Xander
Halloween, four weeks after Mesi woke up...
I stood there, watching her from across the room. I could feel the bile rising in my throat. Seeing her there... Seeing her doing that like nothing ever happened. In a way, nothing ever did happen to her.
Not all of us had that luxury.
It felt like such a betrayal. I knew it wasn't Mesi's fault, but it still hurt.
Standing there, watching her, that was was when I really realized that she didn't remember anything before that day. I knew in my head that she'd forgotten Sam and me, but it wasn't until I saw her there—until I felt that ache in my chest—that I truly knew, with ever once of my being, that Mesi had no idea who Sam, or I, really were.
She was swimming. Mesi was gliding, one hand after the other reaching past her head to reenter the water.
She was just as good as she'd been when Sam was alive. Her heart was in it just as much as it was when she believed the water was more than just water. When she believed that water was the embodiment of her and everything to come in her life. All of the big milestones and achievements. She'd never been more right. Water was the thing that changed Mesi's life more than anything else ever could.
As Mesi floated for a while, I felt all hope of her ever returning to her old self leave my body. If water couldn't get Mesi to remember Sam, nothing would.
It's where she met him! It's where they had their first kiss! It's where she lost him. Water was Mesi and Sam's beginning and end and everything in the middle.
That feeling...it was worse than I'd ever imagined it would be. Finally admitting that Mesi wasn't coming back to me was one of the hardest things I'd ever have to do. Both people to experience the story of Sam and Mesi were dead.
There was a splash as Mesi jumped out of the pool and grabbed her towel to dry off. She had no idea, but that was the first time she'd broken the plane of land and water since Sam died.
I felt like crying. I wasn't sure if it was because she'd finally gotten back in the water and I was happy for her, or if it was because of all that it came with.
"How was I?" She smiled and wiped her face of any clinging droplets.
I cleared my throat but I still croaked,"Why did you decide to start swimming?"
"Oh," she laughed,"well, the water just looked so beautiful, so one day I put on my swimsuit and jumped in. The captain of the swim team happened to see me and she offered me a spot. My parents said I used to love swimming, but I only really remember being on some junior team back in middle school."
"Yeah, you were...great." I forced a smile on my face. There was no point in explaining what the water really meant. She would never understand it, because she would never be the same Mesi she was before.
She gave me a weird look before saying,"Thanks. I should probably go get dressed, but I'll meet you outside the locker room and then we can get some hot chocolate?"
I nodded, and continued nodding as she walked away and could no longer see me. All I could do was stand there and nod at the invisible Mesi still in front of me, still going on about all of the things that would have broken her just weeks ago.
For a moment, just a moment, I let myself fall apart. I sunk to my knees, hands above my head and gripping the top of the half-wall separating the stands from the pool area. I clenched my jaw to keep from screaming out in pain as a few stray tears managed to escape my eyes. They fell silently to the tiled floor below.
I sniffled, forcing the rest of the emotion left on my face to run back to where it came from. Mesi couldn't see me like that. I could never show her how much it sucked to see her so happy again. She would feel guilty, and I had no right to make her feel guilty.
She really didn't have any part in this whole thing anymore. She was a whole new person; a stranger to it all.
I pushed myself up and walked into the hall to wait for her.
She came out dressed and laughing with some of her old friends from the swim team. She didn't remember them either, but it didn't matter. It wouldn't be hard for them to start over again. All they had to do was fill Mesi in on whatever drama happened over the time she'd lost. Or they could emit that altogether. Didn't make a difference. They would still be able to pick up where they left off—laughing about a viral video or an annoying math teacher.
Pushing back the urge to break down again—that was the problem, falling apart was like a drug that you couldn't help but be addicted to—I bit my quivering lip and took her hand, leading her silently out of the school and into the parking lot.
"What's up with you? Why did you just pull me away from my friends out there?" Mesi snapped at me.
That was it. I...I couldn't help myself. I was so frustrated with the way everything was. It was so unfair! It felt like it was all her fault but I couldn't blame her because she was no longer herself!
"Your friends? You think those giggling girls back there are your friends?" I turned on my heel to face her. I was scaring her a little, but I was at the point of no return. The tears had long ago started streaming down my red face and the sound of the blood pounding through my veins pulsed over the sound of the voice inside of my head telling me to stop.
"They're not your friends, Mesi! Tammy's your friend! I'm your friend! Sam was more than your friend! But those people?" I gestured to the door we'd just walked through. "They're just silly little girls that have no idea who you were before and have no idea what you've been through."
I stepped closer to her. "They don't understand, Mesi!" I looked to the ground and muttered,"And neither do you."
"It's not fair!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, falling to the ground.
I sat there on the cool pavement and hugged my knees. I was so confused. One second I thought everything was fine; Mesi was happy, I was telling her about Sam and she enjoyed it. And the next I was spiraling downwards, screaming and crying about how things weren't right and never would be again. I couldn't make up my mind. One thing or another kept swaying me.
I wanted things to be good. I wanted to be happy again. I wanted Mesi to be happy.
But I also wanted Sam back. I wanted him to be happy with us. I wanted to laugh with him again and I wanted to listen to his dreadfully long accounts of Mesi's eyes and lips and ears for goodness' sake! I wanted to hear his voice chastising me for being no fun and pushing me to go outside of my comfort zone. I wanted my best friend back. I wanted Sam.
"Shhh, it's okay. It's alright." I hadn't even noticed Mesi sitting down next to me, wrapping her arms around my shaking figure, and rocking me back and forth like I was a child.
I cried harder.
...
The air in the coffee shop smelt of...well, coffee, and those sugar cookies you eat at Christmas, and rich chocolate—the kind you have to go to a special store to buy.
Mesi and I sat near the mirrored wall, sipping hot chocolate in big mismatched mugs. Mine had a sun on it, with a crack down the middle. Mesi's showed a a school of fish swimming through a black sea.
"So what are you being for Halloween?" She asked, trying to break the ice a little after my meltdown.
My eyebrows shot up. Not only had I forgotten that it was Halloween, but I wasn't planning to do anything special for it.
"Can't remember his name, but he's this tall, dark-haired, green-eyed, tan-skinned guy. He's pretty emotionally unstable. I heard he even started crying a parking lot," I mused sarcastically.
Mesi rolled her eyes. "Whatever, smart guy. I'm being Spencer Reid, from Criminal Minds. I got really into it while I was at the hospital and they were playing reruns. He's my favorite."
"What's he like?" I hate to say it, but I didn't really care. I just wanted to get my mind off of everything that happened just fifteen minutes earlier.
"Well, he's hot. Like, really hot. I read that Matthew Gray Gubler is a model in real life. Anyway, in the show he's this awkward genius that nobody really understands. He's sweet, but he doesn't pick up on social cues well so he's the butt of a lot of jokes. He has an eidetic memory and he graduated from high school when he was twelve! His mom is a paranoid schizophrenic that he visits sometimes in the facility she's in in California. This one time he—"
I tuned her out then. The coffee maker behind the counter was dripping in a steady rhythm and it required all of my attention.
Plop, drop, drip.
"Xander? Are you listening?" Mesi snapped in my face to bring me back.
"Sorry." I took a sip of my cocoa and immediately regretted it. That was not a sip, it was a gulp of extremely hot liquid that burned my tongue.
Mesi started laughing as I desperately tried to dig my water bottle from the backpack sitting next to my chair. Finally, my hand closed around it and the amazing, cool substance touched my lips.
"You're a lot like him, you know," she said out of the blue.
"Like who?"
"Reid. You're both clumsy and awkward around people but you mean well. And nothing means more to you than the people you care for."
I blinked. Maybe it was time to start watching that show. Maybe this Spencer Reid character understood more about me than I did.
"Well," she revised,"he is a lot smarter than you. I mean, he's a literal genius. And he's got friends—"
"Unlike me, who doesn't have any?"
Her eyes widened as she realized what she'd been saying. "I didn't mean it like that, Xander. Really, I don't know what I was talking about."
I let my lips curl just a bit to comfort her. "Don't worry, I get it. No big deal."
Was it?
She was right—I didn't have any real friends. Sam had been the only one, and now he was gone. So I was alone. There was nothing wrong with that. Things were easier that way.
Neither of us said anything for a while.
"I better, um, get home. I need to get ready for this Halloween party some guys at St. Dom's are throwing, so..." St. Dominic's was Mesi's school's (St. Helena's) brother school.
I nodded absently but didn't look up as she left.
Everything just felt so...fucked up. Mesi wasn't herself anymore, and I think that's what was making this so hard for me. I couldn't put the burden of her old self on her new self. And more than that, she was just a completely different person altogether.
The old Mesi would've scoffed at some party a Dom's kid was throwing. The new Mesi jumped at the invitation to one. The old Mesi would know what the water meant. The new Mesi had no idea.
Nothing was right. It was like the world put a reset button on Mesi.
Where was my reset button? Where was my fresh start?
I knew I was being selfish, but everything was so easy for her like this. She didn't have to think about Sam every second of every day. She didn't have to blame herself for it all anymore. She didn't have to grieve.
She could make new friends. She could make new memories without worry of overshadowing old ones. She could laugh and smile and have fun. She could enjoy herself without everyone seeing her as just the lesser friend of the dead guy. She could live.
Mesi was free in a way I would never be.