Quiet Room - Lori Schiller [5]
He had been an exchange student that year, the summer I was fifteen. He was gorgeous, a real hunk, blond and lanky with bright blue eyes, and a cute little accent. Since I was short and dark, he seemed especially exotic. I really liked him, and could scarcely take my eyes off him. What's more, at twenty-three years old, he was my first older man. I admired him for his courage to come all the way over here alone for a summer, and I was charmed by his sense of humor.
We really enjoyed each other's company. My memories of those evenings became sweetly sad as I recalled talking about being in love, and how terrible it was going to be when he finally had to return home. We even made up an absurd little song to the tune of the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride”:
He's got a ticket for home
He's got a ticket for home.
He's got a ticket for home,
And won't be back …
But several weeks later, after camp was over and I had returned home to Scarsdale, he showed up at my house—with a pretty woman whom he introduced to my parents as his fiancée.
As the days went by, I found myself obsessing on that moment two years ago. Gradually, my mood began to shift, and the brightness of the world began to darken. As I remembered the past, the feelings began to blur the present. Then came the dreadful thoughts. Why had he left me that summer? Why hadn't I been good enough? Maybe it was because I really wasn't beautiful, exquisite and passionate. Maybe I was really ugly. Maybe more than ugly. Maybe I was fat and disgusting, an object not of romance but of ridicule. Yes, that was it. Maybe everyone around me, far from loving me, was instead laughing at me, mocking me to my face.
My mood began to turn black. A dark haze settled around me. The beautiful camp turned foul, a thing of evil, not of beauty. All around me were shadows, and I was wrapped in a dark haze.
My memories became so vivid that at night as I lay in my bunk wracked by unhappy thoughts and unable to sleep, it seemed as if I really were back in that summer. In my memory we were again down by the huge, dark, romantic lake. Over to the dockside we could hear the water lapping up against the sailboats and giant waterwheels the kids played on during the day. Late at night, the fireflies were gone, but we could still hear frogs croaking along the banks. The sky was heavy with stars I felt I had never seen before. We sat in the thick grass that ran right down to the water's edge and laughed and talked together.
In my memory, we snuggled and kissed. And then he became more insistent. We lay down together on the top of one of the picnic tables that ringed the lake. His hands began to roam, under my T-shirt, into my shorts. I was excited and worried, terrified and thrilled all at the same time. I wanted more, and I wanted him to stop. We were pushing the limits of my experience and I didn't know how to handle it. In my mind I was back there, rolling and caressing in the darkness, and I was washed over with complicated feelings from past and present—love, embarrassment, rejection, fear.
Then, in the middle of this chaos, a huge Voice boomed out through the darkness.
“You must die!” Other Voices joined in. “You must die! You will die!”
At first I didn't realize where I was. Was I at the lake? Was I asleep? Was I awake? Then I snapped back to the present. I was here at camp, alone. My summertime fling was long gone, two years gone. That long-ago scene was being played out in my mind, and in my mind alone. But as soon as I realized that I was in my bunk, and awake— and that my roommate was still sleeping peacefully—I knew I had to run. I had to get away from these terrible, evil Voices.
I leaped from my bed and ran barefoot out into the grass. I had to find someplace to hide. I thought if I ran fast enough and far enough, I could outrun the Voices. “You must die!” they chanted “You will die.”
Frantically, I ran out to the wide, open center lawn. The grass was wet under my feet. I raced for the huge trampoline where the kids practiced backflips and somersaults.
I climbed on.