Notice: There have been slight changes to this chapter only for style and grammar purposes it does not in any way change the story... to my knowledge (at least I hope...)
Hello welcome, to my newest story. Truly hope you guys enjoy this it sort of just came to me. This story is a bit more literary than some may like and the lives of the characters will be from the mind sight of teenagers as I viewed them during my teenage years. Not to be mistaken as condescending it just I feel there is lack of unique high school stories that don't portray the generic fundamentals- especially from some that have an idealized view of high school usually from having little experience in it. My portrayal of high school is based on my individual experience and pure imagination. To finish of the ramble- please enjoy!
"Breathe (2 AM)"
2 AM and she calls me 'cause I'm still awake,
"Can you help me unravel my latest mistake?,
I don't love him. Winter just wasn't my season"
Yeah we walk through the doors, so accusing their eyes
Like they have any right at all to criticize,
Hypocrites. You're all here for the very same reason
'Cause you can't jump the track, we're like cars on a cable
And life's like an hourglass, glued to the table
No one can find the rewind button, girl.
So cradle your head in your hands
And breathe... just breathe,
Oh breathe, just breathe
He made her cry once, and compared to every time he made her laugh, or even made her frown the stir of her eyebrows would forever be etched into his mind. Riding away under the heat of the summer a lump burbled through his chest. The stirring in his immature heart crooning; his tongue running dry and tasteless. The tears she shed never falling until the car shifted across a corner, the glint of the sun shining on her face, blacking her out into a shadow; within hapless seconds she was gone.
Sitting in the backseat listening the bubble of his mother's friction filled voice describing the lovely tranquility of Tennessee, he promised to remember how helpless she looked pulling her hat over her face rubbing her eyes furiously as her small body shook.
Arriving in Tennessee was nothing close to enjoyable, the city desolate beyond the despondent snicker of mutant donkey-horses, and ugly warped alpacas chewing on mud-grass and baking in the heat. Hoagie didn't get to watch a lot of television apparently it corrupted a young boys mind about justice. Instead he spent his mornings in the barn, heralding the sheep outside after their meal, walking the horses down to the wide pasture. Then off to school. Eight hours of education under the old cobble building constructed from the thirties, with a bareness of soft light enough to always leave the windows open but never turn the archaic air conditioner on. After he would walk three miles down the dirt path to the local grocers, known for its prominence of the bartering system, stacking boxes of bush bake beans, and corn mill until dusk. Sister Erin Mcgennis, a sweet Mormon woman would drive him home to wrangle up the heifers as she put it. As was his life for a number of years, and even with the inclusion of his good ol' truck he still stuck to the safety of the mundane wrangling up those heifers for good old Sister Erin, or how she wished to be called Sissy:
"Hogarth now you go on'a and call me Big Sissy ol'right. I ain't that old child. So boy how was yer day, you've been stayin away from that Barbra Jankin's them Jankin's ain't no good let me tell ya. Naw... it ain't good ta gossip. Ain't no good ta gossip ya hear."
"Yes Mrs. Mcgennis."
"Boy didn't I tell you call Me Sissy!"
"Yeah, yeah...yeah. Sissy."
Despite the accommodation of sweet Sister Erin, the unnerving kindness of his new father; Hoagies world was bread crumbs ready to fall and yet no trail to follow.
In the heady summers, and the approaching harvest time, brunt strength was a necessity, and he seemed to be born for such a design. At the sight of his height his new father praised him, Tommie envied him for the attention, and his mother kept stuffing his plate with black-eyed peas and mustard greens. He was becoming a well off tall, strong, handsome youth. Seventy seven inches of height that gingerly stretched the awkward adolescent fat into, favorable farm hand frame. He particularly didn't like the new addition of adulthood looming, but like all things he slowly came to accept the fact he wasn't a child anymore or the fact he now had to remember to duck when he entered and exited a room.
Four years after the move Hoagie broke his arm trying to drive a Chevy truck back from Nashville to Virginia. He ended up in the hospital a seventy-six miles from the house somewhere in Who-knows-where Virginia barely on the outskirts of a homely little plagued city known for its biggest bottle of curd milk. His reasoning, beyond all to finally work up the courage and see dear old Grammy. A little while before he peddled his hand-me-down bicycle he kept of his fathers down to the end of the property out of the gate and into the highway successfully ridding three heat stricken drivers into the wide watery barrel ditches . Two nights after arriving in his new brick paneled little cottage home he in anxious pacing found himself lost out in the woods of the neighboring acres so angry at the happenings he never felt the fear of returning to that cottage he would forever call home. Note that his father in punishment just offered him a bowl of freshly home-made ice cream after the little scare and a boring anecdote of his rambunctious youth.
He hated his father, his new father, A kindly man as much as he hated himself. He felt the need to live no longer promising as it was in his youth; the days of sunshine and rainbow monkeys was long since gone.
When Hoagie broke his arm he thought the world had came to an end. To him that was excitement, that was living. The Chevy skidded under his heavy steel toe boots unable to stop completely from colliding into the solid frame of a barb wire fence thinly avoiding a flock of wild pigs. His vision glared, the burning smell of rubber extending up his nose, the white walls of smoke draining into the air filters, blood dribbled down his forehead, pellets of glass sprinkled on his skin. And even in the thinly veiled hell, he felt nothing at all but the need to keep driving home. How poor he looked, foot still revved onto the engine, eyes asunder looking into blank vastness.
This incident was of the only he had ever received punishment for. His father's bereavement not aimed at his stupidity but at Hoagie's need to free himself of the rest of the world. Although his mother's anguish did little to push Hoagie's heart, it did become the precipice of his parents slippery slope into misery. Within a few months hatred and frustration became a ticking bomb strapped on their chest, within a few years the once quaint household became a scrutiny for malice and to Hoagie's contradicting heart it felt so good to see fragile peace crumble, but so painful to watch his mother cry, his brother shout, and even his father complete ignorance begin to simmer.
Every day he shined his boots, the source of his accident. A texture of heavy leather snapped his ankle completely. An early present for his upcoming birthday to go with his car was his new father's excuse, although Hoagie couldn't complain, his shoes had become a fair bit restricting since his growth spurt and in the Nashville terrain flippancy was a no' go . Unable to complain for he much prefer the solace of a pair of working boots than flimsy sneakers to go handle a flank of boisterous stalk cows; and he just like a pair of shoes also changed and conformed.
Even after five years, he recalled the silliness of trying to escape the monotony. Although Hoagie wished he waited at least one more year to hold the facade in place- at least so he wouldn't have to hear the weak sobs of mom, and the discontent of his moody brother. One more year he wouldn't have to face the world that in his youth he believed would never grow old. It never occurred to him as he drove down through the slumbering streets of Virginia how much the world changed.
At five am, he noted the same houses and on the mailbox the same surnames he walked past everyday in his childhood- Sanban...Dickson...Mckenzie...Drivolsky down the next street- Uno...Devine...Fulbright, beyond them on the last street before gauging into the small tole booth of the highway two handily crafted mailbox- Beetles and Lincoln. The two mailboxes tucked quaint against each other on the curb, the Lincoln a particularly older house, handcrafted mailbox laid three dainty hand prints of the three not so little children who once dwell in the house.
He wanted to hold onto the memory, the giddiness of her eyes as she tried vainly to hide under the safety of her hat, looking cavalier leaning on the same mailbox, flicking through envelopes for her magazine subscription as to keep her deviant cheerfulness in check as the neighborhood slowly came alive.
The way he and she, and the two others, Wally and Kuki would sit up in their tree. He doodling far away mechanisms onto blueprint paper, Wally beating the kanoodles out of the video controller frustration from his defeat by the computer operating control. Kuki leaning out the door frame matching clips to the crazy fabrics of her new clothing style. Abby singing a diddy in french as she worked on a homework assignment. Nigel's room wistfully empty moving along with such cadence it was easy to forget he wasn't their- but he also returned, and on much better terms, for a much nobler cause, so easily forgiven. Hoagie got the call from Kuki-
"Hoagie he's back He's home."
"Well Kooks... I'm in Tennessee."
That was the last call he received from Kuki, and the only one he ever received. He imagined Wally felt much too betrayed and Abigail much to afraid of changing- she was the oldest after all, the one expected to be resolute and unflappable. Leaning out on the side of his pickup truck window, his hand crafted down the side of the dented door frame fixated at memorizing the diameter of the imperfection through mere touch alone. His car sat outside the curb for fifteen minutes waiting as she did diligently for years before. Always the one waiting for the world to slow down for her to catch up and never the one being waited for.
He tried to create glimpses of her from past memories. Would she be wearing glasses again, braces maybe- she did have a delinquent love for sweets. What changes in five years? The night before he caught sight of Kuki, he never realized how small and fragile she looked then. Her eyes unusually tired but happy and caressing, her fingers waving down to the tinted windows of an unknown car. She didn't catch a glimpse of him although she turned to impede upon his house with a measured frown before disappearing into her home.
Sitting in his car on the lot he hoped to catch a glimpse of a long french braid but she never came out, and Hoagie didn't understand if he was happy or relieved at the gross premonition of what life would surely be like. Everyone changes, no one can remain the same for too long before becoming incompetent and useless he mused. Taking his foot of the park he shifted the vehicle into gear, turning the radio on and zooming past the barking little mutts perturbed by the powerful stir of his engine.
Two a.m, Abby sat at the dinner table teasing a marble cowbell statue with her finger, liking the shuddering tinkering noise it made as the diadem resounded against the hallow walls. A plate of gram cracker, peanut butter, and watermelon from the fridge being slowly picked at as she contemplated recent developments. In the morning she would have to deliver her paper first hand to Mr. Laurel, The dedication of misogynist to the misery of life for her report of a unique personal characteristic which is typically invoked in literature, a paper she still hasn't half tried to accomplish, but felt no fear in its bearing. No, her mind was more preoccupied on another hair tearing event. The Gilligan house was being occupied. Although she hoped it would once again be an up incoming couple ready to settle down for some child-making or an elderly old widow and her three grand kids taking up quarters for a few years. But she knew better, just her sense of ominous approaching reared in the truth. Her deduction skills never failing before informed Abby of a tragic inevitable happening. He was returning back to the once empty house. Hoagie Gilligan was on his way home.
It wouldn't be long before the news spread, her father forcing her to make an apple pie for the returners and bring the domestic bake good to their doorstep the old fashioned way. A big cheesy grimace on her face, the pie shaking on her arm, "Hears. yo. Pie. Ma'am." and of the course the pudgy little woman would grab up the plate quickly yell up the stairs for the two little balloon boys to come down and say hello, and usher Abby up to the boys room for a few minutes of awkward catch up- pretending not to announce true feelings of regret before someone misinterprets and winds up hurt and angry. With frank words of "I miss you," scattered everywhere.
Abby decided then, she knew nothing and would say nothing, and instead let the world revolve in the safety of her seclusion of the dining room, under the glowing lights slipping through from the kitchen, all alone in a house that felt more like a museum than a place to grow and succeed.
Her father stayed again overnight at the hospital an outbreak of chicken pox immediate in the area left his hands tied. Her brother who she rarely spoke to was working on his fifth kid, busy with downsizing into a small shelf-house, than their previous loft due to financial burdens. Her sister off to college in full groove of a rhetoric class and a zealous feminist movement hardly ever called. Her mother... not worth thinking about in the labyrinth of the lonely night.
Abby's head fell into her palms, fingers smoothing across her hairline holding in the exhausting headache taking over her mind. A coldness from the table top developed as she let her head rest on the surface, eyes unable to close for sleep. New developments to cruel to let her mind rest.
Digging into the cupboard she retrieved a bottle of honey, letting the lathery substance drip from the nozzle onto the silver spoon, remembering it to be a natural sedative;soon she drank the two teaspoons remarking in the pungent taste before replacing her ruminations for frantic pacing. It wasn't until four fifty, after writing her paper; she finally pent up the energy to go scramble into her bedsheets and get a good hour and half asleep before preparing for school.
Crawling into her sheets an anxiousness settled in her heart at the unfamiliar sound of an engine rearing to life outside her window. She dared not look in fear her hopes would be shattered under the pretense of her hallucinogenic mind cruel to cater her true desires, but the world was never kind to Abby, and so instead she laid in bed, shut her mind off refusing to acknowledge their was at least one person still waiting for her to fall in time with the rest of the world.
There's a light at each end of this tunnel,
You shout 'cause you're just as far in as you'll ever be out
And these mistakes you've made, you'll just make them again
If you'd only try turning around.
2 AM and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, it's no longer inside of me,
Threatening the life it belongs to
And I feel like I'm naked in front of the crowd
Cause these words are my diary, screaming out loud
And I know that you'll use them, however you want to
Thank you guys who decided to read this it makes me incredibly happy. I hope you enjoyed the chapter and please if there are any questions, critics, concerns or comments anyone wishes to makes please don't hesitate it will make me smile. Guys have a wonderful night, day, mid-morning, afternoon, evening until the next update.
P.S the song is Breathe (2 am) by Anna Nalick beautiful song in my opinion.