Chapter 10
I cried when I got home, and I cried for several hours straight. I threw things, and I flipped my chair and I screamed at the top of my lungs. My parents weren’t home because they had gone out to do their shopping with Cyrus, and they had left a note for me to start on my college applications. They wanted to know what majors I would be applying to when they got back later at night, and I couldn’t care less honestly.
I was just too hung up over her.
She was just a girl, they would probably say if I told them. You’re gonna get over it because you’ve only been on this Earth for 16 years, and you’re young.
She’s just a girl, they would repeat, and you need to stop crying because boys don’t cry. Boys are strong and they can show no emotion.
She’s just a girl, they would say for the third time, and I wouldn’t correct them because she was a girl. However, she wasn’t any girl. She was the girl that changed my life, and I would probably never see her again.
She’s just a girl, and you’re gonna meet someone new because you still have the rest of your life in front of you.
She’s just a girl, they would yell, and now let’s focus on more impactful and important matters, such as your choice of majors.
Music. And I would mean it.
She’s just a girl, they would scream, and you need to cut your damn hair.
No. And I would mean it.
In a frenzy of emotions, and I couldn’t decipher which from which, I rushed out of my room and sprinted downstairs into the garage. I had no idea what the hell I was even thinking, much less doing. But it felt as if some God driven instinct had taken over me, and had spirited me downstairs, taking over my body, and granting me blessed lucidity.
I grabbed my board.
Chipped, and scratched up and dented.
I’d make her proud.
The sunset was beautiful that day.
Limbs of orange, florescent and pomegranate all in one, roamed over the rooftops in a tender manner of care as they tried to bask the Earth in their last warm rays before the sky beckoned the stars forwards. Everything was set ablaze in a hue of peach orange, and nothing looked the same.
I lifted my arms above my eyes in an attempt to watch the dusk, as my emotions stopped their rampant rampage on my mind.
I would do this for her.
In a practiced motion, and through instinct, and sheer will alone, my feet were automatically pushing the board towards the curb.
Hours of practice, and I didn’t understand the trick to doing the trick.
I had tried everything, and I didn’t know if this one would be different.
However, in my mind, I wanted it to be different.
I wanted to do this for her, to show her that I was strong enough to stand alongside her and be just as strong and amazing as her. I was willing to do it now; I was willing to do everything now.
I could do everything now.
Push.
I wouldn’t let my parents control me anymore, no matter what subject it was in. I wasn’t gonna get my hair cut, and I wasn’t gonna blindly do things they say.
Push.
I was gonna put down my major as music, and attend band class next year. I was gonna follow my dreams for the first time in my life, and nothing was gonna stop me.
Push.
Can you see me? You’re only a couple houses away.
Pop.
Jump.
Land.
I looked back, and all I felt was the grinding of the curb against the bottom of my battle scarred board as I successfully skated a waxed curb.
It was the same curb that she had waxed only a week ago, and it was the same curb that I had practiced on over and over again. The feeling of exhilaration, the feeling of pride, the feeling of a nostalgic regret immediately followed up by the feeling of pure unadulterated freedom.
I had done it.
Over the roar of triumph and the blood rushing in my body, I heard the beep of my parent’s car.
They had come back, and they had been expecting my answers.
I smiled grimly.
I knew exactly what I was going to say, and do, and no matter what they said about it, I wasn’t going to back down. I didn’t care if they disowned me, if they slapped me or screamed at me, I just wanted to be like Claire, to be my own person.
I would be Mercedes.
I would be me for me.
Epilogue
A few months passed after that day, and I think my parents are still shocked to this day at the events that happened that night. They didn’t really know how to react when I put down my foot the same time they put down theirs. I think they were in such a shocked state of mind that I was able to just go to my room after telling them of my decision.
Surprisingly, there was no yelling the next day, or anything to do with school.
And when my mother asked me to cut my hair, I said no.
And she relented.
And ever since, everything had been just fine.
It was odd, but I didn’t question anything.
And after a few months, I found myself on the evening of June 16th, right before I was about to play for my concert. I had signed up for it before that fateful day because I wanted Claire to be able to hear the song and experience it in full volume. The Irvine Spectrum Center was the largest mall in Woodbridge and it was only a couple of miles away from Primrose, where I lived.
I had biked there with a guitar on my back, and I was dressed in a graphic tee with my signature black ripped skinny jeans. Originally, I had no doubt about my path in music, but now that I was about to play my first show, I felt just the tiniest hint of nervousness creep up on my neck.
I wondered how Claire would’ve dealt with it.
I haven’t seen her since that fateful day, as the next day I tentatively knocked on her front door, uncaring of her parent’s wrath, and no one answered. They had disappeared like ghosts, and they left no trace of anything. I couldn’t smell the botanical garden in the house, nor the scent of roses anymore, and it depressed me.
At school, I just went on with my regular life because I knew that she would’ve wanted me to live in the moment and with no regrets. And yet still, I sometimes dreamt of a different world where she didn’t have to move away, and where I actually told her how I felt. I knew I was probably never going to see her again, and so I just tried to make friends that actually understood me.
I had met two other skaters in the school.
Harrison and Owen.
Harrison was a music addict just like me, and he was a huge The 1975 fan as well.
Owen was a skate fanatic, and he had also learned how to skate on waxed curbs.
They were pretty much the only people I hung about now, because I just couldn’t stand the sight of people still believing in the poisonous lies of the system. I had pretty much ditched the group, but I was okay with that because I gained 2 new best friends.
I didn’t tell them about her, of course, because she was my guilty little secret.
I know it was selfish, but I wanted to be the only one in the world to have been that close to her.
“Merci?” The tech guy asked as the crowds cheered for the next performer.
I didn’t even realize through my reminiscence, but night had already fallen, and it was already my turn.
I nodded as the bundle of nerves in my stomach did somersaults, and made me feel a little bit queasy. However, I thought of Claire again, and imagined what she would’ve said in this situation. She probably would’ve laughed honestly, and told me to man up. She would’ve hand me the mike, pulled me to my feet and shoved me up there. In my dreams, she would’ve also given me a hug as well.
My closed eyes snapped open and I grabbed the microphone from an outstretched hand.
The lights were almost blinding as I walked on to the light lit platform. It reminded me of the first time I had met her, because the lamp post that she stood under seemed as bright as the strobe
light and the lit up Ferris wheel above me in my memories and dreams.
“Hi.” I breathed into the steel laced headpiece of the microphone. “My name’s Merci, and I’ll be playing a song that I wrote myself.”
I wanted to look for her in the crowds, but I couldn’t see anything but white thanks to the flashing limelight above me. I wanted to raise an arm over my eyes to give me better vision, but I decided that would be too much effort and so I settled for squinting my eyes instead.
I couldn’t see her.
Finally, the lights were too bright, and the crowd was too energetic, and so I closed my eyes.
I’m not gonna lie, I was disappointed. I knew that it was a very real chance that she wouldn’t come, and that I probably wouldn’t see her ever again because although both our parents wanted us to go to UCI, we were now both strong enough to follow our own path. She’d probably go to a liberal arts college for writing or art, and I would apply to Berklee’s school of music.
But even so, I couldn’t help but be disappointed at her absence.
My parents weren’t here tonight, and neither were my friends, and so I just settled on imagining her here.
Through closed eyes, I strummed my guitar.
And I sang.
Black fences and different courts
Her father tells her to focus more
I love the roses in her hair
And I don’t know when and I don’t know where
I fell in love with your sweet disposition
It’s an achromatic definition
Everyone wants to fit in better
Everyone wants to feel the same way
And there’s 10 million celestial fireflies
None shine as bright as your eyes
Oh darling the moon is rising in the night
And we’re lying on anchored ground
I need you now so hold me tight
You touch my face and I blush so nice
There’s nobody around
So let’s run away to forever
Everyone wants to fit in better
Everyone wants to feel the same way
You’re a killer queen, but only seventeen
You’re a tragedy on the big screen
A melodramatic melancholy
Accompanied by teardrops in my hair
I can’t believe in Heaven now
And I can’t sleep past seven now
Your façade is failing you, tears slipping through the cracks,
Well it’s killing me inside, oh darling break the wax
And as I sang the last few lines of the song, I couldn’t help but think back to all the times that I spent with her.
A single lonely tear rolled down my cheek.
It was of reminiscence and something else as well.
Something familiar.
I opened my eyes, a defiant and hopeful chocolate brown against everything, and I could see clearly for the first time since I stepped on stage.
Perhaps it was a trick of the mind, or a cruel test of God.
But for a single second, I swear I smelled something familiar.
Roses.
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