Eric’s Story
By: Judaea Driscoll
Tags: Writers On Medium, Black Women, Short Story, Creative Non Fiction

I will never know if any of the things that happened to me were ever as good or as bad as I remember them. Often, I learn that circumstances were not actually as I initially thought, and I have to reassess how I feel about them, and what it means in the context of my life. This makes moments that I once found unspeakable mere comedies of error, or simply objective facts to be compartmentalized as I see fit.

The good times, however? The nights I laughed until I couldn’t breathe, or drank and grew ten feet, or felt my heart leap out of my chest with hope? Those nights I avoid. There is a certain pain that is born only from knowing joy. Sooner or later, the love and gratitude you feel turns inside out and becomes a mirror of everything you’ve lost, how different things are now, how fucked up things have always been.

But, hey, maybe that’s just me, lol.

I don’t want to take up too much time, so I’ll try and cut to the chase, while still attempting to make this story one of interest to the reader. I am not sure how any 18 year old maintains any will to live. On top of the utter disorientation that arises from believing oneself intellectually superior while one’s brain is, scientifically, still on the smaller side, you’d have to be an arrogant oaf to believe you can navigate adulthood adequately. I had had a particularly rough go at it.

A freshman in college after being homeschooled for a year and then dropping out of school completely, I wasn’t immediately the life of any parties. It was lonely at first (and it would only get lonelier, albeit in different ways). I went searching through my old notebooks one day to see if I could recall having felt understood at some point. I flipped through a few pages, laughing occasionally, reflecting, the usual. And then, I saw it. In the midst of about 30 or so blank pages was a torn page with a single scribe:

“Love ya! -Eric (901) 493–3686”

My brow furrowed, but was betrayed by my widening mouth and rising cheeks. I stared at the page for a few moments with this peculiar expression on my face. This was a sign, I thought. Eric was a sweet girl, the emotional type. The kind of girl who could understand, you know? So I pulled out my phone and tried to find her social media. All I had was her first name and number, but luckily she had made her Facebook profile using that number, so it was one of the first results. I opened her page and scanned the last status update:

“RIP Eric Turner”

I froze.

I saw the whole thing in my head. We meet, age 14, in a behavioral facility for girls under 18. We become roommates, linking arms as we go to and from our day classes. We learn from each other’s stories, from the bravery that a place like that requires. We both get discharged, but promise to keep in touch. We don’t. We both continue our journeys alone, remembering that time as if it were caramel coated. And then, I imagine, floating and daydreaming of the better days, she was careless, and wandered into dangerous arms. She never saw it coming.

Or, she got some type of infection. You know the type. Fast acting, real tragic. The kind of infection that kills only the good and young. She never saw it coming.

Or, worst case scenario: the sadness did her in. It wrung her hands until they bled. She probably used the curling iron, somehow. The smoke alerted the family to the locked bathroom door. The handle was hot. They just stared at it, slack jawed and useless. There was no fire in the room. Only dead smoke.

I had to be sure.

As a woman under the age of 25, I’ve become very good at stalking people via the internet. So finding Eric’s mom was easy. The hard part was approaching her. What if she had just gotten to a place of peace with the situation, and I triggered her into remembering losing her only daughter? What if she didn’t know what happened to Eric either? I tried to make it brief and to the point, then.

“Hello Mrs. Turner, I am a friend of your daughter Eric’s. We went to Lakeside together. I saw the post on her page about her dying. What happened?”

The three little dots danced. So did I. A miracle. She must have had her phone in her hand when I texted her. She messaged back without hesitation. I held my breath.

“What?” she texted back.

This was to be expected. The post was over two years old. She probably didn’t make a habit of reminiscing about it.

“Eric? Your daughter?”

“…Eric isn’t dead.”

My brow furrowed again.

I stopped breathing again.

“What?’

“The post you saw was referring to Eric’s uncle, my brother, who she was named after. He lived a good life. His soul rests.”

I stared at my phone.

“Ok”

I hate to admit it, but I was disappointed. Eric being dead made a strange sort of sense. It made our short term interaction a special moment because it was among her last. Now…I actually had to call her.

“Is her number the same?”

“It should be”

I dialed the number. I had abandoned the possibility of getting to this point. I secretly hoped I’d get her voicemail. More time to prepare.

“Hello?”

“Hello? Eric?”

“Yeah! Is this Judaea? My mom told me you would call.”

“Yeah, I thought you were dead!”

The discomfort bunched and grouped around us like budding grapes on a vine, clustering and obscuring the free space we had previously existed in. I knew too much about her, and she knew too much about me. Everything normal seemed like small talk, like fluff. But…who wants to talk about trauma at 11am on a Wednesday? And sober? (Another reason why I don’t understand teenagers: you mean you get sad and just…feel that shit? Every time?? WHACK!) She had had a few kids in the short time since we’d known each other and they nipped at her heels in the background. Her TV was a little too loud. I kept hearing her phone vibrate and then she would get quiet for 15 seconds while her fingers padded the keys. I think her live-in boyfriend was touching her pussy at certain times. She asked me for $30. I hung up the phone feeling disoriented. She had moved on. The twinkle of remembering dimmed and I was faced with reality. We never had anything in common or any real connection. I realized pretty quickly in the phone call that she thought I was another girl in our unit, a small Indian girl, and had to remind her. I’m still not sure she knows it was me.

I haven’t spoken to her since, or kept up any real correspondence. The notebook her number was in burned (ironically) in a fire at a storage unit I was keeping it in. It’s strange the way things that once gave you hope can act as a reminder of the ugly desperation hopelessness brings. The minutiae that we cling to to pacify our needs to feel loved, wanted, or normal. The people and objects we romanticize as a result. That nothing thing gave me the courage I needed to check out of the facility and begin my “new life”. It made me beam; it made me blossom. I shined for a while after, talked to people more. It would ultimately shape how I approached relationships with other people. It ignited a desire to connect. It helped me heal.

I thank her in spirit, today. For reminding me that the hills and valleys and invisible mountains of our childhood are heightened by times past, and not at all what they seem. For being the temporary hope I needed at the time. For being part of the disappointment that helped me grow up.