The Enlightenment League

I can figure things out. I can figure out why I'm so angry right now. But that doesn't help. I couldn't think of anything to say that would make sense. Things should make sense when you say them, right? My face flushed and I started to cry. It was as if a monsoon had just claimed my face as its own, and I couldn't control it. The worst part is, I knew, no matter what I said, Justin wouldn't understand. But I needed him to be able to, because he was the only person with me at that moment. And that moment was everything. Yet everything was being lost. It was slipping away, with my concentration.
I tried thinking about the stop-starting of my breathing. I tried thinking about the placidity of ducks as they float on lakes and other small bodies of water. My last resort, always, I thought about my seventeenth birthday party when I realized how wonderful it is to be surrounded by a family you love. Nothing. Nothing would stick and nothing would completely go away. "Sorry," I got out. He must have found it amusing to watch me cry because the next thing he said had such a pleasant, otherworldly quality to it. I couldn't actually sense concern, just curiousity. "It's not your fault. But I can't believe you're crying over this. What's really wrong?"
I tried to look at him for a few seconds, to shoot him some kind of glance, angry or confused or displeased even, but it didn't quite work because I could hardly see out of my eyes. What was really wrong? Why did I feel this way? I could figure it out, I just needed time. I stopped crying after a few seconds, and I started breathing normally, very calm. Then I knew. It was a thought that I could change in to words that I could finally tell him.
"I know--" I looked at him really hard, because I did know everything, so much more than he did, "it all. I know everything, but I'm not happy." I could feel years of discipline slipping away. It felt like blasphemy to say, but the feeling was just so unadultered. He knew it too, that it was wrong for me to say. He rotated a bit on the window sill. "I know everything and I'm still scared. I'm still alone. I have no one to save me, no back up plans. This is it," I threw my arms out. My right hand hit a wall. I laughed, but it was angry. And now my damn inconceivable hand hurt. "And I'm just," the crying started again. The word scared was all I could think about--that and the vast void of nothingness that I was scared about.
"Scared is a perfectly legitimate feeling. I got scared, too." I laughed. Justin didn't have normal human emotions. "But you just have to realize, that if you want to be happy, that's all. You need to stop thinking so much. You need to just focus on being happy."
"You don't understand," I wanted to hit him for deconstructing my fears and finding such a simple solution. "I understand perfectly well. You got to realize that no matter what you do, what you think, absolutely none of it matters. But if you're happy, at least you'll have that."
We sat for a long time. The wedding was tomorrow. I didn't want to have to wear my stupid bridesmaid dress. I didn't want to have to smile while Jessica got married. I had thought all of this would make me happier. I had thought a lot of things. But I guess I shouldn't have thought anything at all. I wanted to run away, someplace new, where experiences don't trigger thoughts. Where things just are. I knew Justin didn't want to be here either. "What makes you happy? Jessica's going to get--"
"Love, too, is just a state of mind that you can crawl out of," he waved my concern aside.
"How do you have so much control over everything?" I had fallen apart so easily. He was quiet for a long time. He rubbed his hands together. "I have nothing, so I don't care when it gets taken. I realize that everything is nothing, so I can't care when things don't go right. I believe in nothing, so nothing can contradict with the way I see the world."
It sounded like his own personal mantra. "How long have you thought that?""Since I was sixteen.""I guess I have a long way to go," I was rubbing my eyes now. I wouldn't let myself cry again. Hopefully.
"It won't be so bad. If you ever need anything, just ask me. I've been through it all." I never would have thought of him as a thoughtful person. I told him so. "I used to think a lot. When I was sixteen, that's all I did. Some days I wouldn't eat, I'd think so hard. But I've gotten my thinking over with now, and I just am. More like a robot, reacting instinctively to his environment. That's probably why you don't think I'm intelligent, because I never have much time for self-reflection." I thought he was doing a better job at being enlightened then I was. I didn't tell him that, though. I just let myself sit in the near darkness.
"You have to be thinking about something now," I said because it was quiet and it was dark, and nothing was happening, and he was still conscious.
"I'm thinking that I should either walk you home or walk you to a bar to buy you a drink. I think the second. Because if you drink enough, you'll stop thinking, and maybe you'll be happier."
I laughed. "Sure, but only if you're paying."
"Money is also nothing, so I wouldn't mind."
"Stop saying that word, it--," I couldn't say it, "it freaks me out."
"Well, why don't you nothing stand up and nothing walk with me to a nothing bar so I can buy you nothing beer."
"I'll stand up, if only to hit you." I did.
"See? Very instinctual. It's a better way to live. Even though that did hurt."