Chapter Five:
Connecting Memories
I grew weary that day after all the tests and assignments I had to write and facts I had to memorize. I couldn’t keep my focus on anything but Donovan and everything that had happened to me in the past day. It was just too much to take.
The teachers were generous of me though; they gave me about 1 page less than the other students. I did my class work in haste and took nothing home but a minute soul full of heartache and the curiosity that lead me to believe that something was happening between Darla and Andrew.
I sat alone in my dark room with my elbows on my desk as I gazed on the wall at all the pictures. Fond memories lashed out of my mind by one horrid one. I stood on my tiptoes and pulled a tack out of one of the pictures. I looked at it as though there was nothing else to look at.
It was a picture of Donovan and me.
Our very first date was at the nearby park next to the lake. I had been at the lake numerous times for long walks and bike rides but never a date so when we got together he let me decide.
This picture was of him and me on a blanket holding each another. I was in my green summer dress and white sun hate and him in his dark green shirt and lovely tanned jeans. Our smiles shone widely and I looked goofy. I had just recently gotten my teeth fixed straight so this picture was a memory of my old teeth.
Not like I cried like an adolescent when it came to him asking me to choose a destination but that time I nearly did when his back was turned. I felt so amazed that he actually didn’t begin to be a control freak. Of course Donovan wasn’t a control freak, and he would never have the chance to be one, except when it came to video games.
I stared at the picture long and hard as I silently stubbornly walked to my bed and flew asleep by eight that night.
Nothing could break the tranquility of my thoughts. I drifted off with the sound of my metal bed creaking slightly. I fell asleep smiling a bit because in my hand I held the picture and that delivered pure dreams to my mind that night.
I woke up. The picture was crumpled in my hand and I swiftly tried to smooth it out but to no avail. I peered into it with teary eyes. Too many things have been crushed in the past day or so. I didn’t know what the day was; I looked at the calendar and couldn’t still tell if it was Friday or Saturday, I didn’t remember if I tore the date of before I went to sleep last night. Well, it really didn’t matter what day it was because it was eleven in the morning. I was late for school by four hours and it was a couple miles away. I wasn’t going to walk to a place that I didn’t want to be near.
I hobbled out of the room wearily, in my SpongeBob pajamas, and walked over into the kitchen. The tiles were cold; I guess the heater wasn’t turned on. I hunched over and reached into the fridge. I had my eyes closed and was feeling around for my water bottle. I felt something squishy between my fingers, like a small bowl of wet hair and I jerked upward and thwacked my head on the freezer door.
“Dammit…” I bent over and picked up my bottle and slammed the door shut. It thundered and shook the house. I walked around holding the bottle straight to the ceiling as I drank from it and my eyes happened to wander down upon a note on the counter.
I read it and chuckled to myself hoarsely as I crumbled it up and tossed it in the trashcan. I plopped down on the coach.
The sun was streaming through the patches of the ugly flower print curtains and I noticed how quiet it was. Nobody was home.
I sat there thinking of how much these events changed my present and would affect my future. Why did this have to happen to me? I know I ask so many questions but I seriously wanted this one answered.
This was even more heartbreaking then when my scrawny black cat, Elmer, got hit with a two by four one day.
I just stared in horror as I heard that awful whining from my cat, meowing as loudly as it’s little lungs could do and that constant thudding of that board as it banged against my cat. My family had just gotten him from the pet shelter. He was just a walking little skeleton. It took us a couple months to get him to trust us then he began to eat more.
He became normal weight and was just playing like a normal cat when it happened. They just waltzed up into my yard, picked up a decaying two by four from my fence and began to eradicate him right in front of me.
They didn’t stop even though I was only eight and crying my eyes out. I asked my mom and my teachers why it had to happen to me. They didn’t know. Maybe it was jealousy but I didn’t know.
After months of mourning and getting over the trauma I learned something. There are heartless people who slaughter things for their own personal enjoyment and social gain without any particular reason. These are the people I hate: may they be black or white.
I snapped back to reality as I heard the door swing open. My mom was home. I could feel my heart rate slowly decreasing as if I was just relaxing from a vicious run. Maybe this was a sign that I was recovering from my reminiscing.
I heard voices. Two of them at first, one belonged to my mothers and another one was vaguely familiar. For a moment I thought that it might have been Donovan except for the facts that it was a school day, Donovan never missed school, and he was dead.
I peered into he kitchen. I saw Alec standing there with a bag of groceries. I listened harder and noticed that there were more than two people in the house.
My mom, Alec, Alec’s mom and dad, and Donovan’s mom and stepfather were all here. What were they doing here? I was still unfit to be seen by them but it didn’t matter. They knew I was mourning in the morning. They had to understand.
“Eli, help me unpack bags,” my mom said as she saw me approach. I squinted my eyes and moaned viciously and stretched as if I had just woken up.
“What are you doing here?” I rubbed my eyes. Too much sleep is worse for you than no sleep at all I was taught, but now
I wondered how Donovan will be if he ever wakes up from that perpetual sleep.
My mom pressed a bag between my arms as I quickly snagged the bag.
“They’re here for dinner. Don’t be rude and go set the table.”
“But ma, it’s not even two o’clock yet!”
“Then they stay here until it is dinner time! Until then you set the table,” She thrust a pile of plates at me and I released the bag unintentionally. I set the table while muttering under my breath how unfair it was. Unfairness is what drove me farther to the brink of insanity and remembering drove me away somehow.
I thought I heard a meowing but I turned and faced a fading white light. When I blinked I just saw the window and the curtains fluttering.
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