"I think the best way to read the story is to pretend you're the main character, because then you're fighting someone elses battle which I promise you, will help your own."
oh and i don't know if anyones told you lately, but you're beautiful.
Chapter 1:
Before my older sister, Malinia committed suicide, she asked me what I always did by that damn old river, where the water smothers over the rocks like a lizard slithering over prey. Perhaps it was the boiling gleam in her eyes that made me afraid to speak, or her quick tongue that was ready to attack on anything I could ever motion.
“I dunno,” I lied through my teeth, biting my tongue to not spill the few secrets I indulged. They made me feel like a savage hunting in the wild, and that made me sane because I was far too chocked up in dirty innocence. My tongue was at a rather gauche angle, or my teeth too sharp, because suddenly my tongue was drowning in thick blood. I swallowed the remorse, and it tickled my throat as it sank further into my body.
“You know,” She cursed, “You’ll never get a boyfriend if you act like a complete moron Leonora. You have to have some fun, go skinny dipping, kiss a boy, or laugh in the rain.”
If I could, I think I’d shove her advice right down her throat because she’s the one buried in soil, while I’m the one who’s suffocating from air.
“One scoop of cookie dough ice cream please!” A squashy voice bounces like raw rubber on the walls and brings me back to present day. I smile down at Robby, the neighborhood kid, with blue eyes brighter then the chuckles of ocean cooking. He’s short for a second grader, with glasses who eat his face and freckles who devour just about everything else.
Of course I’d have to work in the richest neighborhood in all of Down Wood, and so Robby just so happens to always look his best. With an emerald polo tucking at his small tummy, blue jeans wrapped around his legs and shimmering dress shoes he looks like the perfect model of the perfect son in the perfect neighborhood.
Which personally to me seems eerie and rather disregarding for Robby is a small fraction of the world and his young innocence deserves no attention but yet is captivated by his parents. They believe that Robby is the next president, mayor, or whatever else can bring money into the family.
But Robby’s a nice kid though. Every day he comes around four o’clock to get his usual ice cream cone, he then tells me about his day and leaves shortly because he has some “important business to get back to”. His words, not mine.
“My brother told me yesterday that if I eat a bugger, I’ll eventually turn into one.” Robby then ensures me that this is not true for he had the privilege of testing this out himself. I laugh at his small insecurities, part of me wishing that I had somebody to influence.
“Becky asked me out today.” He said as a strawberry ice cream tickled his chin. I hastily handed him a napkin before he got his precious polo pressed with the sweet treat.
“What did you say?” I asked him curiously, hands on my hips holding my waist together. I sure wasn’t the smallest girl, but I wasn’t that big either. Sure, I had a lot of insecurities that came along with my big waist and upper chest but I’ve learned that flaunting them isn’t a way to embrace them, it’s just a way to sell yourself. So now I hide myself behind everything I possibly can. It’s more than a fear of rejection or disgust: it’s the fear of pride whistling through the air.
“I told her that I already have a girlfriend.” He winked at me as I smiled; my ruby lips stretching like an elastic rubber band.
“I’m not your girlfriend Robby.” I assured him politely as a couple walks into the store, their whispers of giggles drowning the room in choppy fiction. Adjusting my apron of a vibrant painted ice cream cone, and then suffocating my russet locks in a rubber band, I grit through my teeth a welcome.
But I don’t even have time to blurt anything because in front of me stands a despicable moron who essentially imitates an undeveloped brain of a slim, pink worm who is sheltered in rubber of insults to protect him from his own pride: Alex Moore.
“Well ice cream girl, what do you have for us today?” He spits and pulls his little toothpick of a friend closer. I genuinely enclose a phony smile wrapped in a thick coat of applause and brace myself for disgust.
“What do you want?” The question lingers in the air between us dancing in a cloud of frustration. Alex squints his wretched navy eyes at the menu as if he hasn’t been here before with another girl, portraying the act of a sappy romantic guy. The thing is though he’s been here with every Barbie doll within a mile radius. Alex has insane charm; even I confess this filthy obsession. However, he lets the attraction consume him and engulf every other part of his personality. He exploits girls like machinery on a conveyer belt, electing whatever he finds lovely. It’s utterly brilliant, and complete sickening to observe.
“I think I’ll have the peanut butter banana shit. Is it any good?” His question is directed at me, and his eyes are staggering bullets ready to gust my lungs free. Though I’m prepared with my own bloody dagger, Robby who seems quite lost in my usual kindness, inputs his own judgment on the ice cream, classifying it as a ‘a bit too sweet for his liking’. Thing is, Alex gets the same ice cream every time he’s with a girl which is every Monday where he finds a girl, and Thursday when he dumps. Perhaps the little party animal likes to be released on the untamed weekends.
“Oh my god! He’s the cutest thing ever!” Squeaks his friend, who I’m pretty sure is Ashley. With her strawberry blonde curls and triangle of a smile, she’s the captain of the cheerleading team and has sat in front of me in homeroom for the past four years. I can guarantee though that she has been here much longer than that though due to the lack of her intelligence.
“Excuse me, I’m in a committed relationship,” Robby explains and I bow my head because I know where he’s steering the fucking boat, “And I don’t think it’s fair that you are being so flirty, especially in front of my woman.” With that he pretends to give me a peck and strolls out of the store.
“He’s quite something,” I paddle even though my dignity has sunk far below the line, and grab the ice cream scooper which can actually be used as a weapon in some cases.
“I think it’s like illegal to be going out with someone so young,” Ashley stutters, completely dumbfounded, “But don’t worry, I won’t tell.”
Alex is either lost in the sight of her cleavage or is trying to ignore her crevice of aptitude because all he mutters is, “He’s the best you’ll get so might as well flaunt it.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” I say, “I didn’t realize we were talking about the size of your dick.” And with that I hand him his melted ice cream, and move on to the next costumer.
