Date with Henrietta goes as it usually does.
I told Katelin we were meeting at Shakey, which wasn't a lie. My moped putters up next to the neon signs and burger posters, and she immediately emerges from the alleyway next to the restaurant, dressed in entirely in black fishnet and carrying two bottles of vodka and a bag of Shakey's junk. Parking my sputtering machine in the closest spot, I hurry into the alley to sit on a dumpster next to her.
It's the usual. I have two double cheeseburgers (one for my breakfast tomorrow), large fries, a soda, and a large chocolate milkshake; she has a triple patty burger and a small vanilla milkshake and a small salad doused in ranch to feel like she's being healthy. She doesn't stop talking the whole time. She talks about her idiot Goth friends, how much she despises the Emos, what the Vamp kids are getting up to nowadays, her pregnant friend in the next town over who's planning on having an abortion, and how much she hates all the cheerleaders (including my five other girlfriends). I don't think she smiles for all the time she's talking, nor do I get any chance to do anything but nod at her and eat my slightly leathery cheeseburger. It's actually pretty good, once you chew enough.
The vodka is our dessert. We gulp it from the bottle, seeing who can swallow it the fastest. It's awful stuff, but it was cheap and it does what it's supposed to do. After it's all gone, before the alcohol kicks in, we chuck the glass out into the street. If one of us hits a car, we have decided, that person has to do whatever the other one wants. Neither of us do.
Vodka works quickly.
The next thing that I remember is the owner of Shakey, a huge woman with bright red hair and an enormous mole, slamming her way out of the restaurant's back door and throwing things at us, screaming for us to get off her property. Henrietta and I stumble out of the alleyway and we are laughing and Henrietta's clothes are torn and the lights are very bright and they spin and nothing makes sense at all. Then we are suddenly in a park or something and we are kissing and we fall down into the grass and writhe and then sleep.
Normally, when I fall asleep on a night like this, I don't dream or, if I do, I forget them. But tonight is different.
Tonight, I dream of bruise cream.
I open my eyes to the bright sunlight of what seems to be midday and a head that is splitting down the center of my forehead. Henrietta is face down on the grass next to me, snoring heavily. Her clothes are disarranged and her dark makeup is smeared all over a face that, underneath everything, looks round and innocent.
I shake her awake. "Hey, wake up."
She makes a sound that sounds like a mixture between a cough and a sneeze. My head throbs. The world spins. I fall back. I sleep. I dream of London and Paris and a sweet, sad smile.
The hands that shake me awake are large and rough, as is the voice, though I hear it as if through cotton. "Kid. Kid, wake the fuck up."
I open my eyes and see Henrietta sitting cross-legged next to me, smoking a cigarette. Someone who seems to be a hobo is crouching in front of me, glaring at me.
Well, this is interesting.
"What time is it?" My voice sounds slurred, even to me.
"It's like two, I think." Henrietta says.
"Shouldn't you two be in school?" The hobo asks.
"Maybe." I say. "What's it to you?"
He grabs both of our arms—Henrietta squeals as if she's being molested—and shoves us towards the direction of the school, which, I realize suddenly, is right next to the park we were sleeping in. "Go to school so that you can get a job, you lazy bums!"
We run—or do the best that we can—out of the park, and Henrietta yells behind us, "You're the bum!" and we laugh and laugh even though it wasn't even that funny.
School is over by the time that we get there, which is just as well: Henrietta's clothes are so torn up that they're half falling off, I most likely look like I got smacked in the head with a hot shovel, we're both have dirt and grass everywhere, and both of us probably smell sweaty and boozy.
Henrietta's Goth friends are sitting in the school's shadows, like the sun will burn them; she gives me a short, tongue-filled kiss, and flounces over to mope with them.
My friends are, as usual, waiting by the bus stop.
"Kenny," Cartman says as I walk up, "you, literally, look like shit. Like, literally. Shit. Shit. Spelled S-H-I-T."
"I'm sorry, Cartman, would you mind saying 'shit' a few more times? I haven't gotten the idea just yet." I snap.
"Dude, where were you all day?" Kyle asks. "All your girlfriends have been asking about you."
"I was wearing an orange robe in my room, with a shit ton of incense and meditation, searching my soul for the reasons why I live what a lot of people would consider to be an awesome life, but am still so unhappy all the time."
"But actually?" Stan asks.
"I was hung-over and sleeping in the park with Henrietta."
Cartman sighs. "Ah, the cycle. Like father, like son. Apple doesn't fall far from the tree, you guys."
For a second, I want to hit him and beat his smug, fat face into the concrete, but then I realize something awful and embarrassing: he's right. I am just like my father. So I just tell them I'll see them later and walk towards the school.
It's time for tutoring, I guess, to find out what everything I missed today.
It might just me the hangover, but it seems like Katelin's face looks better already: less green and purple, more light blue. She must have gotten the bruise cream. I don't know what they put in there, but it must be some awesome shit. Her hair is up in a messy bun, and she's wearing, as she seems to always be, a huge, baggy sweatshirt and jeans that look to be two sizes too big for her, making her look almost shrunken.
She looks up when I'm about ten feet away, and her eyes are suddenly full of fear.
"Hey, what's wrong?" I ask, when I reach the table, where she sits frozen, her hands clutching A Tale of Two Cities so hard that her knuckles are completely white. "You look kind of—"
"UV Vodka." Her voice is almost robotic. "Ten dollars at the nearby Super America, where the cashier will sell it to anyone who slips him a tip, regardless of age or state in life. He'll sell it to, say, an abusive father, and, apparently, even a teenage boy."
I search for words. I find none. My tongue has tied itself into knots.
She says something very quietly, and I see that there are tears in her eyes (when eyes are that big, it's hard to hide anything in them, from emotion to water). In a few successive, brusque movements, she takes down her ponytail, shakes her hair rolls up her huge sweatshirt sleeves to reveal bruises in finger patterns on her forearms, scoops up her books, and brushes past me, not looking at anyone. She leaves a scent of oranges.
After a minute of standing there, I figure out what she said before leaving: "You smell like him."
And, surprisingly belatedly considering the amount of vodka I drank, I have the urge to vomit.
I have big plans for where this is going. I think I have some idea now. Thank God. I hate being aimless. Please, please continue to read and review! Your support means more to me than anything.
All my love,
The Author Lady