5. Amelie
AMELIE
PLAYLIST: WHAT IM HERE FOR – JORDAN SUASTE
Iwatch Jane leave the lecture room, while I remain seated, a feeling crawling up on me that she knows too much about me already. I have been stupid to think I could fool her. She asked exactly the question I couldn’t answer. I know she realized there is something about me that doesn’t add up.
I should just stay away. Instead, I get even closer.
This was meant to be about me, about finding out who I am, and all I do is play another role.
A role that brings me close to a woman who has all the tools to know that I am a—a what?
A conwoman? A liar? A nobody? A lost soul with no sense of identity but a dark past?
An uncomfortable feeling spreads from my stomach and pulls on me. I need to get rid of it. I don’t want to feel like this.
I get up, take my heavy backpack with all the books I got to read for Jane’s classes, and make my way to the next bathroom.
There, I chop some of the cocaine from El onto a toilet seat lid and don’t do one line, but two.
It burns in my nostrils as I let my head fall back.
The bitter taste runs down my throat before everything goes numb.
Numb like the dreadful feeling in my stomach, replaced by pure elation and invincibility.
I get up, swipe the rest of the coke from the lid, and go check the mirror for any traces of white powder in my nose.
Glancing at my watch, I realize I’m already late for my next course, so I decide to dump lectures today entirely.
I walk over the campus and sit on one of the stairs with a distance between me and some other students enjoying the warm day, and while I’d like to get home, I know El will be there, and what I need is some alone time. I need to think.
Or you need to forget everything and party until dawn, says the risk-loving voice pushed by the cocaine in me.
I really miss doing all the risky stuff with my father, even though I hate him for taking my teenage years from me.
The only thing I miss about him is that somehow, jumping out of a plane, speeding cars over tracks, and climbing unsecured, all that made me feel alive; it defined me.
But was that really you? asks the voice.
Yeah, good question.
And once again, I am back to the question.
WHO AM I?
And just when my mind is about to snap into endless rumbling of who I am, I see Jane walking past the stairs while on the phone. Her body language speaks of tenderness and aversion.
My body gets up on its own accord; I need to know what has her worked her up like that.
I follow her at a distance. She gestures widely, and I want to know more. I want to know what triggers her.
I mean, I could bump into her accidentally—
A smirk appears on my face because I feel alive the moment I have the idea.
I walk fast around the corner of the grass enclosures, slip my backpack to the front, and pretend to get something out of it as I walk towards the crossing path Jane is on. I time it from the corner of my eye, and then bump into her.
“Oh gods,” I say, as she stumbles and her phone rushes to the ground. “I’m so sorry, I was—I didn’t,” I add intentionally without looking at her, because I bend down to pick up her phone. When I have it, the caller is named “Mom”.
Huh, I think to myself. Interesting.
I pick up the phone and hand it to her, pretend ot be shocked it’s Jane.
“Oh—“ I say, “I’m so sorry!”
Jane is completely taken aback. Instead of grabbing her phone, she takes a step back.
She stares at me with her wide eyes, which I have seen before, but this time it is different.
I can’t tell what exactly it is, but they mesmerize me.
They are green, a dark green, with a hazel rim.
It’s a rare color, but it’s not what mesmerizes me. They have this pull toward me.
Nothing happens for a moment, as we just look at each other. Until I remember that I just did two lines of cocaine and avert my eyes immediately.
“Jane, don’t you dare hang up on me, you will do as I say,” shouts a woman through the phone, so loud I can hear it without the speaker on. What a lovely mother.
But Jane is absent. I got her off guard, and she can’t deal with it.
It might have been the contact. She might not be able to deal with touch.
So, I just act by holding the phone to my ear.
“Sorry, Jane can’t talk right now, not in that tone. Respectfully, Ma’am, show your daughter some respect.”
And with that, I hang up.
Jane’s eyes are wild. Something between murderous rage and a complete mess. Her hands brush over her outer thighs, smoothing her perfect outfit that needs no smoothing. She is stimming, regulating.
Change of strategies, it is.
“It’s such a beautiful day today, the blue sky, no clouds.
I love the sound of New York City. Can you hear the buzz?
The honking?” I say to get her focus on something externally.
It’s what works best when someone is struggling with internal sensation overload.
“And do you smell the freshly mowed grass? It’s actually oxygenated hydrocarbons released as a chemical distress signal. ”
Her shoulders relax slightly.
“Oxygenated hydrocarbons are so funny,” I continue. “Because they are responsible for many of the most distinct scents and aromas we know. And while they can create the most beautiful experience in the world, they can be so toxic, even deadly.”
She is completely confused.
“Walk with me,” I say and tilt my head sideways. She does indeed walk.
I don’t say another word. We just walk around the campus. I still have her phone in my hand.
We circle around the main quad for the third time when she speaks.
“How do you know all of it?” she asks.
“All of what?”
“How to deal—“ she says and hesitates before she adds, “with me.”
I chuckle.
“I don’t deal with you,” I say. “You’re not a problem to deal with. You process a world made for neurotypical people differently. That doesn’t make you a problem, but rather the construction, does it not?”
She stops in her tracks, and I do, too. At a little distance. Right now, she is a much different version from the bossy professor in the lecture. She is insecure. She believes she is a problem. Probably because of that dragon of a mother I just heard on the phone.
“But how do you know?” she asks in a different tone.
Less clinical. And it might be the first time I see the person behind the image she created as a respected professor.
One, she needs to be as young as she is in an environment with so many older men who are believed to be the wisest. At least that’s what my impression is from the other two classes I've had so far.
“Why is it important?” I ask her because I don’t want to tell another lie. I can’t. And I have to. Because I swore to never speak about it. It is all so messed up.
Why did I even do it? I question myself in my mind as the consequences of my stupid act follow me.
“Do not evade my questions,” she says, much harsher, and I see the behavioral expert resurfacing.
“A girl in my class was on the spectrum,” I say and lie directly in her face.
“Liar,” she says immediately, with authority that backs me into a corner. It’s like my past is suffocating me.
“Yeah, well, you wanted to be lied to,” I snap at her, and because I am not myself right now, but a walking, high as fuck, identity crisis, I throw her phone at her, and turn to leave without one more glance.
I need to get away. Out of here. Forget all this. Maybe burn it all and move somewhere else. Restart everything again somewhere else. New identity. New papers. New name. New life. It’s what I do best: burn bridges and never look back.
“Wait,” she calls after me. But I don’t listen.
Suddenly, a hand grasps my arm. An electric sensation runs through my body, freezing me to the spot.
She touched me. But I can’t. I am going to slip. And not just a bit, it’ll all blow up in my face.
So I remove myself from the touch.
I’m in my studio half an hour later, and without saying hi to El, I get more of the cocaine, drown my emotions in two lines and half a bottle of whiskey.
“What happened with you?” asks El as I sink to the floor, leaning against the kitchen counter.
“Don’t ask,” I say.
El comes over to me, takes a sip from the bottle in my hand, and then lies on the floor next to me, with her head on my outstretched thighs.
We sit there forever. I hold El in the highest regard for respecting my wish for silence, but just being there.
It’s actually quite nice. Not just quite nice. I often felt conflicted about El always being here, but now…I want her here. She does something to me. She’s here. And it’s not even that I feel less alone, I don’t have to mask with her. I can just be as strange as I want to be, and I am always okay.
In my entire past life, I always had to be on the lookout to be what was expected of me so Sophie would be protected at all cost. Hypervigilance. Always hypervigilance. And with El, I can just be. For the first time ever, I can just be.
I start brushing over her hair. She looks at me, and we both don’t know what we’re doing here, but it doesn’t matter. We’re here. And that’s the story.
“I told my father to fuck off today,” she suddenly says “He might cut me off the trust.”
“What did he do?” I ask.
She hesitates for a moment and looks away.
Somehow, my gut clenches.
“El,” I say.
“He’s—“ she begins, swallowing hard, before she says flatly, “He’s a man. With a God-comlex.”
I somehow figure there is a lot more to the story than she allows me to hear.
Maybe that’s the reason why she’s doing all the alcohol and drugs? To forget. To drown herself in whatever he does?
“You know you can always tell me whatever it is, right?” I ask her.
“Duh,” she say, and I know she is lying.
“El,” I say again and she holds her phone for me to see.
I read the messages.
“He won’t cut you off” I say after I read their conversation. “He’s just threatening you, testing if you’re willing to go all in. I mean he sucks, deffo, but that’s just talk.”
“You think?”
“I’m certain,” I say. “Tell him you don’t care. You can live here and are rather pleased to see that bodyguard gone; he’ll bail.”
“How do you know all that?” she asks. The same question Jane has asked me. Because I am failing. Failing at not being my old role.
The difference is, El doesn’t know anything about human behavior, but Jane does. Meaning, I can tell El a lie without being caught.
“My father made sure I am the most literate brown-noser there is,” I lie and add the one small truth, “I also remember everything I read.”
El laughs as she types in a message. It is what makes her so easy to be around. She doesn’t ask a million questions, doesn’t try to analyze my psyche. I can just be, without a thousand questionmarks.
Silence follows afterward, where we empty the rest of the bottle, drowning the past with every sip.
“You wanna dance it out?” asks El.
“Dance it out?” I ask.
“Yeah,” she says, getting up and holding out her hand for me to take. “It does wonders. Come.”
And because I am drunk and high, I take her hand.
She turns on the music, and we just dance. Do more lines. Drink more alcohol. For hours. And hours. Until my body is exhausted and I fall onto the couch, where I stare at the ceiling. There is not a single thought in my mind anymore.
And when El follows me and snuggles into me, I just let her. No thoughts.
Well, one thought. Her hair smells so beautiful. It reminds me of a walk on the beach, a fresh breeze caressing my skin, like that one day in Brighton with—
No, tells me a voice in my mind. We’re not going back to the past.
And with that, I pass out.