Rainbows and Son-shine. Forbidden Fruit from Sonny's POV.
I own nuttin. Let's just skip this, okay?
So this is Forbidden Fruit from Sonny's POV, so this story kind of follows Forbidden Fruit but the chapters won't be as long, because it's focused more on Sonny and not Brad and Magenta. It'll still include them a lot, but y'all with be seeing more of Sonny.
September 2011. Sonny's POV.
This year, I'm a sophomore. I guess it's pretty exciting but not like senior or anything. At my middle school, I had a different teacher than everyone else because I was too Aspergers-y. It's not like I can get rid of that but I hope I don't have a different teacher.
My brother Frank drives me and my friends Alex and Ricardo to school every day now, it's walking distance but it cuts through a park where people sell drugs and do sex under the trees. This girl named Columbia who Frank knows got mugged there once at night. She gave the muggers her bike and didn't get hit in the head.
...
One of my teachers is named Mrs Campbell. She calls everyone 'sweetheart' and teaches us how to socialize. The different middle school teacher I had pretty much taught me that but it made me feel really stupid. Mrs Campbell is the normal teacher but she says everything twice like nobody heard her the first time.
Today she made us play this game she called the 'Gossip Game'. It's kind of like Broken Telephone, actually it's the exact same. We start at one end of the room and we pass the gossip around. Simple enough, right?
Mrs Campbell starts the game and picks me to say the rumour at the end. Since I'm in the front row of the class at the far end. The rumour goes around for a while and then Danny Richmond behind me gets a hold of it, he gets a look on his face and says, "Hm, maybe this game doesn't have to suck..."
"What?" I whisper, he leans up against my ear, and says the rumour right there into my head,
"Mrs Campbell eats G-strings."
"I'm not saying that out loud, Daniel Jared Richmond. I'll get in trouble."
"Well, you have to say it either way."
"You've seen the inside of my house, you can't tell me what to do!"
"What about your parents, huh?"
"That's different, they're old."
Mrs Campbell looks at me, "Sonny, sweetheart? Wouldn't you like to say the rumour out loud for everyone to hear? Come on up to the front of the class."
I go up to the front, "missuzambleeetzsasturings..."
"What was that, sweetheart?"
"Mrs Campbell eats... G-strings..."
Mrs Campbell gets really still-y and doesn't move.
"The sentence was... I'm so excited to be a junior next year..."
"Oh." I kind of squeak. I look down and me and Danny start to laugh.
When I get home, my brother Frank is crying. I walk real slow around the living room and stare at him. He looks up at me,
"Sonny, there's something we have to talk about."
I sit next to him on the couch, "What is it?"
"Remember Magenta?"
"Your friend? The pretty one who used to get sick all the time?"
"Yeah. She's really sick now. She's in a hospital on the East Side, Sonny, she may be dying."
"Why is she dying?"
"Remember, I told you a few years ago. She has... well, it's a type of cancer. She's had it since before you were born."
"What would happen if she dies?"
"I don't know. But I'm going to go see her next month."
...
I looked at a picture of Magenta. I haven't seen one in a while. She has curly red hair, but not frizzy curls. Tight spiral curls that are long and shiny. Wide green eyes, a clear green but not the kind that looks brownish, it's the kind that looks like leaves. She has round soft-looking lips with red lipstick. She wears black eyeliner and black sparkly earrings with a necklace that looks like them. And a black lace shirt that makes her boobs look good.
But its just a photograph, from a few years ago, and she probably doesn't look like that now. And from what I've learned, people in photos always look happier than they are.
That was when my heart started beating really fast and I started to get nervous, I thought about dying and Magenta and how pretty she was and how her brother was gone because he killed himself even though that's sinful and how Magenta was alone and she was only 22 and she was so pretty and I was suddenly starting to miss her. I felt panicky crying shuddering in my ribcage and it was a throw-uppy kind of feeling and I dropped the picture because Magenta was too sick and too pretty for me to hold like that.
A month went by. Frank went to visit Magenta. He said she was getting healthier and she had a new boyfriend named Brad. I hope she feels beautiful and Brad makes her feel that way too. Frank had taken a picture on his phone of her. It was just of Magenta because Frank says Brad is a 'douche'. She still has that hair but it's less curlier than it was. Her eyes are still the clear green. Her lips are still red, she has different clothes. There are tubes in her nose, her skin looks fragile and blue, there are circles around her eyes, tubes in her skin and she's in that hospital bed. Frank calls Magenta every night, sometimes I sneak into his room and listen to their conversations but they don't really talk about much.
It's October now. School is getting harder, people are really immature in gym class, a pretty girl asked for a pencil yesterday but I found out that she was dared to. Me and Ricardo are locker neighbours so we can talk between classes about how many times our teachers yelled at us. Our teachers are nuts.
Things are good at home too. My parents bought a big-ass bottle of hot sauce so I've been eating it in macaroni. It's good. Sometimes Frank stays at the hospital with Magenta but when he's home she calls. Frank told me to send her a letter and he said that maybe we could go see her together. I don't know about that. I've heard hospitals are depressing.
Also, me and Frank may be going to stay with Cosmo and Nation soon. Probably after Halloween. Nation has cancer too, in a place where she can't have a baby. It's still possible, but it wouldn't be safe. She and Cosmo have both been on a bunch of drugs for a while because her disease hurts both of them. They live in a very huge house in the suburbs. It's the biggest house in their neighbourhood and they have very loud neighbours.
Nation is also very pretty. She has red hair like Magenta but it's shorter and more orange than actual red. She has bigger boobs than anyone I know but she's also too skinny because she was on too many drugs and she also stopped eating for a while.
Cosmo is tall and skinny and he shaved all his hair off when Nation got sick so now he looks weird. His hair used to be black and it looked dyed. Like the brother from Little Miss Sunshine. I love that movie. My mom calls me Son-shine.
Nation thinks Magenta is annoying. She talks about Magenta a lot when she's high. They haven't seen each other in two years. My dad says Nation is a 'glass half-empty' person. I didn't use to believe her when she said her boobs were real.
And I gave Frank my letter to Magenta, here it is.
Dear Magenta,
I won't ask you how you're doing, because Frank told me you have cancer and it's not polite to ask a sick person how they're doing.
I haven't seen you for a while so I don't really remember a lot about you, but I remember what you look like and the shoes you wore at my 11th birthday party. I think they may have been pink pumps with bows on the tips.
I may come see you soon, I think next month. I'm not actually sure though. I do know that I'm bad at writing letters.
I won't bore you anymore. Frank told me to keep writing you letters until I can see you so I'm just going to keep writing and I hope you reply.
-Sonny.
Two weeks later I got a response.
Hi Sonny (smiley face that girls draw)
I got your letter, and I can tell you I'm doing well for now. It was nice of you to write me though, and you did remember the shoes, I'll tell you that.
I hope you can come see me soon! (another smiley face why does she keep doing these) Although the hospital food is disgusting, they even give out spaghetti in zip-lock sandwich bags.
It's important for you to understand that you don't have to worry about me. I'm going to get better soon, and it's not your responsibility to stress out over me, I have doctors for that. And there's a lot of time for me to improve before you come see me so I'll be feeling better by December.
Love you
-Magenta
Then I remember when this letter was written and I can't decide whether she'll be better or worse.
AN; And that's the first chapter... hope y'all liked it, there will be more to come just so you know.