P.S. Don't Save Me | Teen Ink

P.S. Don't Save Me MAG

February 24, 2009
By Anna Leavenworth BRONZE, W. Des Moines, Iowa
Anna Leavenworth BRONZE, W. Des Moines, Iowa
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

A kid.

That’s all I am to him: Trapped in my ­under-developed body. I want to scream, but my mouth is dry.

***

His words drown together, lost somewhere between his mouth and my ear, until she nudges me.

“… However, Ms. Lock, we are concerned about her low attendance, failing grades, and frankly, her overall well-being.” He pauses to glance at the montage of papers spewed across his desk and scribble, presumably, nonsense. “Many of Rachel’s teachers and superiors have expressed great concern and brought it to my attention numerous times. Now I understand the circumstances, but Ms. Lock–”

“Don’t be silly; call me Kari,” she interrupts as she lends him a closed smile. She tucks her chemical blond hair behind her ear, which is visibly weighed down by her faux diamond earring. She scoots closer to him.

Words no longer retain form, accompanying the hum of the heater. My eyes are engrossed in the carpet’s pattern, following each zig and zag, until finally I end where I began.

He hands her an official Harper High pen and points to the line on which she is to provide a signature, as he summarizes five pages of legal information. He claims he’s found the perfect program for me. He says lots of other youth who have faced similar obstacles as me have been very responsive. He says he thinks that I will be too.

I silently wish him luck with that.

No, I am not going.

I’m a lot of things but not a charity project. Nope. Never. No, thank you. She can’t make me go. Can she? She makes me go, despite my pleas.

***

I step outside into the unwelcomingly brisk morning and begin to unwrap a granola bar. Kicking a small pebble, hands safely tucked in pockets, I watch my breath, like smoke, exiting my body, vaporizing into air. Maybe this is as close as I’ll ever get to proof of my existence.

I enter the building which he claims will save me. Taking my time to roam this unfamiliar territory in search of room 201, I find the hallway to be unusually narrow, almost as if its walls are closing in on me.

I take two deep breaths before entering the room. The door creaks open, and I get the uneasy sensation that I’m not only late but intruding on an exclusive moment. I am greeted by blank stares and a middle-aged woman sporting blond pigtails and a feigned smile, complete with a coral pink lipstick smudge across one tooth.

She leaps from a plastic chair and shrieks a welcoming serenade, assuring me that my tardiness is excusable because it is my first day, but to never let it happen again. She looks me straight in the eye and gives me the firmest handshake I’ve ever received.

I enter the circle of chairs. However, it seems to have taken the shape of a blob. I find myself in the middle of a mousy freshman dressed in head-to-toe purple and a boy who reeks of Indian food.

I look around from chair to chair, searching for a familiar face. Some look like they’ve been messed up. Most look completely normal, but they don’t fool me. No, I see past the pink eye shadow, the beat-up jeans paired with punk-band T-shirts, and the brand new team jerseys. If I were religious, I’d find myself right here, in this very room, praying to God that I’m not that easily read.

Pigtails hands each of us a journal. She tells us that anything is fair game, just as long as we write each day. She says it’s important to get our thoughts onto paper, even when they seem miniscule. Miniscule – I know what that feels like.

I am scared to open the journal. Words are dangerous, especially when we write them down. If I’m not careful, they might betray me.

The next morning, Pigtails asks if I will read my first journal entry aloud. I shake my head no. She doesn’t push me and quickly moves on, telling us that the visitors in the room are our new counselors, here to meet with us individually. I feel terrible for mine.

I am paired with a Mr. E. Tear, as he formally introduces himself, but says that I should call him Emmitt. In return, I tell him my name is Rachel, and that that was probably as much as he’d ever get to know about me. I make sure he knows it’s nothing personal.

“I agree, I’m not much for talking,” Emmitt replies with a wink. “If you keep it between you and me, I want to be here just about as much as you do. This counseling gig is only temporary.”

I nod in acknowledgment.

Once I arrive home, I smell the foreign scents of a home-cooked dinner. I make my way into the kitchen to find my mother in his lap.

“Rachel, honey, you remember Daniel, your principal, right?” she asks, almost as if she’s mocking me.

He shifts her from his knee onto a separate seat, standing as he brushes the wrinkles out of his suit. “Rachel, it’s wonderful to see you,” he states.

I laugh out of despair, pivoting in the direction of my room, leaving her to apologize for me.

***

Sometimes I play a game. I let my alarm clock sound, without shutting it off, as I lie in bed, counting the hours until someone, anyone, notices.

Emmitt looks surprised to see me, but he never asks me why I haven’t been showing up. I sit down and he hands me a photograph of a woman. She isn’t beautiful by society’s standards. However, the more I contemplate her crooked nose and the way her freckles mask her face, the more she begins to grow on me.

Emmitt tells me how sorry he is he never took his own passion for photography more seriously. He says it’s the only thing that makes him feel worthy of occupying a life, that in his mind, capturing beauty and humor on a five-by-seven sheet of paper, is the biggest miracle he’ll ever perform. That maybe his art could change anothers’. He says that for the most part he hates people. All they do is care about themselves.

“We’re just too single-minded!” he keeps exclaiming, as he grabs what little hair he has in frustration. At the end, I’ll ask that he bring another picture next time.

I fumble through my journal until I find a fresh sheet of paper. Sometime after learning of Emmitt’s fire for photography, I lost my fear of words. And suddenly, I’ve become addicted to them, to thinking that my words are important enough for paper. In some ways, I blame Emmitt.

Pigtails asks me to read a journal entry aloud again. I lower my head until my eyes reach the piercing white of the paper.



The Daisy

Has Faith departed
Love departed
Both stand in Blank’s shadow
She stands the same as yesterday
Peeling the Daisy’s petals
Each descends slowly
Kissing the grass beneath
Aging into ivy
“Blank made me do it!” she exclaims to
Boy
Boy stands the same as her
Only three states away
Daisy in hand
Feet covered in petals




I raise my head to the class.
“Roses are red,
Violets are blue.”

***

Emmitt says he has what no one else has: A third eye. He believes the lens of his camera allows him to see things his own two eyes can’t. I map my finger around the fiery red curls of the girl in his photograph as I just listen, soaking in his truth.

***

I enter my house. The lights are dim and the atmosphere cold. The sound of rain pattering against the rooftop is accompanied by sniffles from the kitchen where she sits, cupping a cold coffee mug.

The telephone base flashes, indicating missed calls. Once she sees me, she lifts her hand to her mouth as tears stream down her face, hitting the blanket that lies upon her lap.

Once I sit down across from her, she slides what seems to be my journal across the table. I open it, scanning my words and my thoughts, confirming my assumption. I stand up, heartbeat increasing. My mind goes blank as I grab my journal, holding it as close to my chest as possible, as if somehow this can flood the words back into my heart and off these public pages.

“What are you doing with this?” I ask, and my words wobble and hands shake.

“Rachel, I just want you to let me in again. I want to know you like you used to let me.”

I am no longer in control. I cry. I cry so hard I start to heave. I cry about her and about me, but mostly out of humiliation.

“You know, sooner or later you’re going to have to say something to me,” she sighs, defeated, like a balloon whose air is slowly let out. “I liked your poems,” she tries again.

“You had no right to read them. These,” I point to my notebook, “these were private.”

“Oh, Rachel, don’t be a drama queen,” she chuckles.

“I hate you,” I spit.

“Damn it, you will not speak to your mother that way. I raised you better than that.”

“My mother? You haven’t been my mother in four years. Four years. You let man after man into your life, and put me second behind loser after loser.”

She rolls her eyes. “Rachel, don’t make it about that. This has nothing to do with that.”

“THAT? For that, I’ll always hate you – for ­bringing him into my life, for letting him touch me the way you let him. That has everything to do with this.”

I go to bed with complete intentions never to wake up, but when I do, I grab my journal and begin to write. I write about love, deception, hope, and mostly about myself.



Mirror

I reflect the woman
Who sighs as I let her down
The uncertain, the reserved woman
She is calm, a hesitance inside her
Squinting to see her soul

The more I stare
The more I see

I reflect the child
Who laughs and dances
The innocent, the carefree child
She is bright, a sparkle in her eye
Her soul clear as crystal

Intertwined these two beings
Like deep black coal that woman
Aged into a diamond this child


***

Once I enter room 201, I search for Emmitt. I think today I might show him what I’ve written.

“Rachel?” Pigtails gets my attention. “I’d like you to meet Mrs. Price, your new counselor.” She places her hand upon the small of my back in an effort to guide me toward her, but I don’t move.

“New counselor? What?” I ask in confusion.

“Mrs. Price will be replacing Mr. Tear. I really think you’ll enjoy her,” she tries to convince me by wrinkling her nose and flashing a blindingly white smile.

Pigtails grabs the arm of a woman dressed in a men’s forest green pantsuit and points in my direction. The woman furrows her eyebrows before her hand reaches for mine. I shake it as she introduces herself. I am not impressed. She isn’t Emmitt.

I don’t last long under the instruction of Mrs. Price. I turn to walk away from room 201, most likely for the last time. My pace increases as I enter the hallway. I push the door open, and as the blistering breeze hits my face, I begin to run. I am running because I don’t know what else to do. I run for freedom, for security, but more for answers.

My eyes scout out a payphone along the sidewalk. I thumb through the battered, hanging telephone book. My eyes reach Tear and my finger finds Emmitt. I dial his number, and am greeted by a chorus of rings.

“You’ve reached Emmitt …” I smile. “And Lindsey!” a woman’s voice interrupts.

I hang up because I feel like I’ve just spied on him, like I’ve just imposed. Of course he has a life of his own. I knew I wasn’t the only part of him. In fact, who am I to say I was a part of him at all? Not once had I talked. He knew hardly anything about me. Frankly, he knew nothing about me. So why had I expected him to stay? I wasted his time. He lasted longer than he should have.

“Emmitt stopped by,” my mom calls from the living room. “He dropped off a letter. It’s on the kitchen table.”

I take it to my bedroom, where I stare at it for a long time. Placing it inside my weathered journal, I decide not to open it. I like to imagine what the letter says sometimes. Maybe he tells me he’ll be coming back, that Mrs. Price was only a substitute, and that it was just a big misunderstanding. Or possibly, he writes of how he wants to take a photograph of me, and the letter describes a time I was to meet him. Maybe, it wasn’t a letter at all, but a newspaper clipping he thought might make me smile.

***

Tonight I can’t sleep. The noise beyond my window­sill awakens me. I switch on my bedside lamp, and open the drawer where my journal lies. I click the pen and begin to write a note I know I will never send.



Emmitt,

I don’t think you know this about me, but I have learned to love writing. In a way, it has become my third eye, letting me see the world beyond the capacity of my own. I think you gave that to me. Thanks for letting me listen.

Rachel



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This article has 629 comments.


Lyndy said...
on Apr. 12 2011 at 12:14 am
Ohh I loved this :) I think you have a beautiful and natural talent for writing. I'd so buy your work and be first in line to get a signed autograph. :]

on Apr. 11 2011 at 11:36 am
ElizabethKiley PLATINUM, Washington D.C., District Of Columbia
31 articles 11 photos 3 comments
it was beautiful this is not a place for that to be said

hello said...
on Apr. 11 2011 at 11:04 am

i think that this story was stuipid

 


ray diltz said...
on Apr. 11 2011 at 10:57 am
ray diltz, Union City, California
0 articles 0 photos 4 comments
it was an amazing story and i like the ending but like any person with curiosity n their being would want to know wat did emmit right to rachel

ray diltz said...
on Apr. 11 2011 at 10:52 am
ray diltz, Union City, California
0 articles 0 photos 4 comments
yeah i was hoping it would be revieled maybe if you keep it going that would be a geed piece to it

ray diltz said...
on Apr. 11 2011 at 10:50 am
ray diltz, Union City, California
0 articles 0 photos 4 comments
i also agree amazing story you should keep going with it

on Apr. 8 2011 at 8:44 pm
littlebird BRONZE, Dallas, Texas
1 article 0 photos 5 comments

Favorite Quote:
"The worse life gets the closer you are to your happy ending," by unknown.

When i read this i tried to stop along the way but i couldn't. You are realy good at grabing the reader's attention. Can you PLEASE keep this story going?! I want to know what happens SOOOO MUCH!!

on Mar. 24 2011 at 7:58 pm
A_Jean PLATINUM, Citrus Heights, California
40 articles 0 photos 19 comments

Favorite Quote:
"we all carry these things inside that no one else can see. they hold us down like anchors and they drown us out at sea."
"i'm trying to figure out which parts of my personality are mine and which ones I created to please you"

I agree. :) It was amazing

tara4 said...
on Mar. 20 2011 at 11:42 pm
This is wonderful. i was a little dissapointed when it ended. keep going with it and you could have a novel!

on Mar. 20 2011 at 6:30 pm
Consulting-Detective GOLD, Andover, Massachusetts
13 articles 8 photos 38 comments

Favorite Quote:
"The greatness of a nation and its moral progresses can be judged by the way its animals are treated." ~Gandhi

This was just AMAZING!!!!!! I wish I could write like that!!!!! I guess I'd better start practicing!

on Mar. 19 2011 at 5:42 pm
likeitmatters SILVER, New York, New York
6 articles 0 photos 26 comments
The more I read this, the more I wanted to stop, and the more I felt like I couldn't. This is honestly one of the absolute best stories i have ever read. Your talent for writing is indescribable, I can not adequately express to you how much I loved this.

on Mar. 18 2011 at 11:14 am
DoodlezTheScribe BRONZE, Keswick, Other
4 articles 2 photos 17 comments

Favorite Quote:
"Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne."
— Dorothy Parker

I realize I'm only following in the footsteps of over 400 people that have commented before me, but this story is absolutely spectacular! It is hands down the single greatest piece of writing I've read so far on this site. You will be an excellent writer one day, and I'll look for your name in the new releases section of my bookstore =)

on Mar. 17 2011 at 3:49 pm
-alice- PLATINUM, Colorado Springs, Colorado
21 articles 0 photos 81 comments

Favorite Quote:
I care very little if I am judged by you or any other human court; indeed I do not even judge myself. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. -1 Corinthians 4:3-4

Wow, this was really good. Is it true, because if it is I'm really sorry. If not, you're very creative!

on Mar. 16 2011 at 7:55 am
scrabblebabble BRONZE, Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin
4 articles 0 photos 14 comments
WOW! that was so good! it's gunna take me years to get as good as you! i loved this story!!!

AshleeH GOLD said...
on Mar. 15 2011 at 10:57 am
AshleeH GOLD, Enterprise, Utah
17 articles 0 photos 7 comments
AMAZING! Great way to use sensory details. The climax nearly had me in tears. Well developed plot. I can't wait to read more from you! :)

on Mar. 13 2011 at 4:02 pm
rubyrainstorm SILVER, Closter, New Jersey
7 articles 0 photos 275 comments

Favorite Quote:
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.
-Buddha.

Your writing is extraordinary. My eyes started trickling when I reached the climax of the article. I don't know how you delivered this story in such a strong, independant voice. You have limitless talent, and keep on writing!

midnightpoet said...
on Mar. 13 2011 at 12:07 pm
midnightpoet, Odenville, Alabama
0 articles 0 photos 2 comments
This is just amazing. There are no words to really describe your work, so I'll settle for amazing, astonishing, and fantastic. Please write more

on Mar. 11 2011 at 9:30 pm
MJislife BRONZE, New York, New York
3 articles 0 photos 1 comment

Favorite Quote:
<4
"I'll always be Peter Pan in my heart."-Michael Jackson

This story was so amazing I don't think there are words for it! I was so into the story and can't wait to read more of your writing!

on Mar. 5 2011 at 10:46 pm
MhsAnonymous SILVER, Morristown, New Jersey
7 articles 0 photos 15 comments

Favorite Quote:
Life is like a dream. Its perfect until you wake up into reality.

I loved this so much!!! I actually got into character with Rachel. I actually started tearing with the whole mom and journal scene.

on Feb. 27 2011 at 10:23 am
just-another-url GOLD, Cannes, Other
16 articles 6 photos 151 comments

Favorite Quote:
"It's a good thing to be strange. Normalness leads to sadness." -Philip Lester

loved it but I would have liked to know what Emmitt wrote. Keep it up !! :)