OUTCASTED--OUTCASTED--OUTCASTED--OUTCASTED
Dig the new Pen name? I'm very sorry for the month long delay. I don't really have an excuse other then I've been very social. But now that I'm getting back a little bit of down time, I'm ready to write again. And I remembered poor abandoned little 'Outcasted' back on . And I wrote this chapter! I hope you guys still have it bookmarked, or something, you've probably waited a little while for this update! Just a heads up, I decided if I went with some shorter updates, I'd probably update more often. Maybe once or twice a week. Also if you've sent me a Private Message in the last month or so, I've gotten a new e-mail and I'm going to try to change it on here, I'm not just being an ignorant little twerp. I love you guys too much to cut off communication.
Saturday, January 6th, 2008—I don't care what time it is: Good Samaritan Hospital, Los Angeles, California.
In my life, there are a few people who can understand the way my mind ticks: My brothers. My mom. And perhaps every girl in America. And what kills me about this whole situation (aside from the obvious) is that my mom, who understands my mind so well, can't see me, can't hear me, can't detect me. Shouldn't there be some kind of motherly will?
"Look at me, it's Nick…Mom…", I tried to plead, I really did, to just keep my cool.
"I have three sons…." She trembled. She was the type of person who cried at movies, graduations, and weddings, I'd only once seen her hysterically cry when my grandmother had died, and it was not a hysterical cry like this.
"Ma'me, I promise...I'll let you know as soon as I find out something about your son.", the brunette nurse reached to grab my shaking mother's hand, but I didn't trust her. I was fine, that's all she had to say to her, it wouldn't be a lie. "Sons." My mother corrected. The woman's mouth opened in an 'O' of surprise, "Three sons….here?" she asked cautiously.
My mom took a deep breath and bit her lip before nodding slowly. She began to tremble with her tears again. That's when I officially gave up. I sat on the ground against the stupid desk, and I cried. It had been a long time, the last time I did that. I don't cry at movies, graduations, or weddings.
"Why can't you see me?", I asked, pitifully. My mother was yelling at the nurse above me. "Mom! Mom, answer me…..I'm right here." And this is how it'll always be now, right? Invisible and onward? What happens to my future? "Would you just..see me?!" I cried.
I clutched furiously at my brown curls. Am I stuck here forever? I have plans. Was I destined to become a to be me story on a video cassette tape, played in musty classrooms, on the dangers of late-night driving? The message, would tell, exactly how badly it sucked to be me tonight, and never would another stupid teenager, agree to sit backseat to a late night movie. Damnit. I'm worthless to everyone. My mother, my father. And I lost control of the last straw I held. I just screamed. Nobody heard, of course.
I just can't even begin to think—"Yeah. I think she did." Kevin cut through. He was talking to Joe, and staring at the stupid hospital wall. Why couldn't they just have a logical reaction like I was? I pounded my fist against the nurse's station, and a cupful of gel pens toppled over.
"Whoa", the nurse breathed. She was seeing this. Holy shit she could see this! "Joe!" I shouted immediately, a grin on my face. I turned around to see Joe looking worriedly at me. "The nurse can see the things we do!", I swiveled around and pointed at the nurse, but the pens were gone from the table. Back in their cup, on the platform I had knocked them from. "What are you talking about, Nick?", Joe asked concern washing over his expression. "She saw it….I know she did", I bumbled. I she saw that. I wasn't crazy. "Maybe…she just—" Joe started again. "Nick get over here." Kevin stated bluntly, from behind us. I stared hard at the nurse who was helping someone aside from my mother. Dumb nurse with her dumb upright pens. "Let it go, buddy." Joe whispered. He grabbed my arm and pulled me away from the station toward Kevin. His eyesight was caught in a gape. At some blonde girl in the corner of the waiting room. She couldn't have been older than me. "She's too young for you." I spat spitefully of this entire night; though it was true. She was.
"Not interested." He replied in awe of the girl. Was I missing some kind of circus act she wasn't that interesting? The girl silently bobbed her head against the tune of her music, a pink wire wound around her lap an iPod. But that wasn't anything worth gaping about. "Then why are you so obsessed with staring at her?" I asked officially annoyed. "Go talk to her." He pushed me forward. I stumbled a few feet forward. No way, it would only make me angry.
"No. She won't hear me." I responded. "Please just…try?" Joe asked aggravated. "Fine." I walked towards the girl in the corner of the room, Joe and Kevin followed curiously. This was a waste of my invisible time. I sat in an empty waiting room seat acrossed from her. "Hey, how's it going?" I asked casually. She kept tapping her foot to her music. "Can't hear me can you?" I tried again. The drum beat of her fingers against the metal armrest of the chair thumped quietly. "No, I didn't think so." I glared at Kevin, who was just staring at her.
"Unplug her headphones." He stated pointedly.
"This is pointless" I replied, I ran a shaky hand through my curls. This was just cruelty. Egging me on for nothing.
"Do it, Nick." He shoved my shoulder lightly. Lazily I reached over and pulled the headphone plug out, I dropped it near after. "The second I look away, it'll be back in there." I stated, previous anger towards the nurse's situation bubbled back. I looked away to prove my point, then turned my head back. The blonde girl was staring strangely at her unplugged iPod. It stayed unplugged. "Say something fast!" Kevin ordered.
Excitedly, I pushed off from the chair. I was on my feet, urging to blurt something. "Can you hear me…." I searched for an appropriate something to call this girl. "Blondie?" Joe whispered in suggestion. I shrugged, I had nothing to lose. "Can you hear me, Blondie?" "It's Giovanna." She snapped quickly. She looked up angrily, though her face turned from anger to surprise. "You can hear us?" Joe asked. "No." Kevin responded quickly. "She can hear Nick."
Saturday, January 6th, 2008—8:00, I guess: Giovanna's house, Agoura Hills, Los Angeles California.
I tried my best to attract her attention. I tried everything. I forcefully sneezed several times, I went to the extent of a choking death scene. The harder I tried, the more she seemed to stare at her dumb iPod. I guess we'd been there for a couple of hours, before two women who looked like Giovanna's polar opposites showed themselves forward.
"Yo, Gio." A short brown haired girl greeted hoarse fully. Her eyes were puffy red, probably from crying which didn't stand out too much in the hospital. Giovanna's green eyes widened in surprise, she stood up quickly, letting her iPod fall in place on the seat of her chair. "Where's mom?" she asked worriedly. "Paying the bill, I guess", the brunette shrugged, and inhaled a large sniffle. "They're related?" Joe
questioned. "Apparently." Kevin answered boredly. The brunette girl was stand offish, compared to Giovanna. Her brown hair was long like her sister's, but concealed by a backwards Yankee's cap. I whole heartedly agreed on her choice of baseball teams. Outside of being pink and swollen her pupils were a deep brown—gold almost. She didn't seem to care what she was wearing either, she was wearing a plain white T-shirt, and some worn black sweats. Kevin was probably despising her from behind me, he was the fashion buff of the family. She was a classic kind of pretty though. Almost as if dressing so cloaked was how someone was supposed to dress.
Giovanna was staring at nothing but her feet, clutching a chunk of her blonde hair, her eyes were intent on the sight. "Are you okay Cris?" She finally asked with an irritated sigh.
"Yeah." The girl—Cris sniffled. "For now".
"Well good." She replied quickly, then straightened her posture. "Because I probably won't be talking to you for a couple of days." She threw in, then sharply turned around and stuffed her music player in the pocket of her pajama pants. "I hope one of them takes their shirt off." Joe yawned, standing up and feigning a stretch. I rolled my eyes. Just like Joe. "What?" he shrugged. Kevin slumped back in a chair, as if he was prepared to stake it out all night in the hospital. "It's not like we're keeping up appearances for anyone anymore." He sneered. Our parents had been kindly given the boot from the hospital an hour before, and been asked to wait by their phones for further updates.
A brunette woman identical to Cris, showed up moments later, in a similar ensemble. "Come on girls…we should get some sleep tonight." Giovanna held her hand out expectantly, the brunette woman dug through a large bag to find a set of car keys and dropped them into her palm. "Bring the car around front." She wagged a warning finger.
"Okay." Giovanna muttered. I shot a look back at Kevin, to see his take. He was sitting upright interested in the happenings of this odd family, too. Joe was probably just intent on his shirt dreams. "Hurry on now." She shooed. The woman draped her arm around Cris' shoulder, and aimlessly strung her finger's through her daughter's hair. "Don't worry sweetheart." She comforted. "We'll be home soon."
No doubt we all agreed that we should follow the only hope of communication home. Joe seemed more excited to leave the hospital waiting room, and I'm half sure Kevin's been living his own episode of Veronica Mars teenage detective. The second Cris and her mother were out of the hospital doors, was when Joe realized we had absolutely no way to get to her house. We didn't have a clue as to where she lived. And he was right. I fell back against the hospital's sliding doors—that wouldn't open for me.
"Shit!" Joe's shout pulsated through my ears. "We're screwed."
It was second's later that a white Escalade, boomed into the lot, and towards us. "Are they allowed to park that close to the hospital?" Kevin inspected. "No." He answered his own question. The car screeched to a hault, and to the hospital's entrance doors were being retracted vertically for it, I was pretty sure so, when I fell on my ass on the concrete. The car pulled into the hospital neatly. Right into it. And I stared wide eyed into the parking lot, afraid to see the damage.
"You have to be kidding me." Joe clucked his tongue. Kevin chuckled softly to himself before speaking up himself. "I guess we didn't need directions."
I turned back to look at the Escalade confusedly. The hospital was gone. It was a garage. A house with a driveway and a street. Exactly what had happened on I-95. "What if we wanted to go to Disneyland, or…" Joe sputtered excitedly "Or Egypt?" he grinned self amusedly. "We just could!", Kevin laughed along merrily.
Was I the only sane one of us left?
Giovanna bolted from the car quickly, with a purple velvet knapsack on her back; she took off running into the house through a garage exit. I couldn't think of anything but my chucking brothers, our smashed up car back on the highway, and my sobbing mother as I tore off after her.
So, I got a review last chapter that was critically horrid. I'll take criticism like the trooper I am, but write it constructional, you doof (a certain persona). Should I move Outcasted to the 'Camp Rock' category?
I'll update soon, promise.
--Hallie