It was early morning, somewhere between the hours of "die, alarm" and "cup of coffee number six". I was hanging out in one of the labs modifying my C++ homework to run faster because yes, I am that much of a geek. I wasn't the only one there, which made my ultimate display of geekery somewhat less pathetic. The blonde guy in the far back corner was not someone with whom I was familiar, and he wasn't exactly what one would call sociable, but he was still another living, breathing human being, which made all the difference.
The lab was dark, the sun not yet having risen, and neither of us had bothered to turn on the overhead lights, basking in our own little sphere of light cast by the monitors in front of us. Class didn't start for another half hour, and if I was very lucky the program I was writing would stop looping, and I would have time to work on a poem that had been floating around in my head since I'd woken at around five that morning and was refusing to go away. There was something to be said for early morning existential crises, they make damn good depressing poetry. No doubt it would have some sort of vampire metaphor consciously or subconsciously intertwined into it -- I'd been spending too much time with Gabriel. That was all my life consisted of, it seemed. Work, go to school, have cryptic conversations with Gabriel that were layered with so many layers of psychosexual innuendo that neither of us could keep it all straight. I was sorely lacking anything that even resembled a stable relationship.
My half hour slipped away quickly, as time always does when one is trying to finish up last minute homework, and at nine exactly the rest of the class started trickling in. Gabe was in this class, as was Vira. I didn't want to see either of them, especially not knowing what the current status of their on-again/off-again relationship was. My guess was off. Gabriel's advances toward me had increased over the last few days, and the last two times I had called Kira's place, Vira had answered the phone.
Obviously I had very bad karma. "Carmin!" Vira squealed, tossing herself into the chair right beside mine.
"Hey, pretty girl," Gabriel murmured from my other side. I was directly in the middle of the two, and from the way they were pointedly avoiding each other's gaze, I had the feeling that all was not well.
"Hey, kids." I tried as best I could to keep the enthusiasm out of my voice, hoping that they'd get the hint and leave me alone to brood over my completely uninteresting life
"That's gonna loop on you," Vira told me, poking my screen with one long sparkly black fingernail.
"Yes, I know," I snapped. "It's been looping for the last half hour."
She frowned, and leaned over to get a better look. "OOO! No, no, no. What were you trying to do here? --Nope, these need to match. There, just like that." She typed quickly, altering my code into something completely incomprehensible to me. There really was a reason I was an Journalism major.
"Uh..." I stared at the screen. "Okay?"
Vira turned away, digging in her bag and giving a high-five to the guy who had just sat down beside her. I studied the code, trying to figure out what she had done. Finally, I gave up and stuck a comment in beside the changes.
/*If you can't figure out why I did that, you're an idiot*/
It worked, and would probably keep the prof silent long enough for me to grill Vira on answers so that I could explain it myself. Gabriel snorted when he read the comment.
"Someone's in a good mood," he said dryly.
I gave him the finger with my right hand as I opened MS. Word with the other. I was going to write this poem, even if I had to wear ear plugs and turn the monitor off to do it.
"I ran into Neil at Starbucks this morning," Gabe persisted, booting up.
"If I ignore you, will you disappear?" I asked him hopefully.
He continued as if he hadn't heard me. "We had a very interesting chat about you."
"I'm sure you did. And I'm also sure it was just chalk full of compliments on my stunning good looks, charming personality and insurmountable intellect."
He smirked. "Something like that."
I turned away from him, focusing on the screen and beginning to type. Of course, because I do indeed have very bad karma, the prof walked in right at that moment, and instructed that we produce the homework. Apparently today was 'let's be sociable with the students and make their lives a living hell' day, because he was intending to come around to each person and have them demonstrate the program, before asking five questions on what we thought we could do to improve it. I resisted the urge to demand who would hand in a project on which they could think of five ways to improve.
Meanwhile, the rest of us were supposed to partner up and write a 'dummy's guide to programming' to see just how well we grasped the concepts. I was going to kill myself, and possibly the professor. Both Gabe and Vira turned to me at the same time. "Partner?" they asked in unison. It was kind of creepy, having it come at both sides in stereo and not really wanting to work with either.
"I promised..." I glanced around franticly for someone who hadn't already been snatched up. "...her! That I'd be her partner today," I jumped up, grabbing my book and purse and making a mad dash for the girl on the other side of the room who was looking very lost.
"Hi," I said flatly, stopping right behind her. She froze, bright red curls bouncing as she spun to see who was talking to her. She was shorter than me, average weight, with bright green eyes and pouty lips. She did not fit the nerd/geek/dork archetype which comprised the rest of the class, dressed in fashionable jeans and a baby pink tee-shirt.
"Hey." She sounded unsure of herself. I didn't smile, I was too busy trying to figure out how she had stumbled into this class and why I hadn't noticed her before.
"We're working together," I informed her, dropping my stuff on the table beside her computer.
"Oh. Um...okay," she nodded, looking bemused.
"I'm Carmin."
I pulled over a chair, sprawling into it and keeping an eye on my own computer across the room to make sure Vira didn't have the urge to make any more incomprehensible changes to my homework.
"Scarlet. That's...um, my name."
I inclined my head. "What came first, the hair or the name?"
She flushed, bowing her head and letting said hair fall forward to cover her face. It was actually quite adorable, if not a bit cliché. "Name. Um...my parents didn't know my hair would be this colour, I mean, baby's hair is black when they're born, usually, and they weren't about to name me after all my hair fell out and I started growing permanent hair..."
I shrugged. "People have nicknames, you know?"
"Oh!" she laughed awkwardly, fiddling with her pensile. I was curious who exactly would bring a pensile to a class where you were surrounded by computers.
"Let's get this over with," I said after a moment of silence in which she became even more awkward than she already was. We worked in relative silence, me typing and her occasionally inserting a bit of advice. In all honesty, not much of the advice was correct, and I was quick to correct her. The prof came by to look at her program, and she admitted that she hadn't yet gotten it to work. I saw the problem immediately, as did he.
#include
I poked the line with a finger. "What is that supposed to be?"
"It's my link to the iostream library," she started, as if I were an idiot, when she suddenly seemed to see her mistake. "Oh!" She fixed it hurriedly, while the prof looked on amusedly. "I'm really sorry," she told him. "It's always the small things that get me, I mean, I just assume that they're right, 'cause I've done them so often..."
"It's alright," he told her. "Don't worry about it."
I found her babbling disturbingly endearing, and the way she was constantly tucking her hair behind her ears was much too cute. I was so totally not falling for the computer illiterate valley girl. So. Completely. Not.
By the end of the class I was downright smitten, and had given up denying it. I asked her if she wanted to grab a bight to eat, and the fact that she agreed without any hesitation only elevated by crush to even higher levels. Most people were either intimidated by my non-mainstream look, or turned off by my blunt honesty and bitter cynicism. I had no idea why this girl was willing to share more time than was absolutely necessary with me, but I wasn't complaining.
On my way out of the building I ran into Gabriel. "Hey, pretty girl, I'm going down to West Fourth for some lunch and to pick up a new USB cable and some books. Wanna come?"
I grinned. "Nope. I'm having lunch with a friend. Scarlet, Gabriel. Gabriel, Scarlet." They shook hands politely, but I could tell Gabriel wanted to ask me what the hell I was doing with her. I was glad he didn't get the chance, because I didn't know myself.
Lunch was not awkward. It was positively weird. We made small talk, chatted about the weather. She flirted with the waitress a bit, I tried to get the attention of the Goth boy in the next booth, everything was just peachy.
Over salad I learned about Fluffy the family dog, and by coffee I had a pretty good understanding of her entire family tree. Disadvantage to minoring in journalism, you absorb everything even if the boy was so very angsty and depressed and self-destructive and I really, really wanted to pounce on him if for no other reason than I wanted to rip his clothes off and stop crushing on the personification of Suburbia that was sitting across the table from me. It's like our (journalists) brains are massive sponges. It's also damned annoying.
"This was nice," she told me as we were putting on our jackets. I blinked.
"Yeah."
"I'd like to do it again some time," she continued. I almost choked on the dregs of my coffee.
"What?"
She blushed, and hid behind her hair. "I mean...never mind. It was stupid."
"Look, don't you have any damn friends of your own? Pretty, popular girl like you?" I was pushing her away, just like I did everyone else who tried to get close to me. Those who knew me well didn't seem effected by this. I expected this delicate flower of a girl to run crying after a few jabs from my direction, but she didn't. Sure, her shoulders slumped a little, and her eyes became fascinated with the floor, but she wasn't stomping out like an overgrown five-year-old. This was so very bad. No matter how much I thought I wanted it, me and relationships did not get along well.
"I know you probably think this is going to sound really, uh, weird, but...um...I like you."
"Ooo. Yep, sounds weird. Why don't I leave you to go make an appointment with a psychologist?"
"No. I, um, I really like you."
If she was saying what I thought she was saying, than my life had just become a lot more interesting.
"Yeah?" I asked. "As in, you may be interested in a more than friends type of relationship that may or may not, most likely may not, end up in some sort of romantic involvement?"
Now she looked intimidated. "Look, I totally understand if you, like, don't feel that way and it's totally okay..."
"Did I say I didn't feel that way?"
"Well, no," she shrugged.
"Excellent. You do have a brain. I'll meet you tonight, seven-thirty. What's your address?"
Wordlessly she scribbled it on a napkin, handing it over. I pocketed it, tossed down the money for my share of the bill, and strolled out of the restaurant. I walked for about a block before letting out a very out-of-character giggle, and doing a little dance as I walked down the sidewalk. This was so massively, incredibly, stupidly bad that it might just be good.
The next two months were more of a blur than anything else. I saw a lot less of Gabriel, a lot more of Scarlet. By the time the class ended, we had practically moved in together, me only coming back to my apartment when I really needed alone time. It was strange, being the stable one in the relationship. Scarlet had serious self-esteem issues that I tried to work through with her, as well as suffering from mild panic attacks. I, on the other hand, finally became centered. My free time was devoted to her, cuddling, shopping, watching movies or helping her with homework and emotional problems. Neil told me I was becoming too involved with her. I didn't listen. I never do, and continued to live as an extension of my Scarlet.
One early morning in May I arrived home from a night out with Vira and her friends to find the door to the apartment unlocked. This concerned me. Scarlet lived in a rougher part of the city, and it was unheard of for her to leave anything unlocked, especially the front door. I entered, rubbing my head. The hangover was going to hit hard and soon, but it was a feeling I was used to. I've found that when you have someone that relies on you, cutting to get rid of the stress isn't such an inviting option. I didn't drink a lot, just enough to allow myself some form of release for the pent up emotions that were buried in my psyche.
The lights were on, but I heard no sound from inside the apartment. Cautiously making my way inside, I scanned the room for my absent lover. It was seven AM, she was most likely asleep, I reasoned with myself. It wasn't rare that she would sleep in; however, she had class at ten, and I knew that she had wanted extra time to study for the quiz that day so I figured it would be a good idea to wake her. I entered the bedroom and sure enough she was curled up in bed, completely still. I climbed onto the covers, stroking her hair. "Hey, baby, it's time to get up."
There was no response, not even a flicker of the eyelids. I shook her shoulder a little, trying to get her to open her eyes, but she didn't move.
"Scarlet," I coaxed. "Come on. You need to study, remember. McGee's gonna fail your ass if you don't get a good mark this morning."
Still, nothing. I wondered if she had taken sleeping pills, and miss judged the time she had for rest. She had troubles sleeping, and I had purchased an over-the-counter bottle of sleep aides for her to try. They worked quite well, and she usually slept like the dead. I slipped off the bed, entering the washroom in search of the bottle -- she never remembered to put it away after taking them, and I would know she had taken them if it was out. It was out, alright. I had picked up a brand new bottle for her just the day before, and it sat on the counter, tipped sideways over a piece of paper. It was empty. A sick feeling clawed at my gut as I scanned the floor and the garbage basket for any sign of the missing pills. There was nothing. Now downright scared, I yanked the piece of paper out from under the overturned bottle.
Dear Car
I'm sorry. I don't want to be the reason you self-destruct, so I guess this is the only way.
It was unsigned, but I didn't need a signature to know who it was from. I'd handled my fare share of suicides before, but never someone I loved. Shaking, I ran back to the bedroom, already dialing 911. She didn't have a pulse. Her skin was ice cold to the touch. I knew the signs. She had probably taken the damn things right after I'd left the previous night. The paramedics confirmed it when they arrived. She had been dead for over five hours.
I didn't cry. I left the apartment, hands shoved deeply into my jeans pockets. I hadn't gone half a block when I ran into Gabriel.
"I heard what happened," he said, falling into step beside me.
"No you didn't. You probably watched her do it," I spat angrily. He didn't reply. I walked faster, kicking up pebbles. My mother had taught me to never become attached to anyone, because you'd only lose them in the end. She had died of cancer three years after she had said it. Finally, about five years too late, I was going to take her advice.
I could have faded to black then, wandered mindlessly out into the middle of the street and have been just another body at the city morgue by lunch. Gabriel, of course, had to ruin it all.
"She said she loved you. Those were her last words before she died. And she killed herself because of it. Just…thought you'd like to know."