Struck by Lightning: The Carson Phillips Journal (18 page)

12/12

Well, the magazine has been on sale for a month and I’ve only sold one copy. And that guy just ripped it to shreds right in front of me. I guess Claire was right about the whole town hating me. I’ve been getting really dirty looks lately, much dirtier than usual.
Hateful
, I should say.

Yes, it’s been a rough few weeks. I don’t know why it’s bringing me down so much; I’ve always thought everyone hated me. Careful what you wish for, I guess?

Still haven’t heard from Northwestern. That’s still a big question mark in my mind and a lump in my throat. I
really
need to get out of this town now.

December 15 is three days away. So in less than forty-two hours I’ll know if I’ve been accepted early. Fingers crossed! At least I have that to look forward to.

I haven’t really bothered doing anything with the
Chronicle
. I’ve just been reprinting old issues from September. I haven’t been in the mood to write much lately; hence the month between journal entries.

Never thought I’d be at a loss for words. …I guess life surprises you.

3/12

It’s been a couple of months and I have nothing good to report, I’m afraid. Needless to say, I never got an early acceptance letter. But I never got a rejection either, so I’ve been waiting in a daze for these last few weeks, hoping my literary magazine did the trick. I think I’ll forever remember today, March 12, as the worst day of my entire life.

I was sitting in my English classroom taking a final on
Hamlet
when Ms. Sharpton called me into her office to tell me that my life was about to become a tragedy of its own.

“Hi, munchkin, have a seat,” she said to me. I could tell whatever she was about to tell me wasn’t going to be good news.

“Oh no,” I said, still standing. “Don’t tell me. … Please don’t tell me. …”

“Just have a seat,” she said.

I didn’t want to sit. I felt like sitting would only allow the news to be real. If I didn’t sit, then whatever it was (even though I knew what it was) wouldn’t have to
happen. I eventually sat down. My heart was pounding and my hands were trembling.

“I heard back from Northwestern today,” she said. “Not good news, I’m afraid. They aren’t letting you resubmit an application with your literary magazine. Apparently you missed the confirmation deadline, so your acceptance was denied.”

“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?” I said.

“They won’t let you reapply,” she said. “You were accepted, but you never confirmed, so you were denied.”

I was sure my heart would stop beating after hearing this. It was such a blow, such a mistake. Surely mistakes like that weren’t made in real life.

“No, it must have gotten lost in the mail—I checked every day,” I said. “Please, you have to tell them that.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do anything more for you,” Ms. Sharpton said. “But you can always go to your second-choice school.”

“There was no second choice,” I said. I never planned to fail, so I’ve failed to plan.

I just wanted the world to rewind. I wanted to go back to the moments before she called me into her
office, when I was miserable for superficial reasons. Now I felt as if a family member had died and taken a part of me with them; I was mourning my future.

“Well, you can reapply again after you complete your GE credits,” she said, trying to cheer me up. “Clover Community College is still accepting applications. Would you like to fill one out?”

And now salt had been added to the wound. Not only was my spirit crushed, but now my soul would have to suffer through one or maybe more years of staying in Clover. I couldn’t have imagined a more disappointing scenario.

“Carson, would you like to fill out an application?” Ms. Sharpton said.

Her words faded away. I was distracted by a postcard of the ocean on her desk. It seemed so peaceful and serene. I had never seen it in real life before.

“Carson?” she asked me.

“You know, I’ve never seen the ocean,” I said.

“What?” she asked. “What does that have to do with anything?”

I got up and left her office and just walked for a bit. I must have walked around campus for hours just
thinking about things. Northwestern had always been part of the plan. It had always been my next step. As worried as I’d been about not being accepted, I had never planned on going anywhere else next year.

And to be told I’d been
accepted
but then denied because of something completely out of my control, a total fluke in the system, a twist of fate. …That was the worst part.
I had it
. I had made it to the finish line only to be stripped of my trophy.

What was I going to do now? Was I strong enough to get through all of this? Was I actually going to go to Clover Community College next year and spend more time fighting the same fight? Or was I just going to throw in the towel and give up, maybe join Mom on the couch?

I felt my cell phone buzz in my pocket. I had a voice mail from Mom—several, actually. I must have not noticed she was trying to call me.

“Carson, Grandma fell. Try to get over here as soon as you can,” she said, obviously not knowing how to handle the situation on her own.

Maybe that’s why this whole thing was happening? I was never supposed to leave Clover. The whole purpose
of my existence was to take care of Mom and Grandma.

I got to the home as quickly as I could. Grandma was asleep when I got there. Her forearm was badly bruised, but other than that she seemed to be okay.

“Where were you?” Mom asked me as soon as I walked in. I didn’t answer her. Where did she
think
I had been? “Fine, don’t tell me, but if you were at your father’s, I would be okay with it,” she said.

“How is she?” I asked.

“Fine,” Mom said. “Besides her arm, she bruised her hip, but nothing is broken. I’m going to get some coffee. Do you want anything?”

“No,” I said, and Mom left Grandma’s room.

Grandma slowly woke up a minute or so later. She looked up at me, and for a split second, I swear she recognized my face. She was quickly distracted by her injuries and the connection was lost.

“What happened to me?” she asked, looking at the bruise on her arm.

“You fell and hurt yourself,” I said.

She looked back up at me. This time I was certain she knew who I was.

“You remind me of my grandson,” she said to me. It was the closest she had been to lucid in years.

“I do?” I asked her happily. “Why is that?”

“You’re sad-looking,” she said. “My grandson used to be such a happy boy. He used to write me stories. I remember the first story he ever wrote me, ‘
Once upon a time, there was a boy
.’ And that became ‘
Once upon a time there was a boy who wanted to fly
.’ And they kept getting better and better over time. I never found out if the boy got to fly.”

I gave her a small smile. If only she knew the boy’s wings had been clipped.

Later the nurses came in to give Grandma a sponge bath. I went outside and found Mom on a bench. She seemed a bit overwhelmed by the whole thing, but I wasn’t sure what part was stressing her out more: the fact that her mother had injured herself or that she actually had to get dressed and leave the house.

“What’s going on?” Mom asked.

“They’re giving her a bath,” I said, and sat down next to her. She could tell something was wrong with me, but I wasn’t exactly hiding behind a smile.

“What’s your problem?” she asked me.

I was hesitant to tell her at first. I was still secretly hoping this day had just been a nightmare.

“I got into Northwestern, but I never got a letter, so now I have to wait to reapply,” I said with a heavy heart.

A silence fell between us. I figured she was just disappointed to hear the news like I was but couldn’t form the words to tell me how sorry she was. I couldn’t have been more mistaken.

“I threw your letter away,” Mom said quietly.

I swear my heart skipped a beat. I forgot where I was. I forgot we were outside. I forgot all about Grandma hurting herself. All I could think about was what my own mother had just confessed to me.

“What?!” I said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“How could you—How could you throw my letter away?!” I said.

“I wanted to protect you,” Mom said.

“Protect me?!” I said.

“I didn’t want you to get hurt like I did,” she said. “All your talk about growing up and becoming a writer—all these delusions you have won’t happen. Dreams don’t
come true, Carson, take it from me. I’m living proof. The world is a very cruel place. You would have left and been eaten alive and come back utterly destroyed. I wanted better for you.”

I couldn’t believe it. My own mother, my own flesh and blood, had done this to me, and now she was trying to
validate
her actions.

“I can’t believe this. This is so unfair!” I said, practically blind with anger.

“
Life
is unfair,” Mom said. “It is. And the sooner you realize that, the faster you grow up and see the world for what it really is.”

I stood up and walked away from her. In that moment, she was the most pathetic person in the world to me, and I couldn’t stand being near her for another second.

“Thank you,” I said to her. “Thank you for being the
perfect
example of something I refuse to become.”

I got in my car and just drove. I drove and I drove and I drove. I wasn’t sure where I was going and I didn’t care. I didn’t even plan on coming back, to be totally honest.

I passed the CLOVER CITY LIMIT sign on the outskirts
of town. It ignited a fire inside of me. I reached for my umbrella in the backseat, got out of my car with the engine still on, and went at that sign like a piñata.

I beat that sign until my fingernails bled and my umbrella was broken to pieces. I left a dent in it for every asshole who had treated me like shit, for every time I had been used, and for every time I had been wronged. But there wasn’t any candy scattered across the ground, only fragments and broken pieces of the dream inside of me.

I tossed my ruined umbrella to the side of the road and got back in my car. I drove some more. This time I didn’t stop for hours. I drove as far as I could until there was no more road left to take.

I found myself at the ocean. I sat on the hood of my car and just took in the sight of it. It was so beautiful. It seemed so endless and everlasting, just like how I used to feel.

The sun slowly set and night started to fall. I almost felt betrayed in a way, knowing the sun would rise again the next day. How could life continue after a day like this?

3/15

The last couple of days have been really hard, the hardest I’ve ever had to experience. Every morning I wake up I’m a little surprised. I sort of thought my heart would just stop beating while I slept. Is it possible to die from heartbreak or disappointment at my age?

I haven’t been able to speak to Mom, or really look at her even. But could you? She keeps trying to apologize and tell me how sorry she is, but I really can’t bear to listen to her.

I went into Ms. Sharpton’s office and filled out a Clover Community College application. She gave me the most awkward hug after I did. You know your life sucks when the triple-divorcée beauty-school flunk-out feels sorry for you.

Ironically, we’ve been having really bad weather lately. It’s been cloudy all week, so even the sky is a reminder of my state of mind.

I have every right to feel depressed and miserable, but I’ve been doing a lot of thinking this afternoon and have kind of developed a new perspective on things.
It started when Malerie met me here in the journalism classroom a couple of hours ago.

We packed up all the unsold (so all the) copies of the literary magazine and put them in boxes.

“What are we going to do with all these?” Malerie asked.

“I’m donating them to my grandmother’s home,” I said. “Someone is coming here later to pick them up. At least they’ll be read…or chewed.”

“I’m so sorry things didn’t work out the way you wanted them to,” Malerie said sweetly.

“Me too,” I said. “But it looks like I’ll be seeing you around Clover Community College next year. Maybe we’ll be adventurous and start a literary magazine there?”

Malerie smiled at the idea but the thought really saddened me. Was that the best thing I could come up with to look forward to?

It was getting late and Malerie collected all of her stuff, including her camcorder. She had set it on a table, where it had been filming us pack the entire afternoon.

“Malerie, why do you film everything?” I asked her,
as I had been meaning to for a long time. “I mean, do you really want to remember
everything
?”

Malerie looked to the ceiling like she always does when someone asks her a
why do you do that?
question.

“What isn’t worth remembering?” Malerie asked. “With good memories come bad memories, and I’ve got a lot of both. At least this way I can fast-forward through all the bad stuff.”

I nodded to myself. She had a point.

“A counselor told me once that it doesn’t matter if you are stuck in the past or trying to forget the past; what matters is what you do with the present. So that’s why I try to soak it up as much as possible,” she said.

“Malerie, I think you just found something to
write
about,” I said with a smile. Malerie’s eyes lit up with excitement and she smiled the biggest smile I’ve ever seen her have at the thought of writing her first original story.

“I’ve got to go,” Malerie said. “If I’m late for the bus the driver said he’ll make me ride in the trunk—it’s not fun.” Just before she got to the door she turned back to me. “Carson?” she asked with difficulty. “Are we
friends
?”

I was a little amused and heartbroken at the same time by the question. Did she really have to ask?

“I think we’re best friends, Malerie,” I said.

She shot me a gangster sign and left the classroom. I laughed for the first time in days.