The Lonely Girl

Welcome to my first published story on Lit. I have not written anything that wasn't work related since high school, which was many years ago, so I'm sure there is plenty of room for improvement in my writing and storytelling.

I know this is Lit, but there is no sex in this story. It is written as a Romance.

The idea for this story started with the thought of how unfair life can be to good people who truly don't deserve it. I let the rest of the story develop as I wrote it.

Most of this story is fabricated. The faces and names of those that inhabit the factual portions have been lost to time. This story originates from the bullying I endured, the bullying I dealt out, and the shame I feel for both.

Trigger warnings: Suicide, a whole lot of bullying

UPDATE: Please not that this an edited version of the original story that appeared on Lit.

The Lonely Girl

Claire was sitting in what she thought of as her spot on the shore of the pond. Not because of any particular claim of ownership; she owned all the land for several acres in every direction, but because this is where she always came to sit when the weather permitted. She had occupied it for years, so the ground and grass in this area were well worn. If she knew she was going to be here for a while - on the weekend for instance - she would bring a blanket to sit on. The rest of the shore around the pond was pretty overgrown. It had been this way since she was a little girl, so having it tended to had never occurred to her. There was plenty of shade in her spot for most of the day, except in the morning when the sun would rise over the eastern trees on the opposite side of the pond. There was nothing particularly exceptional about the area. It wasn't uniquely beautiful or special. What it did provide was solitude. She never had to worry about anyone bothering her. Even when her parents were alive, once she became a teenager they stopped accompanying her here, no longer worried about her making her way home on time.

Today she hadn't brought a blanket, just a book to keep her company. For about a year in her teens she would occasionally bring a sketchbook and have a go at drawing the nature around her. Eventually she realized she didn't have a particular talent for it, nor did she find it very fulfilling, and gave it up. She brought the book with her today out of habit. It sat unopened next to her while she stared at the opposite shore. The only sounds came from the faint breeze in the tree canopy overhead and the brooks that fed and drained the pond.

The weight of the anniversary and the memories it brought back pressed on her. She was distracted for a moment, trying to comprehend how a memory could manifest what felt like a physical pain in her chest. But it was momentary, and she quickly went back to visions of her parents. Visions of opening the front door of her house two years ago today to two police officers. Visions of the worried looks on the officers' faces when she didn't react to the news that her parents were gone. They had stayed longer than either party would have liked to ensure she wasn't going to harm herself. Her lack of reaction was so unsettling to them that if her parents had passed due to foul play, they would have immediately considered her a suspect. But that wasn't the case. Her parents passed in a plane crash while flying on one of the small island-hopping aircraft used in the Caribbean. She would later learn it was caused by metal fatigue in the main wingspan of the plane, the result of one too many hard landings and not enough proper inspections. How that information was supposed to help her she never understood, but the lawyers felt she should know.

Knowing now how this event would affect her, if she were transplanted back, she would have bawled her eyes out. At the time she just felt numb. Feeling numb was her default. When your life was as hard as Claire's, numbness was a safety net. It wasn't hard in the traditional sense, though. Claire's parents were exceptionally well off. Not through inheritance, but through sheer hard work and talent in the tech field. They weren't flashy tech entrepreneurs; they were the brains behind the scenes that got projects over the finish line when companies were getting desperate. Because of this, they were paid high hourly rates. Since they weren't flashy people, they simply invested their money smartly; another talent they possessed. The only splurging they did was to buy several hundred acres of land on the outskirts of town when Claire was still a little girl. They built a modest home on the property and left the rest to nature. Claire and her father had found the pond on one of their walks around the property.

Living on the outskirts of town with so much property surrounding them left few opportunities for Claire to meet other children. The thought of trying to find friends for Claire to play with had not occurred to her parents, and they would have been hard pressed to start a conversation with fellow parents if the opportunity had arisen. They just weren't outgoing people.

Because of this, her years before school were spent playing alone. Her mother worked from home during that time. Her father would as well, when a contract allowed him. Some clients, given the rates they were paying for him, insisted on him being onsite. Whether the clients realized that they rarely interacted with him past the initial introductions is unknown. There was always a technical sales rep that handled the client interaction. Some clients insisted he attend the design review meetings, but the smarter ones realized he didn't interact with them during those meetings anyway. They would get more productivity out of him if they just let him get on with the work. The consulting company, knowing how he worked, always sent their best sales reps with him for this reason. The rep would relay the designs and handle any back-and-forth questions with the clients. As Claire got older, her parents worked from home more and more. Whether because of repeat customers, word of mouth or just trusting the consulting company they both worked for, the clients came to understand they received just as much, if not more productivity when they worked from home.

Being at home meant her parents were in her lives, but it was almost on the periphery. It was as if they were all ghosts from different times haunting the same house. Her parents' interactions with each other weren't much different. They were both only children. They were each other's first and last partners. Frankly, if it hadn't been for a chance encounter in the school library during their sophomore year of college, it is doubtful either would have ever dated or married.

Claire knew her parents had loved her, but the apple did not fall far from the tree. They were reserved, emotive of their love for her only in the privacy of their home and in a halting way that would only make sense if you viewed it as a caricature. It would be like asking an alien that did not understand human emotions to act out love after reading its definition in a dictionary.

When Claire's troubles at school started, her parents would go and quietly express their concerns to the administration. They never pushed; it was not their way. The thought of confronting the parents of the other children never occurred to them and would not have gone well even if it had.

A rustling of the leaves caught her attention. Claire watched as a squirrel darted about looking for nuts in the undergrowth. The frantic movement was an odd backdrop to the serenity of the pond. She turned her attention back to the ripples. If she had any friends, they may have asked why she wasn't mourning at their grave. They had no relatives within hundreds of miles of them, so there were no family plots in the area. Her parents, while organized and meticulous, did not think it necessary to make funeral arrangements or detail where they wanted to be buried. When they passed, Claire did some research and found she lived in one of the states where it was fairly easy to bury someone on your property. She hired a funeral director to assist and had a modest marker placed at the site. Being eminently practical, the thought of mourning where she had buried the remnants of their bodies did not occur to her. She would come to her spot and think of them.

Eventually her thoughts ran their course, and she started feeling restless. She rolled herself forward onto the balls of her feet and stood. Wiping the dirt and grass from her jeans, she leaned over and picked up the book she had brought for company. Having made the journey back and forth between her home and the pond several times a week for most of her life meant the walk back was done on autopilot. She had long stopped noticing the scenery around her on the journey; it had just become background.

Claire dropped the book off inside her house and grabbed her gardening gloves from the mudroom. She headed out the side door and toward her garden. It was a nice distraction for her. After all, there were only so many books you could read. She started making donations of books to the town library every six months or so after the library shelves in her house could handle no more, and she found herself piling them up on various end tables and nooks. Many people have a cat lady in their town. If people knew of her habits, she would be the book lady.

Her parents had been fastidious in their neatness, and she was no different. It was a quandary for her, as the thought of throwing away a book was as alien as seeing a pig fly. The solution presented itself when she saw a table outside the market in town. It had been set up by the local library looking for donations. Upon speaking briefly with one of the kind older women at the table, she learned they were looking for donations of books or money. She ended up giving both.

Claire had started her garden a few hundred feet from the house, near the edge of the woods where it got plenty of sun throughout the day. The collection of plants and vegetables had grown rather haphazardly over the last two years, and she found the act of tending to it brought some stability to her thoughts. The assortment was rather eclectic, chosen based on her whims rather than a predefined plan.

The first year was a steep learning curve. Finding joy when something she planted had started to sprout and then sorrow literally the next day when critters had eaten. It was a tough lesson. Some internet research on the best methods for fencing off the garden, online deliveries of supplies and quite a bit of sweat had a serviceable fence up for her garden. There were still many issues she had to overcome, so her harvest that first year was small. But it being just her, she didn't need much anyway. Still, she bought more supplies and expanded the fencing and garden the following year. The harvest was bigger that year and she had learned enough that she was confident this year it would be even larger.

Claire slowly became aware that the line of shade created by the trees had crept its way across her garden, signaling that it was getting late in the afternoon. She gathered her gardening tools and headed back toward the house, making sure to secure the gate on her way through it. She cleaned the tools under the spigot outside the side door and headed back into the house, diverting to drop the tools and gloves off along the way.

She washed her hands thoroughly and dug into her refrigerator for the ingredients to make a salad. She didn't have anything from her garden yet to put in it, but that would change soon enough. She always made enough to last her for several meals. It's what her mother always did and to her it made perfect sense. The recipe was her mother's as well. It was a hearty recipe made with arugula and spinach as well as walnuts and red onions. She turned the oven on to 350 and pulled out the chicken breasts she would bake and then cube up to put as a topper on the salad.

She ate her salad in silence at the breakfast nook in her kitchen. There was a dining room that hadn't been used since her parents were alive, and even then, only sparingly. She only went into the family room as a means to get to other parts of her home, and she would be hard pressed to remember the last time the tv that hung from the wall had been turned on. Her parents had spent most of their time in front of monitors throughout the day. To then spend their evening staring at yet another screen seemed silly. They would occasionally watch movies as a family, but even those occurrences became increasingly rare as Claire became a teenager. Instead, they chose to spend their time reading or taking hikes on their property, either alone or as a family.

She washed the dishes and made her way upstairs. When she reached the top of the stairs, she glanced to the right, at the open door of her parents' room. She left it open so that air would circulate through, but she never entered it anymore. The last time she had been in the room was right after they passed when she went to get their will from the safe.

She had left abruptly as if it would leave the memory in her wake and no longer invade her mind, making her way through her bedroom and into her ensuite bathroom. She turned on the shower and let it warm up while she stripped off her clothes.

After her shower, she wiped some of the steam off the mirror and stared at her face. Not due to any vanity, just to make sure she got rid of all the dirt from the afternoon's gardening session. Wiping the steam from her glasses, she put them on and checked again to make sure.

Staring back at her was a face some might call plain. Objectively, she was not ugly by any stretch, but she lacked any defining features other folks sometimes possessed that make them stand out. She had a button nose and a sprinkling of freckles that were so light, it was doubtful that anyone other than her and her parents knew they were there. Her eyes were a deep brown. It was a deepness someone could get lost in, if not for her ability to keep them expressionless, thus dulling the effect they may have otherwise had.

She had small ears many would call cute if they had seen them. More often than not, they were hidden by a mane of wavy brown hair that was now approaching the middle of her back. Her mother used to trim her hair for her every few months. Since her passing she had just let it go. She had never been to a hair salon or stylist and wouldn't know what to ask for even if she did.

Her mother had never worn makeup and neither had she, although she was aware many girls and women did. She overheard the topic discussed by the girls at school, but given their treatment of her, she purposely abstained from anything in which they partook. It also seemed the purpose of it was to draw attention to oneself, something she wanted to avoid at all costs.

She dried off her small, waif-like body and headed into her bedroom to her dresser. Pulling out a t-shirt and panties, she put them on, pulled back the covers and slipped into bed.

While this day may have been sadder than others for her, it was no different in that she was always alone with her thoughts. Her hikes and working in her garden were usually enough to tire her out so that sleep came relatively quickly. This evening was different though.

She had always been alone. When she was young it was because of where her parents lived and their lack of awareness that they should perhaps socialize their child. Early in school she was alone because she did not understand how to interact with other children. Then as school progressed, she was alone because she was shunned. There is no cruelty like childhood cruelty, and the popular kids had set their sights on her. The other children started avoiding her so as not to be included in their cruelty. Finally, she was alone by choice. Just better to avoid everyone and thus hopefully avoid the abuse.

It wasn't until her parents were gone that she realized what loneliness was. She had no frame of reference until then. She had no lasting friendships growing up, no one to count on or confide in. There were only her parents. It wasn't until they were gone that she realized the comfort just their presence had provided. Now the loneliness was a constant. Like putting one too many blankets on a cold night, it was a slight weight that always pressed on her. For the first time in many years, since she had learned to offer no reaction to the torments she endured through childhood, she wept.

*****

Tuesday was grocery day. Claire liked having a routine. She found that Tuesday mornings at her local market were the least busy. Immediately after her parents passed, she was terrified of going to the market. She ordered her groceries online for a while, but found the produce was never as fresh as she felt it should be. Gradually her fear subsided as she realized through trial and error that very few people were at the grocery store at 8 a.m. on a Tuesday. And none were early-twenties folks that were the demographic of her childhood tormenters... until today.

She had just turned down one of the aisles when she realized she had forgotten to grab a container of arborio rice. She had recently taken to trying new recipes once a week, and the rice was necessary for a saffron risotto she was going to attempt. She left her cart and headed back toward the previous aisle. Looking at her list, she realized she might have to ask which aisle the saffron was in as she had never purchased it before. She had no idea how it was packaged, and hence, what she would be looking for. Turning the corner, she ran into, and bounced off of what felt to her like a tree. She quickly adjusted her glasses, which had become askew during the collision. While in the process of blurting out an apology, she looked up from the chest she collided with and stared into a face filled with concern. The sounds of an apology ceased as all the air left her lungs in a gasp. She took a small step back and then a larger one as terror started to take hold of her. The face she was staring at changed from concern to perplexity and finally to realization.

"Clai..."

Before he could even finish her name she had taken two solid steps further backward, turned and ran. She ran through the self-checkout lane, through the doors and then through the parking lot to her car. She fumbled her keys from her coat pocket, hit the unlock button, got in the car and sped out of the parking lot. Her breath came in deep, hyperventilating gasps. It wasn't until she was halfway home that she calmed down enough that her breathing returned to some semblance of normalcy. Then the tears came, followed by great wracking sobs. Tears fell and her nose ran down her face and onto her shirt. No amount of rubbing her face on her sleeve could stop it. She hadn't cried in years, and here she was bawling her eyes out for the second time in a week.

When Claire arrived home, she contemplated just climbing into bed and trying to sleep away the pain. But she knew that would be setting her up for a sleepless, miserable, night. So she changed her shirt, grabbed a different coat and headed toward her spot.

*****

Kyle sat in his truck, holding the grocery list Claire had dropped, dumbfounded by what he had witnessed. He had not seen Claire since the last few weeks of high school when she disappeared. She barely looked any older now. She had the same innocent, shy sweetness to her that he found appealing when he had first met her. But that look had changed in a flash as the realization hit her. He had seen people scared before, but Claire wasn't scared, she was terrified. Why? They had spoken a few times since the incident in high school. He thought the conversations had been pleasant enough. He may have even made an effort to get to know her better if she hadn't disappeared.