Escaping sadness

The car was humming quietly and Izzy stood beside it, leaning on the right back door. Given her stance on cars, it was a strange place to find comfort. However, her thoughts were effortlessly following the same rhythm as the monotonous sound of the engine. Her heart, on the other hand, had taken on a much slower melody. Izzy was so used to her sadness, that it actually felt normal. Even at that moment. 

But it wasn’t. Sadness should be reserved for special occasions, rare moments that have really earned the heaviness of this fundamental human emotion. The current moment didn’t qualify. Izzy was standing near the beautiful beach of a little-known bay and the trees of thick welcoming woods were rising on her right side. It felt like she was far away from anything to ever be touched by human hands and she loved that feeling.

She came here with a group of friends, tonight was the first of a 10-day summer trip they had been planing for the last three months. The group had started settling on the beach near the first trees. Some of the tents were already pitched. But Izzy couldn’t bring herself to go and help. Her legs were heavy and she stayed near the car, looking at the woods. Her eyes were zooming out of the surrounding green, making space for calm tears.

Just as she felt the first one slowly sliding down her right cheek, the nearing voices of her friends cut the moment short. She quickly wiped the tear away with the back of her hand and headed for the trunk. Her gait and the wide smile she now had hid it all so well that even she almost forgot about the quiet chaos in her head.

‘Hey, do you need help with your luggage?’ Oh, so it wasn’t her friends after all. It was the guys she hadn’t met until today, but who her friend Tom had decided to invite without consulting with anyone. 

‘No, thanks.’ she tried not to sound hostile while taking her backpack out of the car. They were coming closer, so she hurried, turned around and asked them gaspingly, ‘Do you need anything from here?’

‘Yes, we came back for the bug repellent, everybody’s already gone crazy because of the mosquitoes.’ She fake smiled, left the trunk open and was already on her way to the others when she heard the continuation.

‘Do you have some?’

Izzy stopped and realized, that she had forgotten about that. But she also didn’t want to ask them for it, so she said:

‘Oh, no, but I’ll ask my friends.’ She cringed as she heard herself saying that. ‘I mean… I’ll ask the girls. Sorry, I should just go.’ She quickened her pace in the direction of the fire before the boys could say anything else. 

As she walked, which after the first few meters slowly turned into a drag, Izzy returned to her previous thoughts. She was unable to focus her attention on anything else. Not even on shame. She came on this trip hoping to distract herself, but the more time passed, the more she realized that wasn't happening. So at some point, she just stopped trying. 

In all honesty, it was the first day of the trip and this realization came only two hours after she got in the car. Her friends were singing at the top of their lungs and she was faking it (quite successfully it should be noted). But inside, the same thoughts she was trying to put behind were occupying the 98% of her mind she wasn't using to control her facial expressions.

It was the first evening of the trip, so everyone was overly excited. They had formed a brigade and each member had a task. Some were taking care of the fire, others of the tents, there were cooks and a barwoman, a DJ and even a designer, who was putting all the blankets and pillows in order. 

Then there was also the couple who didn't care about anyone else but themselves. They were already engaged in, frankly, exhibitionistic, skinny-dipping. It seemed like they enjoyed everyone else watching them. Izzy came to that conclusion after they came out of the water screaming and ran back in for the third time in the last three minutes. She was still standing at a safe distance when Salma saw her and shouted:

‘Izzy, Come over here! You’re not getting away as a Process Monitoring Specialist, you need to do something, too. That is if you want to have dinner of course!’ The thing is, she didn’t want to. She wasn’t hungry, even though she hadn’t eaten since 10 am. It was now around 8 pm. 

‘Of course, what should I do?’ She called back to Salma and walked over to where her neat freak of a friend was arranging the candles around the blankets. Salma turned to see her, and her expression changed to one of displeasure.

‘Maybe get yourself a drink first, you don’t seem to share the team spirit!’ Her friend joked, now lowering her voice to its normal pitch. 

Izzy went to the barwoman, Jane, who was taking her profession for the evening quite seriously. Izzy asked for a beer and Jane was seemingly offended. She insisted on making her a cocktail, the recipe for which she had developed exclusively for their trip. How could Izzy say no to that? So she didn’t. As she was waiting for her drink, she talked to Jane about their drive here. They were in separate cars, so there were a lot of funny anecdotes to tell. At least on Jane’s side. But Izzy didn’t mind, this way she didn’t need to act all excited like everybody else. 

Once she got her extra special beverage, Izzy wasn’t sure where she should go, but she had to move because a line was forming behind her. She went to her friend Gabriel and asked him how he was doing. She was pretty sure that was going to work in her favor, as he always had some super spicy story to tell. And she wasn’t wrong this time around either. Tonight, all he wanted to talk about was the hot new guy Tom had brought and how their knees touched on the way here, and how Peter (that was the new guy’s name) hadn’t moved his leg. Gabriel was desperate to hear Izzy’s opinion on whether she thought he should go for it, although it seemed like he had already made up his mind. Izzy was agreeing subtly, but he needed something stronger. The vodka tonic in his hand seemed to do the trick because he took the last sip and declared:

‘Okay, Izzy! I will do what I feel is right! I will go and talk to him! And it is encouraging to know that you support this idea, too, thank you!’, his gestures were just as dramatic as his words if not even more. He fixed his hair, put a wide smile on and made himself on the way to the fire. There were people all around it, talking, laughing, kissing. However, he seemed to know exactly where to go. 

Despite feeling like a total outsider, Izzy didn’t want to act like one, because she knew one of her friends would come to her saving. So, she looked around, trying to figure out her next move. She was desperate to find somebody new to listen to. 

‘Hey, so did you find yourself a repellent?’ It was one of the new guys, holding a beer in his hand. Izzy let a betraying grin slip for a brief moment.

‘Oh, no, insects don’t seem to like me.’

‘Or it’s because you’re staying in the dark the whole time?’

‘Have you been watching me?’

‘Is it bad if I had?’

‘Creepy mainly.’

‘I just wanted to get a chance to talk to you. Is that okay?’ His right eyebrow rose a little and he put on a friendly smile.

‘Uhm, I guess. What did you want to talk to me about?’

‘I wanted to ask you if you’re doing fine? Or if you needed to talk to someone. I am a pretty good listener and also an objective one in this case.’ Now both his eyebrows rose and he made a “Come on, why not?!” gesture, raising his shoulders and the palms of his hands facing up horizontally.

‘Why would you want to ask me that?’ She was genuinely surprised. She thought she had mastered hiding her emotions. Or so it seemed because so far no one else had tried to cheer her up like they usually did. 

‘Oh, you just seemed a little tense and we’re all here to have fun, so it didn’t really add up, you know…’

‘Well, I mean… thanks,’ before she could say anything else, he asked a new question.

‘So do you want to take a walk? We don’t need to talk about what’s bothering you if you don’t feel like it, but I would still like to get to know you.’

‘Yeah, okay,’ weirdly, she didn’t feel any tension, so they went for a walk along the beach. Тhey talked a lot and didn’t notice how many times they went back and forth between their camp and the corner of the bay. At some point, Izzy got thirsty, so they returned to the party. It had radically developed, so they knew they’d been gone for at least a couple of hours. 

Everybody was dancing around the fire now, the music was loud, alcohol was pouring and Izzy and the guy she just realised she still didn’t know the name of, were both allowed to drink beer this time. 

They joined the happy dancing people and his smile was surreal under the light of the moon, sprinkled with dancing sparks from the fire. They danced their hearts out and the night was just magical. After about two more hours, Izzy could barely move. Most of the people had gone to bed, so it was quieter now.

They decided to sit down, but Izzy shivered a little, so the guy asked her if it was fine for him to sit behind her so he could keep her warm. That was the first time they touched. She felt unfamiliar comfort. 

They started talking about their dreams and both felt brave enough to share even their most intimate ones with the other. As dawn approached, they were now lying side by side, looking deep into each other's eyes and time seemed to have stopped. They drifted off to sleep entranced by the quiet song of the sea meeting the sand just a few metres below their feet.

---

As the sun began to warm the air around, the group slowly came back to life and Salma approached the new guy. She gave him a gentle pat on the shoulder.

‘How are you feeling?’ She asked him with a trace of worry in her voice the second he opened his eyes. 

‘I’m fine. Where’s Izzy?’ He was trying to make sense of his surroundings.

‘She’s not here,’ Salma put her hand on his shoulder as she was saying that. She read his questions on his face, so she continued, ‘She woke me up at dawn and asked me to take her to the closest train station. But she wanted me to thank you for last night and to apologize on her behalf. She said you gave her the answer,’ she air-quoted that last part.

‘What?!’ He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. 

‘Yeah, I know. That’s just Izzy.’ She smiled and said, ‘We were all very surprised when she said she was joining the trip, but this... Well, this just makes sense.’

‘Do you think what she said had anything to do with that sad face of hers?’ The guy asked after a few long seconds, a faint smile sliding across his lips.

‘I hope,’ she stood up and started walking away, but then she turned around again, ‘Oh, and she also told me to get your email address for her.’ They both laughed. 

Salma went on her way and the guy looked up at the sky thinking to himself, ‘Man, I love that girl.’