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“are you okay?” asks Charlotte. or maybe her name is Beth. or Lily. you don't know. can't remember. who can?
you remember suddenly she asked you a question. an inquiry, requiring a response.
“i’m fine,” you say. “just tired.” and then you smile at her. big enough to look real, yet twisted.
she smiles back. tentatively. cautiously. hesitantly. all of which mean to do something in a careful and deliberate manner. to her—no, to them—tired might mean to be low on energy due to a poor night’s sleep. to you, it means you’re numb and unfeeling and couldn’t care less about what happens, except you can’t tell anyone that. to you, they all sound like synonyms.
“okay. just…meet me behind the bleachers after class. please? thank you!” she says without waiting to hear your response to anything.
“of course,” you say. “no problem.”
to them, that might mean it does not trouble you to do these things. to you, it means you secretly dread, despise, heavily dislike them, but can’t bring yourself to say it. it means an afternoon of smiling even though it hurts your cheeks and telling little white lies to divert attention from yourself. story of your life. you could hardly care less at this point.
the girl that should be your friend yet her name you can’t remember trots away after that, leaving you blissfully alone until the bell rings.
“hey!” someone yells, calling out your name. inwardly, you flinch at the loud noise. the turning heads. the way the universe seems to curve around you, to isolate, ostracize, relegate you, to make you your own personal black hole that everything that is nothing spins, whirls, rotates around,
outwardly, you grin falsely, fakely, deceitfully (all of which mean to do something in an untrue manner) and wave in broad strokes. you’d really rather die than be here, than do this.
you’d rather die than do most things.
great. the girl (Kathy? Eloise? Adriana?) brought more people. perfect. exceptional. utterly desirable. just what you wanted. one’s blonde. another’s short. a third looks to be a year or two your junior. all of them are mysteries to you. and all of them are looking at you the same way. with a judgemental, contemptuous pity, as if you’re some kind of stray they can adopt and nurse back to health. some kind of stray that just pissed all over their carpet. you hate it.
you hate most things.
“how are you doing?” asks the blonde one. such a broad question. such a boring question. what do they want you to say?
something overly chipper and easy to digest? facilitating to respond to? common, yet wholly unreal?
Omigod, I’m doing so great, life is, like, amazing, I wouldn’t give up or change ANYTHING, like, who would?
something true but gut-wrenching? hard to think about, yet it’s all you can think about? something, that to them, would be…
unnatural? wrong?
i’m just numb. my parents are divorcing because my sister’s dying of kidney failure at 22 and they blame me, my grandfather, the alive one, anyway, is losing it to dementia and can’t remember anyone in the family, and i think my friends are toxic leeches who only appreciate me for my homework answers. oh, and the shotgun my dad has in the shed has been looking far too appealing, recently, and i’m not sure i’m going to make it to adulthood.
something average? the median in the bleak world you live in? just…something?
i’m fine.
if only fine didn’t stand for Figuring out the Indirect messages your nearly Nonexistent parents insist on sending not just you but Everyone around you.
how did one words, four letters, become the wolf to your sheep, hounding you for answers you don’t think you can give?
“i’m good,” you say. “why wouldn’t i be?”
an abundance, a myriad, a multitude of reasons.
like Thom Gunn said.
as if hands were enough
to hold an avalanche off.
you wonder how much longer your arms can pretend this avalanche is just a couple of pelted stones.
“you’ve been acting kind of…distant, lately,” says the girl from earlier.
you consider adding distant to the list of synonyms for numb in your mind’s thesaurus.
“oh, i’m sorry,” you say. “with midterms coming up…you know how things are.”
you do. you really do.
“yeah…” says the short one. “don’t stress, though! you’ve got some of the best scores in school!”
you shrug idly, your mouth forming a wry smile. “luck, maybe?”
“nah,” says the young one. “you’re just super smart!”
no. you just spend as much time as possible alone in your room studying to avoid hearing your parents fighting or dodge the common yelling aimed at you and also because you know a scholarship is your only ticket out of here.
instead of voicing this, you just ruffle her hair (ignoring the way it makes your arm tingle with pain from the touch you so desperately hate) and say, “thanks, kiddo.”
she grins. you vaguely remember a time when you used to grin like that up at your older sister. maybe this girl sees you as her own sister?
“hm. oh, i forgot to tell you! so, the other day…” starts the blonde girl, and the conversation slowly loosens, along with the knot in your chest.
you really have to stop getting lost in your own internal monologue so often. otherwise, they’re going to dig deeper, and…
you don’t know how much longer you can continue to patch up the cracks with thin foundation and cheap mascara. what you do know is that if they try to force their way through these fractures in you, you’ll break. and you can’t break. not now, not ever. people have bigger problems than you.
so you’ll just continue to memorize definitions and synonyms and antonyms and fake your way through it.
maybe one day, “okay” will become part of your dictionary.