It's Simply Complicated

Aliza woke up the following morning with her vision hazy and her mind hazier. Everything that had happened the night before was playing over and over again, on loop in her head. Her hand found its way to her head and she lied in her bed, twirling her hair around her fingers. She was becoming so overwhelmed with the thoughts surrounding Evan.

She couldn’t imagine what he must have been going through. To lose both of his parents within a week of each other and to not take a break from school seemed unreal to her. Granted, Evan did not have a great relationship with his dad but words could not explain how much he loved his mother. With the way he made it sound, he did not have a chance to properly mourn, grieve, and come to terms with his loss. Some people have to keep moving in order to deal with pain, in attempt to ensure that it does not consume them, grab ahold of their life, and take over. Evan, though, sounded like someone screaming out—not literally, though there was plenty of that. He sounded as if he was screaming for help, wanting someone to come rescue him—someone to take the weight of the world off of his shoulders—and tell him that it was acceptable to lean on someone and not be in control.

Aliza stayed tucked into her cocoon of warmth and safety. She pulled the blankets up to her chin, burrowed her chin into her chest, and nuzzled her face into her comforter. Turning over onto her side and curling up into a ball, she tried to put herself in his shoes. Despite the fact that they had their disagreements, Evan was just a kid who was forced to grow up and Aliza had no choice but to sympathize with that. No one deserved that, not even Evan McAlister.

These thoughts continued to plague Aliza as she was wrapped up in her security blanket. She was in some regard nearly paralyzed. A part of her wanted to be there for Evan, to give him a chance, while another part just wanted to offer some barely-satisfying-the-minimum condolences. After all, feeling sorry for someone can cripple them and, in some cases, discount their dignity making them feel worthless. Evan was most like the latter, or maybe he was the former, which ever would get him the most attention and benefits. Despite all that happened to him, Evan was still Evan and it would take a lot of devastation to change that.

After reflecting, Aliza emerged from her bed and decided to greet the day. She went into her bathroom, connected to her bedroom, to brush her teeth. The cold tile send shivers down her spine as she grabbed the blue toothbrush and coated its bristles with minty toothpaste. As she brushed her teeth, Aliza looked at herself and partially began to wonder when she became this person. Had she seriously just criticized Evan and implied that he was milking his parents’ tragic deaths for sympathy? Even if he were trying to reap benefits, it still would not change the fact that his parents were dead. She looked up at herself as a child would look up to the parents when expecting a punishment. Her brown skin seemed less lively, less full of color, and her deep brown eyes, once filled with compassion and love, were condescending and unforgiving. Her dark brown hair just dangled in front of her as she looked between the strands for some semblance that Aliza, the old Aliza, the real Aliza, was still in there somewhere.

She washed her face to get rid of the appearance that only sleep can bring, but also tried to rub off the last remaining impression that Evan had left on her, to scrub away the stain. Little did she know that on her face was not the place where he left his mark.

Famished, Aliza bounced down the stairs to make herself something to eat. She had been going through a stage now for a couple of weeks where she constantly made fried egg sandwiches. However, as she began to gather the ingredients, her stomach began to feel queasy and her appetite was quickly fading. Settling for a cup of iced coffee so she could get started on her homework, Aliza directed her attention to that task instead with the slamming of cupboard doors and closing of drawers. Upon the completion of fixing her coffee, Aliza retreated back to her room to get started on her homework and what was going to be the longest three days of her life.

To Aliza, the rest of Sunday did not really happen; Monday was a complete blur and Tuesday, well Tuesday, never logged into her memory at all. Wednesday, though, was painfully etched into her memory and she knew it very well.

It was a Wednesday afternoon in the library when it finally hit her. She hadn’t eaten a legitimate meal in 72 hours. There were snacks and a couple of glasses of water but no actual meals. When Aliza would sit down to eat dinner, she would get really nauseous all of a sudden, assuming she even had an appetite at all. Sleeping? That was a different topic all together. Over the past three days combined, she still didn’t have a total of eight hours of sleep. She wasn’t up studying and she did not have any reason to stay up. For all purposes, she was tired. She didn’t even want to look in the mirror because she somehow managed to get a canker sore from stress, but not even Aliza knew what she was stressed about.

Two of her friends found her at lunch that Wednesday doing some homework in the library. She had no reason to go to the cafeteria—it’s not like she could eat no matter how much she wanted. She explained her symptoms to them: the lack of appetite, the inability to sleep, pointing out the canker sore, the nausea when she does eat, and the fact that she wants to do all the normal things but her body just physically could not.

The two of them, Cheyenne and Jordan, just looked Aliza with raised eyebrows and devilish smirks. They exchanged glances before returning their attention back to her. Jordan, ignoring Aliza’s presence, looked back at Cheyenne to offer her diagnosis: “Sound’s like Aliza’s in love,” she whispered softly, taking care to remember that they were in the library.

Aliza just responded by looking back and forth between her two friends.

“Come on,” Cheyenne giving her a coy expression.

Aliza hadn’t mentioned Evan to either one of them so this projection seemed to come out of nowhere.

“Yeah, but who's in love? Me?” Aliza tried again. "Last time I checked, love was to make you feel good, like you’re floating on a cloud, and you’re supposed to see hearts and Cupid’s arrows and fireworks and all the lame stuff in a Nicholas Sparks movie.

“Love is supposed to be a relatively pleasant experience. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I look like someone punched me in the mouth. This isn’t love and if it is, then I definitely do not want any part in it,” she ranted.

“Fine,” Jordan said sharply, “shut up. You’re not in love.”

Cheyenne just shrugged her shoulders and raised an eyebrow, which only caused Aliza to think more about the hypothesis. Could she really be in love with Evan? Objectively, she was fine before he showed up and now, she wasn’t. Nothing else changed in her behavior and schedule outside of his appearance. Cheyenne and Jordan did seem to guess that there was a guy involved even though Aliza herself had never mentioned anyone.

Jordan and Cheyenne continued to talk around Aliza, though. She was not too interested in what they had to say anymore. In fact, she was only interested in what they had already said. The thought of her being in love with Evan plagued her throughout the rest of the day. She had dance practice after school that day but as soon as she got home, she rushed upstairs to her room. Closing the door behind her, she picked up her phone and called the one person she thought could tell her what was wrong.