This was the day I would finally to set up my hammock. After rounding up some plastic plugs, a tape measure and an electric drill, I was standing in the back garden, choosing two trees that weren’t too far apart. I drilled one hole in each tree, taking into account how much the hammock would cave if I were to lie in it. Next, I put the hooks into the plugs and fastened the ropes of the hammock to them. I took a minute to admire my own handiwork. I wasn’t good for anything, but at least I could do this.
I placed my drill next to the first tree, and went to climb into the hammock. I grabbed the far end of the hammock in my right hand and swung my right leg up into the burlap-esque material. I should have put my weight more in the centre of the thing, because when I tried to move more of my body in, it swayed dangerously and before I knew it I was lying flat on my face on the green grass. But, when it came to physical stuff, I was no quitter. So this time I made sure my weight was carefully spread, and sure enough I found myself lying on my back swinging lazily back and forth in my hammock.
It felt like a good ending to a shitty day. I thought back to this afternoon’s biology class. I don’t know what exactly it was about that class that made me feel particularly stupid and incompetent. Maybe it was the fact that I had read the chapter we were supposed to study about five times and barely managed to get the gist of what was explained about mitosis and meiosis. I was actually stunned that I was capable of retaining the names of the processes. Or maybe it was the fact that when Mr Banner called on me in class, I wasn’t able to answer his question concerning the purpose of meiosis. It could’ve also been the fact that I distinctly heard that dimwit Mike Newton snickering at my stuttering response. This snickering developed into a full-blown laughing fit when my answer had proven to be completely wrong. All in all, I think it must have been the fact that I saw Bella Swan shaking her head slightly at my stupidity. She had shown herself to be the complete opposite of stupid when Banner asked her the same question and she was able to answer it in fluid and well thought-out sentences.
I should have paid attention to the answer she was giving. Hell, I should even have taken notes. But I didn’t, because I was staring at her lips moving. I was watching the pink hue that was covering her cheeks. I was looking at the way she was squinting her deep brown eyes, concentrating hard at answering the question as correctly as possible. By the time she was done answering and I could see her turning toward me, I felt like I was a fish on dry land. My mouth might have been hanging wide open, and my eyes might have been popping out of their very sockets. I saw her looking at me briefly and then she quickly turned again, masking her profile with a curtain of her long mahogany hair.
This was the girl I wished I could be with, spend my time with, laugh with, and lie down in my hammock with. She was just so smart and incredibly beautiful. When I had first noticed this, two years ago, I had briefly considered just talking to her and maybe even asking her out. I had rapidly dismissed this idea, though. She could never stand to be with me. I mean, I was obviously stupid; not managing to retain any information out of a text book. I only got high grades on subjects as Home Repair and Carpentry. I think even my teachers eventually came to realize I was just hopeless. They had never said they were proud of me or that they appreciated my hard work. Instead, they just assumed I wasn’t studying or working hard because my grades were far below average. I remember reading Romeo & Juliet in English at the end of last year and we had to write a paper. I had read the play twice and watched two different movie versions. Nobody could claim that I didn’t know what the story was about. We had to write a paper comparing this love story to another one we could pick ourselves. I chose The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, because I had seen that Disney movie and it had just torn at my heart. I had googled it and found that the Disney version was very different from the actual book version. That’s why I went to the school library and got the book by Victor Hugo. I may have shed a tear or two; it was so terribly tragic and in tune with my depressed mood. I wrote my paper as soon as I had finished reading The Hunchback. I was so proud of myself and excited because I had written something that was close to my heart. When Mr Varner returned our papers, however, I found that mine was covered in red ink, crazy circles and lines and unreadable comments in the margins. A big fat red D adorned the right corner.
It frustrated me beyond belief. I really thought I could produce something; write something that rang true, that was smart and eloquent. I had thought I would at least get a B on this assignment. I had dared to have some faith in myself, but it had turned out that I really was hopeless after all. I found myself folding a paper airplane out of my paper, and I almost launched it across the classroom. But then I realized that anyone could pick it up, read it and laugh at it and then throw it back into my face. So I unfolded it, tore of the top left corner with my personal information on it, and folded it back into an airplane. The bell sounded and I went outside. When I thought nobody was watching me, I launched the airplane across the school yard. I didn’t wait to see it land. That was the day I decided I would and should admire Bella Swan from a distance. I would never be able to keep up with her, and she would easily be bored with me. Who was I kidding anyway? She probably wouldn’t even give me the chance to bore her. It was like she was from Venus and I was from Uranus. Yep, Uranus.
I folded my arms behind my head while I stared up at the tree. It was beautiful out. Mom had really outdone herself on this garden. It had such a wide variety of flowers and plants and trees, it looked like a well-kept Amazonian forest. She loved to be outside tending to her garden. Once, she had bought a Lilac, or a Syringa Vulgaris so she told me – I had laughed freely at that name – and she had planted it very close to where my hammock was now hanging. The plant had not been doing too well. In fact, it had looked almost ill. She had given it her special attention, watering it, feeding it the right manure, and even talking to it every day. A month later it had had the most beautiful flowers that smelled amazing. It had reminded me of… Yeah, who else?
Mom was sometimes assisted in the garden by my sister Alice. She was a year younger than me, but of course she was way smarter. She always got good grades. Alice would most definitely be going to college after high school. I would probably only frequent a college when I had to mop the floors of one or something. That was depressing. With my dad being a doctor, my mom having a degree in psychology, and my sister being well underway towards a similar type of education, I really felt like the odd man out. Maybe I was adopted. Or maybe Mom and Dad had decided to abstain from giving me the smart gene, giving it to Alice instead.
My two best friends, Emmett and Jasper, were now constantly talking about going off to college. Although they never said it to my face, I knew they were feeling somewhat guilty of talking about it when it was obvious I would never experience it.
Emmett was not much smarter than me, but was able to go because he had gotten a football scholarship. He and his girlfriend Rosalie were going to MIT together. Rosalie would be studying mechanical engineering, whereas Emmett would try to succeed in management science. My other best friend, Jasper, was staying much closer to home. He enrolled himself into UW with the goal to major in psychology. This was an obvious choice to me, since he was the one I went to, to talk and vent. Apart from my mom, he was the only one who knew how frustrated I was with my apparent lack of intelligence. Jasper was also the one to inform me that out of all the colleges she could have picked, Bella chose UW as well. Apparently, she was going to study languages or literature or something along those lines. The fact that I was happy she would be relatively close by only cemented my feeling of utter idiocy.
Jasper and my mom both made a point out of instilling in me the realization that even though my brains might not be worth anything, my hands definitely were. I was able to create a lot with these hands. It ranged from playing the piano and the guitar, to making nesting boxes in all shapes and sizes for mom to hang in the garden, to hanging this hammock up between two trees. Even though I felt competent when building stuff, I couldn’t help but feel that while my friends would be working and building on their futures, I would be stuck back here in Forks doing nothing in terms of building a future for myself. I briefly wondered if it would be possible to die of self-loathing. I exhaled loudly.
I heard the patio doors open and the voice of my mother calling me in for dinner. I tried, unsuccessfully, to vacate the hammock without falling flat on my face again. This skill was in serious need of some polishing. I picked up my electric drill and carried it with me to the house. I stepped out of my shoes before I went inside, picking them up and bringing them to the hallway. Then I went into the kitchen to wash my hands. My mom was standing over the stove stirring the sauce for the spaghetti. I stood behind her and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before watching her motions at the stove.
I took the wooden ladle from the kitchen counter and started stirring the spaghetti. Mom looked up at me and smiled.
“You’re just doing that so you can say that you’ve helped me cook,” she said. I shrugged. “Nobody’s going to believe it, so you know.” I smiled and shrugged again.
“I don’t care, it’s just the feeling, you know. The feeling I’ve actually done something productive.”
My mom looked at me in mock seriousness. “You do know stirring the spaghetti is not really something you could call fruitful, don’t you?” I couldn’t help but flinch. Although I knew she meant it as a joke, I couldn’t help but agree with her. I really did amount to nothing. I couldn’t even help my mom in the kitchen properly. I really was an idiot.
“No sweetie, don’t look like that. You know it was a joke.” She put her own ladle on a paper towel on the kitchen counter and rubbed my upper arm.
“I know, Mom. It’s just… It’s just that I feel like I don’t have a future, you know, like the rest of my friends. I feel so useless most of the time, and it’s even more pathetic that I come into the kitchen and whine about it to you.” I sighed.
“You’ll just have to make some plans of your own, sweetie. It’s no use feeling miserable about something you can’t really change. You’ll just have to work with what’s given to you. And if you ask me, you have a lot going for you…”
She gave me a piercing look when I raised my eyebrows at her last statement.
“It’s true! You are sweet, and handsome, and you can create things with your own bare hands. You just need to think of what to do with that talent; how to make it meaningful to yourself and others around you that matter to you. You just need a plan.”
I looked straight into her eyes and felt her confidence in me penetrate my soul as she gazed back at me unflinching. That’s when I decided I really did need a plan and I would keep spending my afternoons in my hammock to come up with one that would bring back my confidence in myself. That would amount to something I would be proud of. Something maybe worthy of… Yeah.
