Soar
A story by Emily Sykes
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I used to practise telling them every night, watching my face in the bathroom mirror; shaping every vowel, every consonant as though they were my last. Now I just tell them in my head. I formulate every scenario, every possible reaction inside my mind, too scared to even mouth the words anymore, let alone say them aloud. If I said them aloud, they’d become real. I didn’t think I’d ever be ready for that. The timing had to be perfect; I told myself each time my brain played out yet another failed potential scenario. If the timing was perfect, they couldn’t possibly be angry and everything would go on as normal. If the timing was perfect, I’d be able to control their responses, force them to love me for who I was. The timing would never be perfect. Even in my imagination, telling them was excruciating. Picturing my mother’s tears was bad enough. I had no desire to see them in reality, let alone coupled with my father’s inevitable fury.
“Why would you choose this for yourself?” In this version she’s sobbing, shoulders heaving with anguish, tears spilling from bloodshot eyes and running rivulets down her cheeks. I know this scenario well; I don’t even have to look to know that my father is gradually reddening beside her, features morphing from my childhood hero into something so grotesque it makes my insides turn, and I have to fight the urge not to be sick.
“Get out.” Ah. His quiet rage this time, far worse than his loud outbursts. Those shook me, but his near silent anger, with words spat out and eyes of hellfire which said more than his tongue ever could, haunted my nightmares. It was his eyes that scared me the most, smouldering with anger, and in all my scenarios, it was always those eyes that would chase me out of the door. Those eyes would keep me away from my home forever.
No. Secrets are called secrets for a reason. The moment you say them out loud, they become statements, facts, the truth. And whatever the Bible says, the truth does not set you free. It just throws up more barriers, and God knows I don’t need anymore of those. Especially where my family are concerned.
I suppose it all started with Alina Kaminski. She waltzed into my life so effortlessly, so gracefully, and fitted herself so intricately into my circle of friends I scarcely even noticed it happening. Alina was Polish, and possessed a certain Eastern European beauty which she seemed determined to destroy in whatever inventive way she could. Her (naturally) blonde hair fell nearly to her waist, but was faded with bleach and bright in places with remnants of the purple hair dye she later told me she had been using all summer. Her eyelids were slanted, broken apart with orbs like chips of jade and covered in copious amounts of black eyeliner applied so thickly it looked like she’d taken a permanent marker and drawn the broad lines there like some kind of confused Japanese manga artist.
I couldn’t say it was love at first sight. Rather the opposite, in fact. Jealousy is a complex emotion and mine always took the form of absolute hatred, fuelled by my need to be better at everything than anyone else. This was a need I never fulfilled, being supremely untalented at pretty much everything. I hated her bitterly for weeks from afar, bitching pettily about her arrogance, her self importance. Even then I wasn’t kidding anybody.
“If you hate her so much, why are we still talking about her?” I remember Georgia, one of my closer friends, remarking after a long bitching session over the phone. It stuck in my mind; I couldn’t answer her. The truth was, I was obsessed. Obsessed with finding something wrong with her, something so vile I could latch onto it and use it to loathe her forever, perhaps even make everybody else loathe her too. But I just couldn’t, and by the time I realised this it didn’t matter anyway; she was sitting with us at lunch, and I was spending every morning break staring at her.
At first, I thought my compulsive staring was just a continued manifestation of my jealousy. I’d never felt anything like this before, not with anybody else, and as clichéd as that sounded I really did not have any idea what was going on. All I knew was that I needed to be with her all the time, closer to her than anybody else was. It was only when Alina met Joe that I worked it out, and by then it was too late.
Suddenly I didn’t want to be around her 24/7, merely because it had become too unbearable. She was either with Joe or talking about Joe. The last time we’d gone to Starbucks together, she’d managed to divide her time between the two of us, somewhat unevenly, texting him from under the table. Hiding secret smiles which never had and never would be reserved for me, she’d nodded along to whatever trivial thing I’d been saying, eyes never once looking up from the phone resting on her lap. It was moments like those which broke my heart, making me feel as though all of the oxygen had been sucked out of my lungs, black stars dancing across eyes brimming with tears I couldn’t shed just yet. Those would come later, alone in my room in the middle of the night. I couldn’t stand crying during the day. Not about this. It felt as though my house watched me, and judged me, loathed me as much as my parents inevitably would. If I shed even one tear about Alina where it could see, I would be forced to leave.
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“Have I done something wrong? We never hang out anymore :(”
The message flashed up on my phone, the text alert sounding like a gunshot in the deathly quiet of my house. My heart leapt into my throat. My father had been in an awful mood all evening, something about a migraine and a bad day at work. He was also an exceptionally light sleeper. I crept across my room, peeking around the door at the room opposite. A low snore rumbled through the air, and I immediately relaxed. Making my way back to the bed, I flopped down hard on top of my duvet. Telling her was out of the question, I couldn’t risk anybody finding out in case it got back to my parents, but I needed some sort of excuse.
“Hello?” Argh. And apparently I needed one soon. It was only 10 o’clock, she knew I’d still be awake and I couldn’t lie to her.
“I’ve just been really busy lately. Sorry xx” I hastily typed back, wondering whether the x’s were too much, whether she could see right through them.
“Ooo a special someone? ;)” Now that was a response I had not been expecting. What did I say to that, I wondered. Because a “special someone” would provide the perfect excuse; after all, she’d cancelled on our group of friends enough times because she’d said she’d see a movie with Joe and he’d already bought tickets, or Joe’s cat died and he was really upset… She’d see right through a lie, I knew that much. But what about a half truth?
“Maybe ;)” I replied. Being as vague as possible seemed like the best option for the moment.
“Details!!” I winced at the message, forehead furrowing. I’d forgotten about the mood she got into when any kind of gossip was involved, transforming from an aloof, mature teen into a giggly schoolgirl. I would have to be as non-descriptive as possible while satisfying her unquenchable thirst for knowledge, however banal this “knowledge” seemed. Suddenly this didn’t sound like such a good idea after all.
“It doesn’t matter, you don’t know them.” I replied, then keen to change the subject, “how’s Joe?”
“No no no. Joe’s fine. Now tell me about mystery man.” Oh bollocks. Well let her think what she wanted. I certainly wasn’t about to correct her on the specifics of my so called “special someone.” I’d decided on half truths, and half truths they would have to be.
“It’s all a bit of a mess really.” I typed, knowing she wouldn’t be satisfied with my answer, I hit send anyway. A thrill rushed through me, and only then did I realise how much I was enjoying this. It felt amazing to be telling her, even indirectly, telling someone how I really felt. It was as though the weight of the earth had been lifted off my shoulders, like I was soaring, could soar and had just never realised it before, never felt what it was like to be this free. Filled with a wild impulse, I continued writing, fingers fumbling and bashing on the tiny keyboard of my phone.
“I thought I hated,” here I hesitated, “him, but it was just me being stupid and jealous. Now it’s too late and I don’t know what to do.”
Her reply was instantaneous, and it sent a surge of joy through me, knowing I was finally gripping her attention for the first time in months.
“What do you mean it’s too late?” I pictured the perfect alabaster skin of her forehead wrinkling in confusion.
“He’s got a girlfriend.” I giggled a bit to myself as I texted, imagining the very conventionally handsome, masculine Joe as a stereotypical blonde bimbo, clinging onto Alina’s arm. “They’re pretty serious.”
I didn’t get a reply for a while after that. Throwing my phone down onto my bedside table, I slowly got ready to go to bed, trying not to think too hard about what Alina might be doing instead of responding to my text. By the time her message did come through, I was under my duvet, preparing for sleep with a heavy feeling in my heart. I could never be interesting for long. Not to anyone, but most of all not to her. She had her fairytale romance, the perfect boyfriend. She didn’t need me in the way I needed her; popular, pretty, the centre of more than a few people’s universes… Why should she care? She didn’t have to, I was just lucky she had for at least a little while.
When my phone finally blared out my message alert, I reached for it sluggishly. She wasn’t interested anymore, what was the point? The message was pretty long for a text, so I scanned it quickly, too emotionally exhausted to play this game anymore.
“So I just got off the phone with Georgia,” here I frowned, I presumed she would have been writing sickening good night messages to her boyfriend, “and we just had the best idea. Neither of us has ever even heard you mention a guy before, so this one must be pretty special. I don’t care how serious they are, we’re getting you your man ;). Cinderella you shallllll go to the ball! I’m gonna go to sleep now but…”
I couldn’t read anymore. I was staring and staring at the screen, but my eyes wouldn’t focus on the words. They merged together like ink drops in water, blurring until I couldn’t tell letter from punctuation. Writing a reply now was out of the question. The stakes had suddenly been raised, and like it or not, I was stuck in my lie for good.
