Existence(40)

The hallways were already empty which meant I was late for English Literature. The ache returned as I thought about facing class without Dank. Even when he’d been ignoring me I was able to hear him talk and feel the heat from his gaze.

Now, I wasn’t even going to have that small bit of comfort.

What hurt even worse was how no one seemed to remember him. It was as if he had never existed. I stopped right outside the door. Going inside seemed unbearable. I wrapped my hands around my stomach to hold in the pain tearing me apart and leaned up against the wall. I stared down the empty hallway, wishing another soul would wander through.



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Instead, the empty silence remained. For the first time in my life I wanted to be bothered by the presence of souls and there wasn’t one around. If I could just go somewhere that was infested with wandering souls then I could ask them all.

I could ask and ask until I found one could and would speak to me. Something about the young soul in the bathroom told me she could have spoken had she wanted. She was scared.

Scared of what? What did souls have to fear? They were dead after all, or at least their bodies were.

“The hospital,” I whispered aloud, remembering that the one place I’d seen endless wandering souls had been the hospital. I turned and headed toward the front doors to the school. I would go there and start asking every soul I found.

One of them was bound to talk back. I would figure out how to find Dank. He was real. I’d known him. I loved him. I would find him.



“Miss. Moore? Our class is this way,” Mr. Brown’s voice cut through my thoughts and I stopped and sighed in defeat before turning around and facing my round English Literature teacher.

“Yes, sir, I was, um, just going to get a late pass.” He smiled and shook his head, “No need, but do hurry up please we’re just getting started on the beauty that is fiction. Come along now.” He stepped back, waiting for me to enter first. I walked back toward the class, wanting to turn and take off running in the other direction. I knew if Mom got a call that I’d jumped ship she would be furious and my chances of finding Dank were slim to none once I was locked in my room for the rest of the year.

I stepped into the classroom and walked over to my empty seat by the window. The chair behind me sat empty. I glanced back at Kendra and the chair behind her was full of Justin. He’d just stepped in and taken Dank’s place.

Disgusted, I turned back around. How could she have been touched by Dank and kissed by him and so easily forgotten he existed? I hadn’t forgotten. How had she? How could she 120



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not feel the pain of his absence? He was too good for her.

Why had he wasted so much time with her? I sank down into my chair and swallowed the lump of emotion welling up inside me. I couldn’t sit through this class without him here.

“The reading assignment today is to be done quietly at our desks. Do not talk to your neighbors. I want complete silence as you inhale the beauty of the written word. Take it in. Let it soak into your veins and fill you with such glorious wonder that you are positively glowing.” Moans erupted over the room. “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Let us be excited about the word.

Excited about its beauty.” Grumbling continued as the sounds of shuffling pages filled the room. This would be a time for most of the students to take a nap behind their textbooks. I opened mine, wanting to find something to get my thoughts off of Dank. When the day was over I would go to the hospital and I would begin asking questions. Some soul somewhere had answers.

“Ugh, this is poet stuff,” a grumbling voice came from the back of the room.

Mr. Brown looked up from the book in his hands. “Ah, yes it is Mr. Kimbler, so nice of you to notice.” More groans erupted and I found the page directed on the board. It was William Wordsworth’s work. I felt the urge to moan in despair myself. Studying the beginning of the Romantic Age was not something I needed right now. Where were the tragic playwrights when you needed them?

“How does this mess help us in the real world?” Justin said in a cocky voice. Sniggers erupted across the classroom.

“Hear, hear,” someone called with a tap on their desk.

Mr. Brown glanced up once more with a slightly annoyed expression on his face, “Gentlemen, if one does not study the words of famous romantic poets how will one ever learn to woo the woman they will one day love? I can assure you that P Diddy has no words of instruction in his lyrical creations.” His words caused a few chuckles. I would have found this all very amusing if the concept of reading P Diddy lyrics didn’t 121



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seem so appealing at the moment. I glanced down at the poem we were to read and write a two-page paper on. To a Young Lady by William Wordsworth. I could only hope it wasn’t a poem of enduring love.



“Dear Child of Nature, let them rail!

--There is a nest in a green dale, A harbour and a hold,

Where thou a Wife and Friend, shalt see Thy own delightful days, and be

A light to young and old.

There, healthy as a Shepherd-boy, As if thy heritage were joy,

And pleasure were thy trade,

Thou, while thy Babes around thee cling, Shalt shew us how divine a thing A Woman may be made.



Thy thoughts and feelings shall not die, Nor leave thee, when grey hairs are nigh, A melancholy slave