Blank Canvas

Chapter Five

Summary: Talia was distracted at school, and her friends noticed. She continued to ponder the complexities of human relationships, specifically of having parents who were no longer together.

"Earth to Talia," my friend Avis told me with a nudge on my elbow. "Hey, are you there?"

I came out of my reverie and looked at her. I have been clueless and thoughtless for the whole day. We were sitting in a stone bench near the shady trees as we waited for our last class of the day. The campus radio station was nearby blaring loud music. "I'm sorry," I said. "My mind flew away."

Avis knew what happened and nodded in understanding.

An hour ago while I was at the library trying to study but was actually dwindling and drifting off, another student touched the spine of the Biology book that I was reading and asked me if I was okay. Instead of being pleasant to her, I took my book and I was not sure but I probably gave her a death glare. Or something that was close to that.

She held up her hands and instantly, I felt so bad for being one of those people who carried a cloud from yesterday until the next day. I knew what she was thinking — that I was a loon on the loose. I also knew what she was seeing — a girl who spent an entire day staring at nothing in particular in the distance. She moved away and said, "Sorry, I'll mind my own beeswax."

When she said that, I smiled. She did, too. She introduced herself as Julia.

My friends, Valerie and Avis, spent the morning trying to cheer me up but except for a small smile to assure them that I was not on the brink of depression. I remained droopy all day. My friends bought me delicious buñuelos because there was an international food event at our university but even that had little to no effect.

There never was a night that I slept with ill feelings for my mom. All nineteen years of my life. That was how close we were. That changed overnight. Last night, I carried a cornucopia of emotions as I went to bed and most of them were hostile and negative. When I woke up, I felt the adverse effect weighed me down and I did not like it one bit.

When Mom and Dad separated, I was devastated. But this was a different kind of sadness.

"Are you okay?" Avis asked me.

"No," I answered honestly.

Like me, Avis' parents were not together anymore. However, her mom was not friendly with her dad. Their marriage ended badly and the separation was ugly. Avis, remarkably, remained positive. She chose to live with her grandparents to avoid what she called as the parental drama.

Avis watched people walked by. I looked at the brittle brown leaves that fell from a tree. A pair of tanned and muscular arms came up behind Valerie.

TJ was Valerie's boyfriend. He was a varsity player for the university's basketball team. He was not the best player in the court but he was certainly one of the good-looking ones. He was nice but a little too cocky and overfamiliar for my own liking. TJ and Valerie have only been together for four months but they often acted like it had been four years already.

TJ sat next to Valerie and from my peripheral vision, I saw him glanced at me. "Something's off with T," he said.

T? No one ever called me that. Erase that, I did not want to be called that. It took a full minute of restraint to prevent myself from rolling my eyes at him.

Avis peeled the wrapper off a piece of cherry-flavored bubblegum and said, "She's having a pensive moment. Let her be."

Avis found TJ to be exasperating. All TJ talked about whenever he came by was either basketball (which we knew nothing about) or the way that he played basketball (which we cared so little of especially since we once heard his coach said that TJ's stats were far from amazing) and that was a bummer because Avis and I thought that he would be more interesting and not so one-dimensional like the stereotype of a jock. We thought wrong. TJ was as mind-blowing as a paper cutout. Also, when he found out that Avis was an out and proud member of the LGBTQIA+ community, he laughed out loud.