"...and fitting then, that when words desert me - I can only call upon nature to ascribe my thoughts towards you. The waves of your hair like the oceans. The warmth of your breath like summer's breeze. The touch of your fingers like a Supernova. All explosive heat and electricity spreading its glory across the galaxies through time immortal-"
Anna wakes with a start. Her phone glows warm in her hand, chiming an alarm against the background of whatever chapter she fell asleep reading last night. Sunlight streams through a spiderweb of cracks on her window. Literal spiderwebs crisscross a Foo Fighters poster on her wall. The bedsheets smell like mothballs. She slips the hoodie over her slept-in crop of dishevelled red hair, and groans at the realisation of another day beginning. Worse still, the date on her phone mocks her when she squints at it. 15th September.
"Ohh boy not again-"
She plucks the Nirvana song from her earbuds and feels herself plummet back to reality. Before wiping the sleep from her eyes and getting dressed for school. Ripped jeans. Red hair plaited into pigtails. A black polo shirt she has to wear for her cafe job afterwards. Hidden under the least stinky hoodie she can find.
"Kids!" Gerda's voice shoots through their home, "You know what day it is!"
Anna fumbles through the kitchen cabinets, finding a half empty box of cereal and deliberately avoiding the expiry date at the bottom. Nothing left in the fridge besides stale mustard and KFC ketchup packets. Guess I'm gonna be rawdogging dry cereal for breakfast.
Gerda flies into the living room in a Dollar General uniform; the first of three uniforms she'll wear today. Her voice harsh and urgent like it always is this time of the month.
"C'mon guys, cough it up," Gerda demands, "Rent's due."
Crumpled fifties tumble from her mother's hands. A medley of twenties and tens from Anna and loose change join the pile. Ryder hikes into the living room, dropping a few more notes and helping himself to a fistful of dry cereal straight from Anna's bowl.
"Hey!" Anna squeals, punching him in the chest.
"Oh stop it," Gerda chides, before counting off the money. A hundred, two hundred. Anna fiddles with her shitty Android phone as she watches her mother count. The Greenday grenade sticker on her phone feeling like an actual grenade when she realises it's not enough.
"Damn! We're two hundred short!"
Immediately, she turns to Ryder, who holds up his hands in defence.
"Two more lawns after school, and Richardson hasn't paid me for that painting job," Ryder explains, "fall is here, I should be able to make some from raking but I don't know if it's going to be enough."
Gerda's eyes fall on Anna.
"I don't get paid until the 26th, you know that," Anna mumbles through a mouthful of cereal, "Two more babysitting days coming up but t-that won't be enough."
Both teenagers look down at the threadbare carpeting in their home when Gerda slaps her own forehead. Anna forces herself to swallow the cereal, tasting like pencil shavings. Maybe I should've checked.
"God, we're in deep shit," Gerda bemoans, "you're gonna make me go back to being a stripper and you know they won't pay an old hag like me."
Ryder scoffs, "Anna could be a stripper - just lie about her age and send her-"
"What? You perv-"
"I'd pay to see that," Ryder sneers, "like a dollar at most."
Anna hurls the empty cereal box at his head, sending him lurching out the rickety front door. She turns back and frowns at her mother staring at the pile of notes in her hands. A voluminous crumple of green but somehow still not enough.
"We better start packing our things in case we really get evicted," Gerda complains.
That chain around Anna's heart winds tighter with each passing moment she looks at her mother's crestfallen features.
"C'mon, mom - don't stress over this," Anna rises and pulls her mother in for a hug, "we'll make it through, we always have."
Hugs and kisses never pay the bills, she recalls, but when Gerda hugs her back, Anna feels like she means it.
"Oh, I don't know what I'll do without you," Gerda pats her daughter's back, "Now get outta here and make me proud."
"I already have!" Anna sniggers back, pointing at the money and walking backwards to the door, "or do I really have to be a stripper like you?"
She dodges the box before it hits her on the way out.
The bike ride to school should take thirty minutes, but Anna makes a couple of stops first. One at the Salvation army thrift bin. Another at a bakery notorious for throwing out perfectly fine and tasty blueberry muffins. She leaves empty-handed from both. Only slowing down when she comes across a shot-up liquor store. Shattered glass strewn everywhere and cops still inspecting the ghastly-white body bags.
"Fuckin' gangbangers," Anna mutters under her breath.
Anna double padlocks her bike to the Clemson High school sign; marred by a rainbow of graffiti and pigeon poop. A medley of hiphop music and cigarette smoke wafts through the mild morning air. She clutches her bag tighter to herself as she jogs across the carpark and through the main entrance; still sporting a craggy hole after someone hurled a brick through it. Her pockets are empty. There's nothing left on her but a notebook and pencil-shaving cereal not sitting well in her stomach. But the school security searches her anyway. Out of the corner of her eye, some kid starts a ruckus with the guards about drugs or some shit, but they're out of earshot once he gets arrested. Instead, a piecemeal smattering of conversations amongst the senior students filter through her earbuds as she makes her way to class.
"..fuck, don't even know if I can graduate man-"
"...I'm shipped off to the Marines after this, recruiter's got my number-"
"...si no me va bien me vuelvo a mexico-"
"College's only for the rich fucks man."
Anna pretends not to hear the last one as she retrieves her notes from a rusty, dented-in locker and plonks herself next to Belle for the first class of the day. The brunette promptly turns to Anna. Head on elbow. Pouts at her and says in a deadpan voice.
"I'm pregnant."
Anna whips an open-handed slap on Belle's tummy, "That didn't work the last time - I'm still not lending you any money."
"Ah, shoot, I was totally sure you were going to fall for it-"
"Look, you're not the only one with bills to pay," Anna bemoans, "my mother was this close to going through our pockets this morning."
"What if I really get pregnant one day? Would you lend me-"
Anna giggles, "Yea like, only if you name your kid after me. And I'm lending you enough to buy a pack of diapers."
"Oh you're no use! Looks like I gotta find myself a husband from West Ashley High then-"
A slew of vulgarities cuts her off as Mr Stevenson commences the Maths class. Anna finds it impossible to concentrate. With Belle dozing off from her night job and the punks fooling around behind. Worse still, she finds herself constantly thinking about Gerda at her day job. The worn-down sullenness in her eyes and the same ones she caught in the mirror this morning. She thinks and thinks. Wishing she could be a better daughter. Or least someone capable enough to get the fuck out of this ruthole. But no solution comes to her. Not in Math class or in Chem lab (hardly a lab if one considers the burnt-out exhaust hoods and mislabelled chemicals) or in Lit class. Which was pretty much a free-for-all despite Anna's love for Shakespeare's Tempest. She raises a hand to ask Ms Roberts a question, only to promptly get told to shove it and look it up online.
Anna obeys and shuts the fuck up until class is over.
There's still an hour left before Anna heads to work. Despite having learned nothing all day and feeling like she's not moving an inch towards graduating, Anna still slumps down on the metal steps behind school, like all the life had been drained out of her. And she still has two more jobs to get through.
She cups her forehead in her palm. Giving Belle the side-eye as though the brunette held the answer to her life's problems. Her wishes are granted when she spots a pack of Marlboros half-opened in her satchel.
"What the freak!" Anna half-screams, lunging for her bag, "You had that in there the entire time and didn't tell me?"
Belle holds Anna away with a palm, squishing red hair into her face, "Well somebody didn't want to help a pregnant woman out."
"You can't smoke while you're pregnant anyway."
To Anna's relief, Belle lights the only cigarette left within. She takes a drag before passing it to Anna, who promptly sucks in a deep breath of nicotine-laced smoke. Hoping it'd whisk her away from this place. They take turns smoking on the steps. Staring at the wind putting auburn waves in the trees. And a scuffle in the basketball court.
"Look at you," Belle sneers at Anna; slouched back, propped on her elbows, cigarette dangling from her fingertips, "you're a fucking bum."
"No," Anna disagrees, "I'm one of the cool kids now."
"You were always cool," Belle ruffles her hair.
"Too cool for school?"
"Not that cool, get over yourself."
Anna sniggers, stubbing out what's left of the cigarette. There's a faint buzz running through her head. And she wishes it's all it takes to wash away all the problems in her world. But she knows it's never enough.
"Where'd you get the cigarettes from anyway?"
Belle sighs, looking down at the steps, "Eugene's in town."
"Oh that prick?" Anna scoffs, "You should've told me! And what's he doing giving you cigarettes anyway? Isn't he with that chick from West Asshole High or something?"
"Look I don't-" Belle hesitates, "I don't even care anymore. Maybe he feels sorry for me. But he's having a party and told me to invite you."
Anna chortles, "Me? If he hits on me I'm going to start a fight and call the cops on him."
"No, no, everyone's going to be there. Rapunzel. Your brother. Probably gonna be more girls than guys, knowing him."
The thought floats through Anna's mind. She does need some time away from all this bullshit. And girls. And leeching off some asshole's booze.
Belle interrupts her daydream; knuckles rubbing on her pink cheeks, "Already thinking of it aren't you? You're a freaking open book, you know that?"
"I'm not!"
They turn at the clang of boots on the metal stairs behind them. A scowl scrawls across Mal's ghastly pale face. And an insult already hidden behind her maroon-tinted lips.
"Oh, would you get a room, you dykes?" Mal scoffs. Her Dr Martens' knock into Anna's forehead as she clambers over them.
The glowing peace in Anna's veins flashes to white-hot irritation beneath her skin. She snaps to her feet, staring Mal down at eye-level.
"The fuck did you call us?"
Mal lurches forward in a failed attempt to make Anna flinch, "Are you deaf? Or just a bimbo - you fucking Lesbo-"
"Shut the fuck up-" Anna snarls, shoving at the girl.
"Woah, woah, leave her," Belle chides, holding Anna back. Mal has already gotten off the steps, sticking out her tongue and flipping Anna off. The redhead returns the gesture through narrowed eyes.
Anna's eyes betray a livid fury as she stares after the goth chick with gritted teeth, "What is it with that bitch?"
"She called you out, that's why you're pissed."
"Not like you were spared-"
Belle waves off the comment, "Pfft, it means squat to me. Because I'm totally fucking straight, but you aren't."
Anna looks down at the steps and shakes her head. One more thing that doesn't put food on the table.
"I gotta get to work."
"Aw, so soon?" Belle drags Anna into a hug, swaying to the fall breeze, nicotine-lined breaths wafting in the space between them, "Good luck with the bills alright?"
"Oh yea, I'll need it-"
Anna doesn't find any luck with the bills at work. Only more endless monotony draining what's left of her soul as she busses tables and cleans countertops at a local cafe in the better part of town. It takes all the pleading in the world before the kitchen relents and gives her a leftover box of cold Pesto Fusilli. But guilt overcomes her when Gerda texts her back.
Don't worry about me - I'll figure something else for dinner. Too busy at work.
It's long after sundown when she returns to an unheated home. Mom's not back yet. Neither is Ryder. The only remnant of his presence being a few ten-dollar bills stuck onto that pathetic excuse of a refrigerator. She counts off the Hamiltons dangling from a Disneyland fridge magnet: ten, twenty, thirty. Still not enough. Still never enough. Despite everything she's put up with today - the meagre plastic box of cold, leftover pasta still mocks her like the rest of her godforsaken life. Like she doesn't deserve it. She doesn't deserve a mother like Gerda. A friend like Belle. A place to call home or a job or a future beyond this shitty neighbourhood.
She wrangles a few mouthfuls before her phone chimes with an email.
New Chapter on Fanfic - stars behind the night sky: Chapter 12
The spoon clatters in the tupperware. Her eyes light up, "Oh, about fucking time!"
Immediately, she leaves the pasta out for Gerda. Putting her hoodie back on and trotting outside. Eyes glued to the story; Anna mounts the wooden crate that takes her onto that hidden rooftop sanctuary. A place where none of life's worries could touch her. Where there's no concern about her job, or the month's rent, or what she's going to do after graduation, or if she graduates at all. All that matters are those five thousand words of escapism; two women who love each other more than anything life could throw at them. Anna plugs her earbuds as she reads and reads, waiting for Pearl Jam's music to pull her away into this Author's little imaginary world.
The fictional atmosphere envelopes her whole. Glowing warmth spreads through her chest despite the night breeze fluttering through her hair. She looks up at the stars and lets out a sigh. The lyrics loop in her ears, over and over again until her eyes water. Not from the wind, but from something else.
I know someday you'll have a beautiful life
I know you'll be a star In somebody else's sky
But why, why can't it be mine
"Thank you," Anna whispers towards the faceless author, as she thinks to herself. I really, really needed this today.
She wipes the tears from her eyes, and glances towards the hills. There's the rich, snotty neighbourhood across town. Big mansions and cars and families who never had to worry about their next meal. Amidst the glittering sea of lights, she spots a glow on a rooftop. The distance makes it hard to make out that nameless person's features apart from some blonde hair. But that's definitely a laptop's glow on her face. And all at once Anna imagines a story about her. That rich, privileged life behind luxury that's somehow not enough that she has to seek solitude beneath the great equaliser that is the night sky.
That's what we are, she thinks, dropping her phone and reclining against the mossy tiles, all distant souls sleeping under the same dark tent of stars.
Anna's lips curl into a smile. With the last of the chapter's words tucked into her memory, she allows the night breeze to caress her to sleep. And before long, she dreams of a life amongst the stars. Wrapped in an eternal, cosmic ballet with that single other glowing soul until the end of time.