a/n: this isn't as long as the last one, i don't think? it certainly isnt as flowery. i still don't know what i'm doing.
Chapter Three
Following Shelley's earlier lament regarding her father, the two chipped away at the garage box by box in thoughtful silence, labeling boxes and consolidating items very gradually as the back half of the garage was cleared in the middle, a flat space of concrete flanked by two separate groups of boxes.
"It's as if we've parted the Red Sea." Edgar remarked. Shelley stood upright and wiped a bit of sweat from her upper lip with her thumb.
"Too bad we don't have enough favor with God to get him to part the rest." She said flatly, gesturing to the wall of cardboard before them.
"I'm beginning to think that there are very few people who have much favor with him."
She gave him a bewildered smile. "Aren't you a little too naive to be that cynical?"
He cocked his head. "It's something I've acquired over time. Being the way I am and being constantly reminded of it, I'm losing much of my patience."
And to his surprise, her face softened into a concerned frown, a genuine expression of hurt that he rarely saw on anyone's face, much less hers. However, he wasn't sure if her expression was one of sympathy or general irritation with his frequent complaints regarding the subject. She cleared it up in a matter of moments, hesitantly opening her mouth to speak, choosing her words.
"Wish I could say anything other than 'that's the way it is,' but…" She folded her arms and smiled bitterly at the ground. "... That's really just the way it is. People are judgy. Like, it's shit, but they are."
"I'm very well aware, Shelley. And I don't particularly blame them. It's only a defense mechanism."
"A shitty defense mechanism."
He laughed, long and sustained. Her indignation on his behalf was undeniably adorable, however, her prior treatment of him left a lingering sense of unease in the pit of his stomach. It had been many months since she'd come around to him, but if Dr. Parker's behavior was anything to go by, people could be incredibly fickle. He swallowed, watching her stretch to reach a blue plastic storage tub on the top shelf of a previously-hidden workbench.
"Shelley, may I ask you something?" He turned away to preoccupy himself with the nearest possible task, which, to his dismay, was a small box full of dusty picture frames, loosely wrapped in a protective layer of newsprint. The photo at the top of the pile was Mrs. Parker, younger, sitting upright in a hospital bed, holding the apparently newborn Shelley. What struck him about the picture was how similar the two looked, a resemblance now disguised by Mrs. Parker's age. He looked closer at her face, which was drawn in an expression of anguish, a forced smile just barely curling the corners of her lips. Wouldn't the arrival of one's only child be something to happy about?
Shelley had responded somewhat noncommittally while he was lost in thought, and he glanced back to her. "Sorry, what did you say?"
She laughed softly, grinned. "I said 'go ahead,' but if you're just gonna ignore me, maybe I'll change my answer."
Edgar apologized quickly, then glanced down at the picture again, and back up to Shelley. It was hard to imagine she was once so tiny, so shapeless, considering the woman she was now, filled out and curved and achingly beautiful. The round, undeveloped face in the picture became long and slender, with a sharp, pointed chin and small features that were practically elastic in their expressiveness, accentuated by glistening eyes sheltered under a hood of thick lashes.
He wondered what he looked like as an infant. He wondered if somewhere, there was a similar picture of his mother looking down at him, thrown away and forgotten in a similarly cluttered garage.
He licked his lips, chapped and dry, swallowed. "Forgive me if this is an uncomfortable question for you to answer, but I wanted to know how you thought of me."
She blinked, thick eyebrows pulled inward as she considered the nature of his inquiry, hands raised, body language defensive. "What do you mean by that?"
"Do you think of me as human? Or at the very least, as an equal?"
Her mouth opened in a silent "Oh," and she folded her arms under her chest and shifted to a casual stance, hip cocked to the side as her weight was put onto one leg. She swayed. "That's a complicated question." She said finally, gnawing at a sliver of dead skin poking up at the corner of her lip. "It's not something that really crosses my mind at all when we talk or whatever. Like, I don't talk to my mom and think about how she's a human or anything, she's just my mom. Or like, when I talk to Rick, he's just Rick. When I talk to you, you're just Edgar."
"But whenever I speak to you or Mrs. Parker, I'm constantly reminded that I'm not like you, or anyone else." He was more than a little offended by her vague, dismissive answer. She frowned, tilted her head.
"Well, yeah, because you're all hung up on how you look, and I'm not. When you're as self-conscious as you are, you're convinced that everyone's all weirded out by you, or distracted by your appearance, but they're not. The only one who gives a damn is you."
"I don't understand."
She sighed, laughed a melancholy little laugh. "Lemme put it this way… When I was like, 13 or 14, I hated myself. My teeth were all jacked up, I was kinda overweight, and I smelled like a doctor's office. I was terrified to talk to anyone 'cause I thought they'd all be like, staring at my teeth or judging me and stuff. I was gross to look at and to be around."
He doubted that. She continued with her anecdote.
"But I then I lost a whole bunch of weight, started showering more, I looked good. But my teeth were still jacked, and no matter how many people told me I was pretty or said my smile was cute or whatever, I didn't believe them. Like, I still don't. I still can't look people in the eye when my teeth show, because I hate my smile, and I'm always scared whenever I talk to people, they're gonna notice."
"But your smile is lovely, Shelley."
She threw her hands out, eyebrows shot up as her eyes went wide. "See! That's my point! No one else thinks that hard about your flaws, they just think about the person they're talking to! When I talk to you, I don't think about your ears or your teeth or your baldness or whatever, I just think about how cool you are and how much I like talking to you, because you're so much more than your appearance."
He fidgeted a little at the listing of his least favorite features, but at least her intentions were kind enough. "Sometimes when I talk to you, I forget that I look this way."
"Hey, that's progress!" She grinned widely, lips parted over her teeth, and he realized what a rare sight this must be for anyone. An exclusive showing, and he was front row and center.
Her canines were strangely large, jutting out sharply forward, creating a sort of valley of her straight incisors. He had really never noticed before until now when she'd mentioned it, and he still couldn't fathom why she was ashamed of them. If anything, it made her cuter. He smiled back with his own bizarre set of teeth.