Chapter Seven #2
Well, it’s more of a large pond, but I liked to call it the lake as a kid. It was a vast expanse of water that felt larger than life, bigger in perception than reality.
“Where are we going?” Mara asks when I steer Bessie away from the trail we made on our way down the mountain. We can’t stay too much longer on account of needing to get Bessie back to the warm barn. But I want to see the lake. It’s been a while.
When I don’t respond, as she likely expected, Mara lets out a sigh of aggravation to convey her frustration without words. Clever. She’s learning to communicate without words, just like me.
After another five minutes or so, she speaks again. “I’m sure you’re wondering how I ended up back in town after my California adventure.” I am, actually, though I feign indifference. She sighs heavily, this time with resignation, and continues without an answer.
“California ate me up and spat me back out.” Her voice takes on a wistful, forlorn tone, It’s like she;s being tugged into a memory.
“I coasted through high school so I thought college would be a breeze. I thought I’d be a star student like I was here.
But I wasn’t as successful at a college in a big city versus a small town education system.
I was just a name on a roster, nothing special.
” The top of Mara’s head drops slightly like she’s looking down at where my hands hold the reins in front of her, surrounding her with my arms.
“I thought I could handle morning classes, but I slept through them constantly. I thought I could handle the workload of a major and a minor. I didn’t. I failed more classes than I care to admit. And after one of my tuition payments was late, they threatened to kick me out of my dorm room.
“Universities say they care about their students until they don’t get their money.
Then you’re trash to them. I was so annoyed by how they treated me after one late payment that I just left.
My dad said he wouldn’t pay for an apartment in California if I wasn’t going to school there.
I tried working in California for a while, but it wasn’t enough to fund the life I had.
So I didn’t have much of a choice but to come home and reevaluate.
So…here I am. Pretty pathetic. The straight A student couldn’t handle herself in college. ”
The silence hanging in the air after her explanation is as thick as the snow surrounding us. I’m honestly surprised I don’t feel it as we walk through the trail leading to the lake.
“I wanted to get out of this town so badly, experience the world this town tries to ignore. And it just ruined me, instead.” If I were a betting man, I’d say there’s more to this story she’s not sharing.
The way she says ruined seems like her mind is running over something else from her time in California that she hasn’t shared yet.
She doesn’t have to share it, but I am intrigued.
And a little sorry for her. That sounds like one hell of a depressing experience.
But, I suppose at the end of the day, she has no one to blame but herself.
Despite my thirst for knowledge and love of learning, I hate being in school.
I hate sitting at a desk and taking notes over things that could be handed to me in a printout for me to read on my own.
I hate group work and tests and pop quizzes.
I hate being judged by others on ridiculous criteria.
I knew college wouldn’t be a good fit for me, that’s why I started trade school classes my senior year of high school.
By the time I graduated, I had enough training to start my business.
Dylan followed my example and I was so thankful for it.
He really helped me get the business off the ground.
Being computer savvy, he also built the website and a social media presence to get us customers.
It’s grown so much in two years. I wouldn’t have life any other way than building a career with my brother.
But I know he’s not completely happy here.
We clear the trees and come to my favorite spot on the mountain.
A crystallized lake engulfed by winter and cast in frosted ice.
In the summer, it’s the perfect deep dive to escape my thoughts and submerge myself in water.
Water is the only place I feel fully relaxed.
The shower. A bath. The lake. On the rare occasion we make the three hour drive to the beach, the ocean is an even greater security.
Where others find uncertainty and fear of the unknown, I find peace.
Although I can’t dive into the lake right now as I’d like to do, the sight is almost as placating. The gradient of opaque white snow piled on the shore toward the transparent center eases my mind like I imagine those adult coloring books do for some.
The entire lake is surrounded in a circle of pines securing and secluding my sacred place from the rest of the world.
While it’s not technically on our property, I feel possessive of it.
It’s as much my home as the lodge. I’ve never seen another soul here.
Dylan will go for a swim on especially hot summer days, even though we live in Oregon and the water never really heats up past sixty degrees.
As far as I know, Mara is only the third person to ever come here, to see this nirvana.
Her body went stiff as a board when we passed the tree line and she could fully see the beauty of this place. Her breathing slowed too. The puffs of air that escape her are not as steady and close together as they were before. But they return to normalcy after she speaks.
“Wow,” she breathes, “this is incredible.” I don’t think she realizes when her body relaxes back into my chest and I brace her.
The top of her head is a centimeter away from my chin.
I can smell her shampoo, it smells like Dylan’s, he uses something that’s supposed to be better for hair health but I’ve never given a shit.
He was generous enough to share some of his hygiene products with her since she didn’t want to use my “heterosexual, ineffective man products,” as she so kindly described them.
There’s nothing wrong with shampoo from the dollar store. It gets the job done. If I end the shower clean, then it works. She was also repulsed by the fact that I use shampoo to clean everything.
Soap is soap! I don’t know why I’m the only one who gets that.
“Thank you for showing me this,” Mara sits up straighter, either because she realized she’d been leaning against my chest or because she realized she was slouching. The cold air that slips between her back and my chest where body heat kept me warm moments ago feels like ice to the balls.
I wait a moment longer before steering Bessie around back the way we came and head back to the house.
Being jostled around a bit makes Mara lean back into me again and I savor the heat, the warmth, the contact I didn’t think I’d enjoy as much as I do.
She’s silent the rest of the way back but it doesn’t feel uncomfortable.
It feels…natural. Like the way Dylan and I can be in the same room and he doesn’t feel the need to speak to me.
Maybe she’s finally getting used to my silence.
It’s a little scary to think Mara Meyers has spent enough time with me to get used to things. I never thought I’d see her again after graduation. And now she’s living in my fucking house. God really does have a sense of humor. He enjoys forcing me to face my demons.
That’s been a consistent pattern in my life.