Leanna Dwayne
thought she cared about everybody constantly, but in fact she was just caring about one person and that person was herself. Indeed, all she ever did, and all she’ll ever do in the future would be for her own satisfaction and her own personal happiness. She created an illusion and a new girl out of herself. She believed that she was a good person and made everybody believe it , except one tiny tiny little human: Diana Bowen. She was probably the only teenager who didn't care about how good she was looking or how perfect she was acting around people. Although, she wasn’t even noticing herself in this big old world. The sun could burn her skin and her eyes , she wouldn’t care more. Slowly, by growing up in a society that was screwing her mind up, she developed a majestic sense of observation. She looked at things in a way nobody else ever did. She could see fear in the most confident person on earth. Not only could she notice everything, but she could also fix them. She was and still is the best person i’ve ever known. She was as calm as a fox. Never did she over react after an important problem or an important accident. I admired her, but she probably never knew that. I remember she never let people talk her down. I remember one day, the most popular girl at school Hayley Collins came to talk to her. Hayley looked at Diana like she was lower than the ground. She, and her dumb friends, started to abase her. Obviously a normal teenager being humiliated in front of the entire school would never respond to that kind of bullying. But Diana was no normal teenager. She responded to Hayley, she pushed her away with her words and humiliated her back using the most unexpected sentences anyonee could ever use to abase somebody. Nobody talked about that story or to Diana anymore after that day. She became the loner of the school. I only talked to her once, but it was enough for me to fall completely in love with her. We talked for hours, and it was the first, only and last time I spoke with Diana. She was sitting alone on the same bench in the same park on a Saturday morning. She had a book in her hands, and headphones to her ears. There was a tiny muffin next to her black old handbag and a tall coffee between her skinny legs. I was sitting on a bench in front of her. She looked at me everytime she started to read, and everytime she stopped. In fact, it was becoming a habit. It was like an awkward date: we couldn’t talk to each other or touch each other; just see each other and share a few glances. People were passing around on this small alley that seemed to be as huge as the Brooklyn Bridge, separating the two of us.
Diana, she was liberating so many innocence in this sanctuary of lost souls. Just by looking at her , we could’ve known that she was good. The first time i saw her, it was at the exact same place she always sat. I was captivated by that strange creature. I sat on the same bench i’m sitting on at this moment and pretended to wait for someone. And God, she was gorgeous. Her long smooth brown hair was covering the right side of her face and still, i could imagine how perfect it was. She had big brown hazel eyes which plunged us into a deep and dark mystery. An aquiline nose was the axis of symmetry of her pale face. She sure didn’t smile often, but when she did, it was the biggest light ray of the room. Those little dimples either side of her magnificent and luscious lips always gave me chills from my toes to the top of my neck. The desire to kiss her everytime i looked at her was slowly killing me. I couldn’t keep it inside. I couldn’t keep it quite. I had to let it out at one point or another. So, everytime i was alone, i wrote about her. Just like today. I’m writing about her, because everything inside me is pushing my body closer to her’s. She doesn’t know me, she doesn’t know i exist. I just hope one day she’ll notice that it’s always the same boy sitting behind her at the library, always the same boy sitting on the bench in front of her at the park, always the same boy thinking about how he’ll make her fall in love with him.
To come back to Leanna Dwayne, Diana was the only one who knew the real Leanna. She knew everything. She knew that the poor girl was lying about her family. Her family, as she said, was «the richest family of the city». Actually, her father had cheated on her mother a few years ago. Her mother, Alessandra Hammers, decided to leave him and to take all his money and children with her to San Francisco. Here, they started a new life. Even though her family was teared up, she still affirmed that she had the perfect domesticity. But that kind of trouble in the life of a young girl always involves a few complications. After noticing the stretch marks on her legs and arms, Diana concluded that Leanna used to be bulimic. By and large, Leanna Dwayne was fake. And I guess i did a good thing breaking up with her. Indeed, i dated her about a year ago. And, it ended up pretty bad. No matter what i did, it was never good enough. My self confidence slowly decreased after my younger sister was diagnosed with bone marrow cancer 3 years ago. It was a hard time. At first, her bones would break with a simple fall. Then she had to stay at the hospital. That was when she lost all of her beautiful blond hair. Slowly, she stopped walking because her bones were too fragile; the doctor allowed her to move in the hospital in a wheel chair. But quickly, that wheel chair wasn’t necessary anymore. She couldn’t move, she couldn’t even raise an arm to grab a cup of water. Our weekends were just stays at the hospital, sleeping between two strangers in the waiting area and eating whatever there was at the cafeteria. This went on for two years and it started to become a habit. Until one day , my parents and I got a call from the hospital saying Danielle had to be taken to the O.R immediatly. She passed out trying to go to the bathroom. Her body wasn’t strong enough to carry her little person 10 feet away from her bed. She had lost almost 25 pounds right after she started the chemotherapy. She looked like a toothpick, like dad would say. Unfortunately, there were complications and she did not survive. It’s been a year now that my baby sister is gone. But i feel fine even though i miss her everyday. All i can do is write about her. Surprisingly, Leanna came to the funeral and held my hand throughout it the whole time. It was kind of unexpected from her after the way i dumped her (she kept saying she was the one who dumped me, but was that really important? ). Anyway, since i’ve lost my sister, apparently i’m a thousand times more interesting than before. But i didn’t care about other girls. The only one i cared about didn't care about me.
She never talked about herself. She was Diana Bowen, nobody knew her, abutnd at the same time, everybody did. She was the mysterious weird girl who had books as friends and people as distractions. Some people said she was going through a 17 year old crises. Others said she was just alone and anti-sociable. However, she was the one i wanted. I didn’t know her, but i fell in love with her and her way to simply be a human being.
It was a lazy saturday morning when i talked to her for the first and last time. She was still there, sitting the same way she always does, with the same tiny muffin, the same old black handbag, and the same old coffe. The library was usually full at this time of the day but that day, it felt like it was just her and me. She was sitting at a table, and i was sitting behind her, as usual. Suddenly she stood up to get a new book. From the top of my big newspaper, i noticed that she needed some help with the book she wanted to grab because it was too high for her. As a gentlemen, i immediatly jumped off of my wooden chair and helped her. That was when i heard her voice for the first time; and God it was enchanting. It felt as a caress to my ears. I guess it just made me want to hear her talking about anything and everything all day long. I could’ve listened to her for the rest of my life without ever getting bored or less fulfilled. The simplest «Thank you gentleman» from her absolutely made my day. After she thanked me, she got back to what she was doing. And i tried to do the same, but i immediatly promised myself that it wasn’t going to be the last word i’ll hear from Diana. So i took my courage with both hands and headed to her table. I though about it twice in my head. What if she didn’t want to be bothered. What if my kindness and politeness was just about to make her hate me. Somehow my courage ran away with my audacity and i sat back on my wooden chair. I remember that feeling. The feeling you get when you feel dumb and disappointed in your own person. You just want to hide yourself in the closet or under the table for thinking about the idea of doing it. Lucky me, nobody saw that embarrassing move; except her. When she was done reading, she came to my table and sat in front of me. The silence reigned. I tried to act like she wasn’t there, in front of me. She had a strand of hair hiding again her forehead and she was holding a book called «Beautiful Creatures». She was starring at me. And i was just raising mine a little higher to cover my face. It was one of those embarrassing moments when all you really want to do is get up and run away. Sincerely, my body wanted to, but then i though about it twice, and maybe it was the chance to try my luck:
Me: Excuse me, can i help you with something?
Diana: You were comming to talk to me, and finall decided not to. Why?
Me: Well, i hum.. just realized that you probably have absolutely no idea who i am and that it would be pretty awkward for you to have a stranger come to talk to you.
Diana: I know who you are.
Me: You know who i am ?
Diana: Of course i do. You’re always sitting behind me at the library and you always get to sign up on the list of loans before me. And by the way, whenever you leave, i check what book you borrowed because i think you have amazing tastes in books. And , you’re always sitting on the bench in front of me at the park every tuesday, thursday and saturday morning. Not to mention that you’re Ryan Carpenter, kind of the most popular boy at school, so.
Me: Diana Bowen, that’s a quite clear definition of myself. Hum, i just wanted to say hi.
Diana: Why?
Me: Hum, you read. Which attracts me. A lot. And girls who read a lot are starting to disappear, so i'm trying to get to know them better, because they're rare.
Diana: So are boys thought.. It's nice, thank you.
Me: Yeah..
(silence)
Diana: Aren’t you suppose to be the popular guy who hangs out with the basketball team and the popular girls at school? What the hell are you doing at the library talking to me ?
Me: For the same reason i wake up every saturday to sit at the park and read instead of hanging out with the «basketball team» (i don't even play basketball, i play football but that's not important). Anyway, just because all you see me doing is play football and hang out my team, doesn't mean it's the only thing i like to do.
She didn’t say anything after that, she just looked at me and smiled. And i looked at her and smiled. There was some kind of darkness in her eyes, just like something terrible had happened to her in the past few years. I was wondering what it could be. But how do you guess what happened in someone’s life just by looking at them. Nobody had ever done that and nobody ever will. Some may say that they can see it by the person’s way of being. Those person are just trying to pretend they’re intelligent, in fact they’re just naiv. After a few minutes of starring and awkward silence, she started talking. She started talking about everything and anything, about people around her and about how human beings could be so strange. She talked about the reactions they may have and the feelings they had that she couldn’t understand. She talked about rage, and love, about sadness and disappointment. She kept talking and talking. I was looking at her with an enormous smile on my face because she looked truly crazy. I don’t think she noticed that i was smiling. Because she had that strange look on her face called confusion. It was like she was talking to herself. I couldn’t say a thing lest i’d break her amazing momentum of openness. Then it got even more interesting. She started talking about rain. How she would just stand under it and feel the water on her body. How she wanted to feel it every day of the year.How it just made her feel free. She stopped talking after that. The whole time, she was playing with her manifold rings. Surprisely, she was acting like the complete opposite of how she was acting in the park, or at school. She couldn’t stop moving. She was excited. Excited for something, excited for adventure. I discovered another side of her. And it made me fall for her even more.
Of course, nobody knew she was the moon of my nights. Would the «amazing» Ryan Carpenter fall in love with a «loner», a «weirdo»? «Oh God no !»... See, i hate our society. It’s made of superficiality, of lies. It’s the worst mind the world has ever known. It’s stupid and naiv, and nobody, oh god nobody ,will ever understand why i feel the way i do about her. They won’t understand because they’re full of clichés and bullshit. Of course i’m not the only one who has an open-minded soul. Diana has too. She is full of butterflies and curiosity. She’s not scared of anything and she loves to go on adventures. It is rare to find people like this. And I guess i’m not letting her go.
Since i was a child, i was always the big brother, the responsible man of the family even when i was little. In a weird way, it has inked me. I have developed some kind of habit to always act like the big brother of the group or the person i get attached to. I’m over-protecting them. I over-think about all the possible ways to save them from falling apart or make mistakes. At first, i used to do all that with my sister. But then she got sick and died so i couldn’t anymore. I had to find another person to care about like my little sister or my little brother. That’s when i met Jules.
Jules is my best friend since my sister passed away. Again, people think it’s impossible for a boy and a girl to be best friend without having any feelings for each other. It’s a cliché. And we decided to show the society how wrong they were. Jules is very, very excited all the time. She’s actually my opposite. She screams, and laughs loudly and runs and jumps everywhere. She’s very sporty just like me, but we really don’t have much in common. She hates reading and i love it. She hates libraries and i love them. She hates silence and i love it. And this goes on for a very long long time on a very long long list.
There are so many things tearing us apart but bringing us together at the same time. My head was full of love and her head was full of God knows what.
It was 6 months ago. Six months ago, i talked to her for the first time. She probably didn’t think about our conversation twice. Or maybe she did. But personally, I never felt so desperate for love. I felt lonely. I felt sad. Nobody understood me. I wanted to close my eyes and lay into her arms as the sun lays into the horizon; softly and slowly...
It’s been almost two years now since my baby sister passed out. I wonder where she is. Maybe she’s surrounded by pure peace, pure freedom. I wish i could be with her. I want to take care of her the way i used to, i miss it. She used to scream at me for telling her what to do. But i think she knew it was for her own good. She would break into my room while i was with my girlfriend just to tell me she was hungry ,then laugh out loud, and just leave. She was unpredictable, and unbelievable. And i miss her everyday. She was my reason to wake up in the morning. Now she’s gone and, i guess i don’t have any reasons to wake up anymore. I could just sleep forever.
It was a Wednesday morning. The city was just waking up and the rain had washed all of our problems away. It was a fresh morning of October. I was heading to the library in my old car which was apparently «vintage» and «classy» , like the «society» would say.. anyway. I was heading to the library and, i saw her. She was in her car, probably as old as mine. She was listening to some loud music and looking at the sky. I was looking at her as if i was looking at a star. She saw me. And her mouth opened a tiny bit. Just like she was shocked to see me. She opened her window and screamed:
- Are you following me?
- What?! No , i’m heading to the library.
- Okay, see you there.
She smiled at me and i smiled at her. I just told her "Yeah, see ya". And she started driving. She drove fast and carefully. With the windows down and the loud music going through her ears, feeling the wind blowing on her face.
When i got there, her car was already parked. I got in and looked at the entire room. But she wasn’t there. I checked the registry book, but her name wasn’t there either. I though maybe she got a book and went to the coffee shop next to the library where she often goes after the library. Once i figured out that she really wasn't there, I took a book from the «other books» section, and sat down. While I was reading quietly, I heard a cough. I looked around and saw two little feet barely showing behind a huge shelf. And there she was. Hiding from God-knows-what. Maybe she was hiding from me (or avoiding me). My mind went off as soon as i saw her and all i wanted to do was hold her in my arm because she looked so alone and so sad. But I knew she wasn't. She was too smart to be depressed. Depression was for weak people. She was strong, she was the strongest. She lived and loved and forgave and forgot. She was herself and didn’t care about what people thought about her. She didn’t care if i was crazy in love with her or if i completely hated her. She didn’t mind if i had thrown myself in front of a grenade for her or if i had thrown it at her own pretty face. She just didn’t care at all and she was happy this way. I wish i wouldn’t care so much about useless and pointless things. But i do.
...
The first day i went to the hospital, i saw a young boy without any hair on his big white head - he looked like my sister 6 months after she’d started the treatment. While the doctor was talking to my parents about chemo and medical stuff, i sat down next to him in the game area. He looked at me with his big eyes and asked me who i was, he must’ve been 4 or 5 years old, so i wanted to make him believe in something amazing for a 5 year old and told him I was the Angel of Waffles. He told me he loved waffles, i said my name was Ryan The Angel of Waffles and he then told me he was William The Waffle Lover. We started hanging out everytime i went to the hospital. And i brought him waffles every time. And every time i gave him waffles, he gave me in return an incredible smile, the kind of smile that could cure cancer - what an irony. A year after i met Will The Waffle Lover, he suddenly disappeared. When i asked the doctor where he was, he told me that he was gone. That's when I started to panic and asked everywhere where he was because i couldn’t understand. Actually, I understood but i didn’t want to believe it because i knew that a day will come and my sister will be gone too. Then the nurses calmed me down and gave me Williamt The Waffle Lover’s parents’s phone number. I immediatly called them and presented my condolences. Now, I bring a pack of home-made waffles every week to his parents so that they don’t forget me and I don’t forget him. It helped me hang on to something after my sister died and now i’m just doing it because it makes me happy. Of course, nobody knows about this except my mom because she’s the one who tought me how to bake waffles. The last time i went the The Waffle Lover’s house, i saw a painting in the garbage, it looked clean and nice so i took it. On the painting was painted the drizzle; and i noticed on the back of the painting a quote that said « nobody, not even the rain ». I didn’t know what it meant and i didn’t try to understand. It was on my mind constantly and i tried to relate it to my thoughts and my ideas. Soon i realized that i neither knew, nor liked, nor mattered to nobody, not even the rain. And I started to feel.