about a boy,
who was lost,
and thought he was found,
until he meets a girl,
the same girl,
who makes him wonder
if there's more to life
than just getting by.
-
[a Jem-centered novella/sequel to The Girl Who Saw Through Jem]
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Chapter 3
As I Lay Dying
Jem
I remembered a time when things were easier; the caterpillar days of innocence- being pushed around in a shopping cart, the laughs, the jokes, cheap wine on a Friday night, rolled joints by the downtown seven eleven, the complaints about homework and the stressed moments before an exam. I remembered the excess of a high school teenage dream, partying and drinking and the sex- oh, yeah I remembered the sex. I remembered the girls I'd meet in bars, the girls I'd meet at parties and the girls I chased but whose hearts I had never won. I remembered how it felt like to be kissed by her, like coming home, like everything else was a mess but if I could focus on this, just this then somehow tomorrow would turn out okay.
But those times were over and I could hear sirens blaring in my ears.
-
"Are you sure you won't be joining us for Christmas?"
"Jem, it's been six months since you came back. I'm starting to worry now."
"Jem, this is your mother speaking. I know you're travelling and exploring but please don't neglect your family."
All those were voicemails, playing on a constant loop as the dream I always had occurred in my head. I was on a plane; a tube-shaped hunk of metal floating high above cotton candy clouds. The plane began to descend and there was a sudden panic that I might be on the wrong plane and I was travelling to the wrong place; it wasn't the plane that I specifically paid for.
And usually, I shouldn't really care about where I was going. These months surviving on a backpack, exploring the world, there was no set place in my mind that I specifically had to be at. I wasn't visiting any family or I wasn't on a business trip so ending up at a mysterious country wasn't too horrible of a predicament. That was the best thing of travelling aimlessly; there was no stress of the wrong luggage and the wrong hotel and hitting all the touristy places for the Instagram pictures; you weren't doing this to impress anybody or satiate a need that society suppress onto you to do all those things. You were travelling just for you.
The confirmation of me having that same dream came to me, finally resolute when I lifted the shade, I peered outside the clouds and heard the hydraulic lurch of the engines, the downward pressure of descending and the pop in my ears, igniting my panic.
Sometimes, in these dreams, I tried to ask the person next to me where we were going but there was never a face and never an answer. This time, however when I turned around to ask, it turned out to be somebody I know.
With her straight lob black hair, white rice face and cherry perfume, it was her. Ellis in the flesh, wearing a sundress of daisies, and I leant towards her until-
And then there were sirens.
-
I opened my eyes. There were bright lights everywhere, tiny pinpricks of silver that hurt like hell so I closed them.
