Should I Write Myself Out of the History Books
Ava had trouble acting normal when she was nervous, and she was always nervous. She was more than just a little misunderstood, but that was one of the most charming things about her. You never knew what her normal was.
Sometimes I really wasn't sure about Ava, but one thing was certain: she kept everyone on their toes. She was just straight up, flat out, weird. People tried to cover it and call her quirky or unique, but there was no hiding from the truth. Ava was weird and we all knew it.
But she could pull it off. That was never a point of ostracism for her, because she was always just an awkward, weird girl everyone grew to know and love in the way her parents did. For all her life, she'd done odd things so much, they became a part of her. The way she twisted her rings and snapped her hair ties. The way she rocked back and forth on her heels or tapped her foot restlessly. The way she smiled politely at her hands when she didn't have anything to say. Everything she did was weird, but somehow normal. That was just Ava. That was just how she was.
When we were little, she developed the habit of refusing to meet anyone's eyes. Instead, she started at their chin, concentrating so hard on looking normal that she sometimes forgot to listen. Then, as we got old, she stopped being able to look at people. She'd look beside them, behind them, through them, but never at them.
She was sixteen when she finally came to terms with the fact that she would never be normal, and after that, she started enjoying herself a little more. Even though she hated almost everything about the childhood she always said she couldn't remember, she started finding joy in the fact that she didn't know how to be normal. Even she entertained herself with how strange she was.
There were nights when she'd sit on my couch, making strange noises she'd heard on a television commercial, or repeating lines she'd heard at school with so much conviction, you'd swear she really believed she was someone else. She had started imitating noises before she could even talk, meowing at her cat, barking at the family dog, alerting her mom the TV dinners were ready to be taken out of the microwave. When she stopped sleeping at five, she started imitating her dad's alarm clock at four thirty every morning and for a long time he didn't know. She did it so well, it took him almost a year to realize the actual alarm was broken.
She would imitate everything and it made her feel like she could be anything. One moment she could be the dripping faucet and the next she was the wind blowing through the pine trees in front of her house. When the kids at school realized this talent, they made requests. They'd drop gravel on the playground and shriek in delight when she made the same noise without the use of a rock or gravity. They'd pop their gum and she'd pop back. They'd roll their pencil across the floor and watch her carefully, making sure her imitation came from her mouth and not a hidden pen under her foot. She never disappointed. And she never made eye contact.
By middle school the everyday noises became too easy so Ava took a fascination in imitating people. Then she could be anything and anyone. Before long, she could impersonate all the football coaches, making them sound as though they were sucking on helium the same way my dad nursed drinks. She could sing songs from the radio with the same tone and style as nearly any artist, only making changes to octaves when she had to. The lunch room would crowd around her, listening to her impressions of our teachers, barking about prepositions like the English teacher, and droning on about ratios like the math teacher. After school she even made them swear. Nothing was quite as exciting to a seventh grader as hearing the voice of their Ancient Civilizations teacher tell them to go fuck themselves.
Around the beginning of eighth grade, Ava took a keen interest in accents, because then, not only could she be anything or anyone, but she could be anywhere. It was like she'd traveled the globe, when she'd barely traveled the States. When we started high school, Ava could do and say anything, and convice anyone she wasn't herself. Once I watched her convince a substitute from out of town that she was a foreign exchange student from England only to turn around and convince a different substitute she was from Ireland the next week.
And it was around that time I realized that I didn't really remember what Ava actually sounded like. Slowly, I began to notice the way she changed her voice depending on who she was talking to, none of her sides the same as the others.
When it was her toker friends, she spoke slow and used words that were longer than her arms, saying a whole lot of nothing and taking a whole lot of words to do so, just like they did. When she was with her friends in choir, she spoke sharply, enunciating each word so clearly, she could have been reporting the news in her perfected transatlantic accent, just like they all did. In the gym, she didn't say any of the "g's" on the ends of words, and she never met an "r" she didn't like, or a contraction she wouldn't use, just like they all did.
When she spoke to her dad, she used big words, but she talked quick and quiet, almost in a constant murmur, just like he did. When she talked to her brother, she didn't even speak in complete sentences because he didn't either. They knew what each other meant without ever having to say the words aloud.
And when she spoke to me, I could feel her imitating me. She never pronounced every syllable of "favorite" unless she was talking to me. Because I did. All the phrases I'd stolen from my dad, she said to me and only me.
And after a while I started to miss the old Ava. The one that had her own voice and said her own words. The one that was her own person. It scared me that I could hardly remember who that girl was.
Knowing it took her a moment to slip into each version of her voice for each person she spoke to, sometimes I wouldn't talk to her. It was a mean experiment that did more harm than good, but some days I was so desperate to remember the sound of the old voice I'd forgotten. I was willing to sacrifice some of her confidence if it meant bringing that five year old girl back for just a moment, so I just wouldn't speak to her at all. She'd say hello and I'd nod at her. She'd ask me how I was and I'd shrug.
And then she'd stop, because she didn't know who to be. She didn't know what she was supposed to say or how she was supposed to act, because when I didn't speak to her, she didn't have a frame of reference. Our moods couldn't align if she didn't know how I was feeling. She couldn't pretend to understand me when I wasn't even trying to understand her. When she wasn't standing out like the vibrant pastels in a field after a spring rain, Ava was the whitespace. And white space doesn't speak unless it's spoken to.
To pacify her on those days, I'd write her notes. Just short, quick messages to let her know I wasn't angry, but probably not enough to give her back the faith she lost when even her best friend wouldn't say a single word to her. I'd smile at her. Sometimes I'd even play with a blonde wave, or brush my knuckles against her arm. But I never spoke.
And she didn't return any of my gestures, because body language spoke as loudly to her as actual words did. Ava was always talking to herself, but those were the moments when I could see it happening. The moments when she would stare at her fingers, willing the rings to speak up and keep her company. To remind her who she was and where she'd come from. When I wouldn't speak to her, she'd keep her head down and watch the floor so carefully, she started looking through it, seeing the grave of time beneath her feet and watching silently for an apparition to rise and make the silence okay again.
When she was five she learned just how powerful a simple touch was. It said more than a word could, so she didn't use physical contact. She used words. And when her words were taken away, she was at a loss for conversation. Because the only time people touched her they shouldn't have. She didn't want them too. And she'd never imagine doing that to someone who hadn't asked for it.
On the day after I would stop speaking to her, she wouldn't talk unless I said something first. She wouldn't ask questions. She wouldn't try to engage in a conversation I didn't start or sustain and I knew she was hurt, but I couldn't stop myself. I just wanted Ava back sometimes, even though she was long gone. It was a selfish desperation meant to resurrect the little girl she'd been, and it only succeeded in burying herself deeper in the insecurities she'd spent her whole life creating.
The closest I ever got to hearing the old Ava was on nights when she was being particularly weird. Because Ava didn't just say weird things. She did weird things.
In public, she made peculiar faces. She would talk quietly to herself, repeating the same phrases over and over like a bizarre, redundant memory trick. She'd crack her knuckles and pop her neck. She'd grab her elbow or pinch her thigh. Any little tick that was slightly odd was more than likely somewhere on Ava's repertoire.
But in private, she did things that were so weird, they were almost scary. There were weeks when she would stop talking. She'd say just enough at school so no one noticed something might be wrong and no one would think she was upset with them, but she wouldn't talk at her house. She wouldn't speak to the people she truly cared about. Her dad would give up asking questions, because all he'd get back were shrugs. Her brother wouldn't even try to have their half spoken conversations. Instead, he'd just completely ignore her and she'd sink back into herself, always slouching, trying to be smaller than she really was.
She would just make faces at me. I'd ask her if she was hungry and she'd smash her lips together and shake her head. I'd ask her if she wanted to go for a drive and she'd either wrinkle her nose and go home, or raise an eyebrow, climb in my truck, and turn up the radio. A love of numbers and an interest in Ava's quirks made it easy for me to realize she allotted herself seven words to loved ones on days when she wouldn't speak. And you had to hang on to those seven words, because they always felt like the last ones you'd ever hear from her.
You could never tell how long the silent spells would last, either. Sometimes a few hours. Usually a few days. Occasionally as long as a couple of weeks. Then, one day, she'd be completely back to normal, chattering away, smiling and laughing like nothing had every happened. Her family and I leared quickly not to ask her about the episodes of silence. Anytime someone mentioned them, she'd shut down again, going quiet again until the storm was over and she was back to her old self.
Then there were times when Ava was overly excited about everything. She'd bounce on the balls of her feet nonstop, grinning so wide her cheeks must have hurt. Those moments only lasted for a few hours and for good reason. They were completely exhausting. Sometimes it made me anxious just how on edge Ava was when she was so ecstatic about anything and everything. During those times, she wanted to be outside where there were no boundaries. I'd watcher her run in circles, chasing her dog, or twisting around in the grass. They were rare moments that bloomed like weeds on the side of the road. You never knew exactly when they were coming, but they were beautiful to look at while they lasted.
The times when Ava started staring through people were the worst. Those were the times when I got truly scared for her. All the pamphlets the psychiatrist gave her parents when she was little said she wasn't supposed to act the way she did during those days. The medical textbooks Ava read and tried to understand said she wasn't supposed to have the thoughts she'd be thinking as she was staring through the teachers in class.
The thoughts would come sneaking out of the darkness, creeping up like a shadow, slinking through the black until it was they covered her in a starless night. They were so bad she wouldn't share them with anyone but me. Ava got used to living in fear that someone would someday find out about the things she thought about. The things she would whisper to me when we were home alone. The things she asked me to do.
I always realized what was happening at the exact moment everything became too late. It wasn't always easy to tell when Ava was staring through you, because when she looked at you with those gray eyes, it felt like you were the only person that existed in her world. And it wasn't always easy to tell when she was being quiet because she was tired and when she was being quiet because she was afraid of what might come out of her mouth.
But the moment it started happening was always undeniable. She picked each one carefully, always making sure they started innocent and when we were completely alone. It was always during the times when it was just the two of us in my house. I'd know something was about to start when she'd sit down on the couch, so close I could feel her warmth, but far enough that the electric field between us made my skin crawl and my nerves singe, anticipating her touch.
She'd look at me and force a smile and I'd feel the instant her gray eyes focused on mine. Then she'd lean in and whisper secrets in my ear in a voice I recognized for our childhood. A voice that wasn't her's. One that we both wanted so badly to forget, but never could.
And she told me the things he did to her. The things he said he'd do to her. The things he wanted to do to her. And as though having to imagine the sins that slipped off her tongue wasn't torture enough, she'd lean back, her breath still warm on my shoulder, and she'd ask me to do them all to her.
At first I refused. It all seemed like a very sick, very twisted fantasy and I wanted no part in her attempts to turn me into the kind of person that had made her have to forget who she had been. I never really understood why she'd want to relive all those things. Why she wanted to stand up in the face of all the fears that kept her silent when she was a kid. All the books said she wasn't supposed to do that. She wasn't supposed to act that way. Yet she did.
Every time I demanded to know why she'd even ask me to do those inexcusable things she always said, "Because it's you. I want it to be you." It was always the same answer
It took me a while to realize why she made those impossible requests of me, but when I finally did, I couldn't tell her no anymore. To Ava, it wasn't about trying to be a kid again. It was about trying to make all those horrible things not so bad anymore. If she did them with me, someone she knew loved her—someone she loved—they would all be okay. Those memories wouldn't be real anymore. He wouldn't be in them. Just me. Just her.
So she'd whisper the bad thoughts in my ear and ask me to make the memories her's again. Because it was me. She wanted it to be me.
We'd go upstairs to my room and keep the door closed until the moment was gone and the shadows slank back into their coffins. Then, we'd get dressed and just lay together silently, not touching, but feeling each other all the same. When it was time, either because my dad was home or because her curfew was nearing, I'd take her home. And on the way, we'd talk like nothing happened. We'd carry on normal conversations about normal things. She'd pronounce all the syllables of "favorite" and use the same phrases she'd heard me repeat from my dad. We'd laugh and tease each other. We'd be normal.
And before I left her driveway, she'd pull me out of my truck and wrap her arms around my waist, letting her head sink into my chest and her hands clasp behind my back. To Ava, touching someone said more than words ever could. It was the most sincere, must prestigious thank you she could manage. And as she relaxed farther and farther into my skin, I could feel the moment passing over us, a cloud blown away to reveal the stars in the night. Even if the thoughts weren't gone, she felt better knowing it was me. She wanted it to be me.
No matter how hard she tried, Ava couldn't change the past. Not even when she tried to control it. When we were kids she had buried her old self in her aunt's blue and white bedroom. Since then, she'd been too many things, too many people. Ava was never going to find that girl again. But I was always going to leave the porch light on for her.