I've written another story for competition. It's about the troubles of teenage life, and isn't meant to be a very uplifting story.
If you're reading this blog, then this story probably has you in it. I won't tell you which person you're supposed to be. However, keep in mind that the situations are dramatized and changed according to my will. It's not supposed to be strictly just
you so don't be offended or anything. You guys were just the inspiration for each character.
-------------------------------------------------------
It was the transitioning period from the bloated warmth of happy summer to dreary autumn; dreary because it meant school, the annual storing of nice summer dresses, and red flaky noses that tissue companies forget to mention in their advertisements.
“Have six,” he said cheerfully.
“No, it’s fine. I don’t want any of that,” she tried to say, her voice softened by one part frustration and three parts exasperation.
He gave her the kind of grin she was now used to receiving from him. Before, years ago when her mom had just met him, she’d been afraid of that smile. The movement of muscle started at two opposite points of his lips and moved upward until the fine lines and deep valleys on his face began to move upward as well. Like plate tectonics, it rearranged his wrinkled visage. Formerly smooth planes of skin congregated to low hills and steep mountains of flesh. Valleys deepened or separated. His whole face shifted with his smile. It required so much movement that she hoped he would stop doing it. For his sake.
“Have six,” he said again insistently as he stacked two more on the existent four. She cleared her throat. “But I don’t want-,” she tried again.
“Four is an unlucky number, did you know that?” he told her.
Yes, she knew. And she showed as much by nodding. The word for four in Chinese was pronounced almost (almost, but not quite) like the Chinese word for death. The si sound applied to both ‘four’ and ‘death’, a completely random assignment by the studious caveman who invented the language, doomed the number four—and innocent enough number in English—to a life of being shunned and avoided. Even telephone numbers with repetitive fours were considered back luck among the traditional Chinese.
“Six is a lucky number. So,” he concluded, “you either should have six or nothing.”
“I’d rather have nothing,” she said as he walked away, louder so he could hear her speak those words clearly. But of course, she was ignored.
She looked down. It was an uneven lattice of chocolate covered Pocky sticks. Four sticks were laid vertically on the bottom. The newly added two were placed, horizontal but slightly slanted, on the top.
Elaine looked at herself in the mirror. Her shirt wasn’t fitting properly. She was sure of it. Her mom, who was standing next to her and critically examining the mirror, was even more sure of it.
“Your shirt isn’t fitting properly,” her mom told her.
She blew her chocolate-Pocky colored hair out of her face, which was damp from perspiration. Next to her, her mom’s face was as cool and calm as ever, but wrinkles of frustration and distaste were showing.
“You need a large,” her mom concluded.
“I’m a medium.”
“She needs a large,” her mom said, turning to the scurrying teenage girl rushing around the fitting room, face hidden behind an armful of discarded clothes. Her mom was ignored.
Elaine swallowed the bitterness in her mouth and shrugged off the shirt. Her cell phone vibrated inside her pocket and she quickly put on her own shirt (the one that sagged around her upper body much like jeans sagged on the cool guys at school), before answering.
“Hello?” she answered in an unfriendly half-sigh, even when she was restraining herself from showing her vexation.
Munch, went the other side of the phone. Munch. Munch.
“Hello?”
“F-shea, ‘m here,” said a blurred female voice on the other side of the phone. There was a quick succession of munching, and then a pause (in which Elaine guessed she swallowed whatever she was eating). “Sorry, I’m eating.”
“Oh?” Elaine asked tightly. Conversationally. “What’re you having?”
“Pocky sticks,” her friend answered her from the other side of the radio waves, or whatever it was that phones used to transfer voices from one place to another. “You know that Japanese snack?”
Her mom came back into the fitting room, carrying a large, tan long-sleeved shirt. “They only have an extra-large. Try it on.”
“Sorry, Jackie, I have to go,” Elaine said quickly, and then hung up. She turned to her mom in the reflection of the mirror—the surface on which she could see the both of them at the same time with side-by-side comparison. There was a difference. Her mom was tall and thin. Standing next to her, she suddenly started to see fat tacked on her body. They were everywhere. Her body screamed thighs! And hips. And arms. And stomach.
“I don’t need to try it on.” Elaine took the shirt from her mom, shouldered her purse, and broke open the magnetic door of the changing room. “I know it’s going to fit perfectly.”
Her mom watched her from behind, and then followed her to the line at the cash register.
As she stood behind a group of giggling girls (all measuring about four feet and carrying lingerie shopping bags for their flat chests), one thought went through her mind.
Fall shopping sucks.
“I really need to do my shopping for fall,” Shelly sighed into the phone, trying to explain her infuriating predicament. “There’s just nothing to buy. I’ve gone twice, and I’ve only just gotten two shirts.”
The other side of the phone munched sympathetically. “F-shea.”
Pause.
Munch.
Pause.
“What are you eating?” Shelly asked, watching her ceiling absently. If she squinted, the shadows on the white plaster resembled a man with a big, hooked nose. She squinted again. The tortured voice of her favorite singer garbled softly in the background.
“Nothing, now,” said Jackie, finally answering her. Her voice seemed oddly depressed. “I’m all out. I only had six to start with. I think we still have some more, though.” Jackie was speaking to herself now. “In the cabinet, maybe? Hmm…”
“Six what?”
“Nothing. Pocky.” The topic fluidly reached a junction, and turned. “You know what?”
“What,” Shelly echoed obligingly.
“I’m so ignored by my stepdad,” Jackie explained, the pace of her voice picking up as the subject excited her. “Take today, for example. I mean, I tell him something. I say it once and twice and three times and he acts as if he can’t hear me.”
“Aw,” Shelly cooed as her mind searched from something appropriate to say.
“Call waiting,” Jackie suddenly said, saving Shelly from having to console her. “I’ll call you back.”
Shelly hung up the phone and sat up on the bed. The house was freezing. Her room on the second floor was hell (literally) in the summer and Antarctica once the weather turned cool. It was perfect. Really, really perfect.
She couldn’t see why she couldn’t move into her sister’s room. After all, her sister had gone on to bigger and better things. Like college. She’d shed her past life in this town like shedding an extra layer of clothes.
New York, she thought glumly. She’s in New York and I’m stuck here.
Dinner had been sizzling on the kitchen stove downstairs, but by now, it was reduced to a rich, warm aroma.
“Shelly, dinner!” her mom yelled up the stairs, ringing the small, silver dinner bell she’d bought at a recent shopping expedition.
She glanced at the time on her cell phone. Six fifteen on the dot.
All I want is Anarchy. When will they ever stop being so rigidly precise?
Crisp, cold air whipped her cheeks as she stepped out to the curb of the empty street. Silently, a black vehicle glided down the street, and stopped smoothly in front of her. The mirrored window came down.
“Get in.”
She complied and hurried around the car, reasoning that the wind will stop piercing through the loose wool of her sweater if she was quick about it. Also, the voice wasn’t friendly.
“Lois, you’re late by fifteen minutes!” her mom reprimanded at once as she ducked into the car. “You said to pick you up at six fifteen and I was here at six fifteen. It’s now six thirty.”
“Breathe,” Lois said slowly, stressing each syllable. She looked at the car’s digital clock as she lugged her backpack into the seat next to her. “It’s six twenty-five. God, seriously, if you can’t even get the time right, what justifies your authority to tell me about keeping track?”
“Okay, six twenty-five,” her mom ceded crisply. “I was worried, Lois. If you’re going to be late, you have to call me. You have your cell phone with you, don’t you?”
“Oh my god, this is not a colossal issue. Seriously.” She tried to explain and took a deep, deep breath. She released it in a series of quick, loud sentences, whizzing through the air like darts. “I was in the library, mom! What could have happened to me? What, some rapist-“
“Okay, okay, okay,” her mom said quickly, hitting her palm lightly against the steering wheel as she steered away from her daughter’s short fuse.
There was quiet in the car but the sound of the metal hitting against plastic as she absently tried to buckle up.
“So, how was studying? Didn’t you say Mark was going, too?” Her mom’s voice: conversationally light, tinged with warm, maternal inquisitiveness. The bad, frizzling air had dispersed almost immediately after the short-lived argument.
“Yeah.” The answer was offhand and uninterested, like trying to throw hunting dogs off the scent of their catch. In this case, it was her mother’s catch. “Studying was alright. We completed most things.”
Her mother gave her a sidelong glance before turning her eyes back towards the road. It was six thirty, and everywhere, there were cars. It was a Friday. People just wanted to go home.
They stopped. Two parallel lines of unblinking red backlight glared back at them as if challenging them to a staring contest. Lois could only see the backlight on the right side. Her mother could only see its parallel brother. Neither the woman nor the girl realized they were looked at, essentially, the same thing, only flipped the opposite direction.
Lois traced her finger around the dashboard, mentally making a list. She had to remind her mom to stop by Jackie’s house to drop off the chemistry book she borrowed. And so they waited, twenty feet away from the stop sign, moving one inch every second.
Lois calculated that it would take them four minutes to reach the sign.
“Mark is a nice boy,” her mom suddenly said, her voice still very light. Again, that sidelong glance. “Do you see him often?”
“No,” Lois said flatly. “He’s always studying.”
“Like you.” Her mom beamed.
Fern couldn’t have them see her tears, so she went outside. The air was cold, gripping her like the clammy fingers of the dead. Or at least what she imagined dead fingers to feel like. From inside the pocket of her jeans, she fumbled out a crushed cigarette and lit up.
Usually, she would’ve been more careful with smoking, just in case someone saw her. But tonight, she didn’t care. She shut her eyes and breathed in deep, taking into her lungs every last drop of sweet tranquility that thin cigarette had to offer.
Almost twenty paces away from the house, she could still hear the screaming coming from inside. It was her youngest sister’s voice—shrill, frustrated, and loud enough to shatter most eardrums.
Arguments in their house were most like fire. It could be very small, flicker, and just die. Or, if it catches on to a dry stalk, it might swell and swallow everything around it like the wildfires she’d seen firefighters try to extinguish on TV. They never do extinguish them. Most times, they just had to let it burn itself out.
“I’m not breaking up with him! Everybody stop minding my fucking business!”
She didn’t even bother to glance back, but just winced. That was loud enough for the whole street to hear.
When they were younger, her mom would take her sisters and her swimming. She would pack fruits. Kathleen would pack plastic packages of instant noodles. Elsie, her youngest sister, would pack Pocky. Personally, she thought that stuff was disgusting. Kathleen thought fruits were disgusting. Elsie despised instant noodles, and thought it below her.
But still.
They’d gotten along. She didn’t know what happened, but somewhere along the way of growing up, things started unraveling faster than she could put it back together.
She wished she could remember what it had been. But her memory was nothing like it used to be. Even if she racked her brain until her temples started hurting, no magic would happen. It was a pity because she had once considered her memory her greatest asset. She could remember things down to the very minute detail.
“Don’t you remember?” she used to ask people. Nowadays, people were asking her that question.
She was frustrated with herself, yes. Her only condolence was the fact that she would turn eighteen in just two years. Then, she could get out of this place and maybe go to New York instead of staying in the hellhole she was in (it was the opposite side of the country, and she figured that would be far enough). And maybe then, her memory could improve.
The frigid wind was giving her a headache, and she ducked behind a car to escape the assault. Sitting down on the asphalt, she reached inside her back pocket, took out her cell phone, and dialed the numbers with her numb fingers.
Munch, answered the phone. Pause. “Sorry, I’m having a snack.”
“Jackie?” Her voice wavered and broke. “I just really need to vent right now.”
After she cried, she wiped her eyes carefully before going back to the house. Inside was instantly warm. It was almost too warm and made her frozen limbs tingle. Everyone was silent, mutinously ignoring one another. Her mother impatiently banged pots and pans together in the kitchen as she started to prepare dinner.
After shutting the door to her and Elsie’s room, she sank down on the bed and took out the pills from underneath the mattress.
They were only sleeping pills.
She took her nightly dose of three, then paused and decided to add one more. She had a feeling she would have trouble sleeping tonight.
Nessa lay in bed, unable to drift off. Soccer practice should have left her exhausted and thirsting for shut-eye, but it hadn’t. Some things never did as they were expected.
A box of Pocky was balanced on her stomach. She’d never tried it before Jackie gave some to her, and now she felt that they were kind of addictive. She was thinking about the kiss. Yes, the kiss. Not a kiss.
Actually, she’d had neither, yet. That was probably the reason she was thinking about them. People didn’t usually keep thinking about the things they’d already uncovered the mystery of.
Anyways.
The kiss. Nessa couldn’t imagine the guy in the picture. Inside, it made her a bit guilty. Most girls would see their boyfriend in the kiss, wouldn’t they? So why couldn’t she?
Before she could fully understand the complexity, her cell phone burst into life on her desk—vibrating, flashing, and ringing all at once. It was a hell of a ruckus, especially late at night.
She leapt up, cracking her back and sending Pocky sticks flying. Her hands were slippery with sweat as she tried to flip open her phone as quickly as possibly.
In a dead whisper, she answered, “Hello?”
“Hey.” It was a raspy voice and very distinctly male.
“Hold on.” Putting down her cell phone, she tiptoed to her door, opened it, and peeked out into the hall. No one had stirred, thank God. She went back to her phone in the same manner and picked it up. “It is kind of late, Justin.”
“Aw, man, I know that,” he agreed wholeheartedly on the other end. She heard the starting of a car engine. “Listen, Nessa, I know this is kind of a lot to ask, but can I crash at your house tonight?”
Nessa paused, wondering if she had heard correctly. Then, she felt the urge to laugh at his stupidity. She wasn’t even allowed to have a boyfriend and now this said boyfriend wanted to ‘crash’ at her house? She’d be a dead woman before sunrise. Nevertheless, she was curious. Then, curiosity turned to worry. “Why? Did something happen?”
“I just got kicked out, man,” he sighed, slamming closed the car door.
“For what?” she asked naively.
Another sigh. This time, it was long, and drawn out. “Look, can I stay at your place or not?”
“Can’t you stay at one of your friend’s house?”
He laughed softly. “Nah, can’t.” His voice then turned pleading. “Please, Nessa, it’ll only be one night. It’s fucking freezing out here and I don’t want to have to stay in my car.”
Nessa panicked. She couldn’t refuse him. The words simply declined to tremble on her vocal cords. “I’m…uh…what? Oh, damn, I can’t hear you… Er…” Then, she hung up, heaving a deep breath. Quickly, she turned off her phone.
Love was trouble.
The next day, Jackie received a call from Elsie, and cried. Elaine put on her new shirt and found it too baggy. Shelly moved her lamp to her sister’s room and saw that as the first step towards total domination. Lois found Mark throwing stones at her window with the sign: Come down. Fern opened her eyes and found herself in a white, sterile room, her sisters and mother assembled tightly around her bed. Nessa got her kiss. But it wasn’t the kiss.