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 Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 1:59 pm
This is a peice I've been working on for some time now. Evaluation from ANYONE who reads this will be appreciated, since the more feedback I get from this, the better I can make it. The actual peice is about fifty-five pages long currently, and I'm not even halfway through with it, so I'll be posting in installments of about 1000 words each. I hope everyone enjoys keeping up with the drama that unfolds. I know I had a good time coming up with it. So without further adeu (sp?), I present to you (as per neoncode's request) the first installment of:
Bruises
By Maeve (LibidinalCatharsis)
Karina had very little drama in her life. She came from the kind of family in which if any one wanted drama, they would go to the movies. In fact, for Karina, drama meant an easy class to get a fine arts credit. But no one can run from Drama, and Drama was about to give Karina a swift kick in the posterior.
Unaware of Drama's plans for her future, Karina calmly closed her locker and walked down the hall to her Geometry class. She tried hard not to glare at Mr. Coggins, the short, old man she had no choice but to sit in class with doing tedious bookwork and staring out the window at the autumn leaves.
Mr. Coggins was about to begin his lecture on the Pythagorean Theorem when there was a knock on the door. The white-haired man gave a half-defeated sigh and stepped down from his podium to open the door. Everyone peered around their teacher in order to see the strange newcomer standing in the doorway.
To Karina, he seemed quite graceful, like a majestic black swan. His skin was pale, his hair dark and messy, cut at strange angles and lengths as if a child had styled it. His intelligent eyes peered over rectangular glasses that rested on a perfectly angular nose in a delightful smirk that suggested a zeal for life. He was dressed head to toe in black and wore fishnet sleeves underneath a sleeveless shirt. His jeans frayed at the bottom over his beat looking laced boots.
Everyone in the room was very much surprised. Their school was a small one, located out in the middle of nowhere in the early nineties, and not accustomed to anything befitting the word abnormal.
The black swan opened its mouth and spoke. "I'm sorry I'm late. Is this Mr. Coggins' Geometry class? I have a pass here?" He opened a sketchbook he had been holding at his left side and withdrew from it a yellow slip of paper. Handing the pass to Mr. Coggins, he said, "My name's Nick. Nicholas Guidrey."
The teacher just gawked at Nick in a rather stunned and uncomfortable fashion, and it was clear he was trying to remember if the new student's shirt justified a violation of the school dress code, and if so, which one.
Nick walked past the old man and sat in the back of the classroom. He opened the sketchbook and began to draw quietly while Mr. Coggins signed out a book and put it on Nick's desk.
Mr. Coggins drew on the blackboard a large right isosceles triangle and started his speech on the Pythagorean Theorem, which all the students had heard countless times before.
Karina ignored the teacher and gazed three seats away at Nick, who was apparently oblivious to everything in the room with the exception of his sketchbook and pencil. Her best friend, Ryn, elbowed her, but it had no effect.
"And so what would we do next, Nicholas?" said the teacher pointing to a complex diagram of a circle divided into quarters and a chord labeled "5."
Nick continued to ignore the outside world, leaning forward so that the tips of his hair brushed the paper lightly.
"Nicholas?" Mr. Coggins said again, a bit louder.
"Hmm?" Nick looked up, glanced at the board, and then went back to his drawing. He paused a moment to think, then flipped over the page he was drawing on. He made a few calculations with his charcoal pencil and then replied, "Well, about 22.2, assuming you use 3.14 as pi, of course."
He continued to draw in silence while Mr. Coggins, who had been hoping to catch him off guard, let out another sigh and passed out the work for the day. As the other students groaned and complained, Nick continued to sketch, pausing for a split second to shove his math assignment into the front pocket of his bag. He sketched quickly and diligently, covering the paper any time anyone attempted to look over his shoulder.
This ongoing pattern continued all the way until the bell, at which all the students slammed their books shut and rushed out of the classroom. Nick was the last to leave, determined to finish the details of his drawing. But as he absent-mindedly rushed out of the classroom, he left behind on his desk a red composition notebook.
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:00 pm
"Ryn? I'm up to my knees in postulates and theorems," groaned Karina.
"It's okay," Ryn assured her. "Tell ya what, kid. I'll help you out. I'll do the even numbers and you do the odd numbers and we can trade and check. We cut a third of the work that way."
"Don't you mean half?"
"Nah, checking and rewriting each other's proofs adds to it. But at least it's less. Well, I'll catch ya later, kid. See you at lunch."
"Right. Bye, Ryn. Have fun in Home Ec!" Karina called out with sarcasm. Ryn had always wanted to take shop.
At lunch, Ryn and Karina sat with their friend Jeremy, the only homosexual in the school, to their knowledge. He had been a part of their trio since kindergarten. They had always been a little bit outcast together from everyone else. Karina and Ryn were always less than pretty, popular, or wealthy; and Jeremy? well, he always got picked on quite a bit for his sexuality?not to mention his two foster mothers. It had always been the two girls who defended him.
Jeremy had always rebelled against the society that had never accepted him. He kept his blond hair in large spikes, only because the administration decided he couldn?t wear a Mohawk. His CD player always had some violent sounding punk rock music in it from the eighties, but he didn?t believe in any of its messages. He just liked the music. But people still tried to stay away from him, just because of his outward image.
Jeremy was actually pretty smart, and generally a quiet and good person. Presently, he was fiddling with one of the many buttons on his vintage style denim vest.
"Hey you guys!" he said when they sat down. "Check out the new kid yet?"
"He's your type," teased Karina, trying to keep a straight face.
"I don't even have a type. And that?s gross," he replied, shuddering at the idea.
Nick sat alone, picking at his food and fidgeting with the hem of his shirt. Looking at him, Karina suggested, "Should we ask him to sit with us?" There was a brief pause as they all looked at each other.
"Nah," they all decided at once.
"You know, I'm pretty sure he's the guy who moved in across the street from us. He lives with his father, I think. Some older man, anyw?Oh, no, you guys, look!" Karina pointed at the new student, who was now glaring up at Jason Phillips, an athletic guy who the coach never let on any of the teams because of his nasty arrogant attitude and terrible discipline record. If there ever was a bully, Jason was it.
Nick stood up and walked around the table to face Jason. The cafeteria became quiet. There were conveniently no adults in the room.
Jason laughed raucously. "Yeah, you think I don't know what happens behind your closed doors? Believe me, little boy, you're nothing. Nothing but motherless white trash."
There were whispers through the whole room as people wondered how much of what he said was true.
"What business is it of yours if my mother is?" he choked, picking up his bag and sketchbook and made to leave. Jason grabbed his arm.
"Did she scream, Nicholas? Did she cry? That's what you did, isn't it, Nicky? You sat in the corner and cried like a baby while she died, didn't you?"
There were loud murmurs as people again whispered as if they were trying not to be heard.
"What kind of sick freak are you? You don't even know me! Let go!" Nick tried to pull away, but Jason held him in a fast grip. That no one jumped up to help Nick was not a surprise. Jason was strong and fearless. He could take anyone down.
"Why? Am I hurting you? Surely no more than you hurt yourself any given week. Why don't you show us your wrists?? He released his grip violently. ?You're the one who's sick, not me," he added with a smirk.
Nick gave him a look of death as the blood flowed away from his face. It made him look almost Vampiric. He began to shake with rage. He took in a deep breath through his nose.
"What's the matter, trying to scare me away with your dirty looks? It's not going to work. It doesn't work on that gambling, drunk, trash of a stepfather of yours and it definitely won't work on me."
He laughed again as he watched the water well up in Nick's eyes, which were turning bloodshot with the strain of holding back the tears.
"Don't cry, you might start hearing the voices again. The flashback. The sobs and the punches and the broken glass. 'Please, Robert, don't do this. Nick might hear you. There see, you woke him and now he's crying. Robert, No! Please, put that down, you're not thinking. Help! Someone help me!'"
Nick swung his fist into Jason's face, right into his nose. Jason stumbled back in shock, chuckled, having gotten what he wanted. He started to punch his opponent in the neck.
Before he could do so, said opponent had pounced on him, knocking him to the floor, throwing punches at him over and over. Each time Nick hit Jason, it just filled him with more rage, and Jason's face was beginning to become not much more than a canvas of bruises.
Nick had closed his hand in a tight grip around Jason's throat when the girl's Volley-ball coach pulled him off. The two students struggled to get to one another as one of the history teachers pulled Jason away.
?Usually, I'd let them fight it out,? The coach told her colleague, ?But in this case, I think only one of them would come back out alive, so I'm making an exception. To my office, NOW."
A few more faculty members ushered the remaining students out of the cafeteria and tried to restore and maintain order in the building.
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:02 pm
In Coach Mullenburg's office, the two students sat across from each other.
"I'm sorry boys, but I'm left with no choice but to call your parents."
Jason smirked, his face now disfigured and ugly, although normally he was a good-looking guy. "Hear that, Nicky boy? What do you think your old Stepdad’s gonna say to that?"
Nick began to rise from his chair, then he looked at Coach Mullenburg and sat back down again angrily.
"Boys," she pressed with concern, "Is there anything either of you wish to tell me?" She looked at Nick in particular. "I can assure you the utmost confidence."
Nick only shook his head, rose, and walked out the door in silence. He couldn't believe what was happening to him. How did that nameless creep know any of those things? He sat down in the middle of the hall and looked in his bag for his journal. He had to get down on paper what he was feeling.
It wasn't there.
He shrugged it off and stormed down the hall into the bathroom where he entered a stall and knelt in front of the toilet. Robert was going to be majorly upset. In fact, Nick would be safer if he ran away. But no, that would never work. He would be found. What a stupid idea, he thought as he gagged into the toilet. As a second wave of nauseous anxiety swelled up inside him, he heard the door to the bathroom open and two guys walk in. He recognized one of the voices as Jason’s.
"Let me tell you, I couldn't believe some of the things I read in this guy's little diary. The idiot was careless enough to leave it on his desk when he left his math class, and I managed to pick it up before anyone noticed. What a weirdo, wearing black all the time, and sketching in that book. I bet he worships the devil, but it didn't say anything about it in his little journal."
"Dude, I think you went too far this time. I mean, look at your face, man. You should just get rid of the book."
"Whatever. But I still have all the information I need to make his life a living hell. I guess this can go in the trash then." There was the sound of Jason tossing the book in the trash can and then the two left.
Nick stumbled out of the stall, shaking from apprehension, shock, anger, and dehydration. He wiped his tear streaked face and rinsed out his mouth with water before washing his hands and retrieving his Journal from the garbage. He returned it to his backpack where it belonged and left the bathroom before he was hit by another wave of sickness.
In the last class of the day, Jason again confronted Nick, who, at the time was adding a new entry to his journal.
"Hey, maggot, where'd you get that?" he inquired hatefully.
"The question is not how I obtained it, but how you did," said Nick calmly without removing his gaze or his pencil from the paper.
"What are you trying to say?"
"Only that you were the first person to know the things I've written here and that I would never throw my own Journal in the trash can. Why? Do you have a guilty conscience?"
"Creep, why would I read your stupid Diary?" Jason scoffed and several people in the room chuckled nervously. Jason opened his mouth to add another comment, but then the history teacher, Mr. Adams, entered the room and the students were made to resume their seats.
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:03 pm
That night at dinner, Karina and her ten year old twin brothers sat down with their parents to a lovely meal. Her mother was about to take a bite of her chicken when they heard glass breaking across the street. The members of the family looked at each other solemn silence until Karina stammered out, "I'll close the window."
She peeked outside at a staggering, beer bellied old man drinking from a bottle covered in a brown paper bag. He walked up the steps to Nick's house and went inside, yelling and cursing and slamming the door behind him. Karina quickly and awkwardly shut the window and went back to the table, then stopped halfway and decided to pull the curtains too. No one in the family mentioned anything about the incident and they had a sparsely scattered conversation throughout the meal about nothing in particular. Everyone knew that everyone was thinking about what they were all afraid to acknowledge--that such violence could be taking place right across the street from their house.
In the old house across the street, Nick paced back and forth as he waited for Robert to come home. He heard the front door slam. I have to look busy, Nick said to himself. He practically jumped into the seat by his desk, and then he opened his history book. He attempted to read, but the footsteps thundering up the stairs made him shiver and shake.
The smell of whiskey warned that Robert was coming down the hall now, and Nick tried hard not to look up until he sensed the large brooding shadow in the doorway. I should have closed the door, he thought, as if that would have changed anything.
"I got a phone call today," Robert grumble-slurred before taking a swig of liquor. There was a pause. Nick shrugged and looked back down at the textbook.
"Said you were in a fight." Another pause. Nick just stared at the paper, knowing that no matter what he said it could only make things worse.
Robert staggered into the room and grabbed Nick's face by the chin, twisting the boy's neck as far as it could reach to face him. "You look at me when I'm talking to you, boy!" He yelled.
Nick had his eyes shut tight. He trembled in his stepfather's grasp and was made very aware of the stale alcohol and cigarette smells on his breath. He opened his eyes cautiously and his reading glasses fell to the floor. A few drops of water he had been trying to hold back made their way down his cheeks.
"You're crying again? Just like your mother! Why don't I give you a reason to cry, huh?" Robert rambled on as he threw his stepson back in his seat, causing him to fall over with the chair crashing down on top of him.
Nick sat there with his glasses poking him in the side, hoping that if he didn't fight back he would be left alone. However, Robert had played this game a million times and seemed to know exactly what Nick was thinking. "Why don't you come out and fight like a man?" he taunted. "Don't make me come after you, boy. I'm not in a good mood today." As if he was ever in a good mood. As if he was ever not in a bad mood.
Nick remained still as if playing dead in front of a bear. Turn the other cheek, he thought. But this only made Robert more angry. He threw his whiskey bottle at the pile on the floor and kicked Nick in the side.
"C'mon! Get up, I told you!" he yelled while pushing the chair to one side. Nick laid on his chest with his head farthest from the door, covering his neck with his arms. Robert pulled him up by the shirt collar.
"I'll teach you not to ignore me, boy!" he yelled, and punched him in the back. Nick still remained silent. He was determined not to show Robert how much pain he was in.
Half an hour later, Nick lay alone on his bed, surrounded by sheets stained with blood, tears, sweat, and Jack Daniels. He stared up at the ceiling, his mind clear of thought, as he listened to the footsteps fade away back down the stairs. Only when they were gone did dare to move. He wiped the tears off of his face and searched for his journal. Opening it to the last entry, he began writing;
"They called Robert, just like I knew they would. If that's not bad enough, he came home drunk. He broke my chair, he broke my lamp, and he spilled whiskey all over my books. I don't know what I'll tell everyone at school. I hope I can cover up this bruise on my face with makeup, or I'll have to make something up about that too. This is too much. I?m tired of living my life in fear. I?m tired of living. I don't want to live anymore. I need to get away--run away, but to do it, I'd need help, or else he would find me. But it would be so much easier just to die. I might even be able to make it look like an accident. Or I could just disappear. If I jumped off a bridge into the river, they would never find me. But no, Mom's dead, Dad's dead, I have to carry on the family line. I have to live up to them. I have to try to make things better for myself. I have to make things right again. I have to survive this.
I have to go for a walk."
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 2:04 pm
Nick opened the door and peered down the hallway, cringing at the slightest creak of the hinges.
He saw no one.
...
He crept to the stairs and looked down.
Robert had passed out in front of the TV.
...
Nick slipped back into his room, put on a jacket, and grabbed his sketchbook. He climbed out the window and down a rope of tied together flannel shirts. A large, shaggy white dog greeted him there.
It followed him as he walked down the dark, quiet street. He marveled at how peaceful the streets in this neighborhood were, and wondered why people lock themselves in at night, when all he had ever wanted for what seemed like an eternity was the lock himself out.
He walked on until he reached his favorite place—an abandoned old house with weeds all over the yard up to his knees. He had just found it a couple days after they moved in. He had gone exploring as soon as Robert set off to his first day of work and he was given the chance.
He pushed open the rickety door and headed up the stairs past covered furniture, to the artificial fireplace on the second floor. He pulled a tile out of the floor and added his latest drawing to the collection stored there for safekeeping. This was the only place he knew where Robert wouldn't find his art.
He took out of a shoebox a photograph of his mother sitting on a swing.
She had a warm smile. Nick could almost feel the spring breeze, though it was still November. Her brown hair hung to her shoulders in loose chocolate curls. In her lap was a gardening glove and in the hand not holding the chain of the swing, she held a white rose. She was wearing an old pair of overalls and a yellow sleeveless shirt, and he could almost feel her arms around him as he closed his eyes and imagined that both of his parents were still alive.
"Mom," he whispered through silent tears. "I wish you were here. I wish you could help me. Please if you can hear me, send me a sign--"
He was going to go on, but was cut off by a loud crash behind him. He jumped and turned around.
The white dog stood behind him, wagging her tail gaily.
"Go on, get out of here!" He whispered, but the dog just stood there and looked at him. He sighed and put the photograph and the sketches back in their place. He put the tile back where it belonged and then left the house for home. The dog followed him all the way.
"Go home! You can't live with me and I'm not going to feed you!" But the dog didn't pay attention. Fearing he would take too long, he walked home in spite of the paw-steps and heavy panting he heard behind him. But as he was sneaking back in through the window, he slipped and almost fell, and the white dog gave out a loud bark.
"No! Shh!" Nick whispered, but it was too late. He could hear Robert stirring in the Den.
The dog continued barking, wagging its tail and running around in circles as if playing a game. She was unaware of the danger that Robert might come in and find that Nick had been gone.
Nick stumbled clumsily through the window and fell to the floor. He could hear the familiar heavy footsteps on the stairs. He turned off the light and leapt onto his bed just as the door was thrown open.
He shut his eyes tight.
Please… Leave…
There was a long pause and then the door slammed shut.
Soon all was silent.
Nick sat up. He reached for the pocketknife in his jeans pocket. Pulling up his flannel sleeve with a quick jerk, he revealed his already scabbed over arms. He wanted to have control. He wanted to release his pain. He wanted to tend to the bruises that would never go away.
Somehow, through some kind of ironic twist, he felt he might be able to do this here and now, with this blade. With one slash of the blade at a time, he opened the older wounds, watching the blood trickle down his arm. It left large droplets on the thin blanket he slept on, but he found it impossible to care. It was so numb. Everything about his existence had become numb. The only time he could still ever feel pain was when Robert was around. He fell asleep exhausted from blood loss, his wrists caked with crimson.
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 3:43 pm
Wow. That''s really long xP
I''d love to obsessivly edit it though. When you have the whole thing sort of to a point where you actually do need editors, could you email it to me? Fondue_Pot@hotmail.com
I''d rather edit it in word and send it back to you with my comments in the margins and stuff, so I can see it as a whole an stuff.
^_^
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 5:26 pm
Oooh wow. You're good. 3nodding This is amazing.
I saw your comment in my thread and figured, okay, let's read her story.. and now I'm all " eek " and " whee " and " mrgreen ". So yeah, you can help me write my story if you like! PM me for more details about it.
Your style of writing is really cool. I can't wait to see what happens next :0
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Posted: Sun Aug 14, 2005 7:28 pm
rurica Wow. That''s really long xP I''d love to obsessivly edit it though. When you have the whole thing sort of to a point where you actually do need editors, could you email it to me? Fondue_Pot@hotmail.com I''d rather edit it in word and send it back to you with my comments in the margins and stuff, so I can see it as a whole an stuff. ^_^ Well, the thing is... I'm not going to be finished with it for a while... as in... probably years.
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Posted: Mon Aug 15, 2005 9:29 am
LibidinalCatharsis rurica Wow. That''s really long xP I''d love to obsessivly edit it though. When you have the whole thing sort of to a point where you actually do need editors, could you email it to me? Fondue_Pot@hotmail.com I''d rather edit it in word and send it back to you with my comments in the margins and stuff, so I can see it as a whole an stuff. ^_^ Well, the thing is... I'm not going to be finished with it for a while... as in... probably years. Well I'll wish you luck anyways ^_^
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Posted: Tue Aug 16, 2005 12:12 pm
Maybe you would have better luck in the Writers Forum.
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Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:55 am
lol, yeah, but someone asked me to post it here, so I did... I'm actually in a guild for writers already.
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Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:56 am
lol, yeah, but someone asked me to post it here, so I did... I'm actually in a guild for writers already.
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 5:28 pm
LibidinalCatharsis rurica Wow. That''s really long xP I''d love to obsessivly edit it though. When you have the whole thing sort of to a point where you actually do need editors, could you email it to me? Fondue_Pot@hotmail.com I''d rather edit it in word and send it back to you with my comments in the margins and stuff, so I can see it as a whole an stuff. ^_^ Well, the thing is... I'm not going to be finished with it for a while... as in... probably years. >> Then I'll read it as soon as I have the time/attention span biggrin
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Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2005 7:53 am
That's really good. It's a little angsty, but good. I wanna know what happens!
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Posted: Sat Jan 28, 2006 10:24 pm
I remember reading this a while ago, proably when i was having post problems. It is quite good and I'm interesting in knowing what happens next. I'll try to think of somethign constructive to say then. Right now I'm tired. And I didn't know what all we could post on here, since its like pg-13 n all....So I didn't post anything of mine. I write poetry. I more like blogs though, because they can't disappear.
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