I hate people.
I didn’t start out hating people. Once upon a time, Sky Flores was the quirky, tall girl who the other girls in school would invite to get smoothies and French fries on the weekends. My junior year, three boys had crushes on me, and so from them, I got to pick my first boyfriend ever. His name was Ramón and he had the longest, curliest lashes I’d ever seen, and whenever we kissed, they would flutter like a storybook princess’s. I had sex for the first time in the back of his old blue pickup truck when we were both sixteen. “That was amazing,” he’d said. “Really?” I’d responded. He didn’t get mad at my tone or anything like that. He laughed and said we’d find out what I liked together.
Eight weeks later, I fell.
I recently saw Ramón at Piggly Wiggly. He had his toddler daughter sitting in the front of the cart, making baby noises at him. He saw me watching them from the poultry section and immediatelyfroze, those eyelashes going up and down over my frame, whatever for, I don’t know. Could he not believe I was there? Was he remembering that summer and how close we’d been? I would even say high school sweethearts. The old gods know there’s been no one else, for me at least.
I can’t say, because he then pushed his cart past me and pretended like I was never there at all.
My sisters said he’d cried at the memorial they’d thrown for me, since everyone assumed I was dead and all. So I don’t understand why he just acted like I stopped existing. Even an “Oh, hi, Sky” would’ve been better than…that. And it’s not like I expected to pick up where we’d left off. I knew he was married. I knew he’d made that beautiful baby with his wife. But we were friends once. Like,bestfriends, even.
That’swhy I no longer like people. Falling didn’t just take away too many years from my life. It also kind of ruined my life. Because Ramón pretending he didn’t know me is actually an example of the kindest thing strangers do to me whenever I leave my home or my workplace basement. The alternative is far worse.
For some reason, Adam’s face opens up in my brain, the image as clear as if I’d taken a photograph. What was it William had said to him? Something likeI know you’re going through a rough time right now…What on earth could Adam’s rough time entail? What could the golden child of Cranberry have had go wrong for him? He could have any journalist job he wants, it seems, and any woman, too. The whole townworshipshim. He’s tall, and beautiful, and his voice so gravelly and intense, italmostdistracted me from the bizarre and dumb words coming out of his mouth this evening.
I close my eyes and decide to abandon the book I’m analyzing at the moment for the restoration project. I really need my sisters right now.
Group Chat: Hermanas de Flores
Me:What are y’all up to right now? Want to get lunch this weekend?
It only takes a few minutes for the typing bubbles to begin, and I smile and allow myself to relax just a little bit.
Teal:I need to finish up the wallet inventory this weekend!!! How about…let me check my planner…not next week, but the following Wednesday?
Me:um. Let me check my planner now…okay, Wednesday lunch. Two weeks from this Wednesday.
Teal:Oh, on Wednesday I can only do dinner. Does that work?
Sage:Tenn’s auntie is in town to help with Oak that week. So I will have a babysitter.
Me:I work on Wednesday night, right through dinner time. What about breakfast?
Sage:I’ll be sleeping in that week. I need it.
Teal:You’ll probably be sleeping all damn day. Be honest with yourself. That baby literally won’t sleep more than ten minutes at once. I timed it the last time I watched him.
Me:You got to watch Oak? When?
Sage:Oh, just when I needed a quick shower last week. I gotta run, chicas. Tenn’s about to be home and I amdepositing the baby in his arms and heading straight to bed.
Teal:Let me get back to you later tonight, Sky. I have to finish up this belt.
I stare at the conversation, trying to put all of these weird pieces together in a way that makes sense. Like how many times I’ve offered to watch Oak, my baby nephew who is an adorable chunk at almost four months old, and Sage has always turned me down.Icould let her nap, but busy-bee Teal watched the baby instead? How does that make sense? And I know Teal’s getting ready to debut her leather accessory collection at an artisan co-op downtown, which means she has a zillion deadlines, and I get that but…surely she has to eat sometime? Right?
I think about the last time I saw Sage, three or maybe four weeks ago, when she came over to Nadia’s with Oak and I made her a half dozen corn flour quesadillas filled with grilled onions and peppers and mushrooms.
“You know, maybe you should stay away from the woods,” she’d said, her tone kind of weird, like it was something she’d been rehearsing. “Go out with friends instead. Let people see you differently. Once they see you differently, they’ll treat you differently.”
Go out with friends instead?What friends?I had wanted to demand. But instead I just hummed a sound of agreement and changed the subject to Oak.
Her suggestions still don’t sit right with my spirit, even weeks later. It’s like she was keeping something from me, though I don’t know what.
I close my eyes and lean back in my old wooden chair. Evenwithout that weird conversation with Sage, I keep getting the feeling like I’m drifting away from my sisters, and I have no idea how I’m supposed to stop us from becoming virtual strangers. When I first came back to the Land of the Living, we all hung out a lot. We would grab meals and drink moonshine at Nadia’s and go swimming at the beach. It was awesome, like the old days, before I fell.
But then Sage got engaged and pregnant, and Teal got married and is starting her own business…and ever since, I keep getting overwhelmed with the sensation that my sisters, my best friends, myonlyfriends, are leaving me in the dust.
I guess it’s to be expected. Their lives weren’t interrupted like mine was. They’re not ostracized wherever they go in Cranberry. So now they are…you know,living. Meanwhile I feel like I’m only half living, and really struggling with just that amount.
