Vainglory

Seattle on an autumn noon is akin to a toddler on the verge of crying. Gray sky that promised pelting rain according to the weather forecast, but right now all she does is dispose of misty air that makes it hard to breathe. With a chronic, untreated sinusitis, I do not fare well in a relatively frigid city like this one. But by the merits of birthplace and hometown, Seattle has earned my inherent love. For this is where I belong, for I know not any other place--any other possibility.

I sit by the glass wall in the cafeteria, overlooking the cement yard where student passerbys pace through from point A to point B, rushing from class to class, or to the parking lot, or towards the newly renovated cafeteria that still smells of wood and fresh paint. Community college is an interesting place. It is certainly different from the student life you would expect from other four-year institutions: frat parties, sororities, dorm life and the sorts. You don’t get those here at North Seattle Community College. Instead, you get to meet different kinds of people. So varied that you begin to wonder where you are, whether in place or in life. You sit in class to be with a high school student who is taking the upper-division classes to better their chances at entering a top-tier university. Or an 80-something-year-old who is in class for the sole purpose of learning and nothing else; not to obtain the Associate degree, nor to transfer to another institution (like me). The latter is whom you seldom encounter at universities where only qualified individuals are admitted, and what I think education should be about. Sometimes, the idea of having to achieve something greater than yourself chips away the joy of learning.

I let myself get lost in thoughts as I take my due recess from perusing the content of the Introductory Course to Human Biology textbook sprawled before me. I pressed my eyes with my index finger to relax both my sight and my mind that have been inundated with small texts of the eye anatomical parts and functions in an attempt to simultaneously retain all the information. I sigh at the realization that I would have to repeat this process at least three more times to fully absorb all the information. The task of memorizing never comes easy to me. It is beyond me sometimes why I am so adamant at wanting to pursue nursing.

The reason is simple: I want to help people, and I’ve always admired doctors. But failing two biology courses in high school, a subject that I’d always thought I loved, rid me of my confidence; perhaps I am just not good enough to be a doctor, and it would be a waste of time and bad investment if I tried at all. Nurses save people, too. And nurses are essential forces in the healthcare industry, for doctors cannot possibly function without nurses’ assistance. Nurses are helpers, and they are necessary.

For all its vanity, I do like to be needed. I don’t know whether it is the seeking of self validation or something else. What I do know is that I have the desire to be and feel important. In Nursing 101, my professor spoke of the ethics in nursing. He cautioned us that it is an easy trap to fall into to have a “savior mentality.” “We must do our job first and foremost with our best intention for our patients. It is good that we end up in this field because of a common passion that is helping people. But do you think it is ethical when we do our job for the pride of saving lives?”

He didn’t think so, but I did. After all, what is so wrong about wanting to be recognized for your merits and services? Isn’t that part of the rewards--of this nursing job, or of virtually any other tasks? What I believe would be unethical is if you went about to say out loud such a desire of yours. There still exists a social conduct that prohibits you from being 100% transparent, even though they may claim advocacy for being true to oneself. Such a disparity makes me doubt humanity sometimes.

Here, in the midst of rumination, comes Stella, a pleasant surprise I didn't know I was awaiting. I haven’t seen her for a few weeks now; she has been absent from the Calculus class that we take together. We would sit next to each other in class. We would study together after the class ends to review the material before we resumed with our respective classes--mine Advanced Biology and hers Technical Writing--, a routine we have established for a couple months now considering that neither of us is particularly apt at math, and that we were quick to acknowledge this ineptness of ours. At times, we would barely study. We would chat instead. We would laugh and worry together--about a class instructor, about an upcoming exam, about our plans after community college--, enjoying each other’s company without the need to advance it further, even though one day I did plan to finally ask her out. That was when she stopped coming to class.

I watch her walk, her gestures. I have been wondering where she has been. My attempts of contacting her had been futile; tens of unreturned voicemails and text messages later, I gave up. I have missed her, but I have also started to move on.

Her eyes scan the room thoroughly, trying to spot an empty table amongst the sea of students. She is just about to exit the cafeteria through the glass door when she catches my gaze. I lift my hand halfway from its resting position on the table, abashed for being caught looking at her without any effort to greet her, or to offer her the empty seat across from me. She scurries through the packed room towards me, shouldering her way to make it with her hefty backpack without nudging anyone with it. It fails despite her best effort; the bag strikes a student’s head from behind, causing him to streak across the paper he was writing on. He clicks his tongue, and turns his head to gain a better view of his perpetrator, ready to spew all the derision he has collected. But Stella was quick to display excessive remorse on her face, repeatedly apologizing for the mishap she has committed. “I’m really sorry,” she says, clasping her hands together as if she is begging forgiveness from a deity. He caves at last; clicking his tongue one more time, he nods and dismisses her.

Stella continues to amble towards me, her hands gripping the straps of her backpack to prevent the same incident from happening.

“Hey,” I say as she arrives at my table. “Where’ve you been? I haven’t seen you in ages.”

She smiles coyly in reply, and proceeds to take the seat across from me. She unloads her canvas backpack from her shoulders. She inhales, pulling air audibly. “I don’t know,” she says finally.

“You don’t know?” I query, confused.

She releases a sigh. There is both distress and void on her face.

“I’m not doing fine, you know,” she says again. I furrow my eyebrows in reflex, unable to contain my confusion.

“What do you mean? Are you okay?” I ask in concern and desperation. She shrugs.

“No,” her breathing becomes rapid. “Can I…, can I share something?”

“Yes, of course,” I say, trying to de-escalate the intensity of her emotion; a body of water pools in her lower lids; lacrimal gland, sclera, puncta--the Latin anatomy jargons interrupt my concentration. “You can tell me anything.”

“Promise you won’t tell anyone,” her voice breaks. “Can you do that? Can you help me?”

“Yea, yea, sure,” I nod vehemently. “What is it Stella?”

She fishes out the content of her backpack--miscellaneous stationery, old receipts, medication, a folder of documents, and a black leather notebook she would use to take her notes in class. She reaches for the black notebook. She flips through the pages and takes out a window envelope.

“I need you to hold on to this,” Stella says feebly, her voice lowered, her eyes dart right and left as if in fear of being watched.

“What’s that?”

“It’s a check. It’s twenty-thousand dollars. Please, I need you to take this from me,” she pleads.

“Wait, you want me to hold on to your money? Why?”

“I just need to get rid of it…, for the time being,” she says. She’s struggling with providing an explanation. I’m struggling to compose her story in a coherent manner. It hasn’t added up to me, and I suspect it has not to her, either.

“I can’t have it,” she continues. “Everybody’s out to get me because of that!”

She tries to hand me the white envelope, but I keep my hand to myself.

“You can have it if you want,” she adds as she sees me refusing the item. “Please, just, help me with this one. It won’t be for long…”

“Stella. I wanna help you. I do. Just…, talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong.”

“My safety is at stake, Nicky. That’s all I can tell you.” she looks at me pointedly. “Please, Nicky. I mean it when I say you’re all I have. Everybody thinks I’m just being paranoid, but they don’t understand. Nobody believes me,” now she has broken down in tears. All eyes stare in our direction.

“Alright, alright,” I relent, as if by default, as if I have no other choice. “Here, I’ll help you, okay?” I say. “Just, promise me never to disappear on me again,” I stare at her with a fervor of a lover, even though I know that this may not be the best time to assume such a fantasy. She nods. I accept the white rectangular envelope she hands me, albeit reluctantly.

“I have to go,” Stella says. I do not stop her. As she reassembles her belongings back into her backpack, I catch a glimpse of the orange pill bottle she had put out as she was searching for the alleged check, the source of her current anguish. The label says “Haloperidol,” which does ring a bell--I’m pretty sure it must have been one of the Nursing courses I have taken--, even though I cannot recall what it is or its purpose.

“So what do I do with it? You want me to just…, keep it?” I double-check with her.

“I don’t know… For now. Or up to you. You can do whatever you want with it. Only matters as long as I don’t have it.”

“I can’t…”

“I’m sorry, I do have to go. My bus is here,” she scuttles away, exiting the cafeteria and running towards the bus stop, disappearing into the thick Seattle gray.

As I am left in perplexion, I try to parse out the sea of emotions that have overcome me, the window envelope still in my clutch. It is almost tempting to think about the prospect of financing my next tuition with the money, though I immediately shun such an intrusive, rapacious thought. There’s an indubitable fear with holding this much money in hand; in my twenty years of life, the highest amount of money I have ever encountered is around five thousand, which is my parents’ and which I use to pay my college tuition. And there’s a sense of satisfaction, too. I am glad to have been able to provide support for a friend in need. And not just a friend; this is Stella, one whom I have secretly admired for a while now--a feeling of flattery. The kinds of things you don’t get to experience outside of community college--outside of being me. I smile at the thought. I feel pressured, but lucky. In such a sudden, unexpected happenstance, I find myself in a deep gratitude.