The Teller of Stories

My pretence of normalcy was practiced and perfect, but somehow the very calm, very regal woman sitting across from me made me feel as juvenile and vulnerable as I ever had been. Whether that was because she was a woman, or because she was a trained psychologist was irrelevant. This was not the kind of person I would talk freely to. However, I had been directed to talk to her, though she was actually supposed to counsel the students, not the teachers, of the school, and it seemed that I would be made to talk freely or suffer death by the many hairpins that no doubt held up her knot of hair.
She sat behind her desk, waiting for me to say something, so I offered a hesitant, 'Well, this is unusual, isn't it, Cara?'
She stared back at me. 'Mr Rowan -'
'Seth,' I interrupted.
'- you know why you're here. We've had complaints from your colleagues as well as several of your students -'
'If you're talking about Mark Bryson, he's failing English and his parents seem to think it's not because of the fact that he hasn't read a single book in his life but rather that I am somehow driving him to illiteracy with my negative attitude.'
She flashed me an irritated smile. 'Mr Rowan, you attended this school as a student before you gained a position here as a teacher, am I correct?'
I scowled inwardly, but kept my vapid expression firmly on my face. 'Yes.'
'How long ago did you graduate?'
She had memorized every fact about me from my employee profile; I knew it, and she knew that I knew it. 'Ten years.'
'Closer to eleven.' Her hawk's stare did not leave my face. 'And you haven't attended a single school reunion in that time.'
'What kind of accusation is that? There've only been three. I never really left this school,' I said, glancing deliberately at the papers on her desk before meeting her gaze again, 'as you'll see on my resumé.'
'You're a storyteller, are you not, Mr Rowan?'
That question caught me off guard. 'What?' I asked stupidly. I did not like feeling stupid.
'A storyteller,' she explained, quite composed. 'Someone who thinks people are easily classified into groups and enjoys cataloging everyone they know - up until the point where someone does something drastically different from what you expect from them, and you realize that people aren't as two-dimensional as you think they are. Feeling betrayed, you decide never to be genuine to anyone ever again because that's how you think everyone else acts.'
'Well, actually, I always thought I was naturally this charming -'
'A storyteller,' she pressed on, 'pretends to like people but really hates them because they can't understand them. So they spin stories about things to protect themselves and their secrets - particularly the event that set you off in the first place. They lie compulsively -'
'Do they teach you this at psychologist-school?'
'- and are often harboring deep resentments up until the point where they become a danger for themselves and the people around them. Consequently, they often come across as a little too nice and too self-effacing.'
'Don't tell me; you're going to use me as your case-study.'
'Mr Rowan,' she said, her own too perfect composure cracking a little at the edges (Ahah, I thought, she's not invincible), 'do you think that this sounds like you?'
'We-ell,' I replied, keeping up my pose as the charming, friendly colleague, 'I always thought of myself as more of a ruthless manipulator, but you're the psychologist so I guess you're the expert.'
'Mr Rowan-'
'Cara-' I mocked.
Her fist hit the desk, making her vase of camellias and me jump. 'Just answer the question, Mr Rowan.'
'Only if you call me Seth,' I said, waiting to see her reaction. She shook her head in a very controlled movement, and I knew right then that I had lost at my own game. Whichever one of my behavioral quirks that had lead to this inquiry into my personality would be cursed forever. 'Which question?' I asked, reluctantly.
'Do you think that you are a storyteller, having just heard a description of such a person?'
There was no need to consider it again. 'Yes,' I said, just as reluctantly.
'Has it been your affecting your work to the point where you think counseling might be a justifiable option?'
No, I thought to myself. Hadn't I gotten this far into my life without ever needing a counselor? But, seeing her hand reach for something at the back of her head, I answered, 'Yes.'
She looked at me carefully, subtly changing what had been an obvious threat of a hairpin in my jugular vein into the rubbing of the skin behind her ear. 'You nearly drowned once during your time as a student at this school, did you not?'
Gritting my teeth, I said, 'Yes, I did.'
She nodded. Then, she looked for something on her desk, found a small box of seaweed-collared morsels and held it out to me. 'Sushi?' she offered.
It was a mocking challenge, one I refused to rise to. She knew she had me and now she was playing with me. Savoring an already-won triumph, like I was some sort of prize. I think that irritated me more than anything she had said or done previously. I resigned from the game. 'What do you want from me?'
'Who was Connor Brackthorn . Seth?'
There was a part of me that always stirred whenever I heard, saw or thought about that name. With my senses tuned so acutely, adrenaline was now leapfrogging through my system.
'Connor Brackthorn,' I repeated slowly. In my reflection against the silvery surface of the vase, I saw my eyes involuntarily grow small with hate.
She nodded again, folding her arms across her chest and watching me, as always. 'Tell me about Connor Brackthorn.'
She'd read my file, of course. How that particular bit of information had gotten into my file at all is a mystery to me. I had always thought that teachers were always unaware of the petty student rivalries going on behind their backs, but now that I was on the other side of the schoolyard, I realized that it wasn't the case. Someone had noticed.
I mean, we hadn't exactly been subtle, but I suppose there's always this expectation that teachers don't care about anything outside their own class. If someone had bothered to look, they would almost certainly have noticed. I wondered how many things I'd notice if I watched the kids in the halls and out at lunch.
'Brackthorn .' I said, and his name echoed over in my mind. I tried to remember exactly what had started our less than cordial relationship, but I couldn't. Something petty, I was sure. It was easy to think that in hindsight, but it hurt that I'd cursed his memory again and again over the years for something that I could not even remember. I justified my forgetfulness by telling myself that my dislike for him had not stemmed from a single event, but from many.
No, that wasn't true either. There was one time - an hour of cold and darkness - which made me hate him more than ever. We'd hated each other for so long that the brief moment of kinship I'd felt for him feels as alien now as it did all those years ago.
Cara nodded, distracting me, and I realized that I had spoken out loud. I looked at her and she nodded again, encouraging me to continue.
I spoke slowly, finding it difficult to remember and explain at the same time. 'It was a party down at the beach. There were those tall citrus- burning torches speared in the sand to illuminate the area at night, but there were too few of them. Too large an space for people to spread out in. Too many people to be kept track of. The base of the music - some thirteen years out of date, now - was strong, like a heartbeat. It was summer,' I said, like it was important. She said nothing.
'There was - alcohol - beer and spirits for everyone.' I knew she was calculating my age behind her cool eyes, discovering that I had been underage at the time. 'It was hot and people got thirsty. Nothing else to drink, if you didn't want to drink what was already there. I guess - I guess I had something to drink.' I pushed back the side of my hair and was surprised it longer than I expected. It took another moment before I realized why that simple movement had disorientated me; I had kept my hair shorter then. There were few similarities between the rowdy, young, gangly teenager and the rowdy, older, unathletic adult I had matured into, but they were there.
'A fight broke out,' I continued. 'There were people - gatecrashers, people looking for a good time, and they were pushing each other around, elbowing other people in their faces.' A girl's scream came next in my memory, but I didn't tell her. 'Everyone was moving, trying to get away or trying to get in to help stop the fight, I don't know. The group surged forward into the ocean. I - I rolled an ankle and slipped over a rock. Fell backwards into the water. There were still all these strangers standing around me, thrashing against the water and against each other. I tried to get up. I tried to grab hold of someone but my hands were wet and I couldn't pull myself up. The tide pulled me back into deeper water.'
'How deep?' Cara asked.
'I don't know,' I replied honestly. Was I supposed to know? 'We weren't that far out at first, but there were so many people, and they kept pushing -'
She did not nod this time. 'Then what?'
I shrugged, suddenly nervous. 'I guess I tried to keep myself upright but I kept getting pushed back into the water. Pretty soon it was too deep and I was too tired to pick myself up again. I think.'
'You think.'
'That's right,' I answered carefully.
'So, you were drowning.'
'I don't think anyone even noticed, there were too many people. I was never a very good swimmer. Couldn't pull myself up to the surface to breathe air, so I was breathing water. That's what the doctors said, and it ties in with what I remember.'
'What do you remember?'
'It was cold. And dark,' I said, uncomfortably aware that it was not the best description I could have given.
'And what happened next?'
'I don't - I can't remember, but the next thing I know, I'm being dragged up the beach, a little way down from the rest of the party. I was coughing water for a while, so I didn't realize who had saved me at first.'
'Connor Brackthorn,' Cara said, matter-of-factly.
I nodded but said nothing.
'Your school rival.'
Defensively, I said, 'It wasn't that. It was -' I hesitated, trying to find the right words. So much for an English teacher's vocabulary. '- I was preparing myself to look up at the face of the person who had saved me, and I have to be grateful, right? He was the only person who had even noticed that I had gone under. And then I see him. Brackthorn.'
'Not what you expected?'
I almost laughed. 'I didn't have any expectations. When you're drowning - when you're dying - there's no expectation. You don't expect someone to save you. By that time, you've already regressed into - into instincts. Nothing else matters but fighting to live, with your last breath as the case may be.
'I was glad, I suppose you could say. I was relieved that I had been saved, that I would see another day. I wasn't in a particularly good state, but somewhere between coughing up salt and struggling to sit up, I was glad that I was alive.'
'And then you saw Brackthorn,' she said, one step ahead of me.
'And I didn't care,' I said, feeling defiant. I didn't have to justify my every action to this - this psychologist. 'Everything we'd ever done to each other just vanished in that instant. I looked up at him, and he looked down at me, and we were both wet and cold and - I think I smiled at him. And I said, "Thanks".'
An irregular-shaped lump had formed at the base of my ribs. I stopped speaking, but not before Cara had noticed.
'You thanked your enemy for saving your life.'
'Funny little world, isn't it?' I said sarcastically. I think, somewhere deep inside, I knew what was coming but I tried to fend off the inevitable anyway.
'And what did he say, Mr Rowan?'
I raised my gaze from the edge of her desk to her face. Her skin was smooth, and she was pretty enough, but I hated the way she was analyzing me to think she was my type. Biting my lip and recalling every single detail I could remember from the scene, I hesitated.
He stood in his beach shorts, saltwater dripping from his hair and his limbs. I was on my back, chest constricted, breathing in hiccups between vomiting. The night did not quite hide the cold expression on his face, even as I looked up at him with a pitiful expression of gratitude in my eyes.
'Connor,' I said, my voice a desperate wheeze, 'Thank you.'
He looked down on me like I was invisible against the sand. That hurt a little, but it was nothing compared to what was coming. He opened his mouth, his teeth flashing against the moonlight, and said, coolly, -
'I would have done the same for anyone.'
My lips closed on the last word and stayed close. Cara watched my expression, hoping for some sort of giveaway gesture. I didn't care. I was invisible against the sand.
Finally she leaned back in her chair, rubbing the side of her nose with a careful finger. 'Well, Mr Rowan.'
'Well, what?' I interrupted.
'Mr Rowan, I will tell you this,' she said. 'You are a master. Really. You have all your tics mastered, anything that might possibly tell me that you weren't spinning another story. But I didn't believe a word you said.'
I said nothing. There was nothing to be said.
'I'll tell you what,' she continued. 'We'll leave it here for today, and you can come back at the same time tomorrow. I suggest that, tonight, you give some serious thought to what you're doing. I want to hear the truth. No more stories.'
I stood up to go, turning my back on the woman I might have thought of as attractive. Perhaps I was a compulsive liar, but that was nothing compared to being invisible. Anything I had felt for Connor Brackthorn before that frozen moment was instantly replaced by a profound hatred of his very existence. I wanted him to die; I wanted him to simply cease to exist. Years later, I told myself that I had gotten over it, but that was the real lie.
I closed the door to the counselor's office, leaving behind the only person who had ever wanted to hear, but would never believe, the truth. Tomorrow I would have to tell her a story, one that she would like and could dissect happily. Truth be told, stories are much easier to tell than the truth. At least people believe stories.