“Check out that girl,” Sunny said to me as he nodded off to the side, but when I looked, I actually saw several girls. They were from senior class and were having fun discussing something.
“Which one?” I asked.
“That one with the long hair and the green dress.”
“I don’t see her.” I looked harder.
“C’mon, her hair is, uh, pure copper. Look! She’s smiling at us.”
He smiled back at someone, but I didn’t see anybody. The girl he described was not there. “Look, isn’t she a beauty?” Sunny was still smiling. “Such a kitty.”
“Kitty?” I looked around, trying to find the girl he was talking about.
“Yeah, she looks like a kitty. So pretty, and her eyes are so green.”
“Sunny, there is no such girl there!” I was getting embarrassed, as he was clearly hallucinating.
“There she is! Oh, she’s walking away.” He jumped to his feet, probably planning to rush to her, but I held him back. “She started at school at the beginning of the year. I often see her during breaks. When I see her next time, I will definitely introduce you to her.”
But there was no next time. It happened at the beginning of March. The snow had already melted, but the puddles had not dried yet, even though the sun was as warm as late spring. After school, we walked home. Sunny was very excited, chatting non-stop, tugging at my sleeve every second and pointing at everything. Dogs, cars, people – almost everything fascinated him. He was as happy as a little kid and was eager to share his excitement with me. I just nodded absently and said, “yes, yes, yes”. I was thinking about Annie. This morning I managed to exchange a few words with her, and it felt like the greatest achievement of my life.
And then I saw her just a few feet away in front of us. The girl that Sunny was always talking about. She really did have beautiful long hair with a copper tint. She looked straight at me and smiled. I slowed down without taking my eyes of her and waved my hand. I wanted to nudge Sunny, but he wasn’t there. I stopped, still holding out my hand and looking at the girl whose smile had become more sinister. Before I had a chance to call out for Sunny, I heard a loud car beep, then squeal of brakes and a scream.
It took a while for me to realise that the scream was mine.
Sunny was lying in the middle of the road, just a few feet away from the car that hit him. I rushed over to Sunny, but everything was happening in slow motion. It was as if I was not me, as if I was watching it happening to someone else. I ran up and shook his shoulder, unable to ascertain whether he was conscious or not. His eyes were open, but he wasn’t blinking. It seemed like he wasn’t even breathing. A crowd gathered. They spoke about something. Someone tried to lift me up, but I broke away as I wanted to help Sunny. Someone grabbed me and lead me somewhere. What was going on? I couldn’t understand.
Then there was darkness.
I was woken by my own voice.
“Sunny.”
I leapt up, and I was in my bedroom. The clock read 1.30am. It was dark outside, and it seemed to be raining. I needed to find out if the accident had really happened or whether it was just a bad dream. Please let it be a dream. Repeating these words, I took my mobile phone and dialled Sunny’s number. The operator informed me that the person I was trying to call was not available. I went into my sleeping parents’ bedroom.
“Mum,” I touched my mother’s shoulder. She shrugged but didn’t wake. “MOTHER.” I shook her more aggressively. She woke up and looked at me. In the darkness, I saw her eyes widen.
“Walter,” she said in a whisper, and I saw that she was scared.
“Mum, what happened?” I knelt beside the bed.
“Walter…” she started to say, but her words broke off.
“What is it, Mum?”
“Walter, Sunny is gone,” she said under her breath, but it seemed to me like she was screaming. Her words pierced my brain like a bullet. Sunny is gone? No, I refused to believe it.
I wondered when this nightmare would finally be over. I thought I would wake up, and everything would be fine again. Those early days passed in a blur. I barely remember his funeral. I remember there were many people, and it was a beautiful sunny morning. It was as if there had not been that terrible injustice. I remember his face. Quiet, peaceful, almost childlike. 15 years old. Only 15! He had such a short life, but so many plans.
I woke up from that blur in April. I remember I was sat drawing on a bench in the orchard and suddenly the realisation hit me. He was really gone. At that moment, I felt desperate. The despair was so deep and intense, that it was as if I hit the bottom of a deep, deep pit with no way of getting out. Darkness surrounded me, and I was enveloped in it. I felt my heart trying to fight back from the searing pain and I wanted to scream, but I couldn’t. I wanted to hide in a secluded corner and disappear, as if I had never existed. What was my place in the world now? Who needed me? A feeling of helplessness engulfed me. I couldn’t change anything, fix it, or turn back the clock. My world faded without him. I would never see him again. I would never hear his voice or his laughter. We would never again walk together after school, and he would never tell me about his grand plans again. I wanted to howl and climb the walls. I stopped eating and sleeping. If I fell asleep, I dreamed the same dream about the garden covered with white snow and Sunny on his knees with his back to me. I came up to him, but he was cold and still. I woke up screaming.
6
One night I was drawing in my room by the lamp light. I was trying to draw my beautiful Amazon in the heat of a battle with a terrifying monster, but nothing would come. I wasted dozens of sheets of paper and tore the last one up. I got furious. The door opened, and my mother entered the room. I pretended I hadn’t seen her, took a new sheet of paper and scribbled on it. Mother sat on the edge of the bed. She was looking at me without saying a word. I scribbled some more, and it became an outline of a face.
“Walter,” mother said quietly.
I didn’t respond and kept on sketching until I’d drawn a stiff upper lip and nose.
“I know it’s hard,” she said. Well, yes it was. But in our family, we didn’t communicate with each other. We all lived our own lives, and I was perfectly fine with that. Why break the tradition? I carefully drew one eye, then the other. My mother was still talking, trying to encourage me to “open my soul”, telling me she “understands me and wants to help me”, and that she is ready to listen to my problems. No way!
I added the eyelashes, then after some thought I lengthened them. They were never interested in my problems before, and now all of a sudden, they’ve become important.
“I know a very good doctor.”
Stop. Doctor? I was going to finish off the curls, but at the mention of a doctor my pencil hovered in the air, and I paused to listen.
“Albert is a very good doctor. He’s worked with adolescents for almost 20 years. He’s a psychologist and the kids love him.”
Albert. A psychologist. Kids … It was nonsense. I didn’t need a doctor. I continued to draw; a neck, shoulders, hand, sword in hand. Or should that be a spear?
“Walter, I’ve made an appointment for next Monday.”
I opted for spear, then started to make changes to the hand. Mother sat for a while looking at me. Then she nodded either to me or to herself and left the room.
On Monday, we went to see Albert. He was one of those experts who was adored by parents who believed he would help their children. However, the children did not like Albert, and neither did the teenagers. I was lying on the couch in his office while he sat next to me in his leather chair making notes in a large notebook. I don’t know why people think that lying on a couch helps you open your heart to an unsympathetic stranger. I was lying there examining the picture on the opposite wall. It depicted a summer meadow and a little girl playing with a big sheep dog.
“Walter,”