Good Enough
To Jeni, who seems to grip reality through all the insanity we endure. I love you to itty-bitty pieces.
She cried until she was physically ill, and then she cried some more. In her fifteen years of life, she had never felt so utterly worthless. It seemed no matter how hard she tried, she'd never be good enough in her mothers eyes.
She picked up her cell phone and made a desperate call.
"Ulrich?" Her voice cracked with his name.
"Yumi? What's wrong? Are you crying?" There was the sound of a smack and the music in the background was turned off.
"No. I'm.. ok." She hiccupped between words.
"What happened?" He disregarded her lame attempt to say she was alright.
"Everything," she let the tears flow, holding herself tightly as sobs racked her body. She squeezed her eyes shut. "Sh- She, she-"
"Your mother again? Yumi, we keep telling you not to listen to her, she doesn't know what she's talking about! Are you alright? Do you want me to come over?"
"I'm sorry! I'm a failure! I'm a fuck up! I'm sorry!" She hung up, heaving the cell phone across her bathroom, wondering why she had called him in the first place.
"I try," she stated out loud. "I try, but it's never good enough. I'm never good enough." Her voice cracked again under her own painful words. "I try!" She coughed, and sobbed before getting sick again. The house phone rang and she pulled herself to her feet, swaying in the doorway when she turned into her bedroom. She held herself up against the door frame before getting to the phone.
"Hello?" She sounded like shit. Fitting to what she felt like.
"Yumi? Ulrich just called me. I'm coming over alright? I'm worried about you. Need me to bring anything?" Yumi wiped at her face, raw from tears and hot with fever.
"You don't need to Aelita, don't worry." She tried to sound convincing.
"Apparently I do."
"Aelita! I don't need your help. I can handle this!" Aelita was silent. "Lita.. I'm sorry. I'm just- I'm just such a screw up. I'm sorry." She started crying again.
"You are not. Stop saying that.," she told her sternly. Yumi had never heard her so serious.
"I'm sorry," Yumi managed weakly, fresh tears carrying her makeup from her eye to her cheeks.
"And that, too. Don't be sorry. You didn't do anything wrong. I'm coming over, and that's final."
"I look horrible."
"I'll be there in five." She hung up, and Yumi hung up. Her chest hurt, her head ached, and she was freezing. Carefully, she collapsed onto her bed, pulling a blanket up over her shoulders, balling it in her fist under her chin. Sleep was starting to take grip, her hypnagogic state keeping her mind from anything.
"Yumi?" The sound made Yumi wince.
"Hi." She opened her eyes.
"Yumi, are you alright?" Aelita rushed over to the bed, gathering her friend in a hug. Yumi hiccupped in return.
"I'm useless."
"You have a fever, and you're not useless."
"Yes I am. My mother thinks so." Yumi sat back from Aelita, pulling her knees to her chest.
"How long have you had a fever? And who cares what she thinks?"
"I don't know. Since I got home." She left the second question alone. She did. She wanted her mother's approval. She wanted her mother to be proud of her and not see her as a disappointment.
"Did you take anything?" Aelita was more concerned with her fever than her tears at the second.
"No." Aelita walked down the hall to the bathroom, retrieving a bottle of aspirin from the cabinet.
"Do you want to tell me what happened?" she asked handing Yumi the pills. Yumi shook her head as she took them.
"Is Ulrich mad?"
"Yumi stop it. Right this very instant. Ulrich is not mad, you scared the life out of him. He's worried." Yumi began to cry again. She was sick and upset and exhausted. "Aren't you suppose to be at a party tonight? At your aunt's?"
"I got kicked out."
Aelita understood at once.
"Why don't you get some sleep?" she asked. Yumi nodded.
"After I call Ulrich."
"I'll call him, you go to bed." Yumi coughed in return, rolling over to hold her ribs.
"Why can't I be good enough?" Was Yumi's last groggy question as she gave in to sleep.
"You're more than good enough for us," Aelita whispered stepping out of the door, closing in quietly behind her. "You're perfect to us, and you'll never see it because to wrapped up in what she thinks." She scowled at the wall, whishing full heartedly that Yumi understood that.