8.29.2024 | [4,579]

Hope you enjoy!

:)

pigeon / wrecker

JAYWALKER

[noun] ; a pedestrian who crosses a street in a careless and/or illegal manner as to be endangered by traffic.

(then the offbeat days began to set in. they were unassuming.)

My room is the darkest it's been in a while. The blinds are shut. It's a mess. And I'm across my bed about where I plopped myself after dinner. Which was yesterday.

A low, but truth be told, I think I'm entitled to this one.

So I'm in my room, and it's dark, wondering if I should…maybe switch on a light to do some laundry at least. Or put away the bowl I've got on my desk. From dinner. Because I ate cereal, alone, and not the pesto salmon Mom made. Or, well, cooked. She can't make salmon, just as much as she can't put a full smile on my dad's face anymore.

…the lights are staying off. I can hear the TV bleeding through the door. Trina's downstairs. I don't know where Dad and Mom are.

I fluff my makeshift pillow—sweatpants, the ones I was wearing—and sink my face into them, hope I'm not doing that in the wrong part, before tugging an old quilt across myself. My bed's at its worst. I think the pillows are knocked over, or they're wedged between the mattress and wall. The blankets and everything are not at all aligned, so I can officially testify that this is what happens when you feel yourself begin to split at the seams, your world has caved-in, and it's not over because your home's about to.

Oh, all of that, but also when the fitted sheet decides to not do that—fit—, and instead lunges for your face. My fingertips drawl across the blade I used to tailor some adjustments, so it does fit now, there's just a gaping hole.

I'll probably have to return the scissors. Or maybe I'll just keep them. I don't know.

There's a gnawing in my chest, and I'm twisting again. My nose catches a bite of musk. Gross.

It still manages to remind me of her. Somehow. I don't really know how.

. .

Light cascades, not far from my head. It's blinding, but the chime with it is worse. I roll over and swipe for my phone. The heel of my hand is lazy in my eye while I'm skimming the screen, before I'm reading it, and before the phone is practically flung across the mattress.

My head swims with sleep. There's the static in my leg from how I was just sprawled for the past hour. Doesn't matter, though. I'm still wrestling with my damn jeans before deciding the sweatpants are clean after all—enough to go with my jacket. Grey on some other grey. Not my best. But again, it doesn't matter.

I can only manage so much with these clammy hands and this belting heart of mine.

Trina's birthweek the year I enrolled into Hollywood Arts was…a lot, to say the least. I mean, it is every year, but that one in particular really took a handful off my life. Or off of Trina's if I remember when I'm old and wrinkly, we're in our homes, and I decide it's enough to wring her neck, or throw a chair. Maybe an urn—the one I'll shove her into.

The stress started a month before the week. My free time was intermittently full of me, on my computer, perusing any store I could find that my allowance would allow. And if I really couldn't help it, some of the money I had stockpiled from a summer job at the pier.

The anxiety crept in when I started to not care about that stockpile, because everything that was on sale, and perfect for her, was back to twisting my arm so I would twist my wallet.

That had been the week before. And so the week of, there was the fear. I really didn't want to give Trina another thing to hold over my head. She'd find that other thing the next month anyway, she always does, but failing her birthweek is a sin I'm still not ready to commit.

So I wound up spending a lunch, with everyone else—even Jade—huddled around the table trying to whisk some ideas from the air. Because it's Hollywood. In the secondhand smoke wafting through the Asphalt Café—from every corner a student could manage, and did—, there had to be something to gleam from. Right? Or did I have to find the real sketchy corner behind the school and pop a pill?

And I'm not talking aspirin.

"Well, for my last birthday, I thought my parents were gonna give me a bike, but when I got home from school, my brother was trying to cut off his hair, so my mom started yelling—"

"Jade."

She pinched the fry she was castrating with her scissors and glared over. "Yeah?"

"What should I get Trina?"

A pause. One nod. "Talent."

If only.

At least she gave something, though, despite Sinjin's lurking, or fawning, or a weird Frankenstein of the two. At least, beforeshe began to count down.

He scampered off. She stayed.

"You people give me a rash."

…never mind. Because that was the only something she was going to offer me. Jade was walking away, so far away, to leave me with cheese and lotion scratched out on André's list. And Robbie with his grandma berating him over the phone. And Cat…with her anecdote about juice and old people shaking.

Sometimes I missed Sherwood. My friends there were not…fun, sure, and a little homophobic, but I never had a girl stare at me for an answer to the worst question:

"So like, trees have these rings that reveal their age, right? Right?

"What if we had wrinkles in our bones?"

. .

"…Tori, what's wrong?!"

"I just caught Jade's rash."

"That sounds gross."

. .

I found the perfect gift. It took ditching a class, catching the bus, and eleven stores. My allowance was depleted, and my stockpile was marginally wazzed, but I did. I found her stupid boots. I even smacked André over the head because of it.

…and Trina just had to go and get them herself. From a sale. At Simone's. Which I did not know about, and I could've left my stockpile alone.

I let her shrieking fester for a moment, to just bite right where it hurt. Because I felt it then, this itch to do something I really wasn't supposed to. Something that'd be a lapse in character, and Trina's true colors would be a prettier mess than mine.

André leaned back in his seat, looked at me, and said the obvious: "You're gonna have to come up with another presen—"

"I know that."

He suggested cheese again. I almost chucked the parmesan block we had leftover.

André tried again, and this time around, he leaned into his sentimentality: "How about a song?"

. .

"You could write it, perform it yourself. Y'know, do it up real big."

. .

In the moment, it felt like the sun broke through the clouds, burned my eyes, and I couldn't have been any happier. The burning was the fact I couldn't write lyrics for shit.

At least he had two thumbs, and was the friend that could help write a song.

Which by help, we both knew that meant he'd do it, I'd just be there to drop him the ideas to sew together.

. .

It was great. We ducked our heads down, managed to rope my parents into it, and then hired the starved band in need of any performance at all. Like, anything. At all. Our offer went by so fast we collectively forgot to talk money.

Which was awesome until the drummer opened his mouth.

André glanced at the boots stashed beside my bed and took care of it. Said to just get ready and put on the most intense dress he'd ever see me wear. It wouldn't be, but it is still way up there. Zebra print, roses, and all.

So I did. And for those few minutes, I forgot a lot more than money. Like how legit insane Trina is, the narcissism. Our parents, and the…rift starting to fray. The one that would start to split at odd moments, and Trina would flare, and I would sink miserably back into my room.

It—

Yeah. It was…nice. The house felt like something better, for a few minutes.

. .

"So where's my present?"

. .

Just to come crashing down. Because no, I couldn't just scrub away the worst parts of Trina with one stupid song.

. .

"Are you kidding me?!"

"No! Where's my birthweek present?"

. .

We stood in the kitchen. The rest were left out in the rain.

Trina is one of very, very few people who can nick this side of me, and force my hand around her neck. Figuratively, for the most part.

Every time this fight happens, where I'm just the little sister trying too hard, and she's the oldest who's weathered the most of our parenting, and it definitely shows, I'm caught in this livewire. She's taken too many bullets for me. It's done something. I watched it happen. All the times I did something, and she took the blame, or we did it together, and she took the blame, again… It did a lot. Because I am still the younger sister, and that's all I'll ever be in that house. And yet I forget. I forget she is not right in the head. I forget Trina doesn't understand things that are fleeting, because she needs them solid, in her hands. Otherwise, they're just in her head as only a memory, and I don't really believe her head is as sound as she says it is, or as comforting.

That, and she needs something to prove another thing.

Trina needs to be able to wave it in everyone's face, scream that it's hers and hers alone, and only she can decide to share. Nobody else.

. .

"How much did it cost…?"

"I didn't cost money!"

"Then it's not a present."

. .

I knew that.

I wasn't surprised. This was a script I've read so, so many times, rehearsed in my head before fights happen, but I still forget my lines. Often. Because this home wasn't what it was. Trina was the first to feel the cracks deep in the foundation, and she fell into one. Hit her head. A lot.

And I can't pull her out. Never could. I knew how to hide in another, and avoid Mom and Dad whenever they were around. Then try to string together the pieces whenever they leave, but I'm not that artistic. I'm not André; I can't hear the music between my ears—it's never born there. I'm not Cat, with an explosive vision of color that I can stroke across a page, or like Jade, and twist words into a violent story. I'm not. I can't do that.

I just… I really, really fucking wish Trina would learn how to wear a song, eat a song, and flaunt it to make anyone jealous if it would just mean she'd accept something because I was trying. Really hard. To be more than just a set of vocal cords.

. .

I should've gone with the massage helmet. Or a whole damn wheel of cheese.

Instead of this, where I was fuming, and just about another retort away from tackling Trina onto the ground. In the middle of her birthweek.

So yeah. She could have her stupid flashdrive—all its eight gigs. And let in everyone I left out in the rain herself.

I was done.

. .

"Hey Tori… Hey Tori's friend."

"Yeah, I'm not really her friend."

. .

Until I wasn't done, apparently, and still wasn't Jade's friend, because Trina sold the song, bought herself the stupidest hat that could sit over her face, I was walking away with a (literal) garbage coffee, and—

Oh, yeah. Trina sold the song.

She found a way to turn a memory into a hat and a great opportunity. Something to flaunt—with a voice that wasn't her own, it was mine.

I let her drink the (literal) garbage coffee. It soothed the itch for a little while.

. .

I got stranded at school. Couldn't drive. Parents forgot. And Trina… Yeah.

Half an hour later of me deliberating if I should just bite the bullet and walk, I found Jade. She didn't look up to see me, and yet she paused anyway; I had a feeling her glare crossed the floor. She knew me by shadow. Jade didn't bother, though. She kept shredding a textbook. So I meandered a bit, then mumbled, "…whatcha doin'?"

Jade paused again. She glared up my leg, then my shirt. "My extra…curricular…"

Well, no. It was for Theatre History. Not exactly an extracurricular here.

"Um. Cutting up a—"

"What do you want?!"

There was less snark in her words, more acid. I frowned. Gave her some meek shrug. "Nothing… Just strollin' around, y'know."

Her face tweaked, because no, she did not. Jade strained her jaw. "Why?" she asked. Grunted. It was more of a grunt.

I decided that Jade would be better company than a home alone, or a set of parents surprised to find me trudging through the door. "I'm waiting for my parents." Maybe. Probably not.

Her hand rocked, and the hallway light darted off both blades. "Why not Trina?"

"She sold my song." I eased myself beside her, and it said a lot, the fact that she didn't sink her scissors deep in my thigh right then and there. "And she's recording it. As we speak."

If some retort about a failed present bubbled in her mouth, she didn't show it. I wasn't really sure if I wouldn't have appreciated it. A cutting remark could've done the same as easing the puss from a boil. I don't know.

I listened to her destroy school property—hers, if she did buy the book—, and I found a rhythm to it almost. Nothing lyrical. More combative, with conviction, like she was holding the textbook on trial.

"Enjoy that coffee?"

My eyes opened. I barely had the mind to stay awake, apparently. But, I glanced over. Jade was still fixed on the most articulate monstrosity sitting in her lap.

I grinned. "Trina did."

Jade paused again, for a third time. Her eyes snapped to me, and her brows creased again. I didn't know it then, but it was the face of Jade slipping. She wanted to do a thing, say another, except she wouldn't, because her eyes caught on mine, so she really just couldn't…

She cut through the paper, kept her eyes caught, before skimming through the chapters she just massacred.

"I got a B minus." Her words oozed the acid. "For my paper… And then bombed the fucking presentation."

I watched the textbook as she began to tease into its spine. Or what was left of it, at least.

"Oh… Theatre History?"

She didn't nod or shake her head. Just fished through the scrap and pulled out the remains of the essay. Which was in better shape than I expected. It wasn't shredded, just…stabbed. A lot. And torn halfway through. I took it quietly, Jade went back to the broken spine, and I read all there was.

B-

This is disturbed, Jade.
Keep your reports friendly to
an audience.

Ouch. The class was known for being a pain in the ass, especially for any student who was a little interested in anything not studio-friendly. Which is Jade to a T. She doesn't fit in the squeaky clean crowd. The ones with the unnerving white smiles and all. She belongs with the niche films you weren't supposed to watch as a kid, but you did anyway, and it scarred you, tucked itself tight in your nightmares, only for it to have made that bed someplace you didn't think you wanted, but it did. Right in your heart. A little home. So you return. Again, and again, and again. Because I can't get enough her. She's anchored deep. Doesn't want to leave. I don't want to leave. Jade—

Ah. Right. Okay.

Jade didn't do what the teacher wanted. Until it sabotaged her grade. Then there was a problem.

Which was stupid, because she did a good job. Great, even. Better than mine. So I found myself halfway down the page without meaning to. The teacher could suck chalk.

"Quit reading it."

"But it's good."

Jade stared at me like there was a lie to find. "I'm serious. Sure it's dark, but…" But she didn't find any. There wasn't any. And searching her eyes for the reason why, to a question I barely registered, I found green, and grey and blue. A heavy rain over grass acres. Her color was the green. For envy, and youth, and bite, and pride…

"They're nice…"

Her studded brow quirked.

…ah. Right. Okay. I panicked, just a little bit. "It's nice— Good. Written well." Laughed somewhat. I think. I might've choked. "God, I didn't think I lost so much sleep lately." Might've really, really panicked, actually. Like died a little inside, and I was choking on my soul as it packed its bags.

Jade set the paper aside. Her eyes crept away. The scissors were slow.

"…should've drank my coffee."

. .

For the life of me, I still don't know why she stayed for as long as she did—with me, after school. We weren't friends. There wasn't sex, I didn't learn yet how she'd kiss me— I mean, come on. My phone rarely sat faceplanted back then. There wasn't anything. A whole lot of nothing, actually. There were the comments and things, sure, but some days we didn't really talk still. But here, it was like we were tipping over the cusp of something, looking towards what would be, only to teeter then like that for a while.

"Are you the reason why they still have that stocked in the vending machine?"

Except for that night; we did more than just teeter, because I stayed, my parents forgot, Trina was… Yeah. And then there was Jade, who stayed too, because I don't know. She felt like a little bullying would cheer me up, in exchange for whenever she'd humor me. Like a simple, little walk over to the vending machines—the outside ones, with the snacks.

Jade had hers in one hand, with the other stretched for me. Her fingers curled, and she glared for the money. Again. "Youdragged us over here," she said.

"Oh, right." I didn't really think too much about it. I did have the wallet, and I did practically drag her over, so I handed over the money, and— Oh. "I'll— Wait, no, Jade." She spent the money. Didn't ask me what I wanted. "I… O-O…kay. Then."

In my hands, a Big Debra's oatmeal creme pie. "Um." I never realized how…sad they looked outside the box. And also what plummeting inside a machine did to the cookie part.

"What…? You don't want it?" Jade pressed. Her grin dug deep, enough to really skewer me if I looked at it wrong.

"Uh… No?"

"I'll have it."

…and that's how she got two creme pies, while I ended up with a warm wad of money in my pocket.

. .

We sat, together, at the edge of the catwalk. In the Blackbox Theater. Seemed fitting, I guess. Jade was leaned so casually against the handrails; I felt like I was in a cell, watching her eat the second pie. Like, okay, I get it. That had been a punishment for insulting her snack, but seriously. I was hungrier watching her than I would've been walking the few miles back home.

"…can I—?"

"No."

And Jade knew it. I so had it written all over my face.

Her brow arched, and she flecked her eyes to my pants. "You still have money, don't you?" she asked, way too pleased with herself than she had the right to. "A whole five bucks?"

I stuffed my fist into a pocket and ripped out the wad of money. It wasn't warm anymore. Still had the gum she spat in it. "What am I supposed to do with this?!"

Jade swallowed. "It's money."

Not to the stingiest fucking vending machine out there. And I opened my mouth to retort that, or to give her anything, only for my phone to fiddle my other pocket. Maybe it was the ring, or the hour, I don't know. But I had a feeling this was Trina.

I was right. I pulled open the texts (several; there were several, and she was still typing), felt a smile grow, all with Jade hovered over my shoulder.

"Vega—"

"Shut up."

My eyes were sprinting across every line Trina was splurging on her keypad. I glanced at Jade. Felt my grip land on her shoulder, forearm—somewhere. "It's Trina… She wants me to record the song!"

Every so often, the messes that bite Trina right where sun will never shine give me some slack. I just never thought it would happen during her birthweek.

"For what record?"

Jade sounded…faint. Like the fun was over, yet there was a greater beast beneath that. A beast I don't like. Have never liked. And I went and found it that night.

"Uh…" I frowned. Thought through the day. "Devilusion?" As in the Devil or delusion, I didn't really know. Hardly cared. It was a place that made music, and I did that too, kinda. Whenever I had André around. But there was Jade, and gone was whatever trace of her I found that night—the better side of her. She was cold. In her eyes lurked green, in the name of envy. "What?"

Her mouth twisted. Jade shook her head, snatched her bag, and dropped the pie—the last half—at my hip. "They're known for flaking out on people for bigger fish." She didn't mean it as a warning. It was a fact. A tidbit. The kind of thing a bitter tour guide would say about the Hollywood Sign.

I brushed her off, shoved aside her leftovers, and began to follow her down the catwalk. "Still, it's something at least— Where are you going?"

"Not your taxi."

There was conviction. Like I was the one suddenly on trial, without a good reason why. I watched her, though, as she left me behind. Jade never looked back.

By the time André rolled around the corner in his grandma's cruiser, I had a half-eaten pie wedged in my mouth, and the remains of a gummy dollar stuck down my leg. He didn't ask. If anything, I looked more sane than how he left his grandma—on her couch, hurling her socks at the TV.

. .

"Is it a thing, or what?"

"What?"

"Your parents forgetting you."

"Oh. I… I guess so."

. .

"It's easy to. I don't know."

Her eyes…pierced me, more than the scissors ever could.

"…so, snacks?"

. .

And then they rolled like they were about to score all ten pins.

So. Nice going, Tori.

. .

For a few minutes, I forgot about a lot. It was just me in the booth, André beside the two agents, or whoever they were—the record people, I dunno—, and Trina sulking in the corner, tapping her foot offbeat. Those pants were still ruined; never could wash the gum out. Trina was still my sister.

But it was good. It felt like something.

And…then they cut the music. And the two flakers were in hysterics. André and Trina too. Until they weren't. This wasn't us all taking a break.

The two men jumped, could've clacked their heels together, and went out the door. Then the lights went with them, and I saw André raise his hands—the kind of way he does whenever he pulls a face, because people are…terrible. And stupid. And a lot more things that I'm not going to spend eating a bar of soap for.

So I stood in that booth, mouth chewed closed, because yeah. Figures.

Jade was right. Which left a rancid taste. Distinctly oatmeal and creme.

. .

Basically, Beyoncé stole the birthweek present. Fuck h—

No. No, Tori. Remember. Beyoncé deserved that song, and also every bone in your body for when her tour bus, or plane, finds and runs you over. Hopefully.

…she still totally stole the song though.

I've got a pair of Converse tangled in my hand by the laces. They're black, were once white, and are frayed at every nick and tear. Jade's work—all of it—after she decided she was bored, and it'd kill the time away.

I watched her do it. I let Jade do it.

Her eyes were a cold lust.

. .

The TV is a muffled blare through my door, and it's not like it's a new thing for Trina. It really isn't. She's done this since she could waddle to the remote, apparently. In the past few months, maybe even year, the volume's stayed the same, but it's still so much louder than it once was.

Probably because I know the reason. It screams in my head, whatever reality show she has on, and all my ears know are what it's blocking out. Again.

I nudge open my door and slink for the stairs. The living room's bleak with the grey overhang stretched outside the windows, no sun. It's loud. I can barely hear their voices past the kitchen, in the office. Mom just got back home.

"What're they fighting about now?"

It's a wonder that Trina hears me, honestly, and she glances over the couch as I'm fitting the shoes on. She doesn't comment on them like she usually does. It's bad.

Trina rolls her shoulder across the ledge and juts the remote to the screen. "The one in the trunks caught this girl he's been talking to—" the fugliest pair of trunks I've ever seen at that, with sunglasses so early-2000s— "sliding into his best friend's DMs again, and she keeps insisting that, like, she was drunk and thought she was talking to him, or something." I meander over with my keys at hand to find Trina half-in her work uniform. Pizza delivery. She's popped her belt and now sags deeper into the couch.

"I wasn't asking about—"

"I know."

Her brow screws, and she leans once my hand's on the doorhandle. "Where are you going?"

I hesitate. My phone weighs heavy in my pocket. "A walk."

"Tori!" She juts again, for the windows. "It's going to rain in a minute!"

"TRINA, TURN DOWN THE FUCKING TV!"

For once, I'm glad to hear him yell like that. It's not like I have a good explanation to give. Nothing that'd have Trina judge me any less. She winces, glares at nothing in particular, then whips around and snaps towards the kitchen, "I'M NOT DOING ANYTHING!"

I hear the warble. It reminds me of her eighth birthday, where nobody showed up, and her crown was off-kilter. I think the narcissism started then. I don't know what this will do now.

She does unravel, however, and sags back into the couch. Trina eyes me, and she's eight again, and I'm almost seven, trying desperately to keep the cake from tipping over after she's dismantled her chair. She nods to the door. "Just go." And she offers the least conceited thing about her: a cocked half-smile. "I'll stay dry."

I purse a grin. The door opens, and I already smell the storm brewing.

I leave anyway. I'd rather take the rain straight to the wreckage I've made for myself.

Hope you enjoyed!

:)