Disclaimer: I don't own Teen Titans. I do, however, own my very own backpack! Go me!
Jar of Hearts
Chapter Three
The thing that really gets me about most people is the fact that they think that they're better than me just because they've heard the rumors and have assumed that they know what's right and what's wrong. The judge me with a single glance and I'll never ever have the chance to change their opinion.
Guys look at me and see a slut, a whore, an easy lay.
Girls look at me and see the exact same thing, just in a different way.
They say that in the real world it doesn't matter so much what happens behind closed doors, that the secrets that you clutch so tightly to your underdeveloped chest don't matter so much, but I know that they do. Or at least they do in my world.
Fact of Life: People will always judge you. It doesn't matter how old you are or how much money you have or how fabulous your personality is. It's all judgment all the time.
I used to care about how people saw me. I really did and I let it hurt me when they hissed things as I walked by. It hurt when they looked at me with disdain and the girls giggled about me in the bathroom when I was in the stall and they didn't know that I was in there.
Each syllable pierced me and drew blood just the way that they wanted them to. Each sentence formed scars on my already fragile self esteem and my thin confidence. They made me run away, not only from them, but from myself.
I wasn't always this way, not really. The girl I used to be, Terra, she was nice and virginal and smart and kind of funny but not really. But then she transformed into me, Tara, because that was who they expected me to be anyway. They didn't want Terra anymore, they wanted Tara.
Believe me, they got her.
Here's another Fact of Life: Even nasty, slutty bitches have a heart. It might be buried deep underneath all the names and the sweat and the beer, but it's there and it can feel pain just as easily as yours can.
..O..
I woke up the next morning with visions of plastic rings dancing in my head and a pounding, splitting headache. For a minute I kept my eyes closed and I squeezed them tighter, as if that simple act would make me blot out the history of last night.
Just thinking that made that fierce wave of self-hatred, mixed with other things now that I wasn't drunk anymore, a potion brewed only by the truly broken, crash over me again, but I knew that this time drowning myself wouldn't work. It had never worked before so I had no idea why I have ever expected it to.
I got up, in the clothes that I had gone to school in that morning, minus the lacy pink undershirt that I had been wearing (I always, always forget something) with my shoes placed neatly at the foot of Kole's bed.
I couldn't remember much of the night after that guy- God I couldn't even remember his name. I always do this to myself.- and I drove myself to Kole's house, but I can only imagine what she had done for me yet again. God forbid that she actually tucked me into bed... again.
Poor Kole. She not only has to play the role of best friend to the social pariah, but sometimes she has to assume the role of mother as well. I'm not sure if she resents me for that or not, but I like to think not. She's always been there for me when I needed it.
"Hey." I turned around slowly, making sure not to make any sudden movements. My head still hurt and I didn't want to aggravate anything or make myself dizzy. Kole was standing in the doorway of her room. "Nice to see your bright and shining face this morning." I didn't say anything, but she laughed at my expression and possibly at my hair. I hadn't looked in the mirror yet but I could only imagine. "Your backpack is in the back of my closet, if you need it. Which I'm pretty sure that you do."
"Thanks," I told her, which is something that I managed to tell her every time that something of this nature happened.
"It's no problem, really," Kole shrugged. She always acted like it was no big deal when I sneaked into her house like some sort of exhausted criminal after a long night's work of selling my body or stealing candy from babies. Or worse.
I didn't say anything as I grabbed my bag I walked into her bathroom, which was connected to her bedroom by a single door, and then I locked both of them for good measure. I opened the pack that she had so thoughtfully reminded me of and saw inside a pair of shorts that I would work out in and a purple tank top. There weren't any shoes, or underwear, but there was a toothbrush with some minty sort of toothpaste, a tube of mascara and the ever essential eyeliner, and a package of cigarettes. I smiled at those, just a bit. It had been a long time since my last drag. My addiction somehow always seemed to take care of itself, one package at a time.
I knew better than to light one up in Kole's bathroom because her dad was way paranoid and insisted on having a smoke detector installed in every room so I decided to take a shower instead.
I've heard that sometimes girls, when they've had a night like mine, try to scrub themselves raw with soap and a brush, as though that is supposed to help matters. I might have tried that way back in the beginning, but believe me, it never works. It's not good punishing yourself for something that you can't take back, no use in making yourself even more tender to the world by scrubbing away some of your defenses.
I always take cold showers, it's my little joke to myself, so when I stepped out the mirror was clear, no condensation was running down the smooth and reflective edge of it. I've always hated mirrors, ever since I was a little girl. I don't know really what it is about them that always sort of freaked me out. In fact, I used to pretend that I was a vampire and say that I couldn't see myself.
Of course I used mirrors all the time now, to apply and reapply my make-up, to make sure that I don't look like a total douche user when I walk out the door in the morning, the usual things that people tend to use mirrors for. The reason that they were invented, that sort of thing.
When I look at my reflection in an unclouded mirror I always see two reflections.
One is the top layer, the thing that everyone else sees too. Blue eyes, blonde hair, the beginnings of a zit near the corner of my mouth that has a lot to do with going to sleep in my make-up and not washing it than it does with much else, and a basically pretty face. A pretty generic description of at least a quarter of the girls in America, except my hair is naturally blonde, not one ounce of hydrogen peroxide has touched these golden locks.
Then I see the real thing, the ugly red eyed monster that only the truly gifted can see glowing out of my eyes at times. This girl is needy and weak and stupid. She uses her words and cigarettes as a defense mechanism because she can't trust much of anyone, and she sleeps with random people that she doesn't know because she has daddy problems coming out of her wazoo. She has to pretend that she is someone other than who she truly is because she can't stand thinking that her old self has anything to do with the person that she has become. She has abandonment issues coming out of her ears and she can't see herself properly. Maybe some people would call her complex and hard to label.
Me? I see her perfectly. She's good for nothing. A fuck up.
She's me.
And then it's all I can do to control myself, I so desperately want to reach through the glass and pull out the girl on the other side of it and bash her head it, but to do that I'd have to break the mirror and possibly the thin walls of Kole's house and I can't do that.
Fact of Life: It's usually a bad idea to break things at other peoples houses just because you want to hurt something that isn't really there.
I hear a knock at the door. "Tara?" she calls, her voice making it through the door and through my thick skull. "Are you okay in there?"
"Yeah, I'm fine," I reply, pulling on my shorts quickly as I try to dress as though I'm properly equipped and this is any normal Saturday.
I try and pretend that what I just told Kole isn't a lie.
..O..
When I walked downstairs Kole's father was down there, which surprised me. Normally he has classes up at the college on Saturdays. Dr. Meriwether was a professor over at Jump City University and he was a well respected scientist as well.
Basically the guy had smarts, but not much else.
When he finally noticed my presence he started. "Tara!" he cried. "When did you get here?"
I open my mouth to answer, even though today I don't have a response ready made like I usually do.
Fact of Life: If you're going to be a liar you had better have a lie up your sleeve for everything.
Kole noticed my predicament and said quickly, "She just got here dad. Gosh, how do you not notice these things? She's coming with me to have my belly button pierced, remember? I'm getting that done today." For a good girl Kole can think up a lie pretty quick, especially if it's going to appease her father or help someone out. I send her a thankful look across the kitchen, and agree.
"You're still going to do that?" Dr. Meriwether asked, rubbing a hand over his face as if wondering why had had ever consented to that. Sorry bud, but not even I could say no to Kole when she wants something, because she gets so damn persistent. This probably what she did to have a cold piece of metal shoved into her navel.
Plus Dr. Meriwether, though he may be a bit distant and strange at times, truly loves his daughter and usually if Kole wants something (which isn't all that often) he can't say no. It's kind of refreshing watching that kind of affection between parent and child, especially because in my world, the one where people have more money then they know what to do with (yeah... I'm a trust fund baby) most parents and off spring just don't interact like that.
"Yep," Kole answered, sounding a bit pleased with herself. She had already picked out the belly button ring and everything. She had also researched this extensively, because this is Kole we're talking about, and that's when she told her dad about it so that he wouldn't have to do the research himself.
Scientists. What can you do with them?
"Well have fun. I probably won't be able to see it first thing tonight, though, because I have a couple of late classes, just like any other Saturday."
Dr. Meriwether began assembling papers into his briefcase and he went out the door. As he passed by Kole, who was sitting on a stool next to the door, he kissed the top of her head and off he went, probably to do the next genius thing that came to his mind.
"You're so lucky," I told Kole as I got a piece of toast out of the bag that was lying on the counter top. My stomach was kind of queasy but I knew that if I managed to make myself eat something, even if it was just plain toast, that I would feel better in about an hour.
"Yeah, I know." Kole shrugged. She didn't understand why I thought that she was so lucky. In fact, sometimes I think that Kole is jealous of me, which is just plain ridiculous. Just because I had money and lived in a gated community really didn't mean much of anything. I know it's horrible and cliché (because, let's get real here, I am just a big ol' cliché without even the benefit of having a bow on top) but I'd rather be in the normal dollar range, like Kole, and have the same kind of family that she did.
"So, are you ready to have a cold piece of metal shoved through your naval?" I asked, repeating a question that I had already asked several times over the last month, which was suddenly when Kole decided that she wanted one.
"Will you stop saying that? You're making it sound like some sort of ancient tribal ritual or something." Kole shuddered delicately, probably unable to even think about it. It made me bite my lip so that I couldn't laugh, because Kole has always had a weak stomach. When we were in ninth grade and we had to dissect a pig embryo Kole had to go to the trash can and throw up. It was really disgusting, but it was also really funny.
I shrugged and sniffed the air. It kind of smelled funny, but I just shrugged. It might have just been a candle left over from Dr. Meriwether's last girlfriend, who had fled as soon as she realized just how often she really was going to be able to see him, which was not that often at all. Kole had introduced me to her, and believe me, she was definitely the drippy hippy type, and she probably believed in the healing power of smells.
"Tara!" Kole cried, rushing over to me. What the hell? Was I bleeding or something? But Kole went right past me and she focused on the toaster which was right behind me. Somehow, without me noticing, the toast had burned and had lit on fire.
Exhibit number one of my hopelessness in the kitchen. Somehow I had even ruined toast. Really, when I live alone I'm going to starve myself to death. Trying to help I put some paper towels on the flame, remember a fact way back from second grade about how you were supposed to smother fire so that it can't get any oxygen.
That didn't exactly work considering the fact that the paper towels are highly flammable and began catching on fire as well. Kole shrieked when she realized what I had done, and being highly rational she turned on the faucet and turned on the nozzle head and somehow managed to douse the fire, her, and me all at the same time.
On the positive side, at least she manged to put the fire out. On the not so amazing side we were going to have a lot of explaining to do. Or at least Kole was. I was going to be safely at home when all of the explaining went down, thank goodness.
"Sorry?" I made the word sound more like a question than anything else. Kole just looked at me and I just looked at her and neither of us said a word.
Then Kole started to giggle, and then to laugh, throwing her whole body into it. I started laughing too, unable to control myself when she was laughing like that too. If I was being honest with myself, which is something that I usually try to avoid, it was pretty funny.
It was the things like this, the laughs, the tears, the secrets, these were the things that kept our friendship together instead of broken.
..O..
The tattoo parlor that Kole had decided that she was going to get her belly button pierced was just like any other. It smelled like smoke and like the fluid that they used to keep the place and the skin that they tarnished clean.
One of the workers looked at me strangely (I didn't blame him. Here I was wearing workout clothes, and then you looked at me feet and you saw black studded flats. No one normal wore stuff like that.) and I gave him the finger, to which he responded with raised eyebrows and not much else. I suppose that at a place like this he got a lot of those.
A woman came up to the both of us and she had all sorts of tattoos running up and down her arm, the most pronounced of which was a green snake that had snaked its way around her arm and was hissing at something that only it could see. I wondered if she had given that one to herself, but then I realized that I really didn't care.
She popped her gum. "Which one of you two is Kole?" Kole had already made an appointment, of course. My best friend, the bad ass.
That was the whole reason that she wanted this whole thing anyway. I think that she just wanted to prove that she could be just as bad ass (if you could even call what I do 'bad ass') as I am. We had already tried this experiment once before two years ago when I had taken her to one of the parties that I attended and that had been a huge mistake.
Kole had gotten drunk so fast that night, even though she had only had two drinks, three at the most. I had to watch her every second to make sure that some creeper didn't grab her and to make sure that she didn't end up hurting herself. When we had gotten back to my house (it had been one of the few times that I had let her stay the night at my place because I knew that there was no way that I could take her back to her house with her dad being there and all) she had thrown up and I had spent most of the time in the tub, which had been furnished with my comforter and a pillow for myself so that when I heard her retching I could go and help hold her hair.
"Me," Kole answered, and the woman smiled when she saw Kole's enthusiasm. She probably didn't get these sort of reactions every day.
"And who are you?" the snake woman asked, raising an eyebrow. "Do you have an appointment too?"
"I'm just the support system," I replied and then she just shrugged and directed us to the back of the store.
We got led into an white room with all sorts of pictures on the wall; they were probably used to distract the person that was getting something pierced from the fact that they were getting stabbed all in the name of beauty.
"Sit here," she instructed and Kole immeadlity got on the chair, which looked highly uncomfortable. "I'll be right back," she said ominously and she left Kole and I alone.
I was examining one of the posters, which showed the most becoming picture of a piercing that had become infected when I heard Kole breathe heavily, which meant that she was nervous as anything.
"You don't have to do this you know," I said casually, leaning on one of the counters. "I don't understand why you're getting it done anyway. Even Nark said it was stupid, and he always agrees with what you say." He agrees with you because he's in love with you,I think, but don't dare say. In fact Nark had been vehement against this whole thing and had refused to accompany us.
Not that I was complaining. Now if only Kole could make someway for him to go off to China or something and never come back. That would be ideal.
"Personally I don't care what Nark says. I'm doing it because I've always wanted one, and besides, I think that they look cute."
I just shake my head and continue looking at the diagram of how to clean out your naval just in case it gets infected. Oh dear. You have to put what where?
Snake Lady comes back bearing one of those guns and I can see the apprehension on Kole's face. She's having second thoughts about this. Well good. She should. I go over to her and silently hold out my hand so she can take it and squeeze if she needs to. This had been our deal from the very beginning.
For a minute I think about how excited Nark would be to be doing my job right now if he were here and I have to bite the inside of my cheek from laughing, because poor Kole won't get the joke, and I'm not about to explain it to her.
"Don't worry," Snake Lady begins after wiping Kole's belly button with some cleansing liquid. "This won't hurt a bit."
"Are you lying?" Kole manages to squeak out and she squeezes my hand, hard. I want to wrench it away from her- if she squeezes that hard when nothing is happening then what's it going to feel like when she gets a hole in her stomach?- but I know that if I do she'll just want to hold it again so I know that it's not even worth the effort.
Kole looks positively grey and it isn't exactly a color that suits her hair if you know what I'm saying. She swallows, hard, and when I raise my eyebrows at her she gives me a sickly smile and her eyes dart around. Oh dear. Second thoughts are never pleasant.
"Yeah," Snake Lady answers, and then she smiles, putting the piercing instrument next to Kole's stomach right before Kole passes out cold in the chair.
"Oh God. Kole. Kole!" I try to gently shake her but her eyelids just flutter and I can't believe that she actually just passed out because of this. Nothing even happened. I mean I had heard stories about people doing this sort of thing, but I didn't think that Kole would be the type to ever do that sort of thing. She has balls. But obviously they don't go as far as her own balls.
"I knew she was going to do that," Snake Lady says with a smirk. "She seemed like the type. Do you want to go and get yours done instead? I bet you wouldn't pass out."
I bet I wouldn't either. I don't scare easily. "I'd like to do that about as much as you'd like to have your tattoos pulled off one by one. When will she wake up?"
Snake Lady just raises her eyebrows at me. "In less than thirty seconds, I guarantee it."
Evidently this woman knows what she's talking about because sure enough Kole opens her eyes at least ten seconds later. "Urngh," Kole states elegantly.
"Are you okay?" Snake Lady asks. "Do you want to try again?"
Kole shakes her head quickly at that and when the tattoo woman asks if Kole would like some juice and granola I can't take it anymore and I have to walk outside to take a smoke.
But of course I don't have a lighter with me, just a box of cigarettes and not much else in the purse that I'm borrowing from Kole. I'll have to ask that worker guy that I had given such a good first impression to earlier today if he has one.
When I walk over to him he raised an eyebrow at me and I raised one back. "Do you have a lighter?" I asked, pulling out my pack of cigarettes. It wouldn't be that big of a deal to me if he wanted one exchange. The less cancer sticks that come in contact with my lips is all that much better for me, I guess, if I wanted to look at it that way.
He looks me up and down in that way that most guys do, you know, the creepy way. "Are you legal?" He's asking me in such a way that it's making me wish that I had just sucked it up and wore my dirty bra over here.
"Do you have a tattoo? Yes I'm legal. Now do you have a lighter or not?"
"I've got one." He pulls a silver car shaped one from out of his pocket. "Do you have a boyfriend?" I give him his lighter back to him before I reply, just to make sure that I don't piss him off badly enough for him to take it away from me.
I take a nice long drag, just like always. "Do you have a wife?" I ask before walking away, knowing that what I just said and insinuated wasn't very nice. It wasn't nice at all.
But when have I ever said that I was a nice girl?
Fact of Life: Nice people don't go anywhere or get anything in this charming game we call Life.
Besides, don't they know that I'm not blind? I could see that gold glint on his finger from a hundred yards away.
Kole comes out of the back room laughing at something that Snake Lady is saying and all of a sudden I just want to get the hell out of there. "Are you ready to go?" Kole asks when she sees me waiting by the door. Luckily I had finished my cigarette in five long and sweet drags before she had come along or else she would have given me hell for it.
"Yes. Let's just get out of here."
..O..
When we got to Kole's house after visiting the mall (I swear that place has more and more people in it every time we go) and we end up watching one of those totally unrealistic, and yet totally popular high-school movies. You know that ones, the ones that have the guy running after the girl and her being really dorky and all of a sudden it's magic and he falls in love with that said dorky girl that he didn't even know her name six weeks before.
It's always the same old story, regurgitated so many times that it even makes me want to throw up.
Fact of Life: The movies always have it wrong.
But Kole loves them, she could watch them over and over and over again. And I guess I could know why. She's just like those main character girls, you know the ones that don't think they're pretty but they're gorgeous, the ones that are really smart, and the ones that have the cute jock partially in love with her.
Except, wait, she doesn't even know that part.
If I was in one of those movies I'd be, using English teacher language here, the antagonist, the one that is designed specifically for the audience not to like. It's not a bad life.
It's not like I try very hard for people to like me anyway.
..O..
I arrive home at around ten thirty, even though I had tried to stay with Kole but she had brought my mother into it and I knew that there was no way that I could win that battle. They say that the ancient Romans often spent more time in the city walking the streets than they ever did at home.
I think I can understand that.
My mother way lying in wait and as soon as I opened the door she pounced.
"Hello dear," she started and I stood in the doorway warily. I wasn't aware that I had done something that was so horrible that she would learn about it, but if I did I was sure that it wouldn't be pretty.
"Hi mom," I replied, taking off my dirty shoes and holding them so that they wouldn't get mud all over the floor, which was something that my mother abhorred.
"Did you know that Garth and his family moved back a month earlier that they were supposed to? I guess that's a silly question, seeing as how you two are in the same grade at school and all, but your school is so big that you might not have seen him. Well, anyway Garth and his mother came and visited and he seemed like he was really anxious to see you again."
"Sounds great," I said, and for once Mom seemed to catch on to my sarcasm.
"Why do you sound like that? You two used to be best friends, you should be happy. Haven't you missed him while he was in Singapore?"
"Mom, last time I saw him I was ten years old. Things have changed since then. Just because you and his mother are still friends doesn't mean that he and I are."
"Honey you know he would have come that one time if he could have-"
"He could have, Mom. He really could have. His mother did, remember? And besides, I don't want to talk about this anymore. Goodnight."
Garth was becoming far more trouble for me than he was worth.
A/N: Is Tara starting to sound repetitive to you? Well this will be the last chapter that sounds like this, I promise! Next we'll really get to meet him, and I'm excited because Tara's world will get shaken up. Plus, who's wondering about 'that one time' that her mom mentioned, the one that Tara refuses to talk about? I'm not (obviously), but it's going to be interesting, promise! (Oh and if anyone knows Garth's comic canon mom's name is please tell me because I honestly have no idea and I kind of need it...)