Hey, guys! Here's chapter three, hope you all enjoy it :)
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Chapter 3
The piercing hurts like heck.
When I first see myself in the mirror after Bette pierces my nose, I can barely see any resemblance of my old self.
The ‘rock-chic’ haircut and the blue sparkly stud in my nose are one thing, but even the fact I’m wearing ripped Abercrombie shorts and a cute blue tank top with matching blue flip-flops is hugely different to the old me.
I picture myself as I was back when I was just starting out in high school. Chubby, and with thick-lenses in my wiry glasses, and braces I’d had for a year at least. A shapeless jumper and jeans, to make it less obvious I was far from a size zero. I was really nothing special.
It would’ve been better if I’d been invisible.
But I wasn’t.
It would’ve been better if I was really smart; but I only got the A grades when I worked for them, so I wasn’t a nerd. It would’ve been better if I was a band geek or in the chess club – but I wasn’t.
I shake my head, because none of that matters now, not here. I don’t have to be that person anymore. I’m forgetting about her.
I smile at my reflection. Definitely cool, daring and spontaneous.
I’m pretty pleased with myself as I walk home. Not just because of the piercing, and not just because a cute guy put his number in my cell phone, but because everything is finally looking up for me.
It’s getting better.
Well, it’s better up until I get home, at least.
“Is that you, Madison?”
“Considering I’m the only other person in this state who has a key to the house, no, Mom, it’s not me,” I call back.
The house smells of cooking, and I automatically know Dad’s been making pasta. I breathe in deeply; Dad’s cooking always smells amazing. Mom’s cooking often smells a little more… burnt.
“You’re just in time for dinner,” she says, popping her head around the kitchen door at the end of the hallway for a moment. As I take off my shoes and put down the carrier bag for my cell phone, she carries on, “Did you find a cell phone?”
“Yeah. It has internet and stuff.” I don’t specify the ‘stuff’ because I’m not entirely sure what the ‘stuff’ consists of just yet. I just know to send a text, make a phone call, and open Google.
“That’s good.”
She doesn’t even ask me how much it cost. She’s just glad I’m being like a normal teenager and I have a cell phone.
I walk into the kitchen, which is all wooden units and ceramic tiling, as Dad is dishing out pasta at the stove. I grab a plate and sit down at the table opposite where my parents are going to sit.
“Did you finish putting the rest of the boxes in the attic?” I ask.
“Yep,” Dad tells me smugly. Mom’s been bugging him to move all the boxes of old photo albums and old toys from when me and Jenna were kids – you know, the usual kind of junk you keep in attics – out of the spare room for days.
They sit down, then, and I realize just how fast and hard my heart is beating.
They haven’t noticed the nose piercing yet.
Maybe they won’t – at least for a couple of days. Or maybe they’ve noticed and miraculously just don’t care about it. I don’t know, but I’m not going to question it.
After a couple of minutes, Mom says, “You were out a long time.”
“I went to the café. To try and set up my cell phone. There was this guy who works there though, and he had to help me work it.”
“There was a guy?” Mom’s ears perk up at that. I knew they would.
“Yeah. He said he’s – well, he’s going to be a junior at the high school same as me.”
“Really? What’s he like? Was he cute?”
Yes, I think, he’s very cute.
But I shrug and say, “Sure. I guess. He was really nice, though. He said there’s a party at the beach tomorrow night. Like, a back-to-school thing, or something.”
“Did he ask you to go?”
I nod, but hastily add, “He just meant as friends, though. So I can meet people and whatnot.” I have to specify it’s not a date; Mom would go crazy if she thought her daughter, who was finally breaking out of her shell and becoming a normal sixteen year old girl, actually had a date.
“Oh.” She sounds a little disappointed, but then adds, “But that’s nice! He sounds lovely. What’s his name?”
“Dwight.”
“Dwight…?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where does he live?”
“Around here, somewhere, I guess? I don’t know. I didn’t ask for his autobiography.”
“More to the point,” Dad says, pointing his fork at me, “what about this party?”
“It’s on the beach. It sounds like it’s all a bunch of the kids who go to the high school. Dwight said it starts around eight.”
My parents exchange a brief look, and then my dad tells me sternly, “No drinking, Madison, you hear me? We don’t want you going out and being stupid. You don’t know these people, and I don’t care if they’re all drinking, you’re not.”
I’m of half a mind to argue, just because. But the truth is, I’m too excited inside about this party – an actual party! – to argue. I just nod and smile and say, “Yes, of course. Got it.”
Dad nods and gives me a stern, warning look. “Good. And you can be home by half eleven.”
“What if nobody else leaves then? What if it finishes at twelve, or one?” I don’t want to give anyone cause to think I’m a loser, I add silently.
“You can be home by half eleven, Madison,” Mom tells me. “Like your father said, you don’t know these people, and we don’t want you staying out till tomorrow morning with them.”
“Fine,” I grumble, but I don’t make too much fuss. Half eleven curfew is better than them telling me I couldn’t go at all.
We eat in silence for another minute or so and then Mom says, “Madison, look at me a moment.”
So I do.
And her cutlery clatters to the plate, almost flicking pasta over the table. “What the hell have you done to your face?”
It takes a moment for me to realize what she’s talking about.
I bite my lip, and I can feel my stomach fall away.
“We trust you to go out and buy a cell phone and you come home with – with that?” she cries out. She’s turning red in the face with anger, now. Mom rarely gets mad. She’s that loveable kindergarten teacher who loves children. Jenna and I always knew that when our mom got mad, you were not going to get off lightly.
Once, Jenna had smashed an antique vase Mom had inherited when her grandma died. It was completely on accident – Jenna had tripped and smacked into the table. Mom got so angry about it though, Jenna was grounded for a fortnight.
So right now, I wanted to turn to dust and I wished I’d never gotten the piercing.
“It’s only a piercing,” I mumble defensively. “It’s not like I got a tattoo…”
“You got a what?” Dad shouts, more shocked than angry. “Why?”
“Yes, Madison.” Mom’s seething. If looks could kill… “Why don’t you tell us exactly why you disfigured your face like that?”
“I don’t know,” I mumble. The smell of pasta, which was delicious when I walked in, suddenly makes me feel sick. “I just wanted to… I thought it’d look cool…”
“Oh, Madison, you stupid girl!” Mom says, and in that instant all the anger seems to go out of her. She doesn’t sound angry anymore; more like she’s upset. Sympathetic, even. It’s almost as though the anger directed at me was the only thing keeping her sat up straight; she collapses back into her chair almost like a ragdoll.
Then she sits back up and leans over the table, putting her hand over mine. “Honey, I know it’s been hard for you. I know. It’s killed me inside. And I know you want to make a good impression here, and make friends – but you don’t have to do something like that just…” She trails off with a sigh.
She thought I’d done it so people would like me more.
Now I think about it, maybe she’s right. I mean, I thought it’d make me look edgy and cool… A conversation starter. Something that would stop me from being relegated to the background. So maybe my mom was right, except I’d done it for that reason on more of a subconscious level. Who knows? I don’t really care at that moment, though.
I open my mouth, starting to argue that it wasn’t that, but she cuts me off. “Well you can’t take it out now. It might get infected.” She sighs. “I’m not happy about this, you know, Madison.”
“I know,” I mumble.
I expect her to say that I’m not allowed to the party at the beach tomorrow, and maybe even ground me. I’ve never been grounded before. But then again, if I’d done anything worth being grounded for, what difference would it have made? Back in Pineford, all I ever did was stay in my room when everyone else in class went to a party anyway.
But now, when I think I may actually get grounded for the first time in ever, I kind of panic inside a little.
Then Mom says, “Have you thought about what you’re going to wear to this party?” and that’s when I really, really begin to panic.
*
Jenna phones that night, and after about twenty minutes, Dad yells up to me, “Madison, pick up the phone!”
I pull out the earphone in my left ear and lean over to my nightstand to pick up the extension. “Hi, Jenna.”
“Nose piercing, huh? I’ve gotta say, Mads, I did not expect that from you. Mom’s so not happy about it,” she laughed. “Good for you though. I bet it looks hot.”
“Heck yeah.” I say it sarcastically, but I actually kind of hope it does look ‘hot’ now she’s said it.
Jenna laughs again, and before I can ask how the Big Apple is, she dives right in and says, “Tell me all about this coffee shop guy!”
“His name’s Dwight. He’s a junior, same as me, and he’ll go to the high school with me too. So that’s good, you know, ‘cause I kind of have a friend already. He’s really nice, too, and he has a nice smile.”
“Aw,” my big sister coos. “What’s he look like then? Is he tall? Buff? Cute? Does he look like he plays football or anything?”
“Well, he’s kind of cute…”
I twirl a piece of hair around my finger as I say it, and there’s a tiny smile playing at my lips. I start; what the heck kind of reaction is that? I shake my head a little, trying to shake it off – whatever ‘it’ is.
“He’s tall. Dark hair. And he surfs,” I add on. “But he only invited me to the party as a friend. He wasn’t even flirting so it’s not like it matters.”
Jenna totally ignores the last part of what I say.
“Really? He’s a surfer? Wow. That’s…” Jenna laughs. “That’s actually pretty cool! Sounds like you’ve got yourself a very nice guy in the bag there! And what’s this Mom said about a party?”
Jenna said party like ‘partaaay’ which made me giggle and shake my head.
“Dwight told me there’s a party on the beach tomorrow night. He gave me his number so –”
“He gave you his number?” Jenna shrieks. “Ohmigod! Are you serious? And you said he was just being friendly. Pfft.”
“Yeah, but only so we could meet up beforehand. He was being friendly!” I insist.
“Um, Madison, no he was not, trust me! A guy who gives you his number like that” – I hear her snap her fingers sharply in the background – “likes you.”
“I don’t think so,” I say, picking a piece of loose cotton from my comforter. “I really, really think he was just being nice. You know, so I wouldn’t have to show up on my own and stand there like – like a lemon.”
“Mm,” she says thoughtfully. “Do you want it to be a date?”
“Kind of,” I mumble. I wouldn’t have told my mom that, but Jenna was different. “But it doesn’t even matter because it’s not a date.”
“Alright, well next question: What are you wearing?”
“Right now, shorts and a tank top and the jumper that Gran knitted for me last Christmas.”
“I mean tomorrow, to the party, doofus.”
We both laugh then. I say, “I honestly don’t know.”
“Well then, what are big sisters for? Shorts, definitely. Do you have any like, distressed shorts? And when I say shorts, I mean really short shorts. The kind Mom would not approve of.”
I laugh, and roll off my bed to go open my closet. Jenna and I talk for over half an hour and she talks me through what she thinks is appropriate wear for a beach party. Considering she never went to a beach party when we lived in Maine, she seems to know an awful lot about what to wear to one.
When I point that out, Jenna just laughs and says, “Madison, just trust me on this.”
And I do.
I just really hope she knows what she’s talking about...
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I'll put up the next chapter in a few days. (I had planned on putting this chapter and the next together in one longer one, but it ended up a bit too long, sorry!)
Buuuut, in the next chapter, will be the party! And maybe an introduction to a new face... ;)
Please let me all know what you thought! :) x