THE JOURNEY OF SHEIRA HART

50 | She Cries Math

I froze on my feet as the alarm continued to blare and I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to move because I might trigger other alarm sounds. And I guess the first alarm was enough to send Loren out of the house, running, with a baseball bat in her hands. She was screaming while running in my direction. She looked fierce and she looked like she will never hesitate to whoop my ass if only she sees me. But she passed by me and started swinging the baseball bat in the air.

“Go away. Go away you evil spirits. I won’t allow you here. Well, of course for Sheira but others are not allowed,” she said as she continuously swung the bat in the air. I looked at her in confusion and confusion was replaced with laughter as I watched her brandishing the baseball bat.

I looked at the grass where Loren probably placed some kind of detector. I just sighed and turned to her who was already panting. She then looked at the time on her wrist and groaned. “These motherfuckers just don’t learn,” she said and swung the bat again before she tossed it over her elbow. I don’t remember Loren being this violent. And I certainly didn’t hear her mutter a curse before.

She walked back to her house and sneaked one last time before closing the door.

But one thing I remember about Loren though is that she is so funny. Among us, she’s the one who makes us laugh even as she did it intentionally or not. It was something she was skilled at.

I was still standing there, frozen as I clamped my lips not to laugh. But I couldn’t hold it in until I burst into tears with laughter. I haven’t laughed so hard in my entire life. And Loren was the only one who could do that even if she couldn’t see me.

I wiped the tears in my eyes as I continued laughing on my own. But the tears kept streaming down my face until I realized I was already crying.

“That one was so good, Loren,” I muttered before I let myself sat on the grass and didn’t stop myself from crying. This might be to make up for all those times I didn’t feel anything. For all those times that I wasn’t able to cry or couldn’t cry. This might be the bottled-up emotions I had recently too. You may think ghosts don’t have feelings, you’re wrong. I feel just like how I did when I was still alive. I still feel happy, I still feel sad. The only difference is that people can’t see ghosts (only some), that ghosts could fly and watch flashbacks like a movie, and get superpowers. I mean it isn’t that bad. But if I am going to choose, I would love for the two to coexist. That would be awesome.

I wiped the tears on my cheeks and stood up. I looked up to the second floor where I could an open window. That was Loren’s room. So I willed myself to fly and floated in front of the window. I could see her sneaking a peek at the crevice of her window, looking down on the front yard. I sighed. She doesn’t even know that the ghosts she almost swung her bat into are now in front of her window. I looked at her table and I could see her books and notebooks.

Among the three of us, Loren is someone who loves studying very much. There was never a test in school that she didn’t ace. She’s someone who’s just naturally smart and if I spend an entire hour solving the problem, she could finish the whole homework in that time and would even have a little spare for review. She is someone like that.

I sat on the roof and rested my chin on the back of my hand as I watch her trying to get her focus on the homework in front of her. She didn’t even have to stare long as she started writing the answers right away. And based on the writings in the book, she was doing math.

Math is something I loathed with every fiber of my being. See, I can remember that. I can remember useless things and forget the important ones. Like I said before life wouldn’t give it to me that easily. I wonder if that’s how they coined the sentence ‘Life is a bitch.’

I remember Loren to be someone who is insanely good at math. I remember going to the house often. It was probably why I could still remember her house despite me having lost all the memories I have. The window was foggy. It was probably from the dust or the fog or perhaps the mixture of rain and dust dried up. But I could still see the inside of her room. It was like before. The bed was in the same position. The bedside table with a picture frame on it—us. Above her bed was a window which is unlike mine, it doesn’t catch up too much sunshine and she has this thick curtain. Her closet was just a meter away from the bed and it was white when I remembered it but now it is cream-colored. Her study table is just position where she could easily the front yard where she kept on glancing, probably waiting for the alarm to sound again. But of course, it wouldn’t sound again as I am already up here watching her like a creep. And then I saw how her shoulders went down. As if disappointed. I don’t remember her being interested in paranormal stuff.

I have always wondered how the people who knew me were doing after I died. I have always wondered if they were crying or what. I saw them cry at my funeral. I saw them all cry. But after that, it was like they have slowly accepted the reality that I am dead and that they are never going to see me again. People really do move on. And I am happy about it. In fact, that’s what I wanted them to do. I mean, I can’t let them mourn all their life. They might get sad at some point if ever I get randomly mentioned at a certain occasion and they’ll realize I wasn’t there anymore. But that would be it. The pain is still there, maybe. But I hope they’ll get to talk about me without them being too sad about it.

I guess moving on is a human’s way of dealing with painful things. Accepting reality is something that they learn to master over time. Letting go doesn’t mean forgetting. Letting things happen beyond your control is accepting. It is what it is. And you can’t do anything but accept it. Even if how painful it is.

Loren’s door opened and her mom took a peek. She was saying something to Loren to which Loren just answered with a nod. I couldn’t do lip-reading so I don’t know what they were saying. Then her mother handed her the keys. The same keys with the coconut tree keychain. And I knew right away Loren’s mom is going somewhere and won’t be back for a while. Loren stood up and went to the door to hug her mom. Her mom kissed her head in return. Loren is an only child and whenever her mom’s out, she invites me over. We live in the same town so it’s quite near. With my bike, it would only take fifteen minutes. We’ve been friends since we were kids when she decided to offer me math tutorials one day. We were first-graders and she saw me drawing some numbers on the ground while the children were playing. She then came up behind me, saw the numbers, and said that all my answers were wrong and that I am very terrible at Math. She doesn’t know when to close her mouth and that time made me even feel terrible at myself.

Perhaps she realized it as she offered to tutor me every Saturday. Maybe to make herself feel better or maybe she was too disturbed with how wrong I got all operations done so she had the urge to correct me.

Either way, I was thankful she did. I would have never met someone like her. She wasn’t just a friend. But she was a sister.

And when she closed the door and walked back to her study table. She waited for her mother’s car to drive away until she started sobbing in front of her Math homework.

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