Lay It Down

Mr. Martin had apologized to my parents and explained the situation. I was still expecting them to explode or tell me how they thought I was dead in some roadside ditch because I never called. They didn’t and when he dropped me off Emily walked with me to the front door and gave me a light kiss on the lips. I wanted it to last longer for the few seconds but figured she didn’t want to hear her dad lecture her and I didn’t want to hear it form my mother who was on the other side of the door, unlocking it at that moment.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.
“You will. Let’s draw up those shoes.”
“Okay,” I replied as I waved to her.

I went upstairs without really saying much to my mom, except that it was a good game. I didn’t question anything that Mr. Martin might have said to her, I didn’t try to get any answers because I assumed that if there was an issue than they would have staged some form of an intervention the moment I walked in the door.

I walked up the stairs to my room, turned on the lights, closed door and then spun around like I was some kind of pop star with a great dance pose. I was happy—with such a feeling that I could probably see my heart glowing through my chest if I turned the light off.

I closed my eyes and I could see her face; I could feel her breath on my skin and smell a light perfume and I didn’t want that to go away for any moment. I didn’t care if I fell asleep and dreamed of her or stayed awake all night with her on my mind. I hoped for a dream or some form of memory of her, like she had of me—but I figured that if I had one, I would forget it the second my eyes opened in the morning. Maybe I could lucid dream and control it, to see the wondrous things that awaited us beyond my mind’s eye—or at least give me a vision of what I had to look forward to.
The wishful musings of a hormonal and emotionally obsessed teenage boy—if it could be bottled up and sold, I would be a billionaire.

I jumped out of bed five minutes before my alarm clock would go off. True to form, I could not remember if I had any dream, but it didn’t matter, my dream was already a reality, I just had to make it to school. I took a shower, got dressed and raced out to meet the bus—this time without my Walkman or long-sleeves; and Emily still had my jacket, so I once again exposed my body to the slings and arrows of psychological torture, but I was able to ignore it. The towering demon of self-doubt: the one that handed out bad ideas like good omens shrank down like I was “Super Mario” with a magic mushroom. The ride to school was peaceful.

I raced to the school door, but Emily wasn’t there. I thought little of it. She was obviously inside or maybe hadn’t arrived yet on her own bus. I didn’t know which one hers was, so I wouldn’t know where to go and find it. So, I went on to my locker, threw my backpack in and then walked down the hall.

She wasn’t at the other end of the hall or in the library, so I walked to the gym. I wasn’t paranoid, I didn’t fear there was an issue, but I had a feeling that if I didn’t see her within a few minutes that I would have a minuscule panic attack so small no one could outwardly see it but there would be a chorus of shrieking “me’s” in my head—all of the running like it was the apocalypse because Emily was not there at that moment.

She wasn’t in the gym.
“There’s no reason to jump to conclusions,” I said to myself. “She’s sick at home due to the game or maybe that strike to the face caught up with her and she’s at a doctor’s appointment.” It had only been a few days, but I felt incomplete without her in the morning: I was missing my Yang and I didn’t like it. Still, there would be days in the future, like on the weekends, where we wouldn’t see each other in person as much as we wanted to, or maybe during vacations so this was a practice for that.

I nodded to the chorus in my head who all applauded at my adult logic. I grabbed my books from my locker and went to class. I listened, I took notes but I also had the thoughts that she would be outside the door after first period and we would to Geometry class together. However, there was also the thought that she would hang the jacket on my locker with another note on it and that everything was just some test. I tried to exorcise that form my mind. Emily was’t like that—there was hardly a vindictive thought in her soul—she had the brightness for the both us; a brightness I wanted to learn how to turn on.

The end of first period and she wasn’t there, so I walked to my second period class alone, which was okay. After all, I had done the same things for two months prior. I sat at my desk and looked back at the empty space. I came to the final conclusion that she was just absent and that I could call her tonight and fill her in on the homework we were going to have, as Mrs. Humphrey never skipped a day to assign three to four pages of expressions, formulas and proofs.

I was working on said work when the intercom crackled.
“Mrs. Humphrey?” The disembodied voice of the school secretary crackled.
“Yes?”
“Could you please send Kyle Jovankah to the office?”
I looked at the intercom and then to Mrs. Humphrey as she responded. “Yes, I will.”
I looked at her for approval and she nodded, so I got up and made my way to the door with 32 sets of eyes looking at me.
I wondered what I had done. Did my scars freak someone out? Did someone steal my notebook that had a lot of depressing poems? For some reason I felt nervous even though I was sure I had done nothing wrong.

I walked out into the hall to see Mr. Martin standing next to the office door with Mr Cain, the principal. Mr. Martin’s face was bruised, and he looked weary, like he had been up all night. He saw me, met me halfway down the hall and threw his arms on me.
“Kyle,” he whispered.
I wasn’t sure what had happened, and I looked to Mr. Cain who had turned around and walked into the office.
Mr. Martin stepped back and looked at me. His face was tear streaked and I had no idea why.
“She’s gone.”