I remember when I was younger, back when I was in grade school. Sixth grade, to be exact. Mrs. Morgan had all these posters up, all over the walls. Grammar posters, spelling posters. Animal ones, with cute sayings. I liked Mrs. Morgan. That was a good year. After all, I was a sixth grader, and top of the heap in the school, finally. I still had friends who didn't flinch away from me, could flirt with boys and wear tank tops and shorts without worries.
But what sticks out in my mind the most these days is the poster she had behind her desk. It said something like, "there are three kinds of people; those who make things happen, those who watch things happen, and those who wonder *what* happened".
For some reason I've been thinking about that little poster a lot lately. Funny, considering I hadn't paid it much attention at the time.
If you'd asked me a year ago which of those three I was, I would've told you the first. I definitely was going to be someone who made things happen, who went out and did stuff. I really wasn't sure what stuff I wanted to do yet, mind you, but I was going to do something. Wasn't going to stick around in Meridian my whole life.
Oh, I know what you're thinking. That whole Alaska dream I had. Yeah, that would've been doing something, but that isn't what I meant. Doesn't matter anymore, anyway. That person is dead. She was a silly little girl with silly little girl dreams and no idea about what life is really like.
If you'd asked me six months ago, I would've told you I was the third. You might've found me sitting alone in the middle of the night at one of those truck stops that serves bad coffee and greasy food round the clock, somewhere up north where it's always cold, and the cold just gets in your bones until you forget you've ever truly been warm.
If you could've gotten me to talk, I would've definitely told you I was the person who was wondering what happened. One day life was normal, then the next I've got all these memories in my head that aren't mine and my Daddy screaming at me like I'm a demon and no one willing to look at me. Not *really* look at me, not in the eye. Suddenly I had to clothe myself like a mummy, swaddled from head to foot, and still no one came near me. It was humid and sweltering and I wore three layers of clothing and even then Momma could barely bring herself to brush her hand lightly over my arm before pulling back.
'Course, the fear wasn't necessarily a bad thing, sometimes. Like when Daddy was railing on and on about demons and me being possessed, or cursed, and wanting to beat them out of me. He didn't, of course. 'Cause then he would've had to touch me, and the fear was to strong for that.
I actually wanted him too. Even if he'd only used a belt or something. At least he would've been looking at me, reaching out toward me instead of pretending I didn't exist. I mean, if he hurt me, at least it would've meant I was worth something, right? Even if it was only pain.
So I would've sat with you at that truckstop and told you how I didn't want to go out and do things anymore. Not like there was anything I really could do.. Those limitless horizons you have when you're young died the same moment my ability to touch another person without hurting them did. I probably would've told you that I just wanted to figure out what happened.
If you asked me today, I'd tell you that I was the second person, the one who watches everything happen. If you came downstairs and went to the kitchen, you'd find me sitting here on a stool in my robe, hair all tangled up from tossing and turning over one of my nightmares. Well, technically, most of them aren't *my* nightmares at all, but they're in my head and I deal with them every day, so I you'll have to forgive me for laying some claim to them at this point.
You'd see I was wearing my gloves, of course. After that time I came downstairs to get a glass of water and bumped into Kitty, I've always remembered to pull them on. If she hadn't fallen backwards at the same time I lost my balance, if she'd fallen toward me, instead of away, I'd have a whole new set of memories running around in here, and I'm having enough trouble with the three extra sets I've got, thank you very much.
If you sat down next to me and asked me why I was that person, I don't think I'd tell you. You don't really want to hear it, not actually *hear* it. You'd listen, and nod, and make sympathetic noises at all the right places, but then you'd look at me so earnestly and tell me that I didn't have to just watch, that everyone here would just love to have me join in and play all the games with them, and go do all the stuff teenagers do. The movies and shopping and whispering and gigglingâ??oh yeah, I bet you'd break off right there as you realized that it might not be the best thing for me to whisper and giggle about boys and stuff that I'll never be able to do.
I'm sure you'd rally after a minute, and give me a smile, and try to go on as if nothing happened. Then you'd want me to talk more, and tell you how much your pep talk helped, and how much better I felt and that I was ready to be person number one again.
I know exactly how the conversation would go, which is why if you came downstairs and found me in the kitchen, I'd probably just smile at you and shrug if you asked. Then I'd escape back upstairs as fast as I could because that was my sanctuary you came into, my place to sit and think and I don't care how silly or selfish it sounds, but I didn't want to share it.
See, the reason I'd just shrug isn't because of The Speech. It's because The Speech would be wrong, and those reasons that everyone keeps making assumptions about have nothing to do with why I'm the person who watches things happen.
Maybe if I could somehow explain about how I sit and watch because I can't understand the shopping and the talking and the girlish giggling. Part of me wants to roll my eyes and mumble things about stupid girly things, while another part just shakes it's head and looks at them from such a distance it's like I'm watching a different species scurry around chattering in a foreign language, since it certainly doesn't make sense to me. Of course there's the part of me that starts feeling all panicked and growly at the thought of the aforementioned girly things. At least that part makes me smile. The others just make me tired.
I could try and explain to you that it hurts to much, every time someone stops mid-gesture, or every time I walk down the hall and the students part around me, flowing to either side and staying oh so carefully out of reach, so that they don't accidentally brush against me. It's not like I'm wearing those skimpy shorts and a sleeveless halter top or anything. I'm still wrapped up tightly as a mummy, and still just as isolated.
I had this urge, yesterday, to walk down the halls in one of those skimpy outfits, just to give everyone a reason to avoid touching me, and so they wouldn't have to be embarrassed when they pulled away. But I'm not that mean, or that masochistic. Even if part of me wants to throw it in their faces, most of me jibbers in terror at the thought of there actually being an accident and someone new joining the mix in here. Ironic, huh? I think I'm more scared of touching them than they are of being touched.
If those things didn't work, I might give it one last shot, and try to explain that I actually like being the person who was watching. At least, most of the time. It's a lot safer than being the other two people. You don't get hurt, if you're just watching. You get to pick and choose what you pay attention to, what information you take in. Besides, let's face it. Let's face that there's a lot of stuff that I'm never going to be able to do anything more than watch.
I mean, the only person that would even hug me left a month ago. I know I'm selfish, but sometimes I just want him back so that I'd have someone who would sit next to me without getting all stilted and nervous, and yes, I can tell they're nervous because they smell that way.
And here everyone thought the only thing he left me was the dogtags. Nope, he left me with at least some of that amazing sense of smell he has.
Neither of those things really compare with the other thing he left me, though. It's another of those things I'm not even going to try and explain to you, because I don't want to see the pity in your eyes again, or the way you steel yourself when you force yourself to reach out and pat my shoulder comfortingly.
Because he left me memories. Not the ones that were in his head, those are a whole different story. I mean real memories, of touch, and of caring. He's the only person who's reached out to me just because he wanted to since I manifested my 'gift'.
I take out those memories, sometimes. I remember everything, from the way the leather of his jacket smelled to the feel of his breath ruffling the hood of my cloak when he wrapped his arm around me. I remember the cracked leather of the seat on the train when I shifted to let me head rest on his chest, and how even through the layers of clothing, even though I was technically resting on the wrong side of his chest, I could hear his heartbeat. Most of all I pull out and savor the fact that he wasn't afraid, that he hadn't paused, not even slightly, before reaching out to me.
Then I'll cheat and sift through the his memories, and pull up what he was feeling, hugging to myself the reassurance, the knowledge that he truly, honestly, wasn't afraid of me, and that he actually kinda liked holding me. It usually makes me so happy I want to cry.
I like pulling out those memories the most at night, at times like this when the nightmares are so vivid in my head that I'm confused as to where I am, who I am, and I don't have anyone I can turn to and get a hug from. They're almost enough, and if I hold the dogtags tightly enough in my hand, and focus hard enough on his feelings, I can convince myself they *are* enough, until he comes back.
More than because of the silly schoolgirl crush everyone thinks I have, that's why I want him back. He understands what it's like when people flinch away when you reach out to them and he'd understand without me having to explain everything exactly why I'm the person who watches.
I think...I think he'd understand. I know it means almost as much to him that I don't pull away when he reaches for me as it does for me that he does the reaching. I wish I could've reached for him some, shown him it goes both ways. I think he got that, at the door, when I stopped him from just walking out. I think I saw it in his eyes, but I'm not sure, because that memory I only have in my head from my side. I can handle that, though. Because, even then, he reached out for me.
Maybe when he comes back, if you ask me which person I am, I'll give you a new answer. I don't know. Maybe I'll have forgotten all about that little poster I saw in sixth grade by then.
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