Utah (Lost - Part Two) Ch. 17 -18

Chapter 17
Utah, October 1996

Car Accident

I don’t remember the crash; I don’t remember getting up that morning, or what I was wearing.  I don’t remember the noise or the impact.  It was like I fell asleep and when I opened my eyes it was to an ageless deep. I was not myself yet I was only myself.  There was not one sound. There was nothing to break the velvet surface of unfathomable.  I was in timeless, I was in changeless.  This was a place of calm and everlasting.

‘Stay or go’ this was not a voice, the words were not words. I inhaled the meaning without lungs. ‘Stay or go’ this was not a question.  There was no penalty; there wasn't a wrong or right answer. This was a choice and it was mine and mine alone.

‘Will the dreams come true?’ I wondered.  A hushed beating was building in the cavernous depth.  It reminds me of my heart beat… raw with the known and unknown.  
‘Yes’ the reply echoed, ‘All of them’

I thought of my mother. She was the first face in the reflecting glassy depth. 

All the dreams, the nightmares will come true and I was afraid… The nightmares, the sunlight, the touch of dust…“Stay” I whisper it inside.  I am a defiant coward.  This is my life, my moment.  It is mine, the suffering, the joy, this life, it is mine and I take it as my own.

Peace and strange vastness are replaced with wet concrete smashed into my face. I have lungs again and they strain against the battered muscles in my chest.  My coat is heavy and suffocating with rain.  Bright lights bruise my eyes; there is the metal taste of blood in my mouth. I am violently cold.

There was a light pressure on my left shoulder and I have ears again too.  “Don’t move!” Someone shouts in my ear.  “Stay down!”  I hear the fear in that person’s voice but it is not the same as my fear; my fear that I woke up.   

I slipped into a shallow darkness.

Chapter 18
14 February 1997

Nightmares Begin

The world is a fly filled cafeteria.  Buzzing intermixes with the wafting smell of stale food made with preservatives.  If I hold my nose and breathe through my mouth I won’t get sick again.  I knew this room was coming. I smelled it from the hall since I was fifteen.  The year it took to walk to this place has been a reluctant and excruciating one.  

I knew this was coming. Somehow, because I knew, it is possible to keep moving but that is all that is possible.

He is popular and all the girls like him.  I was excited when he asked if I wanted to come over, he wanted to hang out with just me; his parents were out of town.  I was confused when he kissed me, I was shattered when I couldn't get him off- when I realized I was pinned, that I couldn't get away; then ice formed in my chest until now I am a blank faceless wall.

Jared has left me, I try not to sleep but when I do my dreams are wordless winds. I cannot write my stories, there aren't any more songs on the piano waiting to be played and when I draw, I draw only broken glass.  The Wind Woman hasn't left, I can still hear her but I cannot understand her words anymore even though she tries to speak to me.

I still write to you. That is something.  It may not be much, but I will take it.

I told my parents and I don’t know why. Their anger and feelings of guilt have only one outlet, only one direction.    I flinch under it.

I told my bishop because he is closer to God. Surely God ought to know what to do. He recoiled, his face showing everything he thought; he asked why had I compromised myself?  He said I would never watch his children again.  I looked at him bewildered and then I saw he didn’t know God anymore then I do.

Dad said I had to go back to church anyway... but after that first Sunday.., I lashed out.  I’d had enough, I watched that smug worried man looking down and I saw me as he saw me, reflecting back. Enough.  I never went back.

I told my friends, each one so different than the other.  I told them when we were all together and watched my mistake unfold.

Rae looked away and could not look at me again.  The third never raised her eyes from her lap.  The fourth stormed out.   Dee didn't say anything; Dee reached out and held my hand so tightly I could not pull our hands apart.   The Rae and third friend no longer ‘see’ me in the hall at school, they don’t call me and I don’t call them.

Dee calls but she is sick with a bad cough that won’t go away.

The fourth friend, she called me liar, in front of everyone at school, she called me a liar.  She said I had always wanted to be pretty and that I made up this story.  Her new friends leave notes in my locker with one or two words on them.  There is a new note a couple of times a day. 

I think that is what hurt most before I stopped hurting.  So I stopped opening my locker and left all my books in there with the notes and their ugly words.

The only classes I don’t skip are dance and art. Before and after them I walk to the nearby foot hills and smoke cigarettes with the seniors.  Sometimes it rains and I remember Georgia and I can almost breathe deeply.

I do not smile the last seven days.  I cannot bear to be touched.  It literally hurts.  When my mother hugs me I can feel her anguish, it is in her hands.  If I am not careful her pain will wake up my pain. 

The important thing is to keep moving.  I can’t keep moving if I remember what happened.  I must not think about it.  I must not be touched.  I must not feel anything.  

I wrap the grey void around me closely.