Transcript 8: Sarah part 2
INT. GARAGE STORM
LEADS
I remember when Sarah and I became official.
LEADS
After that night with the Amber Spyglass we spent every free moment together. We'd spend hours after class in the school parking lot. We'd do homework togehter.
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We would exchange books and hike up the local mountian, loiter, listen to music, but we'd never talk about us. About what we were. Hadn't said more than a dozen words on the subject.
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One day we were in a group. Holding hands. A friend asked us if we were together. We looked at each other, both a little alarmed by the question, both a little concerned about what the other was about to say. Both of us said "yeeeeah" at the same time then burst out laughing.
LEADS
That day marked our anniversary.
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I never felt insecure around Sarah, and maybe I should have. She had plans for the future. I rarely knew what the next week was going to look like. She wanted to go to college, get a job in geology, her passion.
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Sometimes she'd talk about family, how she didn't really want kids but maybe she'd have them with the right person. How mostly she wanted someone to travel with. Someone who would pick up and move at a moments notice to a strange town for an exciting job.
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I would nod and think about how nice that would be. I never thought she was talking about me. I was an idiot.
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She was supportive. She helped me study for the GED test so that I could leave High School early even though I think she was worried about my opportunities if I didn't finish High School in the conventional way.
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Not that that ended up happening. She was a plotter, she was tricky. And charming as hell, that's what made it work.
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She'd tell me that I might as well go to school, what else would I do all day? We'd be able to hang out during breaks after all.
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And while she was in class I might as well go to class. And since I was in class I might as well pay attention.
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She'd say all of this while bouncing between a perfect poker face and a thinly veiled look of fae like glee.
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I did better in school that year than I had any previous mostly because I'd study while she studied and when she'd ask how I did on an assignment or test I didn't want to embarrass myself.
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It was weird for me, weird for both of us I think, having someone that close. Someone to go through all of the transitions with.
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I was pretty used to being out of the spotlight. I was just quiet. I liked sitting back in groups, listening, commenting every now and then. It gave me room to breathe and think.
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I had trained most of the people I saw regularly to stop asking me how I was feeling. When a new comer would show up in one of our groups and ask if I was okay someone else would step in, saying I was fine, I just had resting sad face.
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Sarah was the opposite. She would go full speed into a conversation. She'd unleash a flurry of banter, eyes wide, nodding eagerly, sending the person spinning with a well placed question and then retreat with some excuse of having to pick up a book or make it to a study group.
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They never knew that I was having a hard time because I had always looked like I was having a hard time, and they didn't know anything was off with her because she was so busy and put on such an energetic display that nobody knew to look for red flags.
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But I was close enough. I saw them. And she saw mine.
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It turns out her taking a few days off to read those Philip Pullman books with me was a minor miracle. Sarah kept busy. Studying, soccer practice, yearbook, before me her schedule was so packed that she hardly had time to blink, and any moments in between were reserved for reading.
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People just thought she was an over achiever. And she kind of was. But it wasn't for grades or advancement.
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She didn't like to be alone with her thoughts. Hated it actually. She tried to deal with her problems by burrying them. And when she couldn't burry them she'd find a book world to get lost in.
PART 1
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The first thing that clued me in was scheduling. I wasn't much of a scheduler, I knew when I had school and work but I didn't plan out when I was going to do homework or go hiking.
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Which stressed Sarah out. She had her schedule fully marked out and highlighted. She'd open it up all dramatic, take out a green pen, and ask when we were hanging out.
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I told her whenever she wanted. Which wasn't good enough.
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So she'd make me add the times I was unavailale to her planner.
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Every now and then work would be canceled due to weather and I would call her. And every time she was busy.
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We were used to spending weekends together. The first time I forgot that I was supposed to go to my grandparents for the weekend even though we had plans... It wasn't good.
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She played it cool. But when we talked on the phone I could tell that something was off.
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By Saturday morning she'd completed the projects and homework that she was planning to do with me. She moved to studying. Then chores. Kept going until she had done an entire weekends worth of work in less than a day. She called again that night and asked if she could come to my grandparents in the morning.
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I wasn't against it, I was just surprised. I told her it'd probably be a waste of her time, I was heading back that night. And she wasn't supposed to drive without an adult, she barely had a learners permit. But she insisted.
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I usually woke up with the sun at my grandparents, old habit, and she was there less than an hour later.
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She greeted me in our usual way but she looked haunted. She was animated with my grandparents but when they weren't in the room she'd go quiet.
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I was really worried that I had messed up. That she was mad at me. But it was more like she was exposed, left without shelter.
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She asked if I had any plans for the day with a kind of hopelessness. I told her I did. I told her in ten minutes we'd be going on a walk through the woods.
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When we finished that she asked what's next. I told her we would be getting lunch in town, with icecream after.
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After every activity she would ask what's next, and a little life would come back to her whenever I gave a prompt, specific answer.
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It didn't matter what the answer was. Sitting on the fence, throwing rocks in the pond. At one point I told her we were going to sit cross legged and take turns making faces at each other. We did that for 30 minutes.
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On the long drive back to her place I asked if she was mad at me.
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She... She wasn't mad at me. It didn't have anything to do with me. It just threw her off.
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It was difficult for her, feeling out of control. Making plans, having expectations allowed her to be fully comfortable in a situation. She could usually handle a canceled evening or an event but an entire weekend, it left her stranded. She had taken comfort in knowing what was coming and when that rug was pulled out from under her. It let her mind catch up.
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The next time I saw her planner I flipped back a few pages. It made sense why she was never available when one of my shifts got called off. As soon as I let her know I wasn't free she would fill in that time with something else.
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And that weekend? It had been completed scratched out. Big red frustrated scribbles. There were others like that, when a friend pulled out of a plan or her Mom had to put in an extra shift.
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Her Mom thought that it had to do something with her dad dying when she was a kid but... I don't want to get too far into it but there's a lot more there.
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Sarah... She has a lot she's dealing with at any given time, internally. Externally too, though that's the stuff she's good at. And she knows exactly how much she can handle, when it's just her.
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Throw in a wild card though... Someone like me. Things became less predictable.
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After that I took a lot of care not to change plans if I could help it, to keep up on communication. I didn't always do it right but we didn't have another incident as big as that weekend.
"What's next" became an important code word with us. It was my way to awknowledge her and back her up when she needed it and her way of signaling to me that she trusted me when I was in charge of the plans.
PART 2
LEADS
We had a few codewords like that. Things that you could drop into a casual conversation. Other people wouldn't catch them but for us they were critical. You heard a codeword and you knew that the other person understood you, they were looking out for you, they cared for you...
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And a lot of times it meant they were paying attention to something that you didn't want to talk about.
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Mine was "sleeves".
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I...
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Hmm...
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I wear longsleeve shirts. Even during the summer. More out of habit these days, and to avoid awkward conversations. I'm not ashamed like I was but that doesn't mean I like getting looks from people when they see my arms.
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I've been thinking about getting tattoos but... I don't know, I'm never in one place long enough to get all that ink done.
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I don't add too often these days, labor jobs have really helped with that. Given me something to focus on, I'm usually so tired by the time I get back that I can just pass out.
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But back before we got together. I was either feeling too much or nothing at all. I don't even remember how I started, it just woke me up. Made everything feel real again, for a minute. Real and bad but still real.
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I hadn't even thought of it much before Sarah and I started dating. It felt good being with her, really good. I thought I had been cured or something. That's a lot to put on another person but it's how I felt.
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But scars don't just go away when you're feeling better. You stop noticing them but that doesn't mean they aren't there. (Rub arm)
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It's ironic how she found out. We had been together for awhile. The honeymoon phase wasn't ending. We were so happy and responsive and present, just non stop discovery. Like the world doubled its colors and tastes.
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Some friends invited us to go to Frozen Dead Guy Days down in Ned and somehow we both got permission from our parents to go.
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I was really excited. I hadn't been since I was a kid and... Leaving town together, it felt like a big mile stone.
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But with that I started fixating on my scars. She'd never seen me without a shirt on, and I thought it might happen that weekend.
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I felt guilty. For hiding a part of myself from her. And afraid, that as soon as she found out what was really inside of me that the blissful dream we had made would pop and she would be gone.
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And the longer I went without telling her the guiltier I felt. I cherished every day I had with her because it felt like it might be the last.
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That escalated steadily. Add that to a particularly bad week with my old man and...
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I added.
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And she called. I was wearing all of my clothes in the empty tub with the door locked. My old man knocked, said it was for me.
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I pulled the whole "just a minute thing", wrapped my arm up with a towel which was stupid but I was in a rush.
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I got out and picked up the phone in the other room to talk to her. I didn't even realize I was crying until she asked me what was wrong.
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I don't know what I blubbered at her. I don't know how I opened up about my pain, I just know that I did.
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And she came over. I was trying to hold it together. And failing.
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She grabbed my hand, looked at my arm then up at me. I had the towel all bulky under my sleeve like I was some toddler trying to hide a toy.
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She moved my sleeve up and I didn't stop her. The now red towel fell out. She held up my arm to the light, carefully ran her thumb past each scar.
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Found the new mark. Kissed it. Then went to get the first aid kit.
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I couldn't beleive it. How could somebody be that amazing? That accepting? Like it hurt, physically, the relief was always brief and then it was just pain, but her response? She wasn't afraid. She wasn't judging me.
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She patched me up with blood on her lips. It doesn't sound like a romantic image but it was everything to me.
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I told her her what was going on after that, under the moon on the back porch. It was the first time I had ever talked about it out loud. About mental stuff.
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And she opened up about what she had going on. About how her thoughts were too busy to sleep unless she wore headphones to bed. About how had to play out conversations in her head before talking to someone, then dissect every blink and nod afterwards.
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About how she had to work on slowing down time because she knew death was just around the corner and she wanted to enjoy what she had while she had it.
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She was trying to escape from herself. I was trying to connect with myself. We met somewhere in the middle.
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She told me she loved me that night, for the first time. It took the floor out from under me. She went wide eyed, concerned, said my name, said my heart was beating too quickly, asking if something went wrong if I needed to go to the hospital. Then I told her I loved her. And we laughed. Never thought laughter would come out of that night.
LEADS
Being with her? It was always easy. But life wasn't. And living wasn't.
PART 3
LEADS
I got kicked out of my house halfway through Senior year. I was working my way through a bad episode, woke up one morning feeling like my blood was mercury, like my stomach was an abyss. Like everything around me was vibrating.
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I worked hard that day, worked hard and late. My mind was on fire. The world was on fire. Even my boss left me alone.
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I was driving home with the devil and god raging inside of me. And there was smoke coming out of the back of my house.
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I parked and ran to the back yard. There he was. Burning my furniture. My things. Big ol bonfire. His normally well kept hair heavy with sweat, his glasses esque.
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It sobered me up for a moment. And then I saw my bookcase in the fire. With the curling charcoled cover of The Subtle Knife. The one Sarah had given me. The book that started us.
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I tried to grab it but it was too late.
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He yelled something to me. Said we needed to talk.
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I hit him.
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I hit him over and over again. I hit him until the blood of his face and the blood from my knuckles were one and the same. I hit him and he hit me until we couldn't stand straight, until we were doubled over, punch drunk in front of the fire that was all of my worldly posessions.
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He garbled something at me. "Get out."
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I was already gone.
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I took the remaining box of clothes, didn't even bother checking the house, and drove.
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Sarah wasn't home yet. Her Mom was about to head to her shift at the hospital and dragged me with her, ignoring my protests.
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They stitched up my eye. The extracted pieces of my Fathers glasses from my fingers. They hooked me up to fluids because that's just what they do. They asked if I wanted to get the police involved. I said no.
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Sarah was at the hospital an hour later. I had seen her mad before but never like this. I thought she was going to drive back to my house and pull a round two with the old man. I don't think he would have survived her.
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She took me home that night. She was still all rage, storming around, yelling about him, loudly putting left overs together.
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I sat down on the sofa. I think I was lightly concussed.
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One minute I heard plates being tossed on the table, the next she was in front of me. She told me I was going to live with them now. That I would have a real home. That if he ever showed up she'd cut his hand off.
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Then she was gone again, grabbing the food.
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I tested my balance and put The Princess Bride on the tv. Not that I minded her rage, it was really romantic but I thought she could use a distraction as much as I could and there's no better distraction than The Princess Bride.
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It worked. When it was over I asked if I could crash for the night. She told me not to be stupid, this was my home now, and I responded that this was her Moms home and she proabbly wouldn't be cool with having her daughters boyfriend sleeping over on the regular.
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She showed me the text. "Can Matthew live here?" Her mom response was "Of course, he can stay as long as he needs, we can bring a bed into the reading area."
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I was pretty floored. And honored. It felt like a dream. It couldn't be real.
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While she brushed her teeth I grabbed a blanket and pillow from the closet and set up the couch.
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Sarah came in and tossed them on the ground, toothbrush in her mouth. She pushed me from behind into the direction of her room, still brushing her teeth.
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I told her no way, that I didn't want to get kicked out of here too. She wasn't having it. She pushed me into her room, onto the bed, dissappeared back into the hallway to finish with her brushing and came back.
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She said her Mom wouldn't be back for another 12 hours, that we were basically adults, that I had been through a traumatic experience and to just get in the damn bed.
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The was the first time we slept in the same bed together. Over night.
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It was the best. The best thing ever. 10 out of 10, ruined me for sleeping alone from that night forward.
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Turns out her Mom was cool with my sleeping in the back room.
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And to the surprise of a younger me I graduated. And an even bigger surprise, I got into college.
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Our lives were really coming together. Walking together to recieve our diplomas, opening our acceptance letters. Getting ready to leave town together and start our lives at the new school.
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Sneaking off to swim in lakes and watch the sunset from hill tops and fogging up the inside of her truck whenever we got the chance.
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And naps. So many naps. I think naps are the best part of being in love. We could nap anywhere.
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I got a job with a landscaper and moved by the college early. I could never express how grateful I was to Sarah and her Mom for letting me stay with them and I really didn't want to wear out my welcome.
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By the time Sarah came to move into her dorm I missed her so much that I threw a really corny one person welcoming party for her. I gave her a not-anniversary ring which freaked her out for a moment before I clarified that I wasn't proposing, I just wanted to get her something nice. We danced and drank fancy sodas and made fingerpaint art for her new room.
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That was the best time of my life. Until it wasn't. Until I ruined it.
PART 4
LEADS
I just couldn't figure life out. The point of it. I couldn't figure out people. Their actions were inconsistant with their philosophies. My actions were inconsistant with my philosophy. I couldn't tell if they were all in on something, like they were all playing a long in a play and I didn't get the memo.
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I would get hit with these vivid, unpredictable lucid moments. I'd be in class and all of a sudden the colors were brighter, I saw how the pieces fit together. I saw what a stick of chalk could do in the right hands if it made the right symbols in front of the right eyes.
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People would go from people to brain creatures puppeting flesh covored skeletons in different models, each one with a hidden self destruct button that would unravel them at an atomic level.
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I would be so connected to everything, apart of everything, looking through awakened truth seeing eyes...
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And then the world would go gray again. And I had no direction.
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Contrasted with Sarah? She fit with the world. She knew exactly where she was going, what she was doing. School wasn't just a way to pass time for her, it was a part of her journey. When she looked at people she saw peers, not aliens. Not materials.
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She was making it in a world that was a mystery to me and it was recieving her.
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I walked the streets like an escaped figure from someone elses dream. Like a shadow attached to the wrong body. A robot following the old commands of its dead creator.
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And for some reason she still loved me. And I wanted nothing more than that love. But I was a ship going down and I loved her too much to let her go down with me.
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Where did I fit in her life, really? How was I going to make it better in the long run? Literally anyone else would have been better for her than me.
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She could have a partner who wanted a career, a house. A partner who blended in with the world and knew how to reinforce its image.
A partner who wasn't in so much pain all the time. A partner who didn't black out from mindstorms or fall into the ropeless well of depression or hide in their room for days from the fear of the reality on the other side of the door.
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Why didn't she see that? She saw my pain. She saw how others reacted to me. Why didn't she react to me the same way? Why did she love me? Was that her curse? Had I fooled her?
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And if I had. What was I supposed to do when she realized the truth?
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I have been rejected by my Mother. Rejected by my Father. Rejected by the world.
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But if she rejected me? When she rejected me? I couldn't handle that.
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I dropped out of school. I quit my job. I got rid of all of my possessions. I needed to get out of the state. To get away from anything familiar.
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Leaving her is the worst thing I've ever done. It broke my heart. In a lot of ways it's been broken ever since.
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I told her that I needed to leave. That I couldn't play along with life anymore. That I needed to find my place in the world if I was going to survive it.
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She said that she understood.
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I told her that we needed to break up.
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She asked if I didn't love her anymore.
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I told her that she was the only thing I loved but that we needed to break up.
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She said that she understood. I could see how much that hurt her. It killed me to hurt her.
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I went back to my car, that contained all of my worldly posessions and just sat there. Hollow.
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Before I could drive away there was a knock on my window. It was Sarah. Red eyes but keeping a strong face. She handed me a book.
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The Subtle Knife. The same edition she had given me all those years ago. A replacement of the one that my Father burned. She had slipped a note into it.
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I took it and drove away. She stood there as I drove away. Watching.
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My whole life has been marked for bad. Sometimes I think being with her, that was the cost. A few years with Sarah for a lifetime of hardship.
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And it was worth it. I wouldn't trade it. But I think it was the last ingredient that truly made this world a hell.
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...
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I'm so alone here.