Conversations of the Mind

Thomas Reed was lying in his bed staring at the ceiling as he absentmindedly listened to his wives breathing slowly, reassuring him that she was still asleep. He had been trying to seep as well, but for the past few days it had seemed impossible, every single one of conversation he´d had with his family since the day Alexis woke up seemed to be permanently written in his brain and he couldn’t stop thinking about them.

The most recent conversation was the one that caught his attention at the moment, it had been over three weeks since his daughter had gotten out of the coma and it seemed as though Lillian wouldn’t be able to take it much longer if things didn’t get any better. She was sad because of what her step-daughter was going through, Tom knew that, but her way of showing it was different than the rest. She didn’t cry or changed her expression when she saw her; she just kept repeating to him that he had to do something because Lex couldn’t stay that way.

But the solution Lillian proposed didn’t seem right to him, Tom didn’t want ship his daughter to a different school. But his wife insisted that a school for disabled people would be good for her. He didn’t agree with her, he thought it was too soon to decide something so important and to take such drastic action, it hadn’t yet been that long since Lex woke up and he still had hope that his daughter would get better and that she would get her memories back.

He seemed to be the only one, though. Of course, him and Sarah. Everyone else seemed to have the worst mood and the hope that had been awoken the day Alexis got out of the coma had vanished in a weeks’ time. They had taken their time to give him their opinions during the second week; no one believed anymore that she would get better, they all thought she would stay that way and the best thing to do was to take her to a especial school where she could relearn everything she had once known.

He sighed deeply and turned to look at the clock next to him in his nightstand, it read 6:47 am, he would have to get ready for work soon. Wishing to escape the thoughts that troubled his head, Tom got up from his bed and rubbed his hands against his eyes trying to wake himself up. Before taking a shower, he walked out of his room and into Alexis´s room; she was asleep just like everyone else in the house. Since Sarah lived in the apartment above the bookstore, they had decided it was better if Tom drove Alexis to the store every morning before he went to the hospital.

So he woke his daughter up by shaking her shoulder slowly and waited for her to open her eyes. Lex was different than the other kids her age in many ways, not only because she didn’t have any memories of her life, but also because instead of wanting to keep on sleeping after being woken up, she was excited to start a new day. Every morning, she would shot her father a warm smile that melted his heart and she sat up in her bed to stretch as a yawn slipped past her lips.

After taking a shower, they both sat in the dining room to eat their breakfast in silence. Tom didn’t say anything to his daughter; he didn’t know how to communicate with her anymore. A lot of people said it was good to speak to the patients while they were in a state of coma, and they had all done that. But now that she was awake he didn’t know what to say to her, he couldn’t talk to her because his heart broke every time she didn’t answer.

They left the house moments after the rest of the family went into the kitchen for their breakfast. Usually they would all wake up at the same time and have breakfast together, but for the past week Tom had been waking up earlier so that he wouldn’t have to listen to Lily say the same things over and over again.

It was easy to say he didn’t know how to act lately; he had no idea how to treat someone like his daughter in the state she was. But he had a gut feeling that doing what Lillian had suggested was not the right thing to do. He was sure that separating Alexis from her family and the people that cared about her wouldn’t help her get better.

As he drove, they were covered by an absolute silence; there was not a single noise in the car. The stereo was not on because Tom thought it might bother his daughter and he didn’t talk to her either because, again, he didn’t know what to say. He just shot looks at her while Lex sat at his side and observed the things that passed them by through the window with a small smile on her face.

Every time they got to the bookstore, Tom would park on a nearby spot and walked Alexis to the store. When they walked in they waved to the girl who worked there and Alexis would hug her aunt, which always confused Tom; it wasn’t as if his daughter had the reasoning to do such action. As far as he knew, his daughter didn’t have knowledge about anything; therefore a hug was included in the things she shouldn’t know how or why to do.

Then he would say good-bye to both of them and take off to his job leaving his daughter with Sarah where Tom had no idea what Alexis did during the day to entertain herself. He was completely oblivious to the fact that his daughter left the library every day to walk around the park a few blocks down. Sarah was sure that if he knew, Tom wouldn’t let Alexis leave her house anymore.

The store was always calm in the first hours of the day and there wasn’t much to do. Sarah sat in the small office in the back of the store while she drank some coffee and went over some paperwork. Grayson wandered around the place with her IPod on and the volume of the music much louder than healthy for her ears. Alexis only sat in one of the tables that faced the window and watched people pass by as she waited for the right time to go out into the city. For some reason, she always waited a couple of hours before leaving.

When the clock neared nine in the morning, the girl got up from her chair and went out of the bookstore without letting her aunt know, but that wasn’t very important because Grayson was always aware of the time the girl left the store. She walked through the same street she always did, crossing it without looking to see if a car was coming, but for some reason she always had the luck of an empty street.

She arrived at the park and walked in the same pavement path between the short green grass as her eyes traveled from one thing to another calmer and more slowly than she did the first time she was there. That day she decided to ignore the tree underneath which she always sat, instead she continued walking along with the people that moved around at a speed she that would never match her peaceful one.

Everyone seemed to be in a hurry, running from one place to the other with a coffee on their hands and a cellphone in the other while they didn’t pay attention to what was around them. Alexis Reed watched them with a certain humor in her eyes, her steps were slow and more careful than the others, but she didn’t care where she was going. As long as the path didn’t end, she was content with what she was doing.

She had not seen the same thing twice, many things looked alike because most people acted the same way. But she had never seen the same person twice, she was sure that if she did she would recognize them.

To Alexis it didn’t matter that the people all acted the same, or that things were similar each day or that the day was illuminated by the same bright sun every day. She did not lose interest in what surrounded her, it didn’t matter how many days she had done the same thing or listen to the same sound, she would always snap her head to see what provided that sound as if her body was not under control.

That day, Alexis walked almost through the entire park. She walked along the path and passed the area where people sat for a moment of peace as well as the playground that was filled with the laughter of little kids. And after walking for a long time, she reached a part of the park she had not seen before.

Her face brightened at the sight in front of her; right before her stood a bridge, it wasn’t very high but even so its distance from the lake that lay underneath it was at least of fifteen feet. The bridge was made of the same light grey pavement as the path she was walking on and it was covered in some fallen leaves of the trees around it. On each side the bridge was flanked by two railings made of the same material but with wholes a couple of feet apart so people could see the water that swayed slowly.

Excited to see something different, Alexis walked towards the bridge. When she was standing on the very middle of it she didn’t know to which side to go to, what to see first or what to do with the new scenery. First she crouched to see a trail of ants that followed one another in a perfect line, all of them with tiny pieces of green grass in their backs. Then she walked to the side of the bridge, stopping only when the railing didn’t let her keep moving, she leaned forward as much as she could to look at what was underneath the bridge. The water was moving slowly because the lake had no higher grounds, so there were no currents, but the soft sound it made as it moved made a smile appear in the girl´s lips. Without really realizing it, she leaned even forward until half her body was on the other side of the railing.

“If it´s the heat what´s bothering you and you want to cool down, I wouldn’t recommend the lake. I don’t think the water´s very fresh and they say it´s not clean either. Besides, it´s forbidden to get it,” some said from behind her, letting the soft sound of a chuckle hang in the air.

Completely surprised by the sound of a voice she was not expecting, Alexis spun around so quickly she almost stumbled out of the bridge and she had to hold on to the railing for support. She looked at the guy in front of her and tilted her head to a side slightly as she observed the half-smile in his face.

The guy stopped smiling when he realized Alexis had not said anything back to him. His lips formed a tight line as he narrowed him blue eyes. The girl was not very tall, maybe just slightly taller than average but nothing spectacular. Her hair was light brown and long, it fell like waves down her shoulders and when the sunlight hit it, some locks seemed blonder than others. Her eyes were green, a light green that was covered in darker freckles.

As he made his quick analysis, the girl had not made a single sound. She just stared at him without paying much attention to his looks; she couldn’t ignore the fact that his tall height made her feel somewhat uncomfortable. But she didn’t really care much about that, the only thing that was running through her mind was that he had interrupted her moment of joy, he had wiped the smile of her face and made her excitement to touch the water underneath decrease to the point she furrowed her brow and started at him with slight anger and annoyance.

It was in that moment that he realized who she was. He could remember her as the girl he had seen at the park the week before, the one who was sitting under the tree and who had been watching him closely. He realized that, just like last time, she seemed to be completely different than a normal girl her age, she didn’t have the general look of irritation and she didn’t have a cellphone glued to her hands.

Just as he was about to ask her something, Alexis shot him one last angry look and turned around walking back in the direction she had come from leaving him with his mouth half-open and a confused frown in his face. He watched her leave without moving until she was out of sight.

He thought about what he thought he had seen for a moment, wondering why she seemed to be about to jump from the bridge and why she seemed to be so upset that he had stopped her. But most of all, he couldn’t answer the question that was roaming his head. Why, on both times he had seen her, the girl had not said a word and didn’t even seem to understand what she was doing? Realizing he most likely wouldn’t be able to answer that question, he brought one of his hands to the back of his neck and scratched just beneath his hair line, before running his hand all over his hair and keep on walking.

Alexis made her usual walk back from the park until she opened the door of the bookstore and walked in with heavy steps due to the irritation that had taken over her. Sarah and Grayson both stared at her as Lex walked to the back of the counter and sat in one of the stools. Sarah and her employee shared looks of confusion, normally the walks her niece took lasted much longer, longer than the hour and a half she had been gone that day, and the angry expression she was wearing didn’t comfort her confused aunt.

Sarah observed her closely trying to make sure nothing wrong had happened to Alexis, that she had not gotten hurt or that nothing strange was going on because she knew if Tom noticed something weird, she wouldn’t let his daughter go to the library anymore. But she couldn’t see anything, so she tried to calm down, the girl´s anger could be due to many things, it didn’t have to be something bad. So, with one last look at her niece, she turned back to stocking some books in the shelves.