Chapter One
Life at Peach Creek was absolutely awful. Everyday seemed to blend into another and the only way you could tell time had passed were the seasons changing outside of your window. Marie had grown bitter and cold to everything Peach Creek stood for. Living in the trailer park was awful and dealing with her two sisters was a hassle. She dreamed of breaking out of the town, jumping on a bus and leaving. No one would miss her. Her "father" worked himself to death and would come home and pass out on the couch. The only evidence that he even came home the night before were the dirty soiled laundry he left on the bathroom floor. Marie tried her hardest to deal with her life, it was better than living on the streets and it wasn't like her "father" was an alcoholic, he was just never present.
Life had changed for Marie; she was not the same girl she was in middle school. No longer did she chase after the Ed's with her sisters. She had grown out of it long ago. Her sisters still lived in the delusion that they would all eventually marry and have neighboring trailers in the trailer park. Marie would rather do anything else. The idea of being with Double D lost its appeal and luster to her. Sure he had grown into his nerdy demeanor and was even considered handsome in a sexy computer programmer kind of way. But the spark she thought was there as a child was gone. By freshman year of high school she had completely stopped getting involved in her sister's attempts at wooing the Ed's. She stopped talking to people all together. She immersed herself in school work but her grades never left the B range because of her lack of talking in class. They hardly noticed her existence now a days. She ate alone outside instead of in the cafeteria. The only classes she really truly applied herself in were her guitar classes. Everyone was required to take a music class freshman year and that was when she discovered she loved music. Guitar became the medium with which she expressed herself, she never went anywhere without the acoustic guitar she bought at the pawn shop in town. It had scratches all over it but she fell in love with it the moment she first held it in her lap. Her teacher would say she should major in music and guitar in college, but the likeliness of her going to college at all were low.
Now a junior in high school Marie had come to learn many things, about school and herself. One: she could not rely on anyone, not even her sisters. Two: never use the girl's bathroom in the cafeteria unless you want to see a couple having sex. And three: that she was absolutely and undeniably in love with Nazz. Marie never knew growing up that people could be attracted to members of the same sex. She hadn't even known herself until she realized that she was attracted sexually to Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Her sisters wanted a Disney Movie Marathon and throughout the entire movie all Marie could think about was what lay underneath those sexy purple seashells Ariel used for a bra. Not the best way to discover your love for the same sex, but it could have been worse. She could have had one of those awkward experiences in the locker room. Thank goodness she always skipped gym class.
Her love for Nazz was discovered sophomore year. She had been sitting in the hallways by the back door with her guitar in her lap. It was pouring outside which left her sitting by the door strumming the strings on her guitar. Even though she was in a guitar class she still never spoke or sang. She couldn't do it at home either, her sisters kept their music up so loud she could hardly think. This left her with only her lunches to sing to her hearts content. She had been working on an experimental song, stringing random words together and trying to find which ones fit well together. She had gotten a coherent chorus together and was singing quietly alone to her minor chords.
"Rainfall on a tin roof, no sleep for me tonight, waiting for the moment, when I can step outside, escape from this prison, hit the road and skip town, reach for the stars and never be found, Oh I just want to let go, of…." Marie had sighed, "no that doesn't work."
"I thought it was beautiful." Marie jumped at the sudden voice and had turned to find Nazz standing at the edge of the hallway.
She had been dressed in her Peach Creek Cheer uniform. Marie can still envision how long her legs had looked leaning back against the lockers, a pink band aid on her kneecap. She had her hair pulled into pigtails and she had her bottom lip pouted out. Marie had held her breath, trying to think of something to say but nothing escaped. She instead had sat there mouth agape. Nazz had giggled and her voice sounded like bells in Marie's ears. Marie felt her heart swell in her chest as Nazz ceased in her laughter and smiled gently.
"You should totally play me the song when it's finished." Nazz grinned, "See you around."
Since then Marie had been hooked. She would pour out songs in the hallway everyday hoping Nazz would stroll by and notice. A year had gone by with Marie quietly admiring Nazz from a far. Even though Nazz had acknowledged her existence Marie could never get up the courage to confront her and talk to her. Her love went unnoticed and her song books increased with lyrics written about the popular cheerleader. And Marie had become content with the way things were.
Marie slouches back in her seat, Algebra two is her worst subject and she could barely hear the teacher over the chatter of her fellow classmates. Her sisters were a row in front of her harassing Eddy and Ed like there was no tomorrow. Both look irritated and annoyed and all the other students were equally loud. The teacher never noticed the talking. His hearing aids acted up and he could never hear how loud the students were chatting while he wrote notes on the chalkboard. Annoyed as all hell at the noise Marie collects her things and leaves. No one notices her slip out, no one notices her at all. She makes her way down the deserted hallways towards the girl's bathroom. She slips in and stands in front of the mirror, splashing some cold water on her face. Obnoxious students irritated the shit out of her. She remembers a time where she once acted like them; she wishes she could punch her younger self in the face. She'd most likely fail the class along with the rest of the students. Marie looks up at her reflection in the mirror. She went a little heavy on the eyeliner today. Her blue hair looks perfectly straight from the front, the rest tucked into a gray knit hat that hangs down to her neck. She had opted for a faded flannel blue shirt that once belonged to her "dad" in place of a nice shirt with a blank tank top underneath. She wore a pair of tight gray jeans to finish off the outfit. Not bad for a Wednesday.
Marie checks her watch, there is still twenty minutes left of class. Yet she felt no desire to return to class. Lunch would be next period so she decided now would be a good time as ever to grab her guitar and set up for her usual afternoon practice. She was halfway to the music room when she accidently bumped into someone coming around a corner. She fell onto her back, gray hat falling off her head. Marie sat up to glare at the person but was dumbfounded when she saw who it was she had bumped into. Rubbing the back of her perfectly blonde head sat Nazz surrounded by a pile of papers. Nazz was not in her cheerleading uniform, since the cheer squad had just recently purchased new, more revealing uniforms that the school deemed too inappropriate to wear at school events. She is instead dressed in a white blouse and a pair of tight fitting jeans. Nazz opens her blue eyes and looks over at Marie.
"Oh gosh Marie I'm so sorry dude." Nazz gushes sitting up and grabbing the papers, "I was in a hurry and was totally not looking where I was going."
Marie does not answer, but instead sits up and begins to help Nazz with collecting the papers. Nazz watches as Marie begins to stack the papers neatly into a pile in front of her, not once looking up at the cheerleader. Nazz smiles as she notices the look of utter concentration on Marie's face as she put the papers neatly in front of her.
"Thanks for helping me," Nazz smiles, "here take a flyer."
Marie looks over the colorful piece of paper. The paper was advertising a school wide talent show that would be occurring next Friday night for spirit week. The Peach Creek Cobbler's football team had somehow made it to the semi-finals thanks to their team captain Kevin. Marie stands up and offers her hand to Nazz. The cheerleader smiles and takes hold of Marie's hand and gracefully rises from the floor. Marie could barely contain the blush on her face, she had actually touched Nazz. That had to be the most amazing experience Marie could ever have.
"Thanks dude," Nazz says again, reaching down to pick up her pile of papers, "want to help me put them up? It's going to take me a bit."
Marie grins and nods at the girl, hardly believing the direction her day is going. Hanging out with Nazz, alone, for an undetermined amount of time. Could her day get any better? Nazz's own smile brightens as the two continue down the hallway Marie had just come from and begins placing flyers up on lockers. The silence between them is awkward but Marie just could not get her tongue to say the words she wants. She never remembered starting a conversation to be this difficult. Or maybe it's just because it's Nazz.
"Hey Marie?" Nazz calls.
Marie looks over her shoulder at the girl. Nazz is leaning back against a row of lockers with the papers held tightly against her chest. Nazz has a look on her face like the question was really important, so Marie turns to fully face the girl.
"Well…um…" Nazz mumbles, "Do you think I could have lunch with you today?"
Marie blanks; Nazz… asking her to lunch? How could this be? Nazz had a nervous look on her face, biting at her lower lip. Marie slowly nods yes, not wanting to miss another golden opportunity.
"Great, Kevin has been bugging me lately," Nazz sighs, "I mean he's my friend but sometimes he just does things that….sorry. I just need a lunch away from him."
Marie nods in understanding. School is the only place she is able to get away from her sisters.
"I'm really glad I can spend time with you," Nazz blushes, "Hey did you ever finish that song? The one you were playing in the hallway? Could you sing it for me?"
Marie shrugs and looks down at her shoes, she didn't know if she could handle singing in front of people, especially Nazz.
"You don't talk much anymore do you?" Nazz mumbles, "When we were younger you used to be just as talkative as your sisters, what happened?"
Marie fights to get the words out, but she cannot. Too many factors had gone into her decision to stop talking. If anything her decision to cease talking was like a vow of silence. After her sisters stopped listening to her opinions she felt like no one cared if she had anything to say. And everyone proved her right. No one seemed to notice or care that she never spoke, not even her teachers. Marie opens her mouth and closes it again.
"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to." Nazz says quickly, "But, can you still speak?"
Marie nods.
"Well when you decide to talk, talk to me, if you feel like to."
Marie nods again, trying to hide the blush now coating her cheeks. The bell rings and the hall becomes flooded with students. Nazz links arms with Marie and walks them to a relatively calm hallway. Marie tries not to panic at the contact the two of them are sharing.
"I need to go grab my lunch from my locker; do you still eat lunch in the hallway by the back door?"
Marie nods.
"Cool dude, I'll see you in a bit."
Nazz slips away from Marie and heads into the throng of students making their way through the hallways. Marie feels her heart beating out of control. She decides to head to the music room to grab her guitar. Maybe if she got up the nerve she could sing to Nazz, since talking didn't seem like an option at the moment. Marie didn't understand why she couldn't get her voice to work. Just this morning she had been singing quietly to herself in the shower, and now nothing. She enters into the music room and waves quietly at her teacher who is tuning a guitar with a stack of other guitars next to him. Some students, especially the freshmen were not skilled enough to tune their own guitars. Marie had learned right off the bat, tuning wasn't even that hard if you had good pitch. Marie smiles as she picks up the faded guitar case. She had a few stickers on the top of the case, mostly for her favorite bands and one purple and black equality sticker she picked up. She grabs the handle and turns to head out when her instructor stops her.
"Marie dear do you think you could help me tune these guitars after school?" Mr. Richman asks, "I'll give you extra credit for it."
Marie nods yes, any excuse to stay out of the house for a few extra hours sounded great to her. Mr. Richman nods in thanks before going back to his tuning. Marie in turn leaves the room and heads to her hallway. Upon arrival she found that Nazz was not there. But Marie had been expecting that. Nazz wouldn't really want to hang out with her. She was popular and beautiful, and all around the brightest person in this school. Marie Kanker was a troubled girl from the trailer park with no friends and no voice. She pulls her guitar out of its case and into her lap; she strums across the strings, falling into a simple melody. A few more chords and Marie falls into a song.
"It's getting old here
Waiting for daylight
I'm tired of this empty space
And the lack of friendly faces
And I'm ready to fly
Rainfall on a tin roof,
no sleep for me tonight,
waiting for the moment,
when I can step outside,
escape from this prison,
hit the road and skip town
reach for the stars and never be found."
Marie sighs and stops in the middle of her song, not feeling up to finishing it. Then the sound of claps fills the quiet space and Marie straightens up and sees Nazz standing at the end of her hallway with a paper bag tucked under her arm.
"Wow that sounds awesome Marie!" Nazz gushes coming to sit across from Marie, "That's the song I heard last time I came here. Oh gosh you sound amazing."
Marie blushes and nods, sliding her guitar down her legs and laying it flat on her lap. Nazz smiles and pulls out a bag of mixed vegetables and a bag of Funions. Marie raises her eyebrows at the combination of the two.
"I need to eat healthy for Cheer, but I just can't resist funions. You want some?" Nazz asks, gesturing to her lunch.
Marie looks between the bag of carrots, celery, and cucumbers, and the bag of funions. Marie opts to grab a few cucumbers out of the veggies bag. Nazz smiles and both of them eat in quiet for a bit. Marie tries to think of something to say, anything really, just to let Nazz know she can talk. She takes a deep breath and finally says,
"So why is Kevin bothering you?"
Nazz blinks at her in surprise before a sad smile comes across her face.
"Well, he's just been a little insensitive lately. We usually sit with the guys from his sports teams at lunch and they just make such inappropriate comments that I'm totally not cool with. And Kevin joins in. So I finally told him, dude I don't like hearing what their saying can you tell them to cool it? And he just said that's how they are. I'm just done with him you know." Nazz groans crumpling up her bag of funions.
"What do they say?" Marie asks, now curious, insensitive could mean a whole slew of things.
"Well, they make a lot of jokes that are kind of sexist, and then rude jokes about peoples sexual orientation. It makes me extremely uncomfortable."
Marie nods, figures the sports teams would be like that. Just a bunch of jerks that get there rocks off on torturing those who were different. Marie was lucky she never had to deal with that kind of stuff, primarily because no one knew of her sexual preference.
"That sucks, he sounds like a dick." Marie mumbles.
"Yeah he can be, but we've been friends since we were little." Nazz sighs, "he just doesn't understand that words hurt, or how those words personally affect me."
Personally affect? Did that mean what Marie thought it could mean. Was there a chance for her and Nazz? From the look on Nazz's face Marie knew not to pry. Instead she picked up her guitar and began to play a gentle song she had written, no words just a soothing melody. She had made it up when day while wallowing in self-pity and somehow it always seemed to cheer her up. She watches Nazz through the fringe of hair in front of her eyes. The smile that slowly starts to form and the slight tap of her foot to the rhythm, the sight was something Marie needed to keep a mental picture of. Nazz is beautiful. After she hit the final chords and let them hang in the air she watches as Nazz releases a quiet sigh and smiles brightly at Marie.
"You are wonderful at playing," Nazz sighs, "You should do a set at the talent show, it would be great!"
"I don't know…" Marie mumbles, "I've never sang in front of people before."
"I think you can do it, if you want you can practice on me, say at my house around four?" Nazz asks with a smile.
Marie felt her face turn five shades of red; Nazz was inviting her to her house? Marie couldn't handle this, something had to be going on, no way could so many good things be happening to her today.
"Um…well…." Marie mumbles.
"You don't have to, if you're busy or something." Nazz says, looking very down now.
"No I can go, it sounds like fun." Marie replies.
"Great!" Nazz grins.
"Nazz, oh Nazz!" a voice calls from the end of the hallway.
Both girls look up to see Double D standing at the end of the hallway looking back at the two girls awkwardly. Marie remembered when she used to like Edd, but now she just couldn't find what attracted her to him. There he stood awkward in his sweater vest and white button up shirt. He looked like he had a fashion upgrade since the last time she saw him, those were designer skinny jeans he was wearing. But he still had on that black hat he had worn since they were kids. He waves shyly at Marie before walking up and crouching down next to Nazz.
"You were not at lunch today and Kevin seemed quite upset about it." Edd whispers, "Any particular reason you have decided to seek a different eating domicile?"
"Kevin is being a jerk dude, he has no respect for me or for you Edd. I don't understand why you even like him."
"Nazz!" Edd cries, "please this is personal matters that would better be discussed in private!"
"It's cool Edd," Marie says, "I don't judge."
"Oh, well thank you very kindly Marie for not having any harsh feelings towards my- sexual orientation."
"Marie's totally cool dude," Nazz chimes in, "No need for you to get all worried."
"Thank you for putting my mind at ease, but pray tell is Kevin's attitude the only reason you have decided to eat in the hallway?" Edd asks, "Which by the way is highly unsanitary."
"Chill dude, I just needed to get away from Kevin and his friends. And I didn't feel like sitting with you and the other Ed's because. Well Eddy just ogles me too much, you get it."
"I completely understand, Eddy just doesn't seem to understand that you have no romantic feelings towards him. How are you Marie?"
"Alright."
"That is good to hear, I hope you are keeping up with all of your studies?"
"Yeah for the most part, I'm having trouble concentrating in my Algebra two class."
"Oh well if you fall behind I can tutor you. I enjoy helping people achieve academic success. I'm tutoring Nazz in Biology currently."
"Yeah I'm pretty bad at it." Nazz giggles.
"Well the bell is going to ring in three minutes ladies so I will be going and preparing my books for class, goodbye Nazz. Lovely talking with you Marie."
"See ya later dude." Nazz calls.
"Bye Edd." Marie replies.
"Hey Marie, can you not mention that Edd is gay to anyone. He's still afraid of being judged, ya know?"
"No problem, I know when to keep things to myself."
Right on cue the bell rings and Marie begins to put her guitar back in its case. She had guitar class next and she loved to arrive on time and get her favorite comfortable chair right by the window. Nazz quietly places her trash into her paper bag and stands at the same time as Marie. The two stare blankly at each other, neither sure what to do. Nazz decides to speak first and lets a smile slide onto her face.
"Thanks for putting up with me today, I really needed this." Nazz says.
"No problem, you're welcome anytime." Marie replies.
"Thanks dude, I'll see you after school." Nazz says as she begins to walk away, "Four O'clock don't forget!"
Marie nearly skips down the hall she is so excited for tonight. Mr. Richman gives her a funny look when she enters his classroom and plops into her favorite seat. She pulls her guitar across her lap and closes her eyes, plucking out happy major chords as the rest of the students file in.
