ARE YA READY KIDS!?
I CAN'T HEAR YOUUU AND I'M NOT EVEN READY BUT I'M STARTING ANYWAY LET'S GO GO GOOOOooooo
Dulcet's SAW 2018
6 posts in this topic.
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A Little Girl's Once Upon a Time (Part 1)
1380 words, enclosed in the spoiler, or you can read it here for a better site layout: https://writer.bighugelabs.com/share/namupxvz
The ending in particular is very rushed but whatevs.Spoiler
Once upon a time, a little girl lived in the library. I mean, she didn't actually live in the library, but - every day, the little girl would come in at recess and lunch, as if she were a parent coming home from a hard day of work. Just like clockwork, she's quietly open the door and carefully shut it behind her, and meekly smile at the librarian behind the counter as she walked past them, and then pick a book off the shelves, and sit down and hide her face behind the pages. Every day, like clockwork. Like a parent coming home from a hard day of work.
Like a parent kissing each of their children on the forehead, the little girl would run the tips of her fingers over the spines of each book until she reached one she felt like reading that day. Some of them, she liked better than the rest - the fantastical ones about magic and dragons, the ones that transported her into a whole other world - but she knew how the ones she didn't like as much, the forgotten ones felt, so she made sure to read those, too. After choosing her book, she'd plop down on the couch in the corner, open the book like a portal, and spend the next half-hour learning about someone else's life in someone's else's world.
One day, one of the library workers asked her if she was lonely - if she was here because she had no friends to play with outside. The library worker must have caught the little girl staring out the window, at the kids playing tag on the green grass, their smiles radiating warm sunshine. The little girl shook her head and, sending one last glance at two kids who'd fallen over into a tumble of giggles, turned back to her world of black ink on white paper.
It wasn't lonely. Not really. The little girl had books. Who needed friends when you had books? No - these books were her friends. She knew these books inside and out, about the princesses and witches and dragons and knights, about how the princess had been so scared of the dragon but so brave to believe she'd be okay in the end, about how the witch had always been treated so unfairly and how that had driven her to condemn humans, about how the dragon just wanted to be left in peace, and about how the knight never gave up to save the life of another, never ever ever. The little girl knew all about them. Of course. It was a given. They were her friends, after all. Of course she knew all of their stories.
It was just that, sometimes, she thought that maybe, it'd be nice if someone knew her story, too.
One day, the teacher revealed a class project that students would work on in pairs. They had to make a diorama... or something. The little girl was too busy with the other worlds and dimensions in her head to really pay attention, even though everyone thought she was a good listener - because she didn't talk much, so of course she was a good listener, they thought. But what they didn't know was that the girl preferred the worlds inside her mind than the world she could touch and hear and see and sense, the one she lived in.
But she was warped back to reality when her teacher said, "You can choose your partners for this one."
And the little girl's stomach filled with ice. She didn't want to choose; there was nobody to choose from. Couldn't the teacher choose their partners for them? Please? The little girl begged them silently, in her head, while her peers around her stood up and smiled to, chatted with their friends about anything other than the project. The little girl wanted to cry. She really did. But she kept it in, because what good would crying do if no one ever noticed anyway?
"You guys are together? But now I don't have anyone to pair up with!" the little girl heard someone whine. In a moment of hope, she turned to the voice - the girl who sat next to her, who always had her hair in braids and spent her recesses and lunches on the swings with her two friends. The little girl saw them every day from her nook in the library.
The girl's friend poked her tongue out playfully, but then she spotted the little girl over her friend's shoulder. "Oh! You can pair up with..." The friend didn't know the little girl's name. But that was okay. It was better this way, the little girl figured, since the friend continued, "... the library girl." She snickered. "Maybe you can talk to her about books. Have fun."
Maybe it had meant to be nice, but the way the girl said it, so insincerely, so sarcastically, as if there was a joke the little girl wouldn't understand - the little girl didn't like it very much. It sent a block of ice to her throat. It froze her.
"Hey, that's not very nice," the little girl's seatmate said, frowning. She turned to the little girl. "C'mon, let's do this together." When the little girl just blinked at her, she chewed on her lip, twirling a braid around her finger. "I mean, can we work together?"
The little girl didn't like her seatmate's friends very much. Her seatmate's friends weren't very nice. But, the little girl supposed, maybe the seatmate was nicer. The block of ice melted, just a bit, as the little girl sent a wobbly smile to her now-project partner. "Yes, please."
The girl didn't talk much, like I said earlier. She hated talking to people, because... well, the girl couldn't exactly put her finger on why. She talked to her dog often, back at home, and maybe her dog didn't even listen to her. He just licked her face when she finished talking about her day to him. Sometimes he didn't even wait. Maybe it was because - the little girl thought - nobody else even responded, sometimes, as if she hadn't spoken at all.
So why bother talking when there was nobody to listen?
Her project partner didn't seem to think the same. She rambled on and on and on about things like the pair of jeans she'd bought the other day, and how her mum thought they'd been too big for her spindly legs. The project wasn't even about jeans. It was about the environment and how pollution was affecting it. But the little girl looked up from her work occasionally to smile and nod at her seatmate now and then.
"Gosh," her seatmate said, leaning over to look at the girl's handiwork. "You're so good at drawing! That tree looks so good."
"Thanks," the little girl said shyly.
"Do you draw a lot?"
"Um, sometimes, when I'm bored."
"Well, you're, like, already an artist." Her seatmate grinned. "Teach me how to draw some time, okay?"
The little girl smiled. "Okay," she said, and she wondered if they could be called friends now.
But then. At the start of recess, she heard her seatmate talking to her friends.
"So how's yours going? Your diorama."
"Alright. You know the girl I'm working with, though, she's so boring..."
And that hurt. That hurt a lot. That hurt the little girl a lot. As the girls walked out the door to lunch, the little girl kept her face straight as she went to the library. As soon as she walked in, she sat on the couch and hid her face behind her book.
She wished her real friends... well, they're not - they weren't real, but still, she wished her true friends could comfort her, but of course they couldn't from their world of ink and paper. So she settled for their paper company instead.
The little girl didn't dare look out the library window, but still, her mind wandered from the world printed in black and white to the world she was in, the one blurry with unshed tears.
And, that day, for the first time of many, the little girl wished she was a storybook character. -
The Third Wheel
2524 words. https://writer.bighugelabs.com/share/4iy6cx29
This is basically 2500 words of dialogue hot damn this is gonna need a lot of work. And rushed ending again ayyyy. Favourite part tho:> What street are you on
< Heck if i know
> Tori.
< Straight st
< Literally straight st
< Not even straight, there's a little curve in the middle
< There's a lesbian bar here too lmaoooo
> What other buildings do you see
< There's an officeworks
< Could use with some more rulers
< To keep this street straight
< Which it totally isn't
> Please don't waste your battery with unnecessary remarks.
> Tori
> You ran out of battery, didn't youSpoiler
Tori thinks nothing of it when Gale texts her at 3 AM on a Friday. Mostly because she's too bleary-eyed and dream-ridden to care.
> Hey, what colour do you think Lyn's eyes are?
< What the flying frick gale it's 3 am jesus freaking christ
< Text me when its not an unholy hour good god man
>
Tori also doesn't think much of it when Lynietta texts her at 10 AM on a Saturday. Sure, Lynietta usually hates mornings, but Tori hates mornings even more. She pops one eye open when her phone rings, and keeps her other eye smothered in her pillow.
> Tori.
> What kind of clothing does Gale like on girls?
Alarm bells should be ringing because Lynietta doesn't care about clothes, but Tori sets her alarm off on weekends, both literally and figuratively. She types in her reply with a lazy thumb.
< Idk man
< What you usually wear
< He likes that I guess
And then she throws her phone across the room, because screw that shit. Victoria Underhill needs her beauty sleep, goddammit.
She regrets the dent in her wall (goddamn Nokia phones) later that day, when the text comes. Sitting at her desk, homework forgotten, Tori stares at her phone.
> We're dating.
She hates the way her gut plummets into a pool of ice. She tries for a joke.
< We are?
Even without seeing her, Tori knows Lynietta is sighing exasperatedly and smiling. She's shaking her head amusedly before texting -
> Gale and I are dating.
- and Tori doesn't know how to reply. She stares at her phone and keeps staring. She should have seen it coming, and a little, tiyny part of her did, but nothing could have prepared her for her two best friends to start dating, goddammit.
And - shit, why is Lyn calling!?
"What the hell, man," Tori says as soon as she brings the phone to her ear. She breathes through her mouth. "Don't just text and then call me."
"I wanted to see if you were okay."
Tori muffles her sniffle. "Why wouldn't I be?"
Lynietta's quiet for a moment. "Are you not angry with us?"
"For what?" Shit, she's been answering with short sentences this entire time. Switch it up. A joke. She needs a joke. "I mean, I could be. It depends - does you guys dating mean I'm not the most important person in your lives any more?"
She hears the single huff of laughter from Lynietta's mouth. But her answer shortly after is completely serious. "Not at all. I'm not going to ditch you for a boyfriend, Tori."
Tori keeps her charade up. "But you would for a girlfriend?" she teases.
"Not at all," Lynietta repeats just as firmly and just as seriously. "The only person I'd ditch you for is Marron."
"I...'m not even angry about that. Let's be real, I'd ditch you for a dog too."
"No, you wouldn't." Tori can hear the smile in Lynietta's voice. "You would throw me to a pack of wolves just for a chance to pet a cat."
"Oh my God." Tori laughs. "I so would." She pats her eyes, her sleeve coming away dry.
They talk about inane things, like how Tori'll get five cats once Lynietta and Gale marry. She'll live in the basement of their house, of course, to mooch cat food off of them while she makes a living as a stripper. ("Or prostitute," Tori adds, cackling at Lynietta's stunned silence.)
I hope you know I wouldn't let you become a stripper or a prostitute, Lynietta texts once Tori's voice becomes too hoarse with sleep to talk.
Tori snorts. She'd type more, but her eyes are heavy with sleep too. But still, late night texting makes Tori's fingers looser than normal.
< But then i'd have no one to love meeee
< cos my best friends be too busy loving each other
< gross
Lynietta doesn't reply, not immediately. The night wears into Tori's bones and mind as her eyes close and stay closed for a solid minute before-
Ping!
Tori barely peeks through one eye, and then snaps open the other to reread Lynietta's reply over and over. Her thumbs move quickly - tap tap tap - before her right one hovers over the Send button and then the backspace. Tap tap tap. Better to sleep off the doubt than to say things she'll regret later. She's too tired for this shit.
Tori sets her phone on silent, on her bedside table and turns away from Lynietta's last text.
> We love you.
----
< Yoooo Lyn, wanna go see it?
> It?
< The movie. Goddamn you live under a rock
< The one with the clown in the freakin sewer. Don't tell me you don't want to watch a clown in a sewer
> That sounds intriguing.
< Right?? So like on Saturday or something
> I have a date with Gale on Saturday. Next week?
< Whaaaaaaaaaat
< Gdi
----
< Gale, my boy, don't let me down now
< Found this WICKED abandoned house next to the beach
< Help me explore it
> Wait, the one on manor lane?
> Lyn and me already explored it a while ago
< WHAT
< WITHOUT ME
< TRAITORS
> Dw, you didn't miss out on much
< I HATE YOUUUUU
>
----
It's Valentine's Day and they won't leave her alone.
"I swear to God, if I didn't know any better, I'd have thought you guys were in love with me or something," Tori grumbles. She bites into a heart shaped lolly from the small bag that Gale's given her. The chalky sugar crunches satisfyingly between her teeth. "I could be in bed right now, eating cheapass chocolates and sleeping."
Lynietta just gives her a look while taking a sip of her iced coffee. Like an 'Are you kidding me?' look. Gale just rolls his eyes with a grin. They're all huddled in a booth at a cafe, scanning over the menu and figuring out how to split the pay. Tori thinks she'll be the one to go to the counter and rattle off their order, but Gale gets up before she can.
Lynietta frowns as they watch him bob up and down on his heels at the back of the queue. "Tori, go with him."
Tori snorts. "You don't trust him to get our orders right, do you." She leans back in her seat. "Why me?"
Lynietta gives her a flat look. "Because I don't trust you enough to leave you alone." When Tori opens her mouth to retort, she adds, "The last time we went to McDonald's, you somehow broke the refill machine and the manager's nose while I was in the restroom."
The last time they went to McDonald's was too long ago, Tori thinks bitterly. "Hey, that manager was a douche."
"I believe you, but that doesn't justify assaulting the man. You're lucky he didn't press charges." A beat passes. "Are you going to help Gale, or would you rather sit here alone?"
Tori supposes not for the latter. She still makes a face as she sidles out of the booth, though. Not unkindly, Lynietta rolls her eyes at Tori's display of reluctance.
"Do you even remember my order?" Tori asks when she slides into the queue next to Gale.
"The shepherd pie?"
"The potato pie, you waffle-cake."
"Right, right, the potato pie." Gale grins. "'Waffle-cake' - that's a new one. And Lyn wanted the lasagna?"
"Ugh, of course you remember your girlfriend's order, but not mine. I see how it is."
A laugh. "Aw, jealous?"
Tori ignores the twinge in her chest. "God, no. You both get disgusting when you're together. Romance is disgusting. I'll have none of that, thanks."
"I don't mean that." Gale stops grinning suddenly - now he's just smiling slightly, half-joking, half-serious. "I mean, are you jealous because I'm going to spend more time with Lyn now?"
Tori hides the bubble in her throat with a snort. "Your time doesn't mean that much to me, Gale."
He blinks. He looks away for a silent moment, and then shrugs. Rubs the back of his neck. "Okay. Just saying, you'll always be my best friend."
"Ugh, don't get all sappy on me." He doesn't reply. When he just takes a step forward as the queue shortens, Tori backtracks. "But hey, if you, y'know, find me annoying or anything, like if you want to be alone with Lyn." She clears her throat. "If you want me gone or anything, I'll totally go away, y'know. You don't need to run away through the toilet window or anything. Just tell me and I'll be gone, you know that, right? And-"
"Tori, you wanted the potato pie?" Gale asks, tilting his head toward the waiting cashier.
"Oh." Tori pauses. "Yeah," she replies, and Gale finishes the order and pays.
When they sit back down, Tori is all too aware of how close her two best friends are next to each other - and the gulf between her and them.
----
She decides to be nice for once. While Lynietta and Gale are giving a stranger directions to the bank ("Tori, no," says Gale when she tries to pitch in, "you suck at directions.") Tori takes the chance to lose herself in the crowd.
< Oops, got lost
< Might as well go home by myself
< Enjoy valentine's day to urself assholes
> What no dudeee no
> D:
Tori ignores Gale's pleas and keeps walking through the crowd. Sure, she's never been in this part of the city before, and there are way too many people to really see where she's going and to look panicked in front of them, but if she takes this right turn here, a left turn here...
A left turn again takes her to more crowds of people, pushing against her from every side and direction, almost knocking her over onto the pavement. There's tall buildings everywhere, none of which Tori have seen before.
Shit, Tori thinks. She's actually lost.
----
< Save me pls
< Idk where i am
< It's been hours
> It's been like 30 min since you left us
< Yea well i'm HUNGRY and BROKE and gdi idk where i am
< Like at all
< Save me
> Google maps???? Use that
< 5% battery m8
< I would if i could
< Just sAVE ME
> Dudeeee
----
> What street are you on
< Heck if i know
> Tori.
< Straight st
< Literally straight st
< Not even straight, there's a little curve in the middle
< There's a lesbian bar here too lmaoooo
> What other buildings do you see
< There's an officeworks
< Could use with some more rulers
< To keep this street straight
< Which it totally isn't
> Please don't waste your battery with unnecessary remarks.
> Tori
> You ran out of battery, didn't you
----
> RIP Victoria Underhill
> Died on Straight st
> Idek if you're straight but if you're not that would be hilarious
> When you figure out your orientation you gotta tell me ok :^)
----
They find her sitting at a bus stop - ironically, in front of the bank they'd been giving the stranger directions to.
"Huh. Maybe you don't suck at directions after all."
"Shut up, Huang."
----
"Why did you leave?" Lynietta asks as they take a seat on the bus. Her and Gale on one pair of seats, Tori behind them. Lynietta has to crane her neck to look Tori in the eye.
Tori looks out the window. "'cause. Y'know."
"I don't."
Maybe that's the problem, Tori wants to say, but one sidelong glance at Lynietta's unyielding gaze squashes the doubt down. "I just - y'know," tumbles out of Tori's mouth. "Didn't want to be the third wheel. Didn't want to ruin your date."
In the corner of her eye, Lynietta and Gale look at each other, in a conversation Tori knows she won't ever be able to hear. They frown, and it's silent for a moment. Unlike their usual comfortable silences, this one is waiting. Tori waits for her best friends - they're a unit of their own, now - to speak to her again.
They don't, for a while, but then-
In a small shuffle, Lynietta moves from her window seat to the aisle seat next to Tori. "Don't be ridiculous," she says, frowning. "We wouldn't invite you we thought you would ruin it, and we wouldn't spend an hour looking for you if you did ruin it."
"You're trying too hard." Tori snorts.
"You're thinking too hard," Lynietta says, which is ironic because usually she's the one who thinks too hard, Tori thinks. When Tori doesn't reply, Lynietta says, matter-of-factly like she always does, "We thought you would feel left out. Do you?"
"No," snorts Tori sarcastically, like she always does. At Lynietta's frown and worried crease of the eyebrows, the doubt grows. "I dunno. Maybe."
"Yes, you do," Gale says, voicing Tori's feelings like he always does. "You wouldn't have ran away if you didn't."
"I ran away because I felt left out," Tori says flatly, sarcastically, except a part of her believes it.
"That's what you did, right?"
"I - I, shit, I don't know. Why are you guys being so nosey?" Tori says heatedly. Her annoyance simmers in the silence - more waiting silence, except this time Lynietta and Gale are the ones waiting. They wait until Tori boils over. "Fine, I felt left out," she says spitefully, looking at her fiddling fingers. "So what?"
Lynietta nudges Tori's elbow with her own. "We'll fix that. We don't want to leave you out."
"Right, but you'll lock me up in a basement while you and Gale live your married life together with, like, six billion kids and I have six billion cats."
"You'd be there. The whole point of that talk we had a few days ago, about the house and you in the basement was that you were there. With us." Lynietta frowns. "The basement was a joke. You know that."
"Wait, we're gonna get a house together and lock Tori in the basement?" chimes in Gale, and Lynietta just gives him a look and he shuts up.
And Tori thinks, fire gone from her words. "I just," she says honestly, to the window, "don't want to be the third wheel."
"Well, you are," Gale says, smiling, "whether you like it or not. You're the third wheel of a tricycle."
"And we're sorry if we made you feel like any less."
Tori keeps her eyes on the road outside. She sniffs. "I hate you guys," she declares.
Gale laughs. "Love you too," he says. And the rest of the bus ride follows in a silence where no one's waiting.
----
Tori doesn't think twice about texting her best friends three hours past midnight. Mostly because she's too sleep-deprived to care about their sleeping schedules.
< Thanks
She stares at the group chat after she sends it. Gale's probably asleep, but Lynietta's a night owl.
> For what?
She stares at her phone some more, typing and backspacing, typing and backspacing until she settles for -
< Y'know, stuff, okay? I'm feeling thankful rn. Just accept my thanks, god
A few minutes pass, and Tori leaves it at that.
The next morning, she checks her phone. Two new messages, one at almost 4 am and another barely minutes ago.
> Thanks for being my friend too.
> Thanks for everything too Tori! -
Glow in the Dark Stars (Part 1)
1211 words. https://writer.bighugelabs.com/share/i5z7xk3f
This is 90% exposition and I'm amazed at my ability to write nothing happening in 1000+ words. Plans for Part 2 are a lot better though.Spoiler
Hot sand, cool breeze, boundless blue, endless sea - Gale is born in a port city, and remembers nothing of his childhood except the waves lulling in the moonlight. One evening, there's him and his brother and Mum and Dad, frothy seawater tickling their toes. The stars twinkle above them, and Gale snaps a shot of the little diamonds in the sky with Dad's camera, and then a few more. He takes a photo of their footprints in the sand before they dissolve into the waves, and he takes a photo of his family's silhouettes with the stars as a backdrop.
Mum loves the last photo. She sticks it onto the refrigerator door with the special smiley face magnets that she reserves for Shin's A+ essays and honour certificates. Gale stands taller every time he walks past it; he's never had his own work posted onto the refrigerator before.
Eventually it gets hidden away behind Shin's paper achievements again. Gale shuffles through them one day - takes his photo and keeps it on his bedside table, the last thing he sees every night. Nobody notices it's gone.
--
There's a boy sleeping on the train with dirty clothes and matted hair and - is that the beginnings of a stubble? Gale stares at the boy across him who's around his age, wondering what happened, but his mother tugs at his arm, diverting his attention to her.
Stop staring, she's saying with her eyes, but Gale's just staring because no one else is. Why aren't they helping?
When they get off at their stop, Gale sends one last glance over his shoulder and prays that the boy at least gets a good night's sleep.
--
His mother's voice muffled through the door, chattering away on the phone with Shin's melodious piano resounding in the background, Gale stares at his math homework listlessly. It's just a jumble of numbers with no meaning. He'd ask someone for help, but they'd all given up on him a long time ago - except his tutor, but Gale knows she's only in it for the money.
"You must be dyslexic or something, I swear," the teenage tutor mutters one day, when they're working at the dinner table. Gale pretends not to hear her as he scribbles away at the worksheet.
His mother doesn't pretend. She slams the refrigerator door closed, making the tutor jump, and exhales out her nose - a long and displeased sigh. "Dyslexia has nothing to do with math." The look she gives Gale is tired. "Math shouldn't be hard for him."
"Math shouldn't be hard for him," she says again, into the phone this time. Gale strains to hear the rest of her words through his bedroom door. "He'll do just fine. But Shin's been doing well in his studies..."
Gale puts his headphones on and turns his music up.
--
Class completely silent, teacher's chalk squeaking against the blackboard, quiet giggles at the back of the class -
"Gale, please stop laughing."
"But, Miss, you just drew a dick."
"I was drawing an irregular shape - oh."
The whole class laughs. The teacher sighs.
When she looks over his worksheet later, she sighs again and moves on to Charlie, the kid in front of Gale that's equally as hopeless as he is. The teacher just gives Charlie and his work the stink eye before picking up the star student's work with palpable pride. Gale knows what she's doing - concentrating on the good kids while the year is ending and leaving the bad kids in the dust. He's seen it all too often.
But surely, Gale thinks as he brushes a piece of lint off his shoulder, he's not a complete lost cause.
--
"Your parents are really okay with you sleeping over?" Charlie asks, turning over on his side to look at Gale on his floor.
"course," says Gale, staring at the ceiling. He's not too sure if it's a lie. They'd be fine with a sleepover at a friend's place, surely; he just hadn't asked, that's all.
They're not fine with him not asking. The next morning, his friend's house phone rings incessantly. The conversation is long, and Gale catches only bits and pieces of it: "Yes, he's here... I didn't know... He said you were okay with it..." His friend's mum reluctantly scolds him for not telling his parents he'd be over for the night, and Gale hides his smile.
His parents noticed.
--
Cold seeping through his jacket into his skin, pressed against the hard wood of the park bench, backpack full of clothes and memories and other small things - Gale doesn't know why he expected the people walking past to ask what he's doing out so late. He'd recited his excuse - I'm just camping out for the night - but no one gives him a second glance. The policemen are slacking too. He hasn't seen one yet. Maybe Mum hasn't called them to find him yet.
Yet. Will she ever, Gale wonders as he stares at the sky peeking through the leaves of the tree branches above him. He squashes his doubt down. She will. She'll open the door to his bedroom, expecting to find him reciting his timetables or reading a book like he's supposed to, and then she'll be worried and call the police.
She does, two days later. The policemen find him at a convenience store buying water, his hood conspicuously up.
He walks into the living room expecting relieved smiles and hugs. Instead, there's a woman he doesn't know sitting at the table with his parents, papers strewn in front of them.
Mum and Dad don't look at him as the woman ushers him out of the house.
--
Leather seats, magazines stuffed into the back of the driver's seat, wind blowing Gale's hair back, the social worker's eyes on the road - Gale doesn't ask where he's going. The photo crinkles in his grip as he stares at it on the car ride to his new family. The social worker - Penny, she'd said her name was - doesn't bother asking what it is. Of course, Gale thinks because he doesn't expect her to.
He's just a hopeless, homeless kid to her.
--
Cars beeping, trucks honking, people shouting, stale air - the city bustle hits Gale from all sides, almost knocking him onto the pavement before his friend catches his fall. The crowd is relentless, but Penny pulls him through the masses easily before pushing open the door to a quiet cafe. A little bell at the top of the door jingles and signals a waiter to come and motion them to a table; Penny shakes her head and waves to a couple sitting in one of the booths.
Penny motions to Gale to sit, and then slides into the booth after he does, trapping him between her, the wall, and the two pairs of eyes staring at him with interest and... and - Gale doesn't know what to call it. Unconditional adoration? They don't even know him, or maybe they do, from the papers Penny's no doubt given them. She's probably already told them that this is the sixth home he's been to in the span of two years.
Gale knows there'll be a seventh. -
Glow in the Dark Stars (Part 2)
1180 words. https://writer.bighugelabs.com/share/typz3mga
what do you mean i can't use scene breaks to replace the in-betweens i don't know how to write ;_;
Highlight tho:"Hey, you're the new kid, yeah?"
Gale looks up from his sketchy landscape to see a tall boy with big hair and big glasses looking at him with golden curiosity. "Yeah?" says Gale, discreetly hugging his sketch to his chest. The fabric of his shirt is probably smudging the graphite, but Gale would sooner scrunch the paper up and eat it than let someone see it.
The boy grins, white teeth flashing against dark skin. "I'm Maxwell," he announces to the whole world, "and you're my friend now."Spoiler
The rumble of the nightlife beneath him, fourteen year old Gale looks outside his window in bed, at the light of the city fading into the darkness above. There are no stars here.
--
Wrinkled leather seats, rain hammering, heater humming, streetlights flashing past. Penny is too tired to talk but she keeps driving. The smog of the city is slowly retreating behind them, uncovering the stars in the night. Gale takes a break from counting them and says what everyone's been thinking.
"You should just give up on me." When Penny doesn't reply, he adds, "Everyone else did."
Penny's knuckles whiten on the driver's wheel. "Have you given up on yourself?" she asks quietly, and Gale bites back the filth on his tongue.
The stars are in the thousands by the time they reach his new family.
--
White sand, salty breeze, cloudless sky, infinite sea - New Summerfield is too much like his first home. Fifteen year old Gale breathes in the fresh air of the seaside town as he steps off the car. Penny's smile is sure and resolute.
"You'll like this one," she says, but Gale shrugs non-committedly as he follows her to the front door. He pauses to take in the colourful flowerboxes adorning the front porch, a pop of colour against the white planks of the house exterior.
It takes only a few seconds for the door to swing open after Penny knocks. "Oh!" The woman on the other side blinks at Penny, and then at Gale, before nervously wiping her arms on the dirtied apron. "I was not expecting you so soon - oh goodness, I'm sorry for being a mess." The lilt in her voice is distinctly German. "I'm - we are cooking-"
"Stella!" a voice calls from further inside the house. "Do I take the chicken out now?"
"Yes, dear!" the woman calls back, before smiling sheepishly at Penny. "I'm sorry. You are Penny and Gale, yes? Please, come in!"
--
The house is... nice, Gale decides after he appraises the numerous photos and paintings hung around the living room and fairy lights strung around the windows.
"The fairy lights were Riana's idea," the woman says when Gale stares at them. She smiles as she leads them to the dinner table, across the counter from the open kitchen where another woman - the voice from before - is taking a tray of tin foil out of the oven. "Riana's our daughter. I'm Stella, by the way."
"And I'm Claire," the other woman says cheerfully, setting the tray down. "I'm sorry for the mess. We were, uh, expecting to get this done sooner."
Penny laughs, taking a sip of the water Stella's poured for them. "No worries. I'll be out of your hair soon enough." Her papers are already on the table. "Let's talk."
--
The conversation is white noise to Gale at this point. There's the occasional, "Do you want to, Gale?" and his mindless reply, "Yeah, sure," and then more talking between the adults while he stares out the window, at the quiet road. There's nothing to stare at, really - Gale just counts the cars that whoosh by (5 in the past 2 hours) and wonders if the fairy lights were really a good design choice; the thick black curtains clash with the atmosphere, Gale decides, though they don't look bad.
"Gale," Penny says, snapping him out of his reverie. Gale blinks at her, and at the papers stacked in a neat pile, all stapled and paper-clipped in front of her. Oh. The meeting is done.
Claire looks at him, green eyes wide with hope. "Do you like it here? Would you like to stay?"
Gale shrugs. "Yeah, sure," he says, and Claire squeals and hugs Stella and him. Gale pats her on the back, awkwardly smiling back at Stella's warm laugh. He can't bring himself to laugh with her.
It's just another hopeless, homeless house to him.
--
Shouting, giggling, chatting, the smell of overly expensive food - Gale's new school's cafeteria is filled with hungry teenagers, but Gale's managed to snag a table in the corner for himself. Some other kid had asked to take the other chairs away for his own table of friends, so Gale makes himself look as un-lonely as possible by scribbling in his sketchbook.
"Hey, you're the new kid, yeah?"
Gale looks up from his sketchy landscape to see a tall boy with big hair and big glasses looking at him with golden curiosity. "Yeah?" says Gale, discreetly hugging his sketch to his chest. The fabric of his shirt is probably smudging the graphite, but Gale would sooner scrunch the paper up and eat it than let someone see it.
The boy grins, white teeth flashing against dark skin. "I'm Maxwell," he announces to the whole world, "and you're my friend now."
--
Wind in his hair, houses and trees flying past, everything a blur - Gale hops from rooftop to rooftop, throwing a grin at Maxwell before leaping over the railing and sliding himself down a light pole. It's been a while since he's done parkour, but he does it so deftly, Maxwell pauses at the balcony Gale had vaulted off of. "Woah, dude. That was so cool!"
And then a shadow whizzes past Maxwell, doing the same thing as Gale did - Tori's hands squeak against the steel as she slides down the pole. She dusts them off, her sharp teeth bared into a huge grin. "Not that hard, Maxi!" she yells at him, laughing to herself. "Now get down over here. Zephyr and Rae are already at the cinema. Can't keep them waiting and all that shit."
--
Red, gold, fireworks, dragons, red, gold - Chinese New Year is around the corner.
When Gale switches the channel to yet another lion dance recording, the sofa next to him sinks as Stella sits on it. "Do you want to celebrate Chinese New Year?" she asks, eyes on the TV.
Gale snorts as he keeps pressing buttons on the remote. It's a cartoon now, about a Chinese boy who can turn into a dragon. Figures. "No."
"Does it remind you of your..." Stella deliberates for a second. "... biological family?"
It's the first time they've been brought up like that, and it takes a second for Gale to think about whether he should be offended. But then again, he supposes, Stella is right. They're just biological family now. "I guess. But that's not the point. We never really celebrated it anyway." He grins, but even he knows it isn't convincing. "I've already assimilated into white culture, see. I might as well be white now."
Stella raises an eyebrow at him. "But don't you want to..." She deliberates her words again. "... reach into your roots?"
Gale snorts again, clicking away at the remote before turning the TV off. He throws the remote onto the sofa and gets up - leaves the room before Stella can stop him. A sliver of poison seeps into his voice before he can stop it. "My roots abandoned me a long time ago." -
Glow in the Dark Stars (Part 3/3)
1052 words, which means this draft totals up to 3443 words. https://writer.bighugelabs.com/share/apxkciuq
The 153 words in the first spoiler were added to an earlier part of the story. Final part of the story (a very rushed 899 words; why do I do this to myself) is in the second spoiler.Spoiler
When his foster parents ask him what he's drawing one day, he slaps his sketchbook face down onto the table. When one of them pries too much, he scrunches the paper up and rips it apart. No one can see it now. That's good.
"You drawing porn or something?" his foster brother asks jokingly.
"Uh-huh," Gale replies non-committedly.
His foster brother doesn't believe him, but he tells his friends that anyway, as a joke. Gale lets them think that, because it's better than the truth of failure. His foster brother doesn't see the hours Gale spends shading in the stars and nebulae - trying to replicate them just right and falling just short of the perfection he'd captured years ago.
"What's the point of drawing if you don't even show anyone?" his foster brother asks.
Gale rolls his eyes. "I draw for myself," he says, except he isn't quite sure if that's true.Spoiler
Acrylic paints, canvas set, easel in front of him - Gale is in his element on a Saturday night, slaving over his newest creation in his bedroom. He's frowning at the way there are too many white specks in the corner of the painting when Riana knocks on his door and peeks through the doorway.
"Whatcha doin'?" she asks conversationally, sidling into his room.
He grins. "Suffering." She laughs before she takes a glimpse at his latest work, and then she gasps.
"Woah! That's amazing. It's a galaxy?"
"Nah, it's a banana." Again, Riana laughs. Gale smiles. "Yeah, a galaxy. I don't like this one either though, I mean, until I fix this part here." He points at the offending corner.
"What? What's wrong with it?"
"I don't even know. I just don't like it."
"But I like it."
"Yeah, but you like broccoli. Like, dude, what is wrong with you."
Riana giggles. "Broccoli isn't that bad. But seriously, I like it. Your painting...s." She pointedly gazes at the painted canvases lying in the corner and all around the room. "They're masterpieces!" Her gaze lingers and she opens her mouth, but then closes it again. Gale ignores her hesitancy. They're not masterpieces. They're more like shameless forgeries, he wants to say, but he squashes that thought down.
So he says, "You like a lot of things. But anyway, did you need something?" He tilts his head quickly toward his easel. "I got shit to do."
"Not really," Riana says honestly, because she's always honest. Gale wonders if he could ever be like her. But she lingers, too; she hesitates.
Gale sighs when she licks her lips uneasily. "Spit it out." Don't let the rubbish build up and multiply. Don't let the filth rot away in your throat.
But what spills from Riana's mouth is anything but filth. "I want them," she blurts out. It catches Gale off-guard. "Your paintings, I mean. Can I - can I hang them up on my wall? In my room? Like I said. They're masterpieces." She grins. "Who knows, maybe I can sell them one day for a million dollars or something."
They're anything but amazing, Gale thinks, but Riana looks at him so earnestly with her wide eyes, he reconsiders it. "If you," he mumbles, "if you really want to."
Riana's smile is a masterpiece of its own. "I really want to."
--
"A mural?" Gale raises his eyebrows, paintbrush hovering over his canvas. Stella smiles back at him.
"Yes. The nursery's wall feels a bit bare, don't you think?" Her eyes flicker to his painting and then back to his frown. "We've been thinking that Daniel can share a room with Riana. She doesn't have any problems with it, and we can't have you locked up in the basement forever."
No, Gale thinks, they can't because: "I won't be here forever."
Stella's eyes soften, as does her voice. "You don't want to? Stay here?" When Gale doesn't answer immediately, she adds, "Riana and Claire would be disappointed. Daniel, too." She laughs. "He might need a masculine role model, you know."
Gale chuckles with her. And then silence. "Maybe, I guess," he says non-committedly.
Stella stares at him for a moment. "What do you want to do?" She lets her question hang in the air as Gale stares at his canvas, at the white specks he's flicked onto hues of purple and blue. She asks with a sincerity nobody's ever given him, "What do you want?"
An honesty he's never given anyone rolls off his tongue. "I want home."
Stella circles her arms around his slumped shoulders. Her hug is warm, and so is her voice. "We're right here."
--
The scent of oil paints, curtains fluttering over the open window, newspaper and tarps on the floor: Gale stares at his canvas - the wall adjacent to the door, right next to where his bed is going to be. The primer's already dried overnight. Now he just needs to start.
Starting is the hardest part, Gale supposes. He's never worked with house paint before.
"Knock knock," Riana says as she opens the nursery - not the nursery any more, Gale supposes - door. "Started yet?"
"Nope."
"Good!" Riana says cheerfully, bounding into the room. She draws her hand out from behind her back, shoving a small tube in front of Gale's face. "I got something for you." When all Gale does is blink, she adds, "Glow in the dark paint! I thought it'd be cool to paint on your galaxies, since you paint them so much."
"Huh."
Pout. "Do you like it?"
Slow smile. "Yeah." Laugh. "I love it. Thanks."
--
"Can I help?" Daniel asks one day, peeking through the doorway to Gale's bedroom with wide eyes. The smell of paint reeks off the walls and up from the cans and out the door.
"No," Gale says without thinking, "you'll ruin it."
Daniel stares at him, lip wobbling before crawling toward the door, but Gale stops him.
"Wait," Gale says, biting his lip. Daniel pauses. Gale opens the window and lets the last of his thoughts tumble out his mouth. "Want to help?"
Daniel's toothy grin is worth it.
--
Glow in the dark stars on the ceiling, painted galaxy on the wall, the moon outside his windows and stars behind his eyelids as he drifts into sleep - Gale wouldn't change this for the world.
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