My Eyes On You

Hate

She was starting to enjoy this lying thing. On the train trip to Early Winter, she engaged in a lively conversation with an elderly woman with a friendly face.

“I‟m a freshman in college,” she said. “I‟m going back home for a week because I miss my parents.”

What fun! The

woman didn‟t even know the difference.

She stepped off the train and headed for the town‟s main street. Cars were buzzing along, and the street was alive with activity.

In that moment, Leah felt the greatest rush of excitement and the biggest feeling of freedom that she had ever had in her life. She was here alone, and quite possibly, no one knew that she was here.

She wanted to fall to the concrete and kiss the ground. She wandered the streets for a couple of hours, and then decided to call Christie. She found out that her parents had discovered her missing and had been praying for

her safe return. Again, Leah didn‟t know what to do.

She was so close to freedom, but realistically, she didn‟t have any money or any place to stay. She gave her

friend the permission to tell her parents where she was, and ten minutes later, they picked her up and brought her to their

house to stay the night.

It had been a short rendezvous

with freedom, but to Leah, it was worth it. Her mother was in furious tears when she arrived to pick her up. They had the loudest, most passionate argument that they had ever had right there in her friend‟s living room.

Her mother, Connie, dragged her back home by force. Leah felt disoriented and dazed as they made the five-hour drive back to Hopeville, Minnesota. She realized, as they were driving, that she had only missed a couple of days of

school.

In the coolness of early Fall, Leah lay in the hammock in their backyard, looking up at the tops of the Ponderosa Pine trees. Serene, plump clouds were floating amidst a deep blue sky. Despite the growing tumult within the family, at that moment, Leah felt one of the greatest feelings of peace that she had ever had.

At school, they treated her differently. They didn‟t make fun of her or tease her anymore. They weren‟t any more friendly, either, but Leah was satisfied that she had, at least, gotten a little bit more respect.

She thought about Brendan on a constant basis, but by now she had little awareness of it because it was so

automatic that it was practically subconscious.

She wrote him letters. Long, emotional outpourings. Every two weeks, she sent him one. Of course, she never

got a reply. Sometimes she sent him letters; sometimes she sent other things—like pictures.

He must have thought she was insane, but she didn‟t care.

She turned to food to comfort her. She didn‟t like to eat around other people; she considered it a highly

personal activity. She hoarded food in her room, and ate

when her parents weren‟t home or weren‟t looking.

She didn‟t gain weight, however, but amazingly retained her underweight figure. One night, while her parents were at a concert, she looked in the cupboards for some crackers and stumbled upon

some liquor bottles, instead. She pulled one out, opened the top, and sniffed it. She winced.

She had never been drunk in her life; and the only time she had ever had a taste of liquor was in the ninth grade, prior to her meeting with Brendan and her

psychiatrist. Nevertheless, she decided to pour herself a glass.

Taking just small amounts from each bottle, she mixed and matched her own custom-made drink. It proved to be enough. She drank quickly and it

burned going down. Sitting in front of the television downstairs in the den, she watched a Snoop Doggy Dog video,

“Gin and Juice,” when it hit.

She felt like she was swimming in water, and it was the best song she had ever

heard in her life. The room swayed as she lifted her arms and rocked from side to side, dancing to the music, savoring this wonderful, new sensation.

She thought about calling her friends, but thought better of it. She was mindful of her state. By the time her parents got home that night, she was

in the bathroom, vomiting. Thankfully, they didn‟t hear her.

She told her mother that she was sick, and her mother made her some chicken broth and sent her to bed. Leah

wobbled up the stairs and down the hall to her bedroom.

In the middle of the night, she woke up famished. She reached for the chicken broth beside her bed, but it was

cold and lumpy. She nearly vomited again.

In the morning, she had her first hangover. She wasn‟t accustomed to feeling this terrible. But even through her sickness, she knew that she would drink again.

She didn‟t do it every night; that would be too

obvious.

Her parents would surely see that alcohol had been taken from the bottles.

But every couple of weeks, she drained enough of the stinging liquid to make her feel dizzy and disconnected from the world.

When she was drunk, she didn‟t care that she didn‟t have any friends here. She felt alive; she felt free.Outside, Leah had the presence of quiet courage and

silent strength. She held her head high, spoke with intelligence, and was much more reserved than most of the girls her age.

But inside, she was seething with hatred. When once her object of hostility was limited only to Brendan and a small group of his friends, now it spilled over to practically any person who dared cross her path in any kind of spiteful way.

Before going to school in the morning, Leah would fill her thermos with liquor from the liquor cabinet. During her free periods, she would sit in the stairwell, sip her undiluted drink, and listen to her

headphones as she glared at the students passing by.

People had thought that she was egotistical; now, they were right. Leah felt a sense of unmatchable superiority

towards the others—especially those who had once teased and made fun of her. She hated them with a passion, and once more, she began to have homicidal fantasies.

She would pin her hair up and use a hairnet so that no stray hairs would be left behind. She would shoplift a pair of shoes from the local Wal-mart, use them, then throw them in a distant dumpster.

She would wipe her fingerprints from the bullets before she used them, and

make sure to wear gloves. She would use a silencer. She would walk to the

victim‟s house, break in through the bedroom window, and kill her while she slept.

While she sat, listened to music, and drank, she thought about the various considerations that would need to be made if she were to decide to finally use her g*n.

Thoughts of Jeremy consumed her. He had been the only person in her life who had really understood her. They talked on the phone every night for hours, sharing their deepest, most personal thoughts.

After Jeremy, Leah had never been able to find a friend that measured up to the

love and understanding that he had given her.

He had never thought that she was strange. He had never once made fun of her, or made her feel like she was

irrepairably different from the others.

They shared a relationshipship that was never duplicated.

Leah had one friend in Hopeville. Her name was

Camelia and she was a swimmer. When Leah first met her, she thought that she was homeless. Her hair was dirty and

so were her clothes. She asked where she lived and she was vague about it.

They went to a restaurant downtown one day after school and ordered grilled cheese with tomato. Camelia asked her, “Do you like it here?”

Leah responded, “What‟s not to like?”

Camelia had not picked up on the sarcasm. She didn‟t have any other friends, but that suited Leah just fine.

Every day, she was growing to hate the people of Hopeville more and more.