Young Writers Society

There's one more section to this short story after this one.

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Three weeks passed. Bo called me, telling me to get to Ana’s house immediately.

When I walked through the front door, I heard a horrific, strangled sob coming from Ana’s bedroom.

Bo was standing at the top of the stairs, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest.

“She got him.” he said tonelessly, disappearing down the hallway then.

I followed after him, quietly stepping into Ana’s bedroom. Ana sat in a chair by her bed, Sherry spread across the black bed sheet, laying on her back clutching a pillow over her face.

She let out shrill cry.

“Not again, no, no, no!” She kicked her feet, one of her feet knocking down Ana’s alarm clock and smashing it into pieces. “No!”

Ana leaned over Sherry’s jerking body, stroking her hair with one hand and holding a cigarette with the other. She was mumbling things quietly to her, staring off into space.

“Sherry?” I crept over to the bed, tentatively sitting next to her. Ana removed her hand from her hair and I took the pillow off of her face. “What in the world is wrong with you?”

“He slept with her.” Ana said. “At a party last night. She came straight from the party; she’s in the same clothes and everything.”

I looked down at her. She was holding her face, her makeup blurred and streaked down her cheeks, her eyes spotted with red and tears.

“He left. I woke up and he told me he had made a stupid mistake and he left, the bastard!” She kicked again, knocking a pillow off the bed. “He used me. He only wanted me for one second and then he bailed out like a fucking coward!”

“But Sherry…” I tried to speak, but Ana gave me a sharp look and shook her head. There was no reasoning to be done here. Only comforting.

I sighed and climbed into bed next to her, putting my arms around her, smoothing down her frizzing hair. She turned toward me, squeezing me tightly and mumbling scrambled sentences.

We laid like that for awhile, Sherry curled up next to me, Ana smoking out her window, and Bo in the doorway.

The busted alarm clock began to make a pitiful whining sound, whirring in and out. We all turned to look at it, except Sherry sniveling on the bed.

Bo moved from the doorway for the first time in an hour then, scratching his head and looking carefully toward the bed. “So… I think we need to get out of this room. Sherry, I’ll think you’ll feel better if we get you out. You know you can find another guy easily. You’re…” He paused. “Sheryl Hulme.”

“Do I look like I’m okay to go out?” Sherry shrieked, sitting up on her elbows. I admitted to myself that she looked pretty ill. Her skin was sallow, her hair strings of red, gray circles under her eyes.

“Oh, honey, we can spruce you up and you’ll look more beautiful than anyone.” Ana mused.

“And my cousin Jeffy is having people at his house tonight.” Bo told her, leveling his face to hers, smirking like a demon.

Sherry sniffed and peered up from her damp pillow. “Jeffy is always fun…”

“That’s the spirit!” Bo cheered, sitting down on the pillow and putting his hands on each side of Sherry’s face. “We’re going to have a blast tonight and you won’t even remember his name. You’ll be screaming with laughter, you’ll be with us, baby doll.”

Sherry smiled, her face blooming then with - what? Excitement? Relief? Repression? Hysteria? I stared at her and couldn’t tell.

*

I was in Jeffy’s pool, standing by the ladder and pushing back tangles of damp hair. I wore a new bathing suit; I had grown much better at picking out clothing, with help from Sherry. My body was slick and all of the right curves were pulled up by the fabric.

I was high, I was surrounded by atmosphere and when I tilted my head back I felt stars on my chin and cheeks. It was glorious. It was young and reckless and sweet as candy.

Then I heard the strange tinkle of Sherry’s laugh.

I swung, my pole’s rearranging, the work of Sherry’s gravity.

She was shrieking with giggles on the couch in the living room, one leg over the back cushion; she was far gone. She looked like she had never before been introduced to the past and future. She was only in tune with the present, and the present was a brawny, black haired boy that I had never seen before.

I stood in the doorway of the back patio, barely clothed except for two strips of fabric, drops of water sliding from the strands of my hair and leaving dark circles on the carpet. I stared at her, aghast. She laughed without any sort of regret, her lips sneering, her arms wrapped tightly around this guy with such intent it seemed she was trying to steal his life from him. And I stared; it seemed too much to me, too damning, too hurtful to want Some Guy so badly, to shriek and stamp and sob for Some Guy, and then to be here now holding onto this guy, so needing, so ready for more.

It hurt to see this. Time seemed a necessity. Then there was throwing yourself at the blades…

My hands hung at my side. I walked away from the couch, away from Sherry wrapping around this guy like a vine. I moved into the kitchen, into the hallway, into the lounge room. The house was a vortex.

Bo stared at me as I walked to the front driveway. He was sitting on the front porch with a bottle in his hand and boredom on his brow. I must have looked like I was going to leave dressed only in a bikini, dripping wet on the cement. He let out a low laugh and hopped off the porch, padding toward me slowly.

“You’re sick of this place already?” he asked quietly. I turned to face him slowly, feeling myself go red.

“I just… Sherry’s in there and I…” I looked to the house and felt oddly detached. “It’s just all a bit much.”

Bo rolled his eyes. “It always is.” He took my hand; mine felt so slippery in his, but he gripped my fingers tightly and began to walk toward the front porch. He looked down at me curiously the entire way. “Here. I’ll get you a drink and we can just relax for once.”

I didn’t really want another drink, but I followed him back into the house and our fingers were mixed together and I drank what he gave me. Bo crooned, pouring the alcohol bottle again and again. Yet coherency remained, a terrifying sort of it, but we forgot about Sherry and spoke coherent words about the night air and the night sky and the smell of all the bodies around us.

Bo held my sweaty palm and kissed the crevices. I didn’t care. He led me up the steps and we entered a dark bedroom. It didn’t take long at all to remove the bikini top, and the bikini bottoms fell down with just a twitch of the hips. I had never done this before and my heart took off running into my throat. I didn’t care. He pushed me down on the bed, and all I could smell was his alcohol and his sweat. There was pressure and pain and sweet oblivion. There was darkness and the gusts of heavy breathing.

I didn’t care.

*

Bo and I never spoke again. He had eaten me up and I had gone screaming all the way. I hadn’t cared a wit for him, never had, never would, never even enough for regret.

When he was gone, Sherry was there to pat me on the head.

*

Sherry left that August. She stood at the edge of her driveway, her hair alight in the windy days of the demise of summer. Her purse tucked under her shoulder, she gestured toward me with one spindly finger.

I walked over, my arms wrapped around myself. I loved my friends, truly in love with them from my toes to the roots of my hair. Why didn’t fairy tales talk about this kind of love? The one that made you’re throat constrict over someone who did nothing but listen to you, who patted your shoulder, who called your name.

She kissed me on the lips. Soft and sincere, as quick as the flutter of an eyelash.

Then she flitted toward the black automobile and took off.

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One more section.