Honoria- A Short Story I Should Edit Down Soon

 Note: I wrote this last year. I want to edit it into something more tangible and less vague (or flowery, even) but I don't know when. Honestly, I just want to write again. Creative writing to me is an outlet of how healthy I am. I don't do it that much these days- minus the UC -so I think I'd feel so much better if I could just WRITE again.

Honoria

In Japan, they have suicides for what are called “honor killings.” The meaning is someone does not choose to end their life out of despair or depression. Instead, it’s because they really have no other choice- they want to maintain their integrity.

It’s less common when you are dealing with teenage girls, though. We’re all familiar with the Sylvia Plath angst model of a young girl’s misery. The woe-is-me, poetry-writing, journal-carrying neurotic bound to crack at any second.

The only suicide I ever encountered, up close and personal, was that of a teenage girl who killed herself out of a sense of weird honor she felt, mostly to herself. Honoria Gasby was that kind of girl.

Did I love her? Maybe I could have. Maybe, if she had lived a bit longer for either of us to understand what love truly was. Not just a teenage expression or a hormonal response, but something far more. Something more expansive and mature.

I often think of her now, although she’s truly farther away from me (or any of us) than she could have ever been otherwise. It’s something lonely and wistful about old age- all these figures from your prior life suddenly take on this vivid new meaning, this second life, as it were.

Honoria Gasby was the eldest child of a pair of wealthy former academics who had previously believed they were incapable of producing children, as barren as the tundra. Instead, though, they had bore (rather late in life) two girls:  Honoria first, Willow second. Two years separated the girls. Willow was nothing much like her older sister. Whereas Honoria was very tall and even a little gawky, Willow was short and stubby. She was overweight, with a poorly chosen haircut that accentuated her worse features.

“She smells like dog shit, all the time.” People would thoughtlessly whisper when Willow walked by, avoiding eye contact. Later in life, my shopping cart ended up hitting Willow’s at a neighborhood Whole Food’s. Not only had she lost the traumatic weight of youth and experienced an amazing transformation, she made clear to me why it was she always stunk so bad.

“I spent all my spare time volunteering at the humane society,” she explained. “That’s why I smelled like crap!”

Willow was also quiet and subdued. Not that Honoria was a roaring blaze of energy herself, but people were generally more aware of her presence in the universe. She was, without a doubt, the heir to her parents’ intellectual inheritance. She excelled beyond anyone’s expectations when it came to academics. In fact, that is what Honoria thrived upon:  exceeding people’s expectations and impressing herself onto them.

She was not a girl who stood out much from your typical crowd of adolescent standbys. She wasn’t overly attractive nor was she hideously ugly. Unlike Willow, her body fit her well. And I, being a young man with needs, couldn’t help but notice some.

“Honoria? Really?” Greg Placido was my best friend at the time and I often had to remind myself as to why. He was just as gawky as Honoria, with none of her beauty or unjust grace to make up for his worse aspects. Meaning:  he was narrow-faced, narrow-minded and sneezy. Yet despite all of this….

“Oh the things I’d do to her!” he’d moan when a beautiful girl would cross by. Yes, despite all these detractions against him, he fancied himself a Casanova. And I, who was remotely better-looking, wasn’t even so arrogant.

“Really.” I said with all intention to shut him up, between gritted, sandwiched teeth. He had a horrified expression on his face, like I had confided an attraction for the dead.

Honoria was a lone creature. She had few friends and virtually no suitors. I could see why, judging from a distance, where I kept myself occupied. She only really spoke to anyone when she was defending her opinions or spouting off to a person in authority. Then, she could go on for miles.

“Well, I don’t think you’ve done the proper research involved in the area,” I remember her snapping once, to a teacher. The teacher stood there, an older man, simply taken aback. He had studied at some of the best universities in the country and was fast approaching sixty. Everyone took him for a dignified figure. But when Honoria felt she was right- which, I wonder, did she ever consider herself wrong in any doing?- she was willing to attack whoever stood in her way to prove it.

“How dare you!” the teacher had fumbled, before directing her to the principal’s office with a swing of his lanky arm. She marched right out the classroom door with her head held high. Reflecting back, I don’t even recall the controversial issue which had lit the expulsive fire.

She thought herself ages and societies beyond us all, in her understanding and her nature. Maybe she was; maybe she was just drunk on her own precociousness. Sometimes, she’d sit on the side of the schoolyard, while everyone else was socializing and acting our age, and she’d be reading a volume by Kant. Honoria was sure to have the sun bounce its light off the lettering of the title. Show-off. I, too, was familiar with Kant and his Categorial Imperative. Unlike her though, I kept it to myself.

Under her belt, she had collected a bevy of academic achievements, the breed that could have landed her into any enviable school of her choice. Debate tournaments, spelling bee titles, honor rolls that came swinging in every semester. Her name on all of them. Honoria Gasby. Was it nauseating? Just a bit.

“Her again,” Betty Anne Boyle sighed, gazing up at the scroll that came out annually of all the A and B students.  She then grunted, like a wild boar or similar animal. “Ugh.” And that summed up a lot of people’s reactions, nicely.

Honoria played the harp, too. She was the only harpist we had, in the whole school. And because our one lone high school represented the entirety of the district, she had that distinction going for her. The harp was maybe a touch too much, methinks. But something about her, alone in the orchestra room, stroking that instrument, much bigger than her. It gave her an angelic quality she wouldn’t have had just by opening her mouth or sauntering, solo, down the high school’s lingering passageways.

She played until her fingers bled. I know because I watched her when I could. There were no ill intentions housed in my body then. I didn’t know any better; I was spellbound.

What did her parents make of Honoria? What did her own sister make of her, if anyone else in our realm despised her or was put off by her?

Well, the Gasbys themselves were not the warmest people to the chill of the outside world. Mrs. Gasby was nothing short than a witch with her husband one of the ugliest trolls I’ve ever laid eyes on. Whenever people did see them emerge their mercurial selves in public, it was typically going to and fro from their beat-up Buick, which was like a relic of ancient days.  And, weirder still, was the fact they barely made appearances at many of the public events Honoria would stake her name on. Sometimes they were there, crouching pariahs in the background. Mostly, they were nowhere to be found, high or low, nearby.

It was easy to see who her sister Willow took after, genetically speaking, although that chance encounter in Whole Foods none too long ago told me that she had been blessed to sidestep their misgivings by age. As for Honoria, with the grand exception of her height, she seemed far removed from her own parents, causing some people to wonder outloud if she hadn’t been adopted from some other family. For this theory, I think it’s entirely possible.

“I don’t much like the Gasbys,” my mother had announced once at dinner. My mother was fit to talking bouts, as much as a bipolar is fit to streaks of mania. She sat there before us, my father and me, and gazed intently. Neither of us had a thing to offer her. “Too much weirdness going on there. And that girl! She tries much too hard.”

“Ah, okay,” my father grumbled in agreement to placate his wife. That was the only way he knew how.

They certainly weren’t discussing Willow. Everyone knew, or had heard of, Honoria. Even people like my parents, otherwise distracted by their own lives and unaffected by the going-ons of me or my cohorts.

Did she like the attention? All signs point to a fat yes. Why else would she do what she did? Why else would she lived like she lived?

Of all Honoria’s distinctions, conquests, awards, competitons…the science fair, held annual, was her crème de la crème. It was what she breathed for. I swear, by the time one had wound down and she walked away with her medal in hand, she was plotting her move for the next one. Building up strategies, mapping designs. Crafting away in that beautiful head of hers.

This is all speculation. But I have no reason not to believe it and think otherwise.

I don’t think she was particularly scientifically minded. In fact, she appeared to me better at history and English than the math/science spectrum. But her projects were totally unique. They tackled subjects no one else in our school- maybe even no one else in our age group- would have dared to touch. One year it had been about the potential of our climate heating up, prematurely. Years later they would have a name for this, one you are surely familiar with. Global warming.

They tended to be somewhat idealistic or stark projects in nature. Even teetering the lines of what was science and what was considered science fiction. But she always won for them.

“I don’t know how you think of it Honoria,” said Dr. Elena Geebs, a professor from the local college that nearly everyone ended up going to. “But I’m continuously impressed by your efforts.”

Honoria didn’t blush. She didn’t shy away from her momentum. She believed she earned it, by that silvery glint in her otherwise blue eyes.  I never could look away. Moth to a flame, that sort of thing.

The last year was when we lost Honoria to the gods of honor and pride that had created her, shaped her out of clay and dispensed her among our masses.

I didn’t exceed really at academics because I was lazy. I had missed Honoria’s higher calling.

“You ought to try harder,” my father would say to me, reviewing my grades at term’s end. “You know that don’t you?”

“Yes, but I probably won’t. There’s always the military.” And I was honest. The recruiters would eventually give up on me, though. I was a lost cause; lost both in my thoughts and lost altogether in the world.

I skipped a lot of classes then. When I barely made it into college, by the seat of my pants, I would take academics (of course) so much more seriously and then I’d emerge, ready to tackle my masters and eventually my PhD. Back in my high school glory, however, no one would have predicted that course of action. I spent my days wandering the respective sports fields with my hands shoved in my pockets. I wasn’t bitter nor angry, like some of my youth peers. I was just bored.

Except for Honoria. She never bored me. Not once. I sometimes would say “hi” to her on my braver moments. She’d kind of just stare, not used to people trying to initiate friendly interactions with her.

“Who are you?” was her typical response, and then she’d turn away. Leaving me to watch her go home, knowing she was just going to read, help her parents make dinner, practice the harp, apply to colleges in faraway places like Boston or New York City.

Who was I? Good question.

The Science Fair our junior year was in the stale gymnasium like it always was. It never changed, switched locations. It wouldn’t change until my own children were at school and they opted to use the city’s convention center, just like everybody else used it for their functions.  But the science fair then was a bustling microcosm of activity….nearly everyone was required participation.

I was there, too. I had made some cheap volcano, one of those baking soda deals. No mastery of science involved there; it was rather a cop-out against doing any real work. I made a volcano every year.

“Again, Mr. Foster?” said the same old teacher Honoria had insulted. I nodded.

“Yup.” He sighed, clipboard in hand, checking off the requirements in fresh red ink.

“Suit yourself.”  He then glided arrogantly away, seeming taller than everyone by a head.

“Asshole,” I muttered under my breath, when he was safely out of earshot. Coward.

Then, there was Honoria and nothing else ever mattered. She was remembering an odd, almost glimmering mixture of blue and white, I remember to this day. She was standing off to the side, holding her own against the masses. Honoria’s eyes read disgust with them all, me included.

Her display, though. Her display that sweet final year was arguably more beautiful than her. I had the breath sucked out of me, if only for a second.

It was like gazing upon Christmas; the most extraordinary tree you could ever imagine. There were dozens of these small white, crystal-looking light bulbs. Dozens. That, and there were these little houses set up amongst them. These model houses were slightly bigger than what you would find in a Monopoly set. They were slightly more elaborate as well.

Upon staring at this mesmerizing sight, it sunk into you what it was supposed to represent, at least literally. It was a neighborhood. Honoria had put her models and light bulbs against a grid, which stood in for a network of streets. It was a stark, shrunken neighborhood, but that was what it was. The light bulbs alternated, every other house.

It nearly hummed with activity. Bystanders stood by and watched, their mouths slightly akimbo.

“What is it?” not more than one person whispered. Honoria’s own glowing threatened to outwit the competition of her magnetizing project.

“What is it! That’s a good question,” she announced, picking up on the general sentiment. “Maybe you should read the description and exactly what it entails.”

Despite the perceived snarkiness of which she gave her comment at, people were then quick to turn their heads to the calligraphed description. What exquisite penmanship she had- and how unsurprising, too. Why shouldn’t it be less than perfect?

The description was something as follows- my mind is warped with age, my memory is practically a decrepit remnant- Is Peace Possible?:  A Scientific Study. Over the years, humanity has proven incapable of what should be a simple concept in theory. The ability to exist without conflict, meaning. Yet conflict is the flow of nature- but can humanity ever rise above our most basic instincts? Here is a base depiction of a theory of what I believe that our world would be like if we could do just, indeed, that. The white, as it traditionally has, stands for the possibility y of peace.

Like that.

So it was not your average science fair project, by any stretch of the thin imagination. I think most everyone was startled and again, I include myself with that consensus. More fanciful and idealistic than anything, it was. Not your baking soda volcano ingenuity.

“It’s something all right,” said an older man, gawking at it.

“Something doesn’t even begin…”

The professors from the local college all came to critique and judge, to select the lucky winners from amongst us (Honoria). A wowed and somewhat speechless Dr. Geebs was there, along with other academics I never knew the names of. They all seemed just as impressed and as captivated as we all were, busy scribbling down various notes on their clipboards.

“She should have just stood outside and been a lightning rod,” scorned Betty Ann Boyle to her best friend and number one goon, Lucille Bergen. Lucille stifled a hateful laugh. And I disliked both of them even more, if possible, at that moment. “Would have been a lot better.”

“And what would your project be?” I snapped, suddenly making my presence more obvious than it ever needed to be. “How to exist without a working brain?” They both swung their faces to me, shocked.

“Who are YOU?” Betty Ann curled her upper lip into a distasteful sneer.

“Everyone seems to want to know that,” I said to them, not at all alarmed they had no idea of my identity. Why would they? I never ventured out of my way to make myself known to them. Over the tops of the heads of the people in the small throng, Honoria and I happened to lock eyes. Hers were like they were made of steel, or the hardest of ice.

Of course, I couldn’t keep it locked in place enough and turned my chin down. The girls wandered off then, turned off enough. To where? Who cares. Off the corners of the Earth would have been the best option.

“Nice, nice, very nice,” chimed the professors in agreement.

“Quite different. I mean, I can’t say I believe in it…but I applaud the creativity and tenacity behind such a vision,” one masculine voice rang out, rich with both admiration and age. There were clucks of unison and off the professors shuffled, leaving behind them a satisfied Honoria and a few scattered admirers. She watched them, her body confident with aplomb and pride.

That was when I approached her.

“I think that went well,” she said to me, slowly turning her face to mine. I nodded. The light bulbs all stood, illuminating her presence.

“I have to agree,” I suggested, my eyebrow inching up.

I swore she blushed.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

We stood there, then. Awkwardly and quietly, against each other’s presence.  Then, I had to ask.

“So do you believe it’s ever possible?” Honoria’s perfectly trimmed eyebrows gave a dance.

“What is possible?”

“Peace.” Honoria was quiet, a half-grunt decorating her face.  The silence seemed to drag on for ages.

“Oh. That.” An audible gulp came to follow. I don’t know what a sign it was. “It’s all dependent.”

“Dependent on what?”

“People.”

“Isn’t it always?”Honoria looked at me then. Right at that moment, I felt she was gazing into the crevasses of my soul. I felt naked.

Willow comes to mind now. Remembering her, breezy and foreign at the Whole Foods. A different girl, altogether.  A different woman, really. She put her hand on my arm before we parted ways and had promised to keep in touch, but there was another promise lost, dropped by the wayside before it could even come vaguely to fruition.

“It’s nice to meet an old friend,” she had smiled at me before her silhouette was lost in the aisle, to other silhouettes and cereal displays.

“It’s more like a science fiction project than an actual science project,” I then stated. In retrospect, this could have been a very offensive observation. She could have slapped me across the face, and I maybe would have reveled in that interaction, my skin red and hot.

“And I think that’s dependent on your overall viewpoint,” Honoria told me with amazing calmness. Her voice was quiet, but flustered.

Her voice was quiet and then I was, falling away to my own awkwardness.

“It’s a nice ideal,” I pressed. I didn’t want this encounter to end on a sour note, or anything less than stellar. We rarely had gone on talking this long.

She turned her face to me. I’ll never forget the angles of it, in that shade and that light. It was more beautiful than all the canvases I’ve seen displayed at various art museums through the years. And I’ve been to a lot in my time.

“I suppose.”

“Honoria! I’d like to ask you a few questions,” said someone else’s voice brightly. Thus, her attention- the warmth of her gaze, if you want to call it that, or mere intensity- was jerked away. I shuddered. It wouldn’t be rekindled.

Despite the otherworldly possibilities, it appeared Honoria once again “had it in the bag.” That is, if Benjamin Grace hadn’t existed. If he hadn’t taken the past summer to uproot from his home in New England to our sleepy town.

Unlike Honoria, he had something evident in his name she totally was devoid of:  social grace. People adored him, for his all American good looks and effective charm.

“He could have been a Kennedy,” some would say as he paced, elegantly, through our hallways. He was only eighteen, but could have passed for an easy twenty-five.  Benjamin Grace would eventually fiddle his way into the political scene, unknown years down the line. But he’d never pass above a measly state senator from Kentucky, where his wife originated.

But this was before then. This was before that was even a fraction of a hair of possibility. This was when he just had a great head of hair and a winning smile, the type that could melt the most cobalt of hearts.

I don’t even remember the specifics of his project nor do I want to. In my mind, there’s one lone cry, sharp as splintered glass:  murderer. Even if he knew it or not, just blinded by youthful ambition.

People flocked around his creation as well, too. Just as many as had been at Honoria’s, probably even more. I wouldn’t doubt that estimate. What can I say? Ben was a crowdpleaser, even then. Even though he was the new guy, people still adored him. And when his lone serious rival was the Ice Queen herself, come down from the Arctic,  not much extra thought was required.

“Nice work, Benjamin!” a visiting local college academic cooed. Others were fast and furious to make their agreements known.

Even watching it from my distance, my feet still happily stuck in place near Honoria, I could sense discomfort in the pit of my loins. I knew this would only bring about bad tidings. I personally had nothing against the boy; I found him a bit shallow and meatheaded, but I was somewhat of a snob myself. The bad tidings were for Honoria.

“I always felt bad for the girl,” he assured people that would ask him in the coming days. “She was so smart, but, so tightly wound. Like a bottle of soda all shook up.”

Honoria herself even seemed distracted, not used to having the science fair spotlight shift to another. Or any kind of academic glory, really. To her, it was a rude awakening. But it would have come someday. Come Sarah Lawrence or Brown or Harvard. She would have walked into an environment populated with specimens of herself and then, what serious chance would she have?

One of her fine golden eyebrows arched, though. She smelled the odor of trouble ahead; she must have felt it in her fragile bones. A storm on the horizon.

At that moment, I would have liked to have shielded her from the approaching blow. I would have liked to wrap her in my arms and tucked her into me. But, no.

We caught a glimpse of Ben, his arms folded into the too-big gray suit he was wearing, something he must have borrowed from his father’s collection or picked up at a thrift store. He was wearing that smile, too, that could have won Honoria’s heart in a different dimension (that, I am grateful for). He was talking to the professors; he was engaging them with his wit, allure and knowhow.

“What…” I heard her breathe, lingering. My face, though not near hers, turned in her direction. I saw she had lost some color. Not that she was the most vibrant girl, far from it, honestly. Her natural pallor had intensified, though, to a frightening new level.  “What’s going on?”

“That Benjamin Grace’s project is fairly interesting in itself,” said an anonymous source with not a clue.

“And it’s based in reality!” someone else chided, coupled with a harsh laugh. I wish I had seen who, because I would not have hesitated at all to break their lip open.

People then dispersed, their curiosity seeking a new outlet. The novelty of Honoria’s prophetic vision had worn off. Humans always want something new and different to play with; it is our temperamental nature. It left the two of us, and one or two others lost in their own thoughts.

“What’s the commotion about?” she asked me, because I was the only one that would listen. Her voice was husky and low.

I shrugged, dropping my shoulders helplessly. At that moment, I was Atlas, and the world had just rolled off without my support.

I have spent years, often in the dark and before sleeping, analyzing this stitch in time. And I often ruminate on if I should have behaved differently. If I should have said something, admitted some kind of emotion or given her some kind of validation she may have needed then. But I said nothing. I was as silent as an empty tomb.

Honoria stood there with her creation she had labored on for months, I believe. She stood like Gulliver over the Lilliputians, towering. Pondering; her forehead was wrinkled up. After some deliberation, Honoria marched over to see what the fuss was over Ben.

She came back with a red face and clenched fists. She had seen what awaited her.

At 4 p.m. sharp they would make the announcements of the winners of the annual competition. It would be prefaced with a brief speech by one of the visiting college professors, usually consisting of the same substance, year in and year out. M0re droning on nonsense about the “youth of today holds the key to tomorrow” and things such as that. No one cared; I could see my classmates losing their interest by the second, staring off into space, examining their nails. Holding side conversations and suppressing chuckles.

I had abandoned my makeshift volcano to the custodians, who I felt had more use for it than I ever would.

Then, the four main awards would be made known. It started with the “honorable mention,” who you just ended up feeling bad for, if anything. It was the first two who got the prizes- scholarship money, of course. And it was first place for bragging rights and name recognition. Photograph in the newspaper.

That was what Honoria desired. But that year, she had her first real match with someone equally intelligent and gifted.  Confidence was lost; she was losing odds with every minute.

I sat in the back away from everyone, observing. As status quo was for, I guess. I didn’t ever feel like I belonged to their strange masses, preferring my introversion to anything else. Honoria sat in the second row, furthest left on the corner. Her face was ridden with tension, her legs dangling over the cold metal seat at a disorganized angle.

She kept checking from side to side, as expected to see something. A sign, perhaps? Possibly anything, lying in wait?

I prayed to non-existent deities, interceding on her behalf. Scrambled words limbered through my head hollowly for her. Dear God, Jesus, whatever, please let her get first place…I don’t know what she’d do if she didn’t have that distinction…people hate her enough as is…

As is.

“Hello everyone! Thank you all for coming and participating this exciting day of academic distinction!” praised the reputable Dr. Simon Fuster, wearing a tweed jacket and with sparse hair finely parted on his head. There was a bevy of brief, flimsy applause that followed, as to be expected. I rolled my eyes, a bit appalled of the insincerity.

He went on, his voice causing a rustle of white noise that only registered in my mind.  A series of beeps and whistles, he couldn’t stop talking just soon enough. I was beaten up with anxiety, knowing that Honoria’s title had been sacrificed. And if that time I could have made Ben stop existing, I would have.

“Oh shut up old man and get to the good stuff,” someone near me hissed. In accordance, I flinched.

Ben sat on the opposite side, some beautiful girl next to him, glowing with shared contentment. They already like a young married couple. Honoria would never see that phase of life, unfortunately. And I would never be able to offer it up to her. Perhaps bachelordom would have been a virtue, in this scenario.

I took another investigative gaze around. I saw Betty Ann and Lucille, who seemed forever locked in catty schoolgirl days. They had their pointy fingers curled above their lips, gloating over what? They knew that, indeed, Honoria was about to meet her demise.

“Our honorable mention goes to Buddy Stevenson, who gave it his all with a diorama showing the lives of ancient dinosaurs, near lifelike as possible!” boomed Dr. Fuster amid furious applause. Buddy’s face was pinkened with chagrin. From what I can conjure about his memory, he was fairly shy and not a fan of the spotlight, in any variation. He ran up to the front of the auditorium, made a fast handshake with Dr. Fuster and the rest of his decorated team, then took his spot as the self-sufficient lowest man on the science fair totem pole.

“Oh Buddy,” I spoke to myself. He reminded me of my non-existent witless twin.

With every second that drove on by, Honoria became more and more uncomfortable. In fact, the sweat beading her forehead was visible from where I was at, by then. Each name read off automatically was a slight against her.

“Barbara North.” Barbara was a forgettable girl, dressed with a plaid skirt, rocketing herself through the crowd. She stood right besides the jittery Buddy.

And then, the moment to make or break the whole pageantry of the day. The crowning of second place, the lowest amount of scholarship money and the title that really just didn’t mean anything.

“Second place this year is awarded to…” Dr. Fuster paused, as if he expected the marching band to saunter in, playing a suspense-rich drumroll.

“Honoria Gasby.”

It would soon be over, now.

My son once took me to see a Western film, that kind of vapid crap about cowboys and Indians. He was in love with those things. Anyway, in the film there is an execution scene. A man has been accused of stealing horses or something punishable by death in those days. He’s led to the gallows in ominous silence by the others, to his final moments as a man. They leave him up there and before they drop the cloth bag over his head, his eyes widen with fear, confusion and rage. His color shifts from ghostly white to human red and back again.

That is the closest illustration I have in demonstrating Honoria’s poise in the moments that came after. How her face just seemed to break, like a twig you just stepped on and cracked in the snow.

Honoria struggled to accept the award, decently. And I know how pretentious that sounds. She should have been happy with anything, right? But:  it was Honoria. It was a different breed.

She crept  up to the front of the room and bowed her head some, feigning gracefulness. Yet her cheeks had to have been on fire with pure, unadulterated rage. With knuckles as white as piano ivory, she grabbed her small award from the professor presenting it to her. An offering. I winced.

“And first place, for his presentation on the misconceptions regarding pesticides…Benjamin Grace!” There was a hearty round of applause for Benjamin, who carefully made his way to Dr. Fuster, who (in return) vigorously shook his hand.

I stopped watching. I looked at my shoes, which were made of some leather-like material.

“Thank you! Oh thanks!” I could hear Ben going on, in proximity of the microphone. These blushing gestures of boyish gratitude, how they nauseated me. I wished him a slow and painful death, though, in the name of the only woman (I was so convinced) I’d ever love.

Afterwards, I waited around in the parking lot for Honoria, kicking up small stones and dirt. Cars pulled in and out, piloted by anxious and exasperated parents. Students walked to and fro, going mostly home (or wherever) now that the long and eventful day had come to its finish. I was looking for Honoria, naturally.

Greg came strolling out of the school, sunglasses blacking out his eyes. It was truly blinding out, but I knew he’d wear them in the midst of a rainstorm, just for some misguided approach to fashion.

“You coming?” he asked me, motioning towards his car. A borrowed old Sedan from the previous generation. I shook my head.

“No.”

He made a face, like having just eaten bad seafood.

“Oh. You’re not going to stand around waiting for Miss Drama Queen, are you?” His eyes nearly rolled to the back of his narrow head.

“Get lost, Greg,” I said indifferently. He sighed.

“You won’t ever learn ‘til she teaches you,” he spat. I could hear his feet, smashing gravel as he walked away. At that moment, I could have cared less about Greg and his opinions, which unfortunately, had their roots in reality.

But I didn’t see Honoria. I didn’t even catch sight of the back of her head, waving in the wind. All I saw were other people I hardly could be bother to care about, even remotely. I grimaced and went home, with my heart heavy and my mind, worrying.

At home, I had dinner with my parents. That was never an enjoyable experience.

“Pass the pork,” my father told my mother. They made no eye contact. She picked up the plate and gave it to him. The pork wasn’t very tender, but I said nothing of this. My mother was hypersensitive when it came to her cooking. She was very well-educated, considering the time she grew up in, but had regulated herself to playing the role of “housewife” and hand servant to my father. My father himself was not a bad man, but he wasn’t particularly likeable. He was distant and he was cold. Trying to reach him was like a trek to the South Pole. And who wanted to go to there? He was a successful salesman in his own right, but happiness was constantly eluding him.

“Pass the rolls,” he said next. I stared at my meal, not remotely hungry. She did so.

“Pass the sauce,” he said after that. I looked up at my mother. She was a beautiful woman and had aged fairly well. The lines on her face were just the work of time and stress. She said nothing, as was status quo.

“Could we watch the news?” I requested. A sudden, spastic urge. My father looked at me and frowned.

“We’re eating dinner.” And so it was taboo. I slumped my shoulders. I wanted to make my case known.

“The Gasby girl didn’t win the science fair,” I stated.

“Jim, let him watch the news,” my mother said, near automatically. My father sighed, but relented, getting up to turn it on. Which was a good thing; I’m pretty certain every dinner we ever had, he did absolutely nothing. Getting off his ass to start the TV wouldn’t kill him.

At first, the news was boring and mundane, as the local news often was. Stories of police officers being promoted and charity bake sales, that sort of deal.

Then.

“This just in!” the head anchor breathlessly reported. “A local girl has been reported as missing.”

And so it began.

“I can’t believe she just took off,” my mother said as we processed the information together. “That’s so odd. It’s just a science fair. It’s not life and death.”

“Something’s not right in that family,” my father retorted. Like he had any room to talk.

“I could tell you that,” my mother said in a softer voice. He didn’t hear her.

Honoria had taken off. She hadn’t come back from school, the reports were rolling in. She had vanished. Her family was keeping vigil for her now, concerned at their home, surrounding by authorities and the few family friends they did have.

“Her parents are asking for any hints concerning her whereabouts…” the anchor went on. It was a juicy news story for our small town; that was for sure. It’d be the literal talk of the town for days.

“Good luck with that. She’s kind of a recluse, isn’t she, Thomas?” my mother said, turning to me for my input.

“You could say that. May I be excused?”

“For what? You’ve barely touched your food.”

“I’m just not that hungry tonight.” I fidgeted..

“Your mother slaves away in the kitchen all day…” my father went on, but my mother nodded. She sensed what I was up to; there is no doubt in my mind. She had that gift of intuition so many women seem to possess.

“I don’t have it,” my wife once told me, with a wink. She lies.

“It’s fine. He can eat it later,” my mother got up, carrying her empty dish. She scooped up my father’s as well, en route to the kitchen.

“I don’t know what’s so urgent…” my father groaned. And I didn’t expect him to. I went for my coat.

I didn’t have a car, then. I wouldn’t have one for several years. What I did have was my bike- a rickety thing I had purchased at a secondhand shop. I was very fond of it, even though it ended up falling apart on me. It was as red as a firetruck should be and always in need of oiling, the wheels squeaking as I rode it. I hopped on it and sped into the growing twilight. The sky was orange, above the trees and the houses. It was early evening, then.

It didn’t take me long to get to Honoria’s house. I knew the way by the lining of my heart. I had gone there many times, out of boredom and out of longing. I would sit up and watch it for no reason, even though I couldn’t see her girlish outline in the window.

I have to admit, here, for the sake of a cleansed conscious that I had snuck over there, a few times in the past, to try and catch a peek of her changing. But after a certain hour, I had quickly learned, Honoria kept her curtains well closed.

The lights of the police cars shone blue and red on her house. There were several, parked out in front. I could see the darkened bodies, huddled in conversation. The front door of the Gasbys’ home was askew. Willow sat on the front porch, her chubby elbows resting on her fleshy kneecaps. She was wearing paint-splattered overalls, that much I could see.

Willow’s face lifted  up towards me. Her eyes lit up with a semblance of recognition.

“Hey, you!” she called out. I stiffened, my brow ringing up in surprise. I really hadn’t interacted with Willow at that point. No one had- like I said before, she was an outcast in her own right. I straddled my bike more sternly and got ready to go. “You!” It was my signal that I was not wanted at the Gasby homestead. Willow kept crying for me, long after I took off. That had been a dead-end.

Maybe I should have stayed…I don’t truly know, now.

My mind raced as I biked through the neighborhood, the sirens dimming in the background and fading into nothingness. Just static, just into the noise of other dogs barking and cars in motion.

Where could she have gone to? I should have known Honoria better than anyone. I was the only one totally enraptured by her. I was, basically, stalking her.  That doesn’t sound as glamorous or as riveting as it felt.

I decided to give the school a try, although I couldn’t honestly imagine she’d have wandered her way back there. It’d be like returning to the scene of a bloody and violent, intrigue-lacking crime.

There was barely anyone there, save the basketball team, stuck practicing for the night. One or two buses were still parked in the lot, along with some cars that either belonged to remaining students or faculty. One police car drove by, slowly, but that was the extent of it.

I stopped my bike and peered around. The light had gotten more and more non-existent; the atmosphere was gradually darkening as it became night. The woods, at the edge of the parking lot, stood ominously, like a guest in a horror story. It seemed to motion to motion for me to come forward- as if it could tell me the secrets it was witness to. Like where Honoria was.

The wind whistled through the leaves. I had never really been in those woods:  it was unknown territory to me. I had no impetus to enter it, until that second. I stood there for a moment, lodged in my whirling thoughts. What if…

Someone’s raised voice spooked me. I don’t know what they were saying, what words of English they were twisting. And that was exactly when I ditched my bike and headed into the woods, placing my companion near an inconspicuous cement block on the edge of the lot. I didn’t have any illusions about anyone stealing it; it was a piece of shit and it was their misfortune if they did (a piece of shit I somehow loved).

I clung my coat closer to me- a sharp chill was heavy in the air. I shivered and wiped my nose with the back of my hand. The trip into the woods, I thought to myself, better be a worthwhile experience. I could only imagine.

I walked for an indeterminable amount of time, stepping over rocks and scattered branches. Weird, animalistic sounds barraged my ears. I had entered a different world, altogether. And would it lead me to Honoria?

“It better lead somewhere,” I grumbled to myself. It was like dumping myself down the rabbithole. The ground was wet and I didn’t want to know why.

Then, I found a road, tearing through the wooded scenery. Obviously I hadn’t lost myself too far to the wild.

An old man driving a shadowy Mustang zipped up the road as I approached upon it. He wore a cowboy hat; I could see his outline in the window. He didn’t notice me and sped off. He stood out like an anomaly, but an oddly comforting one, anyhow.

It was around then I realized where I had rambled to. I was off by the lake, it seemed, on the border of water and land. There were staggering, large cliffs around the parts…not too far away, was the clichéd Lover’s Lane locale. It was a beautiful, but nonetheless dangerous area, perfect to go for undisclosed affections.

I wondered if my quest had been in vain. All it had brought me to were the outskirts of town and potentially had lost me for the night. And it was getting colder and darker with every heartbeat. At that point, I nearly gave up on Honoria. I tricked myself with imagining she had wandered into some country bar, the type where they never check for proper identification, and was losing her miseries to steep gin and tonics. The picture drew a needed smile to my face.

That was when I heard what sounded like strained sobbing, coming from unseen bushes. At first it knocked the air out of my lungs; I was so completely thrown off by it.

“What the…”

The statement was to stay unfinished. The dawn of realization hit my head like a wooden beam:  it was Honoria.

The bushes were a good 50 yards in front of, in the tangle of the thicket of everything else. They were some kind of berry bushes, but it was too dark out to tell what. Still, I saw a rustle and I heard the sobbing. This sobbing, aching and despondent and raw, has stayed with me long since. Sometimes, if all else is quiet and my mind is troubled, I still hear it. All it needed was Moonlight Sonata to accompany it.

“Honoria?” I asked the bushes. And yes, I did feel dumb talking to a plant.

The sounds of mourning abruptly came to a halt. I looked up at the half-obscured stars in the sky above, which seemed to be glowing mystically and ethereally.

“Who is it! What do you want!” she barked in return, as pitchy as an untrained opera singer.

Her yellow head shot up from behind, then. I couldn’t see her face, but I could only guess it was smeared by the streak of tears and dismembered make-up.

“Oh Jesus,” I mumbled to myself. She groaned, loudly, and almost not like a person should, but rather some kind of untamed beast.

“It’s you.” And the way she said it was like I’ve been expecting you.

“Everyone’s looking for you.”

“Nobody cares. I don’t even care.” She emerged  from the bushes. I could see her clothes were torn and her hair was a mess, and that was it. Honoria may have even been missing a shoe.

“Well, a lot of people do. The police are at your house and it’s on the news,” I replied. I was honest and unabashed, clearing my throat.

She laughed.

“Let them look. What’s left for me? I have nothing. NOTHING.”

“You lost the science fair! So what? You’re almost graduated anyway.” I tried to reason with her. I knew my words wouldn’t leave an impact or make even the smallest dent.

“You know this is the beginning of the end?” She walked up to me. Her eyes were that of a madwoman’s, sparking. I started to feel fear, from the back of my neck and engulfing me. “You know the rest of my life will be a SERIES of events like THESE?”

I stepped back from her. But I knew.

“So…” I trailed off. Alien noises consisted of the unfamiliar background. The starlight (no moon, must have been a new moon that night, I wouldn’t bother to check the lunar calendar though) made us appear not real, translucent.

“I’m not prepared for that. I’ve never been. There’s been no reason. I’ve always been the best, the absolute BEST. Do you know what that feels like?” I shook my head. “Of course you don’t. Here, it’s pretty much a distinction unique to me. And I know how selfish and stupid that is, but I don’t have anything else.”

“Yes you do.” You have me.

“Everyone hates me. Strangers hate me. My parents hate me. My sister hates me. People at school hate me. So, I overcompensate. I’m brainy and I read a lot and I win these titles that I collect. That’s all I have. It’s a poor substitute for a real existence. I hate myself for it.” She swallowed audibly. “I hate me.”

“You have your harp,” I then informed her. What a dumb, dumb, dumb thing it was for me to say.

“If I could go home, I’d burn it,” she spat spitefully. I winced at the image, the instrument falling victim to the flames.

“So what do you plan to do here?” I continued with the trend of saying dumb things. Between the both of us, her intentions were nothing if not blatant.

“Die.” She sniffed loudly after this, sucking the snot back up into her skull. And I flinched, my blood burning me.

“Don’t be stupid Honoria.”

“What’s stupid about it? Absolutely nothing. Life is just a series of further disappointments and I rather disappear before it gets worse.”

I wanted to grab her and embrace her, then. She was right before me, as fuzzy and as present as an apparition. I wanted to kiss her. Press my lips into her and become some one absolute being, one unstoppable force. A kiss from a dying girl- what would have that been like? Purposely sticking your hand into the fire? I often wonder about this, still. The mind never ceases.

I did not touch her. Instead, I repeated my uncomfortable refrain.

“Stop being stupid.” She shook her head, flinging stray hairs about that clung hopelessly to her scalp.

There was a silence that followed that seemed to stretch generations. It was weighty and unnerving, the only connection we then had. At any moment, one of us knew, it would burst.

“I don’t understand what exactly you see in me, Thomas,” she was the one to give way. Her voice was somehow soft, yet sonorous. And I was awestruck. Honoria had never called me by my given name before.

“Well, there’s certainly a lot there. You’re a fascinating girl,” I replied. There were distinct intervals where my voice quavered then.

I always felt myself coming back to her. Even if I didn’t want to, even if I thought better of it. I couldn’t keep my head turned from her. I couldn’t keep her well off my mind.

I wanted to grab her and embrace her, then.

“Fascinating is probably the nicer way to phrase it,” Honoria said, breathing in. She was within breaths of me; I could feel her on my skin, sweaty and unrailed.

Underneath the cliffs, the water was waiting. It was black in the night, resembling a pool of spilled ink with a mind of its own.

She started to saunter over to the side. Like she was about to embark on a dance.

“Honoria…” I called out to her, my hand reaching in that direction. I wish she had taken it. I wish I could have felt our flesh collide, at least once.

“It’s a shame it’s so easy,” she told me and the sound of her voice was so far away. Like she was calling over a canyon.

Honoria dangled her foot up above it, as if she was about to just take a cautious dip in a swimming pool.

Disorienting lights came flashing, then. It took me by surprise but I honestly don’t think she cared. I honestly don’t think she was with us (me) at this point. I think she had surpassed far beyond us, on giving up.

“Honoria!” shrieked someone else’s shriller voice. It could have been her mother or just some random concerned individual, I don’t know. “Get away from that cliff!”

Her dizzy head peered over her skinny shoulder. In the glow of the cars that had arrived- how they were able to track her trail, I’ll never fathom-  her eyes were suddenly sharp and apparent. Like a cat with a flashlight shined directly in her face. Her eyes made it so clear she was drunk off self-hatred, as if was a bottle one could just drink from.

They were police. They were her parents. They were people from the school. And they had come in their cars to collect her, just like I had. But was their intent ever the same as mine? No, no. It never was.

“You always liked her so much,” Willow had said to me, in that now sacred Whole Foods. “I was always impressed by that. She was my sister and I didn’t always like her, even. My own flesh and blood.”

“Yeah,” I had cleared my throat. It felt like there was dried blood in my mouth, dancing on my tongue.

I was married for 17 years, then. My wife was at home, reading one of her books. My son was in his bed. I had a family and a life and a career and Honoria never factored into any angle of it, any minute aspect, but yet she was so important to me. So goddamn important- it was like she was the martyr of my nameless region.

“It was weird,” I then said to Willow, who looked me in the eyes so earnestly. I maintained the obvious position.

Back in time, Honoria and I had our one moment of intimacy. Some lovers have a bed they share and sheets under which they Christian their love. Honoria and I had a confusing, all too brief conversation, cliffside when we were too young to know any better.

That was it. That was the sum of everything. 2 + 2 = 4

“God, why?” Honoria muttered to herself and the wind. “Why can’t they leave me alone? They do so enough other times.”

“Please step back from the edge, miss,” a police officer, stout and mustached, boomed over everything else. But she couldn’t be bothered.

“Oh, I will.”

“Please!”

I palpitated with every moment that went on by. I shook like a ghost would. Nothing has ever been as agonizing.

Then, it was like she simply fell over. We all knew, though, she didn’t fall.

I came running. In retrospect, how odd I must have appeared! Taking off like that to peer my head over and see what had happened. How morbid, even. Everyone was so absorbed, then, by the union of shock and their own thoughts. My perspective was far from morbid, however, at that second that stands translucent and above in my own memory.

I needed to see her. She had just gone, she had just fallen over. It was like an all too strong gust had carried her over to the other side. Honoria was never met to be a part of this grotesque world, anyway.

Her body at the bottom of the cliff resembled the crucified Christ, distorted and lying at an awkward angle. We never realize how many positions come off as an unwieldy to the human body until….well, until.

How peaceful Honoria seemed. All her life, winning awards, taking acheiveement, playing her harp. She never was as peaceful as she was the.

But I was aghast and my heart was melting into throw-up that was hurling up my esophagus. I got down on my knees and I vomited.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” some stranger’s hand was on my shoulder. I looked up, my vision blurry.  It was the police officer. I pulled myself away from his tenuous grasp.

The funeral was a much-publicized event. My peers were forced, by the persuasion of our school superiors, to attend.

“It would mean the world to her family,” said the same old teacher. His words were hollow; he did not mean them.

I hid in the back, by the trees. The coffin was closed and that was enough for me. It was an unusually bright day for a funeral, that I remember so vividly.

I visited her grave everyday for a year.

“I know you didn’t kill yourself out of sadness,” I told the cold stone, jabbed into the ground that was supposed to be responsible for the memory of one entity. “I know it was something else, Honoria.”

I shivered in the silence. The dead hear nothing.  Not our prayers, not our cries. They are numb and deaf to nearly everything.

“I miss you,” I said in my bedroom one night, after I had seen Willow again. Years later, days ago. I was haunted by images of Honoria, her harp, her gossamer hair in my sleep.

“Who?” my wife’s tired voice sprung up next to me. She’s a kind, beautiful woman in her own right.

“Nothing.”

And I was right.

p.s. sorry about the format. I'm unaware it looks professional!