"Why do you always avoid my questions?"
"I'm not, it's just that there's nothing to say. Who would ever want to date someone they can't even talk to? It's not rocket science. My eyes are weird, and people get tired of me eventually. There's your on...
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BY SATURDAY, Dallas had enough of Penelope.
The shrill screams punctured her head and rang in her ears even as she slept, and the same haunting sound was what startled her out of her sleep multiple mornings, lodging her into to groggy, miserable state that spanned into the rest of the days.
"Shh, shh," she gently cooed Penelope as she rocked her side to side, trying to get it to stop crying. The torturous wails continued regardless and Dallas threw her head back, an explosive, frustrated sigh sounding from her mouth. She put Penelope back into her basket and helplessly looked down at her as the rhythmic wails continued piercing Dallas's skull. "For God's sake, what do you want?!"
Sometimes those babies didn't want anything; they didn't want to be changed or fed or burped or rocked. They just cried and threw a fit for the heck of it, and that's something the frustrated other girls in HFLE class frequently gushed to Mrs. Troublefield during class time, coincidentally the only time the parents got a break from the nightmare. Mrs. Troublefield wasn't much help. The woman merely smiled brightly in response to their misery and cries for help.
"You'll get the hang of it soon, sweetheart."
Dallas covered her exhausted ear and sank back into her bed, surrounded by the books and textbooks she'd abandoned the second Penelope woke up. Mrs. Troublefield claimed she would know if they left the baby to cry or any misbehavior, but Dallas tried, and even then she was trying, but what should she give someone who only wanted to see her go off the rails? The answer? Nothing. The world went on with or without Penelope, but Dallas's sanity was something that wouldn't come back if she lost it.
How did Mathias cope? Besides the faint dark circles under his eyes, he always seemed relaxed and stoic as he rotated Penelope to Dallas after his night with the doll. Did he have issues? How did he calm Penelope?
Outside of class, they hardly saw each other, and the most words they exchanged was a 'thank you' or bidding farewell to Penelope, for Mathias was always bouncing away to the next location, vanishing into thin air as soon as he turned the next hall.
The baby's screaming abruptly stopped, and Dallas realized, but didn't hang around to see what was the issue, if there was one. Her growling stomach became her bee priority. She wandered out of her room and started down the stairs, trailing her chipped purple nails down the polished, mahogany banister to maintain her balance. They led down into the halls, and besides being greeted by the palpable loneliness of the entire house boring down on her, her eyes shifted across the room to the enclosed glass shelf stacked right there next to the door. It was one of the first things visitors saw when they entered their house.
Dallas walked closer, the guilt and unease clouding her mind the closer she got, intensifying when she trailed her fingertip across the cold glass in front of the first award she received in high school. It was a gold medal with frilled edges, Dallas's name brandished across the surface, along with the position she secured in that race: 1st.
