Ocean and Atlantic
mom and dad, did you search for me?
I don’t see John for a long time after his visit.
In fact, I don’t really see anyone for a long time after the jump. Trapped in the hospital for various reasons, I’m going on to missing two weeks of school, but my mother continuously delivers stacks of papers that need to be accomplished sometime between recovering, ignoring my therapist and being under nearly twenty-four hour surveillance by my parents.
She says that as long as I turn everything in before the end of the semester, I’ll be okay, and that all of my teachers “wish Schuyler well in her healing” and “miss having Schuyler in class”.
I don’t believe her when my mother relays the message because 1. I’m pretty sure that none of them would know I existed in their classroom if my name wasn’t printed on their attendance sheets 2. I usually sit with my nose buried in a notebook full of doodles or a good novel and 3. because, to be completely honest, I wasn’t in class all that often.
Half-way through, I’d almost always get a pass to go to the girls’ restroom and stay there for the remainder of class to gossip with Nova.
No one ever seemed to notice, and no one ever really seemed to care, so I didn’t really care either.
Especially when Nova was around.
She had a way of catching attention simply by being. Magnetic, I suppose, is a good word to describe her – the way she was before, well…
The way she sat, the way she leaned into her closed fist, the way she smiled – everything about her was sort of mysterious that it really wasn’t all that shocking that boys took a liking to her. It really wasn’t that surprising that a lot of people enjoyed simply being in her presence.
Rain drops trickle down the window of room 421, racing each other to the sill.
It’s perfect weather to bury a pretty, young girl in.
“I’m sorry that you can’t leave yet, Schuyler,” my mother offers, setting her wide hips on the edge of my bed, blocking the view of the races going on in silent excitement. She strokes a few stray strands of my brown hair away from my face as I pretend to see through her, imagining the rain drops I named “Collin” and “Fillmore” as they snake down the glass.
Collin wins in my mind.
“You don’t need to be at Nova’s funeral to say goodbye, though, sweetheart.” My mother is talking to me like a child, cupping the side of my face in her other hand as she fiddles with the plainness of my hair. “I’m sure that Nova is watching over you and knows how much you miss her.”
I’m not sure at all.
Born and raised Christian, it’s only natural for my mother to make those types of comments, but Nova and I talked about it all the time.
“Do you believe in all that heaven and hell, shit?” she’d asked, and after my noncommittal answer she’d furthered herself, “I’m not sure if I do. I mean, I’d like to, but at the same time I can’t. Does that make sense, Schu?”
It hadn’t to me, mostly because it was always so hard to know what Nova actually meant when she spoke, but I’d pretended I did.
And now I don’t really know what she meant, or if she actually did believe in heaven to be able to know that I’m sorry that I’m missing her funeral.
Nova always had a habit of leaving things open to interpretation.
And I guess I had a habit of letting her leave things go unanswered.
In fact, I don’t really see anyone for a long time after the jump. Trapped in the hospital for various reasons, I’m going on to missing two weeks of school, but my mother continuously delivers stacks of papers that need to be accomplished sometime between recovering, ignoring my therapist and being under nearly twenty-four hour surveillance by my parents.
She says that as long as I turn everything in before the end of the semester, I’ll be okay, and that all of my teachers “wish Schuyler well in her healing” and “miss having Schuyler in class”.
I don’t believe her when my mother relays the message because 1. I’m pretty sure that none of them would know I existed in their classroom if my name wasn’t printed on their attendance sheets 2. I usually sit with my nose buried in a notebook full of doodles or a good novel and 3. because, to be completely honest, I wasn’t in class all that often.
Half-way through, I’d almost always get a pass to go to the girls’ restroom and stay there for the remainder of class to gossip with Nova.
No one ever seemed to notice, and no one ever really seemed to care, so I didn’t really care either.
Especially when Nova was around.
She had a way of catching attention simply by being. Magnetic, I suppose, is a good word to describe her – the way she was before, well…
The way she sat, the way she leaned into her closed fist, the way she smiled – everything about her was sort of mysterious that it really wasn’t all that shocking that boys took a liking to her. It really wasn’t that surprising that a lot of people enjoyed simply being in her presence.
Rain drops trickle down the window of room 421, racing each other to the sill.
It’s perfect weather to bury a pretty, young girl in.
“I’m sorry that you can’t leave yet, Schuyler,” my mother offers, setting her wide hips on the edge of my bed, blocking the view of the races going on in silent excitement. She strokes a few stray strands of my brown hair away from my face as I pretend to see through her, imagining the rain drops I named “Collin” and “Fillmore” as they snake down the glass.
Collin wins in my mind.
“You don’t need to be at Nova’s funeral to say goodbye, though, sweetheart.” My mother is talking to me like a child, cupping the side of my face in her other hand as she fiddles with the plainness of my hair. “I’m sure that Nova is watching over you and knows how much you miss her.”
I’m not sure at all.
Born and raised Christian, it’s only natural for my mother to make those types of comments, but Nova and I talked about it all the time.
“Do you believe in all that heaven and hell, shit?” she’d asked, and after my noncommittal answer she’d furthered herself, “I’m not sure if I do. I mean, I’d like to, but at the same time I can’t. Does that make sense, Schu?”
It hadn’t to me, mostly because it was always so hard to know what Nova actually meant when she spoke, but I’d pretended I did.
And now I don’t really know what she meant, or if she actually did believe in heaven to be able to know that I’m sorry that I’m missing her funeral.
Nova always had a habit of leaving things open to interpretation.
And I guess I had a habit of letting her leave things go unanswered.
♠ ♠ ♠
So... There's obviously a little bit of religion junk in this chapter... I don't plan on making this a religious story, but this does revolve around death and with death comes questions surrounding that sort of subject so... Yeah. I'll try to veer away from it, but the topic and the fact that I attend a private Catholic college that constantly talks about religion - and not always Christianity - may contribute to slight thoughts/conversations/ideas about the matter that are mentioned in here.Thanks for all the support!