Autumn's Monologue

The leaves were already starting to fall from the trees. It seemed like fall came earlier and earlier every year and with it, winter right on its heels. The hustle and bustle of the cafe, normally a warm and welcoming sound, seemed to close in around her. As Kira did her best to block out the scraping of chairs and the hiss of the espresso machine. She didn’t understand where the year had gone. It felt like the holiday season had just ended and yet here it was creeping through the walls, so thick that she hugged her jacket closer to her in an attempt to stave it off.

Digging into her purse, she pulled out her last ten-dollar bill before ordering the largest pumpkin spice coffee they had. It had been a tradition as long as she could remember, something that had happened in The Before. With coffee in hand, she pushed out of the cafe and onto the bustling sidewalk. She sidestepped a pink-haired girl who nearly ran her down. The quad was full of life, people enjoying the last cool days before the bitter cold of winter crept in. Most seemed to not have a care in the world. With seven weeks left until end of term, most of her classmates seemed unfazed that the seasons were changing. They all had people to go home to at the end-of-term and Kira didn’t know if she would even be returning in the Spring. An education at Brighton’s Academy for Young Girls didn’t come cheap. Before there would have been no question about being able to afford it. In The After… she just didn’t know.

Reaching her dorm she entered her room, not at all surprised to see Stephanie and Diamond sprawled across the living room floor. Their notes were scattered all over the coffee table and the pot of coffee had been placed safely in the middle on a trivet.

“Sutton’s term paper?” Kira asked as she picked up a discarded copy of The Old Man and the Sea that had fallen to the ground.

“Unfortunately! I swear that man is trying to kill us!” Diamond said, waving her draft of the paper in Kira’s general direction. “No one else gave us a paper and a final due the same week.”

“The rest of our teachers aren’t sadistic assholes.” Stephanie replied, pulling her hair back as she scrunched her eyes closed, trying to fight off a tension headache.

“Six more weeks and you’ll be heading home for Christmas.” Kira said more enthusiastic than she felt, as a pensive look crossed Diamond’s face.

“Hey, Margie said you signed up to stay for the holidays this year.” she said suddenly, as Kira fought to keep a neutral expression on her face.

“Oh that? Yeah. There’s just so much happening here over the holidays that I didn’t want to miss. The theater is putting on a production of RENT, and then there’s the workshops they hold. Mom said I could stay this year to get the full experience and then decide if I want to come home next year.” Kira said, breathing a sigh of relief as Diamond’s face lit up at the mention of the workshops.

“Oh. If you go to the Poe workshop or the SAT workshop, can you record them for me? I wanted to go but it wasn’t worth missing Thanksgiving and Christmas, ya know? Not when we’re only in our second year.” she asked, glad when Kira nodded her head.

“I hear they’re giving out full sets of books at nearly all the workshops.” Stephanie said casually as she reached to refill her coffee cup. Diamond snorted, trying to hold back a laugh.

“As much as this place costs a term? They’d better be giving out signed copies at the workshops. Kira, could you try and snag two extra sets? I doubt they’d even notice they were missing and we’ll need both for next year.”

“I’ll do my best. I need to get on with my math homework. If you need me I’ll be in my room.” Kira said, dodging the requests to work on their end-of-term paper smoothly, as she slipped into her room before closing the door.

Kira nearly jumped as her phone started ringing suddenly. A glance at the screen had her biting back a groan as she accepted the call.

“Hey mom. Sorry I haven’t called lately, I’ve been swamped with end-of-term reports.” Kira said, knowing that it wasn’t a full lie and her mother didn’t know any better to call her on it.

“Oh it’s fine sweetie. I just wanted to let you know that your dad transferred some extra money into your account. We got your mid-term grades in and he was really impressed.”

Kira shook her head before pushing away the two books that had been sprawled open in front of her.

“Nice. Tell him I said thank you.” Kira replied, rolling her eyes as her mother started talking about a trip they where planning on taking to the Bahama’s over Christmas. She knew damn well the reason the extra money had shown up in her account and it had nothing to do with her grades. Ever since she had caught her father with Mrs. Davidson over the summer, her checking account had been padded every week. Her father had been sending her more than she could spend in a month, and she doubted her mother had a clue about it.

They talked for a few more minutes about some of the people back home before they disconnected for the night. As she hung up the phone Kira stared at the phone in her hand, shaking her head in disgust before she tossed the phone across the room.

Making her way into the bathroom she started the tap, checking the water with one of her fingers before reaching for a crystal bottle that her mother had given her. Removing the stopper she poured a generous amount of the honey liquid into the hot water before adding another jar of bubble bath. She reached for her phone to shuffle her music app, finally undressing before sliding into the nearly scalding liquid.

The thought of going home for the holidays made her nearly sick to her stomach. Kira wasn’t sure if she could face her father after what had happened, nor if her face could keep it’s composure around her mother. On the other hand she was nearly swamped with work, and there was so much happening on campus that she truly didn’t want to miss.

***

Fall break had come and gone. It some ways had it had been very uneventful. Kira had spent most of her week wrapped up in the overflowing pile of books that had taken over her room. Her mother had been very generous with her book allowance that term, something that had made her wonder, but she didn’t think on it too hard. She loved her books. The smell of a new book fresh off the shelf was something she had always loved. The crisp, pristine pages as she fell head first into a new world.

It was a tradition in a way. Everyone in the family that had gone to be accepted into one of the better high schools was always given a spending allowance. The family name wouldn’t allow for anything less, but they were also given a special allotment based around their interests. For her mother, it had been needle works of all kinds. Mrs. Bailey had created enough for several marriage trunks during her time there. Kira however found herself drawn to reading classics. No, any book would work, if the overflowing bookcases back at home where anything to go by.

That fall found her spending habits changing drastically. She had found a quaint little stationary shop near one of the local bookshops and it began eating up most of her spare money. The clean, crisp corners of a new bound book, or the exquisitely blank pages that looked like the old parchment of days gone by. It seemed the closer it got to Christmas, the more drastic her spending habits became. When she should have been working on her math homework, she would be walking through town, trying to find the next big thing. The next piece of literature that would push her into another frenzy of writing. The ones that she couldn’t pull herself out of if she tried.

There was a sense of madness in the air that late fall and early winter. Something that seeped into her very essence and nearly drove her over the edge that year. Bounding into class on a high she couldn’t explain, losing herself in her creative writing class before floating back to her dorm after classes ended. She found that sugar and caffeine helped increase the manic energy she had fallen into that season.

Copious amounts of caffeine coursed their way through her body, as if they were far harder substances – and she sought it out like an addict. She somehow pushed through the dreadful math and science classes. Yet in English, Latin and Creative Writing, she found that she blossomed that term. Years later she couldn’t explain what happened to her at Brighton in those classes. Pushed aside by a family that had once thought the world of her, forced to keep her father’s ghastly secret, she began to change.

“Did your dad do something to upset you?” Diamond asked one day, as she helped Kira carry four boxes back to their dorm after a workout at the gym.

“No, nothing like that. He just likes to send trinkets for good grades.” Kira said, knowing that within one of the boxes where presents for the girls. “The bottom box there has presents for you and Stephanie.”

In the box were stacks of pink and purple copy paper, pens and stickers galore. Tiny trinkets and pretty baubles that any girl of their age would want, neatly packed away in metal tins with bright characters on them. Thus began their attempts to out do each other with cute little trinkets they had found throughout. At the end of fall they were hanging on to what bit of sanity they had left, with the arrival of winter it seemed to have fled almost entirely.

There is something to be said about throwing nearly eight hundred of the most competitive girls around all onto the same campus. In retrospect it seemed quite a dangerous thing to do. In classes she found herself either barely passing or writing so much that a permanent ink spot formed on her right hand. Outside of class would find her hunkered down in one of the study rooms, surrounded by stacks of books, headphones in, typing away trying to find that perfect, subtle, artful word. That one word that fit just right. It had to be that way, there was no other.

By Christmas Eve, she had severely cut down on sleep. She hadn’t heard from her mother since her phone call back at the end of November. Her father never bothered to make direct contact, he simply kept funneling more money into her bank account, sending boxes upon boxes of books. Her dorm room, once orderly and looking like it had come out of a magazine was now overflowing at odd angles, where books stacked three deep on the bookcases. Where rows and rows of books lined up against the walls. Where books, half-read, re-read, never-read, lay abandoned on the carpet as more flowed from those guilt-ridden boxes. 

All of it had been an attempt to make her forget what she had seen. An attempt to make her forget that Christmas had come and she was stuck at school. One of only fifteen students that wasn’t able to go home for the holidays. All it did was fuel her obsessions. As the clock struck midnight, indicating another Christmas had arrived, Kira was hunkered down in a pile of blankets that had overtaken her floor. She was surrounded by a perilously stacked pile of books that looked ready to collapse and bury her forever, her face inches from her laptop screen as the caffeine flowed through her veins.

The bubbly brown liquid seemed to stream through her veins and out her fingers. Click. Clack. Clickity. Clackity. The longer she stayed awake, the more outlandish her essays became. Even when she wasn’t working on something for one of her classes or her journalism assignment, there was always the next thing to fill the spare hours.

Christmas finally upon her, Kira did manage to take one small break. Her English teacher had demanded that she at least have a cup of coffee with her if she was to be stuck there all winter. It was a facade, the cup of coffee. It was more to check up on her as Miss Richards had noticed the dark circles under her eyes, and the slight haunted look that came over her in her Creative Writing class. Kira knew as much going into the coffee break and had managed to contour and mascara her way out of any further confrontations

That winter would set the tone for the rest of her stay at Brighton’s, although Kira didn’t know it at the time. A frenzied energy, worse than she had seen before, would take over her as she packed her schedule as full as she could manage. Yet for now, as midnight on New Year’s Eve approached, Kira’s frenzy finally ebbed, she was overcome with a new sense of serenity and peace. Hustling around the town, she gathered the few items she would need, bottled water, tablets, new ink cartridges and a last cookie from the delightful Jewish bakery down the road from campus.

After she headed home, she settled down with her favorite old notebook. There were three more critical pieces of writing she had to do – and only the best paper and fountain pen would be fitting for the job.

Once done, she laid the letters on her bedside table, and slowly, agonizingly slowly, starting counting as she swallowed… 1.. 2… 3… this went on until she reached well over 100 and lost count, her eyes beginning to lose focus. 

There she thought with some triumph as the pills started to kick in.

When the energy finally left her and she found herself curled up in her bed in the middle of the day, the burden eventually lifted. She didn’t worry, didn’t care, didn’t feel that overwhelming apprehension and sense of impending doom. All Kira knew was she needed a nap, and it seemed the perfect time for a very long nap.