Chapter Eleven – Good Kind of Hurt
I don’t think I’ve ever felt this stupid. The boy I like… liked… like…doesn’t like me and out of no fault of anyone’s. Trevor won’t ever be into me and that blows. I push my face into my pillow and dampen it further with my tears. Life sucks. Life is… It’s stupid and it needs to sort itself out. The one shred of a typical existence I was hoping for was a normal romance and that was taken away before it started. My eyes flick upward to whatever or whoever is out there writing the destiny of my life.
“Are you happy now,” I question the invisible force. “I’m a freak. I’m unusual and off balanced. There is nothing normal about my life. So for five minutes can I be given something not insane or crappy or batshit bizarre?”
A knock at the door disrupts my ranting. My body cuddles closer with my blankets and my old unicorn stuffed animal before moaning at them to go away. They don’t listen. The person at my door opens it and enters my room.
“Who are you talking to,” my twelve year old sister asks me. Michelle makes sure my bedroom is closed off to Scott before sitting at the edge of my black sheeted bed. She gets no reply but since she’s more mature for her age than I am at mine, she stays with me and lies on her back by my feet. “He’s stupid. You’re hotter than any guy he’ll ever get.”
Taking the pillow from under my head, I swat her with it. Her nervy self takes it like a champ and puts it under her head and out of my grasp.
“Maybe I should take his advice and go for my own gender,” my lips grumble. My sister laughs at me and we stay on my bed for another two minutes of silence. I’d never tell her this but I’m grateful she came to check up on me. I’m pretty sure she already knows. We’re sisters; not by birth or blood but by heart and home. That’s the only kind of sister I ever want.
“Are you doing anything tomorrow?”
I glance up at her question and finally see her coffee eyes. They seem as red and puffy as mine probably look. Using my arms, my body fights its way out of my twisted sheets and moves closer to her. Guilt eats at me as I realize what day it’ll be for her. Tomorrow is the anniversary of her parent’s death.
Her story isn’t too similar to mine but probably as, if not more, painful to go through. Michelle’s mother and father were caught in a fire a year ago and she was placed with her uncle until everything got sorted out. But since that man was a danger to her with his constant drinking and disgusting home, the state figured she would be better off in foster care. I met her about five weeks after her parent’s tragedy. She’s trying to grow tough but she’s not cut out for it. I’m probably a horrible example for her to follow but I make sure she has someone there at all times. It’s more than I ever got and it’s the best I can give her.
“Let’s see,” I mumble to myself. “Tomorrow looks like sleeping in, eating ice cream and spending a day with my little sis where we’re going shopping and getting our fingernails done and our toes done and going to the salon where I will pay for her to get whatever kind of hairstyle she wants because I have been a terrible big sister by not being closer to her for the past few weeks.”
“You hate people doing your nails,” she replies. But I see a smile creep into her lips and that’s what matters. “And how much money do you even have left? You got fired, remember?”
“You let me worry about that. Nightingale’s got this,” I tell her referring to myself.
“And Mc-Shelly’s glad.”
We hang out in my room for the next few hours talking about boys and her cheer camp. Apparently she likes her coach’s son. He will be playing football for the school she’s going to in the fall. I give her the best advice I have on boys but it’s not much; obviously I suck at getting the male gender’s attention. We get very comfortable as I start braiding and unbraiding bits of her hair.
“Gail,” she asks me. My lips hum in response. “What were your parents like?”
My fingers stop playing in her chestnut locks for a second. Out of everything, I was not prepared for that. Unwanted emotions stir under my surface but I can’t not answer.
“Uh, they were,” I struggle with words on how to depict them. Gentle? Adoring? Those aren’t exactly what I thought of them. Not that they were terrible parents —to me they were the best people in the world— but they weren’t on the regular side of life. “Weirdoes,” I say sure of my words. “Strong people who knew what they wanted and went after it.”
Michelle nods her head but I know she’s not satisfied. I wouldn’t be either with that half-ass answer. My hands let go of her hair and I bound off the bed to look under it for a very special book. It’s easily found since I’m more of a closet-stuffer than an under-the-bed-pusher. Michelle looks curiously at the photo album in my hands but scoots closer to me. This will be the first time in a very long while that I open it. The front cover turns easily enough in my hand and I’m greeted by the face of my mother.
“She’s pretty,” Michelle says pointing to the picture. It’s me and my mom in my nursery. I nod and run my finger over the photo. I don’t look a thing like her especially with the modifications I’ve made to myself. Where I have dreadlocks my mother had naturally red hair hanging to her lower back. Where I have piercings decorating my face she had freckles. Where I have skin full of tattoos she had beauty marks speckling her arms. I look into her amber eyes and thank God we have at least that in common. The same hint of green that was splotched in her irises is splotched in mine.
I turn the page to another photograph where she’s holding me weeks later. These pictures are bringing up some painful emotions but I can’t put them down. At least it’s a good type of hurt.
“What did she do,” my sis asks. “Like the little stuff. What were some of her quirks and weirdness?”
“I… I don’t really remember,” I answer straight. My lungs tighten making it harder for me to breathe. That truth smacks me hard to realize I barely remember my mother. All of my favorite memories were with my father. “I was a daddy’s girl,” I explain.
“Me too,” Michelle whispers quietly. Her arms wrap around mine as her head nuzzles my shoulder. My hand turns to another page and I finally see my father. My pulse beats in my throat to see his smiling face next to me. It’s a picture on my seventh birthday in front of my unwrapped new Barbie and my new softball glove. Of course I had the mitt in my hands and the doll was ignored on the counter. I trace the corner of the pictures just above my mother’s head.
“You have to have at least one big thing you remember of her,” Michelle asks again. “Right?”
My shoulders shrug as I look at one of the pictures. It’s me and my mother behind the house I grew up in, surrounded by the flowers of our small backyard. I’m sitting anxiously on the grass with the sun shining in my hair while mom sits beside me. She’s holding a flat wooden box with strange but familiar symbols on its side. My eyes widen with a hint of the day passing through my mind.
“It’s a very special day for you,” mom tells me. I sit on the grass and bounce the back of my knees into the ground. Daddy’s the photographer for the day with a big smile on his face. As soon as mom shuffles next to me and we both look to the disposable camera, he snaps a shot of us.
“Perfect as always,” he says. “Now on with it.”
I sit there impatient. It’s not a special day, just a normal summer one not even close to any holidays, but I’m getting a present. That’s all my childish mind cares about.
“I have something really pretty for you,” my mother says. Her hands shift the box around on her lap to have its opening face her. The lid is lifted up and I see a glint of light reflected into her eyes. Whatever it is, it’s shiny. I like shiny. “You’re six years old which is a very special day for people like us.”
“But six isn’t a special age,” I fight back. Daddy shushes me and takes me onto his lap. I giggle and snuggle my back into his chest.
“Oh, it’s a very special age,” mom tells me. She lifts my gift out of the box and holds it up in the light. In her hand hangs a dazzling jewel on the end of a delicate black chain. “Today is the day I get to pass to you what my mother gave to me.”
Daddy claps his hands around me but I reach out for the necklace and cut him off. Mom laughs as I take it and dad clasps it gently around my neck. It feels so cool in my palm and I trace the stones pretty cut shape. It’s a bird. A very pretty, very shiny, amber bird.
~*~
My legs move under me hours later as I flip to my right side for the twentieth time. There’s no getting comfortable tonight even though I went to bed early at 10:30. Nothing helps my skin which hums with anxiety. I scratch my wrist under my charmed bracelet, plump my pillow and look at my alarm clock.
It’s past 1am and I should be asleep by now or at least drifting off. But ever since remembering the ‘special’ day with my parents, nothing… I can’t even keep my eyes closed for more than five minutes before they fly open again. It was an amber charm! Maybe it was a little different than the ones the Emerald had given me but still a big thing. How had I not remembered that?
Okay, so I was six and it wasn’t really anything exceptional to me. In fact, I don’t think I even knew the name of the gem at that point in my life. It was too glittery for school so I never wore it. The necklace fell to the depths of my jewelry box and I haven’t seen it since. After Michelle left my room earlier I looked for it but it must have gotten lost in one of my many moves.
My fingers scratch around my amber bracelet again, the wings of the eagle poking into my skin. This one isn’t as rounded out as the butterfly carving was and it’s annoying. I take it off hoping that might help me and it does its job. I feel immensely better, like a pressure has lifted off my soul or whatever.
But it still doesn’t help my case. I’m too tired to fall asleep tonight.
♫ Teenagers scare the living shit out of me ♫
The text alert from Xander buzzes on my nightstand. Using that as a distraction, I flip up my screen and read:
Xan-Xan – What up with you and Katie? She gave me her side. What’s yours?
Me – Does it matter? I’m gonna apologize tomorrow with cupcakes.
Xan-Xan – What’s going on with you? You have been real weird lately.
I don’t reply. My eyes stare at the ceiling trying to think of anything else. It’s not fair that I have to lie to my best friends. They’re the ones that tell me everything and I tell them everything. We’re a family and it’s breaking my heart having to keep a secret as big as this. My phone buzzes again, three minutes after Xander’s last text.
Xan-Xan – Not even the cool weird you usually are.
I leave his texts to sit there for a second time. My body repositions itself under the blankets but my room is too stuffy. It’s not the pressure from my covers or the fact that most of my clothes are still strewn all over the floor; I’m just tired of being in my room. My comforter is thrown back and I slip on my sweatshirt. After stuffing my feet into my furry ankle boots and grabbing my phone, my carton of cigarettes and my family’s photo album, I head outside for a smoke. It should do my crowded mind some good to get out of the house.
And what a night it is. My feet leave my backdoor and walk out onto the patio. It’s really nice out around this time; quiet and peaceful with the exception of the few cars driving by with their radios on. I light up as my feet scuff the cement path and make my way to the porch swing sitting on the back wall of the house. It’s a great thinking place when nothing and everything is one my mind.
Smoke fills my lungs with its warmth as I make myself comfortable. My back lies on the cushions with my feet on the arm of the swing and my phone on the side table. Before I start flicking through the album filled with the good kind of hurt, I inhale on the smoldering cig and release its grey air into the night.
Why did it take me so long to have courage to look through this? It has been years since I’ve seen the inside of this book. My heart aches with each picture and they all run through my mind in such vivid scenes. Even the ones of me as a baby play out in my mind. Most of them are me and mom so I guess dad was always holding the camera.
I flip one more page and there he is. I tap the ash from my cigarette before shakily pulling the photo out from its slot. My daddy and I are play-fighting over a red and green present. It was the last Christmas we had together as a family and mom was taking picture after picture for some reason. I was happy for it anyway. My eight year old self has the biggest smile in this one and it instantly becomes my favorite.
Tink.
A smack on the side of my house has me bolt upright. I almost cough from smoke catching in my lungs but my fear keeps me quiet. Clearing my throat softly, I fold up my photo album and wait for another second.
Tink… tink.
Yeah, that’s not a regular sound. My body reacts in defense mode setting aside my memory book grabbing the little garden shears as a source of protection. I tip toe across the grass and keep close to the shadows of my home. The ‘tinks’ continue in irregular intervals making my heart pound heavily. I don’t need another night prowler or demon neighbor trying to surprise me. Best outcome: a peeping tom. Worst outcome: being sucked out my power.
I reach the corner of my house with sweaty palms. Last time a demon was around, Trevor was here to help me out but now I have no purple goo or wooden stake. My lips bite themselves as I exhale through my nose. I have to look around the corner at whatever is making that noise. I’m going to do it!
In 3…2…1½…
♫ Teenagers scare the living shit out of me ♫
“Damn it,” I whisper frantically running back to my phone. Another of Xander’s texts just let whoever is around the corner know I’m back here. I rush over to silence my phone and quickly turn around to be ready. But what I’m not ready for is the hand that wraps over my mouth from the person standing there. A shriek explodes behind my lips and I’m at the mercy of the prowler in the night.