I didn’t like endings. And it didn’t even matter what kind. I just didn’t like it when things ended.
When Fight Club ended, I cried. When Anchorman ended, I cried harder. When Elementary school ended, I burned all my dolls. When Middle School ended my cat took a bath with a toaster. I cried. But I didn’t miss my cat.
I didn’t like Anchorman or Fight Club much. I just didn’t want them to end. I hated Elementary school, but when it ended, I was a wreck. I liked Middle School okay, but I still hated it when it was over. I think my cat may have hated it more.
‘You look stupid.’
I rolled over on my dirty bed and propped myself on my elbows. My brother was standing in the doorway, his clothes all ridiculously too big.
‘I look stupid?’ I giggled and shook my head. My brother just stared at me.
‘Yeah, you look stupid. You always look stupid.’ And he turned around and marched back down the hall. He did stuff like that. I wasn’t particularly surprised.
I looked around my room. The ceiling was orange and everything else was white. Well, it used to be white before I became its master. The comforter on my queen bed was a grimy kind of yellow-grey. My walls were bleached an off-white and covered in footprints and dents. My carpet was never any color as far I could tell.
My stomach growled and I rolled off the bed, falling in a heap on the floor. My sweatshirt was too big and it was much too hot to be wearing a sweatshirt. My shorts were too small and my knees were skinned from crawling around my room trying to find a lost needle. I tried to sew my clothes. Most of the time, I failed.
It couldn’t be past three but there was no clock in my room. Clocks reminded me of ending.
I got up and dragged myself down the hallway to my brothers room. I could hear voices downstairs but they sounded boring so I ignored them.
‘Where are mom and dad?’ I asked as I entered his room. He was now back in his normal clothes and there was a pile of crumpled XXL stuff on the floor next to his bed. Pale grey and dirty brown make up his room. I never look at it too closely, afraid to find something I would rather not find. One day a few years ago I found that he had written his name all over the wall next to his bed and then covered it in tape.
‘They’re downstairs, stupid, gay, worthless…’ He was too lazy to continue with more insults. His hair was a very obviously dyed brown. It was naturally bleach blonde but he hated it and insisted on buying cheap dyes from cheap grocery stores and making his hair look cheap. The roots were growing out and I laughed.
‘No, where are they? Like, present tense. They were downstairs this morning but now they aren’t.’ The voices downstairs grew more annoying and I tried to tune them out.
‘How do you know? I hear voices down there, it must be them. Go away. I don’t care where they are. Go away. Go away. Go away.’ I thought he enjoyed being thirteen way too much. I remembered it being slightly boring. I was jealous.
‘They aren’t downstairs.’
‘They are.’
‘They aren’t.’
‘Go check and leave me alone.’ His phone rang and he glared at me, refusing to answer it before I left.
‘Cool ring tone.’ It was the theme song to some dumb TV show he liked.
‘It’s my girlfriend.’
‘You don’t have a girlfriend.’
‘Yeah I do. If you weren’t so gay all the time.’
‘Well, since I’m older I’ll take responsibility like a responsible person should. I’ll find out who is in our house.’ I turned around and walked out.
‘Shut up and you’re gay!’ he shouted after me. I giggled a little and refused to look in the mirror at the end of the hall. I didn’t know why it was there. Probably just so that I wouldn’t look in it. And no, it wasn’t because I thought I was ugly. It was because I thought I was cute. I was trying to cut down on the vanity.
The stairs were a little rickety and I wished I could get down them without alerting the world to my presence. I could see the living room but the kitchen and dining room were obscured by a useless wall. The couch was not being occupied but the TV was on. I couldn’t tell what was on except that it was dumb. The volume was off.
Voices that had previously been so loud and annoying had come to an abrupt end. If I hadn’t have been so sure they heard me I would have run back up the stairs. My heart pounding, I turned the corner.
Sitting at my crooked dining room table were two kids probably a little older than myself and my dad. I cringed as they stared and then my dad stood, laughing a little.
‘Rae! I was wondering when you would show yourself. I had some tutoring work to do before school started and I decided to do it here. Physics is one of those -’
My dad has a tendency to go on and on and on…unnecessarily. But I guess that goes without saying. ‘Yeah, yeah. I get it.’ The two boys were staring at me too avidly and I tried to smile.
‘Oh, sorry. Michael, Dom, this is my daughter -’
‘Rae,’ said Dom, getting up from the table and offering me his hand. ‘Nice to meet you.’ He drew out the ‘nice’ and it sounded funny. I giggled. Michael got up too and shook my hand, looking a little awkward. They didn’t look anything alike but I couldn’t tell if they were friends or if they hated each other. Dom was skinny and pale, his hair a dull blonde and Michael was tan and less lanky with a shock of very black hair. It must have been fake.
‘Yeah…’ There was a silence. ‘Dad, do you want me to get Lex? I mean, he -’
‘Lex? You guys Superman fans or something?’ Dom grinned and I ignored him, a little annoyed.
‘Sure, sweetie, you guys should all be best friends by the end of the week.’ My dad sat back down, his enthusiasm bored of itself.
_______
‘It’s August 31st. The first day of school is in less than a week.’
‘So?’
‘Are you excited?’
‘Summer is going to end when school starts.’
‘Uh, yeah. Obviously.
‘So, what am I going to do?’ I shouted, kicking the sand from my lamely swinging swing. I never let my swing get very high because then if someone snuck up on me I wouldn’t be able to get out before it was too late.
‘Well, you could try getting over it,’ laughed my stupid friend. Mark was something of an idiot but I didn’t get along with people very well and he was the only one who would deal with me.
‘I don’t get over things. I get under them. And no, I am not excited.’
‘Why not?’
‘I heard that Highschool was worse than World War II.’ The sun was going down and a quick, warm breeze brushed my colorless hair out of my face. My brother had stolen all the blonde genes and he didn’t even appreciate them.
‘Maybe you’ll make friends.’
‘Maybe dogs and cats will start some kind of secret organization and in five years our government will be controlled by animals. Oh wait, that already happened.’
Mark laughed in his annoying ‘I’m almost fifteen’ way and then jumped out of his swing. ‘I have to go. But you need to tell me more about -’
‘Dom and Michael…I know. But I already told you -’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘Okay, I didn’t.’ I laughed and hopped out of my swing.
Mark was always cold even though his skin was always at a boiling point. His hair stuck out in static gone too far and he didn’t have glasses. Something I had to remind him of when he insisted that he was a nerd. He was a nerd. But he thought of it as a bad thing and I didn’t. We had a habit of shaking hands when we saw each other or when we parted. A habit that originated when some idiot commented on us hugging in a stupid way. I put my hand out and Mark laughed.
I watched him go, the sun slipping behind his head as he vanished. I was bored and the swings squeaked. The playground smelled of light and laughter and scratched paint agreed. It was only when the sun had all but disappeared that all scent of light or laughter was gone. Oddly, it was at this moment that I heard a laugh that didn’t sound nice at all. Turning away from the sunset I fell out of my swing.
Dom and Michael.
My sweet night had ended; I began to cry.
‘What the hell?’ Dom was sitting in the swing and Michael was standing behind him, kicking him in the back.
‘Rae, what’s wrong?’ Michael stopped kicking Dom and helped me to my feet. It was obvious that my had made them come over and get me. They didn't look happy.
What I hadn’t told Mark was that Dom and Michael hated me. I annoyed the living hell out of them and they were sick of my dad making them stay longer to hang out with me.
‘You know…the normal stuff. You know what I want? I want something that never ends.’
We walked home together and the whole way they kicked me pushed me and insulted me. If there would have been some freak criminal out that night I doubt they could have done more damage than the kids who were making sure I got ’safely’ home.
The fact that the plot was strange and didn't make all that much sense. I did get confused when they were talking because I couldn't get who was who right.
Gender:
Points: 890
Reviews: 19