Flights of Fancy

Well, on one hand, I'm pretty excited about moving in to my dorm room now.

On the other hand, I miss him already. Just like I knew I would. I feel as though I've lost half of my heart.

My alarm went off at 4:30 this morning. I promised David's family that I would be over their house for 5:30 AM. I can't remember the last time I woke up that early. It's bad enough that I got up before the sun did, but the moment I stepped out of bed, I hit the floor. I felt horrible. Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the ungodly hour. Or maybe it was the knowledge that in under twelve hours, I would be saying goodbye to my beloved David. Whatever it was, it made me nauseas. Thankfully, that feeling passed quickly, and before I knew it, I was on the road to David's house.

I may or may not have mentioned this before, but David basically has the entire basement of his house to himself, complete with its own separate entrance. I walked in that way and looked around. Everything was still, as though no one had so much as breathed in the area for weeks. I walked into his bedroom and looked around there. I could only imagine how he must have been feeling. I knew he would miss it. I sighed. I made his bed. I gathered up some last-minute things for him- chargers and such. I sat in the middle of his bed and looked around again. I looked at his pile of luggage and storage containers. At his prized poster of John Malkovich. At our prom picture, prominently displayed on a shelf by the window. As I sat and reminisced, my ears perked up at the sound of his voice. He was singing Unchained Melody, this song, and I began to cry immediately.

I stood from the bed when I heard the bathroom door open. When he saw me, he smiled and sighed. He was soaking wet, but I didn't let that stop me from hugging him. "Hi," I said.

"Hi." He kissed my forehead. He pulled me back to him again. "It's okay," he said. "We're gonna be just fine." I just nodded. I was afraid that talking would bring on tears.

We packed up the truck and hit the road by 6:08. For the entire two-hour ride, I held his hand as tightly as I could. We chatted and goofed around as much as we could without being obnoxious. I couldn't look him in the eye, though. He looked so scared. I'm not ashamed to say that I was, too. I didn't want him to go.

When we got up to his school, we hardly had to move a thing. There was a whole crew of students ready and eager to help bring stuff up to the dorms, so, as it worked out, all David had to carry up was a backpack. His room was huge (as far as dorms go, anyway), his roommates are awesome, and the campus is beautiful. He's going to be very happy there. It's just his kind of place.

I did my best to keep a smile on my face, but when it came time to leave, I lost it. I watched him hug his mother, father and sister goodbye. Then he looked at them all and said softly, "Can I have a minute?" They left, and he and I embraced. I felt him shuddering against me as tears fell from his eyes.

"Do I need to say I'll miss you?" I asked.

"You don't need to say anything," he said. He and I held each other for as long as we could before we finally had to part ways. I hated to see him go. We drove off in one direction, he walked off in another. I had tears in my eyes for a good half hour after that until I get a text message:

"When I said bye to you... You will never believe what I saw. I walked away, and not even give minutes went by. I saw a bull dog. I thought of you and laughed." That brought a smile to my face for a while, until I began to look back on all the fun we've poked at bulldogs in our life together. I began to miss him again immediately.

Then I got another text, this time from his sister. "Don't be sad," it said. "It'll be okay." Hearing that brought a permanent smile to my face. I could almost hear Doc's voice in my ear: "If you don't laugh, you'll just cry."

Today was a big crying day. But thank god for laughter. At times like that, it's all you can do to find something- anything- to laugh at.

I've been up for almost twenty-four straight hours now. I'm just starting to get tired.

I know he's happy, but I wish he was here.

Lani

"'Til now, I always got by on my own.
I never really cared until I met you."

It has been ten days since the last graduation party of the summer.
The story I finished for Doc was finished yesterday.
David leaves for college tomorrow.
His birthday is the day after that.
I move into school in five days.

This past Thursday, I went to Kelly's beach house for what was to be the last get-together of the summer. It wasn't the last time I'd see Kelly, and it probably isn't the last time I'll see Nick, but I knew that, after that event, I could very well never see Rachel, Kim or Kristina again for a long, long time.

Anyway, at one point on Thursday night, we went to a beach near the house. (Not the beach at the beach house. A different beach.) It was a clear night. A good percentage of the stars were blacked out by light pollution and the occasional cloud, but there were still enough visible to warrant my laying on my back in the sand to look up and lose myself in them. I've spent my whole life with stars above my head, but I never really stopped to watch them until one night in Arizona. I've never seen so many stars as I did on that night. The stars on the beach weren't nearly as bright or as numerous, but their twinkling was enough to get me in one of those Lani moods, during which everything becomes a metaphor.

When I sat up, I saw Nick and Kim standing calf-deep in the water talking. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but regardless, I got to thinking. They were standing in dark, open water. The flow of conversation was interrupted at points when a fish would make itself heard through the bubbling and splashing in the tide. It reminded me of the plunge that we're all about to take. We're all about to jump into the depths with both feet. The thing is, am I really ready? Don't forget, I'm afraid of water.

Stop the world, I want to get off,
Lani

This is the reason I don't watch horror movies. It's coming on two-thirty in the morning. My bedroom light and television (and computer, for that matter) are all on at full brightness. I'm exhausted, but every time I try to sleep, I see Esther's face as she delivers one of those lines that makes your skin crawl. The blackness of my mind provides the ideal lighting for someone to jump out of nowhere with an oversized knife or some bloody blunt object. I can't expose my back to even the familiar surroundings of my bedroom- the same one I've slept in for the past eighteen years- without stopping to look over my shoulder at what might be behind me.

If there's a little girl with a hammer, I'm outta here.

If you haven't guessed by now, I saw the movie Orphan tonight. David and I had been talking about seeing it since before it came out. From what we saw in T.V. previews, it didn't look too scary. In fact, it seemed like it would be pretty funny. We started off laughing at some little details and some of the plot twists, but for the most part, he and I locked arms and hands and spent two hours tensing up and gasping. And now, three hours later, here I am. Lying in bed watching Iron Chef America at 3:17 AM.

So that's it. No more scary movies for Lani.

Good night?
Lani

It seems that, in all this end-of-the-year confusion, I've found some time to graduate from high school. (I'm the one on the right.) To say the very least, it's a surreal feeling. I can remember sitting in my seat, facing the stage before me, felling as though time was frozen. I've felt the same way all through high school. It was almost too much to comprehend that it was all coming to an end. Since then, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm going to have a great summer, and in the time that follows, I'm going to be just fine. I'm looking forward to a wonderful life.

On the night before graduation, I remember sitting on the couch in my living room, clutching a pillow to my chest and staring up at the ceiling in thought. I realized that I would still be able to see all of my friends, and that nothing was really over. I reminded myself of something my boyfriend David said to his friend Brendan on one of the last days of school. Brendan came up to him with a solemn look on his face and pulled him into a hug.

"Dave," he said, "I've just realized that I'm never going to have friends like this again."

"You won't need them," David said. "We'll always be friends."

Hearing that made me smile. I watched as they held each other and couldn't help but think that, while everyone promises that they'll be friends forever, come whatever, life happens. I've promised to stay in contact with friends in the past. I haven't lived up to that, and neither have they. It's nobody's fault. Like I said, life happens. People grow apart when they're not together for a while. People change. They find new friends. It's natural. I've taken comfort in the fact that, at least for now, I've still got all of them to spend my summer with. I still have David. I still have Kelly, Kim and Rachel. I have everyone.

The night after graduation helped me to realize that. After a family gathering at my house, David and I drove over to Billy's house to spend the night. Nine of my closest friends stayed over that night. We stayed up together, just talking the way we always do. I woke up the next morning on Billy's computer room floor. I can't count the number of times that I've woken up in a daze in some room of one of my friends' houses. It's the way I started off 2009. It seems only natural that I should have ended my school year in the same fashion.

I will not hesitate to tell you that high school has been the best time of my life. So far. As I was sitting around my house before commencement, I began to think over the year. I smiled at times, and felt I might cry at others, but for the most part, I smiled. I thought back on all the conversations I've had with Doc. All the sleepless nights I've spent with my friends, just talking about our problems and giving each other hope. That night in Arizona when David and I were guided toward each other by candlelight under a blanket of stars. The night I was brought to tears by a song that four of my friends played. I thought about all the fights, all the nights I've passed curfew, all those unforgettable laughs, tears, parties and school days, and I realized that I've truly had the time of my life in high school.

I thought about a mass held at my school towards the beginning of the year. Father Charlie, our resident chaplain, relayed to us an anecdote about one of his high school graduation, and left us with a quotation that has since become my mantra: "For all that has been, thanks. For all that will be, yes."

Yours,
Lani

I thought that traveling, no matter where to, would feed my wanderlust enough to hold me over at least until I got to college. Turns out that I was wrong. I spent all of last week in Toronto, and upon coming back home, I got the feeling that nothing at all had changed in me. I love Canada, but Toronto was just too similar to the cities around here, like New York and Boston and Providence, for me to feel like I ever left at all.

Don't get me wrong, it was a great week, and I had fun, but it just wasn't a trip. I was telling David about that the other night. I told him that Toronto had been fun, but that it just wasn't Arizona. He said, "Lani, would you like to go back there? Not right away, but someday. Just the two of us." I told him that sounded wonderful.

"We'll take my car," I said. "It'll just be you, me, and my B-52."

"Why don't we fly? We can rent a car when we get out there." I told him it didn't matter what we did, as long as he and I were together out west again. What I wouldn't give to be out there with him now, without a care in the world.

That really was the best week of my life thus far. Everyone promised me it would be, and once again, they couldn't have been more right.

I need a desert,
Lani

I want to run
I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I want to reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name

I want to feel, sunlight on my face
See that dust cloud disappear without a trace
I want to take shelter from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name

Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name
Were still building
Then burning down love, burning down love
And when I go there
I go there with you...
(its all I can do)

The cities a flood
And our love turns to rust
Were beaten and blown by the wind
Trampled into dust
Ill show you a place
High on ta desert plain
Where the streets have no name

Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name
Still building
Then burning down love
Burning down love
And when I go there
I go there with you
(its all I can do)