A dream...
It's fuzzy now, but there was a ranch and an expansive plain. It was a small town, and this ranch, the one I lived on with my family, a different one than my own, was the epicenter. My friends were always there, and I had a lot of friends. Seemed like the entire school, hundreds of friends, always around, and we were always laughing. I rode horses in the sun and braided wildflowers into halos. My friends and I always had parties with pineapple and moonshine. I had an alcoholic mother who was never around, but everybody thought she was out of town on business, that she worked in some fantastic skyscraper in the city. Everybody thought that was so cool, and so did I, so I lied and said that's where she was, making deals and helping us survive on our ranch. Everybody got along except for this one guy - he went to my school, and he had sharp, angular cheekbones, neon blue eyes. He worked in the autoparts factory, and he came from the bad part of town, a place nobody else came from. He didn't believe me when I said my mother was in the city. He didn't believe my happiness and tried to tear it down whenever he could. His jeans were always dirty, his sunbleached hair short and mussed, his lanky form always covered by some sleeveless t-shirt. His skin was impossibly tanned. He was a worker, was built, skinny and taut with a sinew of stringy muscle stretched beneath thin skin, and nobody else was like that. He had age on his hands, though he was our age, and his fingers were rough, calloused, and I didn't like it, didn't like him.
I rode horses in the sun and braided wildflowers into halos.
Then one day I was at a party and I got a phone call. It was my father, who said he had to go into the city for something, and he didn't sound right. So I went outside and talked to him, tried to find out what was wrong, and then he told me my mother was dead. I barely knew her, but I understood what being motherless was. Suddenly, I understood what heartbreak was. The house was loud with people, and I tried to walk away, into the fields, but all my friends followed me. They wanted to know why I wasn't at the party, why I was on the phone, why I wasn't smiling. All five hundred of them kept following me, no matter where I walked on my property, they just kept following me. They wouldn't let me get into my car, they wouldn't let me leave, and I was just trying to talk to my dad about my dead mother.
I started screaming at them. Screaming and sobbing. I threw the phone at my best friend, and she stormed away. She would never talk to me again. I screamed at all of them to leave me alone, and I tangled my fingers in my hair, collapsing in the middle of this field with tall grass, disappearing from view. Everybody hesitated, watching me curl up on the gold ground, surrounded by grass, and they watched me shake and sob and fall apart. Then, one by one, they all left me there, in the middle of the pasture, with my hair a mess and my cheeks streaked with dirt and tears. Day turned into night, and I stayed there, my cheek on the ground, my eyes staring at the grass, watching the bees hover over the wildflowers. I touched the purple petals, felt the silk on my fingertips, and day turned into night again. The sun was there, bright but not hot, and I lay, still and silent in my new world.
And then he came, blurred by the sun, his skin melded into the golden grass, and he sat down a few yards a way, watching me. I watched him back, and he moved closer, laid down next to me, but still kept a distance between us. I looked at his sharp cheekbones, at his dusty face and neon eyes, his tanned skin that matched the dried grass. We stared at each other, with the pale purple wildflower between us, and he picked it, tucking it behind my ear, pushing my hair out of my face. I remember my hair being dark, darker than it is now, and it was the darkest thing in that field. He didn't say anything for a long time, and day turned into night, and then it was day again and we were still there, in that field. The sky was so blue it was white.
He said, "This field is full of pain."
I moved closer to him, draping my arm over his lean chest, nuzzling into his neck, tangling my legs with his, and I forgot how much he used to hurt me. In the middle of that vast, hilly field, in the middle of my escape, he was the only one who understood anything. I heard voices drift to us, my name being called, but it was so far away, it was like the wind, a whisper, a rustle of the grass protecting us. He kissed me and laid his head back, his cheek on the dirt, his eyes on me.
He said, "I'm afraid one day I'll lose my arm at the factory and nobody will love me. I'm afraid I'll die and nobody will know where the funeral is."
I asked him to go to my mom's funeral with me, and he said yes.
We didn't move. There was a blue haze around us now, blurring the edges, and we stayed. The sky was still white, and it was cloudless. I traced the slight curve of his light eyebrow, the contour of his cheek, felt how smooth the skin was there, even though he was a worker. Then I looked up at the sky, just like he was, and leaned my head against his. And there we were, amidst our pain in a blurry world of grass and dust. Day turned to night, but there was no time.
I rode horses in the sun and braided wildflowers into halos.
Then one day I was at a party and I got a phone call. It was my father, who said he had to go into the city for something, and he didn't sound right. So I went outside and talked to him, tried to find out what was wrong, and then he told me my mother was dead. I barely knew her, but I understood what being motherless was. Suddenly, I understood what heartbreak was. The house was loud with people, and I tried to walk away, into the fields, but all my friends followed me. They wanted to know why I wasn't at the party, why I was on the phone, why I wasn't smiling. All five hundred of them kept following me, no matter where I walked on my property, they just kept following me. They wouldn't let me get into my car, they wouldn't let me leave, and I was just trying to talk to my dad about my dead mother.
I started screaming at them. Screaming and sobbing. I threw the phone at my best friend, and she stormed away. She would never talk to me again. I screamed at all of them to leave me alone, and I tangled my fingers in my hair, collapsing in the middle of this field with tall grass, disappearing from view. Everybody hesitated, watching me curl up on the gold ground, surrounded by grass, and they watched me shake and sob and fall apart. Then, one by one, they all left me there, in the middle of the pasture, with my hair a mess and my cheeks streaked with dirt and tears. Day turned into night, and I stayed there, my cheek on the ground, my eyes staring at the grass, watching the bees hover over the wildflowers. I touched the purple petals, felt the silk on my fingertips, and day turned into night again. The sun was there, bright but not hot, and I lay, still and silent in my new world.
And then he came, blurred by the sun, his skin melded into the golden grass, and he sat down a few yards a way, watching me. I watched him back, and he moved closer, laid down next to me, but still kept a distance between us. I looked at his sharp cheekbones, at his dusty face and neon eyes, his tanned skin that matched the dried grass. We stared at each other, with the pale purple wildflower between us, and he picked it, tucking it behind my ear, pushing my hair out of my face. I remember my hair being dark, darker than it is now, and it was the darkest thing in that field. He didn't say anything for a long time, and day turned into night, and then it was day again and we were still there, in that field. The sky was so blue it was white.
He said, "This field is full of pain."
I moved closer to him, draping my arm over his lean chest, nuzzling into his neck, tangling my legs with his, and I forgot how much he used to hurt me. In the middle of that vast, hilly field, in the middle of my escape, he was the only one who understood anything. I heard voices drift to us, my name being called, but it was so far away, it was like the wind, a whisper, a rustle of the grass protecting us. He kissed me and laid his head back, his cheek on the dirt, his eyes on me.
He said, "I'm afraid one day I'll lose my arm at the factory and nobody will love me. I'm afraid I'll die and nobody will know where the funeral is."
I asked him to go to my mom's funeral with me, and he said yes.
We didn't move. There was a blue haze around us now, blurring the edges, and we stayed. The sky was still white, and it was cloudless. I traced the slight curve of his light eyebrow, the contour of his cheek, felt how smooth the skin was there, even though he was a worker. Then I looked up at the sky, just like he was, and leaned my head against his. And there we were, amidst our pain in a blurry world of grass and dust. Day turned to night, but there was no time.