Tuesday (Chapters 3 and 4)

Munchkinzizzles wrote:There were no real grammatical corrections to make to Chapter 2, so I'm posting Chapter 3 in hopes that people will begin to see my story take shape.

Chapter 3: Dinner with the Gomez Family

The doorbell rings. My Mom gets up and opens the door. She talks for a few Moments and then turns to me.
“Who is it?” I ask in a hushed voice.
“This is the new family that moved in a few days ago.”
“Oh,” I say, getting up. I walk nervously to the door. “Nice to meet you.”
“This is Jayden, this is Amanda, and this is Carly.” She points to each of them as she introduces them.
Amanda is the one that looks the youngest, Carly is the one that looked my age, and of course, Jayden is the handicapped boy.
But as I look at Carly and Amanda up close, I can see that they have very different-colored eyes. Carly has bright blue, while Amanda has hazel. And Amanda has braces.
“Um, hi,” I say shyly. I’ve never been one much for conversation.
“We just wanted to come over and introduce ourselves,” says their dad.
“Would you like to stay for dinner?” she inquires.
“We don’t mean to intrude,” says the woman.
“Oh, no, think nothing of it!” she says. “Have a seat.”
“Thank you,” says the dad.
“Now, what was your last name?” asks my Mom, who prefers it when I call adults by Mister and Misses.
“Gomez.”
“Mister Gomez, then?” she asks, her eyebrow rising.
“If that’s what you prefer,” he responds. Their formality is odd, but Mom says that first impressions are key.
“EJ, why don’t you show Carly and Amanda your room?” asks Mom, more like a command then a question.
My cheeks flush red at the thought of them seeing my bland, beige, cluttered room, but I manage to say, “Sure.”
“Cool!” exclaims Amanda, as we begin walking upstairs.
“For you,” I mutter to myself. Once we get upstairs, I go down the hall and open the door.
“I’m jealous,” admits Carly, a hint of chagrin crossing her face.
“Why would you be jealous of this rat hole?” I ask, confused. “It’s so bland and boring.”
“Yeah, but it’s not girly,” she says, looking at me. “It’s so much better than pink, believe me.”
“I guess you’re right.” I shrug. “Do you want to see some of my art projects? I’m in the Art Academy at school.”
“Really? I’m not an artist,” she says, sighing as I pull my pictures out. “Wow, these are amazing!”
“I didn’t think…I didn’t think they were that good.”
She shuffles through a few of my pictures, and then stops at a drawing of a flower and gasps. “Did they teach you how to do this?”
“No, I was just messing around.” My cheeks become the color of a tomato.
She traces her fingers around all of the lines of the flower. “I wish I could draw.”
“Do you want it?” I ask, holding it out to her.
“No, I couldn’t take your artwork,” she bites her lip, like she really wants to say yes, but knows she shouldn’t.
“Take it,” I insist. “I could just draw another one.”
“Are you sure?” she asks; I nod. “Thanks—
wait, what was your name?”
“EJ.”
“Then thanks, EJ.”
Mom calls from downstairs, “Girls, it’s time for dinner!”
“What’s for dinner?”
“I hope you girls like spaghetti,” she smiles. “EJ loves it.”
We all sit down and Jayden’s Mom pulls his wheelchair to the table.
Mom sets a big pot of spaghetti down on the table and smiles. She takes a spoon and piles quite a bit on all of our plates. She walks briskly back into the kitchen and brings out a plate of garlic bread. We reach in and grab a piece.
“Would you like me to pray?” asks Mister Gomez.
“Sure, sure,” says Mom, who then looks at me sternly.
“Alright, let’s pray,” he says, and everyone joins hands. “Dear Lord, we thank you for the opportunity to have food. We thank you that the Reno’s were gracious enough to share with us. Bless it unto our bodies. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
We all sit in silence for what seems like hours as we eat. This awkward phase of not speaking at all is starting to get to me. I smile and start to make pleasant conversation.
“So, um, Jayden, what do you like to do in your free time?” I ask, coughing. Not because I’m sick, but because it is very awkward.
“Read,” he answers. “There’s not much else to do.”
“So, you don’t do anything else?” I ask. “Do you get bored? But then again, I guess there really isn’t anything to do when you’re in a wheelchair. I can’t imagine what it would be like if I were—”
“EJ, why don’t you get some of that parmesan cheese that I got?” asks Mom, saving me from embarrassing myself any further.
“Yeah, why don’t I?” I say, coughing, pushing my chair back, and getting up. The Gomez family isn’t impressed by me. I know it.
I numbly go get the parmesan and then set it down on the table. Carly and Amanda both stare at me with wide eyes.
“May I be excused to the bathroom?” I ask, my eyes pleading for Mom to let me go.
“Go ahead,” she answers, and then turns back to the Gomez parents and smiles. “So, Jayden, what’s your favorite book?”
I go upstairs to my room, not the bathroom. I lock myself in my closet. I am a moron. I want to cry, but crying hasn’t been my thing since my dad left.
I unlock the closet door and grab the picture of she and I hugging.
“Grammy, why am I so stupid?” I ask, and all she does is smile. “Why do you smile even though I’m so upset?” My eyes widen as I realize what I’m doing. I’m talking to a picture of my dead grandmother! Wow, I’m even more stupid then I thought.
A soft knock on the door interrupts my train of thought. “Come in!” I yell, and Carly opens the door.
“Hey,” she mutters softly. “I was just, um, leaving, so I was going to say goodbye.”
Time must’ve passed more quickly than I thought. “What time is it?”
She pulls out her cell phone and looks at it, “Almost six.”
I came up at five forty-two. I wonder why they’re leaving so early. Oh, that’s right, I’m stupid!
“Oh, okay,” I say. “Goodbye. I’ll see you sometime soon I hope.”
“Yeah, maybe,” she says. By maybe, she means heck no. “Well, see ya.”
I wave and she walks out the door. “Have a nice night,” I say.
She keeps walking, but then turns around. “I think I might,” she says and smiles. “Thanks for being so nice and giving me the picture.”
I think I might have a nice night too.

Any nitpicks or complaints?

Three posts in a row? I need to get over my stories.

Chapter 4: The Call and the Story

The telephone rings enthusiastically from the kitchen counter. I get up sluggishly and go to answer it.
“Hello?”
“Is this Ellen?”
“Yes,” I answer, a little bit confused. “This is EJ.” I stress the fact that I want to be called EJ. “Who is this?”
“This is Jayden,” he answers. “I was just calling to ask you something.”
“I’m sorry about last night,” I say. “I’m sure that’s a sensitive subject for you, and I wouldn’t want to hurt your feelings or anything because…”
“You’re doing it again.”
“Huh?”
“Rambling,” he answers. “Like you did last night, remember?”
“Yeah, how could I forget?” I smile. “So what did you want to ask me?”
“Um, where did you go last night? I didn’t see you at all after the…incident,” he wonders.
“To my room,” I answer. “I could tell your family was a little bit…surprised.”
“You think we hate you, don’t you?”
I hesitate for a minute and think. “Well, um, not exactly.”
“Liar.”
“Okay, so I do think your family hates me,” I say. “But why shouldn’t I? I made a huge mistake yesterday!”
“Listen, my parents are both pretty strict,” he explains. “They sort of look down on everyone who isn’t…well, who isn’t them.”
“But no one’s them,” I say slowly, getting more confused by the minute.
“Exactly,” he says. “So the logical reasoning would lead you to believe…?”
“They look down on everyone,” I reason. “Is that all?”
“Yup,” he says. “Hey, um, about me being bored all the time, yeah. I am. Except on Tuesdays.”
“Why?”
“It’s complicated,” he says, and all I hear from his end is silence.
“Jayden?”
“I have to go.”
“Bye?”
“See ya,” he says, and the phone line goes dead.
I sit on the couch, confused and sort of excited. Jayden called me because he was concerned? And I thought he hated me!
But why did he hang up so quickly? It seemed like he was getting uncomfortable with the subject.
Mom comes strolling downstairs with Haley balanced on her hip. “What are you doing?”
“I just got a call from, um, Jayden,” I say, coughing.
“Jayden? The disabled boy next door?” she asks.
“Yeah,” I answer. “That’s him.”
“What did he say?”
“He was just concerned because I left so abruptly,” I answer.
“How exciting!”
“Mom, why is that exciting?” I ask, puzzled by her enthusiasm.
“Well, it’s just sort of nice of him after that embarrassing incident!”
“Mom, you don’t have to rub it in,” I groan in agony. “I know I sounded like a stupid, mindless nincompoop.”
“Redundancy!”
“What are you talking about?”
“To say stupid and mindless before nincompoop, it’s like saying the same word three times in a row,” she explains.
“I’m just going to ignore that and go to my room.” I walk up to the beige, lifeless area that somehow ends up as my bedroom.
“Okay!” she calls. “Sure, go ahead and go to your bedroom!”
When I get there, I stop before I enter the room. I guess it was sort of nice of Jayden to be so concerned that he would call me.
I go to my room and look at the picture of my Grammy again. Her wrinkled face is smiling, and her chocolate eyes are laughing.
“I miss you,” I say, not intending for it to be a whisper, but it’s all I can get out. “Do you think it was nice of Jayden to call?”
But all Grammy does is smile. That’s all she’ll ever do. I want her to jump out of the picture and answer every single one of my questions, but she won’t.
“Answer me, please,” I say, my eyes almost tearing up. “Don’t stay quiet, Grammy.”
“Are you okay?” asks my Mom, nearly scaring me to death.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” I say, coughing. I cough when I feel awkward or embarrassed. “I was just, um, looking at the picture.”
“I know you miss her.” She sits down on my bed and pats it, telling me to sit next to her.
I reluctantly get up and sit next to her. She squeezes my shoulder tightly. “What is it?”
“I miss your Grandmother, too,” she says. “When I was a little girl, your grandmother used to take me to every candy shop in Florida, where I grew up, and let me pick whatever I wanted.”
I looked at her and saw that her eyes were full of tears, which didn’t show in her speech. “That’s a lot of candy,” I say, trying to get away from the sensitive topic.
“It was.” She nods and gets up. “Don’t ever be ashamed of missing someone. I would be more concerned if you didn’t.”
“Wait, Mom,” I say, and she turns around. “Thanks.”
She smiles. “Any time,” she says, smiling. “Any time at all.”
I lie back in my bed and sigh. “I love you, Grammy,” I say quietly.
I yawn and close my eyes, thinking about my Grammy and how she would want me to be happy without her.
“I will be happy,” I say, yawning again. “I will be happy.” I keep repeating it over and over until I drift off to sleep.

Oh, and I just really liked the name Jayden. Idk why. Perhaps I should change it?

I can already guess that Jayden and EJ are gonna end up together.

I just read your other two parts, and this is going pretty well ^^

My only complaint is that a boy who was theoretically born in the early nineties would not be named Jayden. At that time, Jayden was still a girls name, and a very rare one at that. Wouldn't he have more of a mexian name?

I also feel that you are sort of focusing the story around Jayden. I mean, you even call Mrs. Gomez "Jayden's mom," and I can already guess that Jayden and EJ are gonna end up together. This would be just another cliched teenage love story except for the fact that Jayden is handicapped. That makes it muchhhhh more interesting.

Nice work. PM for questions/comments
Cheers,
Lena