Prologue
Prologue
“I’ve grown to hate the discoloration of the world,” I said while turning to my friend.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because the world sucks and it seems that no matter what, it always looks grey and bleak. Even on the sunniest of days and beautiful, it looks cold and sad,” I said, squinting into the sun. I raised my arm, trying to block the sunlight from destroying my retinas.
“I think you just don’t see the good in anything,” she said, staring at me intently.
Her gaze rested on me, and I moved around in my spot, as she was making me quite uncomfortable with her staring. I wasn’t keen on people looking at me for long periods, not even if it were a staring contest.
“I do Ava, just not as much as I used to,” I replied.
“Why is that?” she asked, turning away from me to look at the children playing nearby.
“I don’t know. It just seems that after all I’ve been through, the world seems to get darker and worse. No matter where you look, bad things are happening,” I answered.
“But what about right now, right at this very moment. Aren’t things good for you?”
“Not particularly Ava, because even though I want to lay on the grass with you and look up at the sky, I can’t help but think of everything. It’s hard to enjoy even the simplest things.”
“What do you think about?”
“I think about the wars and problems around the world that could be solved if everyone wasn’t a bunch of idiots. I think about my life and how much it hurts to have been through everything I’ve been through. I think about the future, and how am I supposed to live, do, feel, think? How am I supposed to be me?”
I glanced over in Ava’s direction and sighed. She turned to face me and smiled. Almost as if she was showing me compassion, which I didn’t think she was. When I talk to people, they don’t care, so how could I expect anything different from her? Because she’s your friend. Is she, though? Or is everything between us just fake. Shut up! Stop listening to me!
“And you know what I think about most?” I asked, thoughts overflowing my brain.
“What?” she replied, giving me a puzzling glance.
“I think about how I don’t want all this pressure to be somebody. I don’t want all this pressure to do what is expected of me. I just want to live. I want to wake up in the morning and not have any responsibilities. I want to do whatever I want and not have to worry. I want to just draw and run whenever I feel like it. I don’t want my introverted self hovering over my shoulder day and night. I want to not have that thought in the back of my mind saying, ’Why don’t you just kill yourself and then you won’t have to worry.” I just want to LIVE!” I shouted.
I noticed some people nearby give me a quizzical look before turning back to playing with their friends or children. I ignored them and pulled my attention back to Ava.
“Why don’t you then?” she said as if it was the simplest thing in the world.
“It’s not that easy, Ava,” I responded.
“Oh, but it is. Stop worrying about every little thing. You need to take your life one step at a time. You do school now, and during school, you ask people how to prepare for the future. Don’t worry about other people’s expectations of you. They need to butt out and live their own lives, because this is your life and the only person who should have expectations for you is you. I know it’s not easy, but trust me, it’s not as bad as you make it out to be,” she said, sitting up and looking around.
“Can I ask you a question, Ava?”
“I guess so,” she said, fiddling with her thumbs and looking around. An anxious tick she has had since we first became friends.
“What was your childhood like?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, tilting her head to the side, not quite sure as to what I was asking.
“How did your parents treat you? How did your family treat you? How did people at school treat you?”
“Uh, well, my childhood was pretty good, I guess.”
She went to say more but hesitated and then didn’t speak at all.
“What was your childhood like Ava?” I repeated.
“It was fine,” she said, glancing down at the ground. “But there was that one girl…”
“Ava, what did she bully you for?” I questioned, my voice raising slightly. I wanted her to talk to me, to confide in me. I wanted to know everything about her.
“I was bullied for being fat.”
“And how was that dealt with?” I asked, knowing very well that it was unlikely that her parents or the school did anything to alleviate it.
“I told my parents… and they got the school involved…”
“And?” I asked, inching closer towards her. I wanted her to get her past off her chest. She needed it, she needed that resolve. I gave her a reassuring smile to let her know it was okay to expose her secrets to me. It was okay for her to let her guard down around me.
“The girl got in trouble…,” she sighed, shifting her eyes and fiddling with her thumbs again.
“She didn’t leave you alone, though, did she?”
“No, she didn’t care.”
“How’d you deal with her then?” I questioned, my eyes lighting up a little bit as she dove deeper into her story.
“She wouldn’t stop picking on me, so I stood up to her.”
“What happened then?” I asked.
“She left me alone,” she replied, leaning back down onto the grass and pulling her coat against herself, trying to hide herself inside of it. I could see the embarrassment in her body language. I felt the need to hug her, to protect her, but I resisted the urge.
“Of course, she did, you stood up for yourself,” I smiled.
“Yeah, I did…,” she said, closing her eyes and breathing deeply.
“You’re not overweight anymore,” I said, giving her a look of acknowledgement.
“No, I’m not.”
“Why is that?”
“I realized that even though it was wrong of her to pick on me for being overweight, it still wasn’t healthy for me. So, I made the decision to lose weight for my health and myself.”
“Now tell me this Ava, do you think of what other people have been through?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I just never have, I guess. Never saw the point in it,” she shrugged.
“Look at me, Ava.”
She laid on her back in the grass for a minute or two. Then she turned on her side to face me. I pushed a small box over to her.
“What’s this?” she asked.
“That is my memory box, Ava. You’ve seen me carrying it around before.”
“Yeah, but you’ve never really talked about it. What’s in it anyway?”
“Things I want to remember. The important things, some are bad, and some are good, but they’re important because they’re what make me, me.”
She sat up and pulled the small brown box into her lap. She went to pull up the lid, but it was locked shut.
“Why is it locked?” she asked.
“Because if it were unlocked, then people would be able to discover anything and everything about me at any time. That box is a metaphor.”
“A metaphor, how?”
“The box is me.”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you know anything about my past Ava?”
“No, not really. You’ve kept most of it to yourself.”
“That’s true, I never really told you much about myself. That is how I am, that box. The box holds my secrets, my memories, and if that box were unlocked, anyone could look in and know mostly everything about me. If I were to open up and speak, everyone would know everything about me and my past. I am that box, as long as that box stays closed, I stay closed.”
“But why do you want to stay closed?”
I rolled over in the dry grass and sat up, facing her.
“Because if I stay closed, then I don’t let my guard down, and if I don’t let my guard down, then no one will hurt me.”
“Why would anyone want to hurt you?”
“Because people are cruel, hateful, and horrible beings. They don’t care what happens to anyone else as long as they come out on top.”
I stared at her for what felt like the longest time. When she didn’t answer, I looked down into my lap. I pulled and picked at the thread that was sticking out of my pants. I sat there, mulling over my thoughts and worrying about whether I went too far or said too much. Did I upset her? Does she hate me now? Why isn’t she saying anything? How much time has passed? Did I ruin this friendship too? When is she going to speak?
“I don’t care about those other people and what they might know or find out. What happens, happens. I do care about you, though. I would love to know what’s in this box because if I knew what was in this box, then that means I’d know more about you. I’d get to know the real you, not just the one hiding behind words and ideas, but the one who created those words and ideas, to protect himself from everything. I want to know the real you.”
I looked up at Ava and moved towards her. Sitting directly in front of her, I grabbed her face and looked her straight in the eyes.
“You don’t want to know the real Marc, because there’s nothing more horrifying than that,” I whispered, staring deep into her eyes. I wanted her to know how serious I was about this. She needed to know.
“But how do you expect me to trust you if you don’t tell me anything?”
I jumped back, no one’s ever given me that type of response before. Hell, I’ve never even told anyone of my memory box before. Quickly glancing around, I pulled a key about the size of a dollar out of my pocket. The green band tied to it was worn and tearing, it looked as if it had been thrown in the wash too many times.
“Don’t tell anyone about this Ava.”
“I won’t.”
I pushed the key into the hole of the box and twisted it until it clicked. Pulling the key out, I slid the box into Ava’s hands. She lifted the lid revealing nothing but a small slip of paper. She picked it up and read it carefully.
“I don’t understand,” she said.
“What don’t you understand?” I asked.
“All it says is ‘Important things are the things we remember least,’” she said.
“And it’s true,” I said.
“But that’s not what you said would be in the box. You said it had your memories in it.”
“I said it holds the important things, the things that make me, me. There’s not enough room to hold all the important things. Everything is important because everything that ever happens to us affects us in some way and makes us who we are to this day. If I were to store that all in a box, I’d always run out of room. That’s why I put that paper in there, because it’s true. We never remember the most important things, because we’re constantly thinking about everything, so how can we remember so much stuff?”
“But how does this box reveal who you are?”
“It does because once you’ve opened the box, you’ve opened up my memories, you’ve opened the gate to my life, and once you’ve done that, you can spend a lifetime getting to know me. But you have to take the steps, not many people can take the first step of unlocking that box. Once you’ve opened the box, it shows that I trust you, and once I trust you, I’ll tell you everything. It takes a lot to gain that trust, and you’ve gained it.”
“How?”
“You showed me the way.”
“Showed you the way where?”
“You’ll understand in time,” I answered.
Quickly shoving the paper back into the box and locking it, I made my way to a standing position.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“Somewhere where the world isn’t grey and bleak. Somewhere where on the coldest of days and people are sad, the sun shines, and beauty lines the streets. Where someone can say, today is a good day, and I am happy.”
I was halfway down the hill before she got up herself and ran to me.
“Where is that?” she asked me.
“I don’t know honestly, but I want to find it. I need to find it.”
“How do you plan on getting there?”
“By living my life, however that may be. I’m going to get to where I want to be. I’m going to get to where I need to be.”
Ava and I walked a long way together that day. I walked her home and told her that someday she’ll probably see me again, but I was uncertain as to when. I had been adopted and was moving away. And in a way, I was also moving on. I was letting her and the past go, or at least that was the plan. Even after that day, I continued to think of her all the time. I dreamed of when we’d be reunited again. After all, she was the only faithful friend I had, and the only one who had ever opened my memory box. I did finally see her again, not long after, but that day was entirely different from this one. It was a day I most regretted, but it was who I had become. Things were changing, and nobody knew how to accept that, not even myself.
