The Works of Nick Hayden

I might be moving out.

Yeah, yeah, so I’ve talked about it for weeks now, but this is seriously cool. See, there’s a lot of reasons it’s easier to stay home: free food, free bed, free laundry, etc. Also, I’m not really sure I want to come home to myself every night. Sure, I’m a hermit of sorts, but it’s nice to have other people around, even if I ignore them.

But Beth’s been thinking about getting a roommate now that Jordan’s moved out. (Yes, that’s right, her boyfriend. Don’t even ask me about that. I try to keep my mouth shut when she brings that up. Call me a religious conservative wacko if you want. It’s not true, but it’ll make you feel better, I’m sure.)

Seriously, this is big news. I’d have someone living with me, a friend even, and I only have to pay half what I would anywhere else. (Except for that box down the street. That’s free.)

I told Beth I’d think about it. What I meant is that I’ll break the news to my parents. We’ll see how that goes. I’m not so sure they like Beth that much.

Okay, looking at my schedule, I’m starting to see a downside to my new job (besides the crappy pay, I mean). I work all the prime spots. You know, like Friday and Saturday night, Sunday afternoon, etc. I don’t think it would have been that big deal a month ago. What was I going to do on the weekends except stay at home and re-watch some Full Metal Alchemist?

But now I get discount tickets and Beth and I could go out for a night on the town. (Which, incidentally, I’m a tad frightened of, since I think her night on the town is a good deal wilder than mine — but I’m willing to try.)

We’ll just have to make Thursday night party night.

Honestly, as I look back on our initial meeting and troubles, I have a hard time understanding it. I mean, she just sort of attached to me, and then I just sorta yelled at her, and then we both didn’t talk for awhile. You might remember me writing once that I needed to call her back and apologize. I did. She didn’t want to talk to me. And you know what, that was fine. If she wanted to be an idiot and cry over that guy of hers, fine. I didn’t live in her world, anyway, with all the make-up and the perfect hair and stylish clothes. Give me a T-shirt and jeans.

Then one day I’m at Wal-mart, looking at their cheap DVDs, and I see her walking by, and she sees me. She asks me how I’m doing and I say, fine. And she starts tearing up right there in the store. I try to reassure her I’m not mad (and at that moment I really wasn’t) and she smiles as she holds back the tears. And then I start to tear up, and I don’t even know why. I’m not emotional like that. I don’t know why I react the way I do. I think it was connected to a whole host of other things.

I don’t remember who suggested it, but we stopped together at the Taco Bell on the other side of the parking lot. (I love the $0.99 menu.) We talked for a long time — and not just her. I told her about some of the things I’ve been going through. We bothed cried there in Taco Bell. It felt good to cry.

Unfortunately, I can’t ever go back to Taco Bell. I’m too embarrassed.

The family’s computer went on the fritz last week. Just as well, I guess. Things have happened, and I’ll get to them eventually here, but I’m not much in the mood right now.

It’s cold today. I saw leaves on the sidewalk. The air smells of autumn. Heidi always enjoyed autumn. Somehow, she saw beauty in the colors of death on the trees. She felt mystery in the passing of summer, in the birth of winter. She said she could taste the crispness of fall on her tongue. I used to harass her about that.

I’m a beach girl. Give me sun and give me sand, and I’ll love you forever. Give me barefeet and shorts and just enough breeze. Give me A/C when it’s too hot; give me ice cream to savor in the heat. Give me shade to nap in and nights like a sigh of pleasure.

Not Heidi. She would point out how brilliant the sun was in the cold sky; I replied that the sun should not set before supper. She loved hot chocolate and bonfires because the world was growing cold. She loved the sun because it was passing away.

Today, I’ve been jealous of her. Here I am, longing for summer while all the world dies, and she’s gone, gone to enjoy Paradise. Maybe she always understood the world was passing away, and now she’s gone with it, to something far better. I have no doubt of that. We talked of God and Jesus, too, and in those last days, when it seemed like we were about to join the world with all the optimism of youth, she talked of him in such a way as to embarass me.

But the leaves are falling slowly to the ground now. My old dreams are shriveled and stomped upon.

My dad says that tree roots grow in the winter when the tree looks dead. He said it because we need to rotor-rooter our sewer pipe. I didn’t take it that way.

I need all the encouragement I can get. Things are changing, the wind is blowing, and sometimes, I am very cold.

I spent the day trying to think of somewhere I’d like to work. By day, I mean about an hour this afternoon, since I slept until eleven, ate a hearty brunch of Easy Mac in my pajamas, watched an episode of House from Netflix, and finally got around to getting ready for the day around three. You know, before my mom got home.

I wasn’t always like this. It seems like I’ve been saying that a lot, and it makes me sad, but I don’t care enough to change, and that’s what really gets me.

My list of jobs I’d like is small. I don’t want to work in fast food. It’s not so much because of the food, but because I’ve heard horror stories of dealing with angry customers. I thought about journalism, but papers keep cutting jobs and the pay sucks from what I hear. I thought about tutoring; it’s an option. I guess retail’s okay, but I don’t know anything. Really, for getting an education from an outstanding high school, I know almost nothing about working. I mean, I can take a wicked derivative, but getting a 5 on the Calculus BC exam doesn’t really qualify me to be manager of Family Video. But if I had gone to college….

Maybe something creative will hit me. Right now I’m stuck with the sad fact that outside academics, my only real interest lies in entertainment — in movies, books, and music — which means I’m completely incompetent with anything dealing with real life. Give me imaginary worlds, I’m set. Give me the real world, and I sleep into eleven and spend the rest of the day in my pajamas.

I really need to man up and call Beth. She deserves an apology at least.

Last night, Beth called Jordan. I don’t know what she said exactly, but I’m pretty certain she did everything short of kneeling before him and kissing his feet. And when she told me, in tears, what she’d done, I’d had it. I told her, in as many words, that she was an idiot and a whiner and she was better off without him.

I haven’t talked to her since. I’m afraid to call. I think I should. Not that what I said wasn’t true, but I really didn’t say it well. My mom’s side of the family’s famous for bluntness — and for driving people away. Yay genes.

And meanwhile, my mom keeps hounding me about getting a job. I told her I’ll take care of it. Why won’t she just trust me and leave me alone?

Oh, and what’s golden is she thinks I’m escaping into this drama with Beth. So on one hand, I’m feel sucky because I can’t even treat Beth right and on the other I’m accused of getting a kick out of Beth’s suffering, like I’m some Smallville freak who feeds off the hurt of others.

In other news, the outside world’s imploding.

I’m just pleasant today, aren’t I?

I’m having serious troubles today.

Okay, so I get a call from Beth yesterday. She’s crying, I can’t understand anything she’s saying. I really start to freak out. I mean, I’ve known her for all of a week and now she’s completely hysterical. The first thing that comes to mind is that she’s in a car accident or someone died or some freak’s stalking her and she’s stuck in the attic holding a metal rod in one hand and her cell phone in the other. Well, thankfully, it wasn’t that.

I finally get out of her that Jordan broke up with her. I was sincerely sympathetic. I’d only met him once, and I didn’t particularly like him, but she seemed ready to exchange the sun and stars for him. I went over to her apartment, shared some Ben & Jerry’s I bought for the occassion, and listened to her. Really, I said almost nothing, though I gave a few awkward hugs. I really am not used to that sort of intense emotional drama. I won’t even get into the details of the whole break-up. It’s as bad as a soap opera, without the satisfaction that it’s fiction. Quite frankly, having distanced myself from it a little, I think it’s a good thing Jordan’s gone.

But today she keeps calling me. She spent her whole lunch break on the phone with me, trying to understand what she did wrong. There’s only so many times I can tell her that she didn’t do anything. Reading between the lines, I’m pretty certain Jordan was a jerk.

And here’s a question for you all. Why me? I didn’t even know Beth till last week. I’ve got enough problems of my own without being dragged into hers. It’s not that I don’t care–well, I care she hurts, but, seriously, most guys shouldn’t be touched with a ten-foot stick. Ninety-five percent of them are idiots, and the other five percent aren’t going to fall for a girl like me. I had one guy I once thought kinda liked me. He was a skater, a bad boy, and we were kinda friends, but he found Jesus in high school and now he’s working in the slums somewhere. And that’s the extent of my experience.

And it just boggles me that Beth actually misses this guy. I mean, she’s gorgeous, she kind, she has her own place. Why does she need this dirtbag? I’m sure there are nice guys out there, somewhere. And if not, so what? And, come on, she has to have someone else to talk to besides me.

But if she keeps calling me, I might just snap one of these times and tell her to get ahold of herself. And that would be just great of me, wouldn’t it?

This will be quick because I’m going out tonight. (No, not on a date — you must not know me. The guy better be pretty special to have a chance with me. Like, he worships me and loves me and meets all thirty-five of the requirements hidden away in a secret desk drawer special.)

Beth and I had a good lunch the other day. I’m glad she can keep the conversation going, because I’m out of practice. I never really knew how to talk with people. My friends, sure, but you skip through all the formalities with friends. You’re not trying to be polite.

The nice thing with Beth is that she talks a lot, and I can just listen and smile. And she’s really interesting. Not like “This wine reminds me of the time I spent in India. Did I ever tell you about my time in India?” snooty interesting. It’s like when my dad used to take me to work with him. He works at a power equipment store, and if you stay quiet and listen, you hear all kinds of stories, stories about drain snakes gone wrong, about men using shotguns to drill holes in the ceiling, about trenchers hitting gas lines and being engulfed in balls of flame. All true. I saw a photo of the last.

It’s like when my dad watches “Dirty Jobs,” and I sit there fascinated, thinking, People really do these things? I want grit. I think I’m starving for reality, something hard and stark. I don’t want ideas and plans and dreams, not right now. I have an overabundance of them. I want real life. I want to dive in.

Beth’s there. It’s been horrible it sounds like, but she seems happy. I mean, her half-brother’s in Afganistan, her dad’s in another state, her mom holds one job at a liquor store and another at Wal-mart. She talks about it like it’s no big deal, and I keep wondering, Do people really live like this?

Which only means I’m a naive little girl. And I know that. Maybe we can teach each other something. She seems to enjoy having me around, and I feel excited for the first time in awhile. I mean, I’ve been looking forward to this evening since lunch on Wednesday. We’re going to see a movie. We don’t know what. We’ll just pick something. Jordan’s working, so it’s just me and her.

And, for better or worse, she’s normal, whatever normal is. At least, she’s more normal than I am.

So, yeah, haircut’s done. Is it bad I keep staring at myself in the mirror?