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This world of sorrow and cruelty...

.:. insert picture of Joan, curled up on her bed .:.

Joan:

I open the front door and walk into the living room. Mom is in the dining area, wiping the table with a wet cloth. I try to avert my eyes, so that she doesn't see I've been crying. There will be a time when she will find out that Adam and I broke up, but it is not now. She greets me with her usual warm voice, one that manages to translate her motherly love and caring with only a few words.

Without looking up from her chores, she casually enquires how mock trial went. I know that if I don't reply, she will immediately know something is wrong, but if I open my mouth now, I will start crying again. So I walk straight to the stairs and go up to my room, locking the door behind me.

I drop my jacket and bag carelessly onto the floor and curl up on my bed. Blurry images of Adam float before my eyes. I try to shut them out, but don't succeed. I don't know if I'm crying or not, I don't care. Emotions coarse through me and threaten to choke me, rob me of my will to face this world of sorrow and cruelty. All of the confusion circling round and round in my brain like a maelstrom coalesces into one word, one question: Why?

Why me? Why Bonnie? Why now? Why at all?

I hear a rapping on my door and hear Mom's voice. Even though it is muffled by the plywood barrier between me and her, I can hear that it is laden with concern when she calls my name and pleads for me to open the door. But I don't want to see anyone right now, although a part of me yearns for her soothing words and her hands stroking my back in comfort, her uncanny ability to find the right things to say in even the grimmest of times. She asks again if I'm okay and would I please open the door. When I don't answer or make a move to get up, she finally abandons her efforts and leaves, but not without letting me know that she will be downstairs if I want to talk. 'Later, Mom,' I mentally tell her.

Luke:

'That little bastard! He'll pay for this,' is all I can think. The need to punch his face in overwhelms me when I think back on how my sister runs all teary-eyed and broken from the mock court room. If Grace hadn't stopped me, I would have done it right there and then. I don't know why she stopped me, but I guess she had her reasons. She's known the little weasel for the better part of her life, so I figure she's gonna put him in his place. If not, I'll do it, I swear.

I tried to catch Joan after she stormed off after mock trial, but she got on the bus before I could reach it in time. I enter our house with mixed feelings, dread most of all. I know Joan always pretends to be tough, to pick herself up from the failures and blows life deals her. Sometimes it seems to me that she intentionally throws herself into some project or other that is just bound to fail, embarrass her or make her look stupid. But this is different. This is not something she chose voluntarily. And I know how much she was all over Rove, how much he meant to her, and how her world must have shattered and crumbled to pieces today.

When I take off my jacket and hang it on the coat rack, Mom looks at me with a frown of worry etched deep into her features. I can only imagine that Joan must have come home but gone to lock herself in her room without a word. It's what she does when she's upset. Mom asks me if I know what happened. I tell her she and Adam broke up. Her face sags, I can see she feels Joan's pain, probably having gone through it in her life herself at one time or another. She asks me for details. 'I think you should hear it from her herself, Mom,' I let her know. She just nods. I tell her I'm gonna try to talk to Joan.

I walk up the stairs, trying to come up with something smart to say to my sister. But all I can think of are metaphors that stem from mathematics, chemistry or physics. Or the different ways I am coming up with to smash Rove's face in. That sure won't be helping her right now. I reach her door and knock. Softly but insistently I urge her to open the door and let me talk to her. I wait for half a minute or so before I try again. I am not having more success than Mom.

I remember the time when Kevin and Joan had gotten into a fight and Kevin had intentionally cut a hole in Joan's favorite sweater when she was 12. She had locked herself in her room for hours before she had come out. Sighing, I resign. She would come out eventually, and I know that no prodding and begging would help now.

Downstairs, the frown has worked its way onto Mom's forehead again. I let her know that our best option is to try again later and poorly fail at trying to reassure her Joan's gonna be all right. I am suddenly overcome by a sensation I can't quite place that makes me not want to be alone in my room right at this moment. So I grab my rucksack, unpack my exercise book and Latin textbook and sit down at the table with Mom still bustling around in the kitchen. Nothing like Latin translations to get your mind off the things that really matter.

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Author's Note:
Is anyone other than Tote and me enjoying this? It would really help if you let me know if I'm going somewhere you think I should be or should not be going. Not that I'm saying it's not worth writing further just for Tote's and my sake, but it would really help make the muse come out of the dog house to get some more feedback. Woof! :o)