It’s better this way

EDITORIAL: LILY SUCKOW ZIEMER

PHOTOGRAPHY: FER CANTU ZARAGOZA

CREATIVE DIRECTION: LILY SUCKOW ZIEMER

WhenI was eight, Mom would take me out on the boat to wade in the sandbars. On that mini beach, water only up to my calves, I loved to look out at the rest of the lake. I felt stranded. Without Mom and the boat, there would be no way to get back except a mile-long swim to the rocky shore. It’s unlikely my skinny arms would be able to pull me all that way, even now. It was just Mom and I, surrounded by the lake. I don’t go out there anymore; I no longer need it to create that stranded feeling.

*

Everything outside is dead. The spindly branches of trees clack against my window, and brown shreds of grass appear through gaps of the melting snow. It should be depressing, but it’s all I’ve ever known. I can’t imagine seeing anything else outside my window. It’s hard to get out of bed on a day I know the sun will never show through the clouds, but I can’t lie here forever.

Someone put the empty milk carton back in the fridge, meaning dry cereal for now. I sit at the kitchen island, dry-turned-slimy cereal now stuck in the divots of my molars. I can see the lake from here, still and dark but no longer frozen. There are a few boats out, but they aren’t being driven, just floating without purpose in the small waves.

Usually I bike to town, but today I know no one else will be using the car. I back out of the large driveway, away from our newly renovated house. We used to live in a trailer on this land, and we’d go outside on summer nights to run around with my sister Jennie while Mom and Dad drank beer and tossed the boxes into the bonfire. Mom left soon after the construction finished on our house near the road. Dad and Jennie have tried to make it feel like home, but with him working and her moving away for college, the house still feels wrapped in packaging.

It seems like there’s a red light at every intersection today. I don’t know why I still stop, it’s not like there’s any other cars. Mari says I’m too rule bound, that “it’s only natural for high schoolers like us to rebel.” Maybe if I’d tried harder to be like her we’d still hang out, but I think it’s for the best. Her new friends suit her; they like to go to the Walmart parking lot to smoke and jump into the lake with their clothes on at night. It’s good, I’m sure she’s happy. Besides, I’m fine on my own. It’s better for us to “naturally” drift apart.

The cereal wasn’t enough, so I pull into Marty’s Diner. The open sign is bright against the day’s dark fog, and the bell rings loud and purposelessly in my ears when I open the door, alerting no one of my entrance. I walk past the line of empty booths to duck under the counter. It took me a while to learn how to use the grill by myself, but by now I’ve gotten it down to a science. It’s better this way, with no one here helping me. I can make my burger just the way I like it.

I go to Pick ‘N Save next, the wheels of the car gliding over the pavement of the large, empty parking lot. It’s always a little eerie to walk through the sliding doors and hear the local pop station play over the speakers, without any other noise. No rolling carts, beeping of scanners, or friendly chatter. Mom used to take me on her grocery runs every Saturday. She’d always run into people she knew, filling up half our trip with chatter. All those run-ins stopped when she left. It’s better this way. I can just shop in peace.

I get a half gallon of milk from the back and bring it to checkout lane four. It’s fun, almost like a childhood game, to scan and bag, to press buttons and watch the cash drawer pop out so fast it almost hits me in the stomach.

It’s then that I feel a presence behind me. My hairs stand up with the electricity that tells you to turn around.

“Hey,” an awkward voice says, “you can’t be back here, man.”

I’m frozen for a second, staring at the young man in a Pick ‘N Save baseball cap. I can tell he’s about to say something more when I see movement over his shoulder. A woman in her twenties is two lanes over, scanning groceries for an elderly man and trying not to make it obvious she’s looking at me.

I hook my fingers around the handle of my plastic bag and speed walk away. I should say something, sorry, maybe, but I know better than to talk to anyone. Talking makes them real.

It only gets worse as I make my way out of the store. The parking lot is full now. A mother unbuckles her daughter from her car seat, a man pushes his cart up to his trunk, a car goes the wrong direction down the lane.

No. This can’t be happening, not again.

I get in my car as quickly as possible and make my way back home. They’re back. Why do they always have to come back? I make a turn a little too fast, and the milk falls on its side in the passenger seat.

There’s more and more people appearing, walking down the street, filling up space inside store windows. Why does this keep happening? I’ve found peace alone, so why do they keep coming back?

I feel tears on the edge of falling onto my face and violently rub them away so they don’t blur my vision. I just need to make it home, make it to my room. I’ll be alone there. Nobody can leave me when I’m alone. No one can hurt me when I’m stranded on my sandbar.

Except Mom, of course. But that’s not an issue anymore. She left me and took the boat. I used to think about waving down another one, trying to get help, but I can’t trust anyone. I’ve learned to live in the middle of the lake. I enjoy it.

Yet every time a boat passes I almost lift my arm, thinking maybe there’s something out there, somewhere better they can take me.

It’s a stupid hope, so I pretend not to see them. It’s just me here. It’s just me and I’m doing fine.