Young Writers Society

               “Hey honey how was—“

“Fine, mom,” I cut her off, sliding into the small Corolla and slamming the car door behind me. “Counseling was fine.”

I said this every time and she never seemed to believe me. But that’s what my meetings with Dr. Marvin were: fine, and that’s all they ever would be.

My mother, a short redheaded woman, gathers up her magazines with haste and reaches over to shove them in the compartment in between the seats. As she leaned towards me, I notice her hair shine in the sunlight. A few gray hairs accompany the red.

“You need to re-dye your hair,” I comment. “There’s enough silver in there to make a necklace.”

She sits up straight in the seat, patting the top of her head. “Ember, honey, that’s not a very nice thing to say.”

I pause. The filter must be broken.

It happened sometimes after counseling where the filter would work too hard, and afterward it would break. I take a look, like a mechanic checking under the sink, and sure enough – there is a crack along the side of it, letting unmonitored comments through.

I sit straight up in my seat and look out the front windshield, regretting my words because I’ve embarrassed my mother. The psychology office looms in front of me, looking as dull as my own exterior.

“I’m sorry, mom,” I say. “I didn’t mean to say that. You’re as pretty as ever.”

She looks over at me and smiles, even though I saw her checking her hair in the rearview mirror only moments before. “I know, Em. I’m just old. Old people get gray hair.”

She laughs it off and I pretend it’s funny. The thought of growing old makes me sad.

The thought that not everyone will get to grow old makes me even sadder.

I make a mental note to fix the filter when I get home.

“Hey, do you want ice cream?” my mom asks as she pulls out of the parking space. I don’t feel like going anywhere but home right now, but she looks so positive that I decide I can’t turn down her offer.

“Only if you eat some, too,” I say.

She laughs. “Try and stop me.”

We reach the ice cream shop in record time. (My mom is a little heavy on the gas). Before we left the counseling office, she asked if I wanted to drive, but I turned down her offer.

She’d replied with “you’re almost seventeen, honey, you need to learn to drive sometime.”

But I can only drive while in mint condition, and one is not her best whilst having a broken filter.

We pull up to the small shop and the smell hits me first. There are few smells that truly remind a person of happiness, and one of those is the smell of ice cream. I climb out of the car and take a few more whiffs of sugary air before stepping in line with mom.

It’s a busy day at the ice cream shop, and I reckon it’s because of the heat. There’s something about sweating that reminds you to go and eat some ice cream. Also, with school ending in a mere two weeks, the entire class is already checked out anyway, beginning to spend their time hanging with friends over studying for finals.

I don’t like hanging with friends – what friends? – and I abhor studying, so that just leaves eating ice cream, I guess.

My mother attempts to make small talk, but I zone her out because of my general inability to filter my thoughts at that specific time. Instead, I look around for anyone I might recognize.

The ice cream shop itself is not large – it’s not even indoors. Just a small building with two lines that lead up to the ordering windows. The building itself is cute with its pirate ship theme. There are skulls and crossbones painted on the walls with small chests filled with fake treasure littered in the corners. There’s a hull of a ship built a couple feet away, surrounded by blue woodchips that are supposed to symbolize water. Kids climb on the wooden beams and scream things like “ahoy matey!” and “aye, walk the plank!” while spilling their ice cream cones on unsuspecting parents’ heads.

I remember doing the same thing when I was young, except with my specific uncoordination, it usually ended with me falling off and into the blue woodchips, scraping a knee or banging my head on a rock.

The memories were far from fond.

I look around for a few seconds longer before I can finally relax. I don’t recognize anyone.

My mom nudges me and I see that it’s our turn to order. I step up to the window that’s labeled “Captain” and wait for the cashier guy to come back. When he does, I struggle to breath for a moment.

The appearance of his face hits me like a brick in the gut and I know I’m staring but I can’t help it. Never in my life have I seen someone so beautiful.

His jaw is sharp and defined, and his cheekbones are dangerously high. The brown locks of hair on his head are messy, yet so incredibly calculated. His shoulders are broad, clad in a black t-shirt that stretches over the muscles in his arms. Everything about him screams sharp and dangerous, like the knife in the kitchen that you’re forbidden to touch. My eyes find his lips and they’re pink and full, and I’ve never wanted to kiss a stranger more.

And then I look into his eyes.

He’s a Drowner.

He’s a stranger but I already know he’s drowning. I have a knack for telling – being able to see with a single glance that someone’s grip on life is looser than everyone else’s. After seeing his eyes, all the other tells fall into place, too.

The way the waves churn in his murky, gray-blue eyes. The way his eyes flutter from place to place while still seeming to be hooked on you. The way he holds his head – as if his neck is getting too tired to carry around the mask that he’s wearing. The way his spine curls forward, tired from carrying around the heavy weight of the world.

I watch the waves, admiring the whitecaps that crash against his irises.

“Are you going to order?” he asks, and the words slide right over me and startle me at the same time.

I babble incoherently for a few agonizing seconds before I finally spit out, “a medium swirl, please.” My mother orders but I don’t hear what she says, and then the boy goes off to make our ice cream.

“Honey,” I hear my mom say. “Do you know that boy?”

I’m still staring at the window but I’m not really seeing anything. I can see the shapes of the machines inside the shop, but it’s all blurry, like when you’re focusing too hard.

“No,” I croak. “No I don’t.”

“Hmm,” she says.

He brings the ice cream back, but I don’t look at him when he hands the cone to me. Our fingers touch as I reach out to take it, and my eyes close shut while the air escapes from my lungs.

Why is he affecting you like this? I ask myself, but I don’t have an answer. I mean, you don’t even know him.

My mom leads me, like a small child, to the nearest bench and we plop down to eat our ice cream. I take a lick of mine before cringing.

“You want to trade?” I ask my mom, holding out the cone for her to take. She hands me her plain strawberry.

“I was wondering why you ordered a swirl when you hate the taste of both chocolate and vanilla,” she says. “So I ordered what you usually get, and waited for it all to play out.” She takes a lick of the swirl, and I swallow a spoonful of the strawberry. My mother can hardly contain her laughter as she says, “Golly gee, what’s wrong with you, Ember?”

I pause to eat another spoonful of ice cream. The kids on the makeshift ship are screaming and the noise is filling my ears, mixing in with the sound of ever-present waves. “I don’t know, mom,” I say quietly. “For the first time in my life, I’m completely infatuated with someone of the opposite sex.” There’s fog around my brain. “I think I’m in love.”

The entire car ride home I curse myself and my broken filter.

I’m not in love.

Christ, Ember, of course you’re not in love.

And so it’s settled – the filter is fixed and I’m not in love.

My mother and I pull up to the house, a modern Victorian with a wall of bushes lining the large porch out front. She pulls the car smoothly into the garage, and we get out. I stumble into a few bikes, even knocking one off its kickstand. (I’m exhausted. It’s no easy task fixing one’s filter).

“Ember, honey,” my mom says, her laugh not yet dissolved from earlier, “could you hold off being in love for long enough to make it safely inside?”

I try not to sigh, but I can’t help it. Then I sigh because I accidentally sighed.

It’s a private hell not being able to sigh. There are so many reasons in life to sigh.

“I’m not in love, mom,” I tell her. She just giggles and goes inside. Giggles.

I step through the garage door and into the arms of my father. He is one hundred percent me, from the way he speaks without words to the way he puts on a shirt – arm, arm, then neck – not like that head-first bull shit some people try to pull off. We even look identical with our long, lanky limbs, green eyes that are too big for our faces, and pointed noses. I can’t tell if our twin-like looks make me look masculine or him look feminine.

I try not to tell my dad he might look like a girl.

Instead, I let him hug me because I secretly like hugs even though I’m pretending to push him away.

“How was your meeting with that bald guy?” dad asks, because he respects that I hate calling him my psychologist. I’d answer with a “fanfreakingtastic,” but I’ve decided to use that word solely on people that mostly aggravate me, so I go with a shrug instead. “Sounds like a blast,” he remarks.

Yes, the blast of a cannon splitting through my brain at high speed, I think in response.

My mother walks through the small mud room that we’re in and into the kitchen, kicking off her shoes and heading to the oven. It is 5:30 and time to eat whatever kind of casserole my mother has prepared for us.

Casserole. Always fucking casserole.

My stomach curls up a little at the thought of eating.

“You know, mom,” I start, “I’m not very hu—“

“You’re eating,” she says, and that’s final. I know it’s because she’s always secretly thought I was anorexic. When you have one problem, it’s easy to imagine all the other ones being applicable, too. I look at my dad, and he shrugs, a hey-just-have-a-couple-bites-to-please-your-mother look on his face. I scowl at him.

We sit down at the table and my mother starts dishing out the chicken and broccoli casserole.

“Just a small piece,” I request.

She sighs. I cringe. When she sighs it makes her lips turn down in a frown, and it looks like her whole face is sagging. My mother’s face gets more tired and more tired every day, and it makes me happy to know she’s getting old.

Well, not happy – relieved. Relieved because that means she hasn’t stopped growing older, that she hasn’t stopped living. When you stop growing, you stop living, and when you stop living, you’re dead, and when you’re dead, it means you’re gone forever.

“Table manners, Ember,” mom reminds me. “What’s the magic word?”

I don’t say it, because there is no magic word.

Why do people say that? Where did the “magic word” come from? There’s no magic word. There’s no magic word that you can say that makes something happen, or a word that somehow grants a wish. What – “please?” Bullshit. That’s not a magic word any more that “fucktard” is.

Please.

Words are just that: words. Not one of them is more powerful than another.

“Please give me a small piece of the goddamn casserole.”

“Please help me with my homework.”

“Please go away.”

“Please stop talking.”

“Please stop dying.”

“Please don’t kill yourself.”

“Please” does nothing. “Please” does nothing but make sentences one word longer.

So my mother and I sit in silence for a moment, both looking into each other’s eyes, her hand on the spatula that’s been shoved in the casserole.

Then, finally, she plops a piece of it down on my plate and we all eat dinner in silence.

Please, someone say something.

No one does.

There’s no such thing as a magic word.