Welcome to Gaia! ::

It sure ain't Mercury.

I'm so glad I could pull off the diction thing, Oukow. <333 It's hard to tell if I can make people feel anything, because gods know I can't.

This kinda thing happens all the time in my stories. :/ I think it says something about me.

o.o

Yay! Hope you like the next stuff!

I love Nana... <3
I wanna see my grandma now....! Ooh, and I wanna bake cookies now too....Oatmeal Chocolate Chip..!
Nana gives me the feeling that my grandma gives me. <3


To Chapter 14: ....*squeaks* ;~; gonk stressed eek cry scream neutral cry gonk crying stare crying sad evil domokun scream gonk crying eek ;~;

crap isn't a bad word. :/

Wow. Everyone is so emotional today. o.o

Oukow: *luffles you*

I think in a way it says Kirby Needs Serious Help, and at the same time Something Is Wrong With Our World So Go Fix It. *shrug* I just write.

hey hey give MD some credit hes enjoying his new zelda game soooooo so much! biggrin anyhow heres new chapter razz

15

It is in the nature of people to change, to alter themselves, and to grow up. No lifestyle, no diversionary tactic, no Peter Pan can stop the natural tendencies from coming out of us; we are what we are, and what we are is human, a race that sees things not as they are but as they can be. A human sees deep inside itself in adolescence, discovers who and what he wants to be, and becomes that person, slowly, learning invaluable lessons along the way.

I was no different than any human, save that perhaps I started earlier than usual. Just as we try to stay childlike when we must grow older, I had done the same thing in reverse: I was too old for my age, bearing too many responsibilities and problems. To compensate, I gave up friends and the other amusements and diversions common to twelve-year-old boys, so I would have more time to adjust and fewer distractions; but in that, I was missing out on everything important in life. I didn’t understand that until much, much later in life; by then the myopic effect of everything that had been hammered into me had lifted, and I understood that it couldn’t have been helped. My dad wanted me to grow up, forced me to ahead of time; I, powerless to defy him, had had to comply, and I accept now that there was nothing I could have done, and at the same time no way of getting those lost years and lessons back. We are who we choose to be; and yet we know what we are made to know. That’s just the way life works.

Thank God for Kahmè, is all I have to say about that time. From the bottom of my heart…thank God. She was too late, or perhaps lacked the power, to heal the wounds against my tarnished heart and mind, but she saved me; she taught me how to live. She showed me that there was more to the world—and more to the people in it—than I would have ever dreamed; she taught me how to see the best in people, how to help them bring it out. She was gentle, she was patient, but she was determined; who knows why she chose to help me? Who can say what led her to take on such a hopeless cause? And yet she did, and I hope every day that she realizes how much I owe her for it…and I hope as well that she thinks it was worth it, that I was worth all of that.

My transformation by no means happened overnight, but like I said, people change, and I changed just a little, but just enough, that summer. The freedom, the sunlight, the adventures she gave me made me a different person, actually sort of brought forth a new person that was already inside me alongside the old one; though I had wanted to then, I couldn’t stuff the new me back into the shadows from whence it came, so it stayed, impairing my judgment and making me question Dad’s proclamation of The Way Things Are. That summer acted as a catalyst to drastic changes, leading to equally drastic events—and with me, drama is never the good kind, more of a nightmare straight from hell.

I don’t know what would have happened if Kahmè had given up on me that first day, or if we had never met at all. All I can say for sure is that I am, as of now, not dead, and I accredit Kahmè for that one hundred percent, and will every day for the rest of my life.



Summer continued like it had been, with Dad working again come August and me going through my usual preparations for school. Those preparations being: timidly asking Dad one evening about school supplies, trembling as I let him explode in my direction, taking the punches in silence, then explaining humbly that I couldn’t use the notebooks from last year, they were all filled up, and I was out of folders, paper, and glue. (I was cautious and didn’t mention pencils or pens—not after what had happened to my finger.) Dad continued beating me up but had to consent in ill grace, handing me a twenty and pointing sternly at me, making me cross-eyed, while threatening that if I didn’t bring him the receipt, and if I didn’t bring the correct change back home….

Yeah, I knew what would happen.

This scene occurred every year before school. Now that I was getting to be older, I thought the whole production was a bit nonsensical; Dad sent me to a public school, it was unreasonable to b***h about a few dollars’ worth of school supplies when he could be paying for my tuition too. I shuddered at the thought of how much I’d have to suffer for $15,000 a year, and then decided carefully that I wouldn’t make it through that, so it was best not to consider it at all. Still, this whole thing with Dad…. Well, when I thought about it, it felt to me like he was just looking for a reason to hurt me.

It was because I sucked at being a human being, I sighed to myself. He hated me because I was useless, stupid, everything he said I was. I’d be frustrated too, I reminded myself naïvely, and thought that it made a lot more sense thinking about it that way, and promptly forgot about the whole debacle.

I bought everything I needed, showed Dad the receipt when I got home, handed him his change, and when it was clear that I had not cheated him out of anything, started making dinner as usual. He in turn shoved a paper bag at me later, snapped at me to go hang it up; I poked around and saw a dark green polo, some socks, a new pair of jeans, thanked him politely, dodged an irritated swing, and put them away. As I did so, I held the clothes up against me and saw that they were too big. I’d have to start using my belt again, just when I had finally started to fit in my old pants…. I made sure the belt was still rolled up in my drawer, touching it nervously as I recalled the tales of the old man, Troy. I’d never hurt anyone with a belt, I vowed to myself then and there. And then a weaker vow: I’d never hurt anyone at all. A vow I shouldn’t have expected myself to keep.

Life went on. School started, and I prepared myself for another long, boring, difficult year, this time the seventh grade instead of the sixth. I was in junior high, and in two weeks I would be a teenager. Whoop-de-freaking-do.

One day—August the 21st—I came home and found Kahmè making inroads on a miniature cake, covered in cream cheese icing and slices of strawberries. She grinned when she saw me. “Hi, Evan,” she sang, shoving the remnants of the cake at me. “Saved you a piece!”

“Thanks,” I told her, feeling the stressful tangle in my chest that school created loosen in her presence. “What’s this for?”

“Well I made a cake outta your stuff,” she explained. “So you get a piece. C’mon, eat it, eat it!”

I supposed, then, that it was the sugar high making her so delirious. I took a bite of the cake; it was the most delicious of its kind I’d ever tasted. I poured us some milk and together we devoured every trace of it.

“So how was school?” she asked me as I started to clean, something akin to jealousy mixed with awe in her voice. She loved school, or at least what she thought it was.

I made a face. “Total s**t,” I replied eloquently.

She sympathized, and I told her what had happened; I’d gotten cornered by gangs again, I’d been made fun of in the presence of a class full of people who all hated me, a teacher had really pissed me off. She listened in quiet comfort, sat and watched me scrub walls and floors and sinks and countertops. I did as I always did, kept my silence and let her do the talking, but for some reason, she didn’t feel like it today. I let her be quiet if she wanted to be, but she didn’t seem to find it as comfortable a silence as I did; I left her alone, but when I looked up, she was gone.

I called for her, looked all around, didn’t see her. Frowning, I decided to look; what was wrong with her? Maybe she was playing some game….

I searched all around the first floor, and then climbed the stairs; my ears honed in on a soft sound that I couldn’t make out. I went one way, and then the other, deciding upon the direction, then tiptoed to the right, toward my room. As I drew nearer, I could make out the sound; sniffles and a forlorn little voice singing in an Oriental language. I paused, bewildered, and the song stopped, starting again in Italian. And though I didn’t know the words, I knew what they meant; I knew that tune, everyone did.

“Tanti augori a te,

Tanti augori a te

Tanti augooori a-a-a Kahmè….”

I gently pushed my door open and stared at Kahmè, lost for words, my heart sinking as I realized what was going on.

Kahmè had been lying on my bed, wrapped in my blankets; but as I stepped in, she stopped singing to herself and quickly sat up, burying her nose in the covers. I could still tell that she had been crying.

“What’s wrong?” I said automatically.

“Nothing,” she said, just as reflexively.

I didn’t buy it. I crossed my room and sat beside her; she shrunk away and buried all but one eye. “What’s wrong?” I asked her again, more quietly and gently this time. “I heard you singing….”

Kahmè started crying all over again; she buried her face in my shoulder and let herself sob. “I’m sorry, Evan! I’m sorry!”

“What’s wrong?” I asked her yet again. “What’re you so sorry about?”

She looked up at me, sniffling and teary-eyed. “It’s my birthday, Evan….”

I gave her a look that, I hope, showed her how weird I thought she was being. “That’s not anything to be sorry about,” I muttered, remembering then that I’d forgotten her birthday…how horrible was that? And her all alone…and I’d complained to her about my day, never told her happy birthday, never got her a present…. Overwhelmed, I hugged her without looking at her. “I’m the one that’s sorry,” I told her, sighing. “I’m really sorry, I forgot….”

“No you didn’t,” she sniffed, scrubbing at her eyes with my comforter. “Didn’t tell you, ‘member? ‘Cause…I dunno what the American calendar is….”

“It’s okay, you’ll remember next time,” I said firmly, trying to drown out my own guilt. “It’s the…the tw-…yeah, the 21st. Of August,” I added for clarification. “I won’t ever forget it again, I promise….”

“’M sorry,” she said again. The huge empty ball of guilt throbbed inside me.

“Jeez, Kahmè,” I moaned. “What are YOU sorry for?”

“’Cause…’cause….” She had to think about it. “’Cause, I dunno…’cause you feel bad….”

“Well I should, I forgot your birthday!” I bit my lip, thinking hard. I’d just traded Dad the other day for my lunch allowance—twenty dollars in exchange for twenty minutes of sheer hell. And my bank in my closet was still overflowing…. I’d take another twenty, I decided, and let her pick out something she wanted. Anything. Everything. “I’ll make it up to you,” I swore.

“Don’t have to, Evan,” she objected. “’S okay….”

“No it isn’t, you’re my best friend and I’m getting you a birthday present,” I said firmly.

If only everyone in the world had seen the look on her face when I said that—sheer happiness, sweet, pure joy, the prettiest smile I’d ever seen in my life. If they had, I know the world would be a much better place for it, now that people could see the sweet, simple cheer of a pleased little girl. If I had a smile like that, I’d show everyone, I decided to myself later, and they’d see nothing bad in me…and they’d never hurt me again. My stomach did a backflip, and then disappeared, but my mind wasn’t coherent enough to miss it.

“You’re so nice, Evan,” she told me again and again, lost for any other words, and she hugged the life out of me for about three and a half minutes until I could finally stop blushing and get her to let go.

“But Evan,” she protested, though her eyes were wide and shining at the thought of such generosity, “doncha gotta have money and stuff here, to get things?”

“Yeah,” I said carelessly, shrugging. “So?”

“Well, I….” She pondered that; it was clear to me that the concept of one small piece of paper traded for anything in the world astounded her, but such was American currency. Capitalism thrived here: if you had the money, you could have anything except a good, happy, fulfilling life. “Do you have enough?” she finally said, trying to sound politely concerned and not disappointed at all.

I grinned, laughed at the thought; “Do I have enough,” I repeated incredulously, trying to perk her up. “I’ll show you how much I’ve got, come see.”

I tugged her off of the bed and pulled my dresser over a couple of feet, climbing up and reaching into my closet. I grabbed the mason jar and jumped down, pushing the dresser back and emptying my money onto the floor. Kahmè stared at it in wonder.

“Wow,” she murmured, reaching out to touch a shiny quarter. “Wo-ow, wow.”

I stared down at it, too, amazed. There were a lot more twenties and tens than I had thought. There was definitely more than a hundred dollars in here…. “C’mon, Kahmè,” I said, suddenly excited. “Wanna help me count it?”

“’Kay!” she agreed, at once dropping to her knees and grabbing at nickels, dimes, quarters. Pennies were quickly her favorite, I noticed. “How many are there, Evan?” she asked me, awed. I sat beside her, shaking my head.

“I dunno. That’s why we’re counting.”

Her eyes widened. “You can count that high?”

I laughed, then frowned. “Yeah. How high can you count?”

“Nine hundred and ninety-nine,” she said proudly, grinning at me. “Never learned what came next.”

I smiled; she was so cute. “One thousand,” I told her. Her eyes went wide again. “And after that, it’s one thousand one, one thousand two…and you keep going like that, and then one thousand ninety-nine, and then you go to two thousand, and on and on.”

Her eyes were so huge that she looked like a little copper-colored bug for a moment; I laughed at her. “Wow, Evan, you’re so smart!” she told me. “Where’d you learn all that?”

“Um, first grade?” I murmured, fingering through the bills on the floor.

“Wow.” She whistled. “What grade’re you in now?”

“Seventh.”

“Wow,” she said again. “What’re you learning, then?”

“Algebra,” I said thoughtfully.

“Wow!” I thought she’d never stop saying that. “But Evan, what’s left to learn then?”

“Trigonometry,” I told her. “More Algebra. Geometry, and Calculus.”

I could tell she’d never heard of any of it, but she was impressed. “Wo-o-ow.”

I smiled at her enthusiasm. “C’mon, let’s count,” I said, and we began.

I taught her the workings of American currency, taught her that five pennies equaled a nickel, and so on. I set her to work gathering all of my quarters and putting them into little groups of four, and quickly noticed two things: I only had about five dollars’ worth of them, and Kahmè couldn’t leave them alone. She seemed the kind of girl to wear a Chinese coin around her neck, live in a place where a penny could buy a handful of candy…so much money, so much glamour and shine struck her as the greatest treasure man could own. I could tell that she considered them even better than Spanish coins, Aztec gold in chests; never mind dollar bills, quarters were the best thing Americans had made yet, even better than ice cream because quarters were money and American money could be traded for anything.

I loved how happy she was when she played with the coins, some dirty with age, some shiny and new; so I swiftly counted all of them and, after finding out that they equaled about seven dollars worth of change, just a small piece of my fortune, let her have them all. She couldn’t stop thanking me for them, and once I shook her off she immediately dived on them and started playing, giving each one a name to go with the faces on the back. She had fun with the new state quarters, setting them against the dresser to act as scenery, unless they had birds on them or something.

Some were so dirty she couldn’t tell what they were, so I got up and searched downstairs until I found a cleaning elixir of mine that would clean them all up. I poured some in a paper cup, grabbed a fork, and went back upstairs. On the way I saw the clock: 4:30. I sighed. In a little while I’d have to start dinner, give Kahmè a break for once, and then I’d have to go around and make the house look as clean as it was supposed to be. It was okay; I could afford to skip a day of thorough cleaning.

I told Kahmè that she could clean the coins in the cup, but she’d have to use a fork because she couldn’t touch it. I gave her an old rag to prevent spilling. She squealed with delight and made it a swimming pool at once; I let her go and started counting explaining to her the value of a quarter as I went. A quarter, I explained, wasn’t worth very much by itself, but four of them could buy her a bag of candy (I meant M&Ms or something, but she may not have understood) and twelve of them could get her an ice cream. She had twenty-six of them; it amazed her how much wealth she had. I laughed at her naïveté; wealth was having the money to buy a house, pay for it all at once; wealth was about 400,000 quarters, enough to fill up my room a couple of times. Kahmè didn’t understand much. She was so much like a little kid, yet she was all the better of a person for it; once she found out that pennies were the smallest coin, and that they were discontinued forever, she immediately made them favorites and swore to protect them from “bully” coins like the snobby dimes and the hugely important only 50-cent piece.

I counted my money twice, then put it carefully back, grabbing a piece of paper and a pencil to make sure that was even close to right. Let’s see, Dad had started giving me lunch money three full years ago. I went to school about nine months straight, but Dad didn’t give me enough sometimes, so I’d say eight to be sure. Usually he gave me between 30 and 40 dollars; so, 35 as a rough estimate. 35x8=280, how much I could make a year. Over three years, the sum should have been 840 dollars.

I had in my hands just a little over $700. My God. It was more money than I could wrap my head around.

Where the other money had gone was no mystery. Either Dad had not given it to me; I’d spent it on the rare little treats I’d give myself sometimes, like candy or if I was really splurging, a book; or I’d had to offer it to someone to get them off my back. I had to buy my own pencils and pens, because for some reason Dad thought they were a waste of time. Plus there were Kahmè’s clothes, and the food I’d gotten her that day, ages ago. It really added up, all of that.

But…God. $700.

I decided to take out forty like I’d promised myself and treat Kahmè to it over the weekend, but the rest I’d store safely away. Who knew when money like that could come in useful?

Kahmè agreed that we’d go shopping on Saturday, and promised me she’d think about what she wanted. I felt better, and the guilt at forgetting her birthday eased a bit. I wouldn’t again.

We got back into the subject of birthdays, and she demanded that I tell her when mine was—September 4th, I told her again, then said carefully that it was in thirteen days, not counting today (and vowed at the same time to get her a calendar A.S.A.P.)—when my dad’s was (November 18th, I didn’t get him presents but I did my best to make him happy), when Nana’s was (February 11th), when Mom’s was (I had forgotten, but I knew it was in June), when everyone else in my family’s were (I didn’t know). Then I, in turn, asked her when her mom and dad’s were, but she didn’t know how to tell on the American calendar; I remembered her mother and asked her if she had called, she said she had, I remembered why they were separated in the first place and asked Kahmè if it was okay for her to go to her coming-of-age ceremony this year.

She laughed at me. “There’s no point in going now,” she told me, giggling at my stupidity. “I’ll grow moss waitin’ for a whole two years!”

I blinked. “Oh.” Wait, what? “Um, how old are you again, Kahmè?”

“Twelve years old and going on thirteen,” she said brightly. I blinked again. She was almost an entire year younger than me.

“Oh,” I said again, and then I didn’t mention it anymore. Odd.

The rest of the day I tried my best to make Kahmè happy while simultaneously cleaning and cooking dinner. I didn’t know what I’d do when Dad got home; I guess I’d have to act like I always did. I hated to make Kahmè be out in the cold, though….

So, idiotically, I asked Dad if I could have a friend over.

I explained politely that it was her birthday and I wanted to let her come over and help me make her a cake or something; if not, we could just sit and hang out. Dad raised an eyebrow, asked me if I was done cleaning upstairs. I admitted that I was not, but I was close. And then his mood turned nasty and he wanted to know how the hell being over here with me was going to make her birthday better, it sure didn’t cheer HIM up any. Then he went on to say that I’d had the same girl over all summer and it was about time I found someone more normal to be friends with, if I could manage to get anyone else at all to be near me for more than a few minutes. The words hurt, and I tried not to let them get to me, but they did; seeing tears seemed to offend Dad, and dinner that night ended in a beating for me.

What really bothered me was that I knew I couldn’t have Kahmè over, not until I plucked up the courage to ask again. I’d have to make it up to her twice as much now.

We went out on Saturday. It was pretty much a haze of hopping around and running after Kahmè and doing everything under the sun she wanted to do, including playing in the park, exploring, and looking into every store she saw (except the ones I wouldn’t let her in). She picked out three presents: a little polished-wooden flute, or recorder or something, from a Native American store (which Kahmè said was just one kind of Native American, really), a tiny plastic music box that played a dreamy little song I didn’t know, and a tiny purse-thing shaped like punk-rock Hello Kitty, whom she adored, to keep her quarters in. She explored a video game store and found a videogame she adored, but I demanded to know why as she didn’t have a PlayStation2 and found that she just wanted the picture on the cover; I mediated and printed a copy out for her when we got home. She enjoyed everything immensely, and thanked me at least twenty times an hour. I got us some lunch, then some ice cream, and with my remaining money got her a long, warm blue t-shirt for the coming winter months. Blue was a nice color; almost everything I owned was blue. Apparently my dad liked it just as much as I did.

Then we ran around and played for a little longer, and I felt a larger pang of regret than I would have thought as I realized that our playing like this was over. Summer was gone; it was getting cold in Nevada. School took over my life after that day, once again.

My own birthday came, and it was the best I’d ever had in my entire life (which wasn’t much; dogs and cats could have lived longer than me by then). For one thing, I was thirteen, finally a teenager. I didn’t feel any different, but I was different; I was part of that glamorous race of beings, who thought for themselves and craved independence, who were the very quintessence of humankind in my eyes, who discovered love and adventure and all the mysteries of the world. I told all of my thoughts on the subject to Kahmè, who didn’t really understand, but after I’d explained she wanted to be a teenager too, and looked at me with envious and awed eyes.

Dad said nothing to me in the morning, which was his version of a privilege. I made my favorite breakfast (pancakes with fresh fruit on top) and wore my favorite clothes (my old jeans and the softest blue t-shirt I had, which would certainly have pissed Dad off on a normal day), humming and smiling a little. It was an unspoken agreement with Dad and I; unless I did something really stupid, like coming home with a failing grade, driving a car off of a bridge, or breaking something, he didn’t talk to me, look at me, or touch me all day. I in turn was not allowed to abuse the privilege, e.g., needlessly speaking to him, especially in an insolent tone, because I thought he wouldn’t do anything to stop me. I was still not allowed out of the house, in the medicine cabinet, or anywhere near him for more than a short period of time, but if I stayed quiet, I didn’t have to clean. I could not have a friend over, but I could make all the cookies, cakes, and treats I wanted. I thought it was a pretty sweet deal, myself.

I said nothing to him, as per agreement, but “’Morning, Dad,” and he, as per agreement, kept his eyes on his food. Then I went to school, which was just as shitty as any other day, but at least no one knew what day it was and tried to sing to me. I did use the privilege the school offered—one free ice cream on your birthday—and enjoyed it very quickly lest it be stolen, wishing I could have taken it home to Kahmè, who would have enjoyed it more than I ever could. Then I slunk through the school, trying not to be noticed by gangs or bullies, and made it harassment-free back home at a little past 3:00.

All of this was what usually happened; but what I had never experienced before was Kahmè’s reaction to birthdays.

She tackled me halfway down my driveway; she bounced around me and sang in ten different languages and shoved me inside to behold the cake she’d made me, which was chocolate-flavored and a lot bigger than hers had been and amazing in every way. Then she tackle-hugged me until I fell on the couch and showed me her presents. She’d worked all week, she told me proudly, as I inspected the gifts sitting cheerily on the coffee table.

There were three little jars sitting on the table, with a little rectangle the size of a candy bar, made of woven grasses, next to them. Kahmè said that this was a bookmark, since I liked to read. One jar held a live firefly who lived off a mess of honey and sugar water at the bottom of the jar. There were once two; I could see the leg of one sticking out of the mess where Kahmè had tried to pick it out. Another jar held a small stack of quarters. The last contained two inches of a dubious green gel with bits of brown and whitefloating in it.

I picked this one up and asked Kahmè what it was.

“It’s medicine!” she explained, pleased with herself. “It’s made of aloe vera and a bunch of other stuff, ‘n’ water, an’ honest-to-Spirit, Evan, it’ll fix anything, you just rub it on! Or swallow it,” she pondered, frowning. “Maybe. But it works, Evan, I tried it, see?” She showed me a deep cut on her leg that was nothing but pink scar tissue now. “Cut my leg when I was this many—” she held up eight fingers—“and Mama made this for me and honest, Evan, it worked and see, it’s better now! I thought it might help some….”

She didn’t finish, looking a little awkward, but I knew what she meant. She thought it would help with all the bruises I got, the wounds that I didn’t know how to explain. I carefully put it aside, not knowing what to think. “And what’re these for?” I held up the jar of quarters.

She brightened up at once. “So you can buy an ice cream, Evan!” she explained. “TWO ice creams.” She beamed, pleased with herself. I couldn’t help smiling. I handed it to her and wouldn’t let her give it back.

“Remember what I told you, Kahmè?” I reminded her when she continued to object. “Four quarters is the same as a dollar, and I have a lot of dollars. I don’t need those.” She was so sweet, she’d given me all the quarters she had, but I wasn’t taking it. “I’ve got enough to buy a hundred ice creams,” I lied. It was more like two hundred and thirty.

Satisfied, she took the quarters from me, though she didn’t understand why I didn’t want them anyway, just because they were shiny. I inspected the firefly with a frown, then without a word got up, walked outside, and let it loose.

“Aww,” Kahmè said, smiling. She thought I was being nice. I didn’t know about that, but I did know that a) bugs in the house were forbidden and it was my head if any were seen, and b) if I had three days to live, I wouldn’t want to spend it trapped in a jar with a dead chick. Poor bug.

When it was gone, I inspected the jar. “Where’re these from?”

“Your kitchen,” she admitted. I smiled. Suddenly I felt like hugging her, so I did. She hugged me back, wished me happy birthday again. I thanked her and let my day of loafing begin.

Loafing was a rare and mysterious pleasure to me. I read, I stretched out on the couch, Kahmè and I sat and talked and drank lemonade and did nothing else in particular. She wanted to play, that was clear, but it was my birthday and she’d do what I wanted without complaint. I liked loafing very much; it was a relief to take a break from scrubbing toilets every day.

Dad brought Chinese take-out home, and we had a nice, silent dinner. I hadn’t been hit in awhile, and had three times my usual appetite and ate what was, to me, an insane amount of food; maybe this teenager thing was starting right away.

Dad noticed, and frowned. It made me a little nervous, but I remembered the agreement and stayed where I was, polishing off the rest of my birthday cake.

Dad broke the agreement mid-cake.

“So.”

I froze, swallowed. F—. Both of us sat there in silence, waiting for the other to make a move. Dad made his first.

“You’re thirteen. A teenager.”

Duh.

He scowled at nothing in particular. “Don’t you dare pull any of that idiotic crap that teenagers always f—ing do, understand? No throwing parties, no getting arrested, no backtalking, no drugs, and if I find out that you knocked up some little whore, I swear to God you’ll never see the light of f—ing day again. Understand?”

I read this statement as, “Do what you want, as long as I don’t have to pay for it or get involved in any way,” although I would have to look for the definition of “knocked up.” “Yessir,” I said politely, still trusting that he wouldn’t break the agreement any further.

I was right to trust it; he had said what he had wanted to say. He saw that I had eaten all there was to eat, pretty much, and ended his speech with, “Get lost,” which was in his case like saying “Fin” at the end of a play. I shrugged to myself and got lost, cleaning off the dishes out of habit before heading outside. Dad was keeping an eye on me, watching to see if I was going to try and leave. I inched out of his sightline and hissed to Kahmè to go around to the front and pretend like she was just passing by. Then I drifted into the front yard myself and sat on the driveway in the dying light, reading a book. Kahmè casually “passed by” and stopped to chat with me for awhile. Dad, watching from the window, would see nothing suspicious, nor anything that violated the agreement. I had the right to talk to my visitors for a few minutes if all my work was done. Besides, it was my birthday.

I went back inside when it got too dark to see, and Kahmè came back the long way, going around and hopping the fence. She hugged me goodbye before we separated for the night, and as I lay on my bed and started to read, I felt happier than I’d felt in a long time.

I looked up “knocked up” later and didn’t understand. It was so derogatory; was getting pregnant a bad thing? But when I thought about it I recalled that teenagers didn’t want babies. Not a lot of people did. Hence, abortion. Dad implied that the whole process was so that people could do what they wanted to and not deserve to be shot for bringing useless nothings like me into the world. From that perspective, it made sense; still, I felt sorry for all the useless nothings that would never grow up and have a birthday. They deserved at least that, didn’t they? Unless they would have been a lot worse than me; but then, how could anyone tell? It was just a little baby.

Yet again, as often happened that week, I thought about being a teenager. They—we—explored the joys of life, trying new things and being brave and reckless and making new trends and words and creating feelings wherever they went. I thought it was amazing when I read in a book that one pretty girl could make every guy she passed feel good, because they thought she was lovely; at the same time, she could make every girl feel bad about themselves. Such power. Such adventure.

Teenagers did everything that children were too ignorant and powerless and grownups were too self-conscious and responsible to do. They explored the boundaries of beauty, strength, daring, love, and life. Things I didn’t understand much—sex, drugs, crime, stupid stunts, pondering the universe’s secrets—were all part of a grand scheme of teenagerdom, all within the adventure. Teenagers looked for the adrenaline rush, the pleasure, the hallucinations, the freedom that came with it all. They were brave enough to experiment, to seek it wherever they went.

I was glad Dad didn’t forbid me from doing all of those things. I wanted to try them all, as soon as I could work up the courage. There was no hurry. I’d be a teenager for five whole years.

I was filled with pride as I thought about it. I was a teenager. The quintessence, the epitome of mankind. I smiled as I drifted off to sleep. Maybe things would get better now. I was thirteen. Life would be fun.



And by the way…in the end, I was dead wrong about every single word.

hahaha so thats the new reason? /: P anyway comment below...

Definitely, definitely foreshadowing.

I don't remember the beginning of the chapter. >< I wrote it ages ago, mid-chapter 14, and you all know how long it took me to write THAT.


Yay. ^^ My plot style is lovvveeddd. <3

heart heart heart

So, any ideas for tthe next chapter? MD?

Ooh, I'm glad Kahme and Evan had good birthdays. ='D