Chapter 8: YARON

The next years passed way too quickly.

We were lying on Vee’s bed in our own bubble where nothing and no one could hurt us.

“What if tomorrow, the world ends?”

“Don’t start with that again, Vee.”

“Why not? It could happen. Maybe aliens will invade Earth. You know they are real.”

I laughed.

Vee had read a sci-fi novel and had become obsessed with the idea of aliens invading our planet. It appealed to both her sense of wonder and her need for something extraordinary to happen in her life.

When Vee took something seriously, there was no getting it out of her head. I was a nerd, I loved to discuss things like that, but not every day and all the time.

“Let’s talk about something else.”

She ignored me, of course.

“What if tonight flying saucers finally arrive like in that movie we watched and they take us to their planet.”

I smiled, although my smile faded when she hugged me and I felt her fears.

“Do you know what bothers me most?” she asked, with a trembling voice.

I shook my head.

“I’d die alone. My father would be so drunk that he wouldn’t even know what happened, and I wouldn’t be able to tell you that I got the scar on my hand climbing Kilimanjaro or tell you that I was right, and you weren’t,” she said, as she sat up, her long arms wrapped around her knees.

I sat up and looked at her. Her eyes were still lost looking through the window. Her shoulders, straight and bony, stood out. I looked at her hands, with her bitten nails always dirty.

Vee had grown up. We both had, but in her case, it was too obvious. She had become a girl that some boys looked at openly when they crossed her. At school, the boys whispered obscenities because she was the only one who did not seem to notice that her chest had rounded and that her curves were more prominent if she did not wear a bra.

Vee moved through the world without hiding, without fear, without looking back, with a confidence that beat that of any teenager. So confident in her own skin that it was impossible not to be overshadowed. She might not be the prettiest girl, but she was different. And different not only scares, but also attracts in a way that few things do.

Nothing had changed between us. We were still inseparable. From time to time, I would disappear for a few days to go out with Daniel and my friends. I was trying to find a balance between my two worlds. Vee didn’t hold it against me. I never asked her to go with me again, and she didn’t show any desire to do so. I preferred not to mix what we have with the rest of the world. Or, maybe, I wanted her just for myself.

I don’t know. Maybe I was afraid that one of my friends would see what I had always seen in her.

My brief relationship with Natalie had long since ended. She grew tired of me spending time with Vee, instead of her.

It wasn’t that I didn’t like Natalie. She was funny, intelligent, considerate, and drop-dead gorgeous. Her body awakened mine without much effort. She was a great kisser, too. Yeah, I finally got t kissed her. We understood each other. Her family and mine knew and respected each other. Plus, she was Jewish.

There were no obstacles to our relationship working out, and yet one day, we said goodbye, knowing that it was the most sensible thing to do. The mourning had not lasted long. After all, the following year I would go to Harvard to become a psychologist, and she would leave for Yale.

I had been talking a lot with the school counselor about my next step. I wanted to help people like Luke or Barnaby.

“Would you like to be a psychiatrist?” the school counselor suggested to me.

“No, I’ve been reading on the Internet about it. A psychiatrist has to go to medical school, and I don’t want to do that. Besides, they just prescribe you some pills and that’s it.”

I didn’t want to experience the brutality of medical school and residency. I had seen too many shows about doctors and hospitals. Residency was hell.

But, the main reason was that I wanted to work with people doing “talk” therapy.

“I want to listen to people and their problems and help them to feel better about themselves.”

“Then, you want to become a clinical psychologist or a counselor,” the school counselor said, and he explained to me the difference.

I chose to be a clinical psychologist and get a Ph.D., instead of becoming a counselor because, generally speaking, clinical psychologists have more opportunities and more independence than master’s-level therapists do.

Around that time, looking at Vee had become a hidden hobby that ashamed me. I watched her carefully as she sat on the bed, while she reflected on apocalyptic theories. I studied carefully the same profile that I had seen before me so many times, but that suddenly seemed different. One that made me think of the shape of her nose, her slightly slanted eyes, the olive tone of her skin. The curve of her lips.

Details that had always been there, but that had gained strength in the last few months and that stood out above everything else we had been until then.

Vee turned around and I got nervous. I didn’t want her to catch me staring at her this way.