Finding Eden

Finding Eden

By
Camilla Beavers

Copyright

©
2012 Camilla Beavers. All rights reserved.
ISBN 
978-1-300-11551-9

My eyes scan the living
room. The coasters are all tucked away in their holder, the pillows
on the couch thoughtfully disorganized. My eyes scan the walls, and
reflected back at me are the years of my life. The years of pigtails
and crooked teeth; long hair and braces turned bobbed and perfect
smiles. My eyes scan the photos, my eyes never stopping for more than
a few seconds. Then my eyes come across one photo; one of me and dad,
all the while my fingers trace the scar right above my heart.

Dad has told me I look a
lot like my mom, with my red hair and all, but I have dad’s
eyes. The color looks normal with his dark hair, framed by his dark
brows, but on me, the bright green is almost a little too vivid. Over
the years I've grown accustomed to people asking me if I wear
contacts. I tell them no.

For as long as I can
remember, I’ve always been able to see the colors. Over the
years, though, they’ve gotten worse, grown brighter with each
passing moment. In the past they used to only brighten when I would
concentrate on them, but now they are so bright I have to squint to
see past them to people’s faces. The sunglasses help though,
but wearing them makes people make fun of me and makes my teachers
think I’ve grown up under bad parenting.

Now, dad is what some
might call distant. He’s hardly ever around and when he is, he
gives me these weird looks, I suspect it's because I look so much
like my mom. It's the same look he gets when someone mentions when I
was only a few weeks old, and my little baby heart almost gave out.

Some people call him
aloof, distant, almost non-caring, but that’s not true. He’s
just in pain; so much pain it’s crippled him. It’s almost
as if my mother was his soul and he died along with her. And that's
why, when I look around the living room, there are no pictures of
her. Only pictures of me. He will look at me sometimes, his eyes will
see the tip of the scar, and he looks sad. He doesn't want to lose me
too.

My mother died when I was
very, very young. She died in a car accident weeks after I was born.
It was a drunk driver that ultimately took her life. He had lost
control, swerved out of his lane and back into it, clipping my
mother’s
back bumper in
the process. The small car she was driving turned sharply and she
ended up getting t-boned. I don’t remember her, and the only
reason why I know what she looks like is because of the picture that
was in the newspaper. And whenever I see the colors floating around
him, I know he's thinking of the moment when he got the call that
almost ended his reason for living. And this is one of the reasons
why, for my 16
^th
birthday, he bought me one of the
safest cars on the road. A range rover. The same type of car the pope
is driven in.

I clearly remember the
first time I received a negative reaction from saying something about
the colors. Even though I was young, kindergarten maybe, I remember
the moment as if it happened yesterday.

The classroom was quiet;
all I could hear were the sounds of safety scissors cutting paper.
I'm bored. I like art, but this was something I'd done before, and my
teacher watched me carefully from her desk. I kept tabs on her and I
was completely aware of her as she walked over to my table.

My teacher sat down next
to me and placed her hand over mine, stopping me from making my next
cut.

“
Now, Eden,”
she said, trying to sound nice, “if you continue to cut the
paper with your left hand, you might make a mistake and use too much
paper. Then there won't be enough for everyone else.”

She smiled at me. I never
liked her.

“
How much does the
paper cost?” I asked.

“
What?”

I repeated the question,
but she didn't answer.

“
If it doesn't cost
a lot then it should be easy to replace. Right?”

“
That's not the
point I'm trying to make, Eden,” she put her hand on her hips.

“
Then what point
are you trying to make?” I finally looked up at her.

She was mad at me; I
could see the red around her body. There's a frown on her face. She
began to walk away.

“
That color red
doesn't look good on you,” I said.

“
Excuse me?”

She walked back with her
hands on her hips again.

“
That color red,”
I said, “It’s not a good color on you.”

I don't know if my back
talk or the odd color comment caused it, but the next day I had to
sit outside the classroom while my nanny had a meeting with my
teacher. Then my nanny relayed the meeting to my dad. The next thing
I know I've my head in a CAT scan, an MRI is being done on my heart
and the ophthalmologist is checking my eyes. Sad thing about that is
that my nanny was the one who ordered the tests, not my dad.

Needless to say, I did
not enjoy that experience. So at the age of ten I decided to try and
keep my mouth shut about any and all out of the ordinary colors. My
first year of high school, though, I let myself slip. I couldn't help
it. At all of my schools I had been the quiet one. It was my turn to
speak up.

“
Oh my god,”
the queen bee said, “would you stop making fun of him?”

That's how high school
was there. You were either loved or hated, with no gray area. At that
very moment, with her air of superiority hanging over her, and the
smug look on her face, I wanted her to be hated.

“
Why do you do
that?” I asked.

“
Do what?”

“
Defend him like
that,” I said, “you really think he's going to believe
that you really care about him?”

I looked at the boy in
question and he looked away embarrassed. Then I looked back at her
and glared.

“
He has a name. Do
you know what it is?” I didn't leave room for her to answer, “I
didn't think so. His name is Brad, and you know what? He's a person,
and contrary to what you or others may think, he has feelings too.”

If looks could kill, I
would have been dead at that very moment. It was worth it though, to
see the smile on his face as I walked away and sat by myself for the
next couple of weeks. I was the quiet girl who finally spoke up; they
didn't like that very much. It didn't matter, though, because a few
weeks later dad told me we were moving to our current house in San
Diego.

When I was younger I
thought it was a normal part of life, that everyone could do it. But
then as I grew older I learned that it’s not a normal part of
life, and not everyone can see what I see. I learned to keep my mouth
shut when the colors surrounding someone changed to a nasty shade of
puke green when their boyfriend would eye me up and down, then change
to a smug purple when the boyfriend recoils as he realizes who I am.
What they think I am, I’m not quite sure, but I’ve heard
the whisperings of the word “freak” as I walk past them
in the hallways of my high school, and because of this, I don’t
have very many friends.

The friends that I do
have are also those labeled as freaks, but only because of the way
they dress, not because they wear sunglasses in crowds to avoid the
swirling mass of colors and manage to say the worst thing possible
when they speak. Even in a magnet school a math whiz is still
ostracized and that emo goth chick who plays the oboe and wears thick
plastic horn-rimmed glasses, no matter where she is, is still made
fun of.

So then the three of us
found each other. There’s the boy who wears clean white shirts
every day, wishing he were cool, and the girl who carries her oboe
around like a security blanket, who wears her uniform plaid skirt
with black tights and blocky clog like shoes. Then there’s me,
the quiet 5’2” redhead who could be popular if not
branded a freak.

I shouldn’t be
surprised though, since I’ve never been popular, no matter how
many different schools I attend. I’ve always been labeled as
“off” in some way. I thought that finally being enrolled
in a private Magnet school I could finally avoid the ridicule, but I
was wrong.

Public school had always
been hard simply because dad is a high profile lawyer and earns a lot
of money. An odd rich kid isn’t all too welcome in public
school. Now that I was in the private school it wasn’t any
better. At first they accepted me, but when they began to notice that
I wore sunglasses all the time, said odd things whenever I did speak,
wasn't allowed to participate in school sports, they quickly changed
their minds. I went from being accepted by them to being shunned to
the back corner of the cafeteria along with Brock and Evaughn in just
a few weeks. Somehow even the teachers dislike me, except for my art
teacher, Miss Brody, who doesn’t give me disgusted looks when I
wear my sunglasses in her class.

I was so happy to learn
that we were moving, not because it would be a different school, but
that it would be a private school, and I got my hopes up, thinking
dad’s money wouldn’t automatically make me popular or
unpopular. Unfortunately it didn’t matter, money or no money,
good looks or not, I was still the odd man out due to my “light
sensitivity”, my constant sunglasses and my lack of school
activities.

My life is a pile of odd
things, but I deal with them as they come and try not to let them get
to me. I live my life as best I can, I just hope I can keep up with
anything else that decides to blindside me.

“
Eden,”
Evaughn pokes me in the side, trying to get my attention because I am
concentrating more on my watering eyes than I am on the conversation.

“
Hmm,” I look
over at her, able to make out the shape of her oboe case held
securely to her chest, “what is it?”

“
Are you going to
be there tonight?” She asks, “At my recital I mean.”

“
Oh,” I say,
“of course I’m going to be there. I said I was, didn’t
I?”

“
Yeah, I was just
double checking. My mom has to work tonight, so she won’t be
able to make it. Do you think you’d be able to record it for me
so she can watch it later?”

“
That shouldn’t
be a problem,” I say.

Evaughn, other than her
looks, is shunned because she’s a scholarship student. Her
family has no money. She had applied and was accepted due to her
ability to play the oboe so well. Everyone at the school was able to
do something well. You had to or else you weren’t accepted. I
was accepted because I was able to paint and draw well.

“
I swear to god if
they don’t stop trying to copy off me every single day I'm
going to go insane,” a boy with short black hair said as he sat
down next to us.

“
They’re just
mad because they're going to flunk out and you're not,” I say
as he shakes his head and began pushing his food around with his
fork.

“
You could always
make sure you write down the wrong answers and hope the teacher
notices,” Evaughn said as she glances at him.

“
I don't know if
that'd work. I'd probably get in trouble while they get a better
grade,” he hangs his head.

The cafeteria starts to
fill as classes get out. Pretty soon the colors become too much and I
find myself reaching for my sunglasses, even though, at the moment,
the lighting is low. I stop myself before anyone can see what I was
actually thinking about doing and stuffed the sunglasses in my bag
instead of on my face. I squint around the room, my eyes watering
slightly.