A/N: I know it's been a while, but I suddenly feel inspired to write this. Sorry if I make any mistakes, but I think accuracy has kinda gone out the window for this fic. Hope you all enjoy it, and thanks for reading, Plz let me know what you think! ;)
One year later…
I spend the majority of my days alone, but that's nothing new. When I was a kid, I liked being alone. I could wander off and explore the neighborhood, playing make-believe games about fairy-tales. I don't believe in things like that, anymore. I don't do any of that stuff.
Yesterday we turned 14. We didn't celebrate, but we finally moved from the group home, to a foster home. We started at a new school, too. I've gotten used to having to move around so much. I've had to do it, all my life. I just hate being the new kid in a strange school. I've stopped trying to make friends a long time ago. I don't really care what other people think of me, anymore. I've gotten used to the sneers and comments of my classmates for the odd way I dress. My mother's old clothes that the police managed to save from our old house. She and my step-dad were hippies in the 60's, so most of what I wear is considered weird and out-dated to people like Ursula, who will only wear brand names.
Ursula, on the other hand, seems to be having no trouble making friends here. She's already sitting at the popular table in the cafeteria, today, in her new school clothes. Her face caked with so much make-up that she looks like the baby-prostitute version of myself. She thinks I'm embarrassing, but the way she goes about, looking like that, with my face, and her self-absorbed attitude makes me just as embarrassed. People can call me weird all they want, as long as they can distinguish that I am nothing like her.
I'm sitting alone, with my untouched lunch on the plastic tray in front of me, which is just fine. I'd rather be left alone today, anyways. I told Joanne, our new foster other, that I had stomach pains today, and I couldn't go to school but she didn't believe me, even though it was true. I feel a lot of disgust for my sister when I hear her, a few tables away from me, laughing and conversing with her new friends. Like today is just any other day, but I know she knows better. How could she forget, after all, that it's been a year, today? We've been without her for an entire year, already.
Some of Ursula's friends crane their necks around in my direction.
"That's your sister?" I hear one of them say. "She looks so much like you."
Ursula gives a scoff. "Trust me, we are nothing alike, ok? It's like she's from another planet, all together!"
The table erupts with giggles. I look down, pushing around the food on my tray with my fork. I don't really care what those girls think of me.
Even though lunch isn't over for about 15 minutes, I decided to dump my food in the trash, and take off. Despite how much I've learned not to waste food, I don't have much of an appetite at all. In fact, the sloppy, brownish, indistinguishable goo on my tray is making me feel even more sick than I am. I pick the tray up, carry it to the garbage bin and let the food slide off. As I turn to leave, I nearly bump into someone who is also trying to empty their tray at the same time. I mutter an apology, and attempt to walk move past them, but they don't move out of my way.
"Oh..no, it's ok. It was my fault." An awkward sounding voice says. I look up at the boy speaking to me. Possibly the first person to address me at this school, who isn't a teacher. I study him: Longish, lanky limbs, sandy blonde hair, freckles and large brown eyes. Around the same age as me. He looks slightly familiar, but I can't place him at the moment.
"Hey..uhm, you moved in next to me, right? Into the Marsh's house?"
I nod, uncertain of what to make of this boy. Why would he want to talk to me? No one ever wants to talk to me. "They're my new foster family." I tell him.
"Oh." He says. "I saw you walking to school today."
That's right, he did, I remember. I saw him glance back at me, walking several paces behind Ursula, at her insistence, as he passed me on his bike. I didn't think much of it. People stare at Ursula and me a lot, because we're twins. I shrug, in response.
"My name's Nathan." He tells me.
I nod, and allow an awkward silence to hang between us for a few seconds before I realize that I'm supposed to tell him my name, now. Like I said, I don't talk to people much. Though he seems harmless, enough, I suppose. He scratches his neck, nervously and looks down, growing more uncomfortable from my inability to reply.
"Uhm…hey, maybe, uh…maybe we could…"
Before he can finish his sentence, another boy calls to him from across the room.
"Hey, Nate, come on! We're gonna be late!"
He looks from the boy to me. "I'd…better go. Uhm…see you around."
"Yeah." I tell him, and make my way towards the door.
…
I soon forget about my encounter with Nathan by the time I get home, where I'm alone, once again. Technically, there are a lot of other people here. The Marsh's have 3 boys, but no daughters of their own. Ursula and I share a room. We have a bunk bed, which is fine by me, because we're getting too big to share a bed. I got the top bunk. I like sitting up there, where no one can bother me.
Joanne Marsh's husband, Ron has this old guitar. I have always wanted to learn how to play a musical instrument, but I knew our family couldn't afford lessons. Ron kept it under the stairs, in a small closet they use to hang coats, in it's cobweb covered case. I found it yesterday, when I was hanging my coat up. Ron caught me.
"You play?" he asked me.
"I was just looking at it." I said, thinking he might be mad at me for touching the case when it's not mine.
He lifted it out of the closet and blew a cloud of dust off of it, dusting the cobwebs. "This is very old, but, the guitar's good as new. Might need some new strings, is all. My father gave this to me when I was about your age, but, well…I never had the patience to learn how to play."
He opened the case, and I saw that he was right. The guitar looked brand new. Not a speck of dust on it. All the strings, a strap, and plastic pick still intact. Ron told me, as he tuned the guitar as best he could, that if I was willing to learn how to play it, the guitar was mine.
I stared back at him, in disbelief. "Are you serious?"
He shrugged as he handed it to me. "Sure. It'll be the most use this thing has gotten. You've gotta learn to play it, though."
"I will!" I eagerly promised.
And now I sit on my top bunk, plucking away without any rhythm. Ron also had a few books on guitar and I'm trying to figure out which chord is which, but it's hard. I try to copy the pictures in the book which show the proper finger placements, and that makes it easier. Instead of the actual chord names, I give them my own names, which describe how my hand looks when I play the chord: Bear claw, turkey leg, old lady…
Suddenly I'm interrupted as my bedroom door opens. My sister walks in, 2 hours late after dinner, and flops down on her bottom bunk.
"Joanne and Ron were worried about you when you didn't show up after school." I inform her. "I told them you were studying in the library."
Instead of thanking me, she heaves a dramatic sigh. "Spare me the lecturing, ok? I already got an earful when I walked through the door, from our 'foster parents'." She uses a mocking tone. "God, they are so lame.."
"They are not." I tell her. "They're nice. If we're good, they might even adopt us."
She snorts. "Keep dreaming. No one adopts 14 year olds, for one thing. And why would anyone wanna adopt a weirdo like you? Face it. Mom offed herself, and left us with nothing, and until we're 18, we can't do anything about it. We're stuck wherever they decide to send us, thanks to our mother."
I exhale, deeply, ignoring her words. I hate the way she talks about Mom. But especially today. As I hear the sound of her flipping through one of her dumb fashion magazines below me, I start practicing chords again, until I feel the thump of her foot against the bottom of my bunk.
"Would you quit making that noise?"
"Why don't you make me?" I retort, and resume strumming. "I need to practice."
"Well you sound terrible, and you're giving me a headache!"
"Good.." I mutter, and proceed, trying to focus on the different chords, but she won't stop kicking my bunk.
"Why don't you go and play that outside! This isn't just your room, you know!"
"Well, it's not yours, either!" I argue. But after a moment, I decide to leave. I've had enough of her and her temper, anyways. I leave the guitar on my bunk. As I storm downstairs, past the kitchen, Joanne sees me. She's busy in the kitchen with something.
"Ursula? Where are you off to, now?" she asks over her shoulder. I stop and turn around. I really hate it when people get us mixed up, but Joanne hasn't known us for very long.
" It's Phoebe." I tell her.
She turns around, shaking her head. "Oh…I'm sorry dear. I was just making some cupcakes. You know the group home didn't tell us you girls had a birthday yesterday, so we didn't have any time to plan anything. I thought maybe tomorrow after school, I could take you girls shopping for a birthday present, would you like that?"
I feel a lump in my throat as her words trigger the memory of our birthday last year. The day before she died. Joanne is smiling at me. She knows about our mother's death, but she doesn't know that it was today. I try as best as I can to smile back at her and nod.
"Good. These will be out of the oven, soon. I made chocolate and vanilla, because I wasn't sure which was you or Ursula's favorite."
"I like both." I tell her.
"Would you like to help me frost them when they come out? I've also got some sprinkles, and birthday candles."
"Actually…I think I was just going to sit outside on the steps for a while."
Joanne's smile fades, and I hope I haven't hurt her feelings. "Sure. But don't wander too far without telling me, ok?"
"I won't." I assure her. I step out the screen door, letting it fall shut behind me. As soon as I sit down on the porch steps, I hug my knees up close to my chest, as the tears I've been fighting back all day fall down my cheeks. I see Mom's smiling face the morning she woke us up for our 13th birthday, and hear her soft voice. Sometimes, in my dreams, it still sounds so real to me. Aren't birthdays supposed to be happy?
As I sit there, I hear the sound of a ball, bouncing off the pavement somewhere close by and look up, seeing a boy. The Marsh's live in a cul-de-sac, and there's this basketball hoop in the drive way next to ours. I recognize the boy as Nathan, the boy from the cafeteria. I quickly dry my eyes on the tail end of my mother's gypsy skirt. I contemplate going back inside so he won't see me crying, but if I do, Joanne will see me crying. I sit there, still hugging my knees, watching him, and hoping he won't see me, as he bounces the ball, and shoots it towards the net. He's pretty good, I must admit. He sinks almost every basket he shoots. After making one perfect shot, the ball bounces away from him, and, as fate should have it, rolls into our driveway. As he chases after it, he stops, suddenly, when he see's me. I stand up and walk over to the ball, pick it up and carry it back to him.
"Wanna play?" he asks me, bouncing it from one hand to the next.
Fearing he might see how upset I was, moments ago, I shake my head. I turn around to go back inside, and hear the ball bouncing up our driveway. He's following me. I stop on the steps and turn around to see him standing there, just a few feet away from the steps, holding his ball.
"You know I, uh…I never caught your name." he says.
Annoyed, I say nothing. I came out here because I wanted to be left alone. But he keeps looking at me.
"Phoebe." I finally say. I sit back down on the steps and hope he'll go back to playing and leave me be, but he doesn't. He tucks his ball under one hand and takes a step towards me. He gestures to the remaining space next to me on the steps.
"Ok if I sit?"
I get the feeling I'm not going to get rid of him easily. I'm not Ursula, so I'm not going to tell him off. Besides, he's the only person who's been nice to me since I arrived to this new school. I give an indifferent shrug, and move over as far as I can on the wide steps as he sits down. He plays with the basketball in his hand, tossing it up in the air and catching it, not saying much for a moment.
"So, uhm…how do you like the Marshes?" he asks me.
Again, I shrug. "They're ok."
"They seem nice." He says. "When their boys were a little bit younger, they used to pay me to babysit them."
Again, I don't know how to respond, and the awkward silence grows.
"So, uhm…where are your parents? Your real parents, I mean?"
I stare blankly at him for a few seconds. Is he really asking that? I look away, and he drops his head.
"Not much of a talker, huh?" he says.
I take a deep breath. "My step-dad is in prison…and my mom died. Last year."
To my surprise, he doesn't say that he's 'sorry' like most people do when I tell them. He lifts his head and nods.
"My mom died, too."
I look at him, in surprise. He doesn't act like any of the kids I met during my days in the group home, who have lost parents. He seems so normal.
"She had cancer." He continues.
"I'm sorry.." I say, because it feels like the right thing to say. At least my mom's death was quick. At least we didn't have to watch her suffer, like Nathan must have.
He shakes his head. "Nah, it's ok. I was pretty little when it happened. I don't really remember her that much. Just from her pictures and stuff." He tries spinning his basketball on his finger, succeeding for only a few seconds before he looks at me again. "You miss her?"
Again, I swallow a lump in my throat, as I slowly nod, staring down, and trying not to allow tears to moisten my eyes, again. I blink them back. Nathan holds his ball out towards me.
"You sure you don't wanna play?"
"Nah, I'm no good at that stuff." I tell him.
"C'mon. I'll go easy on you. You ever played a game called Horse?"
I shake my head, and Nathan rises to his feet. "It's easy. I'll teach you. Come on."
He gives a nod towards the hoop, walking towards it, and leaving the ball in my hands. I sit there, frozen, like I'm cemented to the step.
"C'mon!" he repeats, walking further down the driveway. A playful grin spreads across his freckled face. "What're you scared or something?"
I stand up, with sudden determination. Besides, no one's ever asked me to play anything before. Anytime I wanted Ursula to play with me when we were younger, she'd snap at me. I might actually make a new friend, for the first time in my life. I bounce the ball, trying to imitate the way he was doing it earlier.
"Not bad. You know how to shoot?" He takes the ball from me. "Make a 'T' with your hands, like this, and just push it up, like that." He lets the ball go, and it makes a satisfying 'swoosh' through the net. He makes it look easy. I try to do what he shows me with the ball, but it sails through the air, landing on the other side of the street, no where near the net.
"I meant to shoot it there.." I mutter.
Nathan grins as he runs after the ball. "You just need some practice. This time, if I get it in, I get the letter 'H', and same if you get it in, and we go until one of us spells 'HORSE' got it?"
I shrug with confusion. "Why 'HORSE'? Why not 'CHICKEN'? Ooh, or 'ALLIGATOR!?'"
He ponders for a moment and raises his shoulders. "I dunno. I've never thought of that."
He shoots the ball, and makes another flawless shot. He beats me, hands down, so we go another round, and he beats me again, like it's in his nature. I feel embarrassed, yet he doesn't once make fun of me for losing, or gloat, like other boys probably would.
"Alright! Nice job, Phoebe!" He says when I finally make a basket, after missing about a hundred times. "See, you're getting the hang of this."
"Yay, me!" I cry out, bouncing on my feet, with excitement. "One more game?"
"Phoebe!" I hear Joanne open the screen door. "Come on inside, sweetie, it's late." She disappears inside.
I realize for the first time, how dark it's gotten since I came out here. It must be after 9 o'clock. I don't want to go in, just yet. I'm having fun, for the first time in a long time.
Nathan picks up his ball.
"I better go, too…hey, uhm…" he pauses, looking down, like he's hesitating about something. "maybe tomorrow, we can walk to school together. I-I mean…if you want to.." He looks at me, awkwardly.
I shrug. "Sure." I say. After all, it beats having to walk by myself, behind Ursula. Nathan gives a half-smirk, almost like he's happily surprised by my answer.
"Alright. See you tomorrow, then. G'night, Phoebe."
"Night." I say, as he turns around, and runs up his driveway.
I smile to myself as I walk up the steps and back into the house.. I go upstairs and get ready for bed before I proceed to mine and Ursula's room. She's lying in her bunk, still awake.
"Who was that boy, outside?" she asks, as I climb up to my bunk. I realize that she could see us, from our window that overlooks the street.
"Nobody." I mutter to her, because she would say the same thing if I asked her any questions about her friends. I lie back in my bed, feeling refreshed. The depressed feelings of earlier today are gone, leaving me with a taste of happiness. Something I'd almost forgotten how to feel. Although, I've never really had a friend, before. Not one my own age, and who isn't imaginary, anyways. I close my eyes, looking forward to tomorrow.