Chapter 4

Mona was sitting on the kitchen counter, watching Annalise make some juice for them, She’d just went upstairs and dropped her stuff off in her room. If it had been a year before, she would have come home and dropped her backpack on the floor, literally. She did this because the shockwave resulting from her backpack hitting the floor rebounded throughout the house and it made her laugh. Mona didn’t dare do this at the Sandson’s because she wasn’t sure that their reactions to it would be all that positive. They’d run out of orange juice that morning during breakfast, so Annalise was mixing a frozen juice container in a pitcher. She asked Mona about her day, and Mona had told her that it had potential.
“Oh, come on! I want it blow-by-blow! What’s your first hour?” Mona smiled and swung her legs.
“Algebra.” She said, looking at the ceiling as she recalled her day from her memory. “The teacher didn’t seem like a very exciting guy, but he didn’t mess around. We got some stuff done. Oh! And he was wearing a bow tie and reading The Tale of Despereaux so I’m sure that he’ll be a pretty cool guy even though other people probably think he’s boring.” Annalise laughed.
“Are guys who wear bow ties automatically cool in your eyes?” Bow ties equal awesome?”
“Ha ha. No, it’s that if they have enough courage to wear one it’s like they sense their inner weirdness, so they won’t be trying to be cool, which makes them cool.”
“So he was one of those old guys with bow ties?” Mona laughed at this.
“That rhymed. Ha ha. Actually he didn’t look that old, and he wore a bow tie in the same sort of way that a guy would ear a scarf or one of those sweaters with the weird designs. It was an extension of his weirdness. I don’t know. Ha ha.”
They both laughed and drank some of the cold juice. Annalise joined Mona sitting on the counter, which Mona had never been allowed to do at her old home.
“Though, I’m going to need to start taking an extra book with me to school every day. I finished an entire one and part of another.” Mona continued. “At this rate, I’m going to be finished reading my entire library by the end of the week. Considering I’ve been skipping a few because I’ve read them recently. Maybe I’ll swing by the library tomorrow before school and check it out…” Mona looked contemplatively at the ceiling again.
“Oh, If you’re running out of books to read, go ask David if you can take a look at his library.” Annalise said, sipping her juice.
“I don’t want to bother him…” Mona said dismissively.
“Silly. Go, go, go!” Annalise gently pushed her off the counter. Mona chugged the rest of her juice, put the empty glass in the sink and then walked out of the kitchen. She went slowly across the living room and stepped into the doorway of David’s study. She stood there for a few seconds before he realized that she was there. When he did, he nearly fell off of his chair. Mona didn’t normally take pleasure in sneaking up on people, but he literally almost fell off his chair and Mona had never seen that before.
She tried keeping her face straight, but she didn’t think that she was doing a very good job of it, because David scowled at her. It wasn’t a hostile glare, it was more embarrassed, and so Mona wasn’t defensive toward it. There was a moment of silence as David straightened his chair and scooted back on it instead of sitting on the edge and Mona controlled her urge to laugh.
“Um,” Mona coughed, “I was wondering if I could possibly browse your library for some reading material.”
“Oh… okay.” Mona could tell that she had caught him off guard with her question again, but he was learning to accept her unpredictability and not be incapacitated by it. She considered this an important improvement, and surprised herself by thinking that maybe he could catch on more quickly then she originally thought. Of course she had originally thought that, because he was a teacher, he would be more in tuned with the feelings and behaviors of teenagers, but he turned out to be less perceptive than she thought.
She entered the room and scanned the walls. She really liked this room because three of the walls were bookshelves. The inside wall was occupied by the desk, and the space on the wall behind the door, was bare, but all along the remaining walls were floor to ceiling bookshelves, and all but the top two shelves were completely filled with books. There wasn’t a clears spot on any of those shelves. She was sort of expecting a bunch of religious books, but she was delightfully surprised to find how much variety his collection had. She ran her fingers along the spines of the books on the shelf at eye level on the wall with the shorter bookshelf (due to the space behind the door).
“ I am thoroughly impressed,” Mona said out loud, “and that doesn’t happen often.” She was also excited to find that his books were arranged in order of genre and then alphabetically by book title (books in a series were arranged by series name) It was a beautiful way to arrange books.
“Thank you. I haven’t read a lot of these books, I’ve just been keeping them because they add a wonderful atmosphere to the room.” Mona nodded. She thought that it was kind of silly that he hadn’t taken the time to read all of them, but she understood that having hundreds of books in one room, did add to the feeling of the room.
“Definitely.” Mona said, still staring at the books. “I’ll read them. All of them.” It wasn’t a boast, more like a goal. She was grateful for the feeling she had when she realized she didn’t have to worry about not having anything to read and that she didn’t have to read her own books over and over if she didn’t want to. David actually laughed at this, which surprised Mona.
“Okay. I don’t really know which ones are good, so you’ll have to just find out for yourself.”
“I’m usually very easy on books.” Mona said. She found the first book in the section, which was the fiction section. This section only tool up the top half of the first shelf (Mona could tell because each book had a sticker on the spine with the name of the genre written in pen) but there were probably a hundred or more books there. The first book was a book named Andrew and the Alchemist. Mona was fairly positive that she’d seen this book somewhere before. She vaguely remembered seeing at her grandparents’ house when her family were there for her mom’s mother funeral, the last surviving grandparent. They didn’t take her or hew siblings to the funeral, so they had to stay behind at the dusty old house, and Mona had found that book on the shelf. She remembered not finishing it, though, because she had been only seven years old.
She took the book down from the shelf and had it opened to the first page when she left the room.
By the time dinner was ready, about two hours later, she was almost halfway finished with it. At dinner Annalise mentioned bow ties, making both her and Mona laugh, and thus making them have to explain to David what they were referencing.
“By the way, you never did finish telling me about the rest of your day.” Annalise said. Mona took a bite of her baked potato and chewed it before swallowing and answering.
“Well, second hour I have English.” She told them about all of her classes and the things that impressed or appealed to her in each of them. David complained that, unlike the students, teachers didn’t get any sort of variety in their day. They had to do the same thing six times in a row.
“Not necessarily. What if you teach different subjects or grades? And most teachers have prep hours and there are different sorts of kids in each different class, so you talk about different things and have different experiences.” Mona said, philosophically.
“ Well, yes, there are exceptions; but I was talking about generally.” David said exasperatedly. Mona shrugged.
“I was just saying. I think there are too many variables…” she said this dismissively.
“Well,” Annalise interjected, “I borrowed a movie from a friend today, and I thought we could watch it. It sounded pretty good.” There was a silence as Mona pulled away from the impulse to continue the argument.
“What movie is it?” David asked with a small cough. Mona looked at him. He was staring down at his plate. His face had gone a little red. Mona knew it was because he was trying not to argue and maybe because he was embarrassed that Annalise had to intervene so that they wouldn’t fight.
“Inkheart” She said. “I remember choosing not to read the book when I was in high school. I figured that Mona had read it, though, so I borrowed it to see if it was any good.” Mona laughed, chewing some more food. David looked at them both and said, raising his eyebrows.
“What? What are you laughing about? It’s weird talking with you two, because you always seem to need to explain what you are talking about to me.”
“I have indeed read the book. A long time ago. I hardly remember what it was about.” Mona said, ignoring David. “Why did you choose not to read it?”
“That’s what I thought.” Annalise laughed, “My English teacher, when I was a junior, wanted us to read a book for fun instead of one of those books that are supposed to teach you something, and we had a chose between Inkheart and the first Harry Potter book. We chose Harry.”
“Oh, yeah, I can see that… they’re both pretty magnificent… I would have worked to finish Harry Potter and then read Inkheart as well. Ha ha.” Annalise laughed again, and Mona saw that David still looked a little bit lost. He almost looked like he was sulking as he ate quietly. Mona felt bad that he was confused when they talked, but she didn’t like that he was going mope about it. Annalise must have noticed this as well, because she decided to include him in the conversation with something that wouldn’t confuse him.
“So, David,” he looked up from his plate. “what did you do today?” He looked surprised and pleased that he was, at last being included in the conversation.
“Not much.” he said, “The first day is so boring, because you only get to talk about all of the stuff you’re going to do and you don’t actually get to do anything. It should get better tomorrow, though. We get to dive right into that doctrine!”
“Spoken like a true Seminary teacher!” Mona laughed, as did Annalise, but David froze and then looked a little bit defensive.
“Not that there is anything wrong with being a Seminary teacher or loving to discuss and study doctrine.” He said. The smile fell off of Mona’s face.
“I didn’t say that there was. I enjoy doctrine on occasion, myself.” Mona said.
“what do you mean?” He said looking at her. “You should like doctrine all the time. It’s good for you.”
“I don’t know.” Mona said. “There are some times that I like to not think things through and understand them in depth, and with doctrine it seems that you have to do that all the time. I like for some things to be simple.” She put her fork down, her meal finished. David stared at her.
“But it is simple! Sometimes a doctrine doesn’t have to be complex. And when they are, sometimes being able to understand it complexly, which, I should imagine you wouldn’t have a problem with, makes it more simple. It takes work to be able to understand some things, but the work is worth.” David said passionately. “It never gets old! That’s why, in a way, you were right in saying that teachers don’t always teach the same thing. Every time I teach a doctrine I learn something different about it that I may not have realized before! That feeling that you get when you are learning about the truth and how it can help your life never stops feeling good.”
“I didn’t mean that I didn’t like complexity or that understanding it didn’t make it easier, I just meant…” Mona struggled to put into words what she had meant.
“What?” David prompted her. He sounded angry.
“Like in a math class. Once you get into harder math classes, you like how hard it is and how much you can do with numbers, but it gets a little repetitive and you kind of miss back in the third grade when you are just barely learning times tables.”
“Doctrine isn’t repetitive. You have to have an open mind to enjoy it. Maybe you just need to soften your heart.” His eyes were burning.
“I didn’t say that it was, I just meant that sometimes you need to take a break from hard math to be able to enjoy it more, and I did say that I enjoyed the hard math, it’s just that I don’t want to be doing hard math all the time.” She said. “My mind is wide open. I never said that I hated it.” She maintained her eye contact with him.
“Sometimes you don’t need to say something to convey it.” David said quietly.
Mona stared at him for a long time. Annalise didn’t even try to interrupt this time.
“You don’t know me.” Mona said. She stood up from the table, scooted her chair back, and then left the room.
She walked to the front door and exited the house. The lawn curved around the house on either side. The back was fenced in and beyond that were nothing but fields.
There was a tree in the corner that Mona went to and pulled herself up onto the lowest branch, which was still pretty high up. There was another branch a little higher than that one that she rested her shoulders on. She didn’t really feel like crying, because she understood how her opinions could effect the way she saw a situation. She still thought that this latest display of David’s opinion of her was unfair, but she had never let the unfairness of something affect her.
She did quite well with controlling her emotions. They had never had much influence over her (they were there, and she did recognize when she was happy or sad, but anything any more complicated than that she just ignored). She used her brain to determine what to do in any sort of situation. Though, shutting out her emotions for the most part, meant that she came off a little unfeeling to people sometimes.
She was facing west and the sun was going down. She squinted at the colors of the sunset. They were a little drab because of the lack of clouds, and Mona had never liked real sunsets much. Compared to paintings and such, that had huge displays of colors that filled the sky and swirled like fire, real sunsets seemed anti-dramatic. She stared at it anyway, trying to picture what it would look like if sunsets actually looked like those paintings that she had seen.
* * *
David stood to inspect his library after Mona had left. He seemed uneasy about not having read most of these books. He didn’t want there to be something bad in there that he didn’t know about. Now that he thought about it, he didn’t like not knowing what he was in possession of.
At dinner, after making some seemingly random comment about bow ties that David didn’t understand, Annalise asked Mona about how her day went. Apparently they had already talked about her first hour because Mona started with an explanation of her second hour.
“Well, at least you get some variety,” David complained to them, “For teachers, we have to do the exact same thing six times in a row. We don’t get to do all that different stuff that you students do. Consider yourselves lucky.“
“Not necessarily. What if you teach different subjects or grades? And most teachers have prep hours and there are different sorts of kids in each different class, so you talk about different things and have different experiences.” Mona said, philosophically.
“Well, yes, there are exceptions; but I was talking about generally.” David said exasperatedly. Mona shrugged.
“I was just saying. I think there are too many variables…” she said this dismissively.
“Well,” Annalise interjected, “I borrowed a movie from a friend today, and I thought we could watch it. It sounded pretty good.” David looked at Mona, who looked like she wanted to finish her sentence, but then decided not to. He looked back down at his food.
“What movie is it?” David asked with a small cough. He felt a little embarrassed that Annalise had to stop them from fighting all the time.
“Inkheart” She said. “I remember choosing not to read the book when I was in high school. I figured that Mona had read it, though, so I borrowed it to see if it was any good.” Mona laughed, chewing some more food. David looked at them both and said, raising his eyebrows.
“What? What are you laughing about? It’s weird talking with you two, because you always seem to need to explain what you are talking about to me.” He was ignored, though.
“I have indeed read the book. A long time ago. I hardly remember what it was about.” Mona said. “Why did you choose not to read it?”
“That’s what I thought.” Annalise laughed, “My English teacher, when I was a junior, wanted us to read a book for fun instead of one of those books that are supposed to teach you something, and we had a chose between Inkheart and the first Harry Potter book. We chose Harry.”
“Oh, yeah, I can see that… they’re both pretty magnificent… I would have worked to finish Harry Potter and then read Inkheart as well. Ha ha.” Annalise laughed again.
David wandered how much they talked, because they seemed to know exactly what the other was talking about, while leaving him lost and confused. He went back to his food.
“So, David,” he looked up from his plate. “what did you do today?” He hadn’t expected to be included in their conversation, since he didn’t have any idea what they were talking about half the time.
“Not much.” he said, “The first day is so boring, because you only get to talk about all of the stuff you’re going to do and you don’t actually get to do anything. It should get better tomorrow, though. We get to dive right into that doctrine!”
“Spoken like a true Seminary teacher!” Mona laughed, as did Annalise, but David froze. He felt offended that they thought it was funny for him to behave like a Seminary teacher when that is what he was.
“Not that there is anything wrong with being a Seminary teacher or loving to discuss and study doctrine.” He said. He thought he sounded a little defensive, but he didn’t want them to think it was a joke as well.
“I didn’t say that there was. I enjoy doctrine on occasion, myself.” Mona said.
“What do you mean?” He said looking at her. She had sounded like she was trying to be funny, but her facial expression said otherwise. “You should like doctrine all the time. It’s good for you.”
“I don’t know.” Mona said. “There are some times that I like to not think things through and understand them in depth, and with doctrine it seems that you have to do that all the time. I like for some things to be simple.” She put her fork down, her meal finished. David stared at her, not being able to believe what he was hearing.
“But it is simple! Sometimes a doctrine doesn’t have to be complex. And when they are, sometimes being able to understand it complexly, which, I should imagine you wouldn’t have a problem with, makes it more simple. It takes work to be able to understand some things, but the work is worth.” David said passionately. “It never gets old! That’s why, in a way, you were right in saying that teachers don’t always teach the same thing. Every time I teach a doctrine I learn something different about it that I may not have realized before! That feeling that you get when you are learning about the truth and how it can help your life never stops feeling good.” He felt so strongly about this, and he wanted her to share in his passion, but she didn’t seem to understand how he felt. This was very frustrating to David.
“I didn’t mean that I didn’t like complexity or that understanding it didn’t make it easier, I just meant…” Mona said haltingly.
“What?” David prompted her. He was letting his frustration show, he knew, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Like in a math class. Once you get into harder math classes, you like how hard it is and how much you can do with numbers, but it gets a little repetitive and you kind of miss back in the third grade when you are just barely learning times tables.”
“Doctrine isn’t repetitive. You have to have an open mind to enjoy it. Maybe you just need to soften your heart.” His stared at her. He was surprised to see that she almost cowered before him. He liked that she was finally showing some submissiveness.
“I didn’t say that it was, I just meant that sometimes you need to take a break from hard math to be able to enjoy it more, and I did say that I enjoyed the hard math, it’s just that I don’t want to be doing hard math all the time.” She said. “My mind is wide open. I never said that I hated it.” She maintained her eye contact with him, but she looked like she was embarrassed for saying anything.
“Sometimes you don’t need to say something to convey it.” David said quietly.
They stared at each other for a while. David could see Annalise looking uncomfortable in her seat. She was glancing back and forth between them.
“You don’t know me.” Mona said. She stood up from the table, scooted her chair back, and then left the room. David sat stunned and angry, but his anger was fading and he felt ashamed for his outburst. He heard the front door open and then close again. It was slammed, in fact, it was closed quietly and carefully. He stewed for a few minutes until he saw that Annalise was glaring at him. He looked at her, feeling guilty.
“What?!” He finally broke. She slugged him in the arm, hard. “Ow! What?”
“You’re such a doofus!” He cringed, but her words didn’t sting him much, because they called each other doofusses when they wanted to let each other know that they’d messed up, but they had the other’s support while they were trying to fix it.
“I can’t help it!” He said folding his arms, not unlike a child pouting.
“You can too! In fact, you can fix it! Go!” She stood up and pulled him up by his arm.
“Where am I going?” She didn’t answer. She dragged him over to the door.
“Out! Go!” She opened the door and all but pushed him out of it. He stood on the porch for a moment and sighed. Without really knowing where Mona would go, he went around the house to the back yard.
She was sitting in the only tree in the yard, which David liked because it made the yard look more green. She had found a way to position herself on the lowest branch, leaning on the next one up so that she didn’t need to hold on with her hands. David walked slowly across the lawn and stood underneath the tree in between the trunk and her hanging legs. He had expected her to be crying or upset, but she actually looked quite relaxed. After having that thought, David realized that he was absolutely no good at determining what she felt like, so it was safe for him to assume that he was wrong.
He was pretty sure that she acknowledged his presence, but she didn’t say anything, or even glance over at him.
“Don’t tell me that I have to climb the tree, just so I can talk to you.” David said into the silence. It was his lame attempt at humor and even he cringed. He thought that Mona was going to ignore him, but after a moment she spoke.
“I heard somewhere once, that when an adult is talking to a child, they communicate with that child on their own level, as a way of understanding that child and having that child understand them better. Whether that be descending or ascending.” David had heard this before. He had talked about it in a lesson once, but he was pretty sure that it didn’t mean literally. He was about to say how ridiculous he thought that that was, but he decided to play nicely, so he reached up to grab the nearest branch and managed to pull himself up. He was very thankful that he was not wearing a suit.
He grunted as he pulled himself up onto the branch, first on his stomach and then turning to sit next to Mona, leaning his back on the same branch as she was. He had to sit and rest for a few minutes and then he looked over at Mona. He had expected her to be smiling or in some other way, showing her amusement, but she was just staring off at the sunset, with the, now familiar, impassive expression on her face. She completely ignored him and he looked down at the ground as he spoke.
“You seem like a very intelligent person.” She didn’t even move, so David kept talking. “I just don’t understand why you’re not like other people. Not even a little bit.? She blinked, but that was all David could see concerning movement. Not even her eyes twitched.
“You don’t talk a lot, at least not when other people would be talking. You don’t obsess over the same things as other people. You read a lot more than I remember reading in high school. You have the most contradictory opinions and arguments to back up those opinions, and you don’t like things that are easy to understand, yet you’re a very simple person. You aren’t like normal people.”
He paused to take a breath Mona raised her eyebrows and glanced over at him.
“I understand normal people. I’m very good at understanding normal people, but you aren’t normal, so I don’t understand you and it really bugs me that I don’t.”
“You do realize that I know all of this already?” Do you want me to add a few more things to the list? I hate school dances, I can go all day without talking to anyone, I like silence and classical music, I have two anxiety disorders, and I don’t like shopping or clothes. Are there any other teenage girl stereotypes that I don’t conform to that I’ve missed?”
“You like school, and you think books are beautiful and when it’s sunny outside, you stay in?” David smiled cautiously. He knew how fragile their moments of friendliness were so he didn’t want to shatter it by being too presumptuous.
“Ha. Yeah. Of course” She laughed but her face didn’t change from the same expression. She was pretty upset, he guessed.
“So, I think we’ve established my difference from the stereotypical teenage girl, but like every good student, you’re going to have to figure out an application to your newfound knowledge. Now that you’ve learned so much, how do you plan to apply what you’ve learned?” Her question seemed like it should be teasingly said, but Mona was completely serious.
“You know, that’s what my lesson is on for tomorrow. Application. Isn’t that something?” He was trying to be evasive, because he didn’t know what all that information had to do with anything.
“Fascinating, you didn’t answer the question. Would you like me to repeat it?” She said. Not at all afraid of flattening his evasiveness.
“I don’t understand the relevance…” David said, trying to imagine why any of that stuff mattered.
“Have you not figured out the core of the problem, here?” She asked/ David shook his head and sighed.
“Not really, but I’m sure that you have figured it out and you’ll tell me eventually.”
“You don’t understand my motives for being the opposite of what you expect and I can’t forgive you for it.” She said, “My reasons for telling you all o that stuff, is so that you can try to understand why I’m me, and when you understand I won’t have anything to hold against you, but I can’t just sit here forever, waiting for your light bulb moment, and I would feel bad if I didn’t help you out. So, what I’m trying to do, by giving you all this information about myself, is help you understand me so that I can cease to despise your not understating me. Make sense?”
It didn’t. He didn’t understand why she would feel bad for not trying to help and really, if she was correct, then the problem was all his fault, but she was trying to tell him that she considered it partially her fault as well. He got that she was telling him more about herself so that he could understand her behavior, though.
“Yeah, but I still don’t understand why any of this would have anything to do with your ability to like gospel doctrine.”
“Ugh,” Mona put her hand on her forehead. “I knew I shouldn’t have brought that up. I guess that I just have hard time feeling the same way you do about it. I guess I’m not open enough.”
“What do you feel? I mean besides boredom?” David asked.
“Confused and anxious. I’d say about… half of the time I spend confused and the other half, anxious.” David was going to ask her why, but she was already answering his unspoken question.
“Anxious because of the aforementioned anxiety disorders, and confused, because confusion is what’s left behind when the anxiety isn’t there.”
“What are you confused about?” He asked.
“What I’m supposed to be feeling, I guess. You’re supposed to feel if things are right in your heart, and not just believe them in your head. My head believes them, but I don’t feel much of anything when I’m anxious, and when that goes away, there are so many feelings to sort through and understand, that I’m not really sure what I should be looking for.” She said. “Also there doesn’t seem to be a point to life sometimes and it makes me not really want to do anything, because none of it seems relevant.”
David thought about this.
“So, you read when you feel like this, because… you need to distract yourself?”
“Yes. I can lose myself in a book, or even in my music playing, because those things are very emotional, but they tell you what to feel and why, so that you aren’t trying to figure out why you’re feeling a certain way in real life. Neither of them are really relevant, but they make me forget about being anxious and they explain to me why I’m having the emotions I am. In real life there aren’t many times where I know why I’m feeling a certain way. It’s hard to explain.”
“So why don’t you get lost in the scriptures? It’s a book and it’s sort of telling you why you feel the way you do.” David said scratching his neck.
“It’s too…I don’t know. They seem too relevant to get into. It’s hard to relax and lose yourself, because you feel like you’re studying for a test and you have to look for meaning and retain information and understand it. It feels too much like homework.”
“No, you’re supposed to be looking for inspiration. It’s a guide to living your life and understanding the meaning of it. They manage to reveal things about you that you didn’t know before, without the story actually being about you, but it is, in a way…” David loved his scriptures.
“When you’re someone like me, who isn’t have an identity crisis, problems living the gospel or believing in it’s truth, then comfort and reassurances from the scriptures can only go so far…”
“This isn’t just comfort and reassurance, or even just suggestions to help you through your problems, there are important laws and commandments that are essential to understand and examples of how your life should be. Not just for kicks and giggles, puppies and kittens. And you said yourself that you have problems feeling the truth, it‘s not all about believing it in your mind.”
“I’m sure that I’m probably feeling something. I just like to know that I am feeling it. I have to learn to understand my emotions instead of blocking them out.” David didn’t have a response to this. They sat in the tree until it was dark and then Mona hopped down from the tree. David’s exodus from the tree was a little less graceful. He ended up sitting on the ground. Mona didn’t smile, still, as she helped him up and they walked back inside.
Mona went directly upstairs and her light was off when David and Annalise went up a little while later. He read his scriptures that night, but they all seemed to be about comfort and faith. He was wandering if he needed comforting as he changed into his pajamas and got into bed, The blankets were a little cold so David shivered a bit.
“It’s not that cold.” Annalise remarked in the dark next to him, she took his hand.
“I was just thinking.” David said, he was thinking through his conversation with Mona. She had mentioned some stuff that he wished he had asked her about.
“Yes. I do that too, sometimes. Isn’t that something?” Annalise said, sarcastically.
“I think that Mona’s sarcasm might be rubbing off on you.” David said.
“It’s not a disease, David. Anyway, you were just about to tell me what you were thinking?”
“Yeah. I was just thinking. Does Mona seem anxious to you? Does she say anything about anxiety to you? She talked about it while we were talking earlier, but I didn’t ask about it, because I was preoccupied with other things.” Annalise didn’t sound surprised.
“Well, that would make sense.” David pondered this and there was a little bit of a lull before he said,
“What makes sense? I don’t fully understand Anxiety Disorders or what that entails. Isn’t that like being afraid of nothing all the time?” Annalise dove right in.
“It makes sense because, even now, I still wake up and hear her restlessness. I’ve never known anyone to move around that much in their sleep. Sometimes she talks or mumbles or she cries. I looked it up, anxiety disorders, and I think that it makes sense. How she sometimes just sits on the couch pretending to read, when she’s really not moving her eyes. I think she’s dealing with anxiety. She goes all pale.”
“For the last two weeks? You’re still wake up in your sleep? ” David was shocked. “Why didn’t you say anything. I know how horrible it is for you when you feel like you can’t help someone, you should have told me.” He squeezed her hand.
“I was waiting for you to get over you’re pride and notice for yourself; and I didn’t know… if she was… she seems so fine unless you’re watching. Plus, I didn’t want you to lose sleep. You consider it a huge inconvenience, so I didn’t say anything.” She sighed and there was another silence.
“Why don’t you ask her about it? Apparently she’s aware of it, so maybe she’ll talk to you about it. She likes talking to you.”
“Maybe…” silence and then, “what else did she say that made you think?” She asked.
“Well, she just told me a bunch of stuff about how she went against teenage girl stereotypes. Then she told me that I needed to figure out what to do with all the information she’d given me. What’s that supposed to mean? She talked about helping me understand why she’s like the way she is, but just telling me how she is doesn’t really help me understand why she’s like that.”
“Com on. Think about the problem you have with her. You dislike her attitude and some of her opinions. Maybe she was trying to get you to see that just because she’s not the same as other teenage girls, she’s still human and has feelings. She’s they way she is for a reason, and knowing what she’s like can help you to understand why she might have the feelings that she does. Then, look at her circumstances. First, I know that we never talk about it, but her family was murdered, and she has to live with the image of that for the rest of her life, which can’t make her have a very good outlook on the future; that may be some of the reason for her not being a very optimistic person.
Second, she was put here so suddenly after that happened. She must be feeling very uprooted, which won’t be good for her anxiety disorder. Then she had to go to school and deal with everything being so unfamiliar. You have a problem with her attitude, but if you think about it, for a person in her situation, I’d say that she has an incredibly optimistic attitude.”
This actually made sense to David.
“I see…” He said thoughtfully.
“See. If you think about what kind of things happened to her, it’s easier to understand and appreciate the way that she is now.”
“I had another thought.” David said. “Maybe she’s doing so well, emotionally with her family’s deaths, because of her faith in being able to see them again.”
“That’s a reasonable assumption.” Annalise said.
“But if that’s so, then why does she seem to hate gospel so much? She said that she never feels anything but confusion and anxiety when learning doctrine, because she isn’t used to having to deal with any emotions besides her anxiety and that when she doesn’t feel it, she’s confused by all the emotions that she can’t feel with the anxiety. I don’t understand how she can have faith, without feeling it. So, what does that mean?”
“Having faith or having a witness isn’t entirely in your heart, you have to believe it in your mind too, and she has no problem with that. I guess it’s because she really does feel all those things, she’s just not used to being able to recognize them. She’s not able to have a feeling and say, ‘oh, there’s my faith, I can feel it’. She’s not worried in her mind about her family, she knows about eternal families, and she doesn’t feel doubtful about it, so she’s not confused about that. She’s so preoccupied by trying to understand the emotions that she has, while not anxious, that she doesn’t even think about the emotions that she’s not having.”
“How confusing…” David said. His mind was officially blown.
“Exactly. That’s why she seems so emotionless sometimes. She can’t understand her emotions so she just blocks them out.”
“Wow…” David said. “She should be so bitter and resentful. She’s so mellow, when she could be a total mess, but she keeps it together. I thought that she wasn’t open-minded, but really she just doesn’t have enough room to cram any more in there.”
Annalise laughed softly, and nothing more was said. David closed his eyes, but his mind was exploding and imploding at the same time.