Lurching out of the classroom, I throw my body against a wall, and allow gravity to pull me to the floor. I haven’t slept in days. Staring into space, I try to process what has happened in the past week—midterms, papers, band auditions, and cheerleading practice… all these tasks squeeze me tight, like a subway crowd pushing in, against me. I can barely breathe.
Feeling dizzy, I look up and see Maria. She looks so bright and glimmering under the dull, overhead lights. Standing in front of me with a warm smile, she wears a neat, silky-blue blouse. The familiar, wrinkled black tote that hangs off her shoulder has all my stories in it—
the ones I share only with her. She offers her hand to me, tilts her head and raises one eyebrow as if to say, “Come on Paris, we still need to finish that meeting!”
I raise my arm, reaching for her hand to pull myself up. But right before I reach her, she vanishes, like a handful of sand blown away by the wind. She is gone. Maria is dead.
It all happened last Friday, when we were supposed to have our monthly meeting. Ever since the first day I’d arrived in this country, Maria was assigned as my mentor. It was a difficult first year of high school as I was transitioning from my life in China to America. That first year a kind of culture shock punched me hard in the gut. So, all the life struggles I couldn’t tell my parents about, I told Maria. Since the very beginning, she’d understood me, supported me, giving me advice and encouragement, so I could adapt to my new environment. I wouldn’t have been able to get along, if I hadn’t had Maria.
During our Friday meetings in the café, she would lean her head on her open palm, listening to me complaining about exams, stacks of homework, or the millions of new vocabulary words I had to learn. Her eyes would focus only on me. I would frown, and pour out my frustration about missing my friends, or China, or that seven-page research paper I had due, as if she was a close friend. And she was a close friend. During our conversations, her eyes would squint every time she smiled or laughed. However, on that Friday, none of those things happened.
That Friday, I sat in a dark corner of the café, waiting for her. I texted her, thinking she’d forgotten our meeting. Not a single text message was sent back. When I got home in the afternoon, I saw my host mother holding the phone tight to her chest, biting her lips. She raised her head, so her tears wouldn’t rush out. With a cracked voice, she told me there had been an accident.
Maria had been taking a horse back riding lesson, when the horse went wild and shook her from its back, throwing her head against a rock, and causing her brain to fall asleep. She was in a coma when she got to the hospital.
I leaned on the doorframe and froze. Then I prayed. I prayed for Maria the entire weekend. How can God take away the life of such a kind woman who is so passionate about life? I kept hoping a miracle would happen, but it didn’t. And the bad news came later that weekend—Maria hadn’t made it. Without leaving any words, she died in her sleep. Now, I thought, I have no one to listen to my stories, encourage me, or advise me.
Sitting in that empty hallway, I raise my head and look at the annoying, dim lights. I haven’t shed a single tear since last Friday. I have been holding back my feelings this whole week.
The grievous news of Maria’s death is the spark that sets a fire within my body. The tight pressure I’d felt that week rises up, into my chest, pushing my sadness and regret up like a volcano. I can’t hold my feelings inside. Finally, they erupt, choking me, and flooding me with tears.
The hallway, the light, and the classrooms, are all a blur. All I can hear is my own groaning. I drag myself into a corner, curl up, burry my head between my knees, and let my sadness out with every, heavy breath I take. My tiredness drains my energy, as my tears flow out of me. If crying could bring Maria back, I would cry an ocean.
