Comment of the Chapter:
Do you know how many children I creepers out? And its all your fault.
So my opinion : Uranus and Serena together. Kurt and Holly. Aaaaaand Liam
the pedo with the little kid at the story.We all know that's what he wants ;) wink, wink.
Thank you Kinderegg for this, in my opinion, hilarious comment. I seriously dies when I read the Liam part, not that it's true (...yet).
Chapter Nineteen: A Day at the Park
“RENAAAAAAAAA,” Kurt called my name for the 50th time in the last ten minute. He was on his ‘drunk on Dr. Pepper’ phase again.
I ignored him for the 49th time. The first time I replied, he told me that I looked like the Grinch, so not wanting to be insulted further, I’ve ignored him up to this point. But now I was watching Glee Kurt sing and real Kurt was interrupting the sound of his beautiful voice.
“What?!” I snapped at him.
Kurt giggled (yes, giggled) and looked at me stupidly. “Hi,” he replied and looked away. “That was from Family Guy,” he whispered to me after a second of me looking at him.
“Kurt, go take a nap or something,” I suggested as I contemplated what I’ve done in my life to get such a strange older brother.
“But I’m not sleepy!” Kurt whined like one of my daycare kids when I told them the same thing.
“Then go run around the house a few times,” I kidded, realizing that watching Glee with a drunk Kurt was futile.
“OKAY!” Kurt shouted in response and jumped from the couch. “Come on, Rena!”
Kurt pulled me up from the couch by my wrist and half-dragged me to the front door
“Wait—I didn’t mean—” I tried telling him I wasn’t up to this—I was in my fuzzy house shoes and pajamas for Pete’s sake!
“Come on, Rena. You’re getting fat. I mean you get fat every morning and then you deflate. It’s unhealthy,” drunk Kurt reasoned unreasonably with me as he opened the front door.
“But—”
“Ready. Set. GO!” Kurt interrupted me once the front door was opened and the chilly after-Christmas breeze could be felt.
Without further warning, Kurt dashed out of the front door, yanking me out with him, and continued pulling me along as he ran… more like sprinted along the sidewalk.
“Kurt! I said AROUND the house. Not around the BLOCK,” I yelled angrily at him.
By the time we made it to the stop sign, I could hardly breathe. I mean Kurt was a midfielder on the varsity soccer team-of course he would run quickly, but me—I couch surfed occasionally.
“Kurt, slow-slow-the,” I gave up on trying to finish the command. I was going save my breath for this endless sprint.
“Look, Rena! It’s a hobo,” Kurt pointed out to me as we ran by a cat.
I rolled my eyes. Soda really messes up his head.
“Ooooo,” Kurt awed and came to a complete stop, making me crash into his back. He finally let go of my wrist and I immediately plopped down onto the ground in exhaustion, wheezing.
Even with the cold chill of December, I felt like I was in a fiery pit of hell. My legs… oh my gosh my legs. I can’t feel them. And my lungs are probably scorched. Nothing could possibly make me feel worse right now.
Suddenly I felt it. The something-worse-than-hell came. About 50 pounds came crashing on to my stomach as I lay on the floor.
“What the—”I cut myself off once I opened my eyes and saw that Sam had just sat on me and was now watching me curiously. “jell-o,” I finished my not-so-explicit phrase. “What the jell-o are you doing here, Sam?” I saved myself from cursing in front of a 7 year-old.
“Why are you laying on the floor, Santa Clown?” Sam countered my question.
“I was tired,” I told him honestly, trying not to show the immense pain he was causing me at the moment.
“This is fun,” Sam commented as he went up and down from my heavy wheezing.
“Mmhhm,” I managed to say.
“Sam, get off of her,” Holly ordered him once I saw her in my view.
“Why are you always so mean to me?” Sam huffed as he reluctantly got off of my stomach and stomped away.
I thanked Holly with my eyes as I got, but I felt bad for Sam, who was now watching Kurt ride a duck-thing.
After sitting up, I realized that we had run to the park.
“I’m not mean to him,” Holly muttered under her breath, frustrated, but then turned to me with a smile, “Happy after-holidays!” she cried enthusiastically as she embraced me.
“Uh,” I managed to say awkwardly. “Happy Holly-day?”
“Ha-ha,” Holly laughed sarcastically. “Punny.”
“I know I am,” I said haughtily as I stood up from the ground and brushed myself off.
“You missed a spot. Oh wait, that’s—”
“Yeah, yeah. It’s my face,” I interrupted Uranus as he sauntered next to his girlfriend.
Where the heck are these people coming from?
“Be nice,” Holly scolded and hit her boyfriend on the arm.
“But she said it,” he complained as he rubbed the spot her Holly had hit him as if it actually hurt him. “And she set herself up by wearing those pants.”
I was slightly embarrassed by this. I had totally ignored the fact that I was wearing my after-Christmas pants. They were basically a cheesy Christmas sweater in pants form, but they were comfortable. I had also neglected that I wasn’t wearing my suit.
“Yeah, I’m just gunna go and get my brother,” I excused myself uncomfortably, wanting to leave before someone else catches me without my suit on or with my after-Christmas pants.
They seemed to be fine with that, murmuring they’re ‘mhmm’s and ‘whatevers’, so I turned to Kurt to see that he was teaching Sam how to run up the slides.
“Come on. Up. Up. Up!” Kurt encouraged as Sam had difficulty getting to the top.
“Kurt, stop being a bad influence,” I reprimanded my brother as he demonstrated running up the slides once more.
“I am not!” Kurt whined as he stopped midway on the slide and fell, causing him to slide face first to the ground. “Ouch,” he exclaimed when he hit the floor. I saw it coming.
“Santa Clown, catch me!” Sam suddenly ordered as he jumped up from the slide.
I gave out a small squeak before Sam jumped onto me. I desperately tried to catch him and I let out a sigh of relief once I succeeded.
“You’re heavy,” I complained after holding Sam for a while. Giving up, I set him on the ground.
“It’s the muscles,” Sam whispered and gave me a wink.
I laughed at his cuteness and ruffled his hair. “Yeah, from all of that hockey, right?”
“See! You are Santa Clown! You knew that without me telling you and Santa knows everything,” Sam explained and gave me a look of astonishment. I didn’t want to tell him his brother had told me.
All of a sudden, Sam’s Christmas wish he had told to Liam came flooding back to me and I immediately was concerned for him. He didn’t appear to be sad or disappointed.
“How was your Christmas, Sam?” I asked him gently, wanting to know.
“It was awesome!” Sam enthused. “Even though the she-witch was there, it was so fun. Trent and Aunt Sue made me the best breakfast. The pancakes were shaped like Pokémon! And we made cookies and hot chocolate. And I got new DS games for Christmas from Trent!” He smiled excitedly.
I smiled back and told him to continue.
“And Holly gave me a shirt, but I don’t like it. It’s white, plain, and boring. Auntie Sue got me new shoes—they light up!” Sam continued with just as much excitement, but then he sort of got quieter. “But I didn’t get any presents from Santa this year. I didn’t get any coal either, so I think he’s just late.”
I looked at Sam in pity. Stupid Liam. Making promises he won’t keep. And then I felt bad because I had forgotten about gifts since my family has already celebrated the holidays. I rummaged my jacket pockets to see if I had anything laying around again.
Conveniently , I found a Jamba Juice gift card in one of the pockets. I really hope I haven’t used this.
“Here you go, Sam,” I tried to act cheerful and unsuspicious as I handed him the gift card, feeling ashamed of myself. Who gives a seven-year-old a gift card for Christmas? It’s just wrong.
“Thank you, Santa Clown!” Sam thanked me as if I have given him real Pokémon and told him he was a real trainer now.
“Yeah,” I said, feeling guilty for not getting him anything better.
This kid is so thankful for everything in his life. It was a nice change from other kids these days.
“Maybe Santa will give me my gift now since I have his favorite snack,” Sam wondered to himself with a deep-in-thought look in his face.
I decided that I’m going to punch Liam the next time I see him, because with my luck, I probably will. Not only for making promises he won’t keep, but for kissing my cheek. Asshole . . . wait, that’s Uranus. Liam can be Jerk-wad.
“Santa Clown, are you okay?” Sam asked concerned as he tugged on my shirt to get my attention. “You look really annoyed. Did I do something wrong?” he asked sweetly.
I snapped my attention back to Sam, who looked incredibly worried that he had done something wrong. “No, Sam,” I assured him. “It’s just this guy . . .”
I trailed off as I caught a familiar head of dark brown hair, half-covered by a Santa hat, walking nonchalantly on the sidewalk carrying some sort of book. Stupid coincidences.
I silently prayed that Liam would just keep walking without paying any attention to the park, but of course, things didn’t go my way.
“Liam!” Kurt cried happily as he stepped away from his sand mountain he was building and charged to Liam. “I missed you, buddy!” he shouted as if he was drunk.
Liam looked surprised for a moment as my brother came barreling towards him for a hug. I was surprised that Kurt knew Liam. Our school was pretty big.
“Kurt, how many Dr. Peppers have you had?” Liam asked condescendingly as he pulled away from Kurt’s bear, man-hug. He knew about Kurt’s Dr. Pepper problem too?
Now Holly and Uranus, who were stuck in their own world, were aware of Liam’s presence and migrated to say hi.
“Santa Clown, it’s the elf,” Sam stated.
“Remember, Sam, he bites,” I said almost bitterly, trying to get Sam to stay away from Liam and his false promises.
“I think he’s coming over here,” Sam whispered and took a step closer to me. “I forgot to wear bite-repellant today.”
I was slightly amused that Sam thought there was such a thing called “bite repellant”, but it was short-lived. Liam was, in fact, coming over.
“Good afternoon, Rena,” Liam greeted me as if nothing had happened on the night of the dance. Jerkwad.
I wanted to curse at him, but I restrained for Sam’s sake and settled for a nod of acknowledgment.
“We’re matching,” he noted as he took notice of my pants and pointed to his hat.
I didn’t reply, giving him the silent treatment since I didn’t want to yell at him in front of Sam.
He didn’t seem to be taken aback by my silence and cheerfully said hello to Sam.
“Don’t bite me,” Sam said in response and hid behind me.
“But I come bearing presents!” Liam tried to explain as he stepped around me to be in front of Sam.
“I beware the Greeks, even bearing presents,” Sam countered using Virgil’s quote and hid on the other side of me. This kid is smart.
“It’s from Santa,” Liam bribed as he waved the book he had brought in the air.
“Really?” Sam and I chorused together as we stared at the book.
I gave Liam a look as if I saying, ‘you better not make this situation worse’, but if he got it, he ignored it.
“Yeah, Santa said that he couldn’t deliver all of the presents this year, so he told me, his trusty elf, to deliver some,” Liam clarified convincingly as he took a step towards Sam and showed him the book at the seven-year-old’s height.
“Clara and Vince Breton,” Sam read the front cover of the book, which had a picture of Uranus’ mother and father when they were younger.
“You’re parents are still on the moon, so this is what Santa could do,” Liam commented softly turning the page.
The first page was full of pictures of when Uranus’ parents were still newly-weds and the other pages were their lives of what followed—getting their first house, job acceptance letters, Uranus, Sam, family vacations, their hotdog car, the whole ten yards. Each page was decorated differently and I could tell a lot of work had gone into it.
I silently wondered how he got all of the pictures and I looked at Uranus, suspicious. Sure enough he looked at the book in pride. So he had given Liam the pictures. This whole book warmed my heart and I wanted to take all the negative things I had thought about Liam.
“I remember this!” Sam would exclaim every now and then as he looked at the pictures in complete bliss.
Once Sam had gone through the entire book, he just stared at the book for the longest time. I was worried that something was wrong, but then he tore his gaze from the book to Liam in admiration.
“Thank you, Elf! Sam yelled joyfully as he launched himself onto Liam’s torso.
It was an adorable sight—a four-foot child embracing a six-foot guy wearing a Santa Claus hat.
“You’re welcome,” Liam said with as much enthusiasm.
“Group hug!” Kurt shouted when he saw Sam hugging Liam. Making a quick dash to where Uranus and Holly were, he pushed both of them towards me and practically smushed them together along with Liam and Sam. I tried to escape before Kurt got me into this mess, but Kurt grabbed my wrist and shoved me into the group hug. “Spread the loooove!” Kurt hollered in an unrecognizable accent.
I would have facepalmed myself if I wasn’t stuck in the group hug.
“A hug to match the kiss, right Rena?” Liam whispered in my ear.
“It was on the cheek,” I muttered, feeling flustered by his comment. “But thank you for what you did for Sam. It was sweet,” I whispered back to him, genuinely being thankful.
“What are you talking about? It was Santa,” Liam corrected me, giving me a knowing smile.
“The she-witch is touching me!” Sam shouted and broke apart the group hug (thankfully) with his thrashing around. “Cooties! Cooties!” he continued to yell as he ran to the grass as if he could wipe the ‘cooties’ off, but not before he gently set Liam’s gift on a park bench.
I was about to go calm him down, but Uranus and Holly had beat me to it and Kurt started to roll around in the grass . . . for fun.
That left Liam and I to stand alone awkwardly. Well, for me it was. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking.
“Can I touch it?” he asked me, giving me a weird look.
I turned my gaze from Sam to Liam in question. “What?”
“Your stomach,” he clarified, looking at my fat suit-less belly.
“. . . No?” I answered as more of a question because I was too weirded out by the question.
“But it’s your real stomach,” he tried to convince me to agree.
“And the grass is green. So what?”
“I want to see if you giggle like the Pillsbury Doughboy.”
“Are you comparing me to a chubby, pasty white mascot for dough?”
“. . .Yes,” he answered confidently. “Because he’s also cute and fluffy.”
I gave him a look of incredulity. “Did you just call me fat and a guy?” I asked jokingly, not-at-all offended by the comment, but wanting to avoid the whole ‘cute’ thing.
Whatever poise he had vanished as traces of worry replaced it. “I didn’t mean to—I meant that you’re—you’re fluffy as in cats or the thing in Despicable Me—not that you’re fat or anything. And you look like a girl—you know—with boobs and—not that I was looking or anything because that would be—um . . . yeahhh.”
Suddenly, I felt the need to cross my arms over my chest self-consciously. “Well . . . wonderful weather we’re having, isn’t it?” I changed the topic.
“Yeah, it’s a bit chilly though.”
Then the silence faded into awkwardness again because I didn’t know how to make a conversation concerning the weather interesting.
“I still want to touch it,” Liam said a minute later, apparently getting over his recent embarrassment.
I sighed before agreeing reluctantly, knowing that he wouldn’t stop if I said no. “Go ahead.”
Liam hesitantly poked my stomach and looked slightly disappointment when I didn’t let out a high-pitched “he he he.”
“You’re not ticklish,” he pointed out as he poked a stomach again.
“Only because I’m expecting—” I cut myself off, realizing what I’ve done. I’ve revealed my weakness. I could see the deviousness on his face as my words registered in his mind. “You better not—”
Liam poked my side and couldn’t help but let out a small laugh.
“Liam,” I warned, but it looked like he didn’t care.
Not wasting any more time with simple poking, Liam went full-out tickling me. I tried to slap him away, but he seemed unaffected by it.
“Stop-stop it,” I cried uselessly through laughs and ran in a random direction to get away from him, but he followed and soon I couldn’t see where I was going because I was laughing too hard.
My lack of vision caused me to stumble on something trip face first. I tasted the sand. Ew.
“Sorry, Rena. Are you okay?” Liam asked, sounding legitimately concerned.
Not bothering to get up, I just turned so that I was lying on my back. “No, I’m being harassed by an elf.”
Liam took a seat on the ground next to me and looked at me thoughtfully. And to avoid feeling uncomfortable, I did the same to him.
Why would he need to go to the hospital? Did he have something wrong with him? But why would he be so reluctant to go if it’s concerning his own health?
I mindlessly started to grab sand from around me and pile it onto my stomach. Caring about my clothes at this point was useless—I’ve been lying on the cement ground and covered in sweat already.
Was one of his relatives, who he had a feud with, have something wrong with him? That would explain why Liam wouldn’t want to go, but I couldn’t picture Liam hating someone.
The mountain of sand grew, partially because Liam was doing it mindlessly as well. Was he thinking of my secrets too? I grew worried for a second.
“Hey, guys, smile!”My worries were set aside by Holly’s interruption of my thoughts. As I looked up, Holly has holding up her Iphone and the device made noise signifying that it had taken a picture. “Aww, you guys look so cute with each other,” she teased as she looked at the picture.
“Holly!” I whined, but too lazy to get up. “Do you know how good the quality on those cameras is? I don’t want to look at this moment in HD! And we’re not together!”
“Aw, come on, Rena. You’ll look good in HD,” Liam complimented as he, too, snapped out of his thoughts.
“It was your face I was referring to,” I said matter-of-factly.
“It’s okay, Rena. Your beauty is enough for the two of us,” Liam redirected my insult.
I didn’t say anything because his compliment stunned me. That was sweet of him, but I wasn’t about to say that aloud.
“Awwwwww,” Holly cooed again and hit Uranus, who had just got here. “Why don’t you ever say anything like that to me?”
Uranus looked at Liam and me in confusion. “Uhh. . . your beauty matches that of a thousand suns?”
“Isn’t that what you said to Rena way back when?” Holly accused teasingly.
“I’m-I’m not good with this sort of stuff,” Uranus defended himself. “Plus I said that when begging for her forgiveness because you made me, but all I could see when I was apologizing for ‘undermining her grace and beauty’, I was just thinking of you.”
“Well…ouch. Thanks a lot, Uranus,” I said at the same time Holly cooed, but then quickly said sorry on Uranus’ account.
“Are we building a mountain on top of Santa Clown?” Sam asked as he made his way over and started shoveling sand on my stomach.
“I want to help!” Kurt declared and dumped an armful of sand on me.
Soon enough, everyone was gleefully piling sand on me. Even Uranus was kicking sand on top of my feet. At this point, I really didn’t care that my body was being touched by grains of sand that dogs had pooped on, little kids have peed on, and adults have . . . never mind. Everyone was having fun and I realized my life was not longer centered around my family and me, but on these people who I was around now. Though it scared me to some extent that my life could change in only the span of a few weeks, I liked it. I liked having friends outside my home. I liked being spontaneously attacked by Liam’s sweetness. I liked having Holly stand up for me. I liked Sam’s cuteness and innocence (in a non perverted way). I liked my brother’s abnormality. I even liked Uranus’ and I’s bickering.
“I think I just put a pile of sand with a used-band-aid on you,” Uranus pulled me out of my thoughts.
“Your face,” I replied, his words had gone unprocessed. “Wait. . .”I said as the words sunk in. “Gross!” I shrieked as I scrambled to my feet, desperately trying to get the filthy piece of shit off if me and getting sand everywhere.
“Just kidding.”
“I dislike you,” I snapped at him, contradicting my former thoughts.
Well, at least now I can say I’ve had both sand and cake down my pants.
::::x:::O:::x:::
Author’s Note:
Hello, my beautiful readers!
I did it! All the main characters in one place at a time! Hmm… how you Liam and Kurt know each other? And I’m ONE CHAPTER AWAY from TWENTY. I feel old now.
I liked lonelywolfgirl13’s comment on how Rena might not end up Liam OR Uranus. But, I’ll tell you now that she’ll never end up with Alex. Even I didn’t remember his name without looking back(that’s how unimportant he is). Maybe she ends up with Martin (I remembered his name o.o).
Anyways, you guys know how the rest of this note is gunna go on. Yada, yada, it’s late yada and I need to get to bed . . . yada . . . QUESTION TIME!
Anyone wanna take another stab at who this Maria chick is? (I remembered her name too)
Did anyone see the last episode of Glee and want to share your opinions on Quinn’s situation (me trying to avoid spoiling it for other people)?
Writing suggestions?