Looking Through The Lens

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Chapter 7: Black Mountainside

Back Home

A pristine silence woke me up.  I lay with my eyes closed, completely immobile.  I was on my back, and feeling nothing. 

Then my eyes opened slowly.

The first thing I registered was a brightly lit, textured ceiling.  It looked familiar, which I thought was most odd.  The second thing I registered was a strange taste in my mouth.  It was as if I had slept with a pack of spearmint gum in my mouth.  Another decidedly weird sensation.  The third thing I registered was breathing. 

I was pretty sure it wasn’t my own, since I was surely dead.  I turned my head to the side, and was surprised to see Lara lying next to me.  Furthermore, I was in my room, and it was eerily cold.  It felt as if the windows were open, even though they were not.  The room was awash in bright white light. 

I also noticed I had a splitting headache. 

For being dead, I sure felt like crap.  Not unlike being alive, I thought to myself, grimly. 

I sat up all at once. 

“Oh my god!  Matt, are you okay?” said Lara, springing up next to me. 

She looked terrible!  She was all red eyes, with crazy black hair sticking out every which way.

I looked around and saw a great deal of snow outside, and a crumpled piece of paper on my desk. 

Was I still alive?  The last thing I remembered was drinking from the bottle of whiskey, and then feeling a cold darkness.

“Where am I?” I asked, still somewhat confused.

“In your room.” 

Lara stared at me with a worried look.  “How do you feel?” she asked tentatively.

“Like shit.  What’s going on?  Why are you here?” 

All the events and thoughts of the previous night were still with me, bouncing around like ugly echoes.  Apparently drinking yourself to death didn’t get rid of your problems, just as adults had always warned it wouldn’t.

“I… I was watching you, and then I fell asleep.”  Tears filled her eyes.  “Matt, I’m so sorry about last night, if I had known that… ”

I waved a hand at her and grimaced. 

“Stop, stop,” I said dismissively.  “Why am I in my bed?”

Lara hesitated.  “Last night, when I heard your door open, I thought maybe you were going to come talk to me,” she said, letting out a sniffle.  “Then after a while you didn’t come, so I came out to see where you were.  When you weren’t in your room, I thought maybe you went up to the cabin.  There were some footprints outside, so I followed them.”

I rubbed my face uneasily.  The realization that I was still alive was bearing down on me like a leaden weight.

“I found you lying by the stash, with a b-broken bottle in your hand.”  Lara started crying again in earnest.  “I thought you were dead,” she managed through a tight throat.

Me too, I thought.  My stomach felt like a tempest. 

“But you were still breathing,” she continued hauntingly, almost whispering.  “So I made you throw up, until all the whiskey was out.”

“Okay, just stop.  My head is killing me,” I said, feeling woozy. 

I lay down again on my bed, feeling gloomy and depressed.  Lara cried quietly for a while.  My head was pounding like a hammer, now. 

I vaguely wondered how she had gotten me home, before drifting off into unconsciousness again.

The next time I awoke, Lara was sitting in a chair by my bed, watching me with her red-stricken eyes.  I stared at the ceiling for a long time.  I felt a little more alive, but I still had a giant headache.

“What time is it?” I asked, with a detached voice.

“Nine-thirty,” Lara said quietly.

“Aren’t we late for school?” 

For some reason, I wasn’t worried about that thought.

“Cancelled.”

Oddly, one wish had come true at least.  I wouldn’t have to ride the bus today.

But reality was sinking in.  Lara had saved me, for better or for worse.

“Here,” she said, holding out three Tylenols and a glass of water. 

“What did our moms say?” I asked, as I swallowed the medicine. 

“About what?” asked Lara quietly.

“About me.”

“Nothing.  They left an hour ago, and won’t be back till late, as usual.”

“Well, didn’t they wonder why I was all fucked up?” I asked pointedly.

“They don’t know anything about it.  I covered for you,” she said, almost submissively.

“Couldn’t they smell the whiskey?”

“I put some toothpaste in your mouth and opened the windows early this morning.”

“Why?” I asked.

Lara was quiet.

“Why did you do all this?” I asked again.

There was a long silence before she spoke.

“I was scared for you.  I didn’t want you to get in trouble, or get hurt.  After…  After…”

Lara started crying again.

I turned to look at her.  She regained some of her composure, but didn’t continue speaking.

“How did you get me back to my bed?” I asked.

Lara swallowed back some sobs.  She then spoke slowly and quietly again. 

“After I found you, I panicked.  I tried to pick you up, but I could only sort of drag you a few feet at a time.” 

“So you dragged me all the way back?” I asked, incredulous.

“No, I knew I couldn’t do that, so I got one of our old sleds, and rolled you onto it, and then dragged you back on that.”  Lara shuddered visibly.  “Then I managed to pull you up the steps and into your bed.”

Through the emptiness I felt, I still marveled at her feat.  It sounded like something Peter would have done.  She was lucky our parents didn’t hear her.  I was lucky they didn’t hear, either.  That would have been a sight, Lara dragging my limp form in from the stormy night.  Enough to make my mothers freak out, surely.

The thought of my friends made me wince.  Even though school had been cancelled today, I would have to face them again, soon.  And a glance at the crushed and crushing letter on the desk reminded me that most everything that was important to me was gone. 

My girlfriend had cheated on me, and dumped me, even as I had trusted her and been faithful.  My band mates thought I was some weirdo, and I likely wasn’t going to be skiing with them or Brian anytime soon.  And worst of all, my own sister, whom I thought I could trust, had kept something so unbelievable from me. 

There wasn’t much left right now.

“Matt?”

“What.”

“Why… Why did you go out to the stash last night?” Lara asked.

I didn’t say anything, just continued to stare at the ceiling.

“Were you trying to hurt yourself?” she continued.  “Was it because of me?” 

Choked sobs punctuated her questions.

I rolled away from her, and closed my eyes.  Her crying drifted through my ugly dreams.

When I came to again, Lara had another glass of water for me.  I sat up, and drank greedily.  I felt almost human again.  The headache had receded, and my stomach was empty but relatively settled.  It seemed that Lara had gotten to me before the alcohol had fully entered my system.  And just as likely, I had probably passed out from exhaustion, before I did any serious damage to the bottle or myself. 

I still felt desolate, though.  I didn’t think anything would make that go away.

I sat up on the edge of my bed, acutely aware of my body.  Lara watched me intently, but I avoided her look.  After an eternal silence, Lara spoke.

“Matt, I’m so sorry about last night.”

I stood up as she spoke, and walked out into the kitchen.  Lara didn’t follow, and I could hear her crying in my room.  I felt a slight pang of pity for her, but the emptiness squashed that feeling away as quickly as it had come.

I fixed myself a bowl of cereal and ate it quietly at the table, watching the snow continue to fall.  At this rate school might be cancelled another day, I thought.  It would be wonderful if it snowed for a month straight and I never had to leave the house again.

I reflected on my situation.  One thing that kept making me cringe was the realization that Brian had actually been right.  I had put effort into writing Julie, and avoided pursuing anyone else.  And now that had clearly been a complete waste.  I could just see him telling me that he had said so.  It was going to be completely embarrassing when I told them it was over.

After some time, Lara came out and sat at the dining table across from me.

“Why won’t you talk to me?” she asked meekly.

I sighed.  “There’s nothing to say,” I said.  “Everything sucks, all right?  My friends are all assholes, and Julie’s gone.” 

I left unsaid what I thought about her.

“Don’t say that.  You don’t know…  Maybe Julie is just in a lull.  I told you, she goes through phases.”

I looked at her with contempt for a moment.  Of course…  She had no idea what I was going through. 

I went into my room, grabbed the crumpled up letter.  I returned and rolled it across the table to Lara.  She looked at it fearfully, as if it were on fire. 

I didn’t wait for her to open it.  Instead I went out the back door.  I stood for a long time in the back yard, knee deep in the fallen snow.  The large flakes all seemed to find the back of my neck, where they melted and ran down under my shirt collar. 

The world felt completely detached. 

I didn’t have to look back to know that Lara was reading the letter.  I hiked up to the guest cabin, wondering what to do.  Out of habit, I picked up my acoustic guitar, and played as I had never played before. 

School was cancelled the next day as well.  Over those two days, I came to the conclusion that I was pretty much alone.  If I couldn’t trust my girlfriend, friends, or even my sister; then there wasn’t much point in trusting anyone else, ever again.  I would just have to deal with that and move on. 

I didn’t feel any urge to try drinking another bottle of whiskey.  I was in control of my thoughts and body again.  In retrospect, I was scared of what had happened that night.  I didn’t want to go there again.  Somehow a collection of bad events had reached the intersection at the same time and caused a terrible accident.  But now it had been cleared, and there was just some broken glass on the pavement, and some scrap metal in the dustbins.

Every time I saw Lara, she looked at me with haunted eyes.  I avoided her, and she soon stopped trying to talk to me.  There were a few inquiries from my mothers, when they saw that I wasn’t excited about the snowfall, or the lack of school.  I blamed it on band troubles, and feeling like I was getting a cold.  They didn’t press, but I could tell they were watching me closely.  So I tried to act normally, even though I didn’t feel normal anymore. 

My only friend was music.  Somehow, when I picked up the guitar that day, it spoke to me for the first time.  I felt like I had been trying to talk to someone who was sleeping, and suddenly she woke up.  There was a conversation where there had only been futile monologue.  Playing was still frustrating, since I couldn’t always get the guitar to say what I wanted it to say, but that seemed to parallel the way life went.  At least it was talking, though.

After two days of barren self-examination, it was time to get back on the bus.  Lara stood away from me as we waited.  I wasn’t sure if I was going to sit in the front or the back.  As I stepped on, I saw Brian, Peter, and Carl in their usual seats.  I steeled myself and walked to the back.  I would at least say my piece, and then whatever happened, happened.  If I sat in the front, it was a clear sign that I was going “soft.” 

I put my bag down, and leaned against the window.  No one spoke at first.  Clearly Brian had heard about the rehearsal.

“You can all gloat, now,” I said bitterly.

They didn’t say anything.

“Julie wrote,” I continued.  “It’s over.  I guess you all were right about her.”

More silence.  I was acutely aware of every little sound the grumbling bus engine made. 

Finally, Peter spoke up.  “I’m sorry, man.  That really sucks.”

I was surprised to see Carl and Brian nod in agreement.  They looked sullen.

“Well, it’s over now,” I blurted out.  “It doesn’t matter anymore.  I suppose it was obvious a while ago, but I just didn’t want to believe it.”

“Are you still pissed at us?” asked Carl.

I felt some resentment at that, but I let it blend unchallenged into the rest of my anger. 

“I’m pissed at everything right now, man,” I said, “but I’ll get over it.  It’s nothing personal.”

“I’m sorry about Julie,” said Brian.  His voice was sympathetic, even as his expression was slightly “told-you-so.”

I just shrugged.

“Do you want to ski this weekend?” asked Carl.  “The snow should be killer.”

I looked at him, and saw that he was asking in earnest.

“Yeah, sure.  Let’s do it,” I said, feeling some relief that I wasn’t a complete outcast.

It wasn’t long before the topic of our February trip to Montauk came up again.  I remembered the excitement I had felt when I had first discussed the options with my mom.  How different I felt now… 

Melissa was lamenting the loss of one of her best cooks to a restaurant in New York.  “I just hope they can hold things down while I’m gone.”

“Let’s not go then.”

My parents’ eyes snapped to me at once.  Melissa raised a surprised brow.

“No, Matt, it’s okay,” she said gently.  “I’m just venting a little.  They’ll be fine.”

“I’m serious,” I said.

There was a pause.

“But, I thought you wanted to go?” Sarah said.

“I don’t want to go anymore.”

Immediately they knew what was wrong.  “Is… everything okay with Julie?”

“I don’t know,” I said darkly, hurrying to get the words out.  “She broke things off between us.”

There was a long silence.  Only Lara continued to chew her food, seemingly oblivious to my announcement.  I could see my parents quickly putting things together, and making sense of my recent mood.  A glance at Lara, and they also knew that somehow she was involved, although I doubted they guessed how.  

“Matt, I’m sorry to hear that,” Sarah said softly.  “What happened?”

“I actually don’t want to talk about it,” I said.  “But basically she found someone else.  That’s all I really know, and that’s all I want to say.”

My parents exchanged a pained expression.

Melissa clasped my hand in hers, but I just stared numbly at my food, and ignored the gesture.

“Well…” Sarah began, but stopped.  They clearly needed more time to think about my announcement.

After a minute, she said, “We could still go.  Beth and Hans were excited that we would be coming down.  The beach is beautiful in winter.”

“I really don’t want to,” I said, hoping they would agree without too much effort.

There was some quiet discussion about work between them, and then they turned to Lara.

“Lara, I know you were also excited to go.  How do you feel?”

I tensed as Lara looked at me for a moment.  Our relationship had moved quickly and steadily downhill ever since that fateful night.  After a period of ignoring each other, we were now getting short with each other whenever we had to interact. 

I was therefore expecting her to say she still really wanted to go, just to go against me.

“I don’t really want to go either,” she said, at last.

I kept my surprise to myself, wondering how we had become unlikely allies on this issue. 

My parents nodded slowly, and the topic was dropped for the rest of the meal.

That night, my parents called my aunt and uncle, and after some discussion, the trip was off.

It really was over.

Later that night, I poked my head into Lara’s room, just as she was closing the door.  She was dialing on the phone, and she hung up when she saw me.

“What?” she snapped.

“Just saying thanks.”

“Thanks?” she said, her expression full of distaste.

“You know, for saying you didn’t want to go.”

She sniffed.  “It had nothing to do with you, Matt.  Now can you move, please?”

I backed out into the hallway and watched the door close in my face, feeling confused, angry, and sad.

I hated feeling this way.  Even when I wasn’t thinking about Julie, or Lara, I had this constant anxiety inside of me. 

Back in my room, I wrestled with the angst, until I realized… I could control it. 

Or rather, ignore it.  Forget them, and forget it.  

They’re not worth it…  There’s no use opening up to them, just to be hurt again…  There is fun to be had, skiing, drinking, and… even girls, maybe.

I realized I was free of Julie, and that might have advantages in ways I hadn’t considered.

We were supposed to be in Montauk on the night of February tenth, but instead I found myself at a party with Peter, Bruno, and Brian.  Spirits were high among us, since it had just snowed over a foot the night before, and the skiing had been superb.  We attacked the keg at the party with vigor, feeling boisterous.

“Whose place is this anyway?” Bruno asked, as we wandered back into the warmth of the house.

“Who cares…” said Brian, dismissively.  “Better than the woods.”

“That’s for sure,” I said.

“Was Lara going to be here?” Peter asked me.

I almost laughed at the hope in his voice.  “I have no idea.  We’re kind of on the rocks.”

“She’s going out with Ronnie, anyway,” Brian said.

I looked at him.  “What?”

He gave me a surprised look.  “Ronnie Starr?  You didn’t know that?”

I opened my mouth, stammered a few incoherent words, and then said, “No, I didn’t…”

Brian laughed.  “Well, now you do.  You’d think you would have been the first to know.”

“I guess not…”

Brian looked around before saying, “Ronnie’s a total asshole.”

He quietly told a few stories about Ronnie, since they were both on the soccer team, but I only half listened.  Lara was going out with a junior?  It took me a good fifteen minutes to come back to the present. 

Sometime later, Carmen and a few of her friends found us, and we proceeded to brag about our skiing feats.  She kept giving me looks.

The conversation moved around, and so did we.  Peter and Bruno went for a beer refill, and never came back, and Brian, Carmen, a girl named Dena, and I ended up squished on one of the couches in the corner of the family room.  Carmen was practically on my lap.  Everyone was pretty drunk by that time, and she made no effort to hide her flirting.  I made no effort to resist.  Next to me, Brian was kissing Dena, I noticed.

Things were going by in a blur.  Carmen excused herself, and I got up.  She disappeared through a door, and I followed, uncaring if anyone was watching.  It was a bathroom, and I closed the door and locked it.

It was so easy.  Such pleasure, and no effort…  I didn’t have to write any stupid letters, or wait patiently for months, because we were immediately all over each other, lips and tongues pressing and sliding against each other’s.  It was animalistic.  We stumbled around, trying to kiss even harder. 

I fondled her through the layers of clothing, and pressed her against the wall, and kissed her, and groped some more.  Our control was minimal.  I felt like stripping and pounding her willing body right there.  Our faces were soon wet with sweat and saliva, and we ignored the urgent knocks on the door.

I was supposed to be with Julie right now.  Perhaps walking on the beach arm in arm, or watching a movie…  I pushed the thought out of my head.

“I was hoping you would do that,” she said, after some time.

The knocking on the door became heavy.

“Hurry the fuck up in there!” came a deep and angry voice.

Carmen pulled away from me, and whispered, “We should go back out.”

The pounding came again.

“All right,” I said. 

I pulled the door open, and as we stepped out, a familiar face got close to mine.

“What the fuck, man?” he yelled.

“Hey,” I said, placing him. “What’s up, Brad?”

He looked at me.  “Do I know you?”

“Yeah, remember, we hung out at the Ledges last November?”

He frowned, and then said, “No, I don’t.  Who the hell are you?”

“Matt.  I was –”

“Well, go find a room or something, doofus.  I’ve been standing out here for ten minutes.”

He pushed by and went into the bathroom.

I shrugged at Carmen, too drunk to care about the confrontation.  She started towards the living room, but I pulled on her arm.

“Let’s go back there,” I said, gesturing down the hallway towards the bedrooms.

Carmen shook her head shyly.  “Let’s get some more beer, first,” she offered.

I shrugged, and followed, still fired up. 

As we filled our cups, her friends materialized, and a few minutes later we were back on the couch.  None of my friends were there, so I impatiently listened to their gossip for a while.  Carmen held my hand, and even in my intoxicated state I could tell she was showing me off.

Annoyance built up in me, but before I could suggest a change of location, Brian found me and announced that we had to leave.

Carmen kissed me once in front of everyone, including Brian, and I felt my face heating up.  I knew no one could tell, though, and if they could, they wouldn’t care.

As I walked out with Brian, he sniggered.  “Your turn,” he said.

“My turn?”

“To deal with Carmen…”

“Whatever,” I said.

Brian was right, though.  My relationship with her, if you can even call it that, was intermittent and mostly physical.  I went as far as I could until she stopped me, usually when I tried to unzip her pants.  I was mad that she didn’t want to go all the way with me, but then I would come back to try again.  It was better than nothing.  Whenever she reached for any emotional closeness, I took a page out of Brian’s book and pushed her away with sarcasm. 

“Why are you going out with Ronnie Starr?” I asked Lara one cold afternoon as we walked back home from the bus stop.

She glanced at me, surprise in her eyes.  We rarely spoke anymore.

“None of your business.”

“He’s an asshole,” I said.

“Takes one to know one,” she retorted.

“Funny…  He is, though.  Brian says so.  They play soccer together.”

“You don’t know him, and Brian’s just jealous because Ronnie’s going to be captain next year.”

“Whatever.  He’s still an ass.  He doesn’t care about you.”

Lara whirled around and glared at me.  “Shut up, Matt!  Just shut up!”

“What?  He’s just using you.”

“Using me?  I can’t believe you!”

“Why do you have to go out with him?”

“He’s not an ass.  He’s nice.”

I shrugged.  “Whatever.”

“At least I’m going out with someone I like, unlike you,” Lara said bitterly.

“I’m not even going out with Carmen.  We just fool around sometimes.”

“So you admit you’re using her?  Wow… You just proved that you’re an asshole, by your own reasoning.”

I waved her argument aside.  “No, Carmen knows it, and so do I.  We just fool around.  Do you see me walking around school hand in hand?  Do I talk on the phone for hours every night with her?  Not that I could, since you’re always talking to Ronnie…”

Lara sniffed.  “Oh, you really think Carmen sees it that way?”

“Of course.”

Lara shook her head, but didn’t say anything.

“Brian said that Ronnie makes fun of you in the locker room,” I said.

I had gone too far.  Lara gave me a stricken look, and then ran ahead and went into the house, slamming the door behind her. 

The anxiety and anger was back.  I tried to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away so easily now. 

Things got worse.  Lara and I bickered and snapped at each other more and more.  Our parents tried to intervene several times, but there was little they could do.  I didn’t want to talk about anything with them, and neither did Lara.  I think for some time they were puzzled by my attitude, since I had never been openly rebellious or resentful towards them.  They didn’t know how to handle my sudden anger at everything.

They suggested counseling, and just to shut them up and put the pressure off of me, I went a few times to the high school counselor.  I just answered his questions as neutrally as I could, blaming everything on Julie.  I had a bad feeling this wasn’t going to be allowed to go on forever, though.

I hit a new low at another house party at the end of March.  Carmen and I, completely trashed, went into one of the bedrooms and locked the door.  I was already in a bad mood because Lara and Ronnie were drunk and fooling around in the yard, right in front of me. 

We sat on the bed and made out.  I didn’t even know whose room we were in.  It looked like a girl's bedroom.  As another night of the same old tame kissing progressed, I was getting impatient and frustrated. 

After a while I got up and told Carmen I had to leave. 

“Wait,” she said, laughing giddily, pulling on my hand.

I tried to wriggle out of her grip, feeling the anger start to rise up and push through my drunkenness. 

“I want to do it,” she whispered.

I was surprised for a moment, since she never let me do anything besides touch her breasts.  But her words were crystal clear.  There was no mistaking her meaning, as it was written all over her eyes.  I had been trying to get into her pants for a month, so maybe she was finally ready.  I wasn’t in the mood anymore, but the sudden possibility of sex was too strong to resist.

“Okay, take off your pants then.”

She sat motionless.  I stood and pulled my pants down, and watched as she slowly stood up.  Her eyes were not as willing, all of a sudden, but she pushed her pants and underwear down around her ankles anyway.  I wasted no time, laying her down on the bed and opening her legs.  She looked nervous, but I didn’t really care.  I felt around between her legs and found her hole.  I guided my dick to it, and pushed in.

Her eyes went wide with shock and pain.  I felt her petite body tense up under me as I bottomed out inside her.  Tears welled up and ran down her temples, melting into her hair.  I moved in and out of her, as she closed her eyes tightly.  I just wanted to finish as fast as I could, so I could stop suppressing my conscience and get the hell out of there. 

“Okay, stop, stop,” she gasped, quietly and urgently. 

I was close to climax, so I ignored her.  I pumped in with one last thrust and spurted into her. 

“Stop, please!”  She pushed on me until I rolled off of her.  She was crying.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.  “It hurt more than I thought it would.  I... I just couldn’t keep going.  I’m sorry.”

More than she thought it would?  Shit, was she still a virgin?  I thought Brian had surely had sex with her! 

But obviously they hadn’t, or she wouldn’t have said what she just did.  As guilt started edging its way into my thoughts, I forced myself to push it away.  My head was thumping; I couldn’t deal with this.  I was on the verge of being destructive.

“Oh my god, are you okay?” she asked suddenly.

Carmen was sitting up, and staring at my penis.  It was covered in blood.  For a second, I was in shock.  I had heard that sometimes girls bled when they first had sex, but this seemed like a lot. 

“That’s your blood,” I said, almost accusingly.

“Oh!  I didn’t know it would be so much,” she said timidly.  She suddenly stood up, looking wide-eyed at the bedspread where a dark red stain had formed under where she had lain.

“Oh, fuck!” I said.  I was feeling ill, and needed to wash off the blood as soon as possible.  I looked around and found some tissues, and rubbed the worst of it from my penis.  I threw the box onto the bed, towards her.  Carmen took some tissues, and she wiped herself while I put my pants on. 

When I was dressed, I looked at the stain again.  There was no way to clean it off.

As Carmen fumbled with her pants, I looked around helplessly.  Then I pulled off the bedspread, and stuffed it under some dirty clothes in a hamper that stood in the corner.

“I’ll wait for you outside,” I said, walking out into the hallway unsteadily. 

I found the bathroom and washed off the rest of the drying blood with shaking hands.  My face felt bloated from the alcohol.  I splashed it with cold water, but that didn’t help very much. 

Had I really just fucked Carmen?  And all this time she was a virgin?  I looked in the mirror at my deep-set eyes, trying hard to focus.  They looked back heavily. 

What was I thinking?  What was I even doing here?  When had I lost all self-respect and replaced it with selfishness?

The next morning I really had trouble keeping my thoughts straight.  I had a bad hangover, and all I could think of was how to get a hold of some beer or liquor.  Our stash was empty though.  When I was sober, it was becoming much harder to avoid thinking about what my life was becoming.  I needed to change something, or I was going to go crazy. 

Again.

Before dinner, I watched Lara doing her homework for a few minutes.  Was it too late to repair our relationship, I wondered?  I slowly went up behind her, intending to ask her to take a walk out back with me.  For a long time I just looked at her black hair.  Then I walked right by and went to look for a snack in the fridge.  I wasn’t really hungry though, just lost in thoughts of a time when life was easier. 

“Matt, do you need to get something out?” asked Melissa.  She had a strange look on her face.

I shut the fridge and walked out the back door, quickly patching up the hole through which memories were pouring in.

That night I was playing guitar in the cabin, when Melissa came in.  She sat on the edge of the easy chair with her chin in her hands, and looked at me.  I didn’t think she came up to hear me play, but I played on anyways.

“Matt, put the guitar down,” she finally said.

I trailed off, sighed, and then put the guitar on its stand.  I lay back on the couch, looking at the ceiling.

“I thought maybe we could talk.”

“About what?”

“I don’t know.  Whatever you want.  What’s on your mind?”

“Just playing my guitar.”

“Do you have any thoughts?”

“No, not really.”

There was a long silence.  I tried not to breathe.

She pulled out a paper from her pocket, unfolded it, and passed it to me.

My heart sank; it was my interim report card, and a glance down the page showed that a number of the comments were negative. 

“Lara’s was not much better,” she said quietly.  “I want you to tell me what’s going on.” 

“With what?” I asked evenly.

“With you.”

“Nothing,” I said, like every time before. 

I didn’t think I would get away with that today, though.  Only a few times had I seen the look that my mom had on her face right then, and she obviously was at the end of her rope.

“Matt, I don’t want to hear that, anymore,” she said, her voice getting suddenly heated and unsteady.  “This shitty attitude has to end, and it has to end now.”

“I can’t help it if I feel like this,” I said.

“No, maybe not, but that’s not an excuse to treat your sister, and your mother, or even me like you have.  I know you’re angry about what happened with Julie, but why are you taking it out on your family?”

“This isn’t just about Julie,” I said, trying to keep my voice neutral.

“Then you better tell me what it is about!”

I sat quietly for a while.  So far, this was a repeat of a dozen other conversations I had had with them.  “I’m just not happy.”

“Why not?  What’s missing, what do you want?  Tell me!” she pleaded.

“I don’t know.”

Melissa let out a loud breath of frustration.  She stared at the floor for a while, and seemed to come to a decision.  She stood up wearily.  I was ultra-tense on the couch, hardly breathing.

“Well, if you want to keep playing that game, then there are consequences,” she said.  The resignation was heavy in her voice.  “No more going out to your friends’ at night, no more skiing, no more band practice.  I don’t want to do this, but... your mother and I don’t know what else to do.”

Her voice softened some.  “Matt, we love you.  Your sister is really, really taking this hard.  Whatever is wrong between the two of you, it’s affecting her school and her attitude.”

“That’s her problem,” I said with a shrug.

“Fine, Matt, then you heard what I said,” she barked, voice hard again.  “No more going over to Brian’s.  No more coming up to the cabin to play your guitar, no more skiing.  Nothing.  You come home after school, do your work, and stay inside.”

“Fine,” I said, trying to act unimpressed, although my insides felt very empty.

Melissa looked at me.  “Get back down to the house.”

I didn’t move.

“NOW!”

“All right, I’m going.”

I got up slowly and walked out, not waiting for her.  She didn’t come down for a long while.

Over the next few weeks, I was withdrawn as I withstood the grounding.  It was difficult not playing my guitar, especially as I had made such progress in the last few months.  But I didn’t feel like talking to my parents any more than before, so nothing changed.  I constantly tried to crush any feelings that welled up, preferring to be in a state of apathy.

I did, however, have time to do some reflecting, and one thing I did was to talk to Carmen.  I approached her after school let out one day.

“Hi, Matt!” she said brightly.

“Hey,” I said, wincing slightly. 

Despite everything, she always was so damn chipper.  Sometimes annoyingly so.

“What’s going on this weekend?” she asked.

“Um, I don’t know.  Listen... um...”  I paused, trying to find the words I had practiced just moments before.  They eluded me now.

Carmen’s demeanor finally grew a little more serious.  “Everything all right?”

“Um... No, not really.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Well, I’ve been thinking, and I don’t think we should still, you know, be together.”

Carmen just stared blankly at me.

“I’ve been really messed up these last few months,” I continued.  “Just some stuff has been going on with me, you know... But...”

“Matt...” her voice trembled.

I sighed, suddenly feeling bad for her. 

“Why?” she asked.

“I... I just need to... do this,” I managed.

“You’re breaking up with me?”

I nodded slowly.  “Yeah.”

I felt cruel as I told her, but I couldn’t seem to treat her well.  Brian and Carl had infected me with relentless sarcasm and detachment regarding her, and it wasn’t going away easily.  If I liked her more, I might have made the effort, but I just couldn’t invest in the relationship. 

Carmen was obviously crushed, even though I was sure - somewhat sadistically - that this was actually for her own good. 

She tried to say something, and then tried again, and then ran off.

For the next few weeks we avoided each other.  I thought I would feel better now that I was apart from her, but I didn’t.  Until then, I had put out of my mind the possibility of her being pregnant.  Like everything else in my life, it was easy to ignore that.  Any guilt that crept in was ruthlessly swept away and replaced with detachment.

Now that we weren’t on speaking terms, would she tell me, I wondered?  Every furtive look I caught from her seemed to hold hidden meaning.  Would this be the day she would tell me she missed her period? 

My friends were puzzled at why I couldn’t ski or play music anymore.  I blamed it on my grades, but they knew something else was up.  They didn’t press, and I didn’t offer any information.  Our friendship since that terrible night had been much more hedonistic than it had been before.  The partying would go on, for them, and as a result I could detach from them as necessary. 

April came and went in a barren emotional state.  I felt like a machine.  With nothing else to do, I worked on my homework, and my parents found my next report card to be much improved.  Repeated attempts by them to talk with me were rebuffed, though.  I pretended that things were going better, but my parents were not fooled, and the grounding continued.

I knew it would take reconciliation with Lara to lift the punishment.  Even a messy breakup with Ronnie was not enough to make me reach out to her, though.  I mostly didn’t care what she did anymore.  We had settled into a position of non-relating housemates, even though sometimes I wished I could be friends with her again. 

Spring was seeping through the valleys and starting to crawl up the mountains.  I watched the skiing season end, angry that I had missed the fun of spring skiing, a time when the warmer air and small crowds made for some of the best action during the year.  But so it went; I soon got over that, like everything else.  Nothing really mattered.

My parents had planned a weekend camping trip to Lake Placid over Memorial Day weekend with a couple of friends.  Originally, they were going to leave Lara and me home alone during their trip, with an occasional check in from neighbors.  However, due to the situation between us, they decided that we would be coming with them instead.  All my curfew limits were still in place.  I couldn’t bring my guitar, either, which was something I always enjoyed having with me on camping trips.  The one allowance was taking my fishing gear, which surprised me.  I wasn’t sure I would even want to fish, but I packed the stuff anyway.

What at first looked like a miserable three-hour-plus car ride each way, with a lot of reading and bored lounging in between, ended up being a turning point in my life.

Forward to Chapter 8

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