anyone's favor. I turned in that crumpled piece of lined paper, my name jotted down so quickly it was barely legible, my face so unattractively stone as I did so. I took careful notice that Ms. Andreq took a quick glance at it, then set it aside with the rest of the other papers. Expecting her to treat my assignment superior to the others, I didn't believe she would, but I thought maybe she would have took it under consideration that what I just turned in was lunacy.

“The night in White Salmon, it was just amazing,” I heard a young girl in awe speak like she had just learned a new language, and felt that she could speak it fluently, without any stumbling or complications. “Eric is just the most genuine person you can ever find. He told me- Oh, God- He told me-” I attempted to drone off into the filing of student's papers and the excessive chatter of other's conversations, but that chord struck one that could not be ignored. “I've just never felt this way before, I think I really-”was fed a lot of bullshit, “love this guy.”

The childish squeal of joy pierced the air with it's radiant happiness; the strong odor of Musk perfume lingered in the air. “I'm so happy for you!” That was a ploy. She wasn't happy for her at all, because she too had most-likely been with Eric at one point or another, and had previously gotten her heart broken. It was a great possibility, the chance was in no one's favor perhaps, but it was very likely that Eric had been with both of these girls; he would never be with either again.

He caused mischief and I knew far too much about his life than I should have. It was conversations like these that lurked over in my direction, forever to sink into my brain and print themselves to never be forgotten; always to be remembered. The only talk I had ever had with the boy had been small, and it had been right after an extreme mental breakdown.

“I just think he's amazing. I couldn't see myself with anyone else but him.”

“That's great, I'm happy for you. Honest.” People weren't honest, there was always some sick lie hidden beneath the truth, buried and may never be found, but just because the mistake was never approached, does not mean a mistake was never made. Acting as if I were stretching, I turned slightly to my left to sneak a look at the girls who conversed of such nonsense, and I recognized both of them, yet could not place a name on either. It wouldn't be of much importance to me anyhow, a week from now I would hear the group of girls to my right saying the same things, about the same guy.

Why couldn't I ever say anything about a guy.

Because I had nothing to say, and no one to tell.

*

The money on the table still sat where it had been placed the first moment it was set on the table; the dishes piled into the sink forming a porcelain hill; dust gathered on the switches that had yet to be turned on and grace the rooms with light; the smell of mold was strong. Adam hummed a low song hinting at melancholy but disguised as that counterfeit bliss. I heard the repetitive, loud thumps of his balled fists plunging against the hard-wood flooring in his bedroom. “This house is mad.”

'So are you.' The voice seemed to follow me everywhere now, whatever I was doing, his snarl and dry laughter stalked my move. The repulsing feeling I got was constant now, the vomit nearly hitting the floor every time that man, that thing- that monster- spoke. 'Monster, now that's a little harsh. Your attitude lately has been so hum-drum. You act like an uneducated inbred, we know you're smarter than that. You were raised to be smart, don't act like a dumbfuck.'

“Shut up,” I hissed violently under my breath, with so much pressure the words were like forcing a human into a parakeet cage, it was the impossible.

Rrring. Rrring.

The phone had been silent for the past few days, and of course it had been; who would want to talk to the hormonal teenage girl who endures some form of psychosis and her brother who couldn't stutter out a proper word if his life depended on it?

“Hello?” I croaked, feeling the wall of dried saliva building on the corners of my mouth break, the crusty exterior cracking like thin winter ice beneath the heavy feet of a grown man. I licked my teeth, feeling the plaque coat them in a great layer; I had not brushed my teeth since Mom had left that morning.

The other line on the phone wasn't dead, but it lacked noise. Silence was louder than anything could have been. I cleared my throat once more and echoed another, “Hello?”

“Hey, it's me.” Her voice was familiar, yet it was distant and distracted. Yet, I couldn't quite place the puzzle pieces together, because these ones were sober, not intoxicated, in a steady, normal state of mind. “I'll be back in a few days, I'm sorry I've been gone, I've been busy,” she pleaded; I heard a door roughly slam in the near background. “I love you, tell Adam that too.” I stood still, a single breath escaping my lips, but that was all, I refused to inhale; at that point in time I wished I would have just dropped to sleep, never to awake again. A rant knocked on my lips, eager to ride a wild adventure that is reality, about how she left; she fucked me up; screwed me over; left me with twenty bucks. She didn't love us, she didn't know what love was, the only thing she knew was addiction; that was the closest thing to love.

“Don't do anything stupid.”

For some reason, I felt like I should have said that.

*

Eric changed his schedule. It didn't concern me, it shouldn't have even be considered that it could ever, possibly concerned me; but he did. The surrounding seats in English from him to me were few, I had a perfect view of the back of his head, his dark locks twisted and knotted. He made casual conversation with his not-so-close friends nearby, but other than that, typically kept to himself and enjoyed the solace in whatever his earbuds were playing.

Today he asked Alex for a pencil; he wouldn't ask me because Alex is prettier.

Tom Sawyer was dreadfully boring, I don't doubt that Twain was a skilled writer and a great man, but nevertheless an adolescent con-artist manipulating the other neighborhood boys to white-wash the fence for him, was not in any interest of mine. I sat behind my book the majority of the time, while Ms. Andreq read enthusiastically, enunciating every word with accuracy and such emotion that you would really believe the woman was from their time period; her accent was magnificent.

Alex placed her hand on Eric's own, and smiled as she did so; Ms. Andreq preached on. Alex was just like the girls before, she would fall from the ladder where she was so high up, down to the cold, wet ground. The color she saw now would soon turn a dark, dismal shade of gray, and each step she would soon take would seem like a mile. The little things she used to be able to do, would forever seem like tedious chores, because her mind would be damned with Eric this and Eric that, because that's how they always were; that's how it always went. She was playing the dumb blonde with the skinny body and the athletic friends, she was running her cards along that path, so easy to get, so simple to snag off the market. She was the pretty flowers you see, the ones that all eventually wilt.

'At least she can say she was a flower, a beautiful one at that; you're a monster.'

“-In order to make a man or boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.”

That was the only piece from the book I had kept with me.