Just Another Teenage Romance Story (short story) part 3

Holly sees Melvin across the quad and runs off towards him without so much as a wave to me. I'm kind of annoyed, but I ignore the feeling and walk toward my locker. This girl with the locker under mine is seriously struggling, coming close to spilling her coffee about five times just in the one minute that I see her spinning the lock this way and that over and over, pounding her fist on the metal every time the door won't budge. I walk up just in time to catch her paper cup as her coffee wobbles the sixth time, and I say to her, "Need some help?" She blushes and pushes her hair behind her ear with the hand now free from her coffee cup, and then she struggles to lift all her binders with her as she stands. I raise my eyebrows at the huge stack and say, "Maybe you should get a backpack." She laughs like I've just cracked the funniest joke since last Saturday's Weekend Update and I raise both my eyebrows and squat down in front of her locker, wanting to get this girl moving as quickly as possible so that I can get my books and get to first period. "What's your combo?" I ask. She doesn't say anything for a moment, and when I look up at her she's blushing again, as if the number I just asked her for was the one you use to reach her cell. "Your combo?" I repeat. She laughs nervously and says, "Oh, um," she lowers her voice as if anyone walking in this hallway really cares what her the combination to her locker is and tells me, "36-21-40." I spin the lock appropriately and pull up on the little handlebar, and the locker swings open. Her face breaks out into a smile and she says thank you to me before ducking down and stuffing two binders from her pile into the metal safe, only to replace them with three more, slam the door with her foot, and grab her coffee from me with a shy smile before scuttling away. I look after her for just a moment before shaking my head and turning back to my own locker, just in time to hear the bell ring, so kindly informing me that I'm late for class. I slam my head against my locker.

***

Sean sits next to me in English first period, but it's not as if he'll pass notes with me. Instead, he stares at the board, focused and copying everything down as quickly as possible as our teacher discusses the much-too-common topic of the loss of innocence. I love this class, but I've hear this speech before, and I space out, staring at the birds jumping around outside the door, waiting around for our lunch period, when we'll leave them all the scraps they've been craving. Sean notices my spacing and nudges my shoulder, "Better copy this down," he whispers, hurriedly as if he's worried he'll get in trouble, "It's important." I smile at him and pick up my pencil to satisfy his nerves, but I only doodle little sketches of birds pecking at a PB&J. I really like Sean, maybe even love him, and I know I love being with him, but at the same time dating him has really opened my eyes to why girls don't date nerds, other than the fact that they're nerdy. Jocks might not have in-depth conversations with you about life and literature and music, (though the conversations Sean and I have about music only go well if we're both talking about classical, the only genre we can agree on, and I think even then he kind of accepts my love of movie scores only because he's glad I'm listening to something without lyrics,) but they will give you back rubs in class and ignore there homework to take you to movies and concerts, and wrap there arm around your shoulders while you walk. Sean on the other hand... we have study dates more than normal dates, he never so much as holds my hand, and if we went to the movies, he'd take me to a documentary. The places he takes me on dates... I mean, on one hand they're kind of fun, the planetariums and space shuttle museums, but I have to draw the line at presidential libraries. I mean, sometimes I wish he'd just take me to a ball game or mini golf or at least bowling or something. As we pack up our bags he hands me a book, a paperback copy of Orwell's 1984, and I smile at him and remember why I love this relationship.

***

© 2011

Just Another Teenage Romance Story (short story) part 2

"How was school?"

"Life-changing. Universe-altering. I mean, I feel like everything I believe has been suddenly slapped in front of me with a big red X across it, and the truth is shining in my face like one of those little red laser beams at the end of those pens, you know?" My mom grins, "Oh yea? So what happened?" I shrug, "Eh. Not much." She laughs and hands me a plate with a sandwich on it, "Here, take this up to your brother, will you?" I take the plate and trudge up the stares, tossing my backpack through my own open doorway onto my bed before shoving my shoulder hard into my brother's door by way of knocking. The door, like mine, is slightly open already, so this pushes it far enough that I can be seen in the doorway, and he sees the sandwich and jumps up from his bed, crossing over to me. "Turn down the speakers, will you? Some of us are trying to sleep." My brother rolls his eyes, "No, you're not," and takes the sandwich, pushing me back out the doorway and slamming the door in my face. I roll my eyes and walk back to my own room. Two things beckon me from my desk: my lap top, where I had to stop in the middle of making a mix tape last night because my mom found me awake and forced me to stop, and my physics book, which the writing on my palm tells me I have plenty of work to do in tonight. I shove the book right off my desk and open my lap top.

***

It's going to take ages to unpack our house. I mean, it took ages to pack our house. But unpack? We not only have to take a freaking busload of stuff out of boxes, we also have to find places to put all that stuff, and seeing as we don't know this house yet, and my mom is an interior decorator, this is going to be quite a process. The boxes with my name on them are already in my room, and rather than being helpful, I close my door, claiming I have homework, though I plan to use this new-kid excuse for late homework for as long as I can. Instead I nudge the boxes around in my room so that the boxes labeled "clothes" and "shoes" are together in the closet, the box labeled "books" is where my bookcase will be, the the boxes labeled "music" and "technology" are by the bed frame, where my nightstand will be, the box labeled "bedsheets" is on top of the bed frame, and the box labeled "school" is in my bathroom, in the empty cabinet under the sink. Grinning, I open the box labeled "technology" and pull out my old walkman, and then I open the box labeled "music" and pull out and old Nirvana CD. I put the CD in and press play, leaning against my bed frame and trying not to think about how much this new house smells like fish.

My mom forces me to walk to school from now on, claiming that a little exercise

will do me well, so I plug in my headphones and tuck my walkman into the front

pocket of my backpack as I walk down the sidewalk to school. The girl I sort of resent

from my math class runs out of a house about a block away from mine, panting as she

tugs a boot on her left foot, hobbling down her driveway on one foot. She flips her

fifties-style ponytail over her head (I can tell that hair is her signature, now,) and

blinks as she sees me. "Oh," she says, "hey six foo-" she cuts herself off and grins a

little bit, "Patrick." I nod, "Hey, you." She rolls her eyes, "It's Holly."

"Hey, Holly." More because it would be uncomfortable if she didn't that that she

actually wants to, Holly falls into step beside me, so I reluctantly pull my walkman

out of my bag and press pause. Her eyebrows shoot up, "Is that a walkman?" I nod

and add, "iPods are overrated." Holly grins and nods, as if in agreement. She slings

her own backpack in front of her and pulls out a walkman cassette player, and my

face breaks out into a grin as I say, "No way. And I thought I was old school." Holly

laughs and puts the cassette player back in her bag, zipping it up and pulling it onto

her back again as she says, "That's how I met Sean. I was waiting at the school bus

stop for my friend to pick me up, and he was listening to one of those, and I was just

like, wow, that's so cool that there's actually a teenager out there in the world who

still listens to cassettes." I nod, "Sean is...?" She smiles, clearly affectionate, and says,

"My boyfriend." I put two and two together quickly enough and ask, "That guy you

were sitting with yesterday, at lunch?" She glances at me and nods, "Yea. What were

you doing, spying on me?" I laugh, "Hardly. The two of you kind of stick out of the

crowd. No offense, or anything, but..." She nods, "Yea, I know. He doesn't seems like

my type." She shrugs and flicks her ponytail as if to prove a point, "What can I say,

I'm old fashioned. I like a guy who treats me right." I can't help but smile at that and

we walk the rest of the way to school in silence.

© 2011

Nibble part 29

Lindsay took us to the most cliché romantic comedy ever created. When I walked in, Nick was already standing there, looking extremely uncomfortable as Lindsay stood close to Juan and giggled every time he breathed. I couldn't help grinning at the image- Nick could act like a real big-shot sometimes, but when he was actually being treated like a normal teenager by other teenagers, he tensed up and lost his social skills. I went out of my way to sneak up on him, and I poked him in the forearm once I was next to him, causing him to jump like the trembling little bunny that he was. He smiled nervously at me when he recognized me, and Lindsay giggled more as she told us it was time to go inside. I held a couple of Nick's fingers with mine as we walked behind Lindsay and Juan, and I smiled comfortingly at him when he glanced down at me.

Lindsay sat on one side of me in the theater, but she turned completely away from me in her chair, her whole body facing Juan as she giggled over the commercials on the screen. Nick was on my other side, and he was slumped down in his seat like a kid getting lectured by his parents. "Relax," I told him, "We're at the movies, not a college interview." He half-grinned at me and whispered, (I should've known he'd be one of those polite movie-going people,) "It's hard when Lindsay keeps giving me these interrogative stares and then these huge smiles- I feel like I'm being given the good-cop bad-cop routine." I laughed, "Lindsay might occasionally glance at you," I was whispering then, too, but only because the subject of our conversation was directly next to me, "but trust me, her mind is mostly elsewhere. You can relax." Nick grinned and sat up a little bit in his seat. The lights in the theater went off and Lindsay giggled a final time as the real trailers started, and I situated myself in my seat before glancing over at Nick, biting my lip, and nudging my arm under his on the armrest, so that our hands were touching but our fingers weren't intertwined. I caught Nick's grin from the corner of my eye and I smiled, but before I could close my fingers around his, he grasped mine.
"You should just give up," Lindsay said, holding my left hand in both of hers as we walked behind the guys toward the grocery store to pick up some junk food Lindsay was craving, "because if it wasn't obvious that you and Nick had something blossoming before, now I've got a big old flower all up in my face, and you can't do anything to trim it." I raised my eyebrows and said, "You have an interesting way of phrasing things, you know that?" She slapped my arm, "You are so terrible at changing the subject, you could win an award. Why don't you just tell me everything that's gone down?"
"Lindsay. Please stop. You are so terribly white, you're embarrassing even me."
"Be quiet," she replied, rolling her eyes as I laughed. Juan waved Lindsay over to the chip display as we stepped into the grocery store, and I was set free momentarily, so I walked over to Nick and we strolled silently away from Juan and Lindsay. I bit my lip as we walked down the aisles, and Nick noticed that I was tense and said, "Seems we've switched roles. What's got your shoulders so close to your neck?" I grinned a little bit and said, "Grocery stores make me anxious." This seemed to surprise him. "They do? Why?" I shrugged and bit my lip again, "I don't know. It just seems like...well, I mean, everyone's so relaxed in a grocery store. Like you could have any matter of things plaguing you, but the moment you walk through those automatic sliding glass doors, everything goes away, and everyone's minds are at ease as they take their time to stroll down the aisles with carts full of unnecessary money-eaters, and...I don't know. I just always feel like, what are you all thinking? The world doesn't just stop so that you can go grocery stopping. You've still got a due date, you're still low on money, and if you just relax and take your time and waste your money while you're in here, everything's going to be that much worse when you leave. You'll have that much less time to work. You'll have that much less money to spend. And the stress that was momentarily taken off your shoulders while you were in there will fall onto you twice as hard." I looked over at Nick and suddenly blushed, embarrassed by my rant. He looked away from me and raised his eyebrows, "Wow. I never really thought about it like that before." I looked down at my feet, "Sorry. I probably ruined your grocery shopping experience for life." He shrugged, "Nah, I think you've shown me the light." I laughed, "And oh, what a grand light it is." He grinned and we continued pushing our cart slowly down the aisle.

© 2011

Oxygen Overdose (Air) (short story)

There's only so much time before the wind catches up to me and blows this perfect shelter I've found to bits, the sad broken glass and planks of wood littering the ground in a metaphorical representation of what's going on inside me, of everything ripping apart suddenly and with destructible force. It's been four hours since we last got caught in a wind storm, and my mind is reeling with what this means- how much longer can we stay alive like this, when the storms are clearly getting closer and closer together, like lightning that crashes sooner and sooner after thunder rumbles. I'm shivering, but the cold is something that seems inevitable now, inescapable even for the short- now shorter- periods of time that we're safe from the winds. Jacob is crying again, and I would be, too, if my eyes weren't so dried out from the wind blowing into my sockets like crashing waves onto a shore. I would comfort him, but my arms are shaking so fiercely and the cuts all over me are no doubt infected now, wrapping myself around him would only frighten him more and give him a greater chance of also getting infected. My mind not being able to focus on the storms now with the thought of infection, I look down at the cuts on my arms, torso, and legs and choke back a dry sob at the brown stuff filling up the gashes, and showing itself faintly in my veins. Upon first glance, you might think it was just a dirty cut, and considering the circumstances, my wounds being filled with mud wouldn't seem unusual. But you can tell it's not dirt if you watch just a moment longer- the lines of it in my veins are dim, of course, but you can see it traveling up, at a pace so fast that you can watch it progress, and yet slow enough that it could be completely extracted quickly and easily, and I could be saved- if I weren't running away from the storms, getting more and more cuts and being attacked with more and more of the infection. Jacob would have been dead long ago if it weren't for his clothes- the almost indestructible fabric seemed like the perfect solution when it first came out, before it became clear that enough of the suits wouldn't be able to be manufactured fast enough to save everyone, and battles for the material broke out to top off everything else that was going wrong. His helmet is clear, but not glass- this material was also something that quickly became a delicacy worth fighting to the death for. I was only able to pawn one suit, in the end, and there were mixed emotions in my family when I came home carrying the small-size costume. While everyone knew it was right to put Jacob first, the youngest in our group, the instinct of self-preservation was overwhelming in our chests, and people who had mates were struggling to compose themselves.

Everyone always said I would be the last, besides Jacob, they taunted me teasingly that I was indestructible. These were only jokes, and I knew it, but each and every joke came from someone with agony in their eyes and scars on their faces, people I loved more than my own life, telling me that they would be gone, that I would be alone. Though I eventually accepted that they were right, it didn't prevent the near-constant implosions of my heart as one by one the people I cared about were thrown too hard into concrete walls, were crushed by the weight of falling advertisement boards, and were, worst of all, drowned in oxygen as the infection sucked all the hydrogen out of their bodies. Their skin was covered in burns and their eyes dissolved right in front of me. They were left with no opportunity to take a last gasp of breath, as the thing that was killing them was the oxygen.

"I'm scared," Jacob whispers, and I'm about to give up and close him into my arms when I suddenly lose my breath, and the world goes black.

© 2011

May the fourth be with you.

May 4th Playlist

1. Galaxies by Owl City
2. Come In Please by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
3. Somewhere Only We Know (Glee Cast Version)
4. Summer Girl by Jonas and Plunkett
5. We Could Be Anything by Nolan Sotillo
6. We'll Be Alright by Travie McCoy
7. Fifteen Step by Radiohead
8. Up From Below by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros
9. Rumour Has It by Adele
10. Fairy Dance by James Newton Howard

© 2011