Young Writers Society

Hey, this is the story that goes with: post555177.html#555177 those two characters.

I've already read over the first chapter too many times, so I just can't do anything else to it. you critiques would be great help.

Oh, and if you're good at coming up with titles PLEASE PM me.

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Blue Eyes.

Rita had no idea what his real name was, so that’s, knowing how stupid it could sound outside of her head, what she decided to call him. Blue Eyes. She’d never talked to him before, knew next to nothing about him, but just found him…She couldn‘t even figure out what she found him. She just couldn’t stop thinking about him.

The first time Rita saw Blue Eyes was when she was walking out of her second period classroom, a month into the first semester of her senior year at high school.

She looked over her shoulder, trying to catch what her teacher was yelling to them about homework, and BAM! She was on her ass and rubbing her forehead. Rita, appropriately mortified tried to avoid everyone’s eyes when she looked down to try and find her books. Her hands found his glasses first. When she saw them she looked up, now knowing why her forehead hurt so much. Blue Eyes was standing right over her, a bright red splotch on his head where her forehead whacked his.

“Uhh…” He started to say.

Rita quickly handed him his glasses and tried to say something, anything, but the words wouldn’t come out. She couldn’t even say sorry, but could only return the “Uhh…”

Even when her mouth started doing that speechless fish looking thing where it just starts opening and closing, Rita still couldn’t look away from him. Even behind the rimless glasses he’d put on, his eyes were the kind of blue that bores into your soul, grabs hold of something in you and doesn’t let go.

Rita was finally able to get a hold of her lips with enough time to give him an uneasy, “I’m sorry, I’m weird, I’m also a mute,” kind of smile. He smiled back and started walking away.

She was still on the floor but didn’t really realize that until someone from her class hoisted her up and someone else handed her the books that had fallen out of Rita’s hands and another person started asking questions to make sure she wasn’t concussed. Rita’s legs were shaking and could feel the bump under her bangs growing as they fussed. Her teacher had one of them walk her to the nurse. Still slightly wobbly, Rita started walking and saw Blue Eyes in front of her.

He was looking over his shoulder. And Rita was a little shocked to find that her heart was beating unnervingly fast at the thought that he was staring at her.

When Rita got home that day she threw her books onto her bed as hard as she could, trying to get out as much of that frustration that had been building as she could. Wasn’t staying invisible this year my goal? For the love of God, why did I have to run into him? Rita thought to herself in self pity.

At least it’s Friday. That’s what the guy who walked her to the nurse kept saying. Rita must have looked nervous and embarrassed, because he kept saying reassuring things like “Everyone will forget about this by Monday,” or “At least you have bangs so no one can see that huge bump.” Eventually the school nurse kindly asked him to leave, and he did.

For the rest of the day Rita felt like there were little titters and giggles following her around. She tried to keep her head down, her bangs over the bump, not wanting to see more people looking at her. At lunch Rita’s best friend, Carmen, kept assuring her that no one really cared and no one was even talking about it.

“Lovely Rita, honey, please shut up about it,” she said to Rita in her kindest voice, “it’s not like it will matter a year from now. Hell, anyone who even cares about it now will have lost interest in a week.”

Rita sighed, unconvinced, and slunk down in her chair. “Yeah, yeah. I bet my bump won’t be gone in a week though. Is it really noticeable?”

Molly, one of Rita’s other friends at the lunch table laughed a little, but Carmen cut her off with an icy stare from her dark brown eyes.

“Just make your bangs more like…this,” she brushed Rita’s bangs from the side part Rita liked to keep her hair in, so the bangs covered all of her forehead and fell almost completely in her eyes.

“Carmen…” Rita said, a little unsure, “I can’t really see like this.”

“Do you want to be able to see, or do you want people to see that mountain on your forehead?” Molly asked bluntly.

Carmen’s eye twitched and she threw a pretzel at Molly.

“Thanks for that,” Carmen said eliciting stuck out tongue from Molly, “Rita, don’t worry about it, just keep putting ice on it like the nurse said to do.”

The ice did help, though. Rita kept icing her forehead and by the end of the day most of the swelling had gone down.

When she was driving home she could hear the dry crack of thunder. It hadn’t started raining yet, but there was the electricity of it in the air and it made Rita’s hair stand on end.

Back in her room she tried to do her homework. She tried to focus, but couldn’t. Her mind would constantly drift off, and right away all she’d be able to think about would be him. The blue eyes, each freckle and speckle, committed to memory. Feeling hopeless and frustrated, she gave up and flung herself on her bed, not caring that she was laying on her bag, still there after she threw it and all of her books onto it.

She closed her eyes and called up his face, tracing each part of it in her mind…

And was interrupted when her mom knocked on her door, making Rita snap her eyes open and get up.

“Hey,” she said to her in the doorway.

“Hey,” Rita said back.

“Just got home.”

“Ah. Good day?” Rita asked

There was a slight crinkle where her mom brought her eyebrows together, “Yeah, it was.”

Rita could feel her thinking: It shouldn’t be this hard to talk to my daughter, should it? It made her feel a little guilty for not trying harder.

“How was your day, sweetie?” Rita’s mom asked, eyebrows still folding the skin between them.

“Ahh…” Come on, tell her what happened. Tell her about him. She needs it, Rita urged herself. “It was okay. Nothing all that interesting.”

Her heart fell with her mother’s face. “Oh, that’s…nice. Good.” she forced a smile onto her tired lips, “Do you think you’ll go out this weekend? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

Rita looked away slightly, “I don’t know…I have a lot of homework.”

“Maybe you could go out with Carmen? I could give you money for a movie…”

“I’ll be fine here, Mom.” Rita still couldn’t meet her mother’s eyes, never could these days, they just seemed too watery, too soft, too much of a reminder. “How about I make us dinner tonight?” Rita said, trying to inject some happiness into her voice and hoping that her mother would say yes and mean it and they could talk like they used to.

Her mom gave Rita the careful, sad smile she always gave Rita now, “That would be nice. Just give me a few hours to rest, okay?”

Rita nodded, still looking everywhere but at her mother’s eyes and closed her door when her mom walked away.

She wasn’t going to eat dinner with Rita tonight. She was going to go into her room, open another bottle of wine, drink most of it, pop a sleeping pill, and cry and cry and cry in her empty bed, thinking the whole time that Rita can’t hear her and that Rita doesn’t know about any of it. She knows though, she really wishes she didn’t.

She wanted to cry too. Wanted to break, at least a little. Definitely not as much as her mom had, but just enough to prove that she’s normal, because that’s what normal people do when tragedy strikes: they cry, they break, they fall down, and they cry some more.

But normal people’s mothers probably don’t break so permanently. Normal people probably don’t have to hold on to some sort of sanity so their mother won’t have to cry all the time.

Rita touched her door and thought of crawling into that bed with her mother. She thought of snuggling against her for the warm and safe feeling, and telling her how much she miss him too. Rita wanted to go to her mom and let her kiss the top of Rita’s head and smooth back Rita’s hair. Instead Rita crawled back into her bed, closed her eyes, and thought about Blue Eyes some more, thankful for a safe escape.