The Mirror

The Mirror

Janelle smiled and left the school library, leaving Dwight bewildered by his luck and fiercely joyful. Dwight had been on the verge of asking Janelle out on a date. Of course, Dwight had finally mustered up the courage to ask and get the hard part out of the way. Most of his nervousness was fueled fervently by the fact that Janelle was two grades ahead of himself. He worried that because of this age gap she would turn him down quickly.

None of his feelings were helped very much when he divulged these things to Hortense, the generous senior who helped him with his math homework in the school library. “Trust me, Dwight,” Hortense had advised just days before, “You should tell Janelle how you feel.” Despite Hortense’s urging, Dwight still could not find the proper time or place to confess comfortably to the goddess that inhabited his thoughts.

That specific day was different. When Dwight saw her in the library, studying for Chemistry, he sought her out. Before he knew it, he was standing beside Janelle’s chair. She glanced up after noticing his presence. “Hi, Dwight.” she squealed flirtatiously. At her words, Dwight nearly melted inside, but he did not forget why he was there. “Hey, Janelle, before you go I have to talk with you,” he blurted out abruptly. She expressed words of understanding and subsequently continued her studying. Dwight found Hortense and sat at the wobbly table with her.

Hortense glared at him questioningly, as if to ask “Have you told her yet?”. He swished his head horizontally and tried to say “No”, but instead he just mouthed the deplorable word. Hortense showed her displeasure with this idea. She thought that Dwight and Janelle would make a great couple, but for the life of her she could not understand why he had not asked Janelle out yet.

As Dwight stood from the table, he saw another one of Hortense’s more demanding faces. He did not understand her strong interest in getting him a date. Regardless, he met Janelle near the door to the outside hall eagerly. Janelle wore a deep blue shirt and her sparkling smile. “Janelle,” Dwight said apprehensively, “I think I like you and I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime.” Janelle smiled, clutching her books tightly, and asked where they should go.

The time and place did not matter to Dwight. The freshman whose legs wobbled from the weight of his nervousness on his skeletal shoulders felt so incessantly pleased. They exchanged smiles and phone numbers because during those precise moments the world had dissolved around them, leaving them in a place where troubles could not persist to bother them. Euphoria replaced their doubts and common sense. She pleasantly stated that Dwight had made her so happy, a remark that repeated in his dopey head in the minutes immediately following.

After Janelle left the library, grinning, to enter the crowded hallways of their high school, Dwight turned around and marched with a lightness in his step to retrieve his red, ragged book bag. As if by chance, Hortense met him, the same haggard yet demanding look upon her face. This time, the bouncier freshman smiled and triumphantly nodded. Hortense returned the smile, replacing her harsher expression hastily to accompany the situation better. She instantly erupted with questions about what Dwight had said word for word, what Janelle said, and everything and anything one could want to know. Dwight answered what he could reluctantly, but his heart was not there with the overly eager Hortense. His heart resided thousands of miles above where he imagined himself sitting silently on a cloud, dreaming up new things to do and just repeating the name unremittingly. Janelle…the girl with the most striking smile. Janelle…a girl with iridescent eyes that seemingly reflected all of the times that Dwight had felt blissful.

Pushing Hortense away, he walked hurriedly out of the library and across the building to the parking lot. He threw his book bag carelessly, an action that led to its ragged appearance. He leaned against the faded brick wall, observing the people sitting in their cars while waiting for the light to change. The road that circled Dwight’s high school was notorious for its death toll. Dwight, who could easily walk home from school, avoided crossing that road. He knew a kid who was crossing one day when someone, obviously drunk, ran the red light, immediately hitting the kid. Dwight did not enjoy thinking about the kid’s extreme injuries especially in comparison with the drunkard’s consequences. He couldn’t help, but wonder why people would be so careless or why life must be so complex.

The heavy door Dwight had just exited through opened again. This time, however, Janelle emerged, an exhausted look exhibiting on her round face. She saw Dwight and her expression drastically changed. “Hey,” she chirped flirtatiously, “waiting for your ride, too?” He laughed jovially and looked at his feet. “Yeah,” he replied, “My mom said she was gonna be twenty minutes today.” Janelle dropped her books on the gum-covered pavement beside her. They leaned towards each other in a way that suggested a level of comfort with the idea that they could have a great love or just a fling that lasted a week give or take. They conversed contentedly until Janelle’s mother arrived to take her away and back to their humble home on the edge of a busy road.

When Dwight’s mom drove her red minivan into the parking lot, Dwight bitterly stomped to the vehicle from the old brick wall. She had been much longer than twenty minutes and he, being a brat who thought he deserved better, planned to complain. Unfortunately, his plans were thwarted by a larger issue. He was confronted with the image of his mother sitting in the driver’s seat, heavily smoking. “Really Mom, don’t you think you could at least stop smoking? You being pregnant and all,” Dwight said, deeply disappointed. “Oh please. Stop smoking! Think of the baby,” she scoffed. “Dwight,” she said after seeing his pleading eyes, “You know it doesn’t matter. Each day I keep saving up money. This baby was never…I… I’m not going to have it, you know that.”

If only he could forget that fact, she would not let him. His mother, frustrated that her own son would judge her so harshly, started the minivan. She turned into their neighborhood, the adequate small housing hotspot. He recalled that he was supposed to go to his father’s house for the weekend. “Uh, Mom?” he said unsure of how he’d get his point across. “I don’t want to go to Dad’s this weekend,” he stated, still unconfident. She went on a rampage, claiming that it was impossible. She had to work at Vera’s Pancake House and Dwight could not screw that up for her. Dwight’s mom pulled into their driveway and he swiftly swung open his door, escaping the ashtray on wheels. He paced angrily to the front door and before reaching for the key he had on himself at all times he twisted the knob to find it unlocked. He yelled at his mother for her stupidity and even though he knew he should have felt ashamed of himself, he did not.

Before locking himself in his room to pack for his father’s house, the phone rang and he picked it up, painfully curious. “Hello there,” said Janelle’s sweet voice over the phone. Dwight melted again and anymore melting would be fatal. He took the phone with him to his room and he began to pack. “So,” said Dwight’s goddess, “You want to do something this weekend?” Dwight sighed, upset to be from a broken home. He explained that he could not, but he wanted to do something next week. Everything about Janelle made him smile. They talked for at least an hour and Dwight went to his father’s house which was a two hour drive from his mom’s. When Dwight returned on Sunday, he was naïvely pleased that he was that much closer to going out with Janelle.

He dropped his bag in kitchen and got a glass of milk. He noticed the answering machine blinking out of the corner of his eye. He pressed the button and to his surprise heard Janelle’s voice. “Hi. Uh, Dwight I love you to death,” she said. Dwight stepped back with his glass of milk, frightened of what she would say next. He could see it coming and the sadness began brewing in his stomach. “But I don’t think I like like you,” she explained, “I still want to hang out next weekend. Bye.”

Trying to distract himself from what he heard, Dwight gulped down the milk. He put it in the dishwasher and began to wander into dangerous territory. He started thinking. He was nearly convinced that there had to be something wrong with him. How many times had this same exact thing happened to Dwight? It seemed like hundreds. He wondered why people even care. Why does the world try so hard to be thin? Why did it seem that Janelle had actually cared for him? He paced the kitchen and began obsessively eating chips. He got tired of hurting himself by thinking all of those negative thoughts. Dwight went into their miniscule living room and sat in the green recliner. His mother was passed out on couch…her cigarettes lying next to her on the coffee table.

He picked up the cigarettes and found a lighter in her leopard print purse. He took the cigarettes into the bathroom and he sat on the counter. He pulled a sole cigarette from the box and placed it in his mouth. He focused any resentment he had into smoking. Lighting the cigarette, he inhaled and began coughing violently. After slowing down and getting remotely comfortable with the smoke, he hopped off the counter and stared at himself in the mirror. Why didn’t anybody like him? He exhaled, a cloud of toxic smoke drifting from between his lips. Dwight personally thought of himself as a beautiful individual. Maybe no one could see it yet, but for now he could see it clearly reflected not in Janelle’s eyes, but his bathroom mirror. He smiled.

The End.