Welcome to Gaia! ::

Probably.

Now say something insightful. DID YOU DO YOUR HOMEWORK!?!?! *poke*

10 Things that Evans dad did right.

1. Put a bit of pressure on Evan to achieve good goals....even though he is overly excessive on this he has the right idea.

2. Keeping Evan alive not killing him. (thats a good in and of itself I wouldn't put it past the b*****d).

3. Giving Evan a chance to see his grandmother.

4. Marry Evans mom was another thing.

5. Teaching Evan how to cook the basics at least... I think he was the one who did or did he?

6. Giving him a roof to live under.

7. Let him see Kahme the first few times without regret.

8. Took Evan to the hospital the two times he did.

9. Duly gives Evan his lunch money every day.

10. Works to pay the house bills instead of making Evan do that... only I say this because this is the case in some poor familys luckily Evan and his dad are not.


This proves that people are inherently good and even if they feel like they are bad-a** and scum and enjoy saying that there is still good found inside all people.

7 things Thomas has done that prove he loves Evan.

1. Agrees to let Kahme stay over once or twice so Evan is not bored out of his facking mind.

2. He makes sure that Evan doesn't call the child protection agency 1) for his own protection and 2) to keep Evan from going to a home where he would not be with his dad.

3. Keeps paying for Evans school education.

4. I'll simply state his over protectiveness of keeping Evan away from society hurts but helps him in such a way that keeps him from getting harmed but gives him an antisocial type personality.

5. He takes him to see Nana. This is a double effect tho, because he is also doing it so it benefits himself as well. I only say this because he seemed like he was wanting to do it for a while.... either that or dreading it, but I highly doubt anyone would not want to see their mothers.

6. Kept all of his mothers memoirs and kept all of his old belongings... (all the stuff in the attic)

7. Since I'm runnin out of ideas.... He stayed with Evan on his birthday...

Question and answer isn't really my cup of tea... razz soooo I'll write a report on the characters mrgreen

Hey, take your time on whatever your workin on. It will all be awesome to read later on. smile

And finally the long awaited chap 21! smile heres some notes from the author...


A/N: Note that I stopped bleeping out the ********. Spell check catches it. <3

21

If you know my dad, you know that things can get really bad, fast.

For example—have you ever noticed that I say one word wrong and he explodes? Or if my expression is wrong, it leads to a fight?

This isn’t necessarily anyone’s fault. It’s not mine, though I thought it was—no one is perfect, and it’s stupid to try and be perfect. And it’s not necessarily my dad’s, I always knew that—some people have terrible tempers, and some people have alcohol addictions, and have low tolerance for anything much when drunk. It just so happened that Dad had all three.

It was usually easy to tell when my dad was angry, and when the slightest provocation would send him into a rage. It was to my benefit to learn this well; life was more peaceful that way. But what wasn’t easy to tell was that there was another kind of time bomb buried deeper in him, the kind with a fuse that didn’t light, but rather simmered; when blown upon, even just a little, it melted a tiny bit of the wick away. What wasn’t easy to see was that all of this was going downhill; it was only a matter of time before that huge explosive snapped open and blew us all to hell.

What wasn’t easy to see was that all the time, all that year and for every year after, my dad saw that I was changing, and he didn’t like it. What wasn’t easy to see was that all the time, though I never even suspected it, that fuse was simmering away.

I didn’t know my dad well enough to understand his temper. I didn’t know how he handled stress—bottle it up until it explodes. I didn’t know that he held onto half of his anger, the fury and frustration that he didn’t release on me or with drinking, and that it bottled up and roiled and burned and throbbed for years and years without mercy. I didn’t know that he was killing himself with it, with the alcohol, with the strain. I didn’t know that it was inevitable.

If I had known all of that, maybe I would have just let him hit me. Let him half-kill me until all the anger was out. Let him do what he wanted to, release the poison in him his own way.

You know what else I didn’t know?

It was genetic. I was the same. There was a little bomb ticking-ticking-ticking in my heart, filling up with nitroglycerin and fuel in the form of bitterness and desperation; and soon it would explode.

How soon? That wasn’t important. What was important was knowing who would explode first: me or my dad.

My home, once lightened by my mother’s presence, was now a deadly trap, with two ticking bombs sleeping upstairs and only a hallway to separate them.

One thing was for sure: when one exploded, it would take the other one with it to hell and beyond.

And there was no escape anymore.





Victoria Hinderman was my obsession, my addiction. She was to me the way drugs are to an addict. I couldn’t stop looking at her; I watched her instead of the whiteboard. My grades suffered because of this, but it wasn’t any different than all those days I’d come to school with such terrible headaches from bruises that my teachers all sounded like they had come straight from the Peanuts: Wah-wah, wah-wah wah wah.

And to be perfectly honest with myself, she made things better for me. She might indirectly cause me a few extra beatings now and then—I couldn’t focus on anything but her a lot of the time, and made mistakes—but she gave me a reason to come to school. The day after a rough evening, when I wanted nothing more than just to crawl back into bed and drug myself into oblivion—knowing that after kicking me a couple of times, maybe, Dad would stop caring—the thought of seeing Victoria got me up and helped me drag my way through the snow.

My chores became a little trickier in winter; all the snow and water everywhere caused a bunch of damage I was expected to fix. I didn’t have to do yard work anymore, but I did have to shovel the driveway twice a week at least. School wasn’t easy either, it went into overload between mid-January and April. I never knew how I had survived in the years before, but that year I felt that the only thing keeping me going was Victoria, the dream of one day speaking to her.

It was actually Kahmè that kept giving me hope; she was an angel still, no less so despite my disillusions, but had willingly moved behind the scenes. She was upset now and then, for reasons I didn’t see at the time, but now understand—she felt inferior to Victoria, felt like she was losing her best friend to some stuck-up girl. But for the most part, she feigned happiness, taking up a new attitude with me. Instead of breaking down every time I got hit, she took a more constructive approach, comforting me and doing what she could. She bathed my face in cool water for me, she filled a glass for me to drink, she kept a thermos of ginger and thyme tea beneath the bed with her food supply and gave me a capful whenever I complained of pain or insomnia. She got me through the night while Victoria got me through the day.

And most amazingly of all, she never asked for any credit for it. She understood that it was a rough time for me, and understood that I had to seek happiness and reason and hope wherever I could. She knew that forcing me to choose between her and Victoria would only hurt me; if I was delusional enough to think that I could have both with no consequences, she didn’t want to prove me wrong. She was supportive without passing judgment or ultimatums. In her own way, she was more mature than I would be for years.

One night, I heard her crying. I climbed out of bed and knelt down to investigate, frowning.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her.

She jumped, stared sadly at me with watery eyes. “Oh, Evan—I’m sorry!”

“For what?” I said hesitantly, wary of outbursts.

She shook her head wordlessly, unable to tell me properly. “I just…it’s all…so….” She sniffed hard, forcing the words out: “So hopeless!”

I blinked, frightened by the word; was she just being melodramatic? “Oh…um….” Boys, pardon us, usually don’t know the right thing to say. “No it’s not,” I finally mumbled.

“Yes it is!” she wailed, and buried her head in a pillow and sobbed. I awkwardly rubbed her arm, letting her grab my hand, unsure what to do.

Eventually, she stopped crying. But she still thought it was hopeless. I think that in her own way, she knew more about the time bombs in my house than anyone ever would.





January ticked on like it usually did, cold and slushy and painful. Things had changed in a way that made me uneasy; Kahmè tried to pretend she didn’t care when I stumbled in after a fight, but I knew she was fighting tears, and I knew that half the time, she lay at the top of the stairs and watched me breathlessly until I could come back to her. I couldn’t decide if I liked apathy or pity better; I found myself wishing that she could have been innocent forever. She was changed, permanently; as was I.

She had also fallen into the habit of talking to me before I went to bed; I didn’t mind it much until the conversation inevitably turned to my current situation. She asked me to tell her things, all the things Dad had done to me, what it was like, how I felt. I thought she was being masochistic or sadistic (I couldn’t decide) and refused at first, but she kept gently pressing for answers; so, though I didn’t know what good it would do, I told her truthfully everything I could remember, to the best of my abilities. She was a good listener, and only very, very rarely vocalized the timid thought that I should ask someone for help. I denied her on every argument, informing her that my threats still applied (though I never repeated them, it made me feel awful just thinking about them), and then she shut up. Her only other extraneous comments were strings of swear words or a hug and a sad little, “I never knew….I never even guessed….”

I found out later that this was Kahmè’s way of expressing depression: filling her mind with a problem that wasn’t going away, not bothering to try and lift either of us out, letting it consume her, inwardly blaming herself. She was still and quiet when that mood overtook her, which wasn’t often; she let everything pass her by or join the storm around her heart. Idiot that I was, I never saw it as such; it went on for almost three months straight, her strange and unhappy demeanor, and yet I only noticed that something was wrong when she started eating less, and growing thinner.

This was March, the snow was almost gone, and most of the kids in Skyland were walking around in boots, jeans, and long t-shirts; I kept my snow pants and undershirt since I was always so cold, but Kahmè wrapped herself up in her parka and long socks and my comforter and curled up under my bed, staring off into space. I wasn’t around too much to notice her odd behavior, but when she became dull-eyed and –spirited and had tearstains on her cheeks, combined with her loss of appetite and weight, I became worried.

“Kahmè,” I said to her one day, bearing to my room a bowl of soup, “you gotta eat.”

“I’m not hungry,” she said faintly. She was hidden under the bed; I knelt by the bedside, the soup held out like an offering.

“You haven’t eaten much though,” I protested. “You’re getting too skinny.”

She ignored me.

“Kahmè, please.”

“Not hungry,” she repeated.

“Please? For me?”

“I don’t want it….”

“It’s your favorite though, see, vegetarian vegetable!”

“Just leave me ‘lone….”

I set the soup carefully down and reached beneath the bed, laying flat as I took her warm hand in mine. She stared hollowly at me as I gazed back with concern.

“What’s wrong, Kahmè?” I asked her, giving her hand a squeeze. “Please tell me…what’s the matter?”

“Nothin’,” she sighed, eyelids dropping down as she stared at the carpet.

“Please tell me,” I repeated, not buying it for a moment. “Please. You’re scaring me.”

She sighed again, deeply, with the same sort of alleviating air that cutters possess when bleeding stress away. Then she crawled out from under the bed, sat up, and hugged me hard.

“What’s wrong?” I asked again, worried.

She murmured something I didn’t catch.

“What?”

I grasped her shoulders and pulled her back, staring blankly at her. She was crying again; she wiped her eyes and swiftly turned away.

“I just…I….” She struggled for a moment. “/I/ wanna help YOU….”

“Don’t worry about me,” I said impatiently. “You haven’t been yourself, Kahmè.”

“’M okay,” she murmured, as if hoping that a decrease in volume would hide her lie better.

I hugged her, an odd emotion something like pain stabbing at my chest. “Please just be happy,” I pleaded.

“I am,” she protested faintly.

“No you’re not.” True, I wasn’t very observant most of the time, but even I had noticed her mood darkening by the day. “What’s the matter?”

I pulled away, searching her face for answers; but she just sighed again and picked up her soup, eating a few delicate spoonfuls. She settled back against my bed and poked at it a bit before each bite, as if the vegetables were enacting her own personal Doomsday within.

“What’s wrong?” I asked her again.

“I’m eatin’….”

“I mean, besides that….”

She chewed carefully on a potato, swallowed, and wiped her mouth before replying. “I just…I feel so bad, Evan….”

“Why?” I demanded.

She sniffed a little and scrubbed at her eyes. “’Cause I can’t do anything….”

“Aw, come on,” I moaned, finally understanding. “This seriously isn’t about….” How to phrase it? “DAD, is it?”

“Well, since YOU don’t care,” she snapped, “someone’s gotta!”

“If I don’t care, why should anyone else?” I shrugged.

Kahmè scowled at me, looking ready to throw her bowl at me; only the knowledge that I got enough of that from Dad stopped her. “Well maybe you SHOULD care!” she shrieked at me, her temper suddenly flaring. “Maybe you should CARE that you could DIE from all this, you KNOW that, Evan! You KNOW if he just…hits you wrong….”

I made a face, looking away. “I know,” I said quietly.

“Then why don’t you even CARE?” she demanded, close to tears now. “Do you WANT to die?”

“No,” I winced. “I just…you don’t understand….”

“Understand what?” she shot back.

I bit my lip; how could I explain? I deserved it, for one; I did make the mistakes he punished me for, after all. And he was my dad. He was supposed to take care of me, and one supposes that includes punishment. I may not have liked it, but I obviously had to improve…. And let’s face it: what choice did I have?

Kahmè didn’t let me answer; she shoved her soup away and stood up, her hands clenched into fists. “Maybe I DO understand,” she said, anger and frustration thick in her voice. “Maybe it’s because I’m not DELUSIONAL, maybe that’s why I understand EVERYTHING, Evan! You’re so stupid!”

She shook her head, hard, and then made to run for the window, but I caught her arm before she could.

“No, you don’t understand anything!” I said furiously, rising to my own feet. “Why don’t you just worry about your own s**t and stay out of mine?”

“Maybe I WANT to help you!” she shouted back. “Maybe I don’t want to see you get hurt anymore!”

“What, you think I LIKE this? There’s nothing you can do, just forget about it!”

“FORGET ABOUT IT?” she screamed, so loudly that I had to cover her mouth with my hand.

“Shut the ******** up, Kahmè!” I hissed desperately. “Goddamn, do you WANT him to hear you?”

She pulled my hand away, glaring at me. “There’s a whole lot I want him to hear, all right,” she snapped.

I caught her wrist, squeezed it hard, my eyes narrowing. “You are NEVER going to speak to him,” I said fervently. “You are never, ever going to even LOOK at him. He is NOT going to EVER know of your existence, do you hear me?”

She tried to tug her hand away, but I wouldn’t let her go.

“Do you HEAR me, Kahmè?!”

“You’re scared of him,” she said quietly, and a bit of tenderness crept back into her voice, permeating the thick layers of desperation. “He’s all you’ve got left, and you’re scared of him.”

“What’s it matter to you?” I said sharply, too stressed to soften my words. “You can’t do anything.”

She thrust her chin defiantly upward, meeting my gaze without hesitation. “Wanna bet?”

Then she gasped; almost automatically, it had seemed to me, my wrist had turned, taking hers with it. “Don’t you even ******** mess around,” I snarled. “You—will—not—tell.”

“What’re you going to do to stop me?” she said boldly, though she looked—justifiably—scared. “Hit me?”

“That’s not funny, Kahmè!” My voice rose; I felt poisoned by rage. I don’t remember twisting her arm harder, but I do remember her little cry of pain. “Don’t even JOKE about that, what the ******** is wrong with you?” The truth was: her words hurt me. “How could you even SAY that?”

“Then let go of me!” she cried, pulling her wrist down; the force pushed my thumb away and forced me to let her go. She turned her back to me and practically jumped for the window. I grabbed at her and grasped a handful of her hood, swiveling her around again.

“Where the ******** do you think you’re going?” I hissed.

“Let me go!” She struggled, but I grabbed the collar of her undershirt and held her in place.

“You are not telling anybody,” I warned her, a deadly rage twisting through me, uncontrollable; the time bomb ticked deafeningly in my ears with every pulse of my heart. “You’re not telling, if you tell I swear to God, Kahmè, I’ll ******** kill you—”

She burst into tears, her defenses falling; that wasn’t fair play, she couldn’t fight threats and hostility like that. “Let go,” she wailed, tugging uselessly at my hand. “Let go, let go, Evan, I won’t tell, I swear I won’t tell….”

I let her go; the rage subsided, and I felt a tug of pain at my heart as I realized what I’d done. Kahmè swayed on her feet for a moment, sobbing so hard that it pained even me, then sank down the wall, covered her face, and sobbed heartbreakingly onto my carpet. I took a timid step back, helplessness strangling me, unsure of what to do.

After a moment Kahmè composed herself, slightly; she rose shakily to her feet, never looking at me, and jerked my window open. I started, guilt pulsing through my heart, and caught her sleeve again; but more gently, this time.

“Don’t go,” I begged her, close to tears myself. “It’s really cold….”

She pulled free, ignoring me, and stuck one leg out of the window.

“Please, Kahmè,” I said softly.

She paused, sighed; then she slowly climbed back inside, closing the window and staring not through it, but at it. Then she turned and hugged me tightly around my waist.

“I’m sorry,” she said, her tears dampening the front of my shirt.

“Don’t be.” Guilt clawed at my insides. “I lost it…I’m awful….”

“I didn’t mean that,” she sighed.

I didn’t know what to say; I just kept hugging her, hoping that everything I wanted to say would somehow soak through her skin, until I could finally find the words.



The trouble with those words was, I already knew what they were; I just didn’t understand what they meant. Most people don’t, I suppose, at least not during their teenage years; and I’m afraid some people never will.

I, personally, was doing at that time something a lot of people do when laboring under the false tales society feeds us. I was under the impression that as far as true love was concerned, it only happened once, and if not, it happened with many years in between. And sadly, I combined that with the ignorance of what love really was, for me (it’s different for everybody, as I’ve found out). So with that being said, it wouldn’t take too much to figure out that I had already pinned Victoria down as the one and only love of my life.

And to my chagrin, now, I did actually think I loved her; I used that same word in my head, though never aloud. In all the books I had read, it seemed to fit: man sees a pretty woman, falls madly in love, gets to know her, perhaps they kiss; and that was about as far as I would imagine going. It was my dream and goal in life just to hold her hand, have her smile at me, know that she accepted me. But like a cheap romance novel, I didn’t think I was good enough; so I soaked the beauty and glory of her in from afar, dreaming but never doing, knowing that her kind and my kind did not mix.

As for her kind, it was actually not that different from mine; and yet, Victoria was a class unto herself. The boys all thought she was hot, and kept flirting with her, even though she was obviously too strange to do anything more than look at; they knew she was smart, and felt intimidated, knowing they could never have a proper conversation with her. So though they thought she was beautiful, too, they outcast her from the rest, picking on her for reading and studying and being different. The girls with boyfriends hated her and spread awful rumors, determined to pay her back for stealing their men’s attentions; the single girls pitied her, yet ostracized her all the same, finding her too odd and eccentric to really connect to. Hers was a lonely existence.

I didn’t really know this until an afternoon in March; I had always thought she reigned over all the other eighth graders, and therefore the entire school, never suspecting that she might be even lonelier than I. I did see that on occasion, boys picked on her, and girls laughed with them; I wished fervently that I could rise from my seat and force them all to silence—I wished I had my dad’s power, the power to subdue and punish. But I was too cowardly; and a logical part of me informed the rest that that was a (normal) guy’s way of showing affection to a girl, they were calling attention to her to show her off. And then my heart filled with jealousy, my cowardice becoming still more abhorred and the frustration at myself growing ever stronger.

But that afternoon in March, I saw her situation differently; in fact, she explained it to me herself.

That day in English, she had been picked on again when the teacher wasn’t paying attention; I watched her in awe, admiring her bravery and steel as she sat straight, head held high, ignoring all the comments with a stern and vacant look on her lovely face. Like a Marie Antoinette who had done no wrong. Audrey Hepburn walking away from the vicious paparazzi. Elizabeth I braving the Tower to resist her sister Bloody Mary’s slaughters. I was absorbed in the beauty of her, noting how different she looked—how angular and firm and strong, and yet somehow delicate—when she was under attack.

Eventually the boys grew bored of her and returned to joking around with each other; I kept dreamily watching Victoria from across the room. Then suddenly she turned around in her seat, throwing a sharp, watery-eyed glare at the cluster of boys. Her eyes caught mine; I stared in absolute shock—was she crying? Rock-hard, poised Victoria, brought to tears…unacceptable….

Victoria turned away; I, shaken, continued to watch, waiting for a sign of tears, but somehow she held them in.

The teacher must have been feeling very lazy that day, because she really didn’t teach us anything; she just wrote some work on the board and tried to grade some papers, but failed to concentrate. After fifteen minutes of suffering she finally left the room; she assigned the usual brainy wimp to keep the class in order, and within thirty seconds of her departure the class was in complete chaos. It was the last class of a Friday; nothing was reining them in.

I covered my ears and continued to watch Victoria, scowling when drifting girls or roughhousing boys obstructed my view. I was just tracing the curve of one strand of hair brushing her cheek as she dutifully did her work, when a few of the boys returned to harass her.

“Excuse me,” she said frostily, glaring up at them. “I’m trying to do my work.”

They didn’t listen; they laughed and kept bothering her, mocking her when she passed a cutting remark. My blood boiled; they’d almost made her cry, and they were bothering her yet again. I decided that I’d had enough.

I took my pencil and pulled the tip casually back, releasing it at the edge of the desk, like I’d seen all the boys in the grade do; it made a satisfying crack, and the wood split a little. I did it again, a little harder, and a few girls gave me disapproving glances; then I pulled back harder than ever, aimed carefully, and let go. The pencil spun out of my hands and just missed the lead antagonist’s nose; he blinked, then swiveled around. I stared innocently back.

“Hey,” he called; a lot of the people in the class grew silent. He was one of the people you just didn’t mess with. “Who threw that?”

I ignored the menacing tone; Dad was a lot scarier than he was. “Sorry,” I called mildly. “Slipped out of my hands.”

A chorus of “oooh”s greeted this statement; a couple of boys nudged each other, ribbing their neighbor and saying in an undertone, “Ooh, freak’s messed with the wrong dude!” Or something stupid like that.

Tough Guy didn’t like the thought of that. “Hey, Moor,” he snapped at me, threateningly clenching his fists, “you got a problem?”

“Nah,” I replied, shrugging and carelessly opening a book. “But don’t worry, you’ve got enough problems for both of us.”

Some people burst out laughing; Tough Guy, however, looked about ready to blow a gasket. “What the ******** did you just say to me?” he demanded.

My courage was bleeding out; I was certain that I couldn’t escape getting my a** kicked this time; all I could do was shrug. I wished I could take back every word I’d said; and I wished I could die when I saw Victoria’s face—she was looking at me like I had grown a second head.

The group of guys stormed over to me; I flinched and hid my face in my book, wondering if they were going to hit me right away or just yell first. It turned out to be neither; the biggest one just lifted one side of my desk clear off the ground, dumping me with a cry onto the floor. Another grabbed my shirt and hoisted me up, pushing my back against the wall.

“What the ******** is your deal, freak?” demanded the tallest one—they all, admittedly, looked tall to me.

I tried to pull away, desperation crawling at my throat. “Leave me alone!” I shouted, hoping someone would hear me and take pity. “Just leave me alone!”

But to my dismay—and it still hurts me now—no one came to my defense, not even Victoria, whom I had just rescued; instead, I heard choruses of encouragement, insults, and the worst of all: silence. Victoria’s sweet voice was not heard; she simply watched, still looking at me like I was starring in a freak show.

One of the boys pushed my shoulder, hard, knocking me askew; for a moment no one was holding me, and I tried to shove my way free, but someone just grabbed my arm again. I kept shouting—whining really—for them to leave me alone, get away from me, but they ignored me; they were toying with me like a cat with a mouse, pushing me from hands to hands to wall before they grew bored enough to start hitting me.

But thank God, the teacher came back before they got to the hitting part. The “parliamentarian” of the class cried shrilly that she was coming—I suppose to gain some sort of kudos in the bullies’ eyes—and suddenly, I was standing alone; I sank shakily back into my seat, rubbing my sore arms before folding them and burying my head within them. The teacher said something, then retreated to her desk; all was mostly silent again.

Something hit the side of my head; I looked up and saw a small paper ball on the floor. I picked it up and opened it. On the back of an old assignment, the front forever branded with a large 37, a clumsy hand had scrawled:

YOU CAN

RUN

BUT

YOU

CAN’T

HIDE

FREAK

WHY did they have to call me that? What had I ever done that would be considered freaky? I wasn’t a contortionist, or a sword swallower, I didn’t have any double joints, I couldn’t even make weird faces even if I’d wanted to. I wasn’t a freak. Tears welled in my eyes, and the letter blurred; I crumpled it up and forcefully threw it at the trash can, missing entirely, burying my head again, freeing the pain and embarrassment in a flood of tears. They were going to hunt me down after this class was over, and beat the s**t out of me, and I’d get punished at home for it, and all Victoria would ever do about it was sit there and stare at me, like I really was a freak.

I reluctantly rose and grabbed my backpack when the bell rang; the classroom cleared, everyone eager to get to where they wanted to go. I sighed, in no hurry; I knew those idiots would be waiting for me just outside the school grounds. I heaved my backpack from the floor to the desk, then slipped it on and turned to leave.

Then I jumped; I wasn’t the only one in the classroom. Victoria had stayed behind again.

I looked away, hoping that I could stumble past her without seeing that look anymore, but when I tried to pass her desk she blocked my way.

“What?” I said quietly, taking a step back.

“I thought I told you not to stare at me like that anymore,” she said sternly.

I flushed, all the anger and frustration peaking and channeling in the wrong direction; luckily I was too soft-toned by nature to say anything in an angry fashion to her. “I didn’t hear any mandates,” I mumbled.

To my utter amazement, she started laughing. “You’re funny,” she told me.

I blinked at the carpet.

“You’re not like anyone else.”

I flushed harder. “Don’t remind me,” I muttered, trying to step past her again; this time she didn’t get in my way. “I gotta go….”

“Hey,” she called, and I automatically stopped. “I’m really sorry…for…you know.”

My heart leapt, then sank; she was just being nice. “Don’t worry about it.”

“That was really cool though.”

I blinked again; cool? Me? “Uh…um….”

“Thanks for sticking up for me.”

“You’re welcome,” I said automatically. I turned to face her again, suddenly; she wasn’t making fun of me. “But….”

She ignored my unasked question, her delicate eyebrows furrowing as her eyes scoured my face. I blushed once more. “You’re all bruised up again.”

“Um,” was all I could say to that.

“I TOLD them to leave you alone, but do they listen…?”

I blinked.

“Morons! They keep coming and coming but they can’t even follow a simple order….”

I wished that I could sympathize; I wished I could say something clever that would make her laugh again. But instead, I blurted out the thought that had consumed me since January.

“Can I walk you home?”

She watched me for a moment, considering; then she smiled. “Sure.”

I thought my heart might explode with joy and disbelief. I stood, frozen, as she hoisted her backpack and her purse and a small stack of books, coming to stand by me in the doorway. She smiled up at me. “Coming?”

“Y-yeah,” I stammered. “Um…you want me to…?”

“I can carry it,” she replied offhandedly. I followed her like a lovesick puppy down the hall.

“But it looks heavy.”

“Eh, it’s always been heavy. I can handle it.”

“But your shoulders….”

“What about them?”

“W-well…they’re so perfect when they’re…not….” I stopped myself, mentally kicking my own a** for saying such stupid stuff.

Victoria laughed, not taking me seriously. “Thanks. They’ll be fine.”

“C-can I…get your books, maybe…?”

“No one touches my books,” she smirked. “But you can carry my bag for me.”

I flushed harder than ever, knowing what that implied: a guy who carried a girl’s purse for her was either whipped, or gay. Neither were very nice. “Um…if you want….”

“I’m kidding,” she giggled. I guessed that it was either a joke or a test, and decided to say nothing. I followed her in silence out of the school doors; we turned the opposite way from my route home, and I realized happily that if I played my cards right, I wouldn’t get hit by those stupid boys, at least not until Monday. Maybe they’d forget….

We walked in silence; I was usually comfortable in silence, but today I was screaming for some kind of small talk. I didn’t want to look like an idiot by talking about the weather, but I had to say something….

I caught sight of the book she was carrying: Jane Eyre. I’d heard of it, but never read it.

“What book’re you reading?” I said desperately.

“Jane Eyre.” So that was how you pronounced it.

“What’s it about?”

“Jane Eyre.”

I laughed uncomfortably, feeling very stupid indeed. “What happens to her?”

“Well, you can read the….” She trailed off, perusing the back of the book. “No, that makes it sound like a cheap romance novel,” she sighed.

“May I see?”

She laughed at me, for some reason—my odd way of speaking I suppose, I could talk like someone from the 19th century if I wanted to—and handed the book to me. I scanned the back cover.

“You’re right,” I admitted. “It does sound like a really cheesy romance/horror novel…like those weird vampire books.”

“Exactly.” She laughed.

“What IS it about?” I inquired.

“Well…I haven’t gotten very far, but….” She pondered it for a second. “It’s about her life, I suppose. It’s rather dull.”

I liked the way she said that—it was part of what made her special, the way she spoke. “The book is dull?”

“No. Her life is.”

“But it said on the back that she’d been abused for 18 years….” My stomach turned over yet again at the thought; how awful would that be?

“No, really it was only until she was ten….”

“That’s still a long time.” Even assuming that they left her alone for five, six years, that was still as long a time as I’d…been…. “How did they abuse her?”

“Her cousins picked on her, one hit her sometimes—I don’t know. She didn’t go into it much. The book started with her cousin throwing a book at her, she fought back, and then she got locked in a haunted room all day and night….”

I winced; then fell behind so Victoria couldn’t see my expression. But to my surprise, she kept pace with me. “And then what?”

“She was sent to a school.”

“What kind of school?”

“Boarding school. Apparently it wasn’t a very good one.”

“Why?”

“They didn’t clothe or feed them very well and everyone was hungry and cold and miserable all winter. And in the spring half of them got typhus fever….”

“Jane did?”

“No, she was fine. And after that they reformed the whole school, and everything was set right….”

“Why do you think that’s dull?”

“Well, because her life isn’t very EXCITING. It WAS exciting, but then everything was just fine again…it was kind of boring….”

“You think it’s boring that she was happy?”

“She wasn’t happy. That’s why she went to Thornfield. She was just safe.”

“Wouldn’t being safe make you happy?”

“Apparently not.” Victoria shrugged. “She was kind of trapped, if you ask me….”

“How?”

“Well, she stayed at that school all year, she had to ask permission to go anywhere, she wasn’t paid much, I don’t think, and she had so many things expected of her, and nowhere else to go. And girls of that time were all trapped, they had to become ladies or nothing was available to them….”

“Still, she had a job, she must have been content with her life….”

“No, she wasn’t. It wasn’t bad I suppose, but she wanted excitement…she wasn’t free,” Victoria mused. “I suppose she had to make the choice between safety and freedom….”

I swallowed. Was she saying that directly to me? Did she know what was going on in my mind? “Which would you pick?” I asked her, wondering if I was insane.

“Freedom,” she said, without a moment’s doubt.

“Oh.” I looked away, kicking at a slushy lump of snow.

“You wouldn’t pick that?”

I shook my head. “I’d want safety.”

“Why?”

I shrugged. “No good being free if you’re dead.”

“You’re going to die anyway; you might as well live it up first.”

I sighed, thinking. We walked another block in silence.

“You know,” I finally said, flushing at my own boldness, “you can have both.”

“Can you?” she inquired.

“Yes.” I looked up at the sky for inspiration, hoping I wouldn’t tangle up my words. “Well, if you’re…if you’re sitting in your room,” I mused, “and you’re safe…you know nothing’s going to hurt you…you can be safe…but then….” I softly tapped the book she was holding. “Read a book, and you’re free then….”

“Are you?” She sounded genuinely interested.

“Yes, I think you would be. And it’s the same if…if you’re NOT safe,” I muttered, “because when you read, you can forget about it…you’re safe there…nothing in a book can hurt you.”

A theory for her, and a theory for me. They weren’t very different, really. Just switched around.

“You know, I never thought about it that way.” Victoria turned to me and smiled. I swallowed hard and could think of nothing to say.

We talked about books all the way to her house, which was small and quaint-looking and looked unkempt, but loved. A pink tricycle and some plastic toys lay scattered in the yard.

“You have a sister?” I asked politely.

“Two, actually. They’re a pain.” She pulled an angelic grimace.

“I wouldn’t mind sisters,” I murmured, staring thoughtfully at the toys. They looked like something Kahmè might like.

“You can take mine,” Victoria laughed. I laughed with her, unsure why that was funny. “Well, thanks for walking me home,” she added gratefully, shifting her backpack and turning halfway toward the door.

“Thank you too,” I said before I realized that that was not what one was supposed to say. I flushed; Victoria smiled as if she found me amusing.

“Later.”

“Bye.” I waved awkwardly to her until she had disappeared into her house. Then I turned and began the long circuitous route home, thinking. I’d made kind of a mess out of it…but a conversation with Victoria! She was wonderful. Brilliant. Perfect.

And my thoughts sidetracked a little after a half-mile, pondering about girls and why Victoria was so different; then I thought, like the idiot I was, Wow, I could never talk to Kahmè about all this stuff.

And the sad truth was that I could; I had just never tried before.

It's not just her looks...well yeah it is.

At least it's not her butt. *shrug*


Victoria reminds me of me.