Chapter 1
It was the Sunday before my 21st birthday, April 20th, which was the upcoming Thursday. It showed windows viewing new beginnings for me, a new chapter of my life that overshadowed prior mistakes, and allowed me to be the person I knew I could be. Until then, my life was rather frivolous.
I had abandoned my early religious background, having been raised a good little catholic girl by a strict family. I suppose that had I followed that path, I wouldn’t be writing this. But, by the age of 15, I was the rebel in my perfect little family, with my perfect little parents. And my perfect older sister, who, at the age of 27 was working as a teacher in a catholic school in my home town, teaching innocent children why everything they’ve learned up until then was wrong. And my perfect twin brother, who, also 15, was born again and loving his faith. And then, there was me, little Marie-Ellen, the blemish of the perfect Lamaharty family. My story starts three days before my sixteenth birthday. I had been counting down the days.
“Ellie!” my brother called out, his silly nickname for me. I had been once again caught smoking in our shared bedroom. He always yelled at me for it, but he would never tell our parents. He knew that if he did, I would tell them about the time that I walked in on him kissing a choir boy, the day that I found out that he was “tempted by homosexual thoughts”. And I was the only one (other than the choir boy) who knew. So we had a nice little deal.
“Oh chill,” I yelled over my shoulder to him, “I was putting it out.” I said, wiping the burning ashes on the window sill before tucking the half smoked cigarette behind my ear
“Ellie, those are going to be the death of you,” And then added, “and me too.” He walked over to me and pulled the cigarette from its hiding place behind my ear, hidden by my hair, and tucked it in his jacket pocket. Then he reached across in front of me, taking the rest of the pack.
“Hey! Give that back! I actually paid for those!” I yelled, jumping on him.
He responded coyly “No you didn’t. You haven’t paid for a pack since Jordan got a job at that gross little tobacco shop. He steals them for you,” he added “Silly Ellie.”
I climbed off of him, then sat on my bed. “Fine, keep them. I’ll just get more from Jordan tomorrow. You can try to get me to stop, but my smokes are the only joy I have in life with this family.”
Logan sighed, saying “You’re just going to have to accept what family God gave you. I know you don’t want to hear it, but He’s testing you. Just like He’s testing me, giving me thoughts about…well you know.” He stood to leave, to go out to the car, leaving for his weekly Bible study. Its on Wednesdays.
“Three more days Logan…” I muttered under my breath, as he walked out of the room. He didn’t know it, but on the night of our shared birthday, I was planning on leaving with Jordan, my best friend/boyfriend, depending on what kind of mood we were in. I was sick of life with uncaring parents, and meaningless, forced church visits to try and, quoting my step-father, “Banish the evil within me.” I was tired of being the outcast in a family of religious freaks.
Since it was on my mind, I stood and pulled a half-packed bag out from under my bed. In it were a few pairs of clothes, a pair of sneakers, a container of makeup, including a stick of lipstick that belonged to my grandmother, and my favorite stuffed cat, named Livvy-Lou, which I’d gotten at birth from Nami, which was my name for my grandmother.
“Seems like I have everything.” I muttered to myself. I stuffed the bag back under my bed, and walking out of my room into the hallway. I closed the door quietly behind me, and then walked down the stairs. I found my father sitting at the kitchen table with his reading glasses on, going over some paper. Probably something about the church, I thought to myself, walking past him to the cupboard where I kept my vitamins. I opened the cupboard, suddenly aware of the fact my father was staring at me out of the corner of his eye. I got my vitamins out as quickly as possible, to try and get out of the room before he said anything to me. I was secretly terrified of being alone with him.
Technically, Frank was my step-father. But he’d been with my mother since she was pregnant for my brother and I. Up until we were twelve we thought he was our biological father, but our mother told us the truth once she thought we were old enough. But, he’d started to be different after we found out.
I looked up to see if he was looking at me still. He appeared to be looking back to his papers. He was large man, not heavy but tall, slightly muscular, and looked like somebody capable of killing someone. He still had a full head of hair, but creases and wrinkles were visible along his eyes and lips. He had harsh brown eyes, rather thin, and vicious looking if he was angry. When I looked up again, I saw his eyes dart back to his papers. I knew what he was thinking. I walked briskly out of the room with my vitamin now taken.
“Marie, come here please.” He called out. But I was already out of the room and dashing up the stairs, into my room and closing the door behind me. Safe this time. I pulled my secret bag back out, and stuffed the bottle of vitamins I’d stolen from the kitchen into it. I heard footsteps on the stairs, and dashed to my door realizing I’d forgotten to lock it when I came in. However at that moment, I heard the van pull into the driveway. Frank heard it to, and walked back down the stairs without a word. Silently I whispered a thank you to a God I rarely believed in, but at times like this felt was looking out for me. My mother had just gotten home from bringing my brother to Bible study.
I looked up at my clock. One forty-two. I walked to my closet and pulled out my waitress outfit, for working at Louie’s Single Strand, a rock bar that played loud eighties music while drunk people tried to dance. Louie had been looking for young women he could doll up in short dresses to keep the attention of men in the bar. Legally, I was too young to work there. But Louie didn’t overly care about laws. I pulled off my t-shirt, pulling the short black dress over my head. It was tight across the top, and very low-cut, with red lace across my chest and around the puffed sleeves that fell low on my shoulders. The bottom flared out, with plumes of red lace around the bottom, ending half way down my thighs. I tied the red belt around my lower waist, and then pulled my jeans off from underneath. Out of my top drawer came my fishnet stockings, with little red satin bows every few centimeters along my leg. I pulled them on slowly, making sure they stayed even on my legs. Then I pulled my shiny leather high heeled boots out of my closet, putting them on and zipping them up. They pinched my toes a bit, but I knew Louie wanted me to be as attractive as possible, so I dealt with it. I couldn’t afford to lose this job. All the money was going towards leaving in three days. I walked over to my bag and pulled out Livvy-Lou, and hugged her close to my chest. She used to be a medium brown, but was now closer to a tan color, and wore a spring time dress made of cotton and lace, in soft pinks and greens, her tail flowing out through a hemmed hole in the back of the dress. I held her close to my face, smelling her. She used to smell just like Nami. But the scent o her had been polluted by our clean little suburban home. I pulled her away from my face, staring at her big blue glass eyes.
I sigh softly, thinking for the millionth time how much I miss Nami, and set the stuffed cat back in my bag gently, pulling out my makeup bag. I walk over to my mirror with it. I look at my face, makeup-less and plain at that moment in time. I hadn’t gone out at all, so hadn’t bothered to do anything with my hair or makeup. I pulled my black hair out of the braid I had it tied into, and let it fall across my shoulders, ending at the top of my shoulder blades, and wavy from being in the braid all day. I brushed it with an old porcelain brush with camel hair bristles, from India, that had also been Nami’s. I silently reminded myself to pack that, also. I pulled my contact-lens container out of my makeup case, and put in my brown and copper colored contacts, covering up my naturally green-grey eyes. Then I put on Nami’s old lipstick, a bright red from when she’d been my age, in blue crystal containment. It felt foreign and heavy on my lips, from being so aged, and it smelled of old lipstick, but it reminded me of Nami, and looked just the right shade for my very pale face. As I brushed my black hair, I thought of one of the last times I saw Nami. I had been eleven.
“Ellie, don’t run so fast love. I would hate to see you fall in.” Nami called out as we walked down the pier. I had run ahead to try and see the waves crashing on the end. However at her request, I slowed down and waited for her. She was using a walker, and didn’t move very quickly, so I walked back to her and held her sleeve as she walked.
“Nami, why do the waves get so high after storms?” I asked curiously, watching the wave’s crash against the rocks along the pier.
“Well child,” she responded, “after the storm, the fish are thankful to the heavens for returning evaporated water to them in the ocean. So they dance, and celebrate, and rejoice the return of their water. So the sea shakes with the ruckus of their huge ocean-wide celebration of the fish.”
I smile up at her, and she looks over at me, smiling and shutting her eyes with her smile. The edges of her lips and eyes wrinkle with deep crevices, like canyons. She runs her hand across the back of my hair, at that point still its natural color, a light brown, just like hers had been when she was young. It was now all white, and tied back into the bun she always had. She always had a unique way of explaining things.
“Nami, why did daddy leave my mother before I was born?” I asked, hoping to finally get an answer to the question constantly troubling me, which no one would answer.
She looked at me troubled and responded “Because he fell out of love with your mother, and she’d fallen out of love with him.” And then she added “Love doesn’t always mean forever child.”
I looked down at my feet, and took Nami’s sleeve again. She stroked my hand with hers.
She said softly “Just remember, that even though he’s gone, he loves you very much. Every time I talk to him, he asks me how you and little Logan are, and asks for pictures of the two of you, just so he can see you.”
“But why doesn’t he just come visit us?” I ask, hoping to get more answers.
She pauses to think, more of a way to word her answer than to think of the answer itself. “He’s not allowed to come see you, because he is sick and is in the hospital. And they don’t want you two little ones to get sick too.”
I nod in understanding, knowing that there was more, but things I would have to wait to learn.
“Come Marie, and we’ll walk back to the house.” Nami said, turning around in the direction of the beginning of the pier. I followed silently
I shook my head, as if to get the thoughts out. I stood, pulling my long coat out of the closet and putting it on. When I wore it, you could only see my boots, so my parents couldn’t see my scant attire. I walked out of my room, grabbing my fedora and setting it on my head. I walk quietly down the stairs, hearing my parents arguing about me.
“I got another call from the school. She’s been skipping full days now, probably off with that little boyfriend of hers.” I hear my mother say disappointedly.
“I’ll talk to her later tonight. She’ll be leaving soon.” I hear Frank say in response.
At this point I walk by the kitchen door, where they are, mutter a goodbye, and walk out just as quickly. I glance at my phone once I’m outside. Two o’clock on the dot, so I’m running on time. My shift starts at 2:30. I ran down the street. First one block, then a second. I hear a boy from my school whistle at me from his front porch as I run by. I flipped him off, annoyed by his immaturity. Now I’ve run down a third block, struggling to run in my heeled boots. I stop running, realizing suddenly that I have my bag on my back, the one with my things for running away in it.
“God damn!” I say aloud, frustrated that I forgot to set it down. Knowing I don’t have enough time to bring it back without getting a ride from Frank, I continue running. I didn’t want to lose any pay, and I definitely didn’t want to sit in a car with my step-father.
I get there at 2:20, enough time to fix my hair before I start working. I walk to the back room, where I see Louie flirting with another bosomy waitress in a dress identical to mine, except without the lace, which I’d put on mine myself. She swatted him away without even looking up. She was taller than me, and wore the outfit without the fishnets or boots. Just flesh-tone stockings and heels. She smiles politely when I walk in. She’s a bit younger than my sister, maybe 25. I wave a hello to her, while walking over to my cubby with a mirror to fix my hair, then pull off my coat and hang it up.
I look at her and say jokingly “We look like such sluts.” Then laugh, to let her know I’m kidding.
I feel Louie’s eyes burning into me, and I glare up at him, and he leaves. He’s old, older than Frank at least, who’s 45. I can’t stand that swine, but I needed the job.
I walk out into the main bar, but no one is there yet, so I walk over and sit at a bar stool.
At some points I clean, or play around at the pool table with the other waitress, but the afternoon remains uninteresting as usual. No customers ever come in until around dinner time.
About two hours later, a few young men have come in and are looking around for someone to come get their orders. I walk over, holding a notepad, and recognize one of them as a young teacher from my school, who upon seeing me starts blushing profusely. I pretend to not notice him, and look around the table.
“Can I start you off with some drinks?” I say, avoiding the gaze of my young teacher, who looks obviously embarrassed to be seeing me here.
The response is from another of the group, saying that they’ll all have beers.
“Coming right up.” I respond. I go behind the bar counter and start grabbing them, then look up only to discover that the young teacher had followed me up to the bar.
“Aren’t you a bit young to be working somewhere like this?” he asks shyly, staring at the ground while he talks.
I lean over the counter, and look him in the eyes and say “I needed a job and Louie gave me one. Is that a problem?” I say, smiling politely. He was obviously easily intimidated.
He leans back a bit, wiping sweat off of his forehead and looking away from me. “N-no, s-sorry to have b-bothered you.” He managed to spit out before stumbling back to his table. I laugh to myself, bringing their beers to the table, then winking at him as I walk away.
If he’s not too nervous to talk to me now, I don’t know what I’ll do, I think to myself. Then laugh, realizing that all his buddies are slapping his back and laughing around him. They think he came up here to hit on me! I snort at the thought, and then go up to their table to see if they want any food. They don’t.
The rest of the night goes by uneventfully, until about ten, thirty minutes before the end of my shift, when the teacher walks back up to the bar where I’m flirting with another customer, hoping for a good tip. I think to myself that he must’ve gotten his strife back. I walk around the bar, up to him, and wave to him to follow me so he can talk to me.
He looks me over and says “It isn’t right for a young girl your age to be working here. You’re only, what, fifteen?”
I respond “I’ll be sixteen in three days. And I’m working here because I need the money.”
He says back “It’s inappropriate and vulgar here. I’ll have to talk to someone about this.” He says, glancing over at his buddies back at the table.
I walk up closer to him, close enough he can smell my perfume, and make it look like I’m going to cry. I say softly “This job is the only way I have to pay for clothes and food for myself. My parents are so poor. Please don’t tell anybody…” I look down like I’m going to start crying. A single tear runs down my cheek.
He pulls me close and hugs me, whispering to me “Shhh…I won’t tell. Don’t worry. I’m sorry. I just worry about young people like you being in a place like this.” And then walks away sadly. I turn to the mirror, and fix my makeup, laughing. He ate that up! I can’t believe that worked, I think to myself
Chapter 2
I walk back into the house, quietly locking the door behind me, and then silently climbing the stairs to my room. My parents are asleep, but Logan is awake, reading in our room. He looks up, and then looks back down to his book. He says quietly “Welcome home.”
I snort, and mutter “Yeah, some home it is.” Then I lay on my bed, resting my head on the pillow.
He looks up at me, shaking his head and saying “You’ll just have to live with it. This is your home, and this is the family God has given to you.”
“God… I don’t know him. But everyone keeps asking me if I do. What’s up with that?” I respond coyly.
Logan rolls his eyes, saying “Is it just impossible for you to be a part of this family, and just accept what you’re fortunate enough to have?” I thought he was done, because he looked back down at his book, but he continued. “We have food to eat, a home to sleep in, and two loving parents. Mom loves you so much, and it hurts her to see you hate our family. And Frank loves you too.”
I snorted, and muttered under my breath. “Yeah…he loves me an awful lot.”
Logan frowned, getting up and sitting next to me on my bed, brushing my hair back and holding me close to him.
I looked up at him, and smiled, saying. “Well that was, indeed, very random Logan.”
He responded in a teasingly sing-song voice. “Well of course Ellie. For who would I be if I weren’t ridiculously random every chance I got?” Then we both fell back on my bed laughing. He held me in a close hug until we both fell asleep.
The next morning when I woke up, I chuckled softly at my snoring brother lying squished next to me on my bed. I shook him softly, whispering. “Logan…we have to get up for school.”
He grumbled something illegible, and then tried to roll over to face the other way but wound up rolling onto the floor. He sat up abruptly, blushing dark red.
I laughed, helping him up so he was sitting on the bed. He looked at me with a curious look on his face. I looked over at him, wondering why he was looking at me the way he was. Then I looked down at my clothes, realizing that I had never changed the night before and was still wearing my waitressing uniform. Logan knew what kind of a place I worked in, but had never actually seen me in my costume. I got up, and walked into my tiny closet, closing the door behind me. It’s a weird habit of mine, that I change my clothes in the morning while standing in my tiny closet. I pulled off my dress and stockings. At some point the night before, I had kicked off my boots and jacket. I pulled on a bright red shirt, with one three-quarter length sleeve that was a dark red, and the other side just a strap. I fished through my clothes a bit more, finding a very pleated black-denim skirt. It ended half way down my thighs, though it used to be down past my knees. My parents bought it for me because they wanted me to have something formal and “appropriate” to wear back to school on my first day this year. The day before, I ripped the skirt short, without hemming it, so the bottom would tatter a little. Then sewed lace underneath, also very pleated, so it was a few layers of lace and about an inch longer than the skirt itself, then added a black belt with a wide loop to the top, sewing it in place. It very quickly became a favorite.
I pulled it on, then pulling on my knee high, belted, platform-heeled boots, belting the six belts on each boot into place. Then, from behind the closet door, right in front of me, I pulled on my shiny leather jacket with red hems and red satin ribbon around the collar and sleeves. I walked out of the closet, looking at myself in the mirror, then deciding against the jacket, pulling it off and tossing it back in the closet. I walked over to the mirror, putting on cover-up to make the dark rings under my eyes less visible, and then put on a thick dark line of eye-liner. Then mascara and blush, making my very pale face look more and more like that of a porcelain doll. I put on dark red lipstick, looking at my clear, china doll-like face, and wondering how I could have myself so real, and yet still look so fake. It was beyond my comprehension.
Logan had already gotten dressed and headed downstairs, and I was close behind. I pulled my hair up into a high ponytail, pushing my bangs across my face in an emo-bangs style way, and then ran down the stairs, grabbing a half bagel off of Logan’s plate. He glared up at me, and I grinned, holding the bagel in my teeth like a leopard having just caught its prey. He continued to glare, in response to which I thrashed my head back and forth with the bagel still in my teeth, gnawing at it like an animal. He couldn’t keep the glare up anymore and broke out laughing.
At this moment our mom walked in, first looking at Logan, who was laughing so hard he was practically choking on the other half of the bagel that I didn’t take, then to me, still holding the bagel in my teeth, with messy hair and butter on my face from thrashing my head back and forth. She shrugged, half smiling; the basic equivalent of “I don’t want to know.” At this, Logan, who had finally stopped laughing, practically choked once again on the bite of bagel he had just taken, once again laughing again.
I grinned at my mother. She looked over at me and said “You know, you have some butter in your hair.” She chuckled softly, walking towards the sink, rinsing off the apple she had just pulled out of the fridge.
Everyone says I look just like her, but no one knows what my father looks like, so how can they know? She has sandy brown hair, short and framing her face, the same color as my natural color. Ironic that both her and Nami had the same color hair, even though they weren’t related. They didn’t even like each other. Nami hated my mother, actually. She blamed her for what happened with my father.
As much as I was frustrated at him for leaving us, I still desperately wanted him in my life. After all, he was my dad.
All of a sudden, while I was lost in my train of thought, I feel my half bagel pulled from my mouth. I see Logan, smiling teasingly, dangling it in front of my face. I lunge forward, trying to snatch it with my teeth. This evolves into a full throttle tug-o-war over it. I end up with half of the half, and eat it as quickly as possible, before its reduced to an eighth of a bagel.
I took a moment to study my odd brother. He had my face, just a more masculine version of it, and we shared the green-grey eyes that people always noticed. My naturally feminine lips looked a little odd to his face, but somehow fit with the rest of his natural features to make him a very attractive young guy. He has the natural sandy brown hair shared with our mother, and Nami. Most people realize we’re related even if they don’t study our faces, or know us.
He has the personality of a cliché gay man, and all the people in our original group of friends always suspected him of it. And I wasn’t even close to surprised when I walked in on him and Nick the choir boy last month.
Our original group of friends featured Mary and Derrick, the cute couple who’d been going steady since they were in the 4th grade, Tony, my first crush, Carol, my catholic best friend, and of course Logan and I. Everyone is still in the original group, except for me, and Carol. I ditched that scene when I met Jordan in my freshman year of high school.
It was a little after this point, that I had “experimented” with Carol. Our fooling around lasted the duration of the two and a half month long summer after freshman year. Jordan and I were only friends at this point. We didn’t start going out until the beginning of tenth grade, 4 months before I got kicked out of catholic high school. When Carol’s parents found out about this, they sent her to a catholic reformatory school three states away, and warned the teacher’s at our local high school that I was a threat to the well being of this well-kept catholic school. I was eventually set-up for setting a fire in the teacher’s lounge, and expelled. Carol still writes letters to me, long passionate letters saying all the things she’s going to do for me when she gets back. I think she’s considering herself a full on lesbian now. I guess I can take that as a compliment. I can turn innocent, straight catholic girls into lesbians. When I told Logan about this, he simply ignored it, because he was still furious at me for “abandoning” him, the group, and their innocent catholic ways.
I think for the millionth time this month how much I miss Carol, and try to imagine how things would be now if she had stayed. I probably would’ve never ended up dating Jordan, and been with her instead. But that’s the past and there’s nothing I can do about it.
I toss my backpack over my shoulder, and think to myself that its only a little bit heavier than my knapsack that I’ll be bringing with me in two days.
Here’s the plan: On Friday after school, Jordan is going to pick me up in his truck, and we’re going to ride all the way out to some little farm in Illinois, which is a considerable drive from here in upstate New York. We’re trying to find my biological aunt on my father’s side. Rumor in my family is that she’s a slut, literally, and goes to town to collect men so that she can pay for her pigs and chickens and corn seeds.
Personally I think it’s a load of crap. Everyone in my family hates my father’s side of the family, because they aren’t pristine little catholic bitches.
All of a sudden I’m startled from my thoughts by a tap on my shoulder. I spin around and see that its Frank standing there, smiling coyly.
I look up at him and he says “Logan left for his school with your mother while you were in lala land. Want a ride to your dumpy little public school?”
I responded “No thanks. Jordan is picking me up.” I tried to push him away from me, but he presses against me. I realize, terrified, that him and I are the only ones home. I add “Aren’t you going to be late for work?”
He places his hand on my hip, kissing my cheek and whispering “I don’t overly care Ellie.”
Hearing him use my childhood nickname in this disgusting act is almost enough to put me over the edge. I try to push him off of me, but he doesn’t budge. He runs his hand down my thigh, and up my skirt. I squirm, glaring at him. He pushes me against the table, prodding around under my skirt.
All of a sudden I realize that I can’t let him do this to me again. I will do anything, absolutely anything, to stop it. I lunge the front tip of my platform heeled boot into his knee, making him yell out and drop his hands to it. I watch for a few seconds, in shock of what I did, and then run out the front door to Jordan, who’d apparently been waiting there for several minutes already. I jump in the truck, and slam the door behind me. Frank is yelling out the front door; something about me forgetting something. I know its just a front to try and get me back in the house to convince me to keep quiet about what just happened.
One look at my face, and Jordan knew what had happened. He drove away from the house as quickly as possible.
Frank had started molesting me when I was twelve. In that time he had raped me several dozen times, and forced me to do unspeakable things for him. It took me a year to tell anyone, and the person I told was Jordan . At the time we were still in the catholic high school, and we tried to convince the Dean about what Frank was doing. He didn’t believe it, because Frank was an upstanding member of the community. Two weeks later, I was expelled for a fire I didn’t set. Jordan convinced his parents to let him come back to public school so he could stay with me.
“I have to get out of here. Tonight. I can’t stay around him anymore.” I say shakily as I light a cigarette from Jordan ’s pack.
He responds, “Babe, its just another two days. On your sixteenth birthday, your parents are giving you the Ford. We can fit so much more stuff in there than we can in my little truck.”
“Couldn’t I just steal the keys?”
“Yeah, then your parents would have you arrested for stealing their car.”
“Yeah I know. I just really hate the idea of going home tonight. Do you think I could sleep over tonight? I don’t want to see him. I’ll just tell them I’m staying at Lorelei’s house.”
“Yeah, of course. How much money do you have put away for leaving?”
“I have thirty-four hundred in my saving’s account, which I’m going to take out today, and
another eight hundred in cash.”
“Alright, I have twenty-eight hundred. So we’ve got about seven thousand dollars. That’s enough to cover a cheap apartment for like a year. Not long. We’ll need to find your aunt right away. How long have you been saving that cash anyway?”
“Basically my whole life. Nami used to give me a hundred dollars every birthday and every Christmas. That’s two hundred dollars every year until I was eleven. So that’s twenty two hundred right there. I saved up the rest over a year working at Louie’s, not counting what I spent on clothes, makeup, and junk food.”
He hesitates for a second, then says, “How do you know your aunt will take us in?”
I respond “I just know. I think she needs someone in her life as much as I do.”
Chapter 3
We drive in silence the rest of the way to the pier. I knew we were skipping school today, but was still mildly shocked when I saw where he had driven me. This is the same pier from the last time I went to visit Nami. If you look at just the right angle, you can see her house, which rightfully goes to me when I turn eighteen, up amongst the trees. And I have a key.
I look over at Jordan , sitting with his elbows on the steering wheel, and his face in his hands. He looks exasperated. I put my hand on his shoulder, feeling stupid for comforting him when I’m the one who needs comforting. But he doesn’t handle stress well, and he’s always so worried about me.
I whisper softly “I’m going to miss Logan though. Even though he was brainwashed, he was still fun to be around.” He sets his arm over my shoulder and I lean into him.
“Want to head up there?” He asks, and I nod slowly. We came up here from time to time, got high at Nami’s old house, and sat on the balcony, watching the lake crash against the rocks. Jordan is a pot-head. I’m not really into it, but I do it anyways because I know it makes him happy to not do it alone.
We get out of the car, leaving it parked in front of the lake, and start climbing the path that leads to Nami’s house. I feel kind of guilty for using her house as a place to bake out, seeing as it was the scene of all of my good childhood memories. I guess it’s kind of an innocent place, made into a not so innocent place for Jordan and I to get high and make out.
We make it up to the house about fifteen minutes later. It’s quite a hike to get to the top of the huge hill from the side of the lake. By the time we get up there we’re already pretty stoned.
So we lay out an old, moth eaten, blanket from the linen closet, out on the balcony, and look out at the lake, which seems to be miles away from up here.
I look over at Jordan and say “Where do you think we’ll be in five years?”
He thinks for a few seconds, and responds “I think we’ll be married. And have a little kid. Maybe two.”
I’m taken back by his answer and respond “You’ve never said anything about long term. I’m pretty impressed by this.”
He looks over at me and smiles and says “Well, I love you. And I always did. And I hope we get married someday, have a bunch of babies, and maybe live in this very house, where we’ll have all of our memories.” Then he blushes, and looks down at his shoes.
I lean over and kiss his cheek and whisper in his ear “I hope so too.” Then I lay my head on his shoulder.
He sits up abruptly, saying “Hey! I have an idea. Lets go swimming. It’s like 90 degrees out here.”
I reply “But we don’t have swimsuits…”
He just grins and says “Nobody ever comes out here. We could just go in our underwear.”
I smile and say “I’ll race you to the end of the pier!” and stand and run down the stairs and out the front door.
I hear him yelling behind me “Hey! No fair! You had a head start!
I yell back “Catch me if you can!”
About five minutes later, I’m standing at the beginning of the pier. Our races never make it all the way to the end of the pier, and usually end at the beginning of it. I wait for Jordan, and sit on an old post that was once used to tie up Nami’s boat. That was sold to pay for the funeral though.
Eventually he catches up. I say to him “What took you so long slow poke?”
He just grumbles something about how he’s slower than his girl. I love when he calls me his girl. He looks up at me and sees I’m smiling as a response to him having said it. Then his grumbles stop, and he breaks out grinning.
I take his hand, and we start our way down the pier. Its about a half mile walk to the end, so we walk slowly and take our time. The cement is cracked and broken. At some points you can even see plants growing up out of the cracks. This pier has been abandoned since Nami died, and no one was rushing to fix it up before-hand either.
Nami used to say that the cracks gave the pier character. I thought they just made it tricky to walk on, but one never does argue with Nami. She was a strong willed woman, and she was brilliant. She taught me Shakespeare growing up, and taught me that there’s no such thing as coincidences. Everything happens for a reason, and every reason has a cause and effect.
Jordan and I have long conversations about Nami, and though he never met her, he probably knows as much about her as I do. I look over at him, and he has his face twisted in that cute little way it gets when he’s trying to think of something to talk about. He’s an attractive guy, but not in a way most people are attracted to. He has long dirty-blonde hair that he wears in a ponytail that ends right in the middle of his shoulder blades. He has a little facial hair, but not thick enough to be called anything. He’s tall and kind of lanky, and wears glasses, which makes him look adorably nerdy. He’s in no way, shape, or form, a member of the popular crowd. In fact, most people find him creepy. And even though I’m considerably popular in my public school, I couldn’t help but fall for his big puppy-dog hazel eyes, and charmingly nerdy personality. Back when we were at the catholic school, when we were both unpopular, it was easy for us to be a couple. But once we went to public school, I somehow climbed the prongs of the social ladder, and found myself being crushed on by our school quarterback. I don’t know how, but I was his newest target. So during that time, I actually broke up with Jordan for a little while.
It was silly really. We weren’t even technically going out. I just said to him that I was going to go out with jock-central (our later discovered nickname for Michael, the school quarterback) and he just sort of looked down gloomily. I knew it was hurting him but I couldn’t help it. I was so wrapped up in the new popularity of my life that Jordan just didn’t matter anymore. I thought back to a party where Michael had let me bring Jordan as a friend. Some lame party with no alcohol except for beer. I’m a vodka or rum type of girl.
He had me sitting in his lap, with his arms wrapped around my waist. Jordan had been sitting next to us and Michael knew how Jordan felt about me. So he was purposely fucking with Jordan, making him Jealous. He’d kiss my neck or run his hands under my shirt just to piss off Jordan.
But then he took it too far. He said all too loud “Baby I love you.” Then looked over at Jordan and grinned. I was just jaw dropped. I knew he hadn’t said it because he meant it, but had rather just said it to get to Jordan. And it did. Jordan stood; I thought he was going to leave. But instead he spun on his heels and decked Michael in the face. It was the hottest thing Jordan has ever done. We left holding hands and haven’t been apart since.
That was right after I started at the public high school, 4 months after the tenth grade had started and about 3 month ago. I know it’s a short time to already be telling him how much I love him, and that I want to spend the rest of my life with him but what can I say? He’s my soul mate.
Lost in thought, I realized suddenly that I had missed everything that Jordan had been saying to me. I felt really bad all of a sudden because he had this sad look on his face because he thought I’d been ignoring him on purpose.
I said to him “Sorry baby. I was just thinking about that time that you punched Michael in the face. God that was hot.”
He looked at me smiling and blushing, laughed and said “It wasn’t all that hot. I just had to get my girl back. I couldn’t believe I was losing you to that scum.”
I giggled, smiling up at him. You literally had to smile up at him because he was that tall. He was like 6’5”
No comments:
Post a Comment