Ashley Kerwin stood outside his door. She was fidgeting with the charm bracelet on her wrist. She spun it around her wrist once for every negative thought that flew through her head.
She looked down at herself. There was barely enough light to see, but she didn't care. In fact, she liked it better that way. She pulled her hand away from her bracelet, and smoothed the light green blouse over her stomach. The light blue jean skirt she had paired with it reflected the light of her eyes.
She looked good. She knew that. But her hair wasn't black anymore. She didn't have an armband around her week wrists to proclaim to the world: "Don't mess with me." Instead, she had put on the old charm bracelet she had not worn since grade school. She was lacking the defiant uplift of her chin. She wore only a small amount of brown mascara, and no eyeliner. Her shirt had no angry words jilted across the bust. Her skirt was not short enough to be edgy, and she was not wearing heels. She was wearing blue nail polish, and her eyes were large. Large enough to contain an ocean of tears.
She was not daring the world to take her on. She was meekly asking it to pass by. She felt… different. She still wasn't sure what had happened to her over the summer. Wasn't sure if the result was good or bad. But, she did know that she was here. She was here and she had to talk to him.
She felt like a hypocrite. She hated herself. She forced her hand to the smooth wood of the door, she forced herself to knock. She forced the tears down.
He answered quickly and her palms started to sweat.
"Ash? Wh-? How-? Come in, come in." His eyes roamed over her new look and she cringed. She stepped around him, and sat down on the old couch in his living room. There were so many memories. "How… How are you?"
His voice was concerned. He was worried because she looked so different. She wanted to laugh. She wanted to pat him on the back and explain to him that every time she screwed up, she changed the way she looked.
See, Ashley was the girl in the class room that screamed: "I don't give a damn what you think." But the thing was, she cared. Oh, how she cared. She was the girl that hid behind the way you saw her, so you wouldn't have to look at her. So you wouldn't have to peer too close.
And when she let up? And when her guard was down? And when you did see her? Well, she hid again. She hid behind another part of herself. Told herself another lie. Looked away from the mirror. Stopped looking you in the eye.
"Ok." She didn't ask him it back; she was too distracted by him. She didn't want to hurt him.
He sat down across from her, and she noticed. She noticed that he hadn't made a move to kiss her, or even to hug her since she got here, and it hurt. She could understand it. It wasn't that she couldn't. She knew why. She had left him staring at her retreating back- how did she expect him to feel?
But she had hoped… she had hoped he wouldn't care. A small part of her wished him to be so hung up on her that he would take her back no matter what. No matter whom she was.
She focused her gaze an inch above his head and began to speak.
"I- I missed you." The words were small. They were too small, and the emotions were bigger. She wanted to find big enough words, but she couldn't. His gaze hardened and he looked into her eyes. She tried to keep her focus above his head, but she failed.
She tried to keep the tears at bay. "I love you, Craig. I really do. I'm so sorry." She failed and the tears fell.
He was looking at her. He was moving towards her. Suddenly, she felt she couldn't tell him. She had found big enough words. She couldn't bear to speak them.
He was next to her on the couch. He put his arm around her and tried to pull her into a hug; he seemed to notice that she couldn't find the right words.
"Craig… I…" she couldn't tell him. Not here. Not like this. The tears were falling so fast, and he was so close. Too close. If he kissed her, she wouldn't be able to live with herself. She half wanted him to, and half didn't. "I think… I think we should break up." The words came out in a rush, and she felt her insides crush.
He stopped moving towards her. He stopped and stared at her. His arm left her side like she was on fire, and he stood up quickly.
"You think we…? You… think…we should break up?" His words held a question apiece and he rushed the last words. As if the taste they left in his mouth was totally undesirable.
Her heart was breaking, but she couldn't tell him. She just couldn't. "I gotta go." She stifled a sob and rushed out the front door and down into the street.
She didn't see the confused look on his face, or the frown that creased his forehead.
OoO
She giggled as the small beard he threatened to shave tickled her forehead. She sighed and leaned into him.
"You know, I don't live here. You have to open the door." He flashed her a perfect grin, and her heart melted farther into her shoes.
Ever since Paige had been dating Mr. O…Matt, she had felt safe. She felt real. When she looked at him, she could forget herself in his eyes. She had never been so in love. Not with anything, or anyone. Not even Spinner. The most important thing about him, though, was the other thing she could forget in his eyes: Dean.
When Matt held her, that awful memory filtered away to a place in her head. A place she could pretend was nothing more than a bad television show. That part of her past was no longer real. She loved him for that.
She reluctantly stepped away from him long enough to slip her key into the lock. It clicked and they were inside.
She told him to sit on the couch and she went into the kitchen. She wanted tonight to be special. Tonight held so many implications. It was Matt and her three month anniversary and the eve of her first day of her last year of high school.
She wanted it to be special, for her, and for Matt.
She grabbed two cokes from the fridge, and a bag of chips off the counter. She hurried back into the living room, to see him idly flipping through a stack of chick flicks positioned next to the DVD player.
He heard her come into the room and turned to face her. He amazed her every time: a genuine smile crossed his face at the sight of her.
"So…when will your mother be getting home- I don't want you to get in trouble." His sincerity did nothing to keep the frown from crossing Paige's face.
Strictly speaking, that was the only flaw in their otherwise perfect relationship. Paige had not be sure of how to broach the subject of her new, older, boyfriend, to her new, over protective mother.
She had tried a non-evasive route. "Hey mom, I met one of Dylan's friends." Her casual remark had made no impression on her mother. Good, she had thought. "He asked me out. I want to go." Her mother was shooting her a deer in the headlights look. "I really like him?" What was meant to convince her mother only came out as a week question.
So, her mother was obviously not going to be very into Paige dating someone older than her. Someone who had already graduated collage.
Paige forced a flirty smile on her face. "Actually, she left me a message," she was practically in tears, "saying she had a business meeting tonight. She was-" depressed that she couldn't be with you, "-'nt going to be able to spend tonight with me." Matt shot her a confused look. "Tomorrow's the first day of my last year of high school?"
Matt nodded, and Paige sat down next to him. "So…" she whispered in his ear. "We've got the house to ourselves."
He turned to press his grin against hers.
They were so into each other that they didn't notice the front door open…
OoO
Marco stood outside of the coffeehouse. What the hell? The question flashed through his mind so quickly it was all his existence could contain.
He had been sitting at a table in the back, silently looking over some papers and contemplating whether or not he wanted to run for president this school year, when he had looked into the eyes of… a pretty brunette.
She was smiling at him, and asking him something. Why couldn't he seem to hear a word she was saying? She made a gesture and he realized that he should ask her to repeat what she had said.
"Uh… what?" That was smooth… and rude! Rephrase! "Erm…I mean, could you say that again?"
She laughed and for some reason he was reminded of bells. "I said: could I borrow your chair for a moment? I need to use it to get to the book on the top shelf." She repeated her earlier gesture and he followed the motion to a rather large book placed, rather precariously, above his head.
"Uh…sure." Wow, you're so smooth. Wait…why do I care? Err…
"Thanks!" She chirped and she looked at him pointedly.
"Oh!" He let out a short sound and hopped out of the chair. She gave him a funny look and stifled another laugh. He felt like slapping himself in the head. Wait… no he didn't. Did he?
As she climbed unto the chair his eyes roamed over her, and he wasn't noticing the designer she was wearing. Holy shit. He was attracted to her.
She grabbed the book, and hoped off the chair. He turned beet red and looked away from her face. His eyes gravitated to the book: Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. It was huge.
She was smiling and it seemed to pull his eyes back to hers. The same thought was rushing through his head: What the hell? It barely left room for conscious thought.
She stuck her hand out and cocked her head. "Hi, I'm Ellyn." She smiled at him again, and it was so bright he had to smile back.
"Marco." He turned red again and shook her hand. "Erm…I mean, I'm Marco." His blush deepened, but her laugh tinkled and he felt better.
"I pretty much got that. So, do you come here a lot?" She asked, obviously just trying to make polite conversation.
"Erm…a bit. You?" He spat the last part out quite fast, almost too fast. Her laugh escaped again.
"Yeh, quite 'a bit'." Her smile broadened, and he found it infectious again. He felt himself smiling back. "They've got a great selection of the classics." She hugged the book to her chest. "Plus, the coffee's not too shabby."
He wasn't looking at her face, and he didn't laugh at the joke. His eyes had followed the book to her chest, and his body was not reacting in a way that was pleasant.
The redness of his cheeks deepened. "I gotta go." He muttered and dashed toward the door.
There was a confused and slightly hurt look following his progress out of the coffee shop…
OoO
The room was dark and Alex flipped the light switch. Nothing happened. "Dammit!" she muttered aloud.
She pushed her way slowly into the room and patted the couch. She could only hope the light bulb needed changing, and not that the bill was late again.
"Josie? Sweetie- you need to wake up." She softly spoke to the small sleeping body on the couch. She got no response.
"You bitch! You're a lying hoe! I know what you did! You think I don't hear things! You think my friends spare my feelings when it comes to gossip! Did you? Guess what? It's all about you! You're such a whore!" Alex could hear the thud as her mother's latest prize buck through her against the wall.
She quickly scooped her baby sister out of the cocoon of blankets on the dilapidated couch. She was lucky that she was young enough that she could still carry her.
Alex carried the child down the hallway, and stopped in front of her sister's room. No, not gonna risk it. She quickly moved into her own bedroom and placed the sleeping child on her bed. She tried her light switch. "Shit!"
No power. Oh well. It was probably for the best. Perhaps Larry wouldn't notice that Josie had disappeared. Maybe if he did, it wouldn't enrage him further. Maybe it all didn't matter. On the chance it did, Alex quickly dead bolted her door and moved her dresser in front of it.
She tried to feel bad about leaving her mother out there to take the beating alone, but she couldn't actually make herself do it. She had told her mother before she had let Larry move in that it was a bad idea.
Alex had simply laid out the information: He beat his last wife. "She deserved it. Besides, he's changed." He's into drugs. "That's just a rumor that his landlord came up with to be able to kick him out." He got fired from his last job because he kept showing up drunk. "He had the flu and they wouldn't let him call off. He wasn't drunk."
And the list went on and on.
Josie muttered something in her sleep, and a tear slipped down Alex's cheek. A mother was supposed to do what was best for her children. That was the definition, wasn't it?
Well, Alex's mother had never put her first, so she didn't feel bad about not putting her mother first. And it wasn't like she was saving her own ass here.
Someone had to save Josie. Someone had to take the fist for her. No one had ever done it for Alex, but she'd be damned if the same happened to her baby sister.
"Fuck it! I can't stand you! It's over! Over! Go find another one of your 'side dishes' to screw! Fuck you!" Alex heard stomping and a door slamming. She waited one minute and then, after hearing no re-opening of the door, she moved her dresser, unbolted her door, and rushed into the living room.
Her mother was slumped against the wall with a bleeding lip. She was staring off into space. Alex didn't pause. She rushed straight to the door and moved the dead bolt into place.
She had put them in herself. One in her bedroom, one on the front door, one on the back door. She rushed to the back door next and locked it quickly.
Only then did she go to her mother, who pushed away her touch and figured her split lip. As Alex shrugged and turned back down the hallway tears began to stream down her mother's face…
OoO
Manny sat staring at herself in the mirror. She fingered the bags under her eyes, and noticed how pale she looked. She felt as though she had PMS and a head ache.
She shivered. This wasn't right. She also felt sick to her stomach. She rolled out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom that was two doors down from her room.
The cold porcelain of the toilet was extremely welcome. She must have a fever as well. Why am I getting the flu the day before school starts? She thought dizzily to herself. This is absolutely ridiculous. Snap out of it. You're fine.
A wave of nausea hit her and she pulled herself above the toilet. After emptying the contents of her stomach, she felt a little better. She was horribly reminded of morning sickness and a panic washed over her.
Luckily, a deep breathe and a rational thought calmed her. She hadn't had sex since her first time with Craig. She wasn't pregnant. It's just nerves. You're fine. She told herself. She repeated it to herself enough that she began to believe it. You're an upperclassmen. It's just excitement.
It was all too easy to believe. Especially since she felt ok now. Throwing up seemed to do the trick.
She stood up shakily and walked slowly back to her room. With each step she seemed to feel a bit more like herself. Hey, flu. Just stay away until this week is over. Then I'll be sick, deal?
She laughed a bit at her last thought and turned to her closet.
She needed something to wear tomorrow.
OoO
Hazel stared at her parents in shock. "Wh-what?" She didn't hear them right. She couldn't have.
"We will not allow you to see that Jimmy boy romantically." Hazel's father's eyebrows knit together. "You cannot 'go out' with him." Hazel's mother placed her hand on his arm and she realized she had no allies.
"Wh-Why?" She stammered. She swallowed the knot in her throat.
"He is not Muslim!" Her father spat out, as though she had lost her mind. "Besides, you are not ready to marry. By far." He nodded his head once, decisively.
Hazel's heart was pounding. She had to sort through that last comment. Marry? Marry… She knew that the Muslim outlook on dating was to find someone to marry, and only that. They weren't big on doing it just for the fun of it. Hazel swallowed her tears. As for Jimmy being Muslim, that was pretty obvious: He wasn't.
She felt slightly dizzy. She had hoped that it wouldn't come to this. She had done a pretty good job, she thought. She had pretty much kept the person she was at school from showing up at home, and for quite some time, she had kept her at home self secret from her peers.
She didn't like to lie to her parents, but she knew that they would never allow her to date Jimmy, if they had known. So she had kept it from them. They had only just barely approved of her having a close male friend, which was all they thought he was, when he was shot. She had tried so hard to keep it together, to hold unto the farce, but she couldn't. The lie was tearing her up.
So, she had stop trying to conceal their relationship. Jimmy's close brush with death had made her realize that you had to live every day like it was your last. So she had stopped being careful, and a family friend had seen the two of them share a kiss last week.
Now, the day before her senior year in high school, her parents had called her into the family room to tell her what they had decided. They said that they were disappointed in her, but that they had no right to punish her. It wasn't a family rule she had broken: it was a religious one.
She would have to answer to Allah. So they told her to go to her room. They would continue to trust her, but she had to make the choice whether to lie or not. She had a choice: her boyfriend or her God?
OoO
J.T. placed his hand on Liberty's back and pulled her toward him. Their kiss held passion and she sighed into his arms. Their kiss lengthened and J.T. pulled her down unto the couch in his living room.
Liberty let out a small giggle. She had ended up in his lap. She shifted so she was sitting next to him, and a frustrated look caught her off guard.
"What?" She asked softly. He looked her deep in the eyes.
"You're my girlfriend." Now she shot him the frustrated look.
"Yes?" She asked him for a point.
"Well! You don't have to act like you don't want to touch me." He voice was quiet and hurt.
"What?" She asked confused. "Wh- I was just kissing you!" She rushed out.
"Yeh, but it's the second we're sitting down. The second it could be anything more than just a simple 'goodnight dear' kiss, you're moving away from me!" His curly hair bounced in emphasis of his words.
She was shocked, and slightly hurt. "So- let me get this straight. You're mad at me because I didn't want to sit on your lap?" Her words were incredulous.
He cheeks reddened. "When you say it like that-"
"How else am I supposed to say it?" She asked sarcastically.
He repeated it with a bad British accent. He smiled at her and she gave him a very small, non-happy, smile back. She looked at him closely and tried to decide whether or not to let it go.
"What I mean is, we're sixteen for crying out loud! We've been dating for three months, and we've only made out like once!" his hair was bouncing again. She just stared at him. He didn't seem to notice her clue to shut up. He continued: "I mean, look at all of your friends! My friends! Christ, look at Emma! And even Toby and Kendra make out all the time!" She was still just staring at him. "And there's Man-"
"Manny? You want me to be more like Emma and Manny?" her question was dangerously quiet. He noticed.
"No. I don't. I like you because you're Liberty." He scratched his head. "It's just; I wish you'd loosen up a bit." He smiled a puppy dog smile at her.
"J.T., when I'm ready for all that, I'll loosen up. But for right now? Right now, just kissing you is fine." She stared at him. He sighed.
"Look, Liberty. I really like you. I just- we need some time apart. I need to think, you know?" He sighed again, and she felt her heart constrict.
"Yeah…sure. I guess I need to think too." Her words were slow; she looked away from him, and shoved her tears farther into her heart. "I have- I gotta go."
She rushed out his front door, and he sat down on the couch with his head in his hands.
OoO
Ellie walked through the doorway into the kitchen. The answering machine was blinking. There was a message. She stared at it, and took inventory of her emotional state.
Heart's not racing…face isn't flushed…stomach didn't roll over. She shrugged and walked to the fridge. She grabbed an apple and the peanut butter. She walked over to the knife drawer (this was the best thing in her life; she trusted herself enough to keep knives in the house and not use them for an unintended purpose,) and pulled out a paring knife. She grabbed a cutting board and pulled a chair up to the table, deposited all of the stuff in her arms on the table, and walked over to the answering machine.
She eyed it for a moment. The question was absent: Is it him? It wasn't wrapping itself around her throat. It wasn't suffocating all other thought. It wasn't there building her expectations up high so she could fall off the top and crush her heart on the landing.
Her hand reached towards the PLAY button, and her heart didn't accelerate. She jabbed it with her finger and walked back to the table. The voice took a moment to announce itself:
"Umm…Hey, this is Marco. Call me. I wanted to see...erm…I think we should talk… do you want to do something tomorrow, after school? Erm… never… would you call me? Thanks." Click.
She sighed and stifled a laugh. She wondered briefly want could have Marco in such a state. Dylan probably got a new hair cut. Oh well. It wasn't him. She sighed again and eyed the knife.
She picked it up and held it so the kitchen light reflected over its surface. It made her happy to see the shiny metal move. As her wrist turned it in the light, an optical illusion made the blade seem to bend.
She sighed yet again, and contemplated what that message had meant. And not the Marco part.
Not one tear fell down her cheek as she brought the blade down and sliced the smooth flesh of…the apple.
OoOoO
