BARRIERS OF A FIRST LOVE
Chapter Six
Jack sheepishly entered the science
classroom. He knew that she would be in there. And what was he expected
to say to her? "Hey?" "Hi?" "Aren’t you glad you
didn’t kill yourself last night?"
Shakily, he sat down on the lab stool. He
teetered as the tardy bell rang. Looking across the table, he saw that there
was nothing but an empty seat. Whew. She hadn’t come into school that day.
*****
Jack emerged from his last class of the day.
He jumped practically ten feet in the air when he caught sight of Rose standing
outside waiting for him.
"Sorry if I scared you. But we kind of
had plans to meet after school today."
Jack suddenly realized what a difficult
procedure it was to talk. Open mouth. Move lips and tongue. Form words, he
silently commanded himself. "Oh. Yeah. You weren’t in science class today,
so I wasn’t sure if we were still on."
"My mom was completely babying me, so I
didn’t make it to school until after lunch. I would have stayed home, but I
think that we need to talk. I wasn’t sure if I would have the nerve to come see
you, but..."
"But here you are."
"Yeah. Um…do you think that we could
drive somewhere? You know, away from here?"
*****
Jack parked his car in a community center
with grass and a few scrawny trees. The pair unbuckled their seatbelts but were
too into their conversation to get out of the car.
"Wow! I can’t believe that you’ve been
to schools all over the world."
"Yeah, well, it’s not as great as it
sounds. Look, we’ve talked about the weather, and about me, but I kind of had a
hunch that this isn’t the reason that you originally sought me out."
"You’re right. I just want to thank you
for everything. For pulling me back, for your discretion, for everything."
"You’re welcome, Rose."
"You must think I’m an idiot for trying
to do what I was trying to do."
"No, I don’t think you’re an idiot. But
I would like to know what drove you to do such an idiotic thing."
"It’s complicated."
"Everything’s complicated. Shoot, the
weather’s complicated, but we spent a quarter of an hour on that."
"Okay. It’s not just one thing. It’s
everything. All of them."
"Who’s them?"
"Them! My friends, my parents, my
boyfriend."
"But who is it mostly?"
"You know already."
"I want to hear you say it."
"My boyfriend is them."
"So break up with him."
"It’s not as simple as that."
"Yes, it is. You already tried to play
the it’s complicated card, and that obviously doesn’t work."
Rose didn’t want to talk about it anymore.
She searched for another subject; any other subject.
"What’s in this thing, anyway?" She
grabbed for a worn, battered sketchbook propped on the dashboard. She leafed
through it. "These are kind of good." She stared at the beautifully
drawn details. "These are very good, actually. Did you draw them
yourself?"
"Mmm-hmm. But you’re the only one who
really likes them. At my last school I showed them to a girl, and she called me
a loser and broke up with me."
"I’m sorry."
"Don’t be. I think loser was the number
one word in her vocabulary."
"Well, what have we here?" Rose
came upon a series of nudes.
"Those are from the trip to Paris. Now
you can see why I never really like to show my parents my drawings."
"Jack, these are absolutely fantastic.
You have a gift. You see things in people that other people don’t."
"I see you."
"And?"
"You wouldn’t have jumped."