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Vivian’s story
“Go out and get some fresh air, Vivian.”
I climb out from under my black covers and stare at my black ceiling, the black
air, the black closet, the black armchair. I look around at each item,
memorising it. The shadowed papers on my desk. The curtains which I pulled right
across, not letting any hint of fresh air negotiate with me. Everything is so
black, everything is so morose, everything is so stylistic.
“Vivian!”
I pull my shirt down a bit, pulling it tight over my stomach. They say I am a
wisp of a girl – all white skin and black hair and bones and skin, nothing more.
I used to be less wispy. But that was back then.
“Vivian, do I have to come and drag you out?”
I put on some flip-flops – I think you gave them to me on some birthday or
something – and walk out, slamming the door. I do this more out of listlessness
than anything else, but it provokes my mother anyway. “Do you always have to do
that?” She asks tiredly, pushing her hair behind her ears. I manoeuvre around
her, looking down. I attempt to drag my fingers through my hair but it is too
knotty. I don’t know when I brushed it last.
I slam the door when I walk out of the house, too. My mother screams something
at me but I can’t quite decipher what it is. I wonder if I’d ever be able to
provoke her enough that she’d swear at me. I think once she did call me a little
bitch. It was the time I was over at one of her committees and frowning upon
everything that was going on.
I walk mindlessly, subconsciously knowing where I am going. So when I end up on
the flat rock at the beach, our rock, I’m not surprised. I’m just dazed, and
thinking incoherently. I never really think coherently but these days it’s been
worse.
Sometimes I am surprised my mother lets me out at all. She is so overprotective
I wonder she hasn’t had me locked up in a psychiatric ward already. She is
signing me up for counselling, though. This apparently begins today, but I don’t
care. I have been to counselling before. But that was when I could actually
profit from it. I know how it works. It didn’t work that well before, but I
attempted to profit from it. Now I’m not going to attempt anything. I have made
up my mind and that’s it. You used to say I could be awfully close-minded
sometimes. Well, I guess I am.
“You come here often,” A voice says. It is a male voice and that makes me
worried, almost. But then I slowly desensitise. I no longer care if some psycho
guy has been spying on me.
I settle for saying nothing. I wonder if you’d have approved.
He comes and sits at the other end of the flat rock. It is a large rock so he
can fit without seeming abominably close to me. He is a handsome guy, the kind
you might have swooned over. In a brief moment of eye contact I notice he has
green eyes. He almost looks like Harry Potter, with the whole black hair and
green eyes thing going on. He could probably pass for Harry Potter if he tried.
“I’m Yanik,” He says, ingratiatingly. “What’s your name?”
“Vivian,” I mutter. I am starting to wonder if he thinks I am one of those
pick-up girls. He seems to be on the borderline between interested and
uninterested. He is one of those mysterious type of guys.
“That’s a beautiful name.” He echoes: “Vivian.”
I say nothing.
“I’m sorry,” He says suddenly, “I bet I seem pretty odd, some stranger sidling
up and talking to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’re thinking I’m a creep.”
I notice his slight accent, and the way he talks as if he comes from a different
time, or a fictional time. I can’t quite explain why I get this impression. I
just do.
We stare at the waves for a long time. They flush in, bowing to their master,
the wind. The wind is harsh today, and I almost admire him for being able to
stick it out. It is a cutting wind, the kind you only like if you have slightly
masochistic tendencies.
“Well, I’ve noticed you at school,” He attempts again.
“I’m new here,” He continues, “and you’re one of the first people I noticed. You
stand out, somehow.” He pauses a moment, then says, “I’m in your English class.”
I shoot a sidelong glance at him now, realising he actually is familiar. I just
don’t notice
Yanik and I are silent for a while. It is somehow not a creepy or an
uncomfortable silence. If this was before, I would surely have thought of it as
an uncomfortable silence. But now silence is a virtue, as they say.
Eventually he says, “I guess I’ll see you at school, Vivian Dora.”
I wonder how he knows my middle name, but I don’t really care. I just murmur
something non-committal. He walks back over the rocks, and I stay staring into
the unknown.
Later, Rosa comes over to see me. Rosa has been rather annoying lately, always
barging in on me when I least want to be visited. This time she is carrying a
whole bunch of poetry by Sylvia Plath. I’m not sure why she does this. She
proceeds to read me the poems, one by one. Right now I cannot stand to hear real
poetry. I can hardly write my own poetry. Everything seems unbearable. You would
have loved, loved, loved Sylvia Plath’s poetry, though. You would have been
romanticizing it over and over.
When Rosa is finally, blessedly finished, there is a lull. Then she says, “Have
you seen that hot new guy at school, Yanik? He is SO amazing, isn’t he?”
I think about how small and centralized our school is. Even though Yanik is a
senior and we are sophomores, we know who he is. You have to know everyone at
our school, I guess.
“He’s not in any of my classes,” Rosa continues, “but I stumbled into him in the
lunch line, and he has the cutest voice, it’s so musical and alluring and stuff
like that… and he’s sooo hottt…. And I could have swooned, he’s so polite and
everything…”
I don’t know why Rosa has degenerated into a stereotypical teenage girl. Maybe
something to do with how preppy she is. And her money.
Though your family has loads of money too, and you’ve never been stereotypical
and bratty like she is.
At six, I have counselling.
My new counsellor is a very nice-seeming lady called Moira Dupre. I can call her
Moira, she tells me. She also tells me she is going to have a wonderful time
working with me and all that other crap. I know she is nice but I am not sure
what kind of nice she is yet. Pity nice, real nice or stereotypical nice. Or
some other kind of nice. I am afraid of what kind of nice she could be.
“Tell me how you feel, or felt, about Raine.” She said, gently.
I closed up then, and no amount of coercing could get me to open. Eventually
Moira settled for asking me some questions about my home life that I answered
very subtly, and did not answer when they started to become personal.
It’s funny how much I’ve closed up.
I wonder if Moira is going to give up on me.
All of my wardrobe is black. Recently I tore up my canopy into strips of gauze
that I wear arbitrarily. Mum was terribly dismayed when she saw I had destroyed
my canopy. I think that was what made her sign me up for counselling. Right now
things like that stand between Mum and me. She wants to know why I did it and I
just evade her questioning.
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