I wrote this when I was about fourteen. Now I'm eleven.
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Yes, Ada was crying again. Her best friend had played a painful joke on her, and now her nose was bleeding quite incessantly. She was allergic to cinnamon, was the real problem. Julian had imagined it would be funny to put some on her sandwich. It ended up not being funny, though. It ended up being a bloody nose, actually.
As much as she realized it didn’t matter, she insisted upon remember that Julian had kindly persuaded her not to eat the sandwich until she got home. Actually, nevermind; she always did what Julian said. Persuasion was far from necessary.
After a little more than twenty minutes, she stopped crying and sat up. It seemed like a good idea to wash the blood off her face, so that’s what she did. Those irritating red spots that congregate around your eyes after you’ve been crying were especially friendly that day, and she thought their company was somewhat sweet.
Drawing a hand through her hair, she pulled it down onto her cheek. It was a grey-brown color that Julian insisted had originated somewhere in Puritan times when color had been banned. He knew a lot about History.
“He did it,” she said complacently. “It’s funny that he did.”
She wanted to convince herself that Julian was funny, but it wasn’t working. Before she could repeat herself with more force, the doorbell rang. If it was lucky, her mom had taken her little sister to the supermarket, and her brother was probably out partying--if that was possible on a Wednesday afternoon.
Tearing herself away from the comfort of her slightly pink face, Ada tripped out of the bathroom to answer the door. It was probably Cole, and so she pulled her hair up on top of her head and wrapped a dirty rubber band around it. When it got in her face she immediately hated the world. Cole didn’t like it when she hated the world.
Dashing through her room, she tried to ignore its ugly green and crimson cleanliness. Who even said it could be like that?
“Well, I was coming,” she said to the closed door. “I don’t know why he must get so excited.” The shouting had made Cole a certainty and she walked very slowly to the very locked door.
“Hey, crazy,” said the strange man, or boy, or whatever he was.
Cole had a spontaneous streak that came out every few months, and so, due to the fact that it had been some time since he invaded her house, it was only logical to assume it was he. Distracted and useless were the words she thought of first when Cole was mentioned. He didn’t often disagree.
“You seem stupid. Do you need anything to wake yourself up with?” she asked.
His eyes matched the dull wood of the door and his mouth was wide and liked to smile. He didn’t often give it the pleasure.
A little awkwardly, he studied her dead pan expression and then pushed her out of the way to get into the house. “I’m a little hungry.” Kicking off his shoes, he stomped into the kitchen. “Can you come to the thing?”
She watched as he grabbed an apple out of the refrigerator door and bit into it with a disinterested air. “Well, I’m only wearing socks and this baggy sweatshirt and these super tight jeans. It might be inappropriate.”
“It’s definitely inappropriate,” he said sternly. “You should bloody well go change before I hit you.”
“I haven’t decided if I want to go,” she said, almost putting petulance into her voice. “The Thing sounds awfully dour.”
“The - the thing…Yeah. It’s one of those things that is yet to be announced…” He trailed off and took another cruel bite out of his dying snack. Cole was never good at asking questions. He really did want to know, but he was scared that if he sounded too interested someone might start telling him more than he wanted to know. More often than was healthy, he said nothing at all.
She leaned against the door frame of the kitchen and chewed on the neck of her sweatshirt.
“You were crying,” said Cole absently.
“Yeah, I guess so.” She stared at him for a moment and then smiled genuinely. “Julian is a mean little boy. Sometimes I want to kiss him he‘s so mean.” She laughed and then turned around and made for her room.
“What did he do today?” called Cole after her, sound more interested than usual.
“He put cinnamon on my sandwich.” She disappeared into green-crimson freak paradise and returned a moment later with her cell phone hanging out of her mouth.
“Damn that little fag. I should shoot him for kissing you.”
There was a moment of silence before Ada dropped her phone and Cole threw out his apple core.
“But - but he--”
“Yeah. I know. Cinnamon--kissing--same thing.” He dug his keys out of his pocket and tossed them in the air.
“No,” she said carelessly. “Nope. Not really.’
Ada picked up her phone and shoved it in her pocket.
“You need to change before we go.” Cole said it like he was talking to his six year old daughter. Ada doubted the truth in this implication.
“Why?”
“Because you look like a cute little thirteen year old and I’m nineteen,” he said, “if you remember.”
Ada played with her phone in pocket and then stared avidly at the ceiling, swinging her foot in circles on the carpet. “No, I don’t.”
“Yes, you do.”
“Shut up. I’ll put some make up on real quick and then you’ll be satisfied.”
He laughed a little to himself as she skipped back into her room. Seconds later she was before him again; eyes widened by kohl and lashes long and slippery-looking. “Now you look about seven, at the most.”
“All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth,” she sang. He stared at her and she continued. “It’s Christmas almost. So you need to be sweeter. I haven’t seen you since August, anyhow.”
“No! It wasn’t August, was it?” He grabbed the hood of her sweatshirt and began to drag her out the door, slamming it soundly behind him. “It must have been early October. Little more than a month ago, right?” She shook her head insistently and he let her go to unlock his dirty Mercedes.
“You always forget! You’re like Peter Pan, silly. One day you’ll forget all about me and I’ll never see you again.”
Cole grinned widely and looked like he might say something and then stopped abruptly.
The clouds were thin, spidery things and slivers of mist crept around and behind everything. Looming Victorian mansions frowned on there own disrepair and even Cole’s unkempt appearance was deeply superior. A slight whistling, like ghosts when they know there is no one to frighten, came speeding down the cracked asphalt in a red Accord.
“Cole, it’s Julian!” squealed Ada, beginning to chew on her sweatshirt with more vigor.
“Dammit.”
“Don’t say that, Cole! That is not nice. You like Julian.”
Cole sat down on the hood and glanced over at Ada. “Yeah, yeah. Of course I do.” He grinned a little sympathetically at something Ada could not figure out.
The Accord came to a skidding halt across the street and Julian threw himself out of it and danced across the street. “Ada! Ada! Ada! Guess what? I was talking to Stephen, that kid who helped Matt kind of beat you up and take all of your stuff last year, and he wants to hang out with us today! Good idea, right? I knew you would like it. But he also has this new car that he’s afraid you might get dirty with your dirtiness and I told him I would make you a take a shower before you came. He only seemed half-satisfied.” Laughing, he rushed up the driveway and picked Ada up, swinging her around as Cole sighed deeply.
“Julian! Put me down before I remind you of the cinnamon!” Julian’s face fell and he put her down. His curly hair was suddenly shinier and his mischievous eyes could not have looked more repentant.
“What if - what if I said I was sorry? I was kidding about Stephen, by the way. He seemed intent on recalling how he had shoved you so hard against that locker that you had gotten a bloody nose. Apparently he wanted to do it again. I had to talk to him about that, of course.” He paused and pulled the rubber band out of her hair. “Hullo, Cole. Didn’t see you there. He never talks, you know?” Vaguely, he snapped himself with the rubber band and stared gloomily at the sidewalk.
“Hi, Julian. Haven’t seen you in a--”
“A hundred years! Probably. Anyway, Ada, I was thinking we would go to the lake and try to kill ducks with dangerous, discarded objects or something…” He pushed her against the garage door used his thumb to rub off some of her smeared eye liner.
“Julian…I haven’t seen Cole in--”
“Yeah, so he doesn’t deserve to hang out with you, obviously! C’mon!” He made a stupid face and she stared at him blankly.
“Ducks tomorrow, okay?”
Julian frowned and pulled her hair back up, reattaching the rubber band sloppily. “At school in the morning, you’re dead. Literally, dead. Dead, literally. Killed, murdered, annihilated…like a duck. That’s what I thought.” He grabbed the hood of her sweatshirt and pulled it over her face abruptly. “Have fun, Ada! Have fun wondering in what way I will torture and kill you tomorrow!” shouted Julian as he raced across the street and jumped into his car, speeding away with plenty of honking and yelling.
“What a psycho. Damn, Ada, where did you find that guy?”
Ada was trying to find her way out of the hood of her sweatshirt and hadn‘t found the time to remember where she had found Julian. When she finally emerged she was laughing silently and her hair was sticking up in odd directions.
“What did you just say?”
“Your friend is a psychotic freak.” Cole slid off the hood and fixed her hair; she stared at him with her Julian smile still plastered on.
“Nah. He’s just a silly.” Still dancing a little in amusement, she jumped into the dirty car.
_____
The strip mall was a smeared mess of orange and grey; it reminded Ada of a place Stephen King might have imagined. Cold, starched storm clouds hovered over the pathetic scene in little less than laughter. A cheesy Asian restaurant full of purples and reds sat, slightly lonely, between a Laundromat and an optometrist.
“I’ve never seen this place before. It’s awfully sad-looking, you know?”
Cole had parked directly in front of the Laundromat and was staring to his left at the dirty restaurant a little expectantly. “I guess. Do you like Korean food?”
“Not really. Well, I’ve never had it. Maybe we could just drink the detergent from the Laundromat.”
“I actually need to pick up some clothes that I left in there a few days ago. They might not have been stolen yet, if I’m lucky. Do you want to come--”
“Well, I used to have nightmares about…” But she didn’t allow herself to finish and stepped out of the car; vanishing through the grimy doors. The asphalt was glittery and damp; Cole wondered about her nightmares.
“Ada, check the dryers for my ugly clothes.”
The Laundromat was empty and there was a eerie whirring noise from the fans above their heads. Sticky with sweat and soap, the floor seemed to emit poverty and eternal annoyance at a lost quarter. Ada began opening and closing every dryer and quickly grew bored before she had checked every one and started snooping behind the counter.
“You know, Cole, I don’t see why you call your clothes ugly,” she mumbled. “Although I would never deny you your opinion regarding--’ she giggled-- “regarding skinned jeans and thirties jackets.”
“Ada, stop spying on invisible people and let’s go. They’re probably not here and our food is getting cold.”
It was past seven and the only light was what reflected off the harsh black asphalt. Ada sighed and skated out of the wash house, her feet nasty and covered in pink muck and filth.
“Asian food? Really?”
“I like it.”
They spent five bucks on something that Ada proclaimed inedible and then proceeded to eat hers and Cole’s share. The light in the restaurant was smudged and threw spotted shadows on the strange couple. Around eight o’clock when Ada was beginning to fall asleep on Cole’s shoulder, he pushed her away and asked why she was pretending to be tired.
“I’m not pretending! I - I - I’m going to be tired for the sake of school. You don’t even--”
“Work all day. Which is so much easier than school.”
“Of course it is! Sophomore year is so - so…” She paused and stared at the ceiling. ‘Easy. But, if you remember, kids don’t like me and it’s a little…a little tiring maybe to always waiting for someone to hit me or trip me or drag me outside where they can--”
“All right! I get it.” Cole glared at a broken mug on the floor by his chair and then suddenly looked curious. “They still do that? I thought that was only Freshman year.”
“Oh no, they like watching TV, remember? They‘re used to repeating boring, stupid things forever.”
“They’re jealous,” muttered Cole, but he didn’t sound like he meant it.
“It‘s like a truncated symphony sometimes, you know? But I’m not beautiful or popular despite all that.” She grinned up at Cole and then rested her head on the table.
“You are awfully - awfully cute. Beautiful isn’t everything. Actually, I think most of those girls are ugly and annoying.” He yawned, inspired by her onset of exhaustion and then continued. “Julian doesn’t protect you?”
“A lot of the time he does. Well, no not really. He doesn’t always notice--nevermind.”
“That’s stupid. When I was at school last year I always--”
“No, you didn’t! You were busy too and it wasn’t until you caught Matt--”
“That fucking bastard. You were probably half his height and he had two other guys with--”
“I wasn’t half his height! I’m five two and he’s maybe--”
“Ten feet tall.”
Ada giggled and took a long sip of whatever weird liquid they had been given. And then she fell asleep.
