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epitome of incomprehensibility
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It wasn't until I'd seen her a few times that I noticed she looked like one of my imaginary characters. Medium brown hair, wavy and shoulder-length. Roundish face with a bit of a pointed chin. Slightly on the short side.
What's more, she had the same first name.
God has a weird sense of humour, I thought, though I wouldn't be much in touch with my Christian roots that month and a half. Never once in immer_immersion did I "go to church" in the Mom-and-Dad sense of the term.
...
Still, I get mystical. For instance, I wonder if the separateness of people's consciousnesses is really the final or ideal state of their existence.
But I'm also glad people can't read my mind. In retrospect, part of my draw to Miriam was because I found her good-looking, though it wasn't conscious enough to be a crush. I realized it more in retrospect, after David asked jokingly if I'd been thinking about the "boobs" of two other classmates (it's a running joke with him) and, thinking back, I said guiltily that I *had* found a twenty-year-old attractive, though "I wasn't particularly focused on her breasts."
But the part that's creepier, more embarrassing? The reason that I tuned into her conversation with my teacher outside the café after the Kassel scavenger hunt: my morbid obsession. Not with her. With the imaginary character. That wasn't a sexual thing, but it's still embarrassing. Shameful, too, how I keep trying to summon up the memory of bigger tragedies to avoid writing about the fact that I used to hit my parents and brother...and a teacher, and a fellow Gracefield staff member, and then S. of je_ne_regrette_rien, and finally a Presbyterian minister.
Okay, but my dad's technically one too. At a certain point, I feel like boasting: how many other people have slapped TWO Presbyterian ministers in the face?
(Another tactic is to lapse into goofiness to avoid the serious stuff.)
I asked David once if I should change the Miriam part of the Carol Winter plot.
"You should write the whole thing and stop changing it midway," was his advice.
...
As for the real Miriam, I never messaged her about meeting up when we were both in London in June after immer_immersion. She'd said "Oh, you should let me know when you're there" - but casually, like a "Call me sometime." I thought of texting her, but I wanted to spend the time with David rather than relying on uncertain WiFi to connect to memory-hogging WhatsApp on a slow phone in an attempt to coordinate a meeting with an acquaintance.
Later that summer, I texted her both through WhatsApp and through the cell number she'd given, asking if I still owed her money from the Switzerland trip. I'd paid my main part earlier, but I had a nagging suspicion that there was a ten-euro charge I was missing. She didn't answer and I worried
a) I'd annoyed her either by not texting her in London, or by texting her twice now
or
b) She thought me poor and felt sorry for me, so she wouldn't admit that I owed her anything
or
c) She regarded me with suspicion for talking so much with Nikola before I left; in class with her, Nikola had put on his know-it-all act, which she had no patience for
...and Nikola was the one who'd had a crush on Lindsey, and Lindsey was the one who'd been unfairly treated as a pariah...
...and maybe my worry wasn't just the usual "Kirsten worries too much what other people think of her while they're not thinking of her at all" - true though it is - but a nagging reminder that *I* had been too chicken to contact Lindsey and express support.
...
The next part, if I write it, might be less muddled. It might not. But it will probably start with Eurovision.
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