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There was something magical about telephones, Mena conceded, marveling at the fact that you could hear somebody’s voice from over thousands of miles away. And what was it all, in the end, but electronic sound waves sent through the wire? She studied the plastic receiver in her hand. Somewhere, in that tangled mess of wires and metal, were the words that she’d tried to find for nine years. Maybe when she spoke, the telephone would take pity on her and transform her words, like magic, into poetry, songs, haikus – soft beautiful words that she could whisper into the night, into the wire, and that would explain the burning in her heart perfectly.
But she couldn’t quite steel herself to do it. She couldn’t summon up the nerve to pick up the telephone and let her fingers skim the number pad, punching in the combination she had committed to memory so long ago. Her fingers slipped with sweat and fear at the very thought. What could she say? Hi. It’s me. I love you. And then what? What could she expect? Nothing. And the boy-shaped hole in her heart, the one named Christopher, remained.
The phone rang, giving her holey heart a jolt. Mena stared at the phone. Phones couldn’t read minds, could they? Or take on minds of their own?
“Hello?”
“It’s me.” The hole in her heart began to attack her stomach, devouring both, and her intestines as well, leaving nothing but an empty, hollow Mena, air on the inside, like a drum – if you beat her, maybe she’ll make a pretty sound, but then again, maybe not.
“Chris?” She hated herself for asking – of course it was Chris. Nine years of being his best friend made it kind of easy to recognize his voice. Even if it was nothing but electronic impulses vibrating through a wire, whispered her brain, and anyway, she hated how her voice sounded when she was asking questions, like a squirrel on helium and would her brain just shut up?
“Mena?” he replied, mocking, and she forced a laugh. Lately, it had gotten harder to laugh around him. Really laugh, that was, not the fake laughs she laughed, where her squirrel impressions returned with a vengenance.
“What’s up?” she asked, hoping that her voice sounded casual, or at the very least, un-squirrelly.
There was a sigh, an electronic exhalation of breath puffing through the wires, and then: “I’m not ready for graduation tomorrow. I’m not ready to walk. I’m not ready to stop being a student, to start taking responsibility. I’m not ready for this.” At the sound of desperation in his voice, Mena thought her heart could’ve melted in sympathy, empathy, whatever it was, if squirrels hadn’t already chewed holes in it.
“No one ever is,” she replied, her answers coming from out of nowhere. Some deep corner in her brain must’ve known what she was doing, or at least, she hoped so. “But they still survive, don’t they?”
“Mena!” Chris wrenched himself free of the crying, hugging, laughing, camera-flashing crowd to pull her back in and enfold her in the roar of too-many people, the stench of voices. He smelled of cut grass and clean sweat and fresh bread and Mena could feel the tears prick the backs of her eyes but she couldn’t cry. Squirrels weren’t allowed to. “Can you believe it?” The grin on his face belied the sadness in his eyes, but she wouldn’t say anything, wouldn’t point out the painful truth.
“No, I can’t quite …” she choked out, before the crowd overpowered her, and Chris was lost in a swarm of relatives desperate to take a picture with the handsome young graduate. She felt bitter. They’d see him every year at Christmas. She’d see him until she boarded the plane to Virginia, where college and student loans waited to entrap her with hungry, groping tentacles, and then she’d be lucky to get a card come yuletide. Because no matter how many years you spend together as kids, people always grew apart. It was inevitable – it was life, and Mena hated it.
She turned to her own family and smiled for the camera.
The plane was leaving for Virginia tomorrow and she hadn’t told him. Part of Mena hated him, for spending all summer laughing into her face, for spending all summer being Chris and making her heart dive into her stomach whenever he smiled and haunting her every sleeping moment until sleep no longer was that blissful land of black dreams, and she would spend her nights watching too-bright superheroes save the world from the evil machinations of Lex Luthor rather then sleep and dream of cut grass and clean sweat and fresh bread. God, how she hated him.
The plane was leaving for Virginia tomorrow morning, and she would be on her way to her new life and no one would realize she’d left her heart at the airport, full of holes, until some poor janitor stumbled upon it one day as he swept, and he’d take the dusty, bloody thing home and maybe cut it up for dinner but then at least someone was getting use out of her heart. Mena sincerely doubted it was doing much more for her other than causing chest aches the size of Everest.
The plane was leaving for Virginia tomorrow morning. Mena picked up the phone and called Chris, and asked him to meet her in the park when the sun hid its face from the world.
“So, Virginia tomorrow?” he asked, greeting her with a wide grin and a hug and Mena wanted to hit him for being able to grin while her heart was churning itself into heart batter, heart butter.
Nine years of friendship lay behind his hug, enfolded in his arms, and suddenly, Mena didn’t want any of it anymore.
“Yup,” she murmured, hating her voice, hating how the tremble betrayed her, and Chris hugged her even harder. “Virginia tomorrow.”
“You ready?” And at those two words, Mena realized that she was beyond holding back her tears, that hot, salty drops were spilling over her bottom lids, and Chris’s shirt was getting wet, but he didn’t seem to mind too much.
“No,” she whispered, and he held her until the sun was well and truly gone and the wind made her shiver and they walked home, silent all the way, each enthralled with thoughts of what the future might entail.
She bid him good night at the door and the next morning, he didn’t come to the airport. Mena stood at the mouth of the airplane and waited until the last possible minute, but still he didn’t show.
She could re-grow her heart, anyway, or even if she couldn’t, at least that janitor would get his dinner tonight.
“So, Virginia tomorrow?” he asked, greeting her with a wide grin and a hug and Mena wanted to hit him for being able to grin while her heart was churning itself into heart batter, heart butter.
Nine years of friendship lay behind his hug, enfolded in his arms, and suddenly, Mena didn’t want any of it anymore.
She stood up on her toes and kissed him hard on the lips and all nine years went out the window, there weren’t years, or months, or even days, there was only this, and the soft sound he made in the back of his throat as she gripped the collar of his shirt for balance. And then he pulled away, and there was nothing but cold air against her lips, not even nine years, and the summer was suddenly too cold, and Mena shivered.
“Mena?” he asked, and his voice had gone beyond wondering, to that foreign country of silent resignation.
“I’m sorry. I-I don’t know what came over me – sentimental, you know – a fool, really,” she stammered, cursing the return of the squirrel as she let go of his shirt, feeling Chris slip away, feeling happiness and longing and yearning slip through her fingers.
“It’s all right,” he replied, leaning over to kiss the top of her head. Mena could feel her heart thump, thump, thump, but nothing else happened except a brotherly squeeze around the shoulders and the squirrels could have her heart, she didn’t care anymore, because nothing else would ever happened in which she required a heart anyway.
The hole ripped even further and she swore she could’ve heard a squirrel laugh; only squirrels weren’t allowed to laugh.
They left the park as the sun melted into the ground and the moonlight came out, shining the path before them and whispering of infinite sadness, infinite regret, the infinity of nine years.
“I think I love you,” she said, her voice hard, all traces of squirrel gone. “And I know it’s stupid, but I do – I love the way you smile at people you don’t know, I love the way your neck curves as you lean over to write something, I – I love the way you scratch your nose with your pen and you don’t even know you have ink all over your nose and you walk around with blue marks on your face all day and it’s not stupid, I swear to God, I’m not laughing at you, I love it, I love you-" and she was laughing and crying and clutching the collar of his shirt and wishing that she never had to let go. Mena couldn’t quite meet his eyes, but for some insane reason, her mouth kept going. “And that’s all I can do, that’s it, I don’t know what else to do, I can’t say – I don’t know how, I never learned how to – and I wish you’d help me out here, give me a sign, anything, because I don’t know if I’m just babbling and – well, I know I’m babbling, it’s stupid, I can hear myself, but I can’t seem to stop, it just keeps coming out, I’ve got verbal diarrhea – you know I get that when I’m nervous and – oh God.” Why oh why had she mentioned diarrhea?
“Mena. You’re so stupid-" he whispered, laughing, and then he was kissing her back, his teeth knocking into hers, and it hurt, but only for a moment and then all she could feel was the fading sun on her shoulders and his fingers on her back, and that was all she needed for now.
Her heart might never recover, but the squirrels – janitors – Chris could have it.