Contagious [Part 7]

Things were getting better. Complicated, but better.

Everything was changing. I was seeing things in a different light now. The grass that once seemed so plain and common was now vivid. I appreciated things, like air, like clouds, like myself.

The rain stopped shortly after Lauren kissed me. It was as if the rain was my pessimism and her kiss halted it. Is that too cliche to say? Oh well. Our relationship was cliche, and I enjoyed it. We had only met each other hours before, but we felt like we had known each other forever. Cliche again. Damn it.

We started a fire just as the night crept in and took away the safeness we had felt earlier. She had a backpack filled with things that she packed before she ran away from home. In it was some matches, clothes, cereal, water, makeup, money, and various other women stuff.

The fire was refreshing. It kept us warm and that was all we needed that night as we kept each other company and told each other about our average and complicated lives.

"My parents might as well not even be there", Lauren said. "They don't even pay attention to me. All they're worried about is themselves and their problems. But what they don't understand is that their problems fall on top of my problems as well. And I couldn't take it anymore. I needed out."

I nodded.

"I couldn't tell them how I felt. I didn't want them to worry about me because they were already worried enough. So here I am. I wonder if they're worried about me right now."

I interrupted her, "They are, Lauren. I'm sure of it. There's probably a search team of hundreds of people looking for you. And they're all worried about the sweet teenage girl that is missing, and they want to find you so you can be back home with your family. Is that what you want?"

"Right now I'd much rather be with you", she said.

I smiled, but behind that smile was a lot of fear and anxiety. For one, I still had no idea where I was. When I first found myself at the abandoned carnival, I was confused and clueless as to how I got there. And now this girl is here, and I have no idea how she got here. Or who she is. But most of all, I don't think it's safe to be out here by ourselves. The last thing I want is for this girl to get hurt. She's so sincere, and I can't help but be extremely protective of that.

"I feel the same way", I told her.

She reached over and touched my hand. I extended mine and she slid her fingers in between my fingers and we sat there for awhile and listened to the sound of the crackling fire. I wondered if things would always be this simple.

Contagious [Part 6]

"Sometimes you think you're going one direction, and you're fine with it. Then later on you realize you were unknowingly looking into a mirror, you know? Life is a guessing game. And it's easy to guess wrong." I continued to try to console her. She seemed to be calmed by what I was saying.

It started to rain. First as small sprinkles.

"But I just got tired of everything. Everything I did was a giant struggle. And all I wanted was for it to be easier." She paused to wipe a tear away. "But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't find that gray area. That space where it's comfortable."

I knew exactly what she was talking about. Since I had felt like this so many times before, I didn't really have a way of telling her it would get better. I knew for a fact that it could very well get much worse instead. Did I mention life is a guessing game? Well, sometimes you guess right, and you get punished for it instead of being rewarded.

The rain grew steadier. I looked around for any sort of shelter, but there was none.

So we sat on a fallen tree and stared at the ground as the rain started to pour. It was one of those moments when you blur everything else out, and just focus completely on the sound of the drenching rain. And ironically enough, everything was alright as long as it was pouring. We found solace sitting together with water dripping off of our faces.

She turned to look at me and our eyes met as I turned as well. I looked back at the ground.

She kissed my cheek and put her arms around me and then rested her head on my shoulder.

I could feel my face reddening as I smiled slightly and wished I hadn't looked back down at the ground.

I tried to analyze the moment, but too many thoughts were crawling through my mind. Somehow I figured it was going to be a lot harder to guess from here on out.

Contagious [Part 5]

Leaves rustled behind me, causing me to jump in a moment of sheer terror and disbelief. I desperately grasped for a stick, a rock, or anything to defend myself from whatever wild animal that's crossed paths with me, of all things, in this world of coincidence and possibility. This world where the negatives seem to outweigh the positives, until that one moment in your life when everything is perfect, and you try so hard not to screw it up, but you always do. I believe Newton explained it the best. What goes up must come down.

I turned around and dropped the measly twig that was supposed to protect me. This was no wild animal. This was a girl.

At first we only stared in disbelief. I imagine that the same twirling thoughts that were running circles around my mind were making her dizzy also. I was about to faint.

"What... who are you?" the girl said. I was still lightheaded.

"My name is Ivan. Who are you?" I muttered. She wasn't impressed so far. And she looked like she was in much better condition than I was.

"I'm Lauren. What exactly are you doing here anyway? It's not safe to hang out at the edge of a cliff. You could slip and fall." she preached at me.

"Well... erm." I struggled. I was trying to think of a defensively sarcastic way to hide the fact that I wanted to fall. I couldn't think fast enough.

"Actually I was planning on jumping. What's it to you?"

No reply.

The tone of her voice made it seem like she didn't care. But her facial expression told a different story. I could see right through her. She was one of those girls that was constantly misunderstood. She wanted to be bigger than the walls that were suffocating her every time she pushed back. And I wasn't going to hide the fact that I already had her figured out.

I followed the urge to let her know I wasn't stupid, "So you ran away from home, huh?"

She looked at the ground. Her face turned bright red and tears formed in the creases of her eyes. I was right, but I felt bad now.

I walked over to her and put my right hand on her shoulder. With my left hand, I lifted her chin and wiped away the single tear that was running down her face.

"Everything's going to be alright."

Contagious [Part 4]

The drop was roughly one hundred feet. I looked straight down and my stomach seemed to spiral endlessly as I calculated how far my head would go into the Earth if I did a nose-dive. If my calculations were correct, It'd have been about a half of a foot, depending on how much air resistance slowed me down and how hard and moist the ground was. My legs would be sticking straight up in the air, pointing to the sky. The wild animals would eat the flesh and meat off of my decaying body which would only leave a pile of bones for the archaeologists of the future to dig up and carbon date. They'd be able to tell what time period I lived in, but nothing more than that.

They wouldn't know what my struggles were, what I liked and didn't like, or even how I died, how I killed myself, and why. Hell, even I didn't know why. Why not? There was no one here to tell me "You've got everything to live for. Don't jump. Your family needs you". It was just me and mother nature out here in a battle of will that I was losing terribly.

And maybe that's why I didn't jump. There was no rebellion. There was no point to prove. I wasn't dying to show someone how wrong they were about me. There would be no sympathy at a funeral packed with people that thought I was weird while I was alive but for some reason realized how great of a person I was after I died. I had no reason to jump but because I was dying, and I was alone.

And that's when she came, and destroyed every part of the mentality I was previously stuck on. She shattered me.

She saved me.

Contagious [Part 3]

I sat in the grass, furious, and in denial. The heat and the hunger were getting to me. So far I had gone almost a week without any food, unless you count the ant that crawled in my mouth while I was sleeping the other night. I started to feel dizzy. Nauseous. Empty. I heard dogs barking. And then all of a sudden darkness became reality, and I wasn't aware any longer.

I started running, faster and faster, until my legs were moving so fast that it became a complex virus that wouldn't be stopped until it was killed over and over again. I was desperate for freedom. Eventually my madness deadened, at least the part of it that was caused by the heat exhaustion, but only after blood dripped out of my nose and down my upper lip. I fell over, hands grasping my stomach, and cried out in pain. Tears came to my eyes as I bit my lip and wiped my nose and mouth with the palm of my sweaty hand. It was crimson; it was the truth.

I lied down on my back, looking up at the sun and resisting the urge to squint. I wanted to go blind. I wanted another reason to want to die.

The heat was becoming a permanent part of me.

I was past the point where you stop caring. I was now at the moment in life when you get yourself ready to accept the other side of things. The life after life after whatever came or didn't come before it. And I was preparing myself earnestly. I was gathering my thoughts, and clutching onto them so tightly so that maybe they would not leave me as I entered Heaven or Hell or joined the dirt and became fertilizer for the next generation's Weeping Willows.

I was ready to gurgle my last words to the only thing that was a constant in my life up until now, and that was fear.

Contagious [Part 2.5]

After following the dusty road, step after lengthened step, I finally came to a ravine. There was a lake that must've been a half of a mile wide. It was U-shaped and lined with trees and reminded me of the summertime back at my home.

I started taking off my clothes so I could jump in and cool down. I unbuttoned my shirt first. The water was so serene, and enticing. The breeze whistled slightly, making small ripples in the glassy facade of the water. I undid the button to my jeans and slid them off.

I waded through the water until it was up to my waist and then dove forward into the crisp aquatic enlightenment. Swimming somewhere in the middle of the lake, I realized that I had forgotten to take off my gold chain that my father had given me when I was a little boy. It had a cross on the end of it with the name "Ivan" encrusted on it vertically.

I held it there in my hand while I thought about all of the things the chain has helped me get through. The time when I slipped on ice and fell on my face and bit clear through my lip. The time I drove home and saw my dog lying in the middle of the road with not an ounce of life left in its body. And then all the times I felt like ending it all, but couldn't because I was afraid. So I just cried.

A tear ran down my face, so I went under the water to get rid of it. There was no crying allowed right now. I needed to find food, and fast.

Contagious [Part 2]

I woke up with my head throbbing; pulsating. It felt as though a horse had realized some mud was stuck on the bottom of his hoof, and he tried to stomp it off. Only I was the mud.

The dry rotted seat inside the bumper car stuck to my sweaty skin as the humid weather seemed to melt me right onto it while I was asleep. I peeled myself off slowly and sat up, pondering what I should do next.

After a few minutes of blankness, I decided that I needed to find water. It had been almost two days since I even felt liquid on my tongue. I was malnutritioned, and my mouth contained less moisture than the Sahara Desert.

I started walking. I passed the broken down ferris wheel, the deserted cotton candy stands, and even the faltering remains of a roller coaster. The wooden structure of the "Thunderous Rage" was only a skeleton of what I imagined it was when it was in service. This was most likely the result of a few million hungry termites.

I left the premises of the abandoned carnival and began to follow an old dirt road to wherever it would lead me. I figured there wasn't any cars driving on the road anymore, but it was a good start towards reaching any sort of civilization. Laying down beside the road was a "Dead End" sign. Ironic, if you ask me.

When I was just five years old, my dad and I went on a road trip. It was a Saturday, and he was a little bit under the influence. A little bit meaning three times over the legal limit. I thought it was funny how he was driving; we were both laughing and having a good time. Until I learned just what a "Dead End" sign meant.

We went over an embankment; the car flipped over and over again until I didn't know which way was up and which way was down. By the time it was all over, I was in the backseat and my dad was somewhere outside the tangled mess of steel and iron.

Needless to say, after the crash, I was still alive. He, however, wasn't.