I gaze up at the stucco ceiling, which is barely illuminated by the ever-changing television in front of me. My eyes have become heavy like sandbags, and for a minute, I close them. I let my mind turn to the whirring of the gas-heater in my cousin’s basement, and stare into the milky darkness of my eyelids. I feel the lumpy, itchy, somehow always unbearably awful couch below me. Just when I think I might roll over and keep my eyes shut for good, I hear my cousin’s book close. I open my eyes, and gaze out at her, sitting upright under many blankets strewn upon a mattress on the floor. She looks back at me, her saucer eyes gazing back at me, aglow in the TV’s radiance.
“Do you want me to shut it off?” she asks, although I’m not sure if she wants to shut the TV off, or if she’s just asking me to be polite.
“I don’t really care,” I answer nonchalantly, although I really did care, since I was quite afraid of the dark, but I didn’t want Katie to know. Not that I thought she’d judge me, but being afraid of the dark wasn’t something you were really supposed to bring up in front of people. It was just one of those quiet fears you let become a part of you, but nobody was ever supposed to notice it.
“I’ll leave it on.”
I stare up at the ceiling for what seems like an eternity, waiting for my eyelids to long for rest once more, when Katie looks at me and speaks again.
“You know, it’s really annoying when dumb popular girls pretend to be into books.” She holds up her book, and I see that it is “The Fault In Our Stars” by John Green. From what I’d heard, it was a pretty popular book, and although I was only in sixth grade, I’d figured that I would read it soon enough. “I doubt they’d even understand the meaning behind it anyways,” Katie continues.
“Yeah, probably,” I respond again, quite languidly. I know that every minute I spend chatting with her reduces the chances of my being able to fall asleep. But still, it’s nice to have some company for once.
“You’re a pretty good reader, you know.”
“Thanks.”
“You probably get it from your mom, right?” Katie says cheerfully. The comment, although small, irks me a little. I’d only heard it a thousand times, of course. It was always my mom who was praised for her intelligence. And my own worth was always as a result of something she’d done, it was never really about me. I was the result of her great science experiment, with the scientist being praised eternally, myself swept aside.
“Hah, yeah.” I respond, in an uncomfortable small talk way. I gaze up yet again, feeling the loose cushions of the god-awful couch shift beneath me like tectonic plates. I watch the stucco blankly, like white noise in front of my eyes, until dots spin before me as they lose their focus, and for what seems like a second, I forget about what we were talking about.
Then, Katie breaks my perfect stucco silence once more.
“What’s it like not having a dad?”
I freeze up inside and gaze right into her eyes and I see that they look more distant now, like far-off clouds in a night sky. Yet, they pierce me, and for once, I feel awake.
“I mean, I’ve never really thought about it, I guess,” I say in the calmest voice I can muster. Nobody had ever really asked about my dad before, or at least not in that way. “I guess it’s okay. It gets a little lonely sometimes.” She looks back blankly at me, and for once, I’m really not sure what she’s thinking at all, or even how I got here.
“My mom works a lot, so I guess it might be easier to have someone else around sometimes.” She nods in understanding, although I know, maybe we both know, she’ll never really understand. Nobody will ever know how it feels to feel anxious when people ask you what your dad’s job is, or if he looks like you, and you choke, and feel something deep inside you crack. And I wish I could say it all to her. I wish I could let the floodgates down, and let the waters roar, crashing against the walls of the dam that had been strongly and securely sealed up until someone tried to open it, up until that very moment.
But I don’t, and I stare at the ceiling some more, because that’s infinitely easier than letting it out.
I don’t remember what Katie says after that, except for ‘Goodnight’. So, I roll over and try to shut my eyes. I let my consciousness recede into the humming of the heater, listening to the churning and rattling as I let my senses fade into darkness. Except I don’t fall asleep. I just lie there, staring at the ceiling, waiting for my eyes to fade to black, so I don’t have to think about it anymore.
