The wave crashed over Audrey in a fury. The salt burned on her tongue and infected her lungs. She squirmed in a panic over the heavy blanket of water. The aggressive hands of the wave pushed her deeper into the rocky ground, and she felt the pressure between her ribs. Water surged in her mouth, pooling in her stomach and lungs. The wave forced itself inside her, and she felt something slimy rush down her throat. Arms pulled her from the water and brought her to the shore. She thought nobody would. She thought that was it. Her back was laid against the burning sand, and the sun lit her bare skin on fire. People pounded on her and she spit up all the seafoam.
The next morning, she ran herself a bath at home and felt a twinge of fear gazing at the water. She undressed but couldn’t bear to step in, clutching her naked frame. Soreness splinted from her ribs to her hips, and her skin was freckled with bruises from the wave. She ran her finger along all of them, inspecting herself in the mirror, when she noticed her stomach pushed out in a bump. She tried to think nothing of it; maybe she had put on extra weight from the fourth of July at the beach, drinking cheap beers. Yet as the days went on her stomach pushed out more and more. She felt no need to take a pregnancy test, as she hadn’t been with anyone in a year, not after the new law. She went to the doctor and was probed if she was pregnant, Audrey felt humiliated by question after question. A nurse with caked-on blue eyeshadow made her pee on a test, and of course, it was negative. The nurse led her down a long yellow hallway with a sanitary scent. Audrey lay on a pale pink papered bed, her midriff exposed and slathered with cold goo. An ultrasound ensued, and the bean-shaped baby was present in her uterus. Audrey felt the back of her neck cold in a sweat, wet like the wave. The doctor spoke to her condescendingly, saying that sometimes tests are faulty, but this is good because her time was running out. She tried to scream out that something wasn’t right, but she felt the wave crashing against her all over again, and the seafoam filled her mouth.
Audrey flipped through old beauty magazines of skinny models on her couch that night, focusing on anything but the news she received, but everything came back to the small bump of her stomach. What was there to do? Go to the next state over, and get rid of it? How did it even come to be? She retraced every night and all the bars and began to panic, doubting her memories. She looked online to order pills. It had been a year since the law got passed, and you could no longer get rid of it. You couldn’t even say what getting rid of it was. The politicians claimed you had to keep it because love is only found within the family these days. It’s not like Audrey didn’t want to be loved. She wanted it more than anything. She wanted a husband to trace along her cheekbones and spine, to kiss her softly from her temples to her fingertips. She craved company at the grocery store and riveting conversation over coffee and arms to pull her out of her wave. She was lonely. But she did not want a baby. She had avoided men for a year to never be in this situation, but now it was inside her.
Within the next days, her stomach began to grow rapidly, swelling out to an even rounder, more prominent ball. Audrey awoke in her bed and felt like an ever-expanding balloon. Her stomach twisted and she felt invaded. She observed her stomach in the mirror, shocked at the overnight growth, when it started to flip over in her stomach. Bile swelled in her throat and tears in her eyes, and a long arm pressed against her bump from the inside. It pressed harder, and Audrey now saw that a tentacle was inside of her, the circles of suction cups forming bumps along her skin. She turned white and collapsed to the ground. She regained consciousness and dialed the emergency line, frantic and confusing the operator, who kept repeating “Tentacles? Inside of you?” As the blare of sirens came closer to her apartment. The door banged and boomed and broke down from the paramedics, like the wave that whooshed and crashed Audrey to the rocky ocean floor, and now made a surrogate of her.
Paramedics wheeled Audrey into the hospital on a gurney, and her stomach looked like a mountain during an earthquake, as she laid on her back hysterically crying and panicking. The nurses considered putting her in the ward for schizophrenics or thought she could be coming down from an intense high. Only the blue-eyeshadowed nurse gave her a chance, and the cold goo for the ultrasound was slapped on her engorged abdomen. The nurse’s eyebrows flicked up in confusion, her eyes disappearing into a cakey blue squint. Audrey saw the moment of realization on the nurse’s face and tried craning her neck up to see what had invaded her. The room ricocheted with a dead silence, and the blue eyeshadow of the nurse vanished as her eyes widened, trying to comprehend the image on the screen. Metal instruments clattered to the ground as nurses shoved each other around. More and more heads popped in, rushing around the woman and the screen. Audrey felt like an animal at the zoo. Her invasion turned her into a spectacle. On the small screen a black blob in the shape of a small octopus twisted around inside Audrey.
It was less than 24 hours until the media got ahold of it. “WOMAN AT ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL DISCOVERED PREGNANT WITH OCTOPUS.” The mob erupted in various comment sections and forums, and people called Audrey a monster, shameless, disturbed. A rumor commenced that Audrey worked in an aquarium, and that’s how she developed a torrid affair with an octopus. But men found humor, and even pleasure, in Audrey’s situation. They joked she was a freak, that she was into tentacle porn. They said this is what happens to women who are past 30 and still not married. The men called her a “sea whore” and a “fish fucker” and laughed and laughed and laughed. None of this was true. Audrey never worked in an aquarium. There was no affair with an octopus. The degrading accusations from the men had no merit whatsoever. It felt ridiculous being forced to clarify this, so Audrey hid away from all the mobs. The wave took autonomy of her body and now she was a public spectacle.
The congressmen debated over the octopus inside Audrey. They said the octopus had just as much a right to life, and Audrey would have to wait until it could sustain life without her— when it became as big as possibly could fit inside of her. The congressmen defended the octopus. It appeared a sea creature had more merit to life than a human woman. Audrey was wheeled to her scheduled c-section, once she had reached her “full-term”, which only lasted 50 days until Audrey’s stomach was soon to burst open.
Audrey’s back shivered on the cold, lifeless, metal table. Academics and doctors from all around the world stood in the gallery, crowding against the glass to get a peak at the once-in-a-lifetime operation. A scalpel went from the top of Audrey’s engorged lump of what was once a stomach and sliced a red line down to the bottom. The scarlet blood pooled out. Organs were moved and squelched and eight tentacles were bursting out. The blood spilled and foamed, and crashed like a wave. The academics in the gallery averted their gaze. All you could see was a red fury. The surgeon pounded on her chest, and the sticky blood started to drip onto the tile floor. The whole world cared more about a sea creature than a human woman. Audrey’s eyelids fell closed and everything was dark, like the underbelly of the wave.
ONE YEAR LATER
A little girl utilized her size to navigate through the crowd, anxiously waiting and searching around the enclosure, pressing closer to the glass. Her breath fogged the glass up, and she was leaving little dirty fingerprints all over it. The crowd grew irritated in the heat, sweat dripping down foreheads. Waves crashed into the ocean bordering the aquarium. A metal plaque glistened and was hot to the touch under the sun, and a careless boy whipped his finger back in pain after touching it. Stinging with heat, the plaque explained that this enclosure held the octopus who was born via human pregnancy. “MIRACULOUSLY, THE CREATURE SURVIVED THE C-SECTION,” it read. People started to point and gasp and cameras clicked and flashed as a tentacle peeked out from behind a rock.
It’s Saturday the 29th, he said to be ready by 7pm for a surprise. He does this every so often and I love it. The feeling of getting ready, not sure where we might go, but a hint by the dress code, as I sit and do my makeup in front of the bright lights of my worn out light pink vanity that I’ve had since I was 12. I’ve never been one to get rid of things, my mom always gives me flack about it. She’s on her third wardrobe cleanse of the year, what doesn’t please her is gone the next day. Even though it’s been almost two years, I still get butterflies in my stomach, they feel less beautiful than the thought of butterflies but more like insistent bubbles overflowing or the dramatic rampage of moths when light is near. Being around him made me nervous, as embarrassing as it is. I used to watch romcoms sick to my stomach seeing how couples swooned over each other, what a load of crap. Movies were over dramatic, trying to make us fall into the trap of feeling incomplete without an “other half” and I thank my mother everyday for the security of self that she instilled in me. But without him I’m lost, sorry Mom. I’d follow him to the Moon if I had to and trace every crater’s crevice with the tips of my raw finger if that were the only way to make him laugh. My pied piper. His beautiful brown eyes make my cloudiest days bright, I don’t care about anyone else, I don’t care who’s around because all I see is him. When I go to sleep it’s him, when I wake up, when I write, when I sing, when I breathe, it’s him. I hope none of this ever see’s anywhere else but in between the pages of these two leather covers. Have you ever been so overwhelmed by emotions you’re not sure where they are coming from? I’m crying but I’m not sad. I’m fuming but I’m not mad. I’m smiling. It’s 6:55pm.
02-30-05
Dear Diary,
It’s late, 12:15am. We went to my favorite museum, The Fantasy Inn. Tonight I learned something new – although I have studied his face about a million times, when he smiles there is a little dimple that appears right at the crease of the left corner of his lips, that can be seen so far if you try. He did his hair differently this time, parted to the side slightly more than usual, suited him so well. When we hug I melt into every crevice of his like butter on rigid toast. I wish it was possible to get as physically close as syrup does on pancakes after they have been left on the surface for so long that it seeps into every crack making the pancake a sponge of syrup that explodes such sweetness when bitten just right. The way he walks with a little twist at the ankle because of a track injury and speaks with such confidence even when he is wrong. I love the way he moves so carefree with less strictness than me. I catch myself smiling when I see him in the halls. I know everything about him, the way he double knots his laces ever since the incident in 6th grade or the way he shakes his legs to warm them up before a race, always left then right, or how he stands at 6’1” but his odd posture makes him 6’. So why her and not me? I can see the way he looks at her, how his eyes widen when she’s near, how he prioritizes her. I learn about him and all the little things that make him him, because I love him. I’m his person. But why does she get to kiss him goodbye? She doesn’t love him and I cannot be convinced of it. She will never love him like I do. Why can’t he see? Everyday I sit and write, manifest and I have patience, I’m not a quitter. Good things come to those who wait. Relationships are built on a foundation and ours is strong. When he comes to pick her up for dates there’s no spark, she doesn’t hug or kiss him the way that I would. It’s bland. I hear how she talks about him to her friends, my Mom always tells her to end it if it’s not working but she won’t let him go. She’s selfish she doesn’t want anyone else to have him if she can’t. It’s always about her, I can never be happy because of her. She always got the new toys, the nice jewelry, the latest tech, the hottest boyfriends, the closest friends, the best grades, the name brands, the most comfortable life. I hate her. I’ve done nothing but be a good sister to her. At night I listen to her complain and cry about the way he never opens doors for her or how she wishes he made more so that the dates were more extravagant. But then in the same breath boasts about the red roses he gets her every season in a different vase that matches her aesthetic of the month and how much she adores the way he looks at her even when she’s angry. And I still comfort her. Why does she hate me? All my life ever since I was born she’s always had a vendetta against me. Maybe she liked being the only child so much, I came and rained on her parade. Although we were raised the same, she will never be me. She doesn’t appreciate him. I saw the way he smiled when he opened the present I got him for his 18th Birthday, Leia’s half-ass poem couldn’t even touch it. I can feel the grip of our grueling tension slip when I leave the room. I know because I write about it everyday, these pages know no rest and I apologize profusely for the way I scrape my pen in many emotions at once hoping the pages can bear my pain better than I can. He ruins me and pretends to not notice. But the way he waves at me as I watch them leave through my bedroom window soothes me. He does it on purpose. He can see it in my eyes, in my smile, and in my hugs. He knows, but refuses to acknowledge. Why does he insist on hurting me like she does? I thought he was different, why does he do this to me? We would get along so well, I can feel it. We’re more compatible, I’m a Virgo, he’s a Scorpio, she’s a Gemini. He’s water, she’s oil and I’m thirsty. It’s not his fault that she gets into his head, I know how she is, she’s smart and persistent, charming, capable, honest, compassionate, happy, captivating, generous, kind, dependable, courageous, responsible, beautiful, selfish, greedy, arrogant, manipulative. She’s crazy! I’m sorry, I was getting ahead of myself. It’ll be okay, I’ll be okay, I’ll be patient.
02-30-05
Dear Diary,
Another day, another entry, another chance. It feels so warm outside today, my bright Sun. Love is a choice we make everyday, and I choose.
——————————————————————————
03-05-05
Journal Entry 122
Savon and I are in a fight over a stupid disagreement about celebrity hall passes. This is the longest we’ve gone without talking. It’s been a rough two days, I’ve barely eaten or slept. But Allie has been so caring and comforting. She’s been keeping me company wherever I need to go and tells me how strong I am and that I don’t need a man, a man needs me. She always comes up with the funniest lines, making me forget that my boyfriend technically just ghosted me. I check my phone nonstop during the day hoping he’d text me that he’s not mad and it’s all just a dream. Allie keeps my phone during the nights so I don’t drive myself crazy wondering if the vibration from my gmail notifications were texts from him, because she knows how I can get. I’m glad she suggested it the first night after it got heated. But I still sneak text him on my ipad because I don’t care. I’m not the most level-headed right now, how could I be? This is not right. How could he go this long without talking to me? He has no reason, there’s no reason. I hope something happened, it has to have, there’s no way Savon would do this to me. This hurts so bad I can’t even hate him, I can’t even be mad, there’s no energy for any other emotions, or any at all. It’s hard to appreciate life right now but I’m grateful for my sister Allie, my mom, and my friends for being here for me.
Hopefully I can look back at this with better news in the future and take this as a reminder that we never really know someone until we do.
We like to play this game on the ski slopes. It’s my favorite game ever. I feel so alive while playing it. I could always feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins and my heart beating faster and faster as I raced down the slopes, my friends close behind me, practically breathing down my neck. The game was Backcountry Skiing Tag.
Backcountry Skiing Tag is pretty self explanatory. There is one tagger, sometimes two if there’s a big group playing. The hunters give the prey a 15 second head start, then the game is on. Players weave back and forth between trees, jumping over boulders and rocks. If you’re tagged you’re it, and you have to give the new runner an 8 second head start to ski down the hill. I don’t know why we settled on 8, but it doesn’t matter because it works.
Our parents always tell us to be safe, as the backcountry is a different place than the groomed slopes. There are random caves and holes and tree mounds covered up by the beautiful deceiving powder. But it was never an issue. We would always be lucky enough to avoid a cave or boulder hole barely, our skis scraping the edge of doom. We would let out a little yelp then stop a couple feet down and laugh our head off at the fact we almost just broke both our legs, and then speed we’d off down the hill. We couldn’t let the tagger catch up to us. We couldn’t lose.
Nothing bad really ever happens. Occasionally people crash into each other, creating a giant pileup somewhere in the snow. One time my friend Sean lost a ski and searched for 30 minutes before he found it 20 ft down from where he fell. The worst thing that happened was one day my friend Josie got caught in a small boulder hole. I almost skied right past her, not because I didn’t see her, but because the taggers were close behind and I didn’t want to get caught. It was every man for himself. But I decided that I’d save Josie this time and sometime in the future she would owe me one.
We skied a couple runs this morning, and on our last run before going in for lunch Alex suggests that we play a round of B.S. Tag. We all cheer in glee and decide who the taggers will be. We have a bigger group and want to mix it up, so there would be 2 taggers. I am chosen to be a tagger along with my friend Myka.
“GO”
The prey in front of us went scrambling down the hill. There are 8 of them to be exact. 2 hunters and 8 targets, this is going to be fun.
1, 2, 3–
Andrew is lagging behind, he will probably be tagged first. I am aiming for him.
10, 11, 12–
Myka and I look at each other and nod.
15–
Here we go.
We race down the hill. The wind is blowing strongly in my face. It’s whistling in my ear, so much so that I can’t hear any other noises, just the wind. I am focused on my target ahead of me; Andrew. Myka nods to me, meaning she’s giving me the easy target. I will owe her one day for that. I am coming up behind Andrew, he’s getting closer and closer. I am on his heels now. I reach my hand out and press it into the center of his back. Success!
“Tag, you’re it!”
I laugh and continue on down the hill. Andrew stops to give me the 8 seconds I earned. I disappear into the trees, bobbing back and forth between them. I look back and Andrew is nowhere to be seen. He must’ve taken a different path. I am safe.
I got to the bottom and am the 4th one down here. Myka, Josie, Alex, and John were also down here. We will sit here and wait for the rest of the group to join us. One by one they all come down.
8, 9, 10, 11–
We wait. And wait. And wait. 10 minutes went by after our last friend came down, and Andrew was nowhere to be seen. Then 20 minutes passed. Alex says maybe he had just gotten down first and had gone inside for an early lunch or maybe he thought we were in there. We aren’t worried, why would we be? Nothing bad ever happens. We head inside for lunch and eat our food. An hour passes and there is still no sign of Andrew. He’s fine, probably upstairs somewhere. Andrew could handle himself.
“Myka should we get back out on the slopes?”
“Yeah, let’s do Powderkeg”
“Okay deal, race you to the lift!”
I throw on my gear and race out to the chair lift, I seem to have beat Myka here. Yes, another win! I am on fire today. I see Myka come trotting up the hill, she groans and rolls her eyes at me.
“Haha, I win again.”
“Shut up.”
We go up on the lift and ski Powderkeg, then go up it again and ski another run. And another. And another. When we come down after our last run of the day, the ski lift is officially closed and has stopped running.
I take off my skiis, place them on the rack and then head inside. I see most of my friends there packing up their stuff. I pull off my boots and start to take the rest of my gear off when Andrew’s mom comes up to me. Something is different about her, she seemed worried.
“Izzy have you seen Andrew?”
“No Mrs. Wilkins, not since before lunch.”
“Do you know where he might be darling? When’s the last time you saw him?”
“Well the group played Backcountry Skiing tag, I tagged him and kept going down the hill and I haven’t seen him since. I thought he came in for an early lunch or something.”
She looks around, fear fills her face. Worry starts to creep into my mind.
“Has anyone here seen my kid Andrew? Andrew Wilkins? He’s 4 ‘6, 11 years old, dark brown short hair? Anyone?” She says this out loud to the entire ski lodge.
Why was she worried? I don’t understand, Andrew was definitely okay. Like, he was probably still just on his last run coming down the hill.
Everyone just kind of looks at her, some mumble “no, sorry,” under their breath. She gasps and runs to one of the workers and talks to them hurriedly. He picks up his radio and says something through it. Everyone’s interest peaks.
“Folks, it seems that we have a missing kid. Does anyone have any information that may be helpful?”
Everyone shook their heads.
“Alright, well if you are an experienced skier and don’t have anything urgent to do, please feel free to join the Ski Patrol, as we are a little understaffed right now. We are going to buddy up in teams of 3 and search the Mountain, specifically the last run he was seen on.”
Some people leave after this statement but a surprising number of people stay.
“Izzy, what run did you ski last with him?” Mrs. Wilkins asks.
“I told you, it wasn’t a run. We played a round of Backcountry Skiing Tag. It’s our backcountry spot.”
“Would you be able to take us up there and show us which area you ski?”
I nodded. I was happy to just ski another run honestly, but I was feeling a little worried for Andrew. I didn’t know that no one else hadn’t seen him. He was definitely fine, maybe he’s just getting back at me for tagging him.
Everyone puts their gear back on, plus a couple more layers. We head outside, put our skis on and then get ready to get on the lift. The Ski Patrol assigns groups of 3 and hands out bright orange and headlamps for everyone to wear.
With all of our gear on we head up the lift. When we get to the top of the mountain everyone looks to me to lead them to the area. I do so and lead them to the top of the run. It was funny, the sun hadn’t fully set yet but it seemed really dark outside, even with all the headlamps pointed in my direction.
“Izzy, stay with me please,” my friend Myka’s mom said. She was my ride home, so I felt compelled to listen.
People split up to cover a wider area of the slope. We skied down so slow, it was painful. I could hear Andrew’s name being called out from all different directions and distances. Maybe something was actually wrong? I mean, it wasn’t like Andrew to be petty, especially this petty. Why isn’t he responding to his name? Why is he not answering those calls with an “I’m here! I’m here!”
We search and search until all of a sudden we shoot out onto a run that leads us to the bottom. The Ski Patrol decide they want to do another run. So we do the same thing again, take the lift up, I lead them to the path, and then we ski down it.
This happened 3 more times, and while I was excited to be one of the last kids left skiing on the Mountain and I got an extra 5 runs under my belt, I kinda just wanted to go home. I wanted to see Andrew again.
The Ski Patrol announce that the next run is the last run we can go on. So we go up the lift, I lead them to the path once more, and we begin to ski down the hill looking for Andrew. I know he’s okay, he’s tough, and nothing bad ever happened during B.S. Tag. We always were fine.
“I found something,” echoes loudly on the Mountain. Everyone converges on those words. Andrew, they found Andrew!
I rush over to that sound and there’s already a crowd there when I arrive. Someone says “Hey don’t let her see this.”
“No, no that’s not fair, I want to see Andrew!”
No one looked happy to see him, what was wrong? Why couldn’t I see him?
Before someone could stop me I forced myself through their body wall, only to find myself looking down a boulder hole. Andrew’s lifeless crumbled body was staring right back at me.
Andrew didn’t escape the edge of doom.
At 3AM no one gives a shit that this city’s beloved daughter is en route to kill her cheating ex-boyfriend except for me.
I tried talking her out of it. “What about New York?” Nothing. “What about our apartment with our lemonade-filled fridge?” Nothing. “All because of some boy?” Nothing.
I pleaded with her. I begged her. I even threatened to call the police on her, but I wasn’t going to do that and she knew that I wasn’t going to do that. Maybe I should have tried harder.
Since Lila and her boyfriend broke up, I thought that I would finally have all her time to myself. When they were together, I always got half. I thought I was going to get it all now, but I’ve gotten less. She was already always busy because of the end of senior year, her work schedule, her rehearsals, and everything. It’s like she has time for everything else but me.
When I do see her now it’s like she’s the shell of a person, I see her body but there’s nothing inside. I try to joke around and make things like it how it used to be, but she’s still hung up on him and what happened. She says that if she she can’t kill the girl who took him from her then she’s she was going to kill him— post graduation, so at least he would have lived to graduate high school, she specifies.
We were having a sleepover that night, like we always used to do; I somehow convinced her come over and she did. We watched a few movies and she braided my hair and I just felt her mind wander all night. She said she was going to kill him and I said no you’re not and we left it there. I tried telling her she’s crazy and she said that I didn’t understand. She couldn’t be serious.
We fell asleep and I tried staying up to watch her. But I dozed off as well. I must have felt her leave because I jolted awake and she was gone.
I grabbed my keys and ran to my car. As started driving, I thought I was speeding but I was driving normally, almost more cautiously than I usually drive. My hands were shaky and my feet felt like a feather, no matter how hard I pressed on the gas I wasn’t moving any faster. The darkness and silence spooked me…I could’ve turned the music up but my arm wouldn’t budge, and my mind started to wander…
…..
They were fighting. All I know is that even though she was mad, she wasn’t planning to break up with him at all and neither was he. He would’ve apologized. I just wanted them to break up. I needed it.
It was a sunny day in March and I walked out from my last class to the parking lot and saw him around the corner. I usually would go home with Lila but since it’s spring she was so busy that I have been having to walk home alone.
I was about to turn and leave in the opposite direction, yell at him, or maybe even slap him arcoss the face, not because he’s been a stupid boyfriend but becasue he was just that: her boyfriend. I didn’t do any of that. He was the boy of the school and he was dating the girl of the century. As much as I tried to hate him, it was hard. He was a popular, nice to everyone, he got good grades if that matters. If he got Lila a gift he would get something for me too, like we were conncted or something, becasue we were. If I were more confident and if it weren’t for Lila I would’ve went for him. I never told Lila this, but I had a crush on him too. Well, I guess it wasn’t a real crush, he was just nice to look at and if I had to choose a boy to crush on it would be him. It’s not like I could have gotten him anyway.
He gave me a look of guilt. They were fighting is because he got into UCLA and never told Lila that he even applied. Lila freaked out because all this time she thought he was going to at least be in the east coast and they could still see eachother. She was mad that he didn’t tell her that he applied. It’s all kind of stupid really. I know deep down that she’s mad because she’s going to have to break up with him if he goes to UCLA and she has this stupid idea that he would’ve gone to college near her and they would’ve gotten married or something. I know because I know her best. And if I were him I would’ve told her that I applied because she doesn’t like secrets being kept from her.
I realized that this was finally my chance to make them break up for good. He was a fine boyfriend but he wasn’t me.
“Break up with her.” I pasued. “Please.”
He looked at me and asked why and I didn’t know how to say it. Because I want her. Because she wants me too and she doesn’t know it yet and you’re preventing her from knowing. I should have at least said something, anything.
But I didn’t say that. Instead I was looking at his face and how perfect it was and I was jealous that he got to kiss Lila and I was jealous that Lila was wanted by him and I was mad that she was mad at him which took more time away from me. Maybe if she knew how horrible he was she would end it. He wasn’t all that bad but maybe I could make him horrible.
So I kissed him. I don’t know why I did that and I don’t know why he didn’t pull away or yell at me that he doesn’t want to kiss me. He should’ve. I could blame all of this on him. I was shocked at my actions as I pulled away but then he kissed me back and it was like the world finally started moving. It was nice to take a break from wanting and just be wanted for once.
I’m sure he thought I was coming onto him and that I said to break up with Lila because I wanted him for myself, but I don’t know. At that moment I wanted to run home and cry about what I had done and tell Lila what I did and tell her everything.
Next thing I know I was in the passenger seat of his Chevy and he was taking me back to his house. We were silent becasue we both knew what we were doing and the only thing we could hear was the pop music playing on the softest volume from the radio.
When we got to his house I saw his door and it glowed at me like it were some kind of portal. Like he took me into a place where I could pretend to be someone else. He is really nice. I get why Lila likes him but I understand why he loves Lila. Maybe I was trying to become him. Maybe I thought that if I spent time with him I could learn all the secret ways he was able to get Lila and not me. Maybe I could get him to fall for me and he will break up with her and then I would tell him I don’t like him like that. That was my plan originally.
So I let it happen. I told him to leave her for me and he kept saying he would but he never did. Somehow I would always end up meeting him behind the science building by the parking lot and quickly hop into his truck like we just committed some kind of heist. I couldn’t control my feet or my body, it was like they moved on their own accord. And then I would go through his portal-like door and become some other version of myself. If I’m being honest, it was kind of thrilling. Maybe the secret to romance is secrecy itself.
Last month, as I was getting into his car I saw a girl from my English class at the end of the parking lot. She watched me get in his car. The next day the whole school is talking about how Lila’s boyfriend is cheating on someone but now one knows who. Apparetnly she gets in his truck at like 5pm every day. They’ve been, like, hooking up. Does Lila know, I thought they were still together? Why would he do that to Lila? She ran to me devastated and I comforted her as I screamed inside. I should’ve been thinking about how to tell her the truth but instead I thought about I could hide it instead.
During English the next day, I saw the girl leave class for the bathorom, so I got up and left a few minutes later. I barged in the bathroom and she was washing her hands.
“Don’t worry I didn’t tell anyone it was you,” she said, not looking at me.
I wanted to scream at her and curse her out but I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t. Even though she’s nothing but a gossip, she’s doing me a favor. If Lila finds out through a string of gossip that he’s been cheating on her but not find out its me, then I’m good. She’ll break up with him and we can run away to New York the second we graduate.
“Please don’t,” my voice comes out pleading, because I know I fucked up. She dries her hands off and smiles and nods because she knows I fucked up too and goes back to class. I fell to the bathroom tile and let my tears fall onto it.
…..
I get off my freeway exit and snapped out of my trance as I realize I was nearer his street. I pulled up to a curb and saw the front door to his house wide open. My portal invaded. I glided right through, made my way to his room, tip-toed slowly like a ghost, courteous of his sleeping family. The door to his room was wide open and I crept in.
I stared at her from across the room. She was sitting solemnly on the window sill with her legs bent and her knees to her chest looking outside. She must have been there for a while. The curtains flowed with her hair, gorgeous as ever, even in her moment of self-destruction, the window wide open letting the cool breeze in.
I glared at him asleep on the bed, clueless, deep in some dream, no idea two girls were standing in his room. I approached her, my feet barely touching the ground trying not to make a sound. I wanted to sprint. I couldn’t even say anything, my tongue was ice. I stood above her and stared into her eyes. Emptiness. I wished to see hate for him, or more so even hate for me, but I saw nothing. I could always read her eyes. My talent gone. For the first time, I had no idea what she was thinking. Or maybe I was just just telling myself that.
Why I didn’t say anything is beyond me. Why I didn’t move, I don’t know. Every limb, joint, and muscle was frozen, except my lips which they could do was barely part, my lips that lied, yelled, and cursed but never kissed, which was all I ever wanted yet, couldn’t do and I don’t think she knew and at the same time she definitely did and that hurt me, froze me, so I hurt her back because my heart was burning from jealousy and I had to cool it, freeze it, even, and I hated that I felt like I was frozen in a nightmare but living my dream because this was the closest she had ever been to me which isn’t true but something about this sickening moment felt precious and I wanted to stay frozen here with her and as I thought all of this she reached into her pocket, grabbed a matchbox, struck the match and was out the window in less than second.
A compilation of pastry-wrapping tips. A list of every film Harrison Ford has acted in. Summarized news about the millionth writer’s strike. A stray dog who got rescued and then adopted. Bodycam footage of a drunk driver getting arrested. A clip from Season 307 of The Simpsons. Each of these snippets only stays on the phone screen for less than three seconds before I lose interest. Right as I’m about to call it quits, I come upon a recent clip from some talk show, where Chelsea Mack is talking about her process of creating her songs.
“I’m glad I have RhythmMaker’s Auto-Keyboard to help me out with it,” she says. “Making songs would be so tedious without it! I mean, who has the time to compose every single part of every single song themselves?”
What an icon, I think. She totally gets me.
“Truer words have never been spoken, Chelsea,” says the host. “These days, technology is letting people who can’t make art feel the joy of creating it, and RhythmMaker is paving the way for anyone to be a musician just like you! My 5 year-old son, -who’s a big fan of yours, by the way- has been making his own jazz music with the Auto-Sax since he’s terrible at making music on his own! Let me tell ya, I am so proud of him!”
DING! DING! The bell goes off at exactly 10:00, jolting me from my phone-induced trance. I sit up at my desk to find that all of my students have filed into the classroom and are sitting at their own desks. I put my phone away, quietly anticipating the moment I’d be able to take it out during my lunch break. I take a deep breath, and try my best to go into Teacher Mode.
“Good morning, everyone!” I say, putting on my best cheerful teacher voice. “As you might have guessed, today is Art Day! All of you have some art supplies at your disposal, including… Painter Prompters! Go ahead and raise your hand if you’ve used one of these before!” All hands in the room go up except for one. The remaining kid, Mitch, awkwardly glances around the room in surprise and confusion. A few kids at his table giggle, and his face goes red.
“Settle down, kids,” I say as all the hands in the room go back down. “Not everyone has been exposed to these tools before. Let’s all show him the ropes, huh? What I would like you all to do is draw something on the paper with your crayons. It probably won’t be good. In fact, it’ll probably be really bad! That’s why you all have your lovely Painter Prompters!” I hold up my own device so all the students can see. It somewhat resembles the iPads from two decades ago, but thinner with a small mobile printer and twice as many cameras. “Use this to take a picture of your drawing, and it will make the drawing beautiful!”
“Why?”
Ah. Mitch again. With how uncooperative he was being, you’d think he WANTED to waste time doing art the slow way. “Well, Mitch, not everyone can draw. I certainly can’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t create wonderful pieces of art!” I direct the class to the exquisite painting by the door, a Painter-Prompter generated oil painting of a garden of red flowers. Easily one of my best pieces. “I created this masterpiece without a single stroke of paint!” The painting is met with “oohs” and “ahhs” from the other students. As darn well it should.
“But I can draw! I draw really good!” Mitch insists. The nerve of this kid. Doesn’t he understand that he’s not the only one in the room?
“Now now, Mitch,” I say, putting on my stern voice. “That kind of talk can make other people feel bad. Not everyone can draw well. Not everyone can even pick up a pencil! You don’t want to make your peers feel bad, do you?”
Mitch glances around the room at all the eyes currently on him. “Well… no, but-”
“Then just be careful of what you say next time,” I say, my patience running thin. I notice some of the other kids giving him dirty looks. I sympathize with their anger, but I must remain calm and composed. “Now, let’s get to making some art!”
All the kids begin making their sketches on their sheets of paper. Before long, each of the kids puts down their crayons and scans their drawing with their Painter Prompter. I walk around the room to check each student’s progress. One student uses their device to turn her unintelligible scribble into a beautiful picture of a bird. Couldn’t tell you what kind, but beautiful nonetheless. Another kid selects the option on the device to type what picture to create. He seems to be having some trouble; his prompt reads “blu hose.” I swiftly correct his prompt to “blue house” and add some other necessary keywords: “beautiful pretty sunset realistic focus on shading” and his result is quickly corrected. Classic beginner’s mistake.
Finally I get to Mitch, who evidently hasn’t touched his device, and is instead focused on creating a mess of colors and shapes on his paper, vaguely resembling a garden of flowers. “Mitch, I think you forgot to scan your paper,” I tell him.
Mitch glances between me and the scribbles on his page. “Do I gotta use the Paint… thing? Can I just work on it by myself?”
I chuckle in amusement. Why would anyone not want to create beautiful art with the tap of a button? Who could possibly be satisfied with a crude amateurish crayon doodle? What a silly little underdeveloped mind. “Mitch, honey… with the Painter Prompter, you don’t need to do any work!”
“But… it’s fun.”
I fail to see anything on Mitch’s mess of a paper that even remotely resembles “fun.” “Young man,” I say, my patience wearing thin, “I don’t like your attitude. I’m teaching you how to make beautiful art and you’re giving me backtalk. Do you want to learn how to make art correctly, or not?”
Mitch falls quiet for a few seconds. Just when I think he’s finally seeing my side of things, he has the nerve to speak up again. “My mommy likes my drawings.”
Finally, the source of the problem! “Ah, I see the issue. Class, can you help me answer a question? How do you know your art is good?
“If everyone likes it!” The class says in unison.
I beam with pride at my little prodigies. I hold up Mitch’s paper for everyone to see. “Now tell me, what do you all think of this, ah… thing that this silly goose insists is art?”
“It’s just scribbles!” “Mitch, why didn’t you prompt it?” “What is it, I can’t see!” the students say.
I hand Mitch’s disaster back to him. “You see? If everyone doesn’t like your art, then there’s no point in making it. Your mommy might like it, but that’s just because she has no taste!”
“But… she’s a painter. Like, with brushes and stuff.”
Oh. “Is that right?”
“She’s really good, and she says I can get good too if I practice!”
At that moment, everything starts to make sense. I shudder at the thought of the conditioning this poor boy’s mother is putting him through. The nerve of this woman, making her own son PRACTICE to get better at art! I must do something about this, I think to myself. No one should have to endure the torture of being a beginner.
“Mitch… I’m so sorry your mother is forcing you to practice drawing.”
“She’s not forcing-”
I hate to have to interrupt him, but he’s clearly too innocent and naive to understand his situation. “She just thinks she’s better than us because she’s talented. Not everyone can draw like her. Clearly you can’t! Meanwhile, Painter Prompters are super fast, and anyone can use them, so you should just use those instead!”
“My dad says artists are all jerks!” “Mitch, it’s okay if you can’t draw!” “Come on, just use the thing!” The students all say.
After an excessive amount of convincing, Mitch reluctantly picks up his device. Finally! I thought this kid would never see the light. In the span of 30 seconds, the device masterfully scans the muddle of colors on the paper, and prints out a proper picture of a flower garden.
“Wonderful job, Mitch! Look at how detailed it is, and no ‘practice’ was needed! Everyone, give him a round of applause!” Scattered applause appears throughout the room. Yet, Mitch still somehow looks downhearted. At this point I could not imagine why. I can only hope he has some appreciation for the Prompter’s efficiency.
DING! DING! Before I know it, the bell hits 11:30. I lead the way down to the cafeteria as patiently as I possibly can, then eagerly dash to the teacher’s lounge for some much-needed phone time. After all, I must know about everything I missed in the past hour and a half. The current video is discussing the trials and results of a recent experiment of The Marshmallow Test. “In this particular study, 98% of the kids ate the marshmallow immediately, instead of waiting for the second one. 20-year-old studies show that this percentage used to be 60%. Researchers believe that this generation’s overwhelming demand for instant gratification may be the…”
As the video continues playing, I zone out and think about the good I did today. I pat myself on the back for keeping my composure; I just hope the other kids weren’t too distressed by the idea of needing skill to draw. They’re already creative geniuses, they shouldn’t have to PROVE it!
And neither should I.
A new video from a film news outlet announces that Dylan Jackson Stewart has started directing a new movie. I SUPPOSE I can wait five days for its Movies+ release.
I don’t know why I’m not more excited about this trip. I sit on the floor of my room with a heap of laundry sitting between my legs. I’ve never understood why people sort their whites and darks. It seems like an utter waste of time because I’m 19 and I’ve never had a bad experience. That one episode from Friends where Ross and Rachel go on a laundromat date and Rachel’s whites turn pink does rest at the back of my head, but I honestly don’t care enough. This is why my laundry takes forever, because I sit here and let my mind wander, letting a 30 minute task drag into hours. I’m waking up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to take the Amtrak to New York City to visit my friend Sinaed, and i’m sure once I get there i’ll be happy, but right now the thought of the loud dirty streets, the price of my ticket, and the mountain of mostly inside out socks, os not making the whole thing sound particularly appealing.
Between the hours of 4pm and 12:30 I’ve snacked on like 4 different kinds of chips, scrolled on Tik Tok for a couple of hours, fallen asleep for a bit, and cuddled with my cat which of course meant I couldn’t move at risk of disturbing her. Once the clock has ticked over to the early hours of the next day I decide that I should get some sleep, and that since I’m getting up early anyways, setting my alarm 30 minutes earlier won’t hurt, and I can pack then.
Taking public transportation has always been a source of stress. There are just so many opportunities for things to go wrong. Can’t find the parking garage to leave your car, the ticket meter isn’t working, how do you know which platform to go to, forgetting which way is inbound and which is outbound, someone gross sitting next to you. The list really goes on. Regardless, I make it, picking a window seat, putting my bag in the spot next to me. I try not to make eye contact with the people passing me in the aisle, their eyes scanning for an empty seat; I feel guilty. I try napping, but my coat isn’t able to bunch up in a way that prevents the metal armrest from jutting into my ribs. It doesn’t hurt that bad, but after about 5 minutes I come to terms with the fact that this isn’t going to work long term. Instead I gaze out the window and imagine the lives of the people who live in the houses just a stones throw from the tracks.
The conductor announces on the loudspeaker “Next stop Penn Station”. I gather my stuff even though it’s probably another 20 minutes or so until the train actually arrives. I imagine missing the stop and being stuck until Philly.
God that would be horrible.
My phone vibrates in my sweaty palm and I look down to see a text from Sinaed.
“Hey my class is going long do you think you can take the train to my apartment by yourself? sorry i didnt think i would have to stay this long.”
Great.
“Ya that’s fine, what train do i have to take?”
I’m literally gonna end up in the Bronx or something.
“Walk towards train station (it’s connected to the same building u don’t leave) find the A or E (blue letter) downtown to 14th st/8th ave. get off train and find signs for L train (stay in station) take L train (east side/brooklyn) to 1st ave leave station and walk 1 min to my apt.
Does this make sense?”
Good lord.
“Ya i’ll figure it out.”
For a second I entertain the idea of what would probably be a $60 uber and then yell at myself in my head. I’m always the one that gets stuck traveling. I mean I get it, it’s NYC, but getting stuck with the travel expenses every time seems unfair. Sinaed lives a very different life from me financially. I wonder what hobbies she would have if her dad didn’t fund her passion for fashion. I get she’s interested in it, but I mean I’m ‘interested’ in shopping too. Sometimes it feels like she doesn’t get that trips to visit costs hundreds of my personal money that I am ideally supposed to be saving. So is it unfair of me to want her to help pay? I don’t know…
I get out of the train and follow the crowds of people to this big kind of food court-esque area and decide to make a stop at Dunkin. I haven’t eaten yet, and I had time to waste anyway. Sinaed doesn’t get out of class for another hour or so, and I don’t want to get stuck standing locked out of her apartment. I get to the front of the line and the woman tells me that they are only taking cash.
“Oh, uhh… hold on”
I had planned on using Apple Pay, so I awkwardly dig in my purse which is in my bag for my wallet. I become keenly aware of the people behind me. I unzip to see how many ones I can scrounge up. Three dollars and some change. I blush and look up at the woman with an apologetic look even though I know it doesn’t make a difference to her whether I can buy a breakfast sandwich or not. I feel the urge to explain to her that I’m not broke I just don’t carry cash.
“..sorry, i don’t have enough”
She doesn’t say anything, just taps a few times on the screen with her acrylics. I scramble to pick up my shit and go find a pillar to sit against. For some reason the whole incident reminds me of one time this past summer when Sinaed and I went on a road trip. She drove, and at one point when we had pulled off the highway to get gas she insisted on going to three different gas stations because she wanted to find one that took apple pay. Otherwise she’d have to use her debit card. I think about it a lot. I made fun of her then with forced laughter, but I was actually so annoyed. Despite that annoyance, 20 minutes later we were doubled over laughing at the song that was playing in the Salvation Army that we had decided to stop at. We had been on our way to NYC then too, for New Year’s, and we were buying throw away coats so we wouldn’t freeze but also wouldn’t have to worry about losing a coat we valued. We clicked like that. Our sense of humor was identical, and really taking 5 minutes to find a specific gas station hadn’t affected me all that much. Everyone has that thing. The thing that makes you mad. And Sinaed’s is how she spends money. It’s the devil on her shoulder, but everyone gets their one thing, so I flick it off, because I love her for more reasons than I can describe.
My mind returns to the present as I notice a man across the station walking slowly and glancing around nervously. One of his hands is in the pocket of his hoodie and he looks a little lost. I wonder if he’s gonna pull out a gun or something. I let my mind catastrophize and wonder if I’ll think back to this moment and say I predicted it. The man really is starting to stress me out though, so I decide it’s a good time as any to depart on my solo journey.
I actually don’t mess up. I get on the right trains, go the right direction, and get off at the right stops. Sinaid is waiting for me at the top of the long flight of stairs that I take since the escalator is packed.
“Heyy! How was the trip?”
We don’t have a hugging relationship. Plus I’m carrying my stuff.
“It was good, nothing crazy.”
“Here I got u a coffee”
I smile and she hands it to me.
“Thanks Glenda,” I say.
Glenda, Sinaed’s Grandma, gave her a rechargeable Starbucks card at the beginning of high school, and it’s been put to good use. The picture on the face of the card is faded and peeling at the edges, and slips perfectly into the slot in Sinead’s wallet where it’s been kept for the past 6 years.
Sinaed looks at me and grins. She reaches out and takes one of my bags from me and starts telling me between unsuppressable giggles that someone on an electric scooter had hit her today as she was walking to class. She says it was one of those pizza delivery guys who wear the big insulated backpacks. At this point she’s struggling to get the words out because she’s laughing so hard, and I am too, I have tears in the corners of my eyes just on the verge of falling down my cheeks.
This is why I love her, why we’re best friends. As we walk down the block I forget about the devil. I’m sure I have a devil of my own.
I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June and all she left behind was her stained doll. Its arms have splotches of red on white porcelain skin from where Dad made little mistakes while hand-dyeing its hair. Its face is scuffed with a dirt-brown smudge from where he tried to color in its scraped eyes. He says he got it for her at a toy store down the road and wanted to make it perfect. My sister loved that doll even though she was fourteen when he gave it to her and that felt a little old for a toy like that. I can’t understand why she left it behind, but I carry it with me everywhere now, hoping desperately that she comes back for it. I don’t think she will.
When I think about where she might be I picture her someplace south of here. I hope she’s building sandcastles. When we were young, we went to the city for the first and last time and I stole a history textbook. Some kids in that city told us that “normal” kids go on vacation to the beach, not Plano, Texas, and make castles out of sand. We didn’t believe them until we got around to reading that textbook years later. Turns out they weren’t lying — even ancient Roman kids used to build with sand. Ellie-May had cried and asked why we weren’t allowed to make sandcastles if people had been making them for thousands of years. I hated when she wailed, so we stomped up to our parents and demanded we go to the sand immediately. She yelled in her shrill voice that it was clearly a human trait to play with sand, to create. I screeched that it was our right and that withholding this experience from us was torture.
Mom said there wasn’t any sand nearby. Dad adjusted his belt and said it wasn’t safe. We didn’t understand then — we stormed away with little red faces — but I understand now. Travel has been restricted ever since we were invaded, and my family’s farm was destroyed. It became too dangerous to play out in the open.
So even though we passed the ocean when we marched to this town seven months ago, neither I nor Ellie-May mentioned the sand that was right there. Instead, we flicked our eyes around and gripped our pocketknives tightly with more fear than confidence. We stood in the dense woods with our mother and the dozens of other women and children, as the men checked the town, quaking as we huddled together. When they returned hours later, they said they had faced the invaders and won but the townspeople were dead. Our army had been too late. No one made a sound; we all knew that would be their news anyway. This was the twelfth town in seven years and that was always the news.
So, we moved into that town last April to rest until there was another town we could march to and fail to save. Now, local resources are running low. People are shivering in their wooden huts, scrounging for scraps, and ingesting broth for meal after meal. Dad says we will march on when the snow thaws. But there’s this inexplicable gnawing in my chest when I imagine us marching away. My hands spasm and my shoulders clench without permission. My heart thunders and weighs heavy as if buried under mountains of glistening sharp ice. I squeeze my eyes shut desperately until all I see is red. I grip onto Ellie-May’s doll — the only thing grounding me in reality.
If we leave now something will be lost forever. If we leave now, Ellie-May will never be able to find us. She’ll never come home.
No one seems concerned about this and when I open my mouth to mention it, no words come out. None of my sounds make any sense anymore. I used to talk nonstop for hours — someone said they loved that about me, someone said that, I just can’t remember who — now all I’m reduced to is a rasping breath or choked cough.
I don’t think I’d say anything even if I could. Dad’s repeated enough times that “Ellie-May is lost” and I know he’s incapable of any other words. Mom never says anything, she just stares into the powdery snow that’s covered our roads since early September. Until that first snow, none of us had ever seen snow before. The old book I found in the library down the road said it wasn’t even supposed to snow here. I say nothing about this, I know that it’s because of the invaders so there’s no point. The book never mentions the invaders, so it’s not trustworthy anyway.
I threw that new book down next to our fading history textbook. A crumpled letter peaks out from the pages but I can’t bear to look at it. Her doll wasn’t all she left me, but the letter brings no comfort. My heart pounds when I think about touching it again. I haven’t moved it since I found it lying purposefully on my bed after Ellie-May got lost. I know it’s for me and it’s important but I’m not ready to give up my fantasy of Ellie-May surrounded by towering sandcastles just yet.
The invaders came seven years ago, just after I turned 10 and right before Ellie-May turned 7. They shook our land and burned our crops. They crushed our buildings and destroyed almost two-thirds of our food reserves. The barn collapsed down on our animals, and they stole my favorite goat, Goatrude. We’d fought over her name — Ellie-May liked Betty, but Goatrude was funnier, and I’d always been the better debater. We helped raise her, held a bottle for her and everything. But suddenly she was gone and so were most of our possessions. They came so fast we never saw them — didn’t even know what exactly had happened. One moment everything was at peace and suddenly it all went to hell and when we came out the other side, everything was ruined. Dad said we were lucky to make it out alive but when we struggled not to starve that winter, we didn’t feel lucky at all.
In the spring, moments after the trees started to bloom, Dad went out to find other survivors. He came back, hate ignited, and grabbed his gun and compass before he told us to pack a bag each. He told us that invaders had caused all the destruction. All of a sudden there was a reason for our pain. We had an enemy, Dad said we had a purpose. So, we marched for the first time. North of our ruined farm we met up with a stern man with a silver belt buckle who towered almost a foot over my father. He led us to a group of people, all tired and all angry. Then he led us north.
Ellie-May and I weren’t the only kids, but we were shy, a consequence of our homeschooled upbringing. We barely said a word to anyone else those first few days of marching.
I know that I made a friend eventually, but I don’t quite remember her, and I haven’t seen her in a while. I know we were close even though I couldn’t tell you her name. I heard myself call her V in a fading dream of a memory one night last week so maybe Vanessa or Violet? Or it could have been Vania, or Valerie, or Victoria. She was the tall man’s daughter; I am certain of that.
I see flashes of her face sometimes when I close my eyes but when I reach out to her, the mirage fades to black. I can remember only two distinct moments that came to me like prophecy long past.
One: I was young, probably thirteen and she was about the same age. We snuck out of town number five with a bottle of gin we found stashed under a desk at an abandoned factory. We flew through the woods going north — we were always prohibited from going South of the towns — until we crashed through the underbrush and into a shallow pond. I’d tripped and fell face first into the water and her laugh sounded magical as she pulled me up. I stared at her face as she turned toward a small waterfall. The place seemed intimately familiar; I could tell we’d been there before. She ran her hand under the falling waves, eyes mischievous and open, and I kept staring at her. I think her hair was black, but I can’t be sure now. We opened that bottle of gin, and even though it was both of our first times trying alcohol, we finished it quickly. I stared at her and stared at her, and we lay on the banks of the pond, feet hanging over the edge, almost touching the falling stream. She was laughing at the stars and said they must be bored never having any new experiences, always just sitting there in their rigid pattern. I must not have agreed fast enough because she turned her head and was suddenly looking at me as intensely as she had been looking at the sky. She said something, or I did, and then we were moving towards each other, awkward and hopeful in equal measure. I can’t remember the rest of it and if I focus too hard my head starts to hurt and my vision tints blood red at the edges.
Two: We’re in a clearing but we’re older and the woods look too familiar for it to be far from this town. She’s whispering something to me, gesturing wildly with her hands. I’m standing away from her, arms crossed over my chest. I’m further away from her than I feel like I should be. But we stay separated. I shout and throw my hands around and my wrist aches, a phantom pain from breaking it before the invasion. She speaks in level tones and points South. I shake my head and turn away. She reaches for me frantic, grips my weak wrist and I let her. She says something else, and I turn back to her. Her eyes are honest and miserable. I think they were brown but if I think about it too much the red tint appears, and I’m forced to stop. My eyes, hazel, meet hers, and something is said in the silence between us. I nod and she removes her hand from my wrist, then lifts her arm up and around my back. She pulls me into her. I think I’m crying. I know she is.
I know I had V, but I don’t quite remember her. She’s gone now but I don’t know where. Sometimes, without thinking, I turn to say something to the empty air, and I get this doomed sense that something’s not right, that something lovely withered and wilted months ago, that something irreplaceable shattered in June. I wonder if red was her favorite color and that’s why I can’t get it out of my head when I think of her.
V’s dad’s been angrier since she’s been gone. He’s been agitated and I’ve seen him stalk into the woods several times from our little house’s window. The invaders have always made him angry though. They killed his wife and son when they invaded. Just he and V were left when he decided to fight back and gathered our little army from any survivors he could find. I admired that resolve, to lose so much and still get back up. It must have taken a lot of courage to face the invaders after they killed his family. Yet town after town he led the marching men into battle and under his vengeful eye, hardly any of our people ever died. They must be a fearsome sight to behold. An army of avenging angels firing into the enemy, slowly ridding the world of cruelty and terror.
Cruel and terrible isn’t enough to describe the evil of the invaders. Everyone has a story of a nightmare encounter — they killed families, destroyed property, lit food stores on fire, and laughed as they flooded fields. They seemed all-powerful and, until recently, a little abstract. They were next to impossible to see but we know they have blue skin and stark white hair. Their eyes are stained red from bloodlust and claws spike at the end of their bony hands. They seemed to have magic. They’d shook the earth when they invaded, I’d felt it tremble. They lit fires and triggered explosions with glances, V’s dad said. Another man, a friend of my Dad’s, told me once that he saw them float in the air long enough to rip powerlines down and crush houses with just a strike of their palm on the roof.
I’ve never seen an invader, but I was captured by them in June. Dad says they knocked me out and tied me somewhere after I wandered South. He said that’s why we couldn’t go down there, a couple of invaders were camping there, preying on anyone who strayed too far from the safety of the town and our men with guns. He says my wrist must have broken again when they pushed me down into the stale earth. He says they hurt me a lot, tried to mind-control me or something. He says he saved me in September under the cover of the first snow of the year. The snow that Ellie-May disappeared into before I was able to see her again.
When he told me what happened it felt like a trade-off: me for her. Dad says it wasn’t. “Ellie-May is lost,” he repeats over and over. I picture her safe, warm somewhere covered in golden sand, building towers taller than her head. I hold her doll and picture that she’s here with me. I trace its stains with muscle memory and catch my nail on a crack that wasn’t there before. My mind wanders to the letter hidden in the decaying history textbook, between the pages about little Romans and their sandcastles. Is it a sweet goodbye or a map to go and find her one day? I don’t think I’m strong enough to go out on my own though so a map would be wasted on me.
Dad says it’s only a matter of days until we leave now, and I can’t breathe. Spring is creeping up like a cat ready to pounce. I turn towards the woods and red shoots across my vision. My wrist aches. I pause and look at the town square for too long and the almost melted snow is vividly scarlet. I blink and it’s gone.
I open the letter.
I don’t fully mean to; I don’t feel conscious when I do.
Ellie-May, it starts.
A lot of people lie. There’s every reason in the world for someone to lie. I don’t know what Dad was thinking when he lied. I know he said he got that doll new for you. I know he said he hand-dyed its hair but made a little mistake and that’s why its arms have splotches of red dye. I know he said that he colored its eyes in and that’s why there’s dirt brown smudges on its cheek. I need you to know that I think he lied. I think he lied for love but still. He didn’t want to tell the truth to a kid. And none of this “I’m not a kid anymore” nonsense, Ellie-May. You’re 14 and if I could, I’d keep you out of this entirely. But I can’t so I’m writing you this, maybe against my better judgment but Ava says it’s necessary, and well, you know she’s a bit more rational about these things.
Think about this Ellie-May: He said he would get you a pretty toy after you begged and begged. But it’s grey outside and the toy store down the road has been in shambles since we marched into town. But he promised, and how can you offer something up and then take it back? Maybe he views failure as cruelty. Or maybe I just want to know his definition of cruel because sometimes I look at the red stains on your doll and am reminded of my definition of cruel. He’s lying to you and trying to lie to me.
Ava saw something when she ran away while the men cleared the town. She told me when we met, far down the road and into the woods under the shade of evergreen trees. She said we couldn’t discuss this where our parents could see us. And in the cove of dark green, she told me she snuck into town when the men went to fight the invaders. She told me she saw another little girl holding the doll. She told me that the girl’s hair was brown and her skin tanned. She told me that she saw that little girl’s parents — dark-haired and tan — curled around her begging. She told me that she saw the little girl crying into your doll’s hair. She told me that these people had no weapons, their nails weren’t claws and their eyes were red from crying, not from bloodlust. She told me that her dad killed them as our father watched. She told me she saw that man — the one I can’t reconcile with the man who held our hands as we crossed the street, who fed us sweets covertly before dinner, the man that I can no longer claim as my father — grab the doll from dirty, bloodied hands.
I know it seems fake; I called her a liar too. I shouted but she begged me to think about it more and you know that I can’t say no to Ava. The invaders are blue and all they do is hurt, that’s what they’ve always told us. They’ve been shaking the ground, spitting fire, and advancing on us for years. They’ve torn down villages and leveled churches. They drank our blood and used it to live magical and strong. They don’t cry and they don’t have kids. They’re not human like us; they’re monsters born from dirt and snow, not out of love.
But there are splotches of red on the doll and its hair is black, and I think we both know that it’s not red dye, is it? There’s dirt on its face but he looked at you softly and said he got it new. But how could he be telling the truth? Ellie-May, have you ever seen an invader? I realize that I haven’t.
Ava kept talking and said they were hiding something down South. She wanted to go down there, and I was afraid, so I went to run but she stopped me. She swore to me, on all our memories and our special place, the one I told you about by that turquoise waterfall, that she knew what she saw. I think I believe her. She’s usually right.
Tonight, we’ll go South to find the truth. I don’t know what will happen but if we don’t return be cautious. I don’t know who’s lying anymore and I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m terrified that I’m the one lying now. What if I just take every opportunity to distrust a story? Maybe I’m too curious for my own good. What if they got to her? What if they somehow control her mind?
They aren’t supposed to do that, but they aren’t supposed to bleed red either. They aren’t supposed to care or feel. They aren’t supposed to live in town and run toy stores down the road for their kids. They aren’t supposed to die from advancing soldiers, they’re supposed to be the advancing soldiers. We aren’t supposed to kill innocents, we are supposed to be the innocent that they hunt. They’re supposed to be real. They’re supposed to be monsters on earth. But there aren’t any monsters after all unless you count us.
And our father —that man— isn’t supposed to be cruel. The hand that gave you the doll was gentle, worn, and protective. How could it have maimed? How could it have lied?
But this house isn’t ours and I don’t know why we are marching. Your doll isn’t meant to be yours — somehow, I don’t think that’s a lie. I’m going South tonight, and I’ll try to bring the truth back for you.
I read the letter again, then a third time and a fourth. Ellie-May hadn’t written it for me, I’d written it for her. There are stains, little drops where liquid fell on my signature but it’s unmistakably my name there signed at the bottom. Something is wrong and my vision flashes red again but this time it stays scarlet for almost a whole minute. I stumble. Suddenly, I see Ellie-May with snowflakes in her auburn hair.
The problem is that I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June.
But that isn’t true, a small segment of my brain screeches in the same childhood voice that begged to build castles made of sand. You saw Ellie-May in September, the day of the first snow. I didn’t. I know I couldn’t have because I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June. Since I dropped a letter on her desk, since I grabbed V’s — Ava’s — hand as we ran into the woods, as we ran South. Since I saw mounds of dirt and human, normal human-colored, flesh peeking out from the sides, out of the top. Since guns sprayed, and our bodies fell on bodies we were never meant to see. Bodies that I never did see, bodies I must have imagined. Bodies I was fooled into seeing by the attacking invaders that ran into the clearing, tearing the ground and hoisting guns. It was my good wrist that caught me as I fell, I know it. But it’s my bad wrist that hurts now, I know that too.
I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June when V grabbed my hand in a firm shake and told me she was going away for a little while as her father watched, guns slung over both shoulders like they always were. I haven’t seen my sister since I held V and sobbed, her body on top of mine as we lay on something lumpy and wrong, so wrong, something covered in dirt and red like the dye on Ellie-May’s doll. I couldn’t have seen Ellie-May heading South in September, wearing my favorite navy raincoat, because that’s when she got lost in the snowstorm and I had been stuck inside for what felt like months. I’d been thrashing in pain as men yelled at me, choking on fear and something else. Maybe then I dreamed a vision of her in the swirls of white, building little snow-castles and laughing, lashes covered in diamonds, because I was clinging to simpler times and that textbook we stole. I must have wanted to believe we had finally gotten the chance to create something childlike and beautiful.
So why was she running in my vision and not building? Why was she tripping and sliding across the square, clutching her doll like it even mattered? I tried instead to picture her leaping into a pile of powder and making a snow angel. I saw her dye it, title it a gloriously artistic Angel, red-on-white, and finish it off with a halo of her triumphant red hair. I saw her doll hit the snow hard and crack. Maybe I was screaming at her to get up, or maybe she was laughing, or maybe I was crying, yelling and there was too much red for winter. I couldn’t have seen any of that though because it hadn’t snowed yet in June, and I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June. June, when V went on vacation and went on patrol and went off to get married. June when the invaders brought me to a house somewhere and stole my ability to talk and kept me there until it snowed, until September when my father carried me away from the woods in that snowstorm and nursed me back to health. In his arms, I saw soft, visible mud beneath his feet, felt the wind light and warm, and brushed my hand across the leaves on the trees, bright green and unforgettably present. June when I’d snapped my bad wrist as I twisted frantically against something restricting it — a belt just like V’s dad’s, like your Dad’s my mind-supplied, no, bony blue hands I answered back dutifully. June — September — when I last saw Ellie-May.
We marched out of town number twelve on April 7th, that might have been Ellie-May’s birthday or maybe it was V’s. Mom muttered that it was my eighteenth when she saw the haze in my eyes after Dad mentioned the date like it meant something. I choked out a weak sound as red tinted my vision. I desperately shook my head to clear it as Dad guided me forward by the small of my back. I clutched Ellie-May’s doll as we left, tracing the red on white, and pictured we were going south to the beach.
Maria Lambert
Burying Bodies
“If I killed someone would you help me bury the body?”
I turn my head from the ceiling to face her from my position lying on the floor. Max lies beside me and continues looking at the ceiling after breaking our silence. We’ve been lying here for maybe 30 minutes? Maybe an hour, maybe two? In my drunken haze, time moves in an unfathomable fashion. I can still hear the party thrumming downstairs with the laughter of drunk teenagers enjoying the first party of their last year of high school. We’ve locked ourselves in an upstairs bedroom which we think belongs to Will, the one throwing the party, given all the football memorabilia and trophies. We’re also pretty sure we are not supposed to be in here given the hastily made KEEP OUT sign stuck to the door with duct tape. But the party was loud and crowded and Max grabbed my hand saying come on Amelia, I can’t stand it in here any longer. Her hand was hot on mine and how could I ever look her in those eyes and say no?
“Oh shit, have you gone and killed someone? Melissa finally get on your last nerve or something?”
I joke at her and she smiles and turns to face me. Our noses are almost touching and I can smell the vodka on her breath. It makes me want to throw up and kiss her at the same time so I turn my head away from hers and hope that she attributes the blush on my face to the alcohol I have been slowly putting down.
I’m not nearly drunk enough for this, I think to myself.
“No, Melissa is safe, for now. I just want to know that you would cover for me. You know, be my accomplice. There’s no way I could bury a body on my own, I’d want you with me” She pauses.
Max has deep brown eyes and deeper brown hair that falls just below her ears and frames her face. I didn’t always feel this way about her, once I felt normal about her. Friend of a friend, I met her shortly after the beginning of junior year when I had moved to this town where there is nothing to do but drive to the gas station and buy slushies and hot dogs to eat outside on the curb. One day when I was sitting on that curb, eating my hot dog with an okay friend of mine, she hopped out of her car, jeans dragging on the ground, a sliver of skin exposed at her midriff, and a white shirt with “Liz Phair” written on it in sharpie. Cool girl, I thought to myself. She was good friends with my okay friend, so she sat with us and I remember the first thing she said was that Mikey could keep dreaming his probably pervy fucking dreams if he thought she would ever go to homecoming with his misogynistic ass, and then she asked me my name. Amelia, I had said hoping the awe I felt wasn’t showing on my face.
We hit it off, fast friends. Lots of gas station hot dogs followed. The feelings didn’t appear until the beginning of the summer when she started texting this boy she worked with at the ice cream shop. He was nice and all, I guess, but there was this excruciating pain in my chest every time she brought him up. It wasn’t all that hard to figure out what was going on. After I had a dream where she broke it off with him, confessed her love to me, and kissed me on our school’s bleachers, I put two and two together. I had always lingered on her touch and her gaze, maybe wanted more, it just wasn’t until the boy that I realized that I wanted her to myself.
The boy didn’t last long. He stopped texting her after a while. He said he didn’t think she really cared about him. I had consoled her, but I don’t think she really cared either. There wasn’t much to do but curse his name together. What if she had killed him? We definitely joked about it back then, laughing about all the ways we’d go about it. I’d help her bury the body. I would lick her tears, I would disinfect her hands, and I’d be careful. We’d go into the woods, somewhere far into the woods, and bury that boy deep in the ground.
I answer her truthfully and she still stares at the side of my face, “Yeah I’d cover for you. I think we could do a good job of burying a body. I used to be pretty into all those cop shows and stuff. We could drive far away, find somewhere discreet, and dig a really deep hole. I feel like nobody is ever digging deep enough. One rain and everything comes to the surface. I’d never be that stupid.”
Would I? Would I let everything come to the surface? Maybe some people want their buried bodies to be found.
“Good, I knew I only needed you” She goes silent after a minute and I think maybe she has fallen asleep, but when I face her, her eyes are open.
A week ago we went swimming in our favorite spot on the river. The forest hides the pathway down to the water so no one is ever there, just me and Max. As we were floating in the water, letting the blanket weed brush our legs and backs, she asked me what my type was. My brain floundered trying to think of an answer that wasn’t a lie or the truth. How do I explain I love people with short brown hair, bitten fingernails with chipped polish, a slightly crooked nose from a brother’s punch many years ago, knobby wrists with millions of bracelets, a birthmark that looks like the continent of Africa on their lower leg, long legs, dry hands, and a million moles? People who lie about the movies they’ve seen to seem cooler, have horrible handwriting, tried to get their ears pierced but threw up at the sight of the needle, write bad poetry that I don’t think is bad at all, obsess over the slide guitar, and still use the same Bath and Bodyworks vanilla perfume they stole from the mall at age 14. I don’t know how to say all that so instead I say I dunno, someone taller than me? To which she sighs, tells me that is so boring, and says Hmmm I think my type is probably someone a lot like you, and before I can process that, she pulls me under the water, laughing at how I splutter, splashing her when I come up for air. I think about that now in this hot room as I contemplate burying bodies and how we might not hide them all that well on purpose; How I might die if I keep this all inside.
We breathe and I search her eyes for something more, something that gives me a sign that she wants what I want, that she doesn’t want to waste the last of high school dancing around what we really mean and want to say. I know what I want to say. Confession is always in my back pocket. It’s a mantra. I’m not drunk enough for loose lips, but I pretend I am.
“I think if I don’t tell you how much I love you, you’ll be burying my body,” I whisper and her eyes widen. I have to admit I’ve never been the best at reading Max. She always knows exactly what I’m thinking, but her face never seems to give anything away, or maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I’m the blind one, but right now I’m certain I see something because I know how it feels to make that face, what muscles are used to feel that. I feel it all the time. Something like love.
“They’ll have to bury me with you,” she leans in.
8 responses to “STORY (Tues)”
What Happens in the Underbelly of a Wave
The wave crashed over Audrey in a fury. The salt burned on her tongue and infected her lungs. She squirmed in a panic over the heavy blanket of water. The aggressive hands of the wave pushed her deeper into the rocky ground, and she felt the pressure between her ribs. Water surged in her mouth, pooling in her stomach and lungs. The wave forced itself inside her, and she felt something slimy rush down her throat. Arms pulled her from the water and brought her to the shore. She thought nobody would. She thought that was it. Her back was laid against the burning sand, and the sun lit her bare skin on fire. People pounded on her and she spit up all the seafoam.
The next morning, she ran herself a bath at home and felt a twinge of fear gazing at the water. She undressed but couldn’t bear to step in, clutching her naked frame. Soreness splinted from her ribs to her hips, and her skin was freckled with bruises from the wave. She ran her finger along all of them, inspecting herself in the mirror, when she noticed her stomach pushed out in a bump. She tried to think nothing of it; maybe she had put on extra weight from the fourth of July at the beach, drinking cheap beers. Yet as the days went on her stomach pushed out more and more. She felt no need to take a pregnancy test, as she hadn’t been with anyone in a year, not after the new law. She went to the doctor and was probed if she was pregnant, Audrey felt humiliated by question after question. A nurse with caked-on blue eyeshadow made her pee on a test, and of course, it was negative. The nurse led her down a long yellow hallway with a sanitary scent. Audrey lay on a pale pink papered bed, her midriff exposed and slathered with cold goo. An ultrasound ensued, and the bean-shaped baby was present in her uterus. Audrey felt the back of her neck cold in a sweat, wet like the wave. The doctor spoke to her condescendingly, saying that sometimes tests are faulty, but this is good because her time was running out. She tried to scream out that something wasn’t right, but she felt the wave crashing against her all over again, and the seafoam filled her mouth.
Audrey flipped through old beauty magazines of skinny models on her couch that night, focusing on anything but the news she received, but everything came back to the small bump of her stomach. What was there to do? Go to the next state over, and get rid of it? How did it even come to be? She retraced every night and all the bars and began to panic, doubting her memories. She looked online to order pills. It had been a year since the law got passed, and you could no longer get rid of it. You couldn’t even say what getting rid of it was. The politicians claimed you had to keep it because love is only found within the family these days. It’s not like Audrey didn’t want to be loved. She wanted it more than anything. She wanted a husband to trace along her cheekbones and spine, to kiss her softly from her temples to her fingertips. She craved company at the grocery store and riveting conversation over coffee and arms to pull her out of her wave. She was lonely. But she did not want a baby. She had avoided men for a year to never be in this situation, but now it was inside her.
Within the next days, her stomach began to grow rapidly, swelling out to an even rounder, more prominent ball. Audrey awoke in her bed and felt like an ever-expanding balloon. Her stomach twisted and she felt invaded. She observed her stomach in the mirror, shocked at the overnight growth, when it started to flip over in her stomach. Bile swelled in her throat and tears in her eyes, and a long arm pressed against her bump from the inside. It pressed harder, and Audrey now saw that a tentacle was inside of her, the circles of suction cups forming bumps along her skin. She turned white and collapsed to the ground. She regained consciousness and dialed the emergency line, frantic and confusing the operator, who kept repeating “Tentacles? Inside of you?” As the blare of sirens came closer to her apartment. The door banged and boomed and broke down from the paramedics, like the wave that whooshed and crashed Audrey to the rocky ocean floor, and now made a surrogate of her.
Paramedics wheeled Audrey into the hospital on a gurney, and her stomach looked like a mountain during an earthquake, as she laid on her back hysterically crying and panicking. The nurses considered putting her in the ward for schizophrenics or thought she could be coming down from an intense high. Only the blue-eyeshadowed nurse gave her a chance, and the cold goo for the ultrasound was slapped on her engorged abdomen. The nurse’s eyebrows flicked up in confusion, her eyes disappearing into a cakey blue squint. Audrey saw the moment of realization on the nurse’s face and tried craning her neck up to see what had invaded her. The room ricocheted with a dead silence, and the blue eyeshadow of the nurse vanished as her eyes widened, trying to comprehend the image on the screen. Metal instruments clattered to the ground as nurses shoved each other around. More and more heads popped in, rushing around the woman and the screen. Audrey felt like an animal at the zoo. Her invasion turned her into a spectacle. On the small screen a black blob in the shape of a small octopus twisted around inside Audrey.
It was less than 24 hours until the media got ahold of it. “WOMAN AT ST. MARY’S HOSPITAL DISCOVERED PREGNANT WITH OCTOPUS.” The mob erupted in various comment sections and forums, and people called Audrey a monster, shameless, disturbed. A rumor commenced that Audrey worked in an aquarium, and that’s how she developed a torrid affair with an octopus. But men found humor, and even pleasure, in Audrey’s situation. They joked she was a freak, that she was into tentacle porn. They said this is what happens to women who are past 30 and still not married. The men called her a “sea whore” and a “fish fucker” and laughed and laughed and laughed. None of this was true. Audrey never worked in an aquarium. There was no affair with an octopus. The degrading accusations from the men had no merit whatsoever. It felt ridiculous being forced to clarify this, so Audrey hid away from all the mobs. The wave took autonomy of her body and now she was a public spectacle.
The congressmen debated over the octopus inside Audrey. They said the octopus had just as much a right to life, and Audrey would have to wait until it could sustain life without her— when it became as big as possibly could fit inside of her. The congressmen defended the octopus. It appeared a sea creature had more merit to life than a human woman. Audrey was wheeled to her scheduled c-section, once she had reached her “full-term”, which only lasted 50 days until Audrey’s stomach was soon to burst open.
Audrey’s back shivered on the cold, lifeless, metal table. Academics and doctors from all around the world stood in the gallery, crowding against the glass to get a peak at the once-in-a-lifetime operation. A scalpel went from the top of Audrey’s engorged lump of what was once a stomach and sliced a red line down to the bottom. The scarlet blood pooled out. Organs were moved and squelched and eight tentacles were bursting out. The blood spilled and foamed, and crashed like a wave. The academics in the gallery averted their gaze. All you could see was a red fury. The surgeon pounded on her chest, and the sticky blood started to drip onto the tile floor. The whole world cared more about a sea creature than a human woman. Audrey’s eyelids fell closed and everything was dark, like the underbelly of the wave.
ONE YEAR LATER
A little girl utilized her size to navigate through the crowd, anxiously waiting and searching around the enclosure, pressing closer to the glass. Her breath fogged the glass up, and she was leaving little dirty fingerprints all over it. The crowd grew irritated in the heat, sweat dripping down foreheads. Waves crashed into the ocean bordering the aquarium. A metal plaque glistened and was hot to the touch under the sun, and a careless boy whipped his finger back in pain after touching it. Stinging with heat, the plaque explained that this enclosure held the octopus who was born via human pregnancy. “MIRACULOUSLY, THE CREATURE SURVIVED THE C-SECTION,” it read. People started to point and gasp and cameras clicked and flashed as a tentacle peeked out from behind a rock.
02-29-05
Dear Diary,
It’s Saturday the 29th, he said to be ready by 7pm for a surprise. He does this every so often and I love it. The feeling of getting ready, not sure where we might go, but a hint by the dress code, as I sit and do my makeup in front of the bright lights of my worn out light pink vanity that I’ve had since I was 12. I’ve never been one to get rid of things, my mom always gives me flack about it. She’s on her third wardrobe cleanse of the year, what doesn’t please her is gone the next day. Even though it’s been almost two years, I still get butterflies in my stomach, they feel less beautiful than the thought of butterflies but more like insistent bubbles overflowing or the dramatic rampage of moths when light is near. Being around him made me nervous, as embarrassing as it is. I used to watch romcoms sick to my stomach seeing how couples swooned over each other, what a load of crap. Movies were over dramatic, trying to make us fall into the trap of feeling incomplete without an “other half” and I thank my mother everyday for the security of self that she instilled in me. But without him I’m lost, sorry Mom. I’d follow him to the Moon if I had to and trace every crater’s crevice with the tips of my raw finger if that were the only way to make him laugh. My pied piper. His beautiful brown eyes make my cloudiest days bright, I don’t care about anyone else, I don’t care who’s around because all I see is him. When I go to sleep it’s him, when I wake up, when I write, when I sing, when I breathe, it’s him. I hope none of this ever see’s anywhere else but in between the pages of these two leather covers. Have you ever been so overwhelmed by emotions you’re not sure where they are coming from? I’m crying but I’m not sad. I’m fuming but I’m not mad. I’m smiling. It’s 6:55pm.
02-30-05
Dear Diary,
It’s late, 12:15am. We went to my favorite museum, The Fantasy Inn. Tonight I learned something new – although I have studied his face about a million times, when he smiles there is a little dimple that appears right at the crease of the left corner of his lips, that can be seen so far if you try. He did his hair differently this time, parted to the side slightly more than usual, suited him so well. When we hug I melt into every crevice of his like butter on rigid toast. I wish it was possible to get as physically close as syrup does on pancakes after they have been left on the surface for so long that it seeps into every crack making the pancake a sponge of syrup that explodes such sweetness when bitten just right. The way he walks with a little twist at the ankle because of a track injury and speaks with such confidence even when he is wrong. I love the way he moves so carefree with less strictness than me. I catch myself smiling when I see him in the halls. I know everything about him, the way he double knots his laces ever since the incident in 6th grade or the way he shakes his legs to warm them up before a race, always left then right, or how he stands at 6’1” but his odd posture makes him 6’. So why her and not me? I can see the way he looks at her, how his eyes widen when she’s near, how he prioritizes her. I learn about him and all the little things that make him him, because I love him. I’m his person. But why does she get to kiss him goodbye? She doesn’t love him and I cannot be convinced of it. She will never love him like I do. Why can’t he see? Everyday I sit and write, manifest and I have patience, I’m not a quitter. Good things come to those who wait. Relationships are built on a foundation and ours is strong. When he comes to pick her up for dates there’s no spark, she doesn’t hug or kiss him the way that I would. It’s bland. I hear how she talks about him to her friends, my Mom always tells her to end it if it’s not working but she won’t let him go. She’s selfish she doesn’t want anyone else to have him if she can’t. It’s always about her, I can never be happy because of her. She always got the new toys, the nice jewelry, the latest tech, the hottest boyfriends, the closest friends, the best grades, the name brands, the most comfortable life. I hate her. I’ve done nothing but be a good sister to her. At night I listen to her complain and cry about the way he never opens doors for her or how she wishes he made more so that the dates were more extravagant. But then in the same breath boasts about the red roses he gets her every season in a different vase that matches her aesthetic of the month and how much she adores the way he looks at her even when she’s angry. And I still comfort her. Why does she hate me? All my life ever since I was born she’s always had a vendetta against me. Maybe she liked being the only child so much, I came and rained on her parade. Although we were raised the same, she will never be me. She doesn’t appreciate him. I saw the way he smiled when he opened the present I got him for his 18th Birthday, Leia’s half-ass poem couldn’t even touch it. I can feel the grip of our grueling tension slip when I leave the room. I know because I write about it everyday, these pages know no rest and I apologize profusely for the way I scrape my pen in many emotions at once hoping the pages can bear my pain better than I can. He ruins me and pretends to not notice. But the way he waves at me as I watch them leave through my bedroom window soothes me. He does it on purpose. He can see it in my eyes, in my smile, and in my hugs. He knows, but refuses to acknowledge. Why does he insist on hurting me like she does? I thought he was different, why does he do this to me? We would get along so well, I can feel it. We’re more compatible, I’m a Virgo, he’s a Scorpio, she’s a Gemini. He’s water, she’s oil and I’m thirsty. It’s not his fault that she gets into his head, I know how she is, she’s smart and persistent, charming, capable, honest, compassionate, happy, captivating, generous, kind, dependable, courageous, responsible, beautiful, selfish, greedy, arrogant, manipulative. She’s crazy! I’m sorry, I was getting ahead of myself. It’ll be okay, I’ll be okay, I’ll be patient.
02-30-05
Dear Diary,
Another day, another entry, another chance. It feels so warm outside today, my bright Sun. Love is a choice we make everyday, and I choose.
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03-05-05
Journal Entry 122
Savon and I are in a fight over a stupid disagreement about celebrity hall passes. This is the longest we’ve gone without talking. It’s been a rough two days, I’ve barely eaten or slept. But Allie has been so caring and comforting. She’s been keeping me company wherever I need to go and tells me how strong I am and that I don’t need a man, a man needs me. She always comes up with the funniest lines, making me forget that my boyfriend technically just ghosted me. I check my phone nonstop during the day hoping he’d text me that he’s not mad and it’s all just a dream. Allie keeps my phone during the nights so I don’t drive myself crazy wondering if the vibration from my gmail notifications were texts from him, because she knows how I can get. I’m glad she suggested it the first night after it got heated. But I still sneak text him on my ipad because I don’t care. I’m not the most level-headed right now, how could I be? This is not right. How could he go this long without talking to me? He has no reason, there’s no reason. I hope something happened, it has to have, there’s no way Savon would do this to me. This hurts so bad I can’t even hate him, I can’t even be mad, there’s no energy for any other emotions, or any at all. It’s hard to appreciate life right now but I’m grateful for my sister Allie, my mom, and my friends for being here for me.
Hopefully I can look back at this with better news in the future and take this as a reminder that we never really know someone until we do.
The Edge of Doom
We like to play this game on the ski slopes. It’s my favorite game ever. I feel so alive while playing it. I could always feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins and my heart beating faster and faster as I raced down the slopes, my friends close behind me, practically breathing down my neck. The game was Backcountry Skiing Tag.
Backcountry Skiing Tag is pretty self explanatory. There is one tagger, sometimes two if there’s a big group playing. The hunters give the prey a 15 second head start, then the game is on. Players weave back and forth between trees, jumping over boulders and rocks. If you’re tagged you’re it, and you have to give the new runner an 8 second head start to ski down the hill. I don’t know why we settled on 8, but it doesn’t matter because it works.
Our parents always tell us to be safe, as the backcountry is a different place than the groomed slopes. There are random caves and holes and tree mounds covered up by the beautiful deceiving powder. But it was never an issue. We would always be lucky enough to avoid a cave or boulder hole barely, our skis scraping the edge of doom. We would let out a little yelp then stop a couple feet down and laugh our head off at the fact we almost just broke both our legs, and then speed we’d off down the hill. We couldn’t let the tagger catch up to us. We couldn’t lose.
Nothing bad really ever happens. Occasionally people crash into each other, creating a giant pileup somewhere in the snow. One time my friend Sean lost a ski and searched for 30 minutes before he found it 20 ft down from where he fell. The worst thing that happened was one day my friend Josie got caught in a small boulder hole. I almost skied right past her, not because I didn’t see her, but because the taggers were close behind and I didn’t want to get caught. It was every man for himself. But I decided that I’d save Josie this time and sometime in the future she would owe me one.
We skied a couple runs this morning, and on our last run before going in for lunch Alex suggests that we play a round of B.S. Tag. We all cheer in glee and decide who the taggers will be. We have a bigger group and want to mix it up, so there would be 2 taggers. I am chosen to be a tagger along with my friend Myka.
“GO”
The prey in front of us went scrambling down the hill. There are 8 of them to be exact. 2 hunters and 8 targets, this is going to be fun.
1, 2, 3–
Andrew is lagging behind, he will probably be tagged first. I am aiming for him.
10, 11, 12–
Myka and I look at each other and nod.
15–
Here we go.
We race down the hill. The wind is blowing strongly in my face. It’s whistling in my ear, so much so that I can’t hear any other noises, just the wind. I am focused on my target ahead of me; Andrew. Myka nods to me, meaning she’s giving me the easy target. I will owe her one day for that. I am coming up behind Andrew, he’s getting closer and closer. I am on his heels now. I reach my hand out and press it into the center of his back. Success!
“Tag, you’re it!”
I laugh and continue on down the hill. Andrew stops to give me the 8 seconds I earned. I disappear into the trees, bobbing back and forth between them. I look back and Andrew is nowhere to be seen. He must’ve taken a different path. I am safe.
I got to the bottom and am the 4th one down here. Myka, Josie, Alex, and John were also down here. We will sit here and wait for the rest of the group to join us. One by one they all come down.
8, 9, 10, 11–
We wait. And wait. And wait. 10 minutes went by after our last friend came down, and Andrew was nowhere to be seen. Then 20 minutes passed. Alex says maybe he had just gotten down first and had gone inside for an early lunch or maybe he thought we were in there. We aren’t worried, why would we be? Nothing bad ever happens. We head inside for lunch and eat our food. An hour passes and there is still no sign of Andrew. He’s fine, probably upstairs somewhere. Andrew could handle himself.
“Myka should we get back out on the slopes?”
“Yeah, let’s do Powderkeg”
“Okay deal, race you to the lift!”
I throw on my gear and race out to the chair lift, I seem to have beat Myka here. Yes, another win! I am on fire today. I see Myka come trotting up the hill, she groans and rolls her eyes at me.
“Haha, I win again.”
“Shut up.”
We go up on the lift and ski Powderkeg, then go up it again and ski another run. And another. And another. When we come down after our last run of the day, the ski lift is officially closed and has stopped running.
I take off my skiis, place them on the rack and then head inside. I see most of my friends there packing up their stuff. I pull off my boots and start to take the rest of my gear off when Andrew’s mom comes up to me. Something is different about her, she seemed worried.
“Izzy have you seen Andrew?”
“No Mrs. Wilkins, not since before lunch.”
“Do you know where he might be darling? When’s the last time you saw him?”
“Well the group played Backcountry Skiing tag, I tagged him and kept going down the hill and I haven’t seen him since. I thought he came in for an early lunch or something.”
She looks around, fear fills her face. Worry starts to creep into my mind.
“Has anyone here seen my kid Andrew? Andrew Wilkins? He’s 4 ‘6, 11 years old, dark brown short hair? Anyone?” She says this out loud to the entire ski lodge.
Why was she worried? I don’t understand, Andrew was definitely okay. Like, he was probably still just on his last run coming down the hill.
Everyone just kind of looks at her, some mumble “no, sorry,” under their breath. She gasps and runs to one of the workers and talks to them hurriedly. He picks up his radio and says something through it. Everyone’s interest peaks.
“Folks, it seems that we have a missing kid. Does anyone have any information that may be helpful?”
Everyone shook their heads.
“Alright, well if you are an experienced skier and don’t have anything urgent to do, please feel free to join the Ski Patrol, as we are a little understaffed right now. We are going to buddy up in teams of 3 and search the Mountain, specifically the last run he was seen on.”
Some people leave after this statement but a surprising number of people stay.
“Izzy, what run did you ski last with him?” Mrs. Wilkins asks.
“I told you, it wasn’t a run. We played a round of Backcountry Skiing Tag. It’s our backcountry spot.”
“Would you be able to take us up there and show us which area you ski?”
I nodded. I was happy to just ski another run honestly, but I was feeling a little worried for Andrew. I didn’t know that no one else hadn’t seen him. He was definitely fine, maybe he’s just getting back at me for tagging him.
Everyone puts their gear back on, plus a couple more layers. We head outside, put our skis on and then get ready to get on the lift. The Ski Patrol assigns groups of 3 and hands out bright orange and headlamps for everyone to wear.
With all of our gear on we head up the lift. When we get to the top of the mountain everyone looks to me to lead them to the area. I do so and lead them to the top of the run. It was funny, the sun hadn’t fully set yet but it seemed really dark outside, even with all the headlamps pointed in my direction.
“Izzy, stay with me please,” my friend Myka’s mom said. She was my ride home, so I felt compelled to listen.
People split up to cover a wider area of the slope. We skied down so slow, it was painful. I could hear Andrew’s name being called out from all different directions and distances. Maybe something was actually wrong? I mean, it wasn’t like Andrew to be petty, especially this petty. Why isn’t he responding to his name? Why is he not answering those calls with an “I’m here! I’m here!”
We search and search until all of a sudden we shoot out onto a run that leads us to the bottom. The Ski Patrol decide they want to do another run. So we do the same thing again, take the lift up, I lead them to the path, and then we ski down it.
This happened 3 more times, and while I was excited to be one of the last kids left skiing on the Mountain and I got an extra 5 runs under my belt, I kinda just wanted to go home. I wanted to see Andrew again.
The Ski Patrol announce that the next run is the last run we can go on. So we go up the lift, I lead them to the path once more, and we begin to ski down the hill looking for Andrew. I know he’s okay, he’s tough, and nothing bad ever happened during B.S. Tag. We always were fine.
“I found something,” echoes loudly on the Mountain. Everyone converges on those words. Andrew, they found Andrew!
I rush over to that sound and there’s already a crowd there when I arrive. Someone says “Hey don’t let her see this.”
“No, no that’s not fair, I want to see Andrew!”
No one looked happy to see him, what was wrong? Why couldn’t I see him?
Before someone could stop me I forced myself through their body wall, only to find myself looking down a boulder hole. Andrew’s lifeless crumbled body was staring right back at me.
Andrew didn’t escape the edge of doom.
Frozen
At 3AM no one gives a shit that this city’s beloved daughter is en route to kill her cheating ex-boyfriend except for me.
I tried talking her out of it. “What about New York?” Nothing. “What about our apartment with our lemonade-filled fridge?” Nothing. “All because of some boy?” Nothing.
I pleaded with her. I begged her. I even threatened to call the police on her, but I wasn’t going to do that and she knew that I wasn’t going to do that. Maybe I should have tried harder.
Since Lila and her boyfriend broke up, I thought that I would finally have all her time to myself. When they were together, I always got half. I thought I was going to get it all now, but I’ve gotten less. She was already always busy because of the end of senior year, her work schedule, her rehearsals, and everything. It’s like she has time for everything else but me.
When I do see her now it’s like she’s the shell of a person, I see her body but there’s nothing inside. I try to joke around and make things like it how it used to be, but she’s still hung up on him and what happened. She says that if she she can’t kill the girl who took him from her then she’s she was going to kill him— post graduation, so at least he would have lived to graduate high school, she specifies.
We were having a sleepover that night, like we always used to do; I somehow convinced her come over and she did. We watched a few movies and she braided my hair and I just felt her mind wander all night. She said she was going to kill him and I said no you’re not and we left it there. I tried telling her she’s crazy and she said that I didn’t understand. She couldn’t be serious.
We fell asleep and I tried staying up to watch her. But I dozed off as well. I must have felt her leave because I jolted awake and she was gone.
I grabbed my keys and ran to my car. As started driving, I thought I was speeding but I was driving normally, almost more cautiously than I usually drive. My hands were shaky and my feet felt like a feather, no matter how hard I pressed on the gas I wasn’t moving any faster. The darkness and silence spooked me…I could’ve turned the music up but my arm wouldn’t budge, and my mind started to wander…
…..
They were fighting. All I know is that even though she was mad, she wasn’t planning to break up with him at all and neither was he. He would’ve apologized. I just wanted them to break up. I needed it.
It was a sunny day in March and I walked out from my last class to the parking lot and saw him around the corner. I usually would go home with Lila but since it’s spring she was so busy that I have been having to walk home alone.
I was about to turn and leave in the opposite direction, yell at him, or maybe even slap him arcoss the face, not because he’s been a stupid boyfriend but becasue he was just that: her boyfriend. I didn’t do any of that. He was the boy of the school and he was dating the girl of the century. As much as I tried to hate him, it was hard. He was a popular, nice to everyone, he got good grades if that matters. If he got Lila a gift he would get something for me too, like we were conncted or something, becasue we were. If I were more confident and if it weren’t for Lila I would’ve went for him. I never told Lila this, but I had a crush on him too. Well, I guess it wasn’t a real crush, he was just nice to look at and if I had to choose a boy to crush on it would be him. It’s not like I could have gotten him anyway.
He gave me a look of guilt. They were fighting is because he got into UCLA and never told Lila that he even applied. Lila freaked out because all this time she thought he was going to at least be in the east coast and they could still see eachother. She was mad that he didn’t tell her that he applied. It’s all kind of stupid really. I know deep down that she’s mad because she’s going to have to break up with him if he goes to UCLA and she has this stupid idea that he would’ve gone to college near her and they would’ve gotten married or something. I know because I know her best. And if I were him I would’ve told her that I applied because she doesn’t like secrets being kept from her.
I realized that this was finally my chance to make them break up for good. He was a fine boyfriend but he wasn’t me.
“Break up with her.” I pasued. “Please.”
He looked at me and asked why and I didn’t know how to say it. Because I want her. Because she wants me too and she doesn’t know it yet and you’re preventing her from knowing. I should have at least said something, anything.
But I didn’t say that. Instead I was looking at his face and how perfect it was and I was jealous that he got to kiss Lila and I was jealous that Lila was wanted by him and I was mad that she was mad at him which took more time away from me. Maybe if she knew how horrible he was she would end it. He wasn’t all that bad but maybe I could make him horrible.
So I kissed him. I don’t know why I did that and I don’t know why he didn’t pull away or yell at me that he doesn’t want to kiss me. He should’ve. I could blame all of this on him. I was shocked at my actions as I pulled away but then he kissed me back and it was like the world finally started moving. It was nice to take a break from wanting and just be wanted for once.
I’m sure he thought I was coming onto him and that I said to break up with Lila because I wanted him for myself, but I don’t know. At that moment I wanted to run home and cry about what I had done and tell Lila what I did and tell her everything.
Next thing I know I was in the passenger seat of his Chevy and he was taking me back to his house. We were silent becasue we both knew what we were doing and the only thing we could hear was the pop music playing on the softest volume from the radio.
When we got to his house I saw his door and it glowed at me like it were some kind of portal. Like he took me into a place where I could pretend to be someone else. He is really nice. I get why Lila likes him but I understand why he loves Lila. Maybe I was trying to become him. Maybe I thought that if I spent time with him I could learn all the secret ways he was able to get Lila and not me. Maybe I could get him to fall for me and he will break up with her and then I would tell him I don’t like him like that. That was my plan originally.
So I let it happen. I told him to leave her for me and he kept saying he would but he never did. Somehow I would always end up meeting him behind the science building by the parking lot and quickly hop into his truck like we just committed some kind of heist. I couldn’t control my feet or my body, it was like they moved on their own accord. And then I would go through his portal-like door and become some other version of myself. If I’m being honest, it was kind of thrilling. Maybe the secret to romance is secrecy itself.
Last month, as I was getting into his car I saw a girl from my English class at the end of the parking lot. She watched me get in his car. The next day the whole school is talking about how Lila’s boyfriend is cheating on someone but now one knows who. Apparetnly she gets in his truck at like 5pm every day. They’ve been, like, hooking up. Does Lila know, I thought they were still together? Why would he do that to Lila? She ran to me devastated and I comforted her as I screamed inside. I should’ve been thinking about how to tell her the truth but instead I thought about I could hide it instead.
During English the next day, I saw the girl leave class for the bathorom, so I got up and left a few minutes later. I barged in the bathroom and she was washing her hands.
“Don’t worry I didn’t tell anyone it was you,” she said, not looking at me.
I wanted to scream at her and curse her out but I didn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t. Even though she’s nothing but a gossip, she’s doing me a favor. If Lila finds out through a string of gossip that he’s been cheating on her but not find out its me, then I’m good. She’ll break up with him and we can run away to New York the second we graduate.
“Please don’t,” my voice comes out pleading, because I know I fucked up. She dries her hands off and smiles and nods because she knows I fucked up too and goes back to class. I fell to the bathroom tile and let my tears fall onto it.
…..
I get off my freeway exit and snapped out of my trance as I realize I was nearer his street. I pulled up to a curb and saw the front door to his house wide open. My portal invaded. I glided right through, made my way to his room, tip-toed slowly like a ghost, courteous of his sleeping family. The door to his room was wide open and I crept in.
I stared at her from across the room. She was sitting solemnly on the window sill with her legs bent and her knees to her chest looking outside. She must have been there for a while. The curtains flowed with her hair, gorgeous as ever, even in her moment of self-destruction, the window wide open letting the cool breeze in.
I glared at him asleep on the bed, clueless, deep in some dream, no idea two girls were standing in his room. I approached her, my feet barely touching the ground trying not to make a sound. I wanted to sprint. I couldn’t even say anything, my tongue was ice. I stood above her and stared into her eyes. Emptiness. I wished to see hate for him, or more so even hate for me, but I saw nothing. I could always read her eyes. My talent gone. For the first time, I had no idea what she was thinking. Or maybe I was just just telling myself that.
Why I didn’t say anything is beyond me. Why I didn’t move, I don’t know. Every limb, joint, and muscle was frozen, except my lips which they could do was barely part, my lips that lied, yelled, and cursed but never kissed, which was all I ever wanted yet, couldn’t do and I don’t think she knew and at the same time she definitely did and that hurt me, froze me, so I hurt her back because my heart was burning from jealousy and I had to cool it, freeze it, even, and I hated that I felt like I was frozen in a nightmare but living my dream because this was the closest she had ever been to me which isn’t true but something about this sickening moment felt precious and I wanted to stay frozen here with her and as I thought all of this she reached into her pocket, grabbed a matchbox, struck the match and was out the window in less than second.
He didn’t even wake. I could’ve sprinted.
The Next Generation Of Creative Geniuses
A compilation of pastry-wrapping tips. A list of every film Harrison Ford has acted in. Summarized news about the millionth writer’s strike. A stray dog who got rescued and then adopted. Bodycam footage of a drunk driver getting arrested. A clip from Season 307 of The Simpsons. Each of these snippets only stays on the phone screen for less than three seconds before I lose interest. Right as I’m about to call it quits, I come upon a recent clip from some talk show, where Chelsea Mack is talking about her process of creating her songs.
“I’m glad I have RhythmMaker’s Auto-Keyboard to help me out with it,” she says. “Making songs would be so tedious without it! I mean, who has the time to compose every single part of every single song themselves?”
What an icon, I think. She totally gets me.
“Truer words have never been spoken, Chelsea,” says the host. “These days, technology is letting people who can’t make art feel the joy of creating it, and RhythmMaker is paving the way for anyone to be a musician just like you! My 5 year-old son, -who’s a big fan of yours, by the way- has been making his own jazz music with the Auto-Sax since he’s terrible at making music on his own! Let me tell ya, I am so proud of him!”
DING! DING! The bell goes off at exactly 10:00, jolting me from my phone-induced trance. I sit up at my desk to find that all of my students have filed into the classroom and are sitting at their own desks. I put my phone away, quietly anticipating the moment I’d be able to take it out during my lunch break. I take a deep breath, and try my best to go into Teacher Mode.
“Good morning, everyone!” I say, putting on my best cheerful teacher voice. “As you might have guessed, today is Art Day! All of you have some art supplies at your disposal, including… Painter Prompters! Go ahead and raise your hand if you’ve used one of these before!” All hands in the room go up except for one. The remaining kid, Mitch, awkwardly glances around the room in surprise and confusion. A few kids at his table giggle, and his face goes red.
“Settle down, kids,” I say as all the hands in the room go back down. “Not everyone has been exposed to these tools before. Let’s all show him the ropes, huh? What I would like you all to do is draw something on the paper with your crayons. It probably won’t be good. In fact, it’ll probably be really bad! That’s why you all have your lovely Painter Prompters!” I hold up my own device so all the students can see. It somewhat resembles the iPads from two decades ago, but thinner with a small mobile printer and twice as many cameras. “Use this to take a picture of your drawing, and it will make the drawing beautiful!”
“Why?”
Ah. Mitch again. With how uncooperative he was being, you’d think he WANTED to waste time doing art the slow way. “Well, Mitch, not everyone can draw. I certainly can’t. But that doesn’t mean I can’t create wonderful pieces of art!” I direct the class to the exquisite painting by the door, a Painter-Prompter generated oil painting of a garden of red flowers. Easily one of my best pieces. “I created this masterpiece without a single stroke of paint!” The painting is met with “oohs” and “ahhs” from the other students. As darn well it should.
“But I can draw! I draw really good!” Mitch insists. The nerve of this kid. Doesn’t he understand that he’s not the only one in the room?
“Now now, Mitch,” I say, putting on my stern voice. “That kind of talk can make other people feel bad. Not everyone can draw well. Not everyone can even pick up a pencil! You don’t want to make your peers feel bad, do you?”
Mitch glances around the room at all the eyes currently on him. “Well… no, but-”
“Then just be careful of what you say next time,” I say, my patience running thin. I notice some of the other kids giving him dirty looks. I sympathize with their anger, but I must remain calm and composed. “Now, let’s get to making some art!”
All the kids begin making their sketches on their sheets of paper. Before long, each of the kids puts down their crayons and scans their drawing with their Painter Prompter. I walk around the room to check each student’s progress. One student uses their device to turn her unintelligible scribble into a beautiful picture of a bird. Couldn’t tell you what kind, but beautiful nonetheless. Another kid selects the option on the device to type what picture to create. He seems to be having some trouble; his prompt reads “blu hose.” I swiftly correct his prompt to “blue house” and add some other necessary keywords: “beautiful pretty sunset realistic focus on shading” and his result is quickly corrected. Classic beginner’s mistake.
Finally I get to Mitch, who evidently hasn’t touched his device, and is instead focused on creating a mess of colors and shapes on his paper, vaguely resembling a garden of flowers. “Mitch, I think you forgot to scan your paper,” I tell him.
Mitch glances between me and the scribbles on his page. “Do I gotta use the Paint… thing? Can I just work on it by myself?”
I chuckle in amusement. Why would anyone not want to create beautiful art with the tap of a button? Who could possibly be satisfied with a crude amateurish crayon doodle? What a silly little underdeveloped mind. “Mitch, honey… with the Painter Prompter, you don’t need to do any work!”
“But… it’s fun.”
I fail to see anything on Mitch’s mess of a paper that even remotely resembles “fun.” “Young man,” I say, my patience wearing thin, “I don’t like your attitude. I’m teaching you how to make beautiful art and you’re giving me backtalk. Do you want to learn how to make art correctly, or not?”
Mitch falls quiet for a few seconds. Just when I think he’s finally seeing my side of things, he has the nerve to speak up again. “My mommy likes my drawings.”
Finally, the source of the problem! “Ah, I see the issue. Class, can you help me answer a question? How do you know your art is good?
“If everyone likes it!” The class says in unison.
I beam with pride at my little prodigies. I hold up Mitch’s paper for everyone to see. “Now tell me, what do you all think of this, ah… thing that this silly goose insists is art?”
“It’s just scribbles!” “Mitch, why didn’t you prompt it?” “What is it, I can’t see!” the students say.
I hand Mitch’s disaster back to him. “You see? If everyone doesn’t like your art, then there’s no point in making it. Your mommy might like it, but that’s just because she has no taste!”
“But… she’s a painter. Like, with brushes and stuff.”
Oh. “Is that right?”
“She’s really good, and she says I can get good too if I practice!”
At that moment, everything starts to make sense. I shudder at the thought of the conditioning this poor boy’s mother is putting him through. The nerve of this woman, making her own son PRACTICE to get better at art! I must do something about this, I think to myself. No one should have to endure the torture of being a beginner.
“Mitch… I’m so sorry your mother is forcing you to practice drawing.”
“She’s not forcing-”
I hate to have to interrupt him, but he’s clearly too innocent and naive to understand his situation. “She just thinks she’s better than us because she’s talented. Not everyone can draw like her. Clearly you can’t! Meanwhile, Painter Prompters are super fast, and anyone can use them, so you should just use those instead!”
“My dad says artists are all jerks!” “Mitch, it’s okay if you can’t draw!” “Come on, just use the thing!” The students all say.
After an excessive amount of convincing, Mitch reluctantly picks up his device. Finally! I thought this kid would never see the light. In the span of 30 seconds, the device masterfully scans the muddle of colors on the paper, and prints out a proper picture of a flower garden.
“Wonderful job, Mitch! Look at how detailed it is, and no ‘practice’ was needed! Everyone, give him a round of applause!” Scattered applause appears throughout the room. Yet, Mitch still somehow looks downhearted. At this point I could not imagine why. I can only hope he has some appreciation for the Prompter’s efficiency.
DING! DING! Before I know it, the bell hits 11:30. I lead the way down to the cafeteria as patiently as I possibly can, then eagerly dash to the teacher’s lounge for some much-needed phone time. After all, I must know about everything I missed in the past hour and a half. The current video is discussing the trials and results of a recent experiment of The Marshmallow Test. “In this particular study, 98% of the kids ate the marshmallow immediately, instead of waiting for the second one. 20-year-old studies show that this percentage used to be 60%. Researchers believe that this generation’s overwhelming demand for instant gratification may be the…”
As the video continues playing, I zone out and think about the good I did today. I pat myself on the back for keeping my composure; I just hope the other kids weren’t too distressed by the idea of needing skill to draw. They’re already creative geniuses, they shouldn’t have to PROVE it!
And neither should I.
A new video from a film news outlet announces that Dylan Jackson Stewart has started directing a new movie. I SUPPOSE I can wait five days for its Movies+ release.
The Devil On Her Shoulder
I don’t know why I’m not more excited about this trip. I sit on the floor of my room with a heap of laundry sitting between my legs. I’ve never understood why people sort their whites and darks. It seems like an utter waste of time because I’m 19 and I’ve never had a bad experience. That one episode from Friends where Ross and Rachel go on a laundromat date and Rachel’s whites turn pink does rest at the back of my head, but I honestly don’t care enough. This is why my laundry takes forever, because I sit here and let my mind wander, letting a 30 minute task drag into hours. I’m waking up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to take the Amtrak to New York City to visit my friend Sinaed, and i’m sure once I get there i’ll be happy, but right now the thought of the loud dirty streets, the price of my ticket, and the mountain of mostly inside out socks, os not making the whole thing sound particularly appealing.
Between the hours of 4pm and 12:30 I’ve snacked on like 4 different kinds of chips, scrolled on Tik Tok for a couple of hours, fallen asleep for a bit, and cuddled with my cat which of course meant I couldn’t move at risk of disturbing her. Once the clock has ticked over to the early hours of the next day I decide that I should get some sleep, and that since I’m getting up early anyways, setting my alarm 30 minutes earlier won’t hurt, and I can pack then.
Taking public transportation has always been a source of stress. There are just so many opportunities for things to go wrong. Can’t find the parking garage to leave your car, the ticket meter isn’t working, how do you know which platform to go to, forgetting which way is inbound and which is outbound, someone gross sitting next to you. The list really goes on. Regardless, I make it, picking a window seat, putting my bag in the spot next to me. I try not to make eye contact with the people passing me in the aisle, their eyes scanning for an empty seat; I feel guilty. I try napping, but my coat isn’t able to bunch up in a way that prevents the metal armrest from jutting into my ribs. It doesn’t hurt that bad, but after about 5 minutes I come to terms with the fact that this isn’t going to work long term. Instead I gaze out the window and imagine the lives of the people who live in the houses just a stones throw from the tracks.
The conductor announces on the loudspeaker “Next stop Penn Station”. I gather my stuff even though it’s probably another 20 minutes or so until the train actually arrives. I imagine missing the stop and being stuck until Philly.
God that would be horrible.
My phone vibrates in my sweaty palm and I look down to see a text from Sinaed.
“Hey my class is going long do you think you can take the train to my apartment by yourself? sorry i didnt think i would have to stay this long.”
Great.
“Ya that’s fine, what train do i have to take?”
I’m literally gonna end up in the Bronx or something.
“Walk towards train station (it’s connected to the same building u don’t leave) find the A or E (blue letter) downtown to 14th st/8th ave. get off train and find signs for L train (stay in station) take L train (east side/brooklyn) to 1st ave leave station and walk 1 min to my apt.
Does this make sense?”
Good lord.
“Ya i’ll figure it out.”
For a second I entertain the idea of what would probably be a $60 uber and then yell at myself in my head. I’m always the one that gets stuck traveling. I mean I get it, it’s NYC, but getting stuck with the travel expenses every time seems unfair. Sinaed lives a very different life from me financially. I wonder what hobbies she would have if her dad didn’t fund her passion for fashion. I get she’s interested in it, but I mean I’m ‘interested’ in shopping too. Sometimes it feels like she doesn’t get that trips to visit costs hundreds of my personal money that I am ideally supposed to be saving. So is it unfair of me to want her to help pay? I don’t know…
I get out of the train and follow the crowds of people to this big kind of food court-esque area and decide to make a stop at Dunkin. I haven’t eaten yet, and I had time to waste anyway. Sinaed doesn’t get out of class for another hour or so, and I don’t want to get stuck standing locked out of her apartment. I get to the front of the line and the woman tells me that they are only taking cash.
“Oh, uhh… hold on”
I had planned on using Apple Pay, so I awkwardly dig in my purse which is in my bag for my wallet. I become keenly aware of the people behind me. I unzip to see how many ones I can scrounge up. Three dollars and some change. I blush and look up at the woman with an apologetic look even though I know it doesn’t make a difference to her whether I can buy a breakfast sandwich or not. I feel the urge to explain to her that I’m not broke I just don’t carry cash.
“..sorry, i don’t have enough”
She doesn’t say anything, just taps a few times on the screen with her acrylics. I scramble to pick up my shit and go find a pillar to sit against. For some reason the whole incident reminds me of one time this past summer when Sinaed and I went on a road trip. She drove, and at one point when we had pulled off the highway to get gas she insisted on going to three different gas stations because she wanted to find one that took apple pay. Otherwise she’d have to use her debit card. I think about it a lot. I made fun of her then with forced laughter, but I was actually so annoyed. Despite that annoyance, 20 minutes later we were doubled over laughing at the song that was playing in the Salvation Army that we had decided to stop at. We had been on our way to NYC then too, for New Year’s, and we were buying throw away coats so we wouldn’t freeze but also wouldn’t have to worry about losing a coat we valued. We clicked like that. Our sense of humor was identical, and really taking 5 minutes to find a specific gas station hadn’t affected me all that much. Everyone has that thing. The thing that makes you mad. And Sinaed’s is how she spends money. It’s the devil on her shoulder, but everyone gets their one thing, so I flick it off, because I love her for more reasons than I can describe.
My mind returns to the present as I notice a man across the station walking slowly and glancing around nervously. One of his hands is in the pocket of his hoodie and he looks a little lost. I wonder if he’s gonna pull out a gun or something. I let my mind catastrophize and wonder if I’ll think back to this moment and say I predicted it. The man really is starting to stress me out though, so I decide it’s a good time as any to depart on my solo journey.
I actually don’t mess up. I get on the right trains, go the right direction, and get off at the right stops. Sinaid is waiting for me at the top of the long flight of stairs that I take since the escalator is packed.
“Heyy! How was the trip?”
We don’t have a hugging relationship. Plus I’m carrying my stuff.
“It was good, nothing crazy.”
“Here I got u a coffee”
I smile and she hands it to me.
“Thanks Glenda,” I say.
Glenda, Sinaed’s Grandma, gave her a rechargeable Starbucks card at the beginning of high school, and it’s been put to good use. The picture on the face of the card is faded and peeling at the edges, and slips perfectly into the slot in Sinead’s wallet where it’s been kept for the past 6 years.
Sinaed looks at me and grins. She reaches out and takes one of my bags from me and starts telling me between unsuppressable giggles that someone on an electric scooter had hit her today as she was walking to class. She says it was one of those pizza delivery guys who wear the big insulated backpacks. At this point she’s struggling to get the words out because she’s laughing so hard, and I am too, I have tears in the corners of my eyes just on the verge of falling down my cheeks.
This is why I love her, why we’re best friends. As we walk down the block I forget about the devil. I’m sure I have a devil of my own.
Red on White
I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June and all she left behind was her stained doll. Its arms have splotches of red on white porcelain skin from where Dad made little mistakes while hand-dyeing its hair. Its face is scuffed with a dirt-brown smudge from where he tried to color in its scraped eyes. He says he got it for her at a toy store down the road and wanted to make it perfect. My sister loved that doll even though she was fourteen when he gave it to her and that felt a little old for a toy like that. I can’t understand why she left it behind, but I carry it with me everywhere now, hoping desperately that she comes back for it. I don’t think she will.
When I think about where she might be I picture her someplace south of here. I hope she’s building sandcastles. When we were young, we went to the city for the first and last time and I stole a history textbook. Some kids in that city told us that “normal” kids go on vacation to the beach, not Plano, Texas, and make castles out of sand. We didn’t believe them until we got around to reading that textbook years later. Turns out they weren’t lying — even ancient Roman kids used to build with sand. Ellie-May had cried and asked why we weren’t allowed to make sandcastles if people had been making them for thousands of years. I hated when she wailed, so we stomped up to our parents and demanded we go to the sand immediately. She yelled in her shrill voice that it was clearly a human trait to play with sand, to create. I screeched that it was our right and that withholding this experience from us was torture.
Mom said there wasn’t any sand nearby. Dad adjusted his belt and said it wasn’t safe. We didn’t understand then — we stormed away with little red faces — but I understand now. Travel has been restricted ever since we were invaded, and my family’s farm was destroyed. It became too dangerous to play out in the open.
So even though we passed the ocean when we marched to this town seven months ago, neither I nor Ellie-May mentioned the sand that was right there. Instead, we flicked our eyes around and gripped our pocketknives tightly with more fear than confidence. We stood in the dense woods with our mother and the dozens of other women and children, as the men checked the town, quaking as we huddled together. When they returned hours later, they said they had faced the invaders and won but the townspeople were dead. Our army had been too late. No one made a sound; we all knew that would be their news anyway. This was the twelfth town in seven years and that was always the news.
So, we moved into that town last April to rest until there was another town we could march to and fail to save. Now, local resources are running low. People are shivering in their wooden huts, scrounging for scraps, and ingesting broth for meal after meal. Dad says we will march on when the snow thaws. But there’s this inexplicable gnawing in my chest when I imagine us marching away. My hands spasm and my shoulders clench without permission. My heart thunders and weighs heavy as if buried under mountains of glistening sharp ice. I squeeze my eyes shut desperately until all I see is red. I grip onto Ellie-May’s doll — the only thing grounding me in reality.
If we leave now something will be lost forever. If we leave now, Ellie-May will never be able to find us. She’ll never come home.
No one seems concerned about this and when I open my mouth to mention it, no words come out. None of my sounds make any sense anymore. I used to talk nonstop for hours — someone said they loved that about me, someone said that, I just can’t remember who — now all I’m reduced to is a rasping breath or choked cough.
I don’t think I’d say anything even if I could. Dad’s repeated enough times that “Ellie-May is lost” and I know he’s incapable of any other words. Mom never says anything, she just stares into the powdery snow that’s covered our roads since early September. Until that first snow, none of us had ever seen snow before. The old book I found in the library down the road said it wasn’t even supposed to snow here. I say nothing about this, I know that it’s because of the invaders so there’s no point. The book never mentions the invaders, so it’s not trustworthy anyway.
I threw that new book down next to our fading history textbook. A crumpled letter peaks out from the pages but I can’t bear to look at it. Her doll wasn’t all she left me, but the letter brings no comfort. My heart pounds when I think about touching it again. I haven’t moved it since I found it lying purposefully on my bed after Ellie-May got lost. I know it’s for me and it’s important but I’m not ready to give up my fantasy of Ellie-May surrounded by towering sandcastles just yet.
The invaders came seven years ago, just after I turned 10 and right before Ellie-May turned 7. They shook our land and burned our crops. They crushed our buildings and destroyed almost two-thirds of our food reserves. The barn collapsed down on our animals, and they stole my favorite goat, Goatrude. We’d fought over her name — Ellie-May liked Betty, but Goatrude was funnier, and I’d always been the better debater. We helped raise her, held a bottle for her and everything. But suddenly she was gone and so were most of our possessions. They came so fast we never saw them — didn’t even know what exactly had happened. One moment everything was at peace and suddenly it all went to hell and when we came out the other side, everything was ruined. Dad said we were lucky to make it out alive but when we struggled not to starve that winter, we didn’t feel lucky at all.
In the spring, moments after the trees started to bloom, Dad went out to find other survivors. He came back, hate ignited, and grabbed his gun and compass before he told us to pack a bag each. He told us that invaders had caused all the destruction. All of a sudden there was a reason for our pain. We had an enemy, Dad said we had a purpose. So, we marched for the first time. North of our ruined farm we met up with a stern man with a silver belt buckle who towered almost a foot over my father. He led us to a group of people, all tired and all angry. Then he led us north.
Ellie-May and I weren’t the only kids, but we were shy, a consequence of our homeschooled upbringing. We barely said a word to anyone else those first few days of marching.
I know that I made a friend eventually, but I don’t quite remember her, and I haven’t seen her in a while. I know we were close even though I couldn’t tell you her name. I heard myself call her V in a fading dream of a memory one night last week so maybe Vanessa or Violet? Or it could have been Vania, or Valerie, or Victoria. She was the tall man’s daughter; I am certain of that.
I see flashes of her face sometimes when I close my eyes but when I reach out to her, the mirage fades to black. I can remember only two distinct moments that came to me like prophecy long past.
One: I was young, probably thirteen and she was about the same age. We snuck out of town number five with a bottle of gin we found stashed under a desk at an abandoned factory. We flew through the woods going north — we were always prohibited from going South of the towns — until we crashed through the underbrush and into a shallow pond. I’d tripped and fell face first into the water and her laugh sounded magical as she pulled me up. I stared at her face as she turned toward a small waterfall. The place seemed intimately familiar; I could tell we’d been there before. She ran her hand under the falling waves, eyes mischievous and open, and I kept staring at her. I think her hair was black, but I can’t be sure now. We opened that bottle of gin, and even though it was both of our first times trying alcohol, we finished it quickly. I stared at her and stared at her, and we lay on the banks of the pond, feet hanging over the edge, almost touching the falling stream. She was laughing at the stars and said they must be bored never having any new experiences, always just sitting there in their rigid pattern. I must not have agreed fast enough because she turned her head and was suddenly looking at me as intensely as she had been looking at the sky. She said something, or I did, and then we were moving towards each other, awkward and hopeful in equal measure. I can’t remember the rest of it and if I focus too hard my head starts to hurt and my vision tints blood red at the edges.
Two: We’re in a clearing but we’re older and the woods look too familiar for it to be far from this town. She’s whispering something to me, gesturing wildly with her hands. I’m standing away from her, arms crossed over my chest. I’m further away from her than I feel like I should be. But we stay separated. I shout and throw my hands around and my wrist aches, a phantom pain from breaking it before the invasion. She speaks in level tones and points South. I shake my head and turn away. She reaches for me frantic, grips my weak wrist and I let her. She says something else, and I turn back to her. Her eyes are honest and miserable. I think they were brown but if I think about it too much the red tint appears, and I’m forced to stop. My eyes, hazel, meet hers, and something is said in the silence between us. I nod and she removes her hand from my wrist, then lifts her arm up and around my back. She pulls me into her. I think I’m crying. I know she is.
I know I had V, but I don’t quite remember her. She’s gone now but I don’t know where. Sometimes, without thinking, I turn to say something to the empty air, and I get this doomed sense that something’s not right, that something lovely withered and wilted months ago, that something irreplaceable shattered in June. I wonder if red was her favorite color and that’s why I can’t get it out of my head when I think of her.
V’s dad’s been angrier since she’s been gone. He’s been agitated and I’ve seen him stalk into the woods several times from our little house’s window. The invaders have always made him angry though. They killed his wife and son when they invaded. Just he and V were left when he decided to fight back and gathered our little army from any survivors he could find. I admired that resolve, to lose so much and still get back up. It must have taken a lot of courage to face the invaders after they killed his family. Yet town after town he led the marching men into battle and under his vengeful eye, hardly any of our people ever died. They must be a fearsome sight to behold. An army of avenging angels firing into the enemy, slowly ridding the world of cruelty and terror.
Cruel and terrible isn’t enough to describe the evil of the invaders. Everyone has a story of a nightmare encounter — they killed families, destroyed property, lit food stores on fire, and laughed as they flooded fields. They seemed all-powerful and, until recently, a little abstract. They were next to impossible to see but we know they have blue skin and stark white hair. Their eyes are stained red from bloodlust and claws spike at the end of their bony hands. They seemed to have magic. They’d shook the earth when they invaded, I’d felt it tremble. They lit fires and triggered explosions with glances, V’s dad said. Another man, a friend of my Dad’s, told me once that he saw them float in the air long enough to rip powerlines down and crush houses with just a strike of their palm on the roof.
I’ve never seen an invader, but I was captured by them in June. Dad says they knocked me out and tied me somewhere after I wandered South. He said that’s why we couldn’t go down there, a couple of invaders were camping there, preying on anyone who strayed too far from the safety of the town and our men with guns. He says my wrist must have broken again when they pushed me down into the stale earth. He says they hurt me a lot, tried to mind-control me or something. He says he saved me in September under the cover of the first snow of the year. The snow that Ellie-May disappeared into before I was able to see her again.
When he told me what happened it felt like a trade-off: me for her. Dad says it wasn’t. “Ellie-May is lost,” he repeats over and over. I picture her safe, warm somewhere covered in golden sand, building towers taller than her head. I hold her doll and picture that she’s here with me. I trace its stains with muscle memory and catch my nail on a crack that wasn’t there before. My mind wanders to the letter hidden in the decaying history textbook, between the pages about little Romans and their sandcastles. Is it a sweet goodbye or a map to go and find her one day? I don’t think I’m strong enough to go out on my own though so a map would be wasted on me.
Dad says it’s only a matter of days until we leave now, and I can’t breathe. Spring is creeping up like a cat ready to pounce. I turn towards the woods and red shoots across my vision. My wrist aches. I pause and look at the town square for too long and the almost melted snow is vividly scarlet. I blink and it’s gone.
I open the letter.
I don’t fully mean to; I don’t feel conscious when I do.
Ellie-May, it starts.
A lot of people lie. There’s every reason in the world for someone to lie. I don’t know what Dad was thinking when he lied. I know he said he got that doll new for you. I know he said he hand-dyed its hair but made a little mistake and that’s why its arms have splotches of red dye. I know he said that he colored its eyes in and that’s why there’s dirt brown smudges on its cheek. I need you to know that I think he lied. I think he lied for love but still. He didn’t want to tell the truth to a kid. And none of this “I’m not a kid anymore” nonsense, Ellie-May. You’re 14 and if I could, I’d keep you out of this entirely. But I can’t so I’m writing you this, maybe against my better judgment but Ava says it’s necessary, and well, you know she’s a bit more rational about these things.
Think about this Ellie-May: He said he would get you a pretty toy after you begged and begged. But it’s grey outside and the toy store down the road has been in shambles since we marched into town. But he promised, and how can you offer something up and then take it back? Maybe he views failure as cruelty. Or maybe I just want to know his definition of cruel because sometimes I look at the red stains on your doll and am reminded of my definition of cruel. He’s lying to you and trying to lie to me.
Ava saw something when she ran away while the men cleared the town. She told me when we met, far down the road and into the woods under the shade of evergreen trees. She said we couldn’t discuss this where our parents could see us. And in the cove of dark green, she told me she snuck into town when the men went to fight the invaders. She told me she saw another little girl holding the doll. She told me that the girl’s hair was brown and her skin tanned. She told me that she saw that little girl’s parents — dark-haired and tan — curled around her begging. She told me that she saw the little girl crying into your doll’s hair. She told me that these people had no weapons, their nails weren’t claws and their eyes were red from crying, not from bloodlust. She told me that her dad killed them as our father watched. She told me she saw that man — the one I can’t reconcile with the man who held our hands as we crossed the street, who fed us sweets covertly before dinner, the man that I can no longer claim as my father — grab the doll from dirty, bloodied hands.
I know it seems fake; I called her a liar too. I shouted but she begged me to think about it more and you know that I can’t say no to Ava. The invaders are blue and all they do is hurt, that’s what they’ve always told us. They’ve been shaking the ground, spitting fire, and advancing on us for years. They’ve torn down villages and leveled churches. They drank our blood and used it to live magical and strong. They don’t cry and they don’t have kids. They’re not human like us; they’re monsters born from dirt and snow, not out of love.
But there are splotches of red on the doll and its hair is black, and I think we both know that it’s not red dye, is it? There’s dirt on its face but he looked at you softly and said he got it new. But how could he be telling the truth? Ellie-May, have you ever seen an invader? I realize that I haven’t.
Ava kept talking and said they were hiding something down South. She wanted to go down there, and I was afraid, so I went to run but she stopped me. She swore to me, on all our memories and our special place, the one I told you about by that turquoise waterfall, that she knew what she saw. I think I believe her. She’s usually right.
Tonight, we’ll go South to find the truth. I don’t know what will happen but if we don’t return be cautious. I don’t know who’s lying anymore and I don’t want you to get hurt. I’m terrified that I’m the one lying now. What if I just take every opportunity to distrust a story? Maybe I’m too curious for my own good. What if they got to her? What if they somehow control her mind?
They aren’t supposed to do that, but they aren’t supposed to bleed red either. They aren’t supposed to care or feel. They aren’t supposed to live in town and run toy stores down the road for their kids. They aren’t supposed to die from advancing soldiers, they’re supposed to be the advancing soldiers. We aren’t supposed to kill innocents, we are supposed to be the innocent that they hunt. They’re supposed to be real. They’re supposed to be monsters on earth. But there aren’t any monsters after all unless you count us.
And our father —that man— isn’t supposed to be cruel. The hand that gave you the doll was gentle, worn, and protective. How could it have maimed? How could it have lied?
But this house isn’t ours and I don’t know why we are marching. Your doll isn’t meant to be yours — somehow, I don’t think that’s a lie. I’m going South tonight, and I’ll try to bring the truth back for you.
I read the letter again, then a third time and a fourth. Ellie-May hadn’t written it for me, I’d written it for her. There are stains, little drops where liquid fell on my signature but it’s unmistakably my name there signed at the bottom. Something is wrong and my vision flashes red again but this time it stays scarlet for almost a whole minute. I stumble. Suddenly, I see Ellie-May with snowflakes in her auburn hair.
The problem is that I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June.
But that isn’t true, a small segment of my brain screeches in the same childhood voice that begged to build castles made of sand. You saw Ellie-May in September, the day of the first snow. I didn’t. I know I couldn’t have because I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June. Since I dropped a letter on her desk, since I grabbed V’s — Ava’s — hand as we ran into the woods, as we ran South. Since I saw mounds of dirt and human, normal human-colored, flesh peeking out from the sides, out of the top. Since guns sprayed, and our bodies fell on bodies we were never meant to see. Bodies that I never did see, bodies I must have imagined. Bodies I was fooled into seeing by the attacking invaders that ran into the clearing, tearing the ground and hoisting guns. It was my good wrist that caught me as I fell, I know it. But it’s my bad wrist that hurts now, I know that too.
I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June when V grabbed my hand in a firm shake and told me she was going away for a little while as her father watched, guns slung over both shoulders like they always were. I haven’t seen my sister since I held V and sobbed, her body on top of mine as we lay on something lumpy and wrong, so wrong, something covered in dirt and red like the dye on Ellie-May’s doll. I couldn’t have seen Ellie-May heading South in September, wearing my favorite navy raincoat, because that’s when she got lost in the snowstorm and I had been stuck inside for what felt like months. I’d been thrashing in pain as men yelled at me, choking on fear and something else. Maybe then I dreamed a vision of her in the swirls of white, building little snow-castles and laughing, lashes covered in diamonds, because I was clinging to simpler times and that textbook we stole. I must have wanted to believe we had finally gotten the chance to create something childlike and beautiful.
So why was she running in my vision and not building? Why was she tripping and sliding across the square, clutching her doll like it even mattered? I tried instead to picture her leaping into a pile of powder and making a snow angel. I saw her dye it, title it a gloriously artistic Angel, red-on-white, and finish it off with a halo of her triumphant red hair. I saw her doll hit the snow hard and crack. Maybe I was screaming at her to get up, or maybe she was laughing, or maybe I was crying, yelling and there was too much red for winter. I couldn’t have seen any of that though because it hadn’t snowed yet in June, and I haven’t seen Ellie-May since June. June, when V went on vacation and went on patrol and went off to get married. June when the invaders brought me to a house somewhere and stole my ability to talk and kept me there until it snowed, until September when my father carried me away from the woods in that snowstorm and nursed me back to health. In his arms, I saw soft, visible mud beneath his feet, felt the wind light and warm, and brushed my hand across the leaves on the trees, bright green and unforgettably present. June when I’d snapped my bad wrist as I twisted frantically against something restricting it — a belt just like V’s dad’s, like your Dad’s my mind-supplied, no, bony blue hands I answered back dutifully. June — September — when I last saw Ellie-May.
We marched out of town number twelve on April 7th, that might have been Ellie-May’s birthday or maybe it was V’s. Mom muttered that it was my eighteenth when she saw the haze in my eyes after Dad mentioned the date like it meant something. I choked out a weak sound as red tinted my vision. I desperately shook my head to clear it as Dad guided me forward by the small of my back. I clutched Ellie-May’s doll as we left, tracing the red on white, and pictured we were going south to the beach.
Maria Lambert
Burying Bodies
“If I killed someone would you help me bury the body?”
I turn my head from the ceiling to face her from my position lying on the floor. Max lies beside me and continues looking at the ceiling after breaking our silence. We’ve been lying here for maybe 30 minutes? Maybe an hour, maybe two? In my drunken haze, time moves in an unfathomable fashion. I can still hear the party thrumming downstairs with the laughter of drunk teenagers enjoying the first party of their last year of high school. We’ve locked ourselves in an upstairs bedroom which we think belongs to Will, the one throwing the party, given all the football memorabilia and trophies. We’re also pretty sure we are not supposed to be in here given the hastily made KEEP OUT sign stuck to the door with duct tape. But the party was loud and crowded and Max grabbed my hand saying come on Amelia, I can’t stand it in here any longer. Her hand was hot on mine and how could I ever look her in those eyes and say no?
“Oh shit, have you gone and killed someone? Melissa finally get on your last nerve or something?”
I joke at her and she smiles and turns to face me. Our noses are almost touching and I can smell the vodka on her breath. It makes me want to throw up and kiss her at the same time so I turn my head away from hers and hope that she attributes the blush on my face to the alcohol I have been slowly putting down.
I’m not nearly drunk enough for this, I think to myself.
“No, Melissa is safe, for now. I just want to know that you would cover for me. You know, be my accomplice. There’s no way I could bury a body on my own, I’d want you with me” She pauses.
Max has deep brown eyes and deeper brown hair that falls just below her ears and frames her face. I didn’t always feel this way about her, once I felt normal about her. Friend of a friend, I met her shortly after the beginning of junior year when I had moved to this town where there is nothing to do but drive to the gas station and buy slushies and hot dogs to eat outside on the curb. One day when I was sitting on that curb, eating my hot dog with an okay friend of mine, she hopped out of her car, jeans dragging on the ground, a sliver of skin exposed at her midriff, and a white shirt with “Liz Phair” written on it in sharpie. Cool girl, I thought to myself. She was good friends with my okay friend, so she sat with us and I remember the first thing she said was that Mikey could keep dreaming his probably pervy fucking dreams if he thought she would ever go to homecoming with his misogynistic ass, and then she asked me my name. Amelia, I had said hoping the awe I felt wasn’t showing on my face.
We hit it off, fast friends. Lots of gas station hot dogs followed. The feelings didn’t appear until the beginning of the summer when she started texting this boy she worked with at the ice cream shop. He was nice and all, I guess, but there was this excruciating pain in my chest every time she brought him up. It wasn’t all that hard to figure out what was going on. After I had a dream where she broke it off with him, confessed her love to me, and kissed me on our school’s bleachers, I put two and two together. I had always lingered on her touch and her gaze, maybe wanted more, it just wasn’t until the boy that I realized that I wanted her to myself.
The boy didn’t last long. He stopped texting her after a while. He said he didn’t think she really cared about him. I had consoled her, but I don’t think she really cared either. There wasn’t much to do but curse his name together. What if she had killed him? We definitely joked about it back then, laughing about all the ways we’d go about it. I’d help her bury the body. I would lick her tears, I would disinfect her hands, and I’d be careful. We’d go into the woods, somewhere far into the woods, and bury that boy deep in the ground.
I answer her truthfully and she still stares at the side of my face, “Yeah I’d cover for you. I think we could do a good job of burying a body. I used to be pretty into all those cop shows and stuff. We could drive far away, find somewhere discreet, and dig a really deep hole. I feel like nobody is ever digging deep enough. One rain and everything comes to the surface. I’d never be that stupid.”
Would I? Would I let everything come to the surface? Maybe some people want their buried bodies to be found.
“Good, I knew I only needed you” She goes silent after a minute and I think maybe she has fallen asleep, but when I face her, her eyes are open.
A week ago we went swimming in our favorite spot on the river. The forest hides the pathway down to the water so no one is ever there, just me and Max. As we were floating in the water, letting the blanket weed brush our legs and backs, she asked me what my type was. My brain floundered trying to think of an answer that wasn’t a lie or the truth. How do I explain I love people with short brown hair, bitten fingernails with chipped polish, a slightly crooked nose from a brother’s punch many years ago, knobby wrists with millions of bracelets, a birthmark that looks like the continent of Africa on their lower leg, long legs, dry hands, and a million moles? People who lie about the movies they’ve seen to seem cooler, have horrible handwriting, tried to get their ears pierced but threw up at the sight of the needle, write bad poetry that I don’t think is bad at all, obsess over the slide guitar, and still use the same Bath and Bodyworks vanilla perfume they stole from the mall at age 14. I don’t know how to say all that so instead I say I dunno, someone taller than me? To which she sighs, tells me that is so boring, and says Hmmm I think my type is probably someone a lot like you, and before I can process that, she pulls me under the water, laughing at how I splutter, splashing her when I come up for air. I think about that now in this hot room as I contemplate burying bodies and how we might not hide them all that well on purpose; How I might die if I keep this all inside.
We breathe and I search her eyes for something more, something that gives me a sign that she wants what I want, that she doesn’t want to waste the last of high school dancing around what we really mean and want to say. I know what I want to say. Confession is always in my back pocket. It’s a mantra. I’m not drunk enough for loose lips, but I pretend I am.
“I think if I don’t tell you how much I love you, you’ll be burying my body,” I whisper and her eyes widen. I have to admit I’ve never been the best at reading Max. She always knows exactly what I’m thinking, but her face never seems to give anything away, or maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I’m the blind one, but right now I’m certain I see something because I know how it feels to make that face, what muscles are used to feel that. I feel it all the time. Something like love.
“They’ll have to bury me with you,” she leans in.