The Beginning of Us

By Sarah Brooks

Eliza, where are you? I'm listening, watching, waiting for you. I need you. How dare you run away? Where’s the courage, the fearlessness I fell in love with?

I don’t know what else to do but write. It’s dark in my dorm room, and the wind rattles the panes of my window, and I’m supposed to be driving to my parents’ right now for winter break, but I can’t feel my arms or my legs, and my chest aches because I don’t know where you’ve gone. Or why.

I know I shouldn't have fallen in love with my professor. But you inspired me when you stood in front of the class, telling us to find our authentic selves. And I did—with you. How could I know that you would be so afraid of this, of us? That you'd be so terrified of . . . yourself? Wherever you are, Eliza, hear me—and come back to me.

Love (yes, I'll write that word, Professor), Your Tara

• Language: English
• Publisher: Riptide Publishing
• Release date: Mar 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781626491052

Sarah Brooks

Sarah Brooks has lived in China, the far south of Italy, and the far north of Japan, but is now settled West Yorkshire. She has recently completed her PhD on classical Chinese ghost stories, and teaches in the East Asian Studies department at the University of Leeds. She’s a graduate of the 2012 Clarion West Writers’ Workshop, and has had stories published in Interzone, Shimmer and the Journal of Unlikely Entomology.

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Riptide Publishing

PO Box 6652

Hillsborough, NJ 08844

http://www.riptidepublishing.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Beginning of Us

Copyright © 2014 by Sarah Brooks

Smashwords Edition

Cover Art by Simoné, http://www.dreamarian.com

Editor: Sarah Frantz

Layout: L.C. Chase, http://lcchase.com/design.htm

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at [e-mail].

ISBN: 978-1-62649-105-2

First edition

January, 2014

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Eliza, where are you? I’m listening, watching, waiting for you. I need you. How dare you run away? Where’s the courage, the fearlessness I fell in love with?

I don’t know what else to do but write. It’s dark in my dorm room, and the wind rattles the panes of my window, and I’m supposed to be driving to my parents’ right now for winter break, but I can’t feel my arms or my legs, and my chest aches because I don’t know where you’ve gone. Or why.

I know I shouldn’t have fallen in love with my professor. But you inspired me when you stood in front of the class, telling us to find our authentic selves. And I did—with you. How could I know that you would be so afraid of this, of us? That you’d be so terrified of . . . yourself? Wherever you are, Eliza, hear me—and come back to me.

Love (yes, I’ll write that word, professor), Tara

For A.

About The Beginning of Us

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Dear Reader

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Enjoy this book?

WHERE ARE YOU?

Eliza!

WHERE. ARE. YOU?

I’m listening for you, but all I hear is the wind outside the window, and so I hate the wind because I want your voice. Need your voice. I need you.

How dare you leave me?

I can’t be in this world without you. That’s the truth that presses me to the floor. The world without you in it doesn’t matter.

I don’t care how that sounds.

Where have you gone?

I’ve checked my email every ten minutes since this morning when you failed to show up to give the final exam. Nothing from you. And nothing from you. And still nothing from you. You, who used to send me so many messages and poems and links to online art installations and photographs you thought I should write about, you have become mute. You have disappeared.

I composed a long email to you, all about how much I need you in my life and how I’ll understand and forgive any explanation about why you’re not here, if only you’d write me and tell me where you are, but then I deleted the email.

Then I wrote this one: FUCK YOU! WHERE ARE YOU??? But I didn’t send that one, either.

All afternoon, all night tonight, I checked my email every few minutes, sure you’d send me a note that would explain everything. You wouldn’t just leave me, would you? You’re scared, but you’re not a coward. And you love me. You wouldn’t leave without an explanation.

Would you?

Every time I refreshed my email, I’d be sure you’d have written. My heart would beat faster, and I’d close my eyes, and then—nothing.

No missed calls on my phone. No text messages. I even walked down to the Union to see if you’d slipped a note into my mailbox. Nothing.

Eliza. Only this silence hurts more than your sudden absence.

At ten or so tonight, I allowed myself one final email check, closed the web browser, and then stared out my window for a long time.

I just want to talk to you.

So I’ve opened up this Word document, to talk to you here. I won’t allow myself to look at email again. If you haven’t written me today, when you must know I’m reeling from your absence, you won’t write me.

This can’t be happening.

I need to breathe.

I can’t breathe.

Breathe, Tara, breathe.

I don’t know what else to do but write. It’s dark in my room and the wind rattles the panes and outside it’s dark and I’m supposed to be driving south to my parents’ right now for winter break . . . but I can’t feel my arms or my legs . . . and my chest aches because I don’t know where you’ve gone. Or why.

Eliza!

If I type these words to you, they might be words you’ll never read, but then again, maybe while I’m typing I’ll look up to see the door opening, and you’ll be there, and you’ll laugh and say I should’ve had more faith.

So I’ll keep typing.

Tara, breathe.

Everything I thought I knew about you is dissolving. What if these past months weren’t real? What if you were never real?

But you were. You are. Right?

You are. Wherever you are, Eliza, hear my words—and come back to me.

It’s so cold this morning, I can see my breath. My first impulse when I woke was to check my email. I thought, surely she’s written by now. But in all the junk emails, the electronic Christmas letters from my friends, the reminders from Grace College to have a safe break, nothing from you. WHY?

Why would you keep this cruel silence?

All I can do is write to you here, in this document. Maybe my typed words will reach you, somehow.

First, I need to tell you I loved you immediately.

Even before I walked into your senior seminar class, I loved you for the course’s ostentatious title: Against the American Canon.

But then I met you.

You were standing at one of the whiteboards, scribbling notes in black marker across the entire surface, the other three walls already full of your writing. I’d arrived early for some reason, and you gazed at me for a long moment when I entered, your dark eyebrows raised above your intense brown eyes.

You’re early.

Yes—sorry. I couldn’t tell if you were impressed or irritated, but I stuck out my hand and you shook it, and your hand was so small and delicate, a surprising hand for someone who seemed to fill the room. I noted your long, dark, wildly curly hair, and that you were wearing black.

I’m Eliza Moore. And you are . . .?

Tara. Tara Haus.

Well? you asked me, waving your arm in one sweeping motion at the boards. What do you think?

I— And suddenly, I forgot everything I had learned at Grace College in the three years before that moment and everything I’d learned in high school. Speech left me entirely. I sensed my open mouth, the way my eyes widen when I panic.

When you’re ready—tell me, you said, grinning, gesturing for me to have a seat at a desk. I did, and you kept scribbling on the whiteboards, and soon other students began to straggle in, and you greeted each one with the same intensity and the same question, so I knew I wasn’t important to you, hadn’t made an impression. I’d never been that kind of student. Professors had never invited me to their houses for dinner or out to a bar for conversation. I’d always been the obedient student, the stereotypical good Iowan farm girl. Or at least that’s how I used to characterize myself. Before you.

That first day I met you, the moment the digital clock on the wall reported the start of class, you pulled the door shut and began class. A student tried to come in late—we could all see him through the long rectangular window of the door—but you didn’t acknowledge him. No one came late after that first day.

What is America? Who are the authors of America? Who gets to decide who we remember and who we read? Why does any of this matter?

Reviews for The Beginning of Us

[Nathalie Echevers · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It is a good read, beautiful love stry