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Writer
Join Date: Feb 2005
Location: In the world I create...
Posts: 42
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An Ode to Sami
An Ode to Sami
I blinked. My eyes had yet to adjust to the light pouring in from the open window next to my bed. My bed was different from most people’s beds. Most people could swing their legs over the side and walk away, beginning their morning. For me, getting out of bed was an exercise, and not something that was easiest done in the morning. If I was to swing my legs over and drop off the edge of my bed, I would be facing a four foot drop, and in the early morning, that could prove detrimental to my health.
My mouth creaked open, and a silent yawn sucked air into my mouth as I stretched my arms. I crawled out from under the covers and prepared myself for the climb down from the loft. I shivered as a tingle ran up from my bare feet to my head. The hardwood floor was cold, signaling to me that the day was going to be a cold one as well. But that was to be expected I thought, since it was the beginning of October. My favorite part of the year was about to begin. Summer finally letting go of its fiery reign, and letting the colder winter months take charge.
I glanced at the clock on my dresser and gave a small yelp. I was already running late. Grabbing my necessities, I ran into the bathroom across the hall. Less than ten minutes later, I came rushing back out, mentally recording a new shower record for myself. My mother wanted me to eat breakfast before the big day, but I just couldn’t. The butterflies in my stomach were outrageously big today, and they were causing a serious problem for eating.
Today there was to be a big tournament held down town. Almost my whole Tae Kwon Do academy was going to be there. Master Donna was going to be watching me, and so were all the upper belts. Of course, in reality, none of them was going to be watching, but it always felt like their experienced eyes were on me, pinpointing my mistakes before and after I made them. The thought of them all watching me made my stomach give another lurch, I pushed the thoughts aside. It’s best not to think about that right now, I decided.
Within the hour, my family and I were all dressed up to go. My family was a rarity down at the martial arts academy. My sister, my brother, my father, and my mother all took Taekwondo along side me. A family of five was the biggest the school had ever seen join together. No doubt it impressed some of them, but that wasn’t why we did this. We all wanted something to learn together, and taking a martial art appealed to us all in different ways. For me, I loved the chance to prove myself. I enjoyed the physical and mental push for that one extra inch. It is the best feeling in the world when everyone around you sees your extreme effort. I always strived for that rising feeling of accomplishment and completion.
The drive to the tournament was quick, but it seemed to stretch on forever. As we reached the arena, I was overcome by a new wave of nervousness brought on solely by the arena’s presence. Once inside my anxiety disappeared as I looked around taking in everything. The vaulted ceiling of the large room seemed to lose itself in the shadowy height. The room stretched from side to side. The walls were lined with bleachers filled with people. Some of them had on the white uniform like I did, but some of them were spectators prepping their friends or family. I could see the nervous faces of boys and girls, child and adult alike.
Of course, the males didn’t seem to express any emotion. They closed themselves down, shutting off from everyone if they displayed the slightest weakness. It was a disturbing reality, I always thought. I definitely disliked such stoicism in this half of the human race. When they decided to shut out everyone, men did so regardless of their intense emotions; and the most annoying fact was that they did it well. Oh they did it so well. As I looked out into the crowd, I saw the resigned, closed off look in most of their eyes.
I walked to a group of empty seats and placed my belongings down. The chances were that I would be here all day, so I brought many things to keep myself occupied. Of course, there were plenty of people here for me to talk to that I knew, but I had come prepared. After a few moments, I realized that Corina, my best friend, wouldn’t know where I was sitting if I didn’t show her. So that meant that I had to wait at the door for her. I sighed at the thought of having to stand around this early in the morning. I had hours to go before I would even get ready to compete. I told my parents where I was going to have to go, and I briskly walked away, with my thoughts resting on the tournament ahead of me.
I wove my way through the crowd and parked myself right in front of the entrance doors. I kept my eyes trained on the doors, hoping that someone I knew would come through. Anyone I could talk to would suffice. It was against my nature to keep to myself; I needed to talk most of the time. I never saw it as a bad thing, but some people did. The doors opened and broke me away from my lonely thoughts. Of course when I saw who had walked through the door, I felt my heart do two things at once. First, it sunk down to my stomach, and then it did a back flip. It was an interesting feeling. Such a mixed emotion that it didn’t seem possible for them to be mixed; my response took me by surprise.
Sean had walked through the door. He was my age, slightly good looking, a higher belt than me, an instructor at my school, and he was also a selfish, arrogant, mean-spirited twit. I couldn’t stand him most of the time, and he made it clear that he couldn’t stand me. Most of the conversations that he and I had turned into arguments about one thing or another, even if it was something as simple as the color of my hair. Well that was a different story. My hair had been pink when we had gone through that particular argument. But still, he was insufferable most of the time. I noticed that in my head, I made a point of putting, “Most of the time” at the end of the sentence. There had been times where we managed to carry out a normal conversation, actually, a fun, enjoyable conversation. Those had been the times that he had taken me by surprise. Those were the times where my crush on him seemed reasonable.
He walked through the door with his red ‘Staff’ shirt on, and his hair spiked with gel. That’s when it looked the best, and those were the times where I had to school myself to keep my eyes off of him. He made eye contact with me, and his face fell and then rose. It looked like a physical representation of how I had felt inside when I saw him. He walked through the door and stood there beside it, almost like a bouncer at a bar would. It wasn’t until the first person had walked in after him that I realized that’s exactly what he was doing. He was checking to make sure that everyone had tickets.
The crowed came through at first like a wave, and I had to find a place next to the wall escape. After a few minutes, they fell away, and it was just he and I standing there.
“Well at least I have someone to talk to. Even if it is you,” he said, his sarcasm dripping out of his words like venom. “Great,” I thought to myself. “He’s in a good mood….” The sarcasm in my own thought was ironic enough to match up with his, but that wasn’t the point.
“Well if you want to look at it that way. But I’m really not that bad you know,” I said back. I always made the effort to reach out to him, but every time I got burned. I don’t know what made me keep on reaching out to him, even when he snapped back at me. But I did. It was just part of me. I liked to push people; I liked to see people for who they were, not who they wanted the world to see.
“All you girls are the same.” He said to me. I couldn’t believe he had said that to me again. The first time he had said it to me, I almost slapped him for the abusive generalization of the comment, but this time I was prepared for it. As he said the words and every time he said the words, pain flickered behind his dark eyes. His eyes always betrayed him. I normally could not tell what he was thinking or feeling, but there were times where his thoughts shined through his eyes anyway. Those were the times that I saw the real Sean. Those were the times I could peak through the cracks of his façade and see him. The person that I saw in those few seconds was enough to keep me coming back for more. I wanted to know more about the person hidden under it all, and I was determined to get to it. As hard as he made it, I was determined to get to know the true him.
“You always say that, and you never accept the falsity of the statement,” I said, trying to impress him with my large vocabulary. For a few seconds, I saw turmoil behind his eyes as they locked with mine. Again they were his downfall. Every time I looked into them, I saw pain, hurt, and a brokenness that didn’t look like it could be easily fixed. As he looked into my eyes, he did something that I very rarely saw him do in my presence; he smiled. A true smile spread across his face, and when he did that, I saw what he really looked like. It wasn’t the disgusted, annoyed look that I normally got but a true look at Sean. I couldn’t help but smile back, and when I did, he looked like he had been shocked. His eyes blinked rapidly, his head shook, and he took a step back.
“You shouldn’t stand around the door. You’ll hold up traffic,” he said to me, the shut down look plastered back on his face. As I glanced at the door and noticed that there wasn’t anyone coming through. I realized that I had done something else to him today which I’d never done before. I embarrassed him. A small cry of triumph echoed through my mind, as I smiled, reassuring, “I have to wait here for my friend. Sorry, but you can’t get rid of me that easy.” He cocked his head to the side in a very cute manner and looked at me for about five seconds. Then he jumped again, like he had forgotten to do something and then suddenly it was there again. The shut down eyes, the closed look imprisoning his personality.
“Fine, I don’t care,” he said and turned back to the door. At this point, I was exasperated, and decided that I’d had enough reaching out for the day. It was hard to break through to him, but I was hopeful for once because today I had seen more than any other time, and the day was still very young.
Hours passed, and my talk with Sean was over. Not long after I had seen my fill. He had rushed off on some ‘staff business.’ It was a lie, and I knew it, but that’s ok. I would let him slide for now. But I had seen enough of him in those two instances to arouse curiosity. And of course, it didn’t do much for my crush on him. That was another thing about him that I couldn’t understand. He had a power over me. Something about him made me smile. Even though he was mean to me, I knew there was something more about it, and today had just proved it. Now I wanted to see more, and I was determined by the end of the day to see just that.
At the moment, I had time to kill. There was nothing for me to do but sit, watch, and think. So being my pensive self, I sat down and thought about what was going on between me and my instructor. I wanted to get close to him, but every time I tried, he pushed me away. For some reason, he didn’t want me close to him, but for the life of me I couldn’t figure out his reasons. More than anything, I wanted to prove him wrong and get close to him, despite all his pushing away. So my conclusion after an hour of thought was that, one, I didn’t exactly have a ‘crush’ on him, and, two, I wanted to get close to him anyway. I was very conflicted, but at least I could see that.
So today’s goal was to make Sean uncomfortable enough to gently force him to open up somewhat. To break his seemingly strong defenses, and get close to him. At least, I could try. That was me in a nutshell; I always took the hard way. It would be so much simpler if I could just let it go, and let him be who he was. But again, that wasn’t my way of doing things. It just wasn’t me. Once I had my mind set on something, I didn’t let go. This was my game to play, and I was going to win. Sean didn’t stand a chance. I grinned to myself at my sudden realization. My eyes twinkled like they always did when I got an evil idea, and that’s when I knew that I was going to win this round.
Sweat still clung to my body, and I had to wipe it off my forehead every other minute to keep it from falling in my eyes. I had just finished competing, and thankfully I won first place. But the massive amount of energy that I had expelled to win the sparring match was still leaving me slightly drained. Of course, we wouldn’t be leaving for a long time. There was so much more going on today that I wasn’t sure when we were leaving. So I changed into my normal clothes, and I cleaned myself up some. I fixed my hair and cleaned the sweat off of my face. After all of that, I felt better and prepared myself for a relaxing day.
I walked back from the dressing room, fresh, clean, and a smile planted on my face. Now that the competition was off of my mind, I could concentrate on the main event of the day. I still was set on breaking into Sean today, and now I could fully put my efforts into it. Thoughts of how I could make him uncomfortable flashed through my head, and as they did, an opportunity came up in front of me. Literally. There he was, walking right at me. Of course, he wasn’t looking at me; he was preoccupied with something else. That’s how he had been all day. He had managed to keep himself busy enough that he didn’t see or talk to me, but again, I knew that what he was doing was just another defensive mechanism. He knew, and I knew that the conversation that we had this morning was an accident on his part. He had let part of him slip through the cracks of his shell, and he knew that it was too late to make up for it. I had him right where I wanted him. On the run.
He was still walking towards me, and I knew what I was going to do.
“Sean!” I yelled catching his attention. “Look! I got first!!!” I said as he got closer.
With a shocked look, like he had just noticed me, he turned to look at me. His eyes locked with mine for a moment, and I could see just a normal person looking back. I smiled, and then his eyes closed off again, like a wall was behind them. I had been close but not close enough.
“Good job, I knew you could do it,” he said without much enthusiasm. Sean was still talking from instructor point of view. In this mode, all he would see is that one of the students that he taught had won first place, and he was happy about that. But he was happy for me in an impersonal way. Now I could see that, but I was going to pretend that I didn’t notice just to bug him.
“Thanks!” I said, as I threw my arms around his neck and hugged him close. For a second, he was a person in my arms. One of his arms closed around my back, and for a moment, I thought he was going to let this go, and I was going to win right here. Then as if he had the same realization, his body stiffened. His other arm grasped my shoulder and pushed me away. As I took a step back, I looked into his eyes again. If I had thought they were closed off before, I knew he was gone to me now. They had such a distant look in them that there wasn’t any way that he would even hear me if I said something. I had lost this round, but there would be more opportunities later in the day. Or at least I hoped there would be.
I leaned back against the car behind me I didn’t know whose car it was, but for the moment I didn’t care. The tournament was over, and we had a few hours before the dinner and demo competition would begin. Maggie, my friend and sometimes teacher, and Sean were talking about school next to me. I was just trying to think of how I was going to handle Sean right now. He seemed normal enough, but that was because he was with Maggie. For some reason, he didn’t get closed off with her. It was like he trusted her more than he trusted me, but maybe that was to be understood. Maybe in his mind, he had a reason, but for now, I didn’t understand.
I decided that for now, my best course of action would be to jump into the conversation.
“I am getting an A in biology too.” I interjected.
“Stop bragging!” Maggie said. She was struggling in the subject.
“Biology isn’t easy. I don’t understand how you managed to get an A Sami.” Sean said coldly.
“Oh no, here we go again.” Maggie said. “Do you two ever stop fighting?” She asked.
“We don’t fight! I just always disagree with her,” Sean said.
“Oh yeah, I believe that,” I added, not liking the way the conversation had gone.
“Would you two stop flirting?!” Maggie basically yelled at us.
“We are NOT flirting,” Sean insisted, putting massive emphasis on the ‘not’ word. By now, I was mad. All thoughts of getting to Sean were pushed out of my mind. He had no reason to be mean to me the way he was, and I was sick of dealing with it. I stepped in front of him, anger flashing through me.
Making a gun shape with my hand, I pointed it at his chest, touching him just lightly with the tip of my finger. “Bang. I just broke your heart,” I said, menace and anger sliding out with the words.
When I said the words, I looked into his eyes, and that’s when I knew that I had blown it massively. First, he looked down at my hand, still just pressing on his chest. Then his eyes slowly came up to mine. When they connected, I was almost stunned physically. The pain that came from his eyes was excruciating. Mistrust, the hurt, the sadness, and a lost look mingled together in those pools of pain. What had I done in that simple sentence? What could I have possibly brought up from his past? What kind of emotion had my act incited in him?
“I knew you would,” He whispered in a tone just barely audible against the cars driving in the parking lot. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, there was that wall again. This time though, the wall was solid steel. Not even the smallest crack showed.
“All you teenage girls are the same. You can’t make choices, and when you do, they suck,” Sean accused, glancing between me and Maggie. With a swift turn, he walked back down the sidewalk and into the building out of sight. I had blown it and now he was as unfeeling as ever. But what had I awakened in him? That question would have to remain unanswered until later though. Now I had to manage to keep Maggie from noticing how upset I was or how upset he was. I felt it my duty to keep his pain my secret. Apparently, he didn’t want anyone to know, and it was my fault that he had been forced to show it. I would keep it under wraps.
I asked myself when this line would end. The line seemed to be at a standstill. The dinner that we were trying to work our way to was still a long shot off, and the line was stationary again. Why did they make us wait like this? I was hungry and I hadn’t eaten anything since early this afternoon. Right now I wanted some food. Things changed after Sean and I had finished arguing. For some reason, he was now slightly more open. I don’t know why, but he was. His eyes still hinted of the wall behind them, but his attitude seemed different. He was nice and actually fun to be around. What specifically had changed, I was still to decipher, but for now it was enough to know he had defiantly changed.
“You all should be thanking me right now!” He said playfully.
“Oh really? Why is that?” I said back with curiosity.
“I am blessing you with my presence, when I could be all the way up there with the rest of the staff. But no, I wanted to come and keep you company. So you can thank me any time!” Sean said, his arrogance pouring out of him in waves.
“Oh please! You just couldn’t bear the thought of being away from me!” I say, trying to match is arrogance. Of course, attempting that was like a match trying to keep up with a bonfire.
“Oh my my, we have a high opinion of ourselves now don’t we?” Sean said mockingly.
“Sean, you had earned yourself so many points before too! By coming back here with us, you might have been slowly climbing up the ladder. Oh well, you blew it.” Sean’s mother said from his other side. Inside, her comment made me snicker, but I wasn’t going to show Sean that.
“I don’t want any points with her.” He said, his coldness slipping out again. He said it to emphasize that I wasn’t good enough for him to earn points from. For some reason, that made me even more mad. Again, I stepped in front of him, and pointed the fake gun at him. I opened my mouth to say the words, but he beat me too it.
“Don’t you think once in a day is enough?” He said, lowering his eyes. He gently grabbed my hand, and pointed it down to the ground. “Guns are dangerous, especially those kind,” he said quietly. I took a deep look into his eyes, and I could see that the wall had slackened some. Just behind it, I could see all those emotions playing over and over again. I could almost feel them. Almost. I just needed to be a little closer to him. All in all, his words left me speechless, and before I could recover, he turned away. Thankfully the line started to move again.
My eyes bugged. Once again, the Demo teams had impressed me with some high flying action. I was only a yellow belt, and this was the first time I had seen people do these kinds of things. I never imagined that some of these moves were possible. I couldn’t understand how people actually managed to fly through the air like that and land without killing themselves.
I could feel Sean next to me clapping along with the crowd. I was amazed at how kind he was still being. After all I had put him through today he was still talking to me. Of course my intention had been for him to be nice to me, but I thought that I’d blown it early on. I turned and smiled at him and he returned the smile.
“Pretty cool huh?” He asked in a friendly tone, the smile still plastered to his face. This was a real smile that carried itself all the way to his eyes. When I looked into his eyes this time, I saw a different person. I saw Sean. I didn’t see Assistant Instructor Sean; I saw Sean. There were no more walls. I don’t know why, but they were gone. I had a clear shot through to the real person behind it. Why he had given up on his defenses I didn’t know, but right now I didn’t care. I was just going to enjoy this.
Now that we sat back and talked about the demo and what was going on around us, I relished the feeling of having a crush on someone. Now that I was starting to see the real person, I knew that I could actually start to like him for who he was. I knew I would like him. The few glimpses I had were plenty to keep my coming back for more. Shamelessly, I flirted.
I would make playful jokes and bump him in the shoulder with mine when he made one back. I Played footsie with him and at one point our hands brushed together. The night was coming to a close, in all senses of the word, and I couldn’t be happier. I had his email address; he had mine, and he was now a friend. I could feel it. I accomplished what I had come to do. A triumphant smile spread across my face, and I turned to him and just smiled. He smiled back, and that was all I needed.
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"Good Writing is clear thinking made visible."
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