Echo J. Tollridge

A Short Story by Echo J. Tollridge

I wondered what it would be like to freeze to death willingly. Probably painful and slow, but at that point, it didn’t matter to me. My mind felt more numb than my toes.

It was the first or second week of January during my second semester as a freshman in college. Somewhere around nine o’ clock in the evening. I sat on a bench covered in a thick blanket of white. Not even a flat blanket, like one of those thick kinds of blankets, folded or rolled up. My converse were soaked from snow. The arms of my winter coat lay on either side of me, and I watched my breath fog before me with each time I exhaled.

How long would it take to freeze? Probably a really long time.

No one would miss me. Maybe for a few months. My parents would be crushed, but they have my baby brother. I love my parents, and they love me, but they suffocated me. Sometimes it was too much love, and it was too much they expected of me. I’m a failure and a disappointment.

Maybe one day they’ll understand that I’m crazy, unwanted, and don’t deserve to live.

I glanced sideways to the art building. Its architecture screamed pretentiousness in comparison to the other buildings on campus. Skinny, concrete columns held up a concrete block with an array of windows that aligned with the perimeter of the top floor. Below the block, the building was made of dark bricks that had similar windows to the top floor. This gave it a grander look than the music building next door, where I was. All of the walls were grossly gray slabs of stone, with giant windows everywhere.

I went there often to visit Thomas when he was working. He stayed there late doing animations for his classes, and in the meantime, I had rehearsals in the music building, church, and practicing to do in the evenings. Tonight, I came up to meet up with him, and then he said we were done. He said I was too much. He said I was crazy. He didn’t want me. No one does.

I see it all the time on Facebook: photos of people hanging out and having a good time, filled with smiles and laughter, parties of friends that never invite me to hang out. I see them all making connections and bonding. I see this all while I’m curled up in my dark dorm room, alone, scrolling through the Facebook app on my phone. No one messages me. No one checks up on me.

I’ve tried. I’ve reached out to the few friends I’ve had. They were too busy with work, school, family, and their other friends. The only text thread that was most recent was Thomas’ when I texted him that I was on my way about three hours ago. The following threads consisted of homework questions to classmates and messages to my parents. I haven’t spoken or talked to my friends from high school since the summer before college. Even then, the conversations were thin. Most of them consisted of shallow exchanges: Hey. How’s it going? Good. Up to anything this weekend? Yeah, visiting my grandparents. Or going to the movies with so-and-so. Or having a bonfire. Or having a sleepover.

I hopelessly tapped on my cold phone screen with my exposed, shaking fingers. Could I call anyone? My finger hovered over one name: Deanna. She was a recent acquaintance I made last semester. She was the only one closest to me on campus. She seemed like a busy person. I didn’t know her that well. I scrolled back up to Thomas’ name in my text threads.

Tonight was the second time he broke up with me. The first time was a week ago, and we got back together. He was my second official boyfriend. My first one was Robert, who also probably broke up with me because I was crazy. My perpetual issues, bitching, complaining, and whining were too much. I found him online, and we dated for about a year. Robert broke up with me on my birthday, and that left me in shreds.

Thomas and I dated for about four months. Something about two rejections like this in a row, on top of being forgotten by friends, tore deeply to my core.

A heavy weight sank in my chest, and my vision blurred from tears in my eyes. My skin was going numb against the cold. I’m not a drop-dead gorgeous beach babe. My voice sounds like a man’s voice. I’m overweight. I’m stupid. I’m a failure. I’m talentless. No one wants to be with me. I’m—

A pair of eyes were on me. It’s weird how we can sense that feeling.

I turned to my right, and I saw a woman looking at me with concern. She wore a gray, wooly cardigan and had a bob of gray hair. She stepped out from the glass door of the music building and called to me.

“Are you okay?”

For some reason, the chill got to me for a moment. I smiled reluctantly and answered back calmly, although I lied. I tried to hide my shivering.

“I’m okay. I’m just waiting for someone.”

“You should wait inside,” she suggested. She appeared to hesitate at my strange appearance with my exposed arms. “It’s…cold.”

I didn’t want her to ask any questions. I began to slip on the sleeves of my winter coat. “I know,” I said. “I was hot. I was just cooling off.”

I stood. Maybe I should go somewhere else where someone won’t see me.

The woman nodded and retreated behind the glass door. She stared at me for another moment before she disappeared into the hallway.

I’m not okay, but I didn’t want to tell her that. I wanted to die. I didn’t want her to worry.

The false expression I wore faded. I waited a moment before I turned and looked again at the art building. Sinking dread choked my throat.

Laughter. It echoed off the concrete. I perked to take a closer look.

A crop of curly hair came into view from far away over the concrete wall that framed the main door of the art building. Then, as the wall dipped, his glasses appeared, and then the rest of his tall and lanky figure. His converse stepped out from the rows of stairs leading to that door. Another figure stepped out beside him. She also had glasses, and she had a pretty cut of brown hair.

They held hands. They were laughing. Thomas and Allison were laughing together. They walked in the opposite direction from where I stood, and they did not see me.

A swirling wave of fury filled me. Explosions burst from my chest, and I stormed in their direction. My face beat red with pure hatred. My lungs heaved with rage. How long was this going on? I thought Allison was cool. I hung out with them both. She and Thomas hung out all the time for the past few months. He was always with her. They went and got dinner together the other night. I should’ve known. I should’ve seen this coming. I should’ve—

I shrieked, and my voice echoed between the concrete buildings. “Thomas!”

He jumped, let go of her hand, and whirled around. I was already raging at him with tears streaming down my face. “I cannot fucking believe you! Really? Really?”

“Natalie—I…” He was flabbergasted. Caught. He stumbled on his toes and on his words. He stopped himself and held his hand out, which trembled with his voice. “Listen, it’s not what it looks like—”

“This is clearly what it looks like, Thomas,” I growled. “You fucking asshole!”

I screamed that last word so loudly that it echoed again. He froze. Allison clutched his arm, and he patted her away. “Let’s go,” he muttered.

“Fucking asshole,” I loudly bellowed. “Fuck you! Fuck you, you asshole!”

At this point, Thomas was quickly walking away with her. I stood there, no longer frozen but heated with boiling wrath.

I became blind with violent outrage. Everything went numb, but not in the same way as it did when I sat on the bench. My hand ripped a piece of ice from the bench. I hurled it as hard as I could in their direction. The ice shattered against the concrete.

“Fuck! Natalie, stop!”

I looked up. Terror in their eyes. Both of their faces whiter than the snow. I glared at them, they gawked at me. Allison huffed in panic and sniffled. Finally, Thomas foolishly tripped on himself as he pushed her to move.

When they disappeared around the corner, I screamed one last time.

“Fucking asshole! Go to hell!”

When my voice faded, my breath escaped me. I stared after them, and my eyes fell to their footprints messily shuffled in the snow. I trailed it back to the neater prints that led up the stairs to the main doors of the art building.

Something about that satisfied me. Because I caught them? Scared them shitless? Now I couldn’t wait to tell someone. Why? Was it because I was losing my mind, and I needed verification?

I dug through the pocket of my coat and found my phone. I scrolled through my text threads for a moment and skimmed my contacts listed there. My fingers trembled and stopped over a name: Deanna.

Fuck it, I thought to myself, and I hit the call button.

“Deanna?” I huffed. I was shivering, but not from the cold. My entire petite self shook from the anger raging in me again, and I began jogging towards the parking lot. “Yeah. It’s Natalie. Natalie Torrance? From music history class? So, uh…you’re not going to believe this…”

Nine years later.

“Miss T. You are not going to believe this.”

I sighed and shook my head. I allow my students to tell me all of the latest gossip and drama between them. My therapist tells me that it’s amazing how I get them to share these things with me since they barely speak with any other adults, especially their parents. Often, at the end of the day like this, they like to stop in my office and share the most recent updates right after classes are done.

I pivoted in my chair to face my student, and my face fell at the sight of her. Her eyes were large and swollen red with tears.

She is much taller than I am, skinny, and had curly brown hair. She’s in eighth grade. She was wearing her “civilian” basketball outfit to show that she was on the team, but it wasn’t her actual sports uniform. It consisted of a jacket with sweat pants.

“Miss T., Jaxon cheated on me with Shannon. What do I do?”
I frowned with a stern scowl. I stood from my chair. “Tell him that you’re done,” I began. “You saw them do it?”

“He went to Six Flags with Shannon and Avery,” the girl whimpered. “A-And my friend Leslie was with them. She told me that they held hands and kissed.”

I sighed heavily. “Heaven,” I continued. That was her name, which was a pretty name. “Tell him exactly what Leslie told you. Then, don’t back down. Tell him that you guys are done. Don’t let him lie about it, either. Call him out and tell him exactly what you’ve been told and who told you. You know how I work: truth is everything, and I’ve always said that lying is the worst thing you could do. If you need me to help you, I can be there for you.”

Heaven sniffled and rubbed her nose on the back of her hand. “You will?”

I snatched a tissue from the tissue box sitting on my desk then held it out to her. “Of course. No one deserves that.”

She took the tissue, wiped the tears away from beneath her eyes to avoid smearing her makeup, then blew her nose into the tissue. “Thanks, Miss T. You’re the best.”

She held herself up with more confidence as she left my office. I exhaled a breath of exhaustion and sat down at my desk. It frustrated me to see my students treat each other so poorly. I wish I had someone to talk to about these kinds of things back then like she does with me, but I didn’t at the time. It wasn’t until I started seeking professional help when I could actually reach out to someone older and wiser for proper advice. Thank goodness for people like my parents or Deanna who could drive me to my therapy sessions.

I checked my phone for notifications as everyone always do nowadays. I had a few notifications: Facebook messages asking what I was doing this weekend, a text from Deanna about her upcoming wedding, several emails about work, etc.

One email made me pause.

Thomas Murray – Natalie, please add me to your LinkedIn Network.

I snorted. Really? It’s been almost nine years since I last saw you. After that, he really wanted to reconnect professionally?

When I looked through his resume online, I couldn’t help but laugh aloud. He had his animation degree from our university, but he dropped the performance degree in guitar. He mentions that he’s an animator and teaches guitar lessons. He doesn’t have much work experience other than working at Ace Hardware and at the library.

It was satisfying seeing how much of the failure he turned out to be. Here I was, five years into my teaching career, working full time in a public school as a choir director and with a small studio of private music lesson students on the side. I held concerts and performed professionally with elite choral groups and churches. Where was he? He was scrounging for students. His artwork was pathetic, and so was his guitar playing.

I opened the email link and declined the invitation. I deleted the email. I might as well go through and delete my other emails I don’t need. Then, I saw the threads of other emails in my inbox from my graduating eighth graders last spring.

Dear Miss T., Thank you for making music fun and exciting for me. I appreciate your enthusiasm to encourage us to be comfortable with our own voice. I know that I have gained confidence in singing, even if I didn’t feel comfortable with my voice.

Dear Ms. T, Thank you for being one of the greatest teachers of all time. You’ve helped me open up so much and I can’t thank you enough for all the help you’ve given me. No matter what you were always there to help me and support me. You’ve been there through break-ups, crushes, good days, and bad days. I can’t think of a time where I didn’t have fun in your class.

Dear Ms. T, …During these past 3 years you have taught me so much and helped me out during hard times. Your personality is the best and your funny jokes can make anyone’s day better…My most memorable moment was when we all sang together and how we all felt like family. You made me realize that I shouldn’t be scared to show my true self and to be comfortable in my own skin.

Some went on about the time I kicked a chair and screamed to the heavens, or how I smashed and broke a music stand out of pure passion. They said they would miss all of it.

I smiled to myself as I continued reading the emails on my way out of the building on my phone. Before I pushed on the glass door with my shoulder, I slipped my phone back into my pocket, fished out my gloves, and put them on my fingers. I pulled the sleeves of my winter jacket over my wrists, and the chill of the winter air tickled my cheeks.

“Bye Miss T.!” chimed a voice from the bus. I looked up, and there was a red-headed boy waving at me as he tried to reach through the window. More ecstatic shouts of my name echoed from the buses. I laughed, grinned, and waved back as the buses began to take off into the streets.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. I dug it out to see “Deanna Frances” on the caller ID, and I immediately pressed the green button and brought the phone to my ear. I continued walking to my car as I stepped into the parking lot.

“Hello!”

“Hey!” Deanna answered. “Driving home yet?”

“On my way to my car—oh! Actually, I wanted to let you know that Shane can actually attend both the wedding ceremony and the reception. His work thing got moved.”

“Oh! Great!” Deanna chimed. “So uh…when are you guys getting married? How long has it been?”

I snickered. “Six years. You know he’s waiting for the right moment, and he’s got a plan. He made one of our friends cry when he told her last week, and she refuses to spill the beans.”

“Really, Shane?! Ugh.” I could feel her rolling her eyes but still smiling.

“Anyway, how was work?”

“It was good! A kid came up to me though—this girl named Heaven,” I began. “Can you believe these kids nowadays? Eighth grade and going all crazy over relationships…”

“Oh, I know! You’re not going to believe some of the shit I went through today at work!”

I sneered from ear to ear. “Alright, alright. I’m almost at my car. Give me a minute and I can give you my full attention.”