The Sad Side of Happy

7: listen

ELISA GENTLY CLOSED THE book and placed it back in her satchel. Another stubborn tear escaped from her eye. She didn’t bother wiping but allowed it to stream slowly down the mounts of her cheeks until it dropped from her chin. She was at Garve cliff again, sitting on the ground, but away from the edge of the cliff.

Reading the book felt like talking to Marc Khader in person—she could feel his presence, as if he was right in front of her, reading to her the words he would most likely never tell her. She knew that. She was aware Marc was never going to look at her the way he did three years ago—when they called each other best friends who agreed about having a platonic relationship until they died. It was stupid. They both were.

The sixteen-year-old Marc Khader would’ve dropped on his knees and begged for her to stop crying because it made her look ugly. But Marc Khader was no longer sixteen; he was already nineteen, and blatantly honest with whatever he was thinking. And had amnesia.

Elisa couldn’t stop herself from thinking about her Dad. Growing up, Marc and her were tied to the hip and walked side-by-side and elbow-to-elbow, never separating. When puberty started to hit her, the separation with Marc gradually started, too. Her Dad always pulled her away from Marc because her Dad thought he was dangerous, a.k.a. a bad influence. 

Until now, the memory of Tyra telling her that James P. Ridley—the only person who wasn’t fond of Marc—had died due to a car accident that could never be erased. Every day she would always recall that night when they got the news.

Tyra had rushed to their front porch, phone in her hand, and was knocking non-stop on their door. Elisa was fifteen, and alone. Her parents had divorced three years ago, when she was twelve, and ever since then, her Dad would visit every weekend to spend time with her and Beth, her younger sister.

“Kat, open the goddamn door!” Tyra had screamed at midnight. “Kat! Kat!” 

Elisa’s mother rushed to the door clad in nothing but a blue nightgown. Tyra looked like a mess, was freezing, and had dead-looking, pale lips. “What in”—she opened the door quickly—“god’s name are you yelling about at such an ungodly hour, Ty—”

Elisa slowly crept on the stairs, careful and deliberate with her steps. Beth followed her footpaths and sat behind her with curious eyes. 

“Kat, it’s Sandra on the phone—dear God, help us—” she spoke hastily and passed the phone to Kat.

“What’s going on?” Kat asked, “Why is Tyra — what? I can’t hear you — where are you? Why is it so loud — Sandra, will you please calm down and tell me what is going on?”

“They found him,” Tyra hushed. “He’s dead. He’s dead.” She dropped to her knees and yelled the same thing over and over again until she yanked her hair that Kat had to put some sense on her.

“Hey, hey!” Kat yelled. She was now in tears, as well. Both women, attached to James in different ways. One, a desperate ex-wife, the other, a childhood best friend who felt apologetic. Elisa didn’t understand what happened but she knew something was wrong. She felt her heart constrict at the sound of Tyra repeatedly saying her Dad’s name and the word ‘dead’ in the same sentence. 

“Tyra, get up, please! Help me out!” Kat rushed upstairs—past a confused Elisa and Beth—and changed in decent clothes, and then went back down with a coat. She handed the coat to Tyra, instructed her to wear it, and rushed to run the car’s engine. Everything happened so fast.

The last thing Elisa heard was her Mom telling her to lock the doors, close the windows, and wait for her to come home.

“Ridley? That you?”

Elisa jumped and said, “No! I’m sorry I shouldn’t be here — we shouldn’t be here. Forget you saw me.”  She quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and cheeks, looked down to the floor, tried to walk past the stranger, but came to a halt when she felt a light grip on her left arm stopped her.

“You crying?” Elisa recognized the voice. She swatted his hand away, buried her face in her hands, dropped to the floor, and just burst to tears then. ‘Why did it have to be him?’ she thought. Elisa’s shoulders were shaking uncontrollably.

“I’m just — just here,” Marc awkwardly said, and patiently waited for her to cease crying. Elisa cried until her relentless crying turned into hushed tones. She stole a glimpse at Marc and found him sitting beside her, looking straight ahead.

Marc gave a tight-lipped smile, still looking ahead. “You good?”

Elisa sniffed and nodded at the same time. “I’m sorry you had to see—”

“Stop.”

Elisa just sniffed again, trying so desperately to hide her embarrassment. “How come you’re here?”

“Followed you,” he said in a matter-of-factly tone Elisa didn’t miss it.

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise but she quickly changed her expression into a frown. “What, why?”

“Because f**k this,” he muttered, gathering all his confidence to say the next big thing. “Worried you — you would’ve done it.”

“Do what?”

He stared at the edge of the cliff.

“Oh,” she drawled.

“So,” Marc spoke, slicing the thick atmosphere between them. “I’m not stupid. Let it out.”

She sighed. “Just remembered my Dad.”

“Miss him?”

Elisa nodded.

“Is he here?”

No. Silence.

“Oh.” 

Then, she felt him shift closer to her. This happened every time. It was as if he was always testing boundaries. Always too close, but never a hair’s breadth close. Not that she minded because she didn’t at all...he made her feel safe.

Another long pause before she continued, “He died in a car accident. He was driving and there’s always this drunk driver who causes all these kinds of stories.” She paused. “I don’t know if the other person lived or not. It was a distant relative of ours, I guess, or a friend of Dad’s. My Mom told me it was a friend of Dad’s. I don’t know where he is now.”

Marc coughed and clicked his tongue. He wanted to talk to her in complete sentences that would make sense and bring back the life in her. He was feeling rather exasperated that he couldn’t let her understand that he empathized with her. But his mind was still a mess, and he stuttered with his words. “Have you tried asking — your Mom about it — again?” he asked. “Perhaps by now, she — she has heard of that — well, the other man.”

Elisa shook her head, again. “From what I heard, he didn’t survive. I don’t know. But my Mom, we aren’t really in speaking terms,” she replied and wiped her tears. “She’s in London now and remarried. The only communication I ever have with her is one-sided—seeing her face in news articles online, reading whatever intellectual thing she says—she probably had them written by a ghostwriter. She’s never tried contacting me nor my legal guardians. She left us—my sister and me.”

“What an asshole,” he said.

Elisa laughed, humorlessly. “I guess that’s just the way it is. My Mom divorced Dad two years before the accident. We stayed with Mom because she was capable of taking care of us. I figured Dad came that day of the accident to pick Beth and me because we were finally going to move in with him. After all, he got himself a job with better pay than Mom. But she didn’t allow us to go with him. He died later that night. The plans changed. And unfortunately, none of the adults ever thought of plan B. So my Dad’s brother took us in because she left the next day.”

There was a brief pause. “Is that why you’re here?” he asked, slowly to refrain from stuttering.

“I’m not supposed to be here, Marc,” she replied, “I thought this camp would help me forget my Mom and accept that I lost my Dad, but staying here — it just makes the longing even more difficult to control.” ‘Especially when you’re here,’ she thought. ‘I missed you, Marc. Where have you been all my life? What unfortunate events have you gone through that put you in here?’ But she couldn’t say that anymore.

He nodded his head. “That sucks,” he replied.

She chuckled lightly. “And even when I’m surrounded by people who are willing to help, I still feel so alone. I feel empty.”

It felt like a repeat in history—when she all but stared at the water, as if it were speaking to her, welcoming her, and she was more than willing to enter. She hated it. When two birds didn’t know how to fly, none of them could help lift the other.

“I guess, you wouldn’t understand. But that’s okay. If we’re not on the same boat, maybe we’re in the same sea,” she said, lowly. Her eyes dropped to the scar on his arm. He sighed. “Is it okay if — er, may I ask about—”

Marc laughed, nodding. “I don’t remember much,” he said. “There was a drunk driver, too. But my — friend, he died. Didn’t — didn’t have a driver’s license. I was a passenger. No footage so we — we couldn’t investigate.”

“f**k drunk drivers.”

“Agree.”

She looked down at his scar. “I’m listening, Marc. Always.”

“Always,” Marc replied in a sad tone. And they continued watching the water ahead of them. “I’m just here.”

She smiled at him, even when he wasn’t looking at her. 

“Glad you are,” she replied.

A week and a half later

Five community services and eight therapy sessions after—which lasted for three and four hours, respectively—Elisa had finally decided to take a two-day break and did outdoor activities such as trekking and team building. Elisa and Marc took turns doing the community services, deciding it was better if they didn’t work together since their schedules differed from one another. Marc’s free time which was the rest of the day after the lunch break, consisted of him doing some volunteer work in support groups thrice a week. The rest of the days, he’s either attending sessions, sleeping, or reading.

Elisa had a different itinerary—Support Group meetings, therapy, and some unnecessary indoor exercise for the mind. Elisa had her suspicions over Sullivan—who plotted her schedule—thinking he did her schedule on purpose so it wouldn’t match with Marc’s. When Marc was free, she was busy, and vice versa. She wasn’t exactly happy with this arrangement and it was evident.

When Elisa opened the cabin door to Tyra’s office, she was surprised to see Sullivan sitting behind Tyra’s desk—instead of her—heaps of paper and files scattered in front of him. He looked at her beneath his thick-rimmed eyeglasses and scrunched his nose. 

“Can I help you with something, Elisa?” he spoke and looked down, attention back to whatever he was doing.

“Good day, sir,” she spoke, “I’m looking for Tyra, is she here?” Elisa never understood why Tyra thought highly of the person behind the desk. Sullivan was aging, the wrinkles on his forehead stood out whenever he brushed his hair up. He was always clad in slacks, his long-sleeved shirt tucked inside them, and he wore a white coat that reached up above his knees over his usual getup.

Sullivan looked professional today, Elisa couldn’t help but show respect. “She went outside,” he replied and proceeded to type on his laptop.

“Oh, okay,” Elisa drawled and looked around the office. “Do you mind if I stay here for a while? I’ll just wait.”

“Do as you please,” he responded, still typing on his laptop. Elisa approached the sofa that was situated across Tyra’s desk and sat. She noticed there were extra desks in the far left corner of the room, and wondered whose desks they were.

“I’m working on Tyra’s unfinished reports because she’s unable to do them as of the moment. They’re all due tomorrow. Quite a busy woman, you see,” he said. Sullivan noticed Elisa fidgeting on her seat and paused from his noisy typing. 

“Shall I get you a glass of water?” he asked, formally, already standing up.

Elisa coughed, awkwardly. “No, I’m okay, sir.”

“Well, I’m already pouring you a glass,” he said, “might as well take it.” He passed the cup of cold water to Elisa with ease, sat back down on the chair, and proceeded with his work. She muttered gratitude. Elisa remembered when she spoke harshly of Sullivan and made false accusations about him pleasing himself in the forest. She blushed furiously, ashamed she spoke lowly of the man who had existed longer than her in this world.

His phone rang once, and he glanced at it. “What brings you here today, if I may ask, Elisa?” he spoke, “It seems that Tyra would be unavailable until after supper. Can I help you with anything?”

“I wanted to make some minor changes with my schedule,” Elisa said. “My therapist told me to take a two-day break from the sessions and community service so I can volunteer in outdoor activities.”

“You should’ve told me that was what you came here for,” he said. “I can process that for you.”

Elisa wanted to scoff but bit her tongue and gave him a tight-lipped smile instead. ‘You sure can,’ she thought, ‘after all, you’re the one who processed my schedule.’ She handed Sullivan her itinerary of the week and waited patiently for him to finish.

“Let’s see,” he hummed. “Unfortunately, we cannot postpone your therapy sessions for two days since you have to take at least three hours of it each day—it’s written in the program, are you aware of it?”

“I am,” she replied, “but can’t we transfer it to another day?”

“We can, but you’d have to sit and talk for six hours for two days,” Sullivan replied, chuckling lightly. “Do you want that?”

“Absolutely not,” she chorused, then muttered an apology. They were silent for a moment, Sullivan was thinking, but Elisa had an idea already. “I’ll attend Support Group meetings twice for two days, will that be an okay substitute?”

Sullivan thought about it for a moment. Elisa attended the afternoon meetings since she rendered community services in the morning. But when Sullivan made a quick search on the number of hours she has rendered, he was surprised to see that she only had two hours left to complete. “Have you been busy with service?” he asked, suspicious.

Elisa lied. It was Marc Khader who did the hard work between the both of them. She nodded and said, “I think I can join Support Group at 9 am—”

“—to see the Khader boy, is that it?” Sullivan chorused, a sly smile dangling on his lips. Of course, he knew Marc Khader attended the morning meetings. “I may not know you but Tyra has warned me about your Khader tendencies.”

Shocked, Elisa looked everywhere but Sullivan’s eyes. 

“I’m only allowing you to attend morning meetings because you’ve been diligent with therapy,” he said and typed furiously into his laptop. Elisa beamed in glee. “How are you, so far?” He continued looking at his screen as he typed.

“So far so good,” she replied with a natural grin. Sullivan had never seen that kind of look plastered on her features. For the first time, he wanted to tell Tyra about this moment—how a minor change in her schedule so she could see Marc Khader lightened her world; how attached she was to him no matter how indifferent he was of her existence. It felt unfair, to Sullivan, but he understood how things seemed the way they were—no matter how hard they tried to change it, no matter how hard he tried to separate the two.

It seemed like there was nothing anyone could do about it—Elisa and Marc were destined to meet again, no matter the circumstances.

“May I ask how long has he been here?” she asked timidly.

Sullivan paused from his incessant typing to look her in the eye. “Long enough. He’s close to finishing his term,” he replied. Elisa didn’t seem bothered with his statement. Perhaps, she didn’t understand that it meant Marc was going away, and there was a chance she wasn’t going to see him ever again. But he didn’t tell her that, of course.