Nothing Has Changed
The week after was the hardest.
At least by day three after we’d put you in the ground, they’d stopped talking about you.
But me – I couldn’t forget.
Jenica. Jenica. Jenica.
Your name pulsed through me like it was the only thing keeping me alive.
Jenica. Jenica. Jenica.
I had all my AP Science classes in the morning, which usually kept my mind off of it.
Jenica.
I had my courses at the community college this afternoon, where Mrs. Turnblat would drive me over in the school van. Which would also keep my mind off of it.
But not today.
I was trying to remember just what class I had, what I was going to – I stood in the middle of the high school hallway by the lockers, numb.
“Jenna!”
Jenna. Jenica. Two sides of the same coin, you’d said. Your long, brown bangs falling, drifting down over an eye just so. Just right.
“Jenna, what are you doing?” Clarissa Ochoa stood before me, arms laden with books. Her hand popped up and pushed her glasses back up her nose.
I ran a hand through my short, blonde hair. Short, cropped, efficient. “I – I – I don’t know.”
And I didn’t know. I was off. I’d gotten the body parts last night, you see. Dug them all up. And no one had to know, did they?
“Well, geeze, don’t just stand there. Come on! Mr. V’s taking attendance already.” Clarissa grabbed my arm, pulling me down the hallway to Advanced Biology.
You see, it wasn’t your fault.
None of it was.
Most of it was mine.
I was the one who couldn’t think fast enough, work hard enough, solve, get results.
You. You were a crazy, glimmering star that shouldn’t go out. You always insisted that was me.
That I was the smart one. The best one. That I was going to cure leukemia one day. But I didn’t want to cure leukemia.
What I wanted to cure was you.
And it would have been fine.
It. Would. Have. Been. Fine.
I’d run all the tests that you thought were extraneous; I’d taken all the blood samples that you called redundant.
I’d run them all. And I was so close.
I thumped my science text down onto the black polyurethane table in Mr. Veeson’s room. I didn’t have time to be here. I had things to do.
Jenna Fitzpatrick didn’t have time to be here.
“Jenna. Jenna!” I looked down to see Clarissa looking up at me like I’d lost a neuron. “Sit down.”
I realized I was still standing, hands on the table, and sat. Above all things I needed – I needed to keep calm. Be normal.
I was deep into problem #56, section E when she asked. I knew it was inevitable.
Someone would ask.
“So Jenna, are you going to Homecoming?”
Are. You. Going. To. Homecoming.
The very bane of my existence for the last three months of my life.
The look I gave her must have told her as much, because she stumbled, words choppy and erratic, “I – I mean, you don’t have to have a date or anything. You could go with friends.”
Friends. Jenica.
You were my only friend.
“Oh crap. God. I am screwing this up so bad… I just – I just meant that, well, I’m going with a bunch of the guys from Chess Club and I’m sure you know them, so I mean, you could come along with us, too. If you wanted.”
I gave her a longer look before turning back to my word problem. I heard Clarissa sigh.
I waited until the last bell rang to leave and go home. Hard as it was, it had to be done. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing to draw attention.
At home, I quietly opened the door. Noise was already blaring through the stereo. Something about being born in the back of a Greyhound bus or something equally as idiotic.
As you know, I don’t put too much stock in my parents. If I’d had to guess I would say I had been adopted. There was no way the combination of the two of them could make up someone as intellectually superior as myself.
I immediately headed down into the basement, just like always. My rooms. My sanctum. And then I turned on the music.
It was a habit I couldn’t quit.
A hanger-on of my upbringing that I just couldn’t seem to switch off no matter how hard I tried.
Partially in defiance and partially because it was the only thing I liked – the music was always the same. A two-disc set I had discovered in sixth grade. “Nothing Has Changed” by David Bowie.
It was exactly two hundred and thirty-four minutes long and comprised of fifty-one songs, and I knew every single word, tone change, and timbre.
Listening to it was the only way I ever got any work done.
Bent over my laptop, I opened my iTunes library – it was the only thing in my iTunes library – and hit play. Start at the beginning.
Always the beginning.
As the first strains of “Sue” hit, I headed into my pristine bathroom to scrub up. I found myself mumbling the words as I soaped up.
I dried my hands and put on my apron and gloves then headed over to the Deepfreeze. My parents didn’t know I had a Deepfreeze. And they were probably too stupid to look at the electrical bill. I’d bought it with money they’d given me for my advanced course books. I already had enough of my own saved, so no one noticed a thing when I used their money to help buy it.
When I bought it for you. The lid cracked open with a satisfying crunch of crystallized ice. Carefully, I removed my work for today. Something easy, uncomplicated. I walked your leg over to the table, cradled in my arms. Well, I guess you could say your new leg.
I worked tirelessly, suturing, cutting, affixing. Only interrupted when mother called down the stairs – at least one idea about leaving me alone had sunken into her dense brain – announcing supper.
When I returned I was nearly finished.
The next day at school was torture. All I could think of were the million more stitches I needed to add. The array of chemicals I’d amassed on my nightstand, ready to use, the plethora of electrodes I’d –
“Jenna! Hey Jenna!” Clarissa bounced down the hall interrupting my concentration, as she was wont to do.
“Clarissa.”
“Have you decided if you’re going to Homecoming with us?”
“Can’t.”
“Can’t why?”
“I have a date.”
“A date?! You’re bringing an actual date?!” And at the same time it was and it wasn’t what I’d meant. It was an ephemeral ideologue and a stolid, hefty truth. I left her with no response.
And by now I know what you’re thinking. Exactly what you would say. About the promise. About our promise.
But out here in the real world things aren’t always about you, are they? And sometimes things happen differently than you’d planned. So I want you to think of it this way – as a deviation in the plan. A detour, if you will.
I know what you told me that day in the hospital. I could never forget a word you said, every word of yours etched so clearly into my heart that they shine in the silver moonlight. But the thing is, even though I said what I said – even though I promised – and such a promise! I hold those binds high in my mind, steady as the sun and you know this, but what you made me promise that day – what you made me forsake, give up – I couldn’t do.
There was no way I could honor your words and I knew it as soon as I said them. I should have reneged. I should have told you.
But at the time, I knew those poisonous words coming from my mouth would give you peace.
And so I said them.
And let you believe them.
I hope you can forgive me.
Two months prior:
Jenna walked into the hospital room, clutching a small spray of brightly colored daisies. She was ill at ease here, everything there was familiar, well loved, but now – now just behind this door, behind the hanging plastic curtain was something new, something she didn’t want to see.
She swallowed and crept around the light blue curtain. A girl with long brown hair is lying back against white pillows, watching the autumn sky outside of the windows.
“J – Jenica?”
Jenica turns on the bed; her face is both serene and pale. She smiles. “Jenna! It’s good to see you. Daisies? You know I love daises.” Jenna shyly moves toward the hospital bed. “Could you put them in the vase over there?” Jenica weakly raises an arm pointing toward the gathering of flowers and cards in the windowsill. Swallowing, Jenna walks over and places her small bouquet in an empty vase. “Thank you. Come. Sit.”
Jenna moves to the bed and carefully sits just beside the small lumps in the sheet where Jenica’s legs are.
“Jenna, don’t look so sad. You’ll make me sad.”
Jenna swallows again; she still hasn’t looked at Jenica. “I can’t, I can’t help it.”
Jenica laughs. “If there’s anyone I know who can shove a bunch of analytical thinking into a situation and not emote about it, it’s you.”
“But I – but I can’t!”
Jenica sucks in her lip and reaches out. She can’t quite reach Jenna and her arm falls to the sheets, inches short. Jenna notices and reaches out to her hand. Jenica squeezes it.
“I’ve been trying, Jenica, really. I’ve been looking, and working and I just can’t – I can’t find anything to help.”
“You don’t need to help me,” Jenica smiles.
“I do! Don’t you understand! I do! If I just had more time, just a little bit more –”
“Jenna, there isn’t more time. This is it.”
Jenna looks at Jenica, eyes wide and scared. “But it doesn’t have to be! I’ve been so close!”
“I’ve had plenty of time, Jenna. More than others, and it’s been filled. It’s been lovely and wonderful.” She squeezes Jenna’s hand again, “you’ve been wonderful. And I’m so proud of you, so proud of everything you’ve done, everything you will do. But I don’t think this was in the cards.”
“But – ”
Jenica smiles sadly.
“But, Jenica! If it wasn’t for the accident, I could have – I could have…”
“There was nothing you could do.” Jenica’s eyes drift down to her leg beneath the sheets. “There was nothing –”
“There was! I don’t understand why you even went with him! Why you got on that stupid – that stupid four-wheeler! If you’d never had an accident you would have been fine, we would have had more time!”
“Jenna, we’ve talked about it. Many times. It doesn’t matter. We both knew this day was coming, we both knew this was how it would end. I’ve been sick. The whole time, I’ve been sick. The accident, it doesn’t matter. It’s in the past, I just want you to come and live with me here, in the present, for a while. Be with me here, Jenna.”
Shaking, Jenna turns away, her head down. She sniffles, but refuses to turn to Jenica.
“Jenna, I need you to stop looking in the past, stop going there. It’s done. Keep the good memories and stop over thinking. Maybe the accident sped things up, maybe it didn’t. It doesn’t matter. I need you here. And I need you to move on.” Jenna turns back, her eyes red and desolate. Jenica squeezes her hand again. “We knew we’d be here.” She smiles, “I need you to promise me something, Jenna. I want you to promise to let this go, if you love me, let it die. You need to let me go. I can’t be here just because you say so.”
Jenna’s face falls, “Jenica, I –”
“Promise me. If you love me, promise me, you’ll let this go. I’m not the only reason for your experiments. I know you’ve got it in there. There are so many others who could benefit from what you can do. I don’t blame you for not being able to help me.”
“Jenica, I –” Jenna’s breath hitches, “I promise.”
“You promise?” Jenica leans back against the pillows as if exhausted from a fight.
“I promise.”
The night of Homecoming:
I just want you back. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t give to have you back. And you must know that.
“Space Oddity” sang through the speakers. Outside, the world was dark and quiet. Even my parents had for some reason decided to go out for the evening.
“Ground control to Major Tom,” I lifted the large needle and it glinted in the lights. I pulled the thick, black thread taunt. “Take your protein pills and put your helmet on!”
“This is ground control to Major Tom, you’ve really made the grade! And the papers want to know whose shirts you weaaar!” Clipping the last thread I moved away. Making my way over to the generators I had lugged down here earlier.
“For heeeeeeeere, am I sitting in a tin can, faaaaaaar above the worrrrrrrld!” Just as the song reached the clapping part – my favorite part – I clapped and move over to the wall plugs. On the fourth clap I shoved the big plug into the wall, flipping the switch. The generators began to hum and shake on the floor. Everything was connected, everything should be working. I notice my hands are shaking. A feeling that had never affected me before surging through my system.
The generators clack. You lay on my worktable. Well, most of you. Due to decomposition and the ravages of disease, I’d had to scrounge for parts across a few counties. But I feel that you’ll like each piece I’ve added.
I step toward the worktable. You lie covered with a blanket, the blue one with Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man on it that you always liked. It seemed fitting.
Your head had lolled back again, and your eyes still surrounded by that deep purple bruising, and sunken, even after I had scraped out all of the glue and the props from the funeral home. I’d like to apologize also because I’m sure you’ll notice right away that those aren’t your eyes, you may not know, but the gelatinous parts are usually the first to go – and just, well, there wasn’t enough to save. I hope you like the new ones, I tried to get as close to your favorite color as I could.
I make one last check on the electrodes before striding back to the generators, singing, “your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong. Can you hear me Major Tom?”
“Can you hear me, Major Tom?” I flip the switch on the last generator and it surges to life. Sparks fly, scattering against the floor, which I’d already been ready for, it was just concrete after all.
“Can you hear me, Major Tom?” I danced over to the table. You shook, jumping as the cables and electrodes filled the room with a smoky smell. The clapping part came again and I twirled, clapping as you jerked again against the table’s restraints.
I wanted to reach out and touch you, comfort you, but it would have been volts upon volts of electricity, so of course I couldn’t. You jerked again, brown hair spilling over the table. I didn’t really know how to put it up how you liked it, and it had sprung from the ponytail I’d put it in.
You lurched, teeth clacking, your head jerked up and slammed down.
“See, Jenica? I won’t let you die. I’ll save you,” I whispered.
You thrust forward, mouth flying open, eyes wide. Air rasped into your lungs with a sound like shredding paper and I ran to the generators, ripping the plugs from the wall. You lay gasping, a fish out of water, as I scrambled to release the restraints.
“Jenica? Jencia!” My fingers trembled with the buckles. Behind me, on the doors of my closet hung the dress – your dress, the long, pink, fluffy one that I’d helped you pick out months earlier.
I struggled with the shackles around your feet. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw you sit up. I turned to face you. “Jenica!”
Your face rotated to me, the bit of grave rot I still couldn’t remove from your cheek clinging like a diseased black fern underneath your eye. Your skin pale, as it had been in life, but tinged now with a green like curdled milk. And in your eyes I saw something I would never have imagined – horror.
Your mouth opened, the sound of your gasping like breath scraping over bones, emitting as you spoke, “Juh – juh – ehn –nah.”
Songs:
Let It Die – Starset
Space Oddity – David Bowie
