Daria

Sunday, October 9th, 1983. 11:34 am

"Arwa," I say, moving all of Arwa's clutter away so I can have room for my arms, "When will Nico come?" My brother Nico is coming to visit us today. He'll be driving all the way from Edmonton. He's going to head back tomorrow for college even though it's going to be Thanksgiving, which is why he's coming now. He won't be able to have dinner with us tomorrow.

"It should be in the afternoon," Arwa says, writing down stuff. She's doing some book report for school. "Will you stop asking?"

"Fine," I say throwing my hands up. It's so boring, waiting for Nico. I just want to see him really badly. I miss him. I wish he didn't go to college in Edmonton. I wish he went to college here in Calgary. We'd still be fighting a lot, and I'd get grounded a lot by Dad, but at least he'd still be here.

"I'm going outside," I say, shutting the door so Arwa can focus. I'm walking to my bedroom, which is next to Arwa's. Arwa's bedroom is messy while mine is much cleaner. I'm kind of a clean freak.

After I finish changing into my gasoline jeans, I put on a Levi's and get out of the house. I'm going to Aly's house. We'll probably go to Humpty's for lunch, which is why I brought money with me. We're going to have to take the bus to Humpty's, then pay for the food there. I always like the food there. Sure, it's egg-based, and I usually don't like eggs, but with Humpty's, that doesn't matter.

Aly

12:00 pm

Daria and I were sitting on a bus, with a combined total of fifty bucks in our pockets. We were going to Humpty's, one of my favourite restaurants in the city. Daria was sitting next to the window, which she always liked for some weird reason, and I was beside her.

"My brother's coming to see me today," she said happily, with a smile that stretched from ear to ear. "He's gonna stay for the night and go back to Edmonton tomorrow."

"Lucky you," I said. "At least you get to see your brother."

I remember this feeling of disappointment and anger at not seeing Josh. I was angry with him for going to British Columbia just for college. Sure, he got accepted and wanted to go there, but it made me feel like he was saying, I don't give a fuck about you. I don't need you.

Looking back now, I guess every younger sibling who has an older sibling go to college feels anger and sadness at their older sibling for not being with them. I think Daria felt the same way about Nico. And then seeing what happened in Nico's second year of college made it worse. I'm always going to be thankful Josh didn't make that same choice Nico did.

It doesn't bear thinking about Nico's choices in his sophomore year of college. It truly doesn't.

Daria

1:35 pm

"The food is great," I say to the waitress. I give her a ten dollar bill and she smiles, with her eyes growing wider and her freckles becoming more prominent. She brushes back a lock of copper hair as she opens her mouth to speak.

"Thank you. I really appreciate that." She turns away as Aly and I stand out of our seats. We go up to the counter and get our change. Aly decides to tip the waitress off with five dollars, as always. We leave the restaurant as soon we take our peppermints.

"I can't wait to see Nico." I don't care if it's the umpteenth time I say that. I'm just too excited.

"Just shut your piehole about it, Dars," Aly says, folding her arms and looking down.

"Is there something wrong, Aly?" I ask, turning around. My red hair blows into my face and I brush it out. I should have worn a mesh hair tie today. At least I wouldn't have this problem.

"Yeah," she says. She looks up. Her eyes are red and her face has stains on it. Are those tears?

"Your brother gets to visit you," she says, sniffling. I immediately feel guilty about it. Aly's brother Josh is in Vancouver, and I've been talking about my brother Nico visiting while Josh wouldn't be able to fly on a plane to see her. I never thought about it the entire time I'd been talking.

"I'm sorry," I say, moving toward her. I reach out to her, but she refuses my hand.

"I'm okay," she says, which instantly tells me she's not. I know when people are lying. I know Aly's not okay. However, something tells me she doesn't want to talk about it right now. Maybe later we could talk about it.

"Let's go to the park," I suggest, so we can forget about college. "We'll go on the swings." Aly looks up and smiles. Her eyes are still red, but she seems willing.

"For sure!" she says at the top of her lungs. "When do we go?"

"What?" A voice comes from behind me. I turn around as I see a boy with shoulder length brown hair and a cardigan. He has acid washed jeans and scrunched socks on. I recognize him right away. It's Randall Cromarty. He's wearing a smile, and I don't like it.

"What do ya want, dickhead?" I spit. My hands are on my hips and I stare at Randall intensely.

"What do ya want, dickhead?" he mimics in a baby voice. God, I hate that son of a bitch.

"Kill yourself," I say, holding up my finger. Yeah. I just flipped the bird at Randall Cromarty. His jaw drops and his eyes grow wide.

"Fuck you," Aly adds , standing next to me.

"Ahem." A man with a long ponytail and a blue cardigan sweater walks up to us. He has blue eyes and brown hair, and he's six feet tall. His hands are on his hips and he's giving me a death stare. I feel my throat tighten with fear and my face grow hot with embarrassment.

Dad, of all people, has to catch me in an argument with Randall Cromarty.

"I'm sorry," I say quickly, looking at Randall. I silently pray that Dad will let me off the hook after this, but I know he won't actually do that.

"Sorry about what?" Oh boy. Dad is not happy about this. He's really pissed off.

"I'm sorry I told you to kill yourself and gave you the finger." Aly apologizes to Randall for flipping him off. I can feel Dad squeezing my arm tightly as he pulls me away from Aly. Good luck, she mouths as I look at her.

1:56 pm

"Please tell me you did not just tell that boy to kill himself." I can feel Dad glaring at me angrily. Man, I really, really wish I hadn't said that to Randall. He may be a barf bag, but that was a really dumb thing to do.

"I did." I'm still not looking at Dad, because I know if I look at him, it'll mean a very long lecture. Not that that matters.

"Look at me," Dad says, putting his hands on my shoulders. I look up at him. I can see the disappointment in his eyes as he breathes heavily on me. His hands fall off my shoulders as I close my eyes and look down. Dad lifts my chin up with a jerk and slaps me. Tears begin to slowly gather up in my eyes and I try to control them, even though when I cry, I can't.

"You-" Dad takes my chin again as I pant, waiting to see what he'll do next. I think he'll slap me again. I can see it in his eyes even though they seemed to have grown softer just by looking at me. Instead of slapping me, he grabs my arm and takes me to my bedroom. When we're there, he shuts the door and points to my bed. I sit down on the bed with my legs crossed and Dad sits next to me. He puts his hand on my shoulder and takes my chin.

"Listen, Daria," he says, speaking in Arabic, "what you did back there was seriously bad judgement. I don't know what that boy said to you, but you don't take insults like that. You can't just say those things to others and expect there to be no consequences. You may have just told a boy who could be suicidal to kill himself."

"But Dad-" I cry out, but Dad puts his finger on my lips.

"You're grounded," he says, standing up, "until I say you're not. I want you to think about what you said to that boy very carefully. You will never know if you're going to have someone you know and love kill themselves, Daria. You really don't know until it happens."

I watch Dad take some tissues and hand to me. Then he leaves the room and shuts the door. Still wiping tears from my eyes, I take the tissues and dab my eyes with them. I lie face down on my pillow and silently cry into it for Lord knows how long.

Why can't life be easy?

Let's just say the whole 'kill yourself' thing and Aly's commentary about Nico's choices in this chapter will become a lot harder to read about in the next story, 1984-1985. Other than that, feel free to review my story, and no flaming please.