"Living is Easy with Eyes Closed." ~ John Lennon
***

(Ariel)

There is a cute boy staring at her.

For the past hour she had huffed and puffed her way through another grueling treadmill session, trying to ignore him and the dirt on the ceiling, the way the walls of the gym curved closed like a box, hemming her inside. Strands of black hair fell loose from her headband, sticking to her face and falling into her eyes. She could see her reflection in the wall of mirrors opposite to her, and she was red-faced, bedraggled. Mascara was forming black smudges underneath her eyes. She lifted a shaking hand to wipe it away. No matter hard she scrubbed, it wouldn’t budge. It reminded her of sin – how she scrubbed so hard to make it go away. She had smiled bright, stood in line, bowed her head, wore her heart on her sleeve. None of it was enough. The stain remained, dark and foreboding.

The treadmill beside her beeped loudly as the boy slowed. He dug his iPod out of his pockets, tapping a few buttons, and the banging rock music that had been drifting her direction faded to silence. He was staring again.

And then, suddenly: “I wish I could do that.”

Ariel jerked, startled. Her feet slipped and she lurched to one side, arms flailing as she tried to right herself. Dots swam over her eyes – equilibrium, she thought. Just equilibrium. It couldn’t have been because breakfast was ten carefully counted almonds (100), or that she drank her coffee black (0). She could still feel the bitterness lingering behind her tongue, sticking in her throat. It tasted like mud sliding down her throat.

Anya hadn’t even noticed. She had been sitting in the window seat of the kitchen, downing another “internal regulation” smoothie, this one suspiciously green and grainy. She continued tapping away on her laptop, pausing to stare into the sunrise as Ariel had wandered downstairs. She didn’t spare a glance to comment on the sneakers or tight, pink yoga pants Ariel had been wearing, ones that showcased the extent of her hard work.

When Ariel put them on, she had stood in front of the vanity for a long time, staring at the gap between her legs. It didn’t seem right that there should be a space that wide. Each thigh curved carefully away from the other, like outlines of an hourglass put side by side. No matter how she bent her knees, tried to squeeze her thighs together, training to make them touch, they refused to meet. It was frightening. Exhilarating. She didn’t know which emotion to accept, and came to breakfast wondering if her mother would notice. Would she stop her? Would she care? She hadn’t even noticed.

All of this flashed through Ariel’s head in the millisecond it took for her to regain her balance. When she glanced back at the boy he looked amused, generous lips curved up into a smile. Something was odd about him, different, and then she realized: his lips were so red. Not natural red, or snow-white red, but a dark, blackish red. The color of half-dried blood.

“I’m sorry?” She was out of breath, and her voice came out high and tight. Her furious running slowed to a jog.

The boy stretched, the bottom of his white muscle shirt rising over his stomach. His skin was tan, a sharp, startling contrast to most of the weak-skinned people who inhabited this tiny town. “I said,” he repeated with a lazy smile, “I wish I could do that.”

Ariel forced herself to keep jogging. 10 minutes left. 300 calorie burn needed. The chicken she had eaten for lunch was rising up in her mouth, threatening to choke her. Her stomach churned. “You wish…you could do…what?”

He began swinging his arms, stretching in front of her as if it were the most casual thing in the world. “Block out the world.”

It was so unexpected that Ariel felt a flicker of unease. What, exactly, was he insinuating? Block out the world. She looked at herself in the mirror again. The wide-eyed, confused, scattered expression on her face didn’t remind her of a person capable of blocking out the world – just of one easily consumed by it.

“Thanks.”

“No problem, beautiful.” The boy picked up the duffle bag by the foot of the treadmill and slung it over one toned shoulder. His smile was practiced charm; a million watts of nothing. “Planning on stopping anytime soon?”

Ariel wished he would leave. She slowed to a walk. His eyes, though, they lingered on her. “No.” Nothing else to say, not that she wanted to say anything. The boy stayed. He bent backwards, stretching his back. His shirt rode up his stomach again. She wished, really wished that he would leave. Color was swirling in her cheeks like a sandstorm – reducing her blotchy skin to further redness.

When she showed no sign of stopping, the boy shrugged. “See you around, Ariel.” And then he was gone. She turned her head, watching him walk across the gym. The entrance door opened, closer. Chill from outside seeped into the air.

See you around, Ariel.

How did he know her name? Sandy hair. Vampy lips. Staggered walk. Randall – he was one of Randall’s friends. He was at the funeral. He had been wearing a bow tie, and he had winked at her when she met his gaze over the casket. She felt like she shouldn’t remember so much about that day – how Randall’s skin looked like wax in the coffin. How his tombstone was small, too small, and how the permeating smell of lilies made it hard to breathe. It had been an unseasonably warm day for a burial. She wore a short dress and felt like a steamboat, calves rubbing up against each other when she walked.

10 minutes. 15. She started jogging again. If she ran long enough, maybe Randall would appear. He could tell her everything she needed to know.

She wondered if, when she died, there would be enough left of her to bury.

***

She couldn’t remember a day of her life when she hadn’t thought about it. It was so strange, unsettling, to know that normal people walked through their days passing mirrors and eating pizza or ice cream or Fruit Loops, never once stopping to examine the flaws that were so prominently displayed for all the world to see. Rounded thighs. Rolled stomach. Arms like had extra fat when you lifted them – bat wings. Normal people probably didn’t see cookies as five pound millstones, tugging down the curvature of their hips and the slump of their spine. They didn’t have mantras: food is sugar, sugar is fat, and fat is the enemy.

But what did they know? They lived fat, happy lives, ensconced in society, falling for the lie that inner was outer, that beauty was dependent upon a smile or a joke. 

Kids in elementary school called her Ursula, because in fairy tales Ariel was the tiny, beautiful girl who snagged the heart of a golden prince, and Ursula was the fat, unhappy girl that sulked in the corner of the lunchroom. She sat in a spot so cloaked with shadows and cobwebs that it was practically invisible. There, she would crumble her graham crackers in her fingers and watch them spray onto the swell of her short legs, temporarily covering the imperfections in a dull yellow dust. Temporarily magical.

The summer she chopped all her hair off was the summer she discovered diet pills. Courtesy of Katrina, as was everything in her life. Last year they had smoked cigarettes, popped Acai Berry, Green Tea supplements, and drank SkinnyFast religiously. They would sit on Katrina’s balcony in Highland Hills and watch the neighbors scurry around below, ants upon an anthill. They laughed too long and talked too slow, and danced around conversations of their drastic and shocking weight loss. Now Katrina was hibernating back in Highland, weathering the winter in their dingy, familiar high school, and Ariel was thrust into a minefield of death and grief and anger.

Today was the first day Katrina had called, and Ariel had been gone for two months. She contemplated ignoring it, but becoming totally alone was a crushing thought.

“Hello?”

“Babe!” Despite her enthusiasm, Katrina sounded sad. One of those days. There was probably a new scar etched on her wrist, fresh, red, and stinging with pain, cut strategically close to the slowly pulsating blue vein.  “How’s Redemption?”

“Terrible.”

“Not much hope for me, then.” Katrina started laughing. She was sloppy when she was hurting – the emotions that had been caged rising to the surface and overflowing.

“Kat. Why did you call me?”

“I can’t call a friend?”

Ariel climbed onto her bed. She laid back, stretching out her legs, and rested her head on her pillow. Light from the fading sun was spilling in through the blinds. She could see dust motes, pirouetting gracefully through the air. “We’re friends again.”

“Don’t be like that.”  Katrina sighed into the phone. “Please, babe. Please. You know I can’t stand it when you go all morose.”

Temper flaring, Ariel held the phone farther away from her ear. “I’m not going ‘morose’! I told you why I left, and you just…stopped. I don’t understand.”

“Would you understand if I told you I almost killed myself?”

Fear clawed at her stomach. She felt nauseous. Katrina, gone? “We went over this before, Kat.”

“I know.” Katrina paused. She coughed nervously. “You know. It wasn’t intentional, just so you know. The knife slipped.”

“Do you even realize how dangerous that sounds?”

“I could say the same thing about you, babe, so be careful. There aren’t going to be high horses between us.”

Absently, Ariel touched her hipbone. She could feel it jutting through the thin fabric of her jeans. This meant progress – the deeper the indent, the lighter she was. When would she be a feather? How long until she could float away? “I’m sorry.”

“Aren’t you worried?”

“Aren’t you? You should be.”

She could hear Katrina taking a drag in the background, smoke being sucked through her lips and released in a hiss.

“You can take care of yourself. We both know it wasn’t a slip, Kat.”

“I know. You know. I’m capable, but you aren’t.”

“I’m fine.”

“Topping ninety yet? Or are you still plateaued at one ten?” Katrina started laughing. Pretty soon she was crying – great, gulping sobs that echoed through the receiver. “God. God, Ariel, we are such a mess.”

“Yeah.” Ariel said quietly. “We always were, though.”

“No.” Katrina sniffed. “I corrupted you. I’m so sorry…”

They were silent for a while, listening to static crackling through the miles between them. Katrina was making these gasping noises, still half-sobbing. Ariel just laid on her bed, eyes closed, hand on her hipbone. She waited and waited until the line went dead, but she couldn’t bring herself to say it: Corruption. Hatred. Loss.

I’m sorry. I let you. I don’t know how much longer.

***

“I want an Oreo!”

Ariel stared at the child before her, chubby hands clasped together pleadingly. “You had three.”

“Micah got four!”

“Sorry.” She raised the package high above her head, just in case this one tried to jump. “We ran out.”

Somehow, most likely thanks to her mother, she had gotten hooked in this job. Every Sunday morning she was now another smiling volunteer face at Redemption Community Church, consigned to tame the masses of small, sticky children.

“Garrison!” Mercy, a volunteer with a head of short, orange curls, snagged the child from behind. “What did I tell you about seconds? And what on earth did you do to your face?” She used the hem of her green tee shirt to wipe the crumbs from his round cheeks.

Ariel’s lips tightened. Was this where she apologized? The poor kid was starving – all of them where. Ten in the morning was a terrible time to start service, because by the end the prospect of them rationally and quietly eating their snack had flown out the window. As Mercy led Garrison away, probably to the bathroom, Ariel felt a tug on her leg.

“Hey, ella-bella.” It was one of the little girls who gave her color sheets – swirl-bedecked, rainbow colored, shimmer stickered and all. She reached down and tapped Ella’s head.

Ella clutched her leg, hugging her tighter. “Ariel.” She whispered.

“Yeah?”

“Jewel is scaring me.”

Ariel’s gaze flickered to the chubby, blonde girl huddled on a chair in the corner. Her arms were wrapped tightly around her midsection, and her eyes seemed faded, clouded. “Why is she scaring you?”

“She doesn’t talk.”

Biting back a smile, Ariel crouched down next to Ella. “She’s probably lonely, sweetie. Maybe she needs a friend.”

Ella gave a little shrug of her shoulders. One of her playmates called to her, and she untangled herself from Ariel’s leg to run across the room. Ariel watched her go, short hair flying, looking like a miniature whirlwind. Working with kids was impossible. But, just maybe, it was kind of rewarding to be someone’s favorite, and to be needed. She wasn’t the one giving hugs, for once – she was getting them. Her thoughts wandered back to Jewel. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move. She sat in that chair every week for the entire hour, staring painfully at nothing.

There was no reaction as Ariel slid in the space beside her, aside from a twitch of those empty, wandering blue eyes. Twin lost souls. “Hello.” No words. What was there to say to someone you did not know, except for formalities?

Jewel turned her head and assessed Ariel. Her mouth tightened the slightest bit. For one long, agonizing second, she was fixated, and then she turned away. They sat quietly, listening to the children scream and feet and toys slam across the room. Finally, Jewel swiveled back around.

“Hello.” She had a soft voice – dulcet, almost – and evenly cultured. She sounded more like a woman of thirty than a girl of about ten. That, coupled with her firm, direct stare, felt eerie.

“Learn anything new today?”

Jewel gave a little shake of her head, as if to say, what kind of question. “I learned about friendship.” She said.

“And Moses was certainly friends with Aaron…”

“I learned,” Jewel repeated, a little more loudly, “that friendship isn’t real.”

Ariel closed her eyes. Friendship isn’t real. She felt like screaming that – a new, lonely mantra – from rooftops and street corners and best friend’s balconies. Katrina wasn’t real. The last five years weren’t real. The smoking, the dieting, the dizzying sense of failure, loss, going nowhere. The feeling of standing at a forked path and not being able to choose a road. Stuck.

Who was she to argue with that?  

At half past ten, she walked Jewel to the doorway of the Children’s Church room. All the other little children were gone, squirreled away by parents or siblings. Volunteers had opted to mingle with the congregation, dredging up the last cups of coffee and free donuts left upon the refreshment tables. But little Jewel remained – head down, arms crossed tight – and Ariel felt a flash of pain like lightening in her chest. That was her. Head down. Eyes shut tight. Drifting into the world to remain out of it.

Finally, they heard footsteps, quick and sharp as knife blades upon the tiled hallway. A boy appeared in the doorway. He reminded Ariel of a panther, shoulders hunched, muscles wound tight, coiled and posed to spring. There was an almost animalistic darkness in his eyes, fury churning beneath long lowered lashes. Thinking this, looking at him in careful disbelief, she could sense – taste, feel, like it was a visible and suffocating aurora – the darkness within him.

He was absolutely terrifying.

Jewel is related to this?

“Hey.” His eyes were on Jewel, but he was talking to Ariel. “Number eight.” He handed her a slip of paper – part of the numbering system for the children. No child left behind. Yeah, right.

Jewel sprung forward to latch her arms around his waist. She didn’t say anything, just buried her face into the fabric of his crisp purple collared shirt. He ran a light hand over her curls. “Come on, kid. Let’s get going.”

Jewel started to walk away, but suddenly, just as quickly, pivots back to Ariel. She gave her a quick, haphazard hug. “Thanks.” She whispered.

It was quiet. So quiet that if there had been children around, or if Ariel had been breathing louder, she would have missed it. But there it lingered: thanks. The boy looked at Ariel in disbelief. He kept staring, even as Jewel stepped back to him and slipped her small hand into his.

“How did you do that?”

“Do what?” The intensity of his eyes made her stomach felt light, insubstantial. Ariel rubbed her sweating palms against her jeans.

“She talked.” The boy said. “She talked!”

Ariel returned Jewel’s amused, solemn smile. “I know.”

“How did you…” He shook his head. “Never mind. We’ve gotta go.”

When he flicked her a final, half amused, half cursory glance before herding Jewel down the hall, electricity pulsed through her. Sharp, painful, ragged. It ripped through her stomach and left her gasping for air. It was not attraction – it was fear.

 And then she knew that no matter how far she reached for Jewel, the boy would always be there, an anchor, dragging his little sister back.

***