Breaking the Glass Screen

Agave americana, also known as the century plant, can live up to 80 years. For the majority of its lifespan, it lives as an indistinguishable succulent like many of its flora familiars. After 10 years of quietly mustering up all the energy it has, it blooms. The once indistinct plant propels a massive, bright stalk out of the middle of its luscious green leaves. Beautiful yellow flowers bloom out of branches on the stalk, shining as bright as the sun as they complement the beauty of the skyscraper species. It towers over the world, seemingly unstoppable in its growth and beauty. In an instance, after a long life of living on the ground, amongst the rest of the plants and animals, the succulent grows into a striking, magnificent exhibit in the museum of nature.

I grabbed my suitcase and lugged it out of the warm, humid dorm room on the first floor at Fenway. In the common room, I waited for Nic. I couldn’t stomach the idea of saying goodbye to him. I had never known anyone like Nic. I had never had a friendship like the one I shared with Nic. I had never been as intimate with someone as I had been with Nic. And what was it all for? Was he just going to go away and forget that I ever even existed? Would he think of me once in a while and then just forget about me again? Was I really just a fleeting stitch in the tapestry of his life, bound to be unwoven, brushed aside, never seen again?

Nic came out of the room with his suitcase and bedding all in a bundle. For a moment, everything was still. We just looked at each other. My eyes welled up with tears. I fought the irresistible urge to cry. It was all over. Everything we had built together. Gone. Forever.

Staring into his deep brown eyes, I saw everything from Boston Conservatory flash before me like it was all happening again. In his eyes was the musical meisner class where we continuously pushed the boundaries of scenework and partnership in duets. In his eyes was the improv class, where we learned how to transform ourselves without the support of a script in our hands, backed by strictly our psyche and each other. In his eyes was the chilly performance hall that we all cramped into for our final demonstration, the culmination of everything we had learned. In his eyes were all the moments that I would never experience again.

He took a step closer to me, and the picture became even clearer, like a polaroid after it has had a couple seconds to develop. The polaroid had been indistinguishable from a blank slate before, but now his chestnut irises invited me welcomingly to see beyond the surface of the past three weeks.

In his eyes I felt my chest ache as my friends and I roared with insurmountable amounts of laughter, the world disappearing around us. In his eyes I felt my chest tighten and the walls close in on me as I prepared to sing for the first time on the first day. In his eyes I felt my throat tighten and felt beads of sweat gathering on the back of my neck as I went to meet my roommates for the first time, unaware that I was about to meet the most meaningful person in my life. And there he was. Standing in the exact same spot thatI met him. His eyes whispered to me softly that it was going to be okay.

We took a deep breath and mutually masked ourselves with facades of joy. In my head, I could see a stupid billboard that read:

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

We went outside and were greeted by Hope, Sarah, and Nic’s mom. Nic might have been leaving, but I still had a couple hours with everyone else. After taking pictures with the three of us, Nic realized he had left his toothbrush inside. He went inside to grab it quickly, and I followed behind him.

I waited for him in the hallway, fighting the urge to give into the growing pit in my stomach and bawl my eyes out. He came down the stairs, and as I hugged and kissed him for what would be the last time, I completely submitted myself to his warm scent. The silence pierced my ears as I felt his arms close around my body like the final piece of a puzzle clicking into place. Enveloped within his arms, my throat plummeted to my stomach as I realized that this would be the last time I would ever be in his arms. I had spent the last nights tangled up with him, and nothing had ever made me happier. This was the last time I would ever feel the warmth of his touch, and I couldn’t let it go to waste. I squeezed him a bit tighter.

As we intertwined in the barren, empty common room, devoid of all the people it once knew, all I could think about was what Nic said during the first week of the program. It felt like years ago.

“People smell good to each other when their immune systems are compatible.”

I know. It’s absolutely ridiculous. When he first said that, I laughed so hard that I couldn’t breathe. It was the stupidest thing I thought I had ever heard. But in that moment, knowing it was the last time I would ever take in his scent, I thought maybe he was right. 

For my entire adolescence, I always believed that I would watch my friends and their romantic endeavours from a distance, an unmoving glass screen separating me from the life of love I would long for endlessly. But now, as I felt his warm, slender fingers brush through my soft, chocolate brown hair, I felt the glass screen shatter right before my very eyes. This was it. This was all I had ever wanted.

I would’ve lived in this moment forever if I could’ve. But I couldn’t. And then, as suddenly as he had come into my life, he had disappeared from it.

Standing alone in the hallway, my heart begged me to follow him wherever he went, but my grief and loss paralyzed me on the cold hardwood floor. Warm tears cascaded down my soft skin as I stared at the door at the end of the hallway. I had never felt more alone in my life.

The sight of my room when I got home brought forth a visceral reaction of normalcy, and it felt like everything was clicking back into place. I was ready to come home. Finally, I took a deep breath, and it felt like I was breathing out Boston. I was ready to come back home, but I would never forget the lessons that I had learned during my time there.

I unpacked my bedding and remade my queen-sized bed. Climbing under the soft covers, I felt ready to be home, finally. I rolled over onto my pillow and there it was again. Nic’s scent radiated from the pillow, and I was immediately brought back to Boston. Tears filled my eyes, which were shut tight as they wandered back to the weeks past. I felt everything again as if my pillow was a conduit directly to the past. I heard Hope’s guitar playing as we all sang Slow Burn. I saw Elizabeth running toward me as fast as she could outside her dorm so we could walk to class together. I tasted the sugar cookies that all of us would devour every night after dinner. I felt Sarah’s tight embrace as she hugged me as if she would never let go.

Most of all, I felt Nic. I didn’t see him. I didn’t hear him. I didn’t smell him. I just felt him. I felt the way his thoughts aligned with mine in perfect harmony, our bound souls permeating the silence of my dorm room as we lay in the dark. I felt the way my heart skipped a beat every time he came around the corner, a wide grin painted across his visage. I felt the way my heart seemed to beat slower and slower as time stopped during our last kiss.

I slowly fell asleep as these endless sensations permeated my mind and body, and I knew that those three weeks would forever be imprinted on my soul.

After the century plant culminates in its beautiful bloom, it lives for a short while before it shrivels up and dies. It has its moment in the spotlight of the natural world for the blink of an eye, and then it is gone. Its flowers, once thriving in their sunlit, yellow beauty, shrivel up and fall to the ground. Its massive stalk, once towering over the world in its stardom, shrinks down and breathes its last breath. The agave lives its short-lived instance of fantasticism and individuality only for it to die and be forgotten.

My entire life has felt like seeds slowly being planted, slowly coming together to bloom into everything that I got to experience at Boston Conservatory. All of it, from the people, to the classes, to the happiness, to the hardships - it all bloomed directly from my previous experiences in theater and the arts. It bloomed from the myriad difficulties I had learned to endure and overcome in my childhood. It bloomed from my constant longing for the same relationships I got to watch my friends live in from behind the glass screen, which had begun to fog up from getting increasingly closer to it with desire. For my entire life, I had filled my tool belt with a vast array of artistic, educational, and social skills that I was able to bring out in Boston.  After those three weeks of paradise, I plummeted. I felt like there was no point in going on.

After that meaningful of an experience, why should I have to go back home? I felt utterly hopeless, as if I had hit rock bottom. But I hadn’t.

In its death, the century plant leaves behind tiny seeds that are not noticeable at first. However, after a long time, these seeds bloom yet again and form a vast array of plants, including more century plants themselves. The century plant that passed on transforms itself into endless amounts of radiant, stunning flowers that form an amalgamation of nature’s beauty, even bigger than the century plant itself.

Now that I am home, I am already taking huge steps in order to rebuild everything that culminated in Boston, and after high school, I get to do it all again in college, and after college, forever. I thought that Boston was the peak of me. I thought that I would never reach the level of happiness that I reached there. I thought that I had left a part of me behind there that made me who I am.

But I didn’t. That part of myself has stuck with me and helped me grow, and now, it’s planting all of the seeds that will eventually usher in a new part of my life. A part of my life that will be even larger than Boston. I thought that I died, but in that moment, infinite amounts of seeds were already beginning to cultivate beneath my very feet, and when I least expect it, they will bloom, and my life will be everything I have ever wanted it to be. Now that I know this, I will be ready for spring whenever it may come.