A/N: Sorry for the delay.
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I have spent eternity in a day. A constant threat of tears hovers. My body aches. The phone is my enemy. I stare and stare and stare but I only get a rare, undeserved heart attack for the occasional telemarketer-induced ring. And then I fall over on my bed and die, not wanting to speak to a soul. Except one soul.
"Heather," Mom sticks her head in the door, "It's three in the afternoon."
"Hmm?" I stare at my ceiling. My mouth hurts. My head hurts. My stomach is throbbing. I barely acknowledge my existence, let alone hers.
"I think you should wake up," She suggests. I feel her start to pick the pieces of me up, like I usually do with her. When she's been dumped, when she's been fired, when she's lost her keys. She is so easily wounded, a butterfly with fragile wings. She slows for her injury, jogging instead of running. That's our difference. Everyone hurts me and I run faster.
"I am awake, mother," I whisper. "Too awake."
"Don't be dramatic," She's whining now. She has something to say. "I'm guessing you didn't have a good time. What is it? Boy troubles?"
"Yes. And no."
"You're going to have to give me more here."
"I'm going to have to die here," I blink, forgetting what it is I'm saying. "Because this is a nice place. To die, I mean. In bed. Like a fortune cookie."
"Honey," She's worried now. She puts her hand on my forehead. Her skin is so cold and smoothing, I just want to fall into it. "What's the matter? Are you okay?"
"No," I say. "I'm not okay. I'm Heather Sinclair. I try too hard on everything. No one cares about what I say, just what is said about me. My mother, that's you, tries too. But you shouldn't try so hard just to fail. Because that's what I do. And you should learn from me. Like I've learned from you. And I'm tired." I grab her hand and try so hard. Suddenly I feel like I'm in the hospital and she's visiting me.
Years of fake parenting have not prepared her for this. She's hesitant, wondering what she should say. The phone rings and my heart beats faster. I open my mouth, but I've forgotten how to speak. She picks it up.
"Hello?" She pauses and purses her lips. "Why are you calling here?" She stands up and walks out of the room. I am cast off again. I contemplate the ceiling some more and a chill crawls down my back. I realize that I have forgotten how to think too.
"Well," She walks back into my room, her arms crossed. I read somewhere that this is bad body language. You're putting a barrier between you and someone else. I try to sit up, break the barrier. My head is too heavy. "That was your father."
"Yes?" I don't think about this. My father calls quite a lot. Not in a while, of course, considering Mom yelled at him last time he did, but he is still my father.
"He's moving back," She sighs. "To his old apartment a few blocks from here." His old apartment smelled like take-out and Chanel. She leans against one of my blank walls. "I hate divorce. I wish I was allowed to hate him."
"Too bad you're still in love with him." I don't know what I'm saying, of course. I don't sense the stiffing of my mother's back or her need to smack me.
"I am not still in love with him," She says huffily, and I know she is. Like a teenager, hung up on a stupid crush. "You know I'm seeing someone." I don't know this, but I nod anyway. We're all allowed to pretend sometimes.
"Besides," I add, "You don't even act like it's supposed to be friendly. He does."
"That's because he doesn't want to feel guilty," She snaps. "He's afraid. He's happy, too. What with his new girlfriend and his damn artist's life." She feels guilty now. She half heartedly adds, "I meant darn." This was how it was divided up. Mom got the opportunity to try to be a good mother and fail miserably. Dad got to be happy. I grab her hand again. My self-pity is gone, though the pain isn't.
"Well, he's coming over after school on Tuesday," She tells me. "So, won't you try to put all those things back on your walls? For me?" She's asking so much in such a little task. I nod and a silent dagger goes through my head. I wince and slide underneath the covers. I'm viewed in such a way that my mother is blinded. She cannot see my hang-over because it can't be there because I'm me, her little girl, lover of taffeta and popsicles and life. She smiles and exits. My life is a screenplay.
I stare at where she has tossed the phone carelessly, the foot of my bed. It's not ringing. It is not going to ring. I kick it over and do my best to knock it under the bed. It does not belong to me anymore. I get up, slowly, and pull out the boxes. Posters, pictures, smiles... it's all so foreign. I dump all the band and celebrity scrolls into a pile and I'm met with the real memories. My breath catches in my throat. I am undone.
The first picture is two little girls, smothered in red stickiness and baby teeth. They're blonde and bonded completely, sisters practically. I feel my blood flowing. I've started breathing again. The same little girls stick out at me, waving, grinning, growing up slowly, moving from Gerber's to giggles to guys, gradually. There are so many, but not nearly enough to frame their friendship. It is too vast, simply complicated, developed into a sisterhood and a companionship. They are laced into each other, deep underneath the skin.
The last picture of these girls is distant, fading, pulled apart. They stand a fair distance apart, hands on each other's lower backs, smiling for the camera but not the moment. They've grown, they've parted, they've argued. They no longer need to spend every moment with each other or hear each other's dreams or know where they will always be. They are a rope on it's last thread, waiting to be cut. And it is. Cut cleanly with words.
I gather the pictures and slowly, tears streaming, cover my walls with them, interjecting family snapshots and birthday cards. The old Britney Spears poster, faded and dog-eared, blends into the blondeness of it all. I tape the last picture by my bed. Paige smiles me at amusedly, almost coldly. She touches my photographed self as lightly as she can. She knew, I knew. I don't know now. I don't remember what tore us so. No, what faded us so. I remember the tear.
Ashley Kerwin. Her face appears, though young, innocent, bouncy. She owns a knowledge now. An accepting one. Paige envied her, I could tell. They competed. Ashley let Paige win the fight, really. Or did she? I debate the question, sometimes, when it comes.
And then I think of the Heather/Paige tête-à-tête turned torture. We were best friends. Her blood flowed through my veins. We shared clothes and interests and crushes. I was her partner in crime, an accessory and a confidant in one. I was her anklet with an ear.
Then, there was conflict, as there always is in perfection. We were, are, were enemies. Rivals. There were rumors spread. We competed, raced. And we still do today.
But I've fallen. Tripped, faded, torn. Nothing and everything has changed. I look the same, but no one looks anymore. I've become a name, famous to infamous. What was a competition is now a joke, a few discarded words spit. As many arguments in Degrassi, it faded with time, but my position remains. I do not matter anymore. I have no agent, I have no friends, I have no life.
What a bitter freedom it is.
I touch the walls. I am my room now. The door, slathered with stickers and hearts and Heathers, faded in past. Empty inside.
The phone rings from under my bed. I close my eyes where tears have swelled and let it ring.
"Heather! Phone!" Please, let this be a cruel joke. Let me just sit here.
"Tell them I'm busy." I've surprised even myself. I climb under the covers.
"He says it's really important," She sticks her head in now, the phone pressed against her chest. She makes an expression and I want to shoot her. Again.
"Tell HIM I've broken my wrist. Or caught a tropical disease. A fatal one. With monkey hallucinations." But it is too late now because she has shoved the phone under my chin and I've just told Spinner I am tropically diseased.
"Heather." I cringe. My adoration is rushing back and my mind is cramping up the way my hand does when I write too rapidly.
"We, uh, need to talk." I remember these words from thousands of times before and I remember hating such words. It's been such a long time since anyone has needed to talk to me. Anyone.
"About, you know." I know. No, I don't know. I don't know what happened and I don't know what's happening now because my heat is beating so fast and my hands are so cold and I'm shivering and I itch all over but all I can feel is the phone in my hand.
"Heather? Are you there?" No, no, I'm not. But I don't open my mouth because I'm afraid that if I do my heart will fly out and flop around like a fish out of water. I hear my name twice before the dial tone and I hear myself drop the phone, but none of this really happens because I cannot feel my body anymore because I feel the deep need to crumble into a small existence and never again hear.
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I have spent eternity in a day. A constant threat of tears hovers. My body aches. The phone is my enemy. I stare and stare and stare but I only get a rare, undeserved heart attack for the occasional telemarketer-induced ring. And then I fall over on my bed and die, not wanting to speak to a soul. Except one soul.
"Heather," Mom sticks her head in the door, "It's three in the afternoon."
"Hmm?" I stare at my ceiling. My mouth hurts. My head hurts. My stomach is throbbing. I barely acknowledge my existence, let alone hers.
"I think you should wake up," She suggests. I feel her start to pick the pieces of me up, like I usually do with her. When she's been dumped, when she's been fired, when she's lost her keys. She is so easily wounded, a butterfly with fragile wings. She slows for her injury, jogging instead of running. That's our difference. Everyone hurts me and I run faster.
"I am awake, mother," I whisper. "Too awake."
"Don't be dramatic," She's whining now. She has something to say. "I'm guessing you didn't have a good time. What is it? Boy troubles?"
"Yes. And no."
"You're going to have to give me more here."
"I'm going to have to die here," I blink, forgetting what it is I'm saying. "Because this is a nice place. To die, I mean. In bed. Like a fortune cookie."
"Honey," She's worried now. She puts her hand on my forehead. Her skin is so cold and smoothing, I just want to fall into it. "What's the matter? Are you okay?"
"No," I say. "I'm not okay. I'm Heather Sinclair. I try too hard on everything. No one cares about what I say, just what is said about me. My mother, that's you, tries too. But you shouldn't try so hard just to fail. Because that's what I do. And you should learn from me. Like I've learned from you. And I'm tired." I grab her hand and try so hard. Suddenly I feel like I'm in the hospital and she's visiting me.
Years of fake parenting have not prepared her for this. She's hesitant, wondering what she should say. The phone rings and my heart beats faster. I open my mouth, but I've forgotten how to speak. She picks it up.
"Hello?" She pauses and purses her lips. "Why are you calling here?" She stands up and walks out of the room. I am cast off again. I contemplate the ceiling some more and a chill crawls down my back. I realize that I have forgotten how to think too.
"Well," She walks back into my room, her arms crossed. I read somewhere that this is bad body language. You're putting a barrier between you and someone else. I try to sit up, break the barrier. My head is too heavy. "That was your father."
"Yes?" I don't think about this. My father calls quite a lot. Not in a while, of course, considering Mom yelled at him last time he did, but he is still my father.
"He's moving back," She sighs. "To his old apartment a few blocks from here." His old apartment smelled like take-out and Chanel. She leans against one of my blank walls. "I hate divorce. I wish I was allowed to hate him."
"Too bad you're still in love with him." I don't know what I'm saying, of course. I don't sense the stiffing of my mother's back or her need to smack me.
"I am not still in love with him," She says huffily, and I know she is. Like a teenager, hung up on a stupid crush. "You know I'm seeing someone." I don't know this, but I nod anyway. We're all allowed to pretend sometimes.
"Besides," I add, "You don't even act like it's supposed to be friendly. He does."
"That's because he doesn't want to feel guilty," She snaps. "He's afraid. He's happy, too. What with his new girlfriend and his damn artist's life." She feels guilty now. She half heartedly adds, "I meant darn." This was how it was divided up. Mom got the opportunity to try to be a good mother and fail miserably. Dad got to be happy. I grab her hand again. My self-pity is gone, though the pain isn't.
"Well, he's coming over after school on Tuesday," She tells me. "So, won't you try to put all those things back on your walls? For me?" She's asking so much in such a little task. I nod and a silent dagger goes through my head. I wince and slide underneath the covers. I'm viewed in such a way that my mother is blinded. She cannot see my hang-over because it can't be there because I'm me, her little girl, lover of taffeta and popsicles and life. She smiles and exits. My life is a screenplay.
I stare at where she has tossed the phone carelessly, the foot of my bed. It's not ringing. It is not going to ring. I kick it over and do my best to knock it under the bed. It does not belong to me anymore. I get up, slowly, and pull out the boxes. Posters, pictures, smiles... it's all so foreign. I dump all the band and celebrity scrolls into a pile and I'm met with the real memories. My breath catches in my throat. I am undone.
The first picture is two little girls, smothered in red stickiness and baby teeth. They're blonde and bonded completely, sisters practically. I feel my blood flowing. I've started breathing again. The same little girls stick out at me, waving, grinning, growing up slowly, moving from Gerber's to giggles to guys, gradually. There are so many, but not nearly enough to frame their friendship. It is too vast, simply complicated, developed into a sisterhood and a companionship. They are laced into each other, deep underneath the skin.
The last picture of these girls is distant, fading, pulled apart. They stand a fair distance apart, hands on each other's lower backs, smiling for the camera but not the moment. They've grown, they've parted, they've argued. They no longer need to spend every moment with each other or hear each other's dreams or know where they will always be. They are a rope on it's last thread, waiting to be cut. And it is. Cut cleanly with words.
I gather the pictures and slowly, tears streaming, cover my walls with them, interjecting family snapshots and birthday cards. The old Britney Spears poster, faded and dog-eared, blends into the blondeness of it all. I tape the last picture by my bed. Paige smiles me at amusedly, almost coldly. She touches my photographed self as lightly as she can. She knew, I knew. I don't know now. I don't remember what tore us so. No, what faded us so. I remember the tear.
Ashley Kerwin. Her face appears, though young, innocent, bouncy. She owns a knowledge now. An accepting one. Paige envied her, I could tell. They competed. Ashley let Paige win the fight, really. Or did she? I debate the question, sometimes, when it comes.
And then I think of the Heather/Paige tête-à-tête turned torture. We were best friends. Her blood flowed through my veins. We shared clothes and interests and crushes. I was her partner in crime, an accessory and a confidant in one. I was her anklet with an ear.
Then, there was conflict, as there always is in perfection. We were, are, were enemies. Rivals. There were rumors spread. We competed, raced. And we still do today.
But I've fallen. Tripped, faded, torn. Nothing and everything has changed. I look the same, but no one looks anymore. I've become a name, famous to infamous. What was a competition is now a joke, a few discarded words spit. As many arguments in Degrassi, it faded with time, but my position remains. I do not matter anymore. I have no agent, I have no friends, I have no life.
What a bitter freedom it is.
I touch the walls. I am my room now. The door, slathered with stickers and hearts and Heathers, faded in past. Empty inside.
The phone rings from under my bed. I close my eyes where tears have swelled and let it ring.
"Heather! Phone!" Please, let this be a cruel joke. Let me just sit here.
"Tell them I'm busy." I've surprised even myself. I climb under the covers.
"He says it's really important," She sticks her head in now, the phone pressed against her chest. She makes an expression and I want to shoot her. Again.
"Tell HIM I've broken my wrist. Or caught a tropical disease. A fatal one. With monkey hallucinations." But it is too late now because she has shoved the phone under my chin and I've just told Spinner I am tropically diseased.
"Heather." I cringe. My adoration is rushing back and my mind is cramping up the way my hand does when I write too rapidly.
"We, uh, need to talk." I remember these words from thousands of times before and I remember hating such words. It's been such a long time since anyone has needed to talk to me. Anyone.
"About, you know." I know. No, I don't know. I don't know what happened and I don't know what's happening now because my heat is beating so fast and my hands are so cold and I'm shivering and I itch all over but all I can feel is the phone in my hand.
"Heather? Are you there?" No, no, I'm not. But I don't open my mouth because I'm afraid that if I do my heart will fly out and flop around like a fish out of water. I hear my name twice before the dial tone and I hear myself drop the phone, but none of this really happens because I cannot feel my body anymore because I feel the deep need to crumble into a small existence and never again hear.