"Frankie?"
The dark-skinned girl stood shyly before the battered bus, holding a rather large formal umbrella with one hand and the other knocking softly into the exterior hull. She gazed into the half-shattered side window, seeing her sparkling yet messy crimson hair; however, her head faced the opposite direction.
"Go away!" was her half-snarling, half-lamenting response.
"It's me. Goo."
"Oh, please..."
The young woman sank deep into her chair, hiding the red hair from view. Goo stood quietly for a few seconds, hoping for some sort of response, but nothing came.
It was here Goo realized things wouldn't be so easy.
Suddenly and quite boldly, she tossed the umbrella away. Goo had barely braced herself, falling to her knees upon the sudden jolt... and then swiftly rose back up, standing straight and facing the rain.
Ready or not, she thought as she prepared to march inside. Here I come.
- - -
Frances Foster stared into the dirty puddle's slurred reflection for a few seconds before returning to her fetal state on the bus. She knew well by now--this was the absolute nadir of her life.
This is an illusion; I repeat, this is JUST ANOTHER FUCKING ILLUSION... her arms curled around the steel handle, making sure to briefly savor it's sub-zero chill before slowly hoisting herself to seating position. With a terse swagger of breath, she darted to her left and glanced through the opening she'd left on that particular window.
It was empty.
Literally instantly afterwards, she corked her head towards the bus' general direction. Nobody there.
Frankie slunked back into her seat. It sure feels like it's been a while, wonder what time it is... the lady raised her right arm, pulled down the sleeve and glanced into her wristwatch--and saw that it was a garbled mess, remembering that it short-circuited due to prolonged exposure. Frothing savagely, she ripped it off and chucked it across the cramped portway.
"PIECE OF SH--" the right hand flew across her cheeks before she could finish. Frankie clawed both of them on her face and wept.
Dear god, what am I becoming? She leant on the stiff seat, feeling uncomfortable but deriving great self-loathing satisfaction from it. Alright... breathe deep, calm blue ocean... CALM, BLUE, OCEAN... she clamped her eyes as firmly shut as she could. She tried to ignore everything about her at the moment: the fact she was hiding on a crippled public bus, imprisioned by god's nocturnal tears, having forever soiled her reputation at her grandmother's famous little asylum for imaginary friends, behaving like the unconsolable monster she was being right now. Nuh-uh, none of this was happening.
Instead, she was eight years old again, free like a bird and innocent like a child should be... her parents were still alive, her social life was just starting instead of collapsing, and Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends was not her full-time workplace but instead this wonderful place she visited every day after school, run by her still-sweet grandma and full of joy and imagination. Yes, just a little girl...
"Frankie? Frankie?"
She pried them off, exposing those fountain eyes to that infernal girl called Goo.
- - -
They stared at one-another for seemingly the longest of times. Goo was still in the same clothes she wore when she first arrived, only they were obviously thickly wet and dripping, and her hair, once distinguished by those three dreadlocks, was completely loose and slimmed to near-ground level. But at least she seemed healthy; what the girl saw of the woman was nothing short of a wreck--her eyes were a bloodcurling red, her jacket quite foul-smelling, lips razor thin and a unsettingly skeletal frame.
"Why are you here?" said the young Foster gravely. "...what could you possibly want from me?"
The words hung in the air before Goo responded. "Mac's been telling me about you." she closed in, a somber smile unfurling in her face. "He says you're not such a bad person."
Frankie let loose a dry hiss that was intended to be a scoff. "Really? Mac's only the most wonderful boy in the entire universe."
"And?"
"And?" she sighed. "He sees the good in everyone and everything! There's no better example than his undying loyalty to that miserable--" she abruptly pinched the softest area of the neck before finishing, jolting her back into the seat. "Oh you know; Bloo."
Frankie hunched down with a whimper, trying to veil the new batch of tears.
"Just like how grandma's remained with Herriman all her life."
Goo didn't speak for a while. She quietly inspected the bus' interiors--it was an even bigger disaster than from the outside. Shards big and small were scattered across the seats; the result of the damaged glass windows, many of them only-partially shattered and containing lethal spikes. Her eyes returned to Frankie, this time her arms--and cringed. They had been mostly covered by the long sleeves, yet she noticed rows of dry blood caked across both hands, as well as nasty bruises on her knees... which now diverted her attention to the floor, and quickly noticed that the puddle of water had a faint yellow tint. Her stomach winced; it was obvious it consisted of more than the rain's spillage.
She returned to Frankie once again... and try hard as she might, she felt not contempt but pity. Perhaps she was indeed a tad too loving, as some would say; but when she looked at her, she didn't see the supposed devil incarnate but instead a broken glass soul in dire need of mending.
The girl slowly inched towards her. "It sure must be awful."
Frankie pried off her hands in surprise. "Huh?"
"Living with so much hate inside." Goo said with a frown. "When was the last time you've been hugged?"
What! She grew restless by the second. "Why are you still here? GET OUT!" And she arose with fresh furor, lurching towards the girl with clenched fists--
Only to feel two wet arms clasp warmly across her midsection.
- - -
Frankie stood there, speechless and shellshocked. She gawked at the sight below: the very person she had treated like trash from the very get-go, whom she'd tried to ban multiple times, dismissing as some psycho deserving to be in an institution, calling her brain-damaged in front of the entire Foster home--and she latched on like a daughter to her mother.
Both fists loosened and all her previous anger vanished. Pangs of guilt shot across the spine, feeling her cold demeanor melt. And albeit accompanied with an embarassed sigh, for the first time in the last seventy-two hours, a genuine smile formed around the woman's face.
"Goo, I..." Frankie began, but stopped once she saw Goo whimpering unintelligibly into her stomach. She gently pulled her off. "What is it you're trying to sa--"
"IT'S ALL MY FAULT!" the eight-year-old cried all of a sudden.
The redhead was stunned. "What do you mean?"
"CAN'T YOU SEE!" she snapped. "I should've never come to Foster's, YOU WOULDN'T BE LIKE THIS HAD I NEVER CREATED SO MANY IMAGINARY FRIENDS!"
"Huh, wait a min--"
"YOU HATE ME! RIGHTFULLY SO!"
Goo rocked violently across the bus, bawling openly. "Stupid, stupid, stupid..."
With great care, Frankie approached the girl and placed her left arm across her neck.
"Goo, Goo--GOO!"
The third did it. The girl momentarily halted her dramatic display, but she was still shriveling. "I'm so sorry, Frankie..."
The woman smiled. "It's ok. Just... let's sit down, please. I want to talk to you."
Frankie grabbed Goo by the hand, and escorted her to just some rows behind the driver's seat. She selected a seat whose window wasn't shattered--dusting it with her bare hands to ensure it had no scattered shards--and placed her there. Soon afterwards, she sat right next to her.
"I'm so sorry." she sniffed. "I truly am..."
Frankie wrapped her arms across the girl's neck, rocking her gently. "Goo..." she began. "No offense, but I don't think you've heard the full story--"
"Yes I have." Goo snapped.
"Well then, from who?"
"Mac." she said. "He told me about some person named McGee... say, it wouldn't happen to be Goofball John McGee?"
Frankie cocked an uneasy eyebrow. "You know him?"
"Unfortunately." she spat. "My parents were friends with his previous owners. I used to see him frequently; he's the biggest jerkface I've ever met... constantly used his human-like appearance to mooch off privileges forbidden from other, far kinder imaginary friends."
"Gee, that's..." Frankie didn't know whether to be sick or chuckle ironically. "It's interesting you say that, Goo; when he was here, I was trying to prove that he was indeed human."
"I suppose he was mooching off you as well."
Frankie sighed. "Yeah, he was misbehaving and thus caused me to miss some concert I really wanted to see--but in the end, I had it coming to myself. It was me who chose to try "expose" him when he was indeed imaginary." she stooped with a scowl. "'Fight fire with fire', as they say... in retrospect, I should've just used a nice bucketful of water."
Goo turned around, ashamed to look at the woman. "I'm so sorry..."
Frankie sighed and decided she'd seen enough; she gently but forcibly spun the girl back around and lined her with a firm face. "Look, Goo--and look at me in the eye. Listen to me, and very carefully, ok?"
Goo had no time to nod before Frankie finished taking in the deepest of breaths.
"IT'S NOT NOT NOT NOT YOUR FAULT!"
The ferocity of her voice rose up and beyond the weather's thick confines, enough to wake up not only the Foster residence but the entire surrounding city. And yet, even as Goo cowered into the bus' structure in fear, she saw that the redhead was more worried than angry.
"I'm the one who ought to be sorry." she said. "Please stop blaming yourself, you--"
"Seven hundred." Goo interjected.
Frankie pondered the number a little; her face went a shade red when she discovered it's embarassingly obvious meaning. "Your imaginary friends?"
"More like 'my stupid, worthless creations'." she sobbed. "Me and my stupid imagination overburdened you to the point of no return..."
The girl leant as far away from Frankie as she could, towards the stone cold window, her crying and whimpering smothered by the rain. She moaned as the redhead just huddled closer to her, affectionately rubbing her shoulders.
"Yeah, I suppose I was a bit pissed about the massive influx," she submitted somberly before regaining her composure. "But Goo, it wasn't just you. All you really did was... well, accelerate my breakdown."
"Well then, McGee--"
"Oh, him?" she interrupted with a chuckle. "As much as he'd probably hate to admit it, he only sped things up as well."
Goo raised her mouth to speak, but nothing arose. Frankie rose from the seat and leant herself somewhat awkwardly against the window, right next to the girl.
"This isn't about these two things alone." she said with finality. "Even without what you and Goofball did, I would've still snapped regardless."
Those words boomed through Goo's fragile mind as she lurched back into the seat.
Would've still snapped?
"Frankie--"
She sobbed but, once again, did not finish. Frankie leant dearly close towards the girl.
"Goo..." she began, tenderly wiping the streams of tears in her face. "I don't hate you, nor do I hate your imaginary friends... and to the contrary, they are not worthless--nor is your imagination stupid."
"Bah, you called them cretins." Goo interrupted. "You... you called me a retard."
Frankie grimaced as she fumbled for words--she knew very well there wasn't an easy response to that.
"I... was angry." she said lamely. "When you're angry, you tend to do and say things that you don't mean."
Goo opened her mouth--the moment she noticed, Frankie placed a gentle yet firm hand blocking it.
"And for the very last time, I'm NOT angry at you." she said. "I'm--"
And she choked before finishing. Her flaky emerald eyes aimlessly darted out the glasspane, staring towards the aged victorian mansion that she barely noticed amidst the rain and beneath the gateway... her expression became regretful and wilted.
"You're angry at your grandmother and that bunny guy, then."
Frankie corked her head back inside, pausing to ponder what the girl just said. She was surprised at how quickly the kid regained her composure--
And soon after, the full extent of those last few words came harking to her.
...angry at your grandmother and that bunny guy...
Madame Foster and Mr. Herriman.
The twenty-two year old clamped her hazy eyes shut, vainly fighting back fresh tears. Two barely-recognizable blurs swirled sickly across her shattered psyche--a talking Victorian rabbit in tuxedo and the bespectacled old lady that had been her grandmother. Along with it came not months but years of bitter cries and anguished howls, all of them pertaining to her and her only... just seconds ago, she was pondering over how quickly the young newcomer regained her composure. Now--she was playing the unsettled one again.
Sagging back into the seat, she nodded in bitter defeat.
Goo carefully inched towards the hunched lady. "Mac told me about how you're taking care of the place all the time, that you never have much time for yourself... that Herriman's a jerk with you..."
Frankie didn't respond; she rocked softly and trancefully in feeble whimpers. The girl softly tugged at the filthy coat's sleeves, drawing Frankie's attention--pulling her into a fragile gaze.
"They don't appreciate you much, do they?"