Silhouettes above the cradle hold me down
they won't let me go the wrong way
my mother taught me all the fables, told me how
in the end all the sinners have to pay � Smile Empty Soul �Silhouettes�
Isaac
Her eyes were like a cat, following me everywhere I went. Sarah�s were like that puppy dog you see that�s been kicked around a lot. She�s laying there, almost like she�s begging for attention but is too tired to ask for that. Almost like she�s waiting for one last ray of hope to be someone�s friend and immediately jumps at the opportunity. Kerri�s eyes on the other hand were stalking, conniving, and just drew your face to follow. You were always curious about where they were going, and what the rest of her was up to. She�s in a waitress� outfit, waiting on the other customers, like that�s a true cover-up. You can�t mistake that look anywhere.
If there�s one girl that could look younger than Sarah�s face hid her age, it was Kerri.
She was walking around to tables in formal wear, not exactly a waitress� outfit, but almost like the manager that comes around and asks how you�re enjoying your meal. The one that you wish would just leave you alone so you could eat.
�How�s your meal?� she came over with the sweetest smile she could muster, her green eyes glittering like the emerald on Sarah�s neck.
�My girlfriend and I had a wonderful meal,� I motioned my eyes over to Sarah, who smiled shyly, and I smiled, counteracting hers. I was trying to act casual.
�Alright, and how was your meal?� she turned to Zac. Oh come on guys, like you can�t recognize this fraud. She even had �Kerri� on her nametag.
�Wonderful�� Zac replied quietly.
�Yours, sir?� she turned to Taylor. She has always been more personable to the guys in her life and not the girls. Made sense.
�You look familiar,� Taylor looked at her and Natalie�s eyes went to meet her as well. The yellow glow almost seemed to make the situation sour.
That threw her off.
�Well I am one of the managers-in-training, sir,� her hand nervously shifted through her red-blonde hair and her young face made this strange little scrunching motion, �I�m sure you might have seen me somewhere? Do you shop at Target often?�
�No,� Taylor�s eyes narrowed. I always knew he was the smart one for a reason. God love you Zac you wouldn�t be able to see a flashing stop sign in front of your face if you had to.
�Well I�m sorry for bothering you, I shall get your waitress to bring your check since it looks like you�re finished,� she still had one more plan up her sleeve as she slyly took the empty wine glasses that everybody except for Zac and Sarah had and slipped a tiny slip of paper where my glass had once rested. I didn�t look at it at first, but she looked back at me after she had gone back to the back room to drop the glasses off, hearing multiple glasses crash onto the ground.
The hubbub grew quickly as waitresses rushed back and realized that Kerri was a fake and Kerri ran out of the restaurant.
�My god, Ike, was that who I thought it was?� Zac turned around to look at me. Well�what do you know. He had a hunch after all.
�Duh,� Taylor stared at him. His eyes were like daggers sometimes, most of the time warm and inviting, sex-magnets to the girls, but now they were stabbing into him. Blue eyes can do that�I have yet to learn that trick with my own brown ones, �You can�t hide that kind of face.�
Sarah blushed at that comment because I had told her weeks prior about her face being hard to forget and I perked up, �You can�t. God I�ve given the bodyguards a picture of her, who knows why they couldn�t stop her from coming close.�
�They went out for a cigarette,� Taylor looked at me now, �She was waiting for a moment like that.�
�How convenient,� I sighed softly, wishing more than anything that I was just out of this room, �It�s almost time to go anyway.�
�Yeah,� Zac looked at the check after our waitress had dropped it off, which was a not-surprising 204.62, �Anyone want to pay?�
We all laughed for a brief second and then there was dead silence. How were we going to pay this bill was the question I knew was running through Sarah�s mind. I know it was running through mine.
�I�ll pay it,� Kate spoke up, snatched up the bill and saw a tiny bit of paper flying off of it that said �Sarah�, handing it to her after she picked it up, �Sarah, this is for you.�
Glad they weren�t ripping each other�s faces off. That�s always a good sign.
At that moment, I realized I still had mine in my hand. I looked down and looked at it:
Let the games begin.
Sarah
Something was funny about that manager. I knew it. I was trying to act casual, but once I found out that was Kerri, I was on edge for the rest of the night.
Isaac must have a thing for women with a young face. She looked 12.
My hands were twitching from the moment she was chased out to the moment I got back to my dorm. I chose not to acknowledge that I was nervous in front of Isaac. I didn�t need him worried about me. He had enough to fix back at the wellness center that I didn�t need to interfere with his leaving time. I shifted nervously in my seat next to Zac. Kate had decided to tag along with us in the car and I was now sandwiched to the side of Zac, Kate on the other side. It made no sense, the seating arrangement, because Isaac would turn the car Zac would smash into whichever one was on the turning side. How comforting for Zac to bump into the perfect one, then the one that rejected him.
Probably makes him feel really good about himself.
The rest of the night was a blur that ended way too quickly for my taste. Kate and I sneered at each other before leaving, did not speak at all, Zac kept his mouth shut as well, that makes two, and Isaac took me back up to my room but could not stay. I haven�t talked to him since; it�s not been something I�ve been worrying myself sick over, however. I�ve been swamped with work for class and from what I�ve heard from Taylor, Isaac�s been dealing with things he doesn�t want to talk about. Questioning it is even beyond my reach. I can�t believe he�s getting out so soon. My anxiousness is growing.
He gets out on October 29th. About a week after one year of knowing each other. Wow a year already�
My head�s not quite sure if anything is right anymore. I�ve been on edge for the past few days. We have fast-forwarded time. Wow, very talented. Everything seems so linear, then suddenly Isaac and my lives intersect into a perpendicular crossing. Am I being diverted? Zac and I haven�t spoken either, by the way. Taylor and I are still talking and such and he�s wanted to do things with Nat, but I�ve had work to do and had to tell him I couldn�t join.
See? My head is not in the right place. It�s been in a tizzy.
My leg is getting better, which is always a plus. It�s getting colder outside, reminding me of the year gone past and how I met Isaac at work. I walked into my room today after printing out my practicum observations thinking �Wow�this time last year, I would be getting off work�. Feels so long ago.
�Sarah?� Ben waved his hand in front of me.
�Huh? Oh�� I looked at Ben. I had a horrid headache and he was helping me plan the session today. I didn�t want to listen. He felt like an authoritarian leader when I had a horrid headache. It was like listening to Drew and all I wanted to do was crawl in a hole and avoid him. I usually got along with Ben really well, but this week he was just bothering me.
I had a dream about him. Yes, Ben.
The scene was set in the sexual sense. I was living in this apartment with my guitar at my side and I looked like I had taken a break from practicing and went into the fridge to find something to eat. I was on the mission to look for dried cranberries and maybe some grape juice. Love grape juice. I�ve been drinking it almost every day while I�m at school�
Suddenly, I feel these arms wrap around me tight, yet gentle. They are not Isaac�s and even my dream self can tell. The bulge in the man�s pants is noticed quickly when he pulls me tight against him.
�What do you want?� I immediately knew that voice. The room shook because I wasn�t turning around to see who it was. The fridge shook and the jars inside clanged like chimes. I turned around to meet the light blue eyes of Ben, my co-therapist in practicum. In the other room, however, was his girlfriend waiting for him. She smiled at me like she always does and said hello.
�I don�t know,� was all I could say.
Ben looked into my eyes firmly at that moment and gently kissed me on the cheek and walked away, out of the apartment, hand in hand with his girlfriend. Isaac showed up too�stating that he was reality and also questioning what I wanted too. He followed with a kiss on the cheek, and I felt the fillings in my teeth suddenly sparking with pain as they fell out.
Abruptly woke from the dream after that, I wondered�I thought about the dream for days. What did it mean? I think I know now�
Do I want compatibility�or passion?
Isaac
�Choosing not to acknowledge it is unhealthy, Isaac, you said it yourself,� Jeneca was trying her damndest to get through to me. But I would not budge, �Saying anything to acknowledge the sense of death is good for the soul to heal.�
�I don�t want to hear the bullshit today, okay?� I looked at her, eyes teary with pain and confusion, �Kerri�and now Paris.�
Jeneca leaned forward, �Uh huh.�
Damn encouragers. I do not want to talk about this. I sighed and leaned forward, placing my elbows on my knees that held my neck upright with the rest of my body, �Kerri�has been sending me and Sarah these little happy notes. Yes, happy as in �I could hurt you if I wanted to� happy. She�s really starting to scare me.�
�You�ve shown me the notebook,� Jeneca leaned back in her chair, calm as a cucumber in the middle of a sandwich, �Have you shown it to anybody else?�
�Sarah, but that�s about it. I only showed Sarah cause she found one of the notes on the tour bus. I must have left it out in the open.�
�Understandable. Why do you think you got scared when Kerri started sending these messages?�
�She was in denial about me breaking up with her. She would not give up these messages. They lasted for about a month and even into my time with Sarah. That�s how she found her note.�
�So you feel she couldn�t see that the relationship was over?�
�Yes�she couldn�t see it. She kept coming over, acting like we were still going out. We only went on one date, so I don�t see why she was so attached and everything. She crept me out on the first date too. Talking about marriage and what our children would look like�she told me she forgave me for leaving her alone with the check. It just really freaked me out how forward she was.�
�You felt intimidated that she was so aggressive with her tactics to be with you when in reality they were just turning you off?�
�Exactly,� I smiled lightly. It really sounded like she was starting to get me, not like that was new. But isn�t that there job, to be empathetic?
�So Isaac�I would like to hear more about what you�re afraid to talk about. Tell me about your trip to Dallas.�
The details were blurry at the time, but I told her of my long car trip with one of the full-time aids on the plane. It was long and I was jittery. I kept ordering coffee and the in-flight movie was �Cool Runnings�. Dallas, from what I remember from being on the road, is still a blur to me and the suburbs were foreign. I never knew Paris lived next to a graveyard. Her parents admitted to me that she was a morbid child, in tune with all the spirits that lived in that graveyard. She would go into the graveyard in her bright dresses and long curly blonde hair, holding her ratty bunny rabbit doll, who she named Cricket, in her hand, stop at a grave of somebody she didn�t know and just talk to them. She would tell them what she was learning about in school, about the rodeos her father made her go to, and how she was being forced to play flute in music when all she wanted to do was paint.
She especially went to visit the graveyard (it became a daily ritual) when her brother, Tom, died. He was only 4 and had gotten a severe infection in his lungs. From what I�ve heard, he would just cough and wouldn�t stop. They started to get scared when he coughed up blood and the doctor�s tried everything, but nothing could help. She would talk to these strangers about such personal things, and she would visit Tom�s grave every day and talk to him. She drew him drawings, which her mother placed in a large file in the back room, which she didn�t know about. It was her mother�s little sanctuary to help remember Tom as well. I don�t think dealt with it because they told me they�ve haven�t spoken about Tom for years.
I didn�t stay long. This whole discussion was at the funeral home viewing. Paris had died before I had even gotten there.
It seemed like she was hanging on to see me, but her body was too weak to wait. She wouldn�t give up her art though. They told me she would make them prop pillows up behind her so she could sit up and paint. She went from using brushes to filling up Styrofoam plates with paint, smashing her hands in it and smudged them onto the canvas, without a care in the world. Most of the last paintings she ever did were still in her room. Ironically�they were bright and sunny feeling to me. I think she was ready to die.
�I�m dealing with it in my own way,� I looked at Jeneca after I had said everything.
There was a clamor out in the hallway, running, laughing, more running, then a frantic scream, then even more running.
�I�m glad you are,� Jeneca tried to stay on task but looked at her watch and told me we were over our time by about 10 minutes. I stood up, feeling that weight being lifted off my shoulders. I truly felt free after that. I felt like I had opened up and left that off my shoulders, and it felt wonderful.
�Isaac�� one of the younger girls who had been admitted (I�m pretty sure her name is Gail) held onto my arm tightly, like she always did, �Something bad happened.�
�What do you mean?� I looked at her. I knew she had always smiled at me and held onto my arm, but I never took it personally, �What happened?�
Her thin frame (I�m pretty sure she was anorexic) twitched around and she looked at me with big gray eyed, �Check in 206.�
That�s Cecily�s room�
Sarah
�What�s going on?� my mind was rushed off my art therapy homework and straight to Isaac�s voice. I had seen Ben today. I sighed. It was almost as if I was afraid to speak to him now. Every time I was around him, it was very awkward and quiet. Too bad I had to compare my stuff with him for our session on Friday. I wonder if I could eat lead instead.
�Just give the phone to Zac, please, I�ll explain later,� Isaac�s voice was frantic, rushed, and almost hyperventilating. That was not the voice I liked to hear, �It�s too much for you to handle.�
�Okay,� I replied gently, wondering if he still remembered that he gave me a necklace and asked me to be his girlfriend. How could he be dedicated to me and his therapy at the same time.
�Zac,� I handed his cell phone over to him, and he took it angrily.
�Who is it?� he asked me. I knew he was still desperately mad at me from turning him down, but I had tried to make peace. Actually�that was I was trying to do today by coming over. Make piece with him. While doing my art therapy work at the same time. Hey, a girl�s got to do her school work.
�Isaac,� the simple word just made him raise the phone to his ear with fervor, but that was quickly replaced with anxiousness, worry, and an overall sense of dread.
�What was it?� I asked, perturbed at him still as he hung up the phone and Zac almost looked on the verge of tears. I stabbed myself inwardly for holding his anger against me against myself and looked over at him, reaching out for his arm, �What did he say?�
He angrily yanked his arm away from mine, letting a tear drip onto my hand and spoke 2 words that struck remorse, yet fear into my heart:
�Cecily�s dead.�