Summary: What if Max and the Flock had never gotten "the talk"? What is the outcome of an adolescence without an adult and knowledge of societal norms?
Chapter Sixteen: Meeting Brigid Pt 1
I waited on line at the supermarket, Aisle 6, thats the line I always went on. There was a nice girl who'd always give me a discount. I had lifted all of the merchandise I'd picked out onto the black belt that moved everything forward, quietly waiting for the cashier to finish ringing up the old man standing in front of me.
The flight into town was a rough one, rain beating harshly down onto my back and the muscles beneath my thick, coarse, black wings. I couldn't fly above those cumulus clouds since I was riding on a negative slope, racing down the jagged edges of the mountain sides, to get into town. I walked into the supermarket sopping wet.
I got in around 5:30, tight on time. I had veered off on my flight, despite the fact that it was pouring, I flew past town and took a flight aimlessly wandering around the dark cloudy skies. I needed some time to myself, but it didn't help. I just kept thinking about Max.
So now it was too late, the library must already be closing by now, I thought as I waited on line. Couldn't do the most important thing I had come out here and meant to do today. I'd probably have to come back tomorrow to try and see if I can figure out whats up with this stuff. Max wouldn't be too happy about that. But its not her area to disapprove; after all, I was the one who took the initiative to check things out.
Max had a problem with that, butting in.
I looked down to the conveyor belt that was slowly inching forward. My hair was still slightly saturated from the rain outside, and the dark strands of my bangs fell in front of my eyes. I needed to get a haircut, I thought absentmindedly.
The droplets of rain on my windbreaker weren't as numerous as they were before, having evaporated away during the 40 or 50 good minutes I spent picking things out. There was loaves of bread, couple cartons of orange juice. Some deli meat that I'd ordered, I got a packet of briefs for Gazzy, a large lollipop for Angel. It had been on sale, and I knew that she'd immediately forgive me for the discussion this morning once she sees it; her large blue eyes would begin sparkling savory and then she'd just pounce on me with a big hug, just hanging off of my neck. I chuckled at the thought; I really lived for this flock.
I saw a nice shirt in the clothing department that Nudge would've liked too—it was purple and had a big rhinestone butterfly on its front—and picked it up; it had been cheap too.
If you were wondering why we bargain-shopped, its cause, well, we don't know where this money is coming from. We don't know if it'll run out someday, so its better to be on the safe side. Though I'm sure that if it were Max who was in charge of shopping, she'd go cheap to the extent of us living in a cardboard box chewing on motzah, on the reasoning of being farsighted.
At least I bothered to buy things casually, like a simple shirt for Nudge that she'd like despite that she doesn't actually need it, or a new car for Gazzy's toy collection.
Max definitely appreciated that, because had she been here, she wouldn't be able to do something like that herself, and we both knew it. Which is why it was altogether better for me to go into town. I could keep cool and levelheaded, stay safe and aware, rather than just be destructively paranoid.
I had gotten the hairspray that Iggy had asked for, but there were a bunch of choices on the shelves, so I was completely lost and simply picked one at random. I hoped it would work for him, but then changed my mind. We wouldn't want poor Gazzy's skin to stay purple forever, now would we?
There was a packet of t-shirts, generic white Hanes ones, sitting ontop of the conveyor belt too, for Max. They were size L, which was pretty ridiculous, considering they'd probably hang off of her. She wore a medium usually, and I got the feeling that no matter how large shirts she wore, it'd still be tight around the front and show those dots, and I couldn't honestly say that I cared if they did show. What I did care about was how she reacted when Iggy touched her chest.
But thats besides the point. There were also a few jars of strawberry jam, some 4x13x1 blocks of wood I'd picked up from the housewares department, a can of white paint, and a small bottle of bleach for the laundry.
Looking around boringly, I absentmindedly stared at the magazine rack adjacent to the cashier behind me. I casually picked one up and threw it onto the pile of stuff. Nudge seemed to like that sort of stuff.
I had been looking through the toasters in the kitchen appliances aisle, but couldn't find any that I liked. No, I just didn't care enough to pick one out. I didn't really want to lug one up tonight anyway. I'd have to come back tomorrow to go to the library anyway, I decided. I'd get one then. Iggy could delay his project for one afternoon.
Moving forward a few inches, the cashier began to ring my items up now. I had picked up a health magazine and began to read an article on how detrimental dieting was to maintaining muscle mass as I heard the beeps sound in front of me. My thoughts seemed to travel far away from me, and I was abruptly woken up to a start as the girl spoke to me.
"Hey?" she asked questioningly.
I looked up at her. She cocked her eyebrow up. It must've been the second or third time she'd spoken.
My head was sort of spinning right now anyway, I'd been thinking too hard during that drenching flight. The entire time I had been shopping, I'd just been throwing random shit into the cart. Looking down at the stuff piled on the conveyor belt in front of me, I realized how frivolous and careless I had been with picking stuff out.
You couldn't blame me, I just wasn't in the mood right then anyway. I didn't really want to do this, so you couldn't really help it.
I wasn't in the mood to do chores, although I'd never really considered grocery shopping a chore since it'd always been exciting, enthralling, something distinctly different for me when I went into town. It was, dare I say it, fun—which is why I wanted to bring Nudge. But with all this shit piling up and hitting the fan these past few days.. everything just felt inherently tiresome.
Just the same old routine over and over again, just with more crap piled on top. I knew how Max was feeling, I knew how shifty, moody, apprehensive, cold, distant, indecisive, I was acting. And I knew how I was being sort of a pain with my hot and cold attitudes toward her. But I couldn't help it, and it felt like it was just killing me inside, cause I was doing exactly what I didn't want to do to her.
Self-destructive, certainly. If only I had an ounce of negative feedback in me, to keep my emotions stable.
Yes, and contrary to popular belief, theres probably more of that shit in me than anyone else in this flock.
I've got too much space to think in, and sometimes it just sucks, to think and to know, and deal with things, mulling it over in your head constantly and so frequently, it just sucks. And though it may not seem so, I probably do have more conflicting emotions in my head than anyone else in that house. Except perhaps, maybe for Iggy, 'cause who knows what goes on in a blind kid's head?
When I had been walking through the aisles of the pharmaceuticals department, I'd noticed an ad for these things called dopamine. Things to control the hormones that gave you mood swings. Mentally, I had scoffed, Max would be tempted to buy me some, had it been so that she were there. I shook my head in retaliation. Suddenly I realized the cashier was still saying something to me, I lifted my head up to look up at her.
"Umm.. hey.." she said sort of nervously for the second or third time.
It was apparent on her face that she was beginning to doublethink opening her mouth beforehand; it looked like she was doubting herself entirely.
Or maybe she was nervous because of the quiet guy staring at her face so intently. Oh yeah, that was me. Bad habit, really, but I couldn't help it. It was easy to read people, and it was sort of fun in some sense. Especially out in.. in the world. There were so many different types of people.
Max was right in some sense though, cause you couldn't always help but feel.. just a little bit detached from it all. It was like looking in through a window at the world around you, something you weren't a part of, but simply observing, the way a hawk would observe it's intended prey before taking pity on it and flying away.
Nevertheless, I continued to look at her blankly. I mean, what else was I supposed to do? She wasn't saying anything. Tell me that that doesn't irritate you? I saw her eyes look down hesitantly, as if seriously embarrassed now.
Her long eyelashes seemed to brush against the bridges of her high cheekbones as she looked to the side, fiddling with the plastic bag in her hands. I cocked my eyebrow up lazily, irritatedly, my upper lip lifted up a few millimeters in a small grimace and my eyes glanced down at her. Sure, it was rude, I suppose, but she was wasting my time. And its not as if I ever cared for manners anyhow. I saw her neck twitch as she took a gulp.
"Oh come on, you must be kidding me!" The middle-aged asian woman standing next to me in line complained.
In my peripheral vision, I saw her pull her cart out of the aisle in frustration and move to the cashier behind me who had an empty line.
I looked up at the girl again, crossing my arms against my chest, waiting for her to freaking finish ringing my items up. I was not in the mood for this, I just wanted to get home and fucking sleep these thoughts off and out of my head. Come up with some sort of solution, soon, to get Max to stop worrying, to give us all a bit of peace.
I glared at her.
"So, um, I see you around here pretty often," she finally said.
She spoke carefully, her eyes open wide, large and doe-like. She was cautious, nearly intimidated by me. Hah, what a joke, I thought. But then I changed my mind; she should be scared of me, a sudden epiphany spoke, settling stones of guilt deep in my stomach where those butterflies should flutter.
My glare loosened up. There weren't any ill-intentions here. She was just a girl. There wasn't any use in being a bitch to her. Mentally, I groaned. I needed to get a fix.
One day, and I've managed to scare the shits out of two tiny kids, be completely useless to one of my best friends when he needed someone to talk to, cause I was too preoccupied with a girl I'm not supposed to be hopelessly infatuated with—the same girl I'm also making miserable with worry. And now I'm making some random person that I don't even know shit their pants in fear. What was freaking wrong with me?
I hesitantly took my jaw out of the tight angle it had been set in, my glare receding back into the recesses of my mind. She was now faced with a blank stare; and at least it wasn't awful. She started looking nervous again.
Absentmindedly, I wondered why she still hadn't bagged that thing sitting on the scanner that had been sitting on the scanner for the past two minutes. She kept fiddling with the plastic in her hands.
"So, you like, live around here or somethin'?" she asked, looking down this time.
She was shy now; her voice was quieter this time around. My gaze softened as I looked at her, because she was definitely feeling dumb right now. My neck tilt and bent to her eye level, my eyes trying to peek up at her through her straight, neat, deep auburn-red bangs that she was trying to cover her face with.
"Yeah, you could say that," I responded softly, casually. She looked up at me quickly, startled at the actual non-lack of response, if that made any sense.
Suddenly a large grin graced her face. It made me feel sort of good somewhere inside. At least I wasn't a total fuck up. I was trying, and it worked. I don't need to make everyone's life hopelessly dreadful. Hey, I thought to myself, maybe this was a new step. Hope filled me as I thought about how I might even be able to put smiles like that on Max's face soon.
I just.. I just, needed to try. Like I had tried right now. Its amazing how a few simple words can light someone up.. it was so easy, and for a second I felt disappointed in myself for being too stupid to bother trying usually. In some sense, it may just come off that I just don't care. But that wasn't true. I cared, a lot. Max and the flock, they were everything to me.
The girl looked up, smiling at me. I nearly willed myself to smile back.. Just try, Fang, I said to myself. I closed my eyes and opened them again in a blink, suddenly sending her a.. uh.. non-hostile gaze, I guess, if that made any sense either. She kept smiling at me, her cheeks started to get stained and she lowered her head slightly. In the back of my mind, I noted that she still hadn't bagged that carton of eggs that was yet still sitting on that stupid scanner. What was she, abnormal or something?
"What does that mean?" she asked, smiling at me.
There were light brown freckles spotted beneath her eyes on her high, high cheekbones, sitting on a creamy toned heart-shaped face. Her deep red auburn bangs neatly covered her high, round forehead, and the rest was messily tied back in a loose ponytail behind her head, bits and pieces of razor-sharp straight hair visible behind her. Her wide doe-like eyes stared at me expectantly, shining bright.
She was pretty. The dark navy button-down apron she was wearing, the customary uniform for cashiers, didn't detract from the irresistible appeal she had splayed on her face. I wondered why she was working here. She continued to stare expectantly. It began to throw me off balance, because I hadn't planned on gracing her with an answer. I had planned on ignoring her, but she obviously was not letting the question go. Either that, or she was simply too dense to notice my inherent disinterest in pursuing a conversation with her, especially in this subject matter.
But she was genuinely interested. And seemingly harmless. I wondered why. Nevertheless, Max would kill me for speaking so casually to a stranger about personal matters like this, so I decided to take the safe road.
"I live up in the skies," I said to her playfully, hoping to god that she'd really take it as a joke.
I had spoken slowly and carefully, leaning in towards her before I looked up to the ceiling of the gigantic mega-warehouse multi-department super-supermarket warehouse, bringing my index finger up between us, pointing up at the invisible sky hovering high above the black conveyor belt, still filled with merchandise she had yet to ring up. I hoped she'd let the question go.
This town was small. And I always went on her line cause she always gave me a discount--I dropped by every two weeks or so to pick things up. She'd've noticed something suspicious like that. Oh crap, I realized.
On auto-drive, my mind started running through a number of solutions. I could just pretend I live somewhere and tell her that if she asks anymore. Damn, what are the names of the streets around here? Crap. I go to boarding school? No, then why do they let me come back every two weeks? I get home-schooled. Yeah, that works. But who are my parents?
Shit, I was no good at this. The elaborate lies are what Iggy and Max can come up with, I usually just stay compliant in those situations. Ugh.
She leaned into me, over the scanner sitting on the counter in between us. Her face was dreadfully close to my own, but I didn't flinch. That was training from Jeb.. no matter what, never let your opponent see any weaknesses or any hint of surprise.
Was she suspecting something, or what? I was pretty sure the rain couldn't seep through my windbreakers to outline my wings. Did she work for the whitecoats, or the school? A thousand suspicions began to shuffle through my brain as she leaned closer and closer, her pretty hazel-green eyes and long dark eyelashes blinking up at me, getting closer and closer to my nose.
She looked up at me, and being considerably shorter, the angle made her eyes look huge and innocent. There were a few flecks of brown spotted in the cool, lush green of her irises. The green you'd see on an aged grasshopper or some prairie grass. It was pretty, she was definitely pretty pretty. I mentally groaned as I realized how dumb that thought had just been as it reverberated in my head.
"Oh, really...?" she said shallowly up to me. It was a divine, breathy whisper, and for some reason it made me gulp, my adam's apple bobbing up and down on my neck for a moment as I looked down on her.
The air having released from her fruity breath caressed the insides of my nostrils. Crap, she was still interrogating me on where I live. Couldn't she let it go? Since when were white coats this young? Maybe they were just paying her. She could just be a fucking eraser, but I didn't know, since when had they made the female versions?
It'd be easy to take her down, she was just one. Moving my eyes this way and that I looked around me. How many other people here could be erasers? Could I take them on? If anything though, I wouldn't be able to go back to the house in the mountains for a few weeks, even if I could beat them all. Just to stay on the safe side, I would have to leave a fake trail. On no circumstance would I lead them back to our flock and those small kids.
Man, that would worry Max though.. disappearing for such a long while. Just another fault to add to the list.. I've already got a good track record for reasons I suck, whats one more? What was really began to hurt me though, was the thought that at some point Max would start seeing me as Jeb.. afterall, Jeb had just left and never come back.
No, I'd figure something out. No way would Max ever start to see Jeb in me.. I wouldn't be gone for that long if I needed to flee.
I didn't answer her, didn't move an inch from her, her face still in close proximity, looking up at me from that petite height that she was at, her eyes large and unwavering. Big and honest.
"So whats your name?" she asked quietly, in that same close distance, it was quiet yet coarse, something suggestive hidden in between the breathy words. I looked down at her, my eyes half lidded as I assessed her pretty face and her shiny, straight, strawberry hair. Her arms were bent straight, leaning on the conveyor belt, her palms supporting her weight as she leaned forward, towards me.
She had let that last question go.. but I guess telling her my name couldn't hurt all too much. After all, what would she be able to get from that? Its not as if The School had known me by the name Fang. They called me a series of numbers. There were a bunch of numbers, and I had once absentmindedly wondered if all those numbers before me, in the thousands digits, were all just failed versions of I was just a walking abortion.
"Its Fang," I said gruffly, my voice low, still looking down at her. I was looking deep into those eyes, trying to figure out how fake they were. They definitely couldn't make an eraser this realistic, could they? Technology these days..
She looked surprised. But I wasn't surprised at her reaction. From my experience, I've learned that its not exactly orthodox to give names like that to children. Oh well. We're beyond our time. But her unexpected expression quickly turned into a cheeky grin, her large eyes crinkling up cutely as they looked up at me.
"Thats cool.." she said succintly, blowing a breath of soft, inviting, fruity air into my face, causing me to blink. She leaned back, yet kept her palms on the conveyor belt casually sitting there. "..its hot." she said with a mischievous grin on her mouth and an endearing smile in her eyes. I nearly grinned myself, cause her grin was pretty contagious. She still hadn't rung up that item that had been sitting there for a good while now, but for some reason, I didn't care anymore.
I had noticed the two first buttons of her apron had snapped open. I couldn't help but notice a shadow sinking down into her cute, petite body, leaning into a sliver of a dark line in between two forms on either sides that caught the light of the ceiling. I looked back up to her face to see that she had been watching me look at her chest. I wasn't sure why I felt so embarrassed. The look on her face made me feel like I had done something.. mischievous, but like she was amused by it. I looked away from her, glancing to the side. I heard her breath in deeply, about to say something, but I ignored it. I heard a beep resound somewhere to my right, in front of me. She was finally continuing to finish scanning those things. About time... I.. supposed.. Though I didn't really mind, towards the end.
I felt eyes at me. Quickly jotting my pupils back to look at her above a magazine I was pretending to be perusing through, I saw her absentmindedly placing things onto the scanner, but her full attention focused on staring at me. What a weird human girl.
"So, uh.. what school do ya go to? Is your real name really Fang?" There were only two or three things left on the conveyor belt, but she had stopped regardless. Uhh, why?
I considered completely ignoring her questions, or maybe just politely telling her to please finish my checkout. Maybe I'd pretend just not to hear her until she got the message. But that idea sort of went down the drain as my pupils were dragged up from the text of magazine to her expectant face.
She was standing there, with one hand placed over the other, clenching it, ontop of the black conveyor belt. Standing up straight and connecting her hands on top of the counter at waist-level brought her shoulders together and it made her look small, weak, and vulnerable. It also, I noticed, consequently brought her bosom out. Uh, and I meant, out.
My eyes slid down again, and I'd no clue why, but I really wanted to see.
No, I did know why. I was curious about Max too, but I'd never been so.. so.. tempted.
I'd been drawn to Max's chest, but not the way I couldn't help but stare at this girls'. What was her name, anyway? I'd never seen Max's chest the way I was getting a glimpse of this girls'. I'd seen all of Max, I'd always been curious about the large lumps on woman even as a child, which is why I wanted to see Max's. But this girl.. she was showing me half and hiding the rest.
I couldn't stand it, I wanted to see what was hidden beneath that. The open gate of her unbuttoned apron cast a sweet, sweet shadow over it all, showing hints of everything.. but just hints. She leaned forward again, her arms still against her breasts, clasping her knuckles on the conveyor belt, the cleavage more pushed out, more defined. She watched me stare at her, it was like she was enticing me. I didn't respond to her.
"Oh, silly me, I'm Brigid," she said after a moment, after I hadn't said anything.
She brought one of her hands up from sitting on the conveyor belt to her face. Light giggles escaped her mouth. She laughed over how careless she had been, looking quite embarrassed for not having told me sooner. Nearly as if she had considered herself to be rude. It must be a tiresome thing to always watch out for being ill-mannered, I thought to myself.
I watched the breast sitting on the side of her bent elbow move up on her chest with the impact as she brought her hand up, creating a circularly propelled mound on her chest, a bit higher next to her other one. I looked up to see her hand half covering her mouth, trying to hide a blush. So her name was Briget. I looked at her for a moment longer, and had honestly no clue what was sitting in my eyes.
I felt claustrophobic, disoriented, the wafting headache flowing in and out, confused, a little bit agitated at this cashier, and altogether combined, I didn't know what I was feeling or what was going through my head. I nodded in acknowledgment. For some reason this caused her to blush harder and shy away beneath her hand.
I kept staring at her, the stains on her cheeks rising up, but they suddenly paled as her eyes grew wide and she broke contact with me to notice something behind me. I looked behind me as well, only to see a thin middle-aged man with a small gut sticking over his brown belt. They matched his brown shoes.
He was wearing a light blue checkered button down shirt and a tie with the name tag "Dwyer" on his breastpocket that was holding several pens and a miniature clipboard. He walked towards us with his eyebrows furrowed on an epically stoic face. The lines on his forehead looked like they were etched onto his face and were there permanently. It must be tiresome to put on such a dumb, angry, authoritative face 24/7, I thought.
"Brigid, button up your uniform." he said authoritatively, stopping at the end of the aisle for a moment to speak to her. She looked indignant.
"Dad!" she called up to him, hurriedly bringing her hands up to snap the two buttons closed. I looked down, someone living somewhere in the back of my mind was sad about that. But a part of me was amazed. What treasures just two buttons could reveal hidden beneath that.. I thought. The man, presumably her father, nodded stiffly and then walked away, a large clipboard in his hand with multi-colored sheets of paper jammed into it at his side.
So thats why she worked here. Rolling her eyes irritatingly at me, she sighed loudly and exaggeratedly. It was unlike how Max rolled her eyes though. Her eyes seemed to go around quickly, almost.. trivially.
"Ugh, you know, dads and all," she said to me, smiling sweetly, but with slight annoyance written in her eyes. "You gotta love'em, but they're too much sometimes, you gotta grow, right?" She continued.
Somehow the end of that sentence turned into something different entirely, quickly, drastically. The undertones came flying at me from all directions, but I had no clue what she meant or what she wanted from me. I nodded in minuscule proportions. Feeling rather awkward, sort of lost right now, I gave the last two items left on the conveyor belt a significant glance. She looked down to look at what I was looking at and a genuinely embarrassed look graced her face.
"Oh gosh, I'm so sorry.. we just got off track didn't we?" she exclaimed as she hurriedly scanned the last two remaining items and bagged them, placing them at the end of the aisle with the rest of my items.
I shrugged the shopping cart off to the side and gathered all the bags in my two hands. I could feel her eyes watching me.
"Hey, are you sure you can carry all that?" I glanced up at her condescendingly. With an easy flex, I lifted the large entire lot of plastic bags off of the counter. I watched her gawk. A primal instinct somewhere inside of me caused pride to swell up within me.
"Wow, you're strong," she said, looking up at me. She blinked cutely, her face blank and earnest. A strange feeling came over me. My felt felt hot, and I didn't want to look her in the face exactly. I'm sure that if I were to open my mouth and say something right now, my voice would crack, so I opted to stay silent. Yes, I know, big surprise. I awkwardly made a gesture with my head, bending my neck to the side, my hands being full, meant to portray both a farewell and a thanks, I guess..
I walked through to the entrance/exit of the supermarket quickly and swiftly, vaguely wondering what had just happened here.
Eh thanks for all the support =)
The chapter got too long, so I split it into two. You guys are not going to like the next one. Meh. =.=
I'm going overseas this summer, and although I'm bringing my laptop and my netbook with me (so I'll be able to write), I dunno if I'll be able to get internet access frequently. Yeah.. so you guys should review so that I can post up as many chapters as possible before I leave.
Please review. Sorry this chapter was sort of boring, but its actually just the first half of two parts.
and psst. you guys may have gotten the wrong idea from fang's thought in the beginning of the chapter, but he will still be going to the library eventually.