It is 9:15 pm in a particularly windy day of late September. It is a freezing ten degrees outside and the stars can barely be seen due to the clouds. Here I am, sitting on a wet bench in MIT campus, a college I happen to be a student of, hiding from no one in particular except myself.
There is not a soul in sight, for it is pouring buckets which, lovingly accompanied by the wind, has created a chill strong enough to even shove the poorest and the homeless into looking for a shelter, or better, a pub. Saying that, I don’t need to look for a shelter, I can go back to my warm hostel room anytime I wish, or even drive home.
So what am I doing here, looking like a drenched cat and freezing to my death?
It’s a long story.
Before I start boring you with my woes, let me introduce myself, for experience tells me that a good lineage can make even the ADHD pay a great deal of attention.
I’m Laura Parker, a score years old, sophomore, department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT, Cambridge. Though I am a good student, the credit for my excellent result goes to an affliction I’d acquired- Hyperthymesia, a neurological condition which gives me the perfect photographic memory. I can remember any face, sound, smell or picture; anything anyone has ever said to me, and everything I’ve ever read.
This is actually a boon during exams, since I get to do work on model rockets the night before exam when others are studying and binging hard.
But for rest of the times?
Not so much.
Memories can be real killers, and I know that firsthand.
They never let you forget the one dear thing you could not help but lose, or the one guy you never got over properly.
The pros outweigh the cons though.
My father, Jake Parker, CEO and owner, Parker Enterprises, the largest real estate and aviation chain in the country, has, till date, refused to shift his headquarters to the Big City for some unfathomable reason, which suits me just fine. I’m all for a bit of peace and quiet at the end of the day.
He isn’t hyperthymesic, though. This is not a condition one is born with. This usually happens due to some ‘fortunate’ damage inflicted to the brain.
Damage. Yes, that’s why, I’m sitting here, getting chilled to my bones, looking like a character from a horror movie, worse than a standard damsel in distress.
It all began with a void in my memories.
The story I’m about to tell has no guarantee of its authenticity, because for a person with eidetic memory, I don’t remember absolutely anything when it comes to my childhood. The car crash when I was ten took away my mother along with my memories of her. Dad refuses to speak about it, so all I know is from my nanny Sandra, who is quite the head of the house after dad.
My mother was pregnant with her second child when on a stormy night of July, she went into pre-mature labour. My frantic dad drove through the pelting rain, only to rid the world of his wife, his unborn child, and his carefree laughter. The tires had skidded, the car had hit a wall, with the baby dying in the accident, and my mom was brought in dead. I was in a coma for six months. Dad was the only one who had survived with minor injuries. I’ve never seen him drive anymore.
I don’t remember my mother at all. Nothing. Zip. Zero. Nada. We don’t even have her picture at home. Eyebrow raising, right? I know. Even I felt odd to tell people that I’ve never seen my mother. These days, to avoid further questions, I just say she died when I was born. From what Sandra told me, dad broke down whenever he saw mom’s face smiling through the photograph, so she had the photos removed, to protect dad’s sanity.
Amazingly, dad never objected once when I said that I want to learn driving, that a college student doesn’t need to be driven by a chauffeur. Dad had quietly sat through my speech on the importance of learning how to drive, then had went up and locked himself up in his study till dinnertime. A really disgruntled me had opened the garage door to find a brand new canary yellow Porsche 911 Turbo with my dad sitting in shotgun position. He had taught me how to drive, Parallel Park and even race sometimes.
He’s the only family I had, till I shifted to Cambridge. I had been a quiet sort of person all along junior school and high school, which sums up that I was friendless literally. I had acquaintances in the lacrosse team, but they were just, teammates. Not at all surprisingly, I’d been the most non-whiny teenager among my peers. While others planned night-outs and sleepovers, I stayed in and went through Harry Potter marathons. And as a plus point, I didn’t have to study much from the fifth grade, so I whiled away my time with reading and learning to play the violin, guitar and piano.
People might say that I’m over-accomplished, but you see, I just had too much free time. Not having friends has its own perks too, I guess.
The teachers loved me, and I wasn’t the awkward nerd, I just liked to keep people at an arm’s length and my admirers at bay. The concept of love seemed frivolous at that age. I don’t know why, but I’d spent entire nineteen years avoiding all kinds of extreme emotions. I lived mostly, a peaceful life.
Except for the occasional nightmares. I’ll get back to that later.
Everything changed once I ended up as Alexander Hernandez’s partner in Physics II.
Alexander Hernandez. Captain of the soccer and basketball team of Radcliffe High School, Virginia; and of course, a straight A student with superb good looks. My closest academic competitor, Alex was just the opposite of me in the social circuit. I’d seen the giggling girls follow him along the corridors, debating on how to ask him to the Spring Dance. But I could never tell with Alex whether he liked this attention or not. We had all the classes together, but never talked to each other, not even a polite nod in the hallways. So it came as a surprise to us just as to the rest of the class when Mr. Greene made us partners in the physics lab. I still remember the day as if it was yesterday.
It was another monotonous rainy day, when the bell rang and I started towards Holland Hall, where our advanced physics classes are to be held. I was reading Kafka on the Shore when the usual buzzing noise told me who I was walking in front of. I quickly moved aside to let them go – this giggling gaggle of girls gets on my nerves. I caught a glimpse of Alex, his aquiline nose, wavy hair which grew all over the place and the desperation in his mossy eyes to avoid the horde that followed.
As I let them pass, I heard someone say, “He told Jason that his type of girl is an introvert with the attributes of an extrovert. Who do you think can she be?” I raised my head to find Jessica from my English class with Hannah Bell, the new head cheerleader. “Well, as we all know, there’s only one freak show we have here, ‘Miss Memorycard’ – Laura Parker. I don’t know what Alex sees in her though, she’s ... odd.” I could almost hear the quotation marks in her voice when she looked back at me and saw me already looking at her. She whipped her head back, caught off guard.
With a satisfied smirk, I shut my books and walked past them into the classroom to sit at my usual place, beside the window which opens to the hills. I always find myself staring out of the window when things become too boring, or I’ve completed the chapter beforehand. So far, I’ve not got caught, partly because Mr. Greene really seems to like me, and partly because ... well, not to sound boisterous, but I do have an excellent memory.
I should’ve realised something was up when Mr. Greene entered the room carrying registers, along with his usual assortment of odd objects. And pretty much to my utter horrification, he said. “I’ve decided to make things fun for you this year. Well, you’ll be having this for all the classes from tomorrow; I’d just like to speed things up a bit. Each of you will be assigned a partner today, with whom you’ll be doing all your schoolwork this year; a collaboration of talents, I say. Now, you may have different partners for different subjects or stick with the same one, it’s your choice.” And he started calling out names.
“Jessica Williams and Rachel Miller”
“Jack Rodriguez and Ellie Garcia”
“Alexander Hernandez and Laura Parker”
I think everybody stopped in their tracks and looked in my direction, but I wouldn’t have noticed, because Mr. I-am-perfect-and-mysterious Hernandez was sauntering towards my desk, from the other side of the classroom. For a pretty much non-violent person, I considered murdering Principal Smith. She’s a nice old lady, but her ideas ... ugh.
I was broken out of my reverie by the sound of chair scraping faintly over linoleum floor. Tall, god-like Alex Hernandez sat down and cast a friendly smile in my direction.
“Hello, partner.”
I mumbled an incoherent ‘hi’ and offered my hand. His grasp was instant, warm yet cool, and dry. Confident, even. I turned my head and looked at his reflection on the window pane. Now that I’m getting the full blast of it, I think I can comprehend why the girls go all diddly-eyed whenever he’s mentioned.
No, that doesn’t mean I like him or something. I’m just, y’know, objectively viewing him. He has porcelain skin, and surprisingly without tans and freckles, for someone who spends so much time outdoors. His eyes were a warm grey-green shade, the kind you see if you add milk with green tea. His hair is a real pleasant dark chocolate brown, kind of like my eyes. I don’t know how long I’d have stared into his face when I found that the reflection was close to mine than ever, and a deep voice whispered in my ear, “Mr. Greene is done with calling the names, I think you better appear to listen to what he’s saying.”
Startled, I tore my eyes away from his face and looked at Mr. Greene’s, in time to hear him say – “Laura, I’d like you and Alex to decide what projects you’re going to take up this year, because you’ll be studying only for that. So, choose carefully. Now, since you are my best shots, I’m proffering you a special list. I daresay it’ll help you next year, after you graduate.”
Both of us looked at each other and nodded in response.
When the list reached us and we bent down to study it, Alex’s voice dropped another notch and said “So, I take it I’ll be seeing you next year too, at MIT?”
“H-how do you know?”
“it’s not hard to guess, you see. He grouped us according to our goals, mostly, and we even have the same classes. Which brings us back to an earlier topic, would you like to remain partners with me for all the subjects, or you want to change?”
“Er ... I think I’d go along with you, if you’ve no problems, that is.”
“Of course not. With you staying two houses away, I wager it’d be easy to ‘collaborate’; don’t you think so?”
His words made me crack a real smile in school, a rare happening. Unable to help myself, I looked into his eyes, and nodded. His eyes held mine for a fraction longer, and then he averted his face to choose our topics.
The bell rang by the time we were done. I must say, it was a heady thing to walk with him to English, our last class of the day. Mr. Greene had given us loads of homework on our first project, and we walked to Wayland Hall, discussing the background research, when I blurted out something I’ve been thinking this long; “It’d have been even better if we could do this research together.”
Alex smiled sheepishly and lowered his head, “Will I creep you out if I say that I’ve been thinking the same thing, but could not say it out loud?”
“Not at all.” I shook my head vehemently. “Why didn’t you say this though?”
“Then your assumptions about me would’ve been proved right at one go, would it not?”
“My assumptions?” I was puzzled.
His voice rose to a falsetto, “Oh, everyone is right about this Alex. He’s really all over me.”
I shook my head while I let out a laugh. Geez, what has gotten into me today? “Nah”, I said. “I don’t really pay attentions to rumours, or second-hand opinions. Perks of not having gossip-buddies, I guess.”
“Why don’t you have any gossip-buddies though?” His eyebrows were all scrunched up, in this really cute way.
“Number one, they are too curious; like, it is written on their face. Number two, they are jerks and think that I’m a freak behind my back.”
“Well, I better not ask too many questions, then.”
“It’s okay. It’s not like you give away much, do you?”
“Trust me when I say that I want to. I just haven’t found someone worthy yet.”
I nodded. “I know this feeling.”
“So, about today. Your place or mine?”
“Let me see. I have nachos, top speed WiFi, and a library. Oh, also, miniature rocket models. What about you?”
He laughed at my tone. It was like ... music. “I have the same, but you’re the lady, so I come over at...?” He paused, raising his eyebrows questioningly.
“Will seven be good for you?”
“Okay done.” He flashed a brilliant smile in my direction.
English kind of passed through a daze. Ms. Grahams was teaching Twelfth Night, my favourite, but even that failed to reach out to me today. I was hyper-aware of Alex sitting beside me and softly mouthing the lines. Turns out he knows the play by heart too, hmm?
I was snapped back to now by a tall shadow cutting off the streetlights.
I raised my eyes to see Alex standing, his eyes filled with grim resolution.
He knelt down before me, his eyes on mine. “You’ve got snot.”
I hastily wiped away my nose, but it was running heavily. Something green chequered fell on my lap – his handkerchief. The one with his initials woven on it. I made it for him once. Something broke inside me. I’ve refrained from crying for so long, but now I clutched the handkerchief close to my chest and broke down completely. Soon, very soon I found his arms comforting me. He held me while I cried my heart out.
“So tell me, you very upset persona, what did you learn that made you so agitato?”
“You’ll hate me when you hear about it.”
“I don’t hate you when you give me perfect spoilers. Cut it, Parker. Tell me about it.”
I’ve been trying to search for my mom, ever since ... ever since Sandra died. And her last words started to haunt my every living moment.
“Your mother is alive, Laura” Her raspy, out-of-breath voice sounded in my ears and I shivered.
“I will tell you all about it,” I told Alex “if you explain me your last diary entry, Hernandez.”
“Oh that?” I could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Well,” he looked at me, sending butterflies fluttering “I figured you’ll run if I told you in person, so I decided to leave it around, knowing it will catch your eye. I was right.” He smirked. “Now tell me what Mr. Parker told you.”
With a shiver, I recalled my dad’s exact words. I’ve never seen him turn so cold. “Yes Laura, your mother indeed is alive. But if you value your own sanity and Alex’s life, since your own means nothing to you, consider this chapter closed. She’ll destroy you.”
“Hmmm. But wait. My life? Why me and not anyone else? I mean I’m not complaining that it’s me, but didn’t you prod him further?”
I shook my head. “He was just so unbelievably ... cold.” My voice broke and I started sobbing again. Alex’s grip on my arms tightened. “Don’t take this in the wrong way, but I hate your family, Parks, I really do.” I could hear the steel in his voice.
“Why?” I blurted out, still sobbing.
“Because each one of them treats you like shit. It’s like you’re nothing but a trophy-daughter. They don’t even bother to try to know you better. Laura ...” his voice dropped to a caress “you say all the time that you’re fucked up, that you are incapable of loving anyone, you’re just a shell of a person. I know otherwise. Just trust me this once, you do love me. I know you’re afraid to leap, but I’m here. I’m not going to even Tartarus without you.”
I did not reply, just hid my face in his chest, taking in large whiffs of Calvin Klein Eternity, petrichor and sea – the Alex smell.
Damn. I was blessed. I knew my world changed on that day in Physics II, but now that I come to appreciate it, it’s really a long way from here. If anything, he has made me love myself, not pity. And I loved him, too. I should probably tell him that. I shifted a bit in our embrace and felt him change posture too. I raised my eyes to his stormy ones and said, in a clear, coherent voice after a long time, “Alex?”
“Yes?”
“I love you.”
“Well that’s good, because I love you too.”
And somehow, his nonchalant attempt at humour made me crack up. Before I knew, I was laughing, freely, in a long time. Alex looked at me like I’ve lost my mind. Then he swooped down and kissed me.
That cut me off effectively.
I’ve read about kisses. Although you’ll never find me admitting this again, but I do read trash, after all, I’m only human. So I thought I theoretically knew how it’ll feel like.
I was wrong.
His mouth claimed mine, pouring all the pent-up frustration and longing in the kiss. I kissed him back hungrily, and for a long time, we were just sensations. When both of us came up for air, he kissed my lower lip, his eyes growing visibly darker.
“Say you love me again, Parks.” He commanded hoarsely.
“I do. I love you Alex.” I could barely recognise my husky tone.
We sat like that, frozen in that moment before my stomach rumbled and ruined the things pretty much.
“Let’s get you home. I take it you skipped all the meals today?”
“Pretty much, yes.” I admitted sheepishly.
When we got into the car, Alex switched on the heater and warmth flooded the air.
“So do you plan to look for your mother?”
“I’m not sure. Lots of bad blood I guess. It’s not like she was there for me so long, so does it really matter now?”
“Parks, I know just how much you hate that void in your memory. That’s your Achilles heel. If you don’t start now, the trail will go cold, and you’ll regret it. I know you’re not Miss Murple, you don’t go looking for your past every day, I know it’s not easy for you to learn that you’ve believed in a lie for so long; so that’s why, I suggest we should start somewhere. You’ll probably hate my guts right now, but you won’t regret it, I have a strong hunch. So, what’s your call?”
“Yes” I nodded my head in agreement. “Let’s do this.”
Alex eyes gleamed with what-the-hell-burn-the-boats light as he looked at me.
Then I suddenly heard a screech of tires, and felt a terrible tremor. Then the world went black.
Watch out for Impasse Chapter 2; coming soon!
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