Details: Niklas grew up with his mother Hanne (b. 1966) in a run-down apartment while his mother was violently abused at first by his father Adir (b. 1963) and then his stepfather Matteo (b. 1965). Growing up, Niklas emulated the men’s behavior and started displaying violent behavior at a young age. He was sent to a boy’s school to control his anger rages, but the school only made his anger issues worse. He has Intermittent Explosive Disorder and Depression.
Niklas likes old rock music like Queen, the Who, Led Zeppelin, etc., going outside, and he desires being able to control his anger. He doesn’t like cats, being messed with by Ryan and Anima, and especially his anger issues and his depression.
At first glance, Niklas looks like a giant asshole. But deep down inside, he is actually a nice person- it just curdled inside of him somehow. He has really low self-esteem. He can be an asshole, he can lash out at others, he can be remorseful, he can be understanding, and he can be nice. Niklas just only hopes he can.
“My, it sure is a beautiful day outside today,” Katja said to herself one warm morning in May as she opened the kitchen window.
It certainly was a beautiful day outside; it was going to be a beautiful day inside, too. School was about to end soon, especially for the seniors. Today was Class Day. Class Day was a day for the school administrators to announce which scholarships at which college/university some seniors were receiving. The seniors all had to wear their fanciest formal clothes possible. Speaking of…
“Ryan!” Greg called from the kitchen, “You’ve got one more minute to get finished getting dressed or else I’m coming in, do you understand?”
Ryan slowly stomped down the stairs, one loud clonk at a time, until he appeared in the kitchen wearing a long-sleeved, baby blue button-up shirt with khaki pants.
“Ryan,” Greg began, “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
Ryan stared at the tall black man liked he had smoked a whole pound of crack cocaine and answered uncertainly, “Forgetting what?”
Greg handed him the Class Day and graduation dress codes in order to receive a diploma.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” Ryan exclaimed irritably, “I seriously have to shave my beard for fucking Class Day?!”
“That’s what it says here,” Greg replied, pointing to a paragraph.
Ryan threw his hands up in the air and groaned, “Oh, my fucking God! We’re not even in the caps and gowns yet; why the fuck do I have to shave my beard off in the first place?!”
“Because Class Day and graduation are formal events, and nobody wants you to look like a dirty homeless person,” Faustine, who was stirring her oatmeal and writing down her valedictorian’s speech, answered in a flat voice.
Ryan swiftly turned his head to Faustine like an enraged owl and shouted, “Oi, fuck off, Faustine!”
“You know what?” Katja butted in, “I think Faustine’s reason is a good reason.”
“Well, I don’t!” Ryan argued with his arms crossed against his chest.
“Ryan, we’re not going to argue about this,” Greg stated once and for all, “Go back upstairs and shave your beard off.”
Ryan moaned and threw his hands up like a little bitch as he stormed back upstairs and slammed the upstairs bathroom’s door.
At least the underclassmen didn’t have to wear their school uniforms that day.
“I’m so glad we don’t have to wear school uniforms on Awards Day,” Kishi gushed to Anima at the kitchen table. She was wearing a ruby red dress made of polyester, and, for some strange reason, the freckles that were usually splattered all over her face weren’t there. Huh, that was strange.
“What do you mean ‘Awards Day’?” Anima asked.
“You know, when people get their awards for doing the best in a certain school subject,” Kishi explained.
Oh, that. Anima knew she didn’t have a chance at getting one of those. Thank God she kept it simple with a white sailor shirt, a red bowtie, and blue jeans.
Upstairs in the bathroom, everyone heard Ryan scream in agony as he tried to shave his beard off. “Holy shit!” he hollered like a fucking bitch, “I’m fucking bleeding!”
As most of the people in the house (especially and specifically Niklas) stifled their laughter, Kishi turned back to Anima and said-
“Is that why you’re wearing all that makeup?” Anima asked.
Despite the heavy amount of concealer on her face, showing only a slight blush of red, Kishi’s face and ears burned like lava in a volcano. Speaking of volcanos…
“Who the fuck used up all of my makeup?!” Fern erupted from the downstairs bathroom.
Kishi squirmed in her seat and twirled a strand of her hair. She looked down at an invisible watch on her wrist and exclaimed, “Oh, no! We’re gonna be late and miss the bus!”
While waiting at the bus stop, their friends Lidiya, Amanda, and River all looked at Kishi like she was a crack-addicted hooker on the streets.
“Okay, I don’t mean to be that person, but where are your freckles?” Lidiya asked Kishi. She was wearing a white, long-sleeved work blouse with a black work skirt and black work shoes.
“I’m wearing concealer on my face. Doesn’t it look good?” Kishi answered.
“Yeah, but why are you wearing so much makeup in the first place?” Amanda asked. She was wearing a white, long-sleeved work blouse and red tie with a black jean skirt, a black choker on her neck, and black boots.
“In case I win an award,” Kishi answered with an arrogant smile on her face.
River, who was wearing a maroon blouse with bell-bottom sleeves and khakis, wheezed in laughter and exclaimed, “What award, nigga? The only people getting any fucking awards are the super smart kids who have been going to this school they entire lives.”
Kishi, with her eye twitching, sharply turned to River and asked in an irritated tone of voice, “How do you know that?!”
“Because that’s how all award shows are,” River answered casually, “If you’re lucky, you’ll probably get a little mention for making the honor roll.”
“She’s got a point, Kish,” Lidiya said with an apathetic shrug.
Kishi’s shoulders hunched up as she twitched her eye. “Yeah, well… how would you know I won’t get any awards today?!”
“Because it’s common fucking sense, nigga!” River argued, “How the fuck have you not noticed this shit by now?!”
Kishi and River continued their arguing as they all got onto the school bus (with Lidiya occasionally butting in), yet there was no sign of Penelope anywhere. Weird, was she sick from school or something, or did she have an appointment somewhere and her parents were planning on taking her to school later?
When Anima arrived at school, she noticed everyone, or rather damn near everyone, was wearing their most formal outfits for Awards Day. This was certainly true as she was walking to Ms. Blume’s art class.
“Oh, my God!” McKenna Suzuki sighed heavily to Kyla Wong and Violet Blume, “Awards Day is today!” McKenna was wearing a pink dress with a pleated skirt and magenta high heels.
“Oh, my God, McKenna. We all know you’re gonna win a bunch of awards. Why do you always do this act every Awards Day?” Kyla said. She was wearing a slinky black dress and fancy black loafers.
“I know I’m gonna win the art award for making the highest average in Ms. Blume’s class,” Violet said. She was wearing a white tank top with a long, tan vest that had fringes torn at the bottom as well as blue jeans and brown flip-flops.
“Wait, where’d you get that from?” Kyla questioned.
Violet shrugged. “I looked over at the those files Ms. Blume had on her desk a few days ago.”
Kyla and McKenna stared at Violet in disbelief and awe. Then, Kyla yelped at the top of her lungs-
McKenna sighed and shook her head. “Nepotism at its finest, ladies and gents,” she said to herself.
…
Because the school system wanted to suck every senior’s dick, every other student was required to attend the Class Day ceremony as well. Somehow, Niklas and Marianne managed to find seats together despite being in different homerooms.
“Holy shit, Ryan actually shaved his beard off?” Marianne asked Niklas right before the actual ceremony started.
“Fuck yes!” Niklas replied, stifling his laughter, “And he actually fucking cut himself while he was shaving, and there was blood everywhere on the bathroom floor!”
“Jesus Christ!” Marianne also managed to stifle her laughter somehow. “I wonder what he looks like now.”
“You’re gonna see in a little while,” Niklas said, “It’s gonna be really fucking funny!”
Sure enough, as soon as they saw Ryan walking in the walkway, Niklas whispered a nasty idea into Marianne’s idea, which made her smack Ryan’s ass in three… two… one…
SMACK!
Ryan jumped, swiftly turned around to face Niklas and Marianne, and whispered harshly with clenched teeth-
Niklas and Marianne, clearly not giving a shit about Ryan’s wellbeing, covered their mouths and tried their hardest not to snicker. However, as soon as he left (mostly because some other students were behind him and wanted to get Class Day over with), the two “pranksters” let it all go. Their laughter quickly filled up the entire auditorium, and it took two teachers to drag them into the ISS room, where they continued to laugh. Saliva dripped onto Niklas’s Pink Floyd T-shirt while he held onto his crotch while Marianne wiped some tears of laughter onto her Nirvana T-shirt.
“Did I mention that Ryan screamed like a bitch when he cut himself while shaving?” Niklas wheezed.
That was the funniest shit these two had ever heard of.
After the Class Day assembly had ended, Riley, who had come with Greg, ran over to Marilyn and hugged her. “Girl, I’m so proud of you!” she squealed as she squeezed Marilyn tighter than the tightest skirt hugging against a girl’s thigh.
“Aww, boo! I wish you could’ve been with me, too!” Marilyn replied, squeezing Riley into an equally tight hug.
As soon as Marilyn said that, Riley felt a swift twang of agony punch her in the guts. Yet another reminder of her failures. “Yeah… yeah, me too,” she said quietly, staring at the ground.
“But don’t worry,” Marilyn tried to reassure Riley, “You’re gonna have a job soon, aren’t you?”
Riley gulped. Why did Marilyn have to bring that up? Okay, no need to panic. Just take a deep breath; she was gonna find something worthwhile soon. “Y-Yeah, Imma have a job real soon. You gon’ be going to college soon, right?”
This time, it was Marilyn’s turn to feel a swift twang of agony punching her in the guts. “Yeah… yeah, I am.”
“Great! We can at least see each other during breaks.”
Marilyn gulped and blinked, her dark brown eyes shifting to the ground, where her feet were shifting her own weight. “Daddy says I have to go to college in Berkeley,” she almost whispered.
Riley’s heart skipped a beat. Berkeley was in the middle of California; Portland was all the way in northern Oregon, bordering the south of Washington state. She may never see Marilyn again. “Damn… I’m gonna miss you so much,” she said, tears stinging her eyes.
Tears stung Marilyn’s eyes, too. She stood still, stiff as a board, for the longest time until she suddenly pushed herself onto Riley and exclaimed, “I’m gonna miss you too, girl!”
The two girls embraced each other for the longest time until they reluctantly let go of each other and stared at each other some more. Finally-
On the ride home, Cereza went on and on about what life would be like in middle school.
“And I can finally wear make-up and own a cell phone and go on dates,” she droned on and on, as if anyone cared.
“And you’ll have to wear school uniforms,” Axel interrupted in a blasé tone of voice, trying hard not to fall back asleep.
Cereza turned her head and gave Axel a nasty glare. “¡No interrumpas mis fantasías, pendejo!” she hissed with clenched teeth.
Axel rolled his eyes and slumped his head down onto his chest, failing to stay awake.
“I don’t see why school uniforms are such a big deal,” Siënna said, “I wore them when I was in school in Belgium, and it wasn’t such a big deal there.”
The high schoolers scoffed at Siënna’s comment because they knew how much hell school uniforms really were, especially for those who didn’t wear them in their home countries. Besides, wasn’t America supposed to be a free country? If so, why the school uniforms?
The only person (besides Siënna and Axel) who didn’t seem to give a shit about school uniforms (or, rather, wasn’t paying attention) was Ryan. There were much worse things on his mind, and Greg could tell by the harsh scowl frozen on his face and how he was positioned in the back- slouched down with his arms crossed against his chest.
“Ryan,” Greg began gently, “Is there something you want to talk to me about when we get home?”
Before Ryan could utter a single sound, Tamie blurted out, “Nikki groped his ass during the Class Day ceremony.”
“Oi, shut the fuck up, Tamie!” Ryan shouted at the fat, alcoholic fuck.
“Ryan,” Greg warned, “Just because you’re upset about something doesn’t make it okay for you to lash out at other people. We’ll talk about your situation when we arrive at home, okay?”
Ryan scoffed and slid further down his seat with his arms crossed against his chest. Yeah, right. Like any of that would be resolved. Looked like he had to take things into his own hands.
Speaking of taking things into Ryan’s own hands, Niklas was still chuckling to himself, even though he had been put into ISS and damn well knowing that Greg was going to get on his ass for that. But Greg wasn’t going to be the only person getting onto Niklas’s ass…
“I’m gonna fucking kill you for this!” Ryan screamed at the top of his lungs as he lunged towards Niklas.
Niklas, forgetting for a second that he and Marianne had “pranked” Ryan during the Class Day ceremony, put his hands up in defense and questioned, “Dude, what the fuck are you talking about?!”
“You know damn well what the fuck I’m talking about, you fucking pervert!” Ryan answered, his face red as a tomato and his breath as fast as lightning, grabbing at the collar of Niklas’s shirt.
Finally understanding what Ryan was talking about, Niklas pushed himself away and loudly insisted, “It was a fucking joke!”
“Does this look like I’m fucking laughing, mate?!” Ryan screeched, his spit splattering onto Niklas’s face.
Niklas wiped the spit off of his face and insisted again, “It was a fucking joke! You do this shit to me all the time! What makes this any different?!”
“I never slapped your ass, asshole!” By that point, Ryan’s face was redder than a tomato and hotter than lava in a volcano. But before a physical fight could break out, Greg separated the two young men and guided them to the Vent Room.
“I need to know what’s going on with you two,” Greg said in a low voice, sitting on a yellow beanbag chair.
“Nikki slapped my ass during the Class Day ceremony!” Ryan snitched, his face still red and burning from embarrassment and shame.
“It was a fucking joke!” Niklas loudly insisted for the third time, “And it wasn’t even me who slapped his ass! It was Marianne!”
“You think that’s gonna make a fucking difference?!” Ryan shouted.
“Well, you do this shit to me all the time! Now, all of a sudden, I give you a taste of your own medicine, and you get a stick up your ass about it?!” Niklas argued, his own face turning red.
Ryan was about to lung at Niklas again, but Greg held him back. “I’ve never slapped your ass before, you fucking pervert!” he shouted while trying to wriggle out of Greg’s grasp, “You are a sick fuck, and I fucking hate you for this!”
“Ryan, take a deep breath,” Greg told the angry ginger. He turned to Niklas and asked, “Niklas, is it true that you and Marianne decided to slap Ryan on his… buttocks?”
“It was a fucking joke!” Niklas insisted, his face growing redder than ever, “And it wasn’t even my idea in the first place! It was Marianne’s! I just thought it was funny!”
Greg took a deep breath and stared at Niklas right into his green eyes. “Niklas,” he began, “Sexual harassment is not funny. It is not a joke to make; it is a serious offense that hurts other people. I want you to apologize to Ryan right now.”
Niklas balked, his jaw dropped. “But I didn’t do shit to him!” he argued, throwing his hands out in the air.
“Niklas,” Greg warned in a low voice, “You encouraged your girlfriend to sexually harass Ryan. Sexual harassment is not a joke. Now, I want you to apologize to Ryan right now. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Niklas sighed and huffed through his nostrils. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled under his breath.
“What are you sorry for, Niklas?” Greg egged on, “I want you to say clearly what you’re sorry for.”
Niklas growled and repeated clearly, although with his teeth clenched, “I’m sorry for slapping your ass during the Class Day assembly.”
“Thank you, Niklas,” Greg said with a tiny, serene smile on his face. Ryan just glared at Niklas with the same frown on his face until Greg made him shake hands with the young man whose girlfriend had slapped his ass earlier.
…
“I can’t believe this!” Kishi whined on the way home from school, “I didn’t win one award!” Indeed, that was true. River was right; the only ones who won any awards were the super smart kids like McKenna Suzuki and Kyla Wong. Violet Blume was right, too; she won the art award from her cousin’s class. Even River won an award for making straight A’s throughout the year. The only time Kishi’s name was mentioned was when the principal was announcing the names of those who made A’s and B’s all year round.
“Gee, kind of makes all of that makeup not worth it, huh?” Lidiya said more to herself, which made Amanda and River giggle.
Kishi, who had heard that, blushed a heavy red and turned her head. “Oh, like you’re in any position to laugh, Lidiya! You didn’t win any awards, either!”
“Yeah, but at least I didn’t waste my time putting on a ton of makeup and deluding myself,” Lidiya argued.
“Yeah, come on, Kishi. You had to have known that you probably weren’t going to win an award,” Amanda added.
Kishi’s eye twitched, and her fists curled up into balls. “It couldn’t help to be prepared, you know… just in case!”
“Just in case,” River mumbled to herself, making Lidiya laugh in the process.
Kishi stormed over towards her “friends” and was about to give them a piece of her mind when Amanda asked where Anima was.
“I don’t know,” Kishi answered, her face and posture returning to normal, “I did know that she got off the bus with us.”
“Yeah, and she was walking with us for a little bit,” Lidiya added, “I wonder why she isn’t with us right now.”
“Yeah… that is a good point,” River said, “This bitch making it look like a missing person’s report.”
Amanda gulped and replied with, “Well, that really worries me. She’s been doing this a lot lately.”
Kishi gulped and rubbed her hand onto her arm. “Yeah, me too. Where could she be right now?”
Where Anima was at that moment was in the woods, looking for Penelope. She didn’t have the energy to listen to Kishi bitch about not receiving any awards. Besides, Penelope wasn’t on the bus. What was up with that? Her heart started rapidly beating out of her chest, and her hands clammed up. Oh, God! She hoped Penelope’s parents hadn’t found out about them! Her chest tightened as her breathing increased in speed. Where was Penelope?! Was she okay?! Anima’s feet crunched on leaves and branches until she heard a noise that finally relieved her- Penelope’s singing.
God, she had such a beautiful singing voice! Anima could just listen to it all day; Penelope’s voice was as smooth as silk, as deep as dark chocolate, and as melodic as a symphony from Mozart. How could anyone not want to listen to this beautiful singing? Anima had to get closer to hear better! So, she tiptoed closer and closer to Penelope as quietly as possible so that she couldn’t interrupt that amazing voice. But, of course, she did interrupt when she accidentally stepped on a stick, making it crack so loudly that Penelope yelped an off-pitch noise and jumped three feet in the air.
“Jesus, Anima! You scared me!” Penelope exclaimed, still tense from the crackling of the stick Anima had stepped on.
“I’m sorry, shit!” Anima replied stumbling back until she tripped on another stick and landed on her ass. Penelope ran over and helped Anima up back onto her feet with the generous grasp of her hands.
“So… where have you been today?” Anima asked after a few awkward moments of silence, “I didn’t see you on the bus this morning or afternoon.”
“My mother was signing me up for track camp today,” Penelope answered in a low sigh as the two girls walked further into the woods.
Oh, yeah… track camp. Penelope had told Anima about her going to one in Troutdale for the summer. Bummer. “So… it’s official,” she said quietly.
Penelope grabbed Anima’s hands and answered, “Yeah, I’ve already told you this before.” She looked down, her brown filled with melancholy, and added, “I’m really gonna miss you, though.”
“Yeah… me, too,” Anima replied quietly. Despite the silence, Anima’s heart was beating loudly and rapidly. A strange feeling weakened her legs, and it felt as if she was about to explode at any second. The two stared at each other’s eyes for several silent moments, gazing at their beauties, until they inched closer to each other, puckered their lips, and… and… and-
“Penelope!” a woman’s shrill shriek pierced the woods.
Anima and Penelope jumped in fear and quickly turned their heads to see an average-height woman with short brown hair and blue work clothes on. That woman looked eerily familiar… why did Anima have a bad feeling in her gut? She glanced back at Penelope, then at the woman again, and… no! It couldn’t be!
Ms. Ross, the principal of that special school Anima used to go to- the whole reason why she was in this situation in the first place! Well, one thing was sure- she damn sure wasn’t going back! Not now, not ever!
“Mom!” Penelope yelped, dropping Anima from her shaking hands, “What are you doing here?!”
“I should ask you the same thing, Penelope Anne Boucher!” Penelope’s mother exclaimed, “What are you doing here?!”
“I was just hanging out with a friend, Mom! What’s wrong with that?!” Penelope answered, her voice cracking and tears running down her cheeks.
“Friends don’t lean up against each other to the point where they’re about to kiss one another,” Penelope’s mother argued, “That’s something lovers do.” She stormed over to Anima and added in a stern voice, “Help me find this person’s parents. We need to talk.”
After being forced to tell Mrs. Boucher where she lived, Anima felt her feet being dragged towards the YouChannell Group Home. Once they arrived, Mrs. Boucher banged on the wooden front door with her fist until Katja answered with a confused look on her face.
“Hello, is this your child?” Mrs. Boucher asked Katja in a stern voice, pointing down at bawling Anima.
Katja stared at Anima for an uncomfortable moment before looking back up at this strange lady and answering, “Yes… is something the matter here?”
“Yes, I caught your child committing highly intimate acts in the woods with my daughter.” Mrs. Boucher pushed Anima towards Katja inside the house. “I’d suggest you talk to her about this.” With that out of the way, she stormed away, gripping Penelope’s wrist and dragging her away from Anima… possibly for good.
Katja looked down at Anima once more and gently guided her into the Vent Room. “Anima,” she whispered, kneeling down to the girl’s level, “Is there anything you want to tell me about? You with that girl- what was that woman talking about with you two?”
Anima’s legs were already weak and wet by that point, but she really didn’t give a shit. She was getting kicked out by tomorrow anyway, so might as well just get it out of the way. So, Anima took a deep breath and shouted loudly enough for the whole house, the whole neighborhood, the whole world to hear-
Katja put her hands to her mouth in a speechless shock.
“Three… two… one,” Ryan thought to himself in the hallway in the middle of the night, “It’s showtime!” Using his ultimate ninja skills, he sneaked into Niklas’s room and quickly grabbed the heavy blue blankets off of the sleeping birthday boy. “Happy Birth- HOLY FUCKING SHIT!”
What Ryan had witnessed was Niklas’s large, flaccid, and circumcised penis.
“Get the fuck out of my room!” Niklas shouted at Ryan, covering his crotch with his bare (naked) hands.
“Why the fuck are you not wearing clothes?!” Ryan screamed, his throat closing up as if he was about to vomit at any second.
Just then, Greg barged into Niklas’s room and questioned tiredly, “What’s going on with you two?”
“Fucker pulled my blankets off of me while I was asleep!” Niklas answered in a loud, angry voice, pointing at Ryan with one hand while covering his crotch with the other.
“I didn’t think that he would be fucking naked!” Ryan defended himself, his voice cracking into a higher-pitched tone.
Greg sighed and glared at the young man who was still holding the heavy blue blanket and was also wearing clothes. “Ryan, what are you even doing in Niklas’s room in the first place? It’s three-thirty in the morning.”
Ryan’s eyes darted across the room as he swallowed some vomit that had been coming up from his throat and trembled. “Wanna sing this Happy Birthday song?” he asked, his voice shaking in fear, “Let’s sing the Happy Birthday song. Happy Birthday to yo-“
“We’re not going to sing the Happy Birthday song,” Greg stated flatly and firmly, “It’s three-thirty in the morning, Ryan. Please go back to your room and go back to bed.”
“Oi, come on! I was just wanting to-“
“Now, Ryan.”
“Yes, get the fuck out of my room! Some of us just want to sleep!” Niklas barked back.
“Alright, damn. Shit,” Ryan grumbled to himself as Greg led him out of Niklas’s room with his shoulders and back slumped.
Shaking with fear and trauma, Niklas slowly pulled on a pair of dark blue boxer briefs and his blue blankets all the way up to his chin. He seriously hoped that Ryan, or anyone else for that matter, wouldn’t barge into his room again.
…
“Hurry the fuck up! I need to pee!” Niklas shouted at the upstairs bathroom’s door as he banged his fists on it and wriggled around, crossing his legs and holding his crotch into his hands.
“Occupied!” Ryan shouted through the door, trying hard not to laugh his ass off.
Niklas muttered a couple of death threats in German before he ran downstairs to that bathroom, having each step hurt with every second passing- seconds that he couldn’t afford to lose. “Hello?!” he shouted, banging on that door.
“I’m busy! Ya’ll need to wait just a minute!” Fern shouted over the sounds of the shower.
Niklas moaned and whimpered as loudly as a locomotive. Time to make those painful steps back upstairs again. One step, two steps, left step, right step… oh, the agony! Walking wasn’t going to do; there just simply wasn’t any time. Those steps had to turn into quick sprints and jumps above the stairs. “Hello!” he whined loudly, banging on the door after he had finally returned to the upstairs bathroom.
“Occupied!” Ryan called out once more through the door.
Niklas shouted a big moan and exclaimed angrily, “You’ve already said that several minutes ago! What the fuck is taking you so long?!”
“Occupied!” Ryan repeated.
“Son of a bitch!” Niklas mouthed with his teeth clenched. Enough was enough! With one hand holding his crotch, he kicked the door open and looked around all over in the bathroom. Where the hell was that piece of shit Ryan, and what the fuck kind of right did he have to hog up the bathroom during an emergency?! Nowhere to be seen- just fucking with him as usual! Niklas was about to give up and finally take a piss when he heard a slight snicker and snatched the clear plastic shower drapes open and found Ryan crouched up on top of a bathtub.
That did it! “Get the fuck out!” Niklas hollered at the top of his lungs.
Ryan started laughing his ass off and pointed at the poor bastard who was already suffering enough with his crossed legs and his shifting weight between each foot. While laughing, Ryan’s feet slipped, and he crash-landed into the the bottom of the bathtub, which was about as flat as his ass. “Ow, shit!” he yelled in pain and shock.
Both boys heard footsteps stomping upstairs, and all of a sudden, Greg was standing right there in the doorway with both hands on his hips. “What’s going on with you two?” he sternly asked.
Ryan tried to get up out of the bathtub but ended up slipping back down. “I think I just broke my ass!” he exclaimed, rubbing to soothe that flat ass booty.
“Good!” Niklas said, “I hope it’s broken into a million of little pieces!” He crossed his legs even more and rapidly and repeatedly tapped one foot.
Greg glared at Ryan once more and stated, “This is the second time I’ve caught you messing with Niklas, and it isn’t even eight in the morning. This teasing is getting seriously ridiculous, and if you don’t leave him alone, I’m going to-“
“It was just a joke!” Ryan whined, “I was just fucking with him. I-“
“Will you get the fuck out so that I can take a piss?!” Niklas growled at the pair of them. His legs started shaking as he slumped down to the floor on his knees. “I can’t hold it in anymore,” he whimpered in a small voice.
Greg grabbed Ryan’s hand and said, “Let’s go.” while dragging him out of the bathroom and into his room to get dressed.
That finally left Niklas all alone right in front of the toilet. Despite feeling like he was literally about to explode any second, he looked around the room for a slight minute before lowering his underwear and finally relieving himself in such sweet bliss.
…
The last thing anyone wanted to do at all was schoolwork, and yet here they were sitting in the kitchen with books, papers, and pencils sprawled out all over the table- Niklas, Ryan, Riley, and Marcus.
“Oi,” Ryan whispered to Niklas, poking him with a pencil because he had a project in his Government class.
“Stop,” Niklas, who was catching up on US History assignments, grunted under his breath.
Needless to say, Ryan did not stop. In fact, he did not stop for so long until a few minutes later when Niklas snatched the pencil out of his hand and snapped it in half. “Leave. Me. Alone!” he shouted.
“Ryan,” Katja said sternly, pulling up a chair next to her, “Come sit by me.”
Ryan balked, pretending to be shocked with his mouth wide open and his hands thrown out in full exaggeration. “What the fuck did I do?! I wasn’t doing anything!”
“You were trying to poke Niklas with a pencil,” Katja answered, still with a flat, no-nonsense voice.
“Yeah, poke! It wasn’t like I was trying to stab him or anything like that!” Ryan argued.
“You’re still a jackass,” Niklas grumbled under his breath as Katja sat Ryan down next to her.
The gang at the kitchen table continued on with their schoolwork for the next hour until Ryan poked Riley with the very same pencil he poked Niklas with.
“What the fuck do you want, boy?” Riley, who was trying to work on assignments for every subject, grunted under her breath.
“You wanna get out some time later and get some food?” Ryan asked in a hushed whisper so that nobody, especially Katja and Greg, heard him.
“Where though?”
Where? Damn, Ryan didn’t think he would actually make it this far. His mouth was slightly open like a fish gulping in water, and his eyes were wide open like a window on a nice, warm, sunny day (which this day was most definitely not).
“Nigga, you trippin’,” Riley grumbled again before turning back to her work.
Shit! What the hell was Ryan supposed to do? Katja already told him off for messing with Niklas, but he seriously needed to talk to him… again. He stared at Marcus and wondered just how in the hell he was gonna talk to Niklas when the answer came right in front of him. “Psst, Marcus!” he whispered right into the boy’s ear.
Marcus, who had been struggling with his Spanish assignments, jumped in his chair and looked around before discovering that it was just Ryan trying to mess with him just like he did with Niklas. “What do you want?” he asked.
“Oi, can you ask Nikki something for me, please?” Ryan said desperately and quietly because he didn’t want anybody to overhear his plans.
“Why can’t you?” Marcus asked, his eyebrows burrowed deep into his forehead in suspicion.
“Because Katja’s gonna get on my ass again if I talk to him,” Ryan answered.
“So?” Clearly, Marcus didn’t give a shit. “Just pass notes to him. I don’t want to be involved in whatever you’re thinking about.”
Pass notes… shit, why didn’t he think of that in the first place? “Gee, thanks for being useful, asshole,” Ryan told Marcus before ripping a piece of notebook paper out of a red binder.
Ryan: oi, ye wan’ go do something later?
As soon as Ryan passed that note to him, Niklas flipped him the bird, which made Ryan open his mouth with confusion and bewilderment. Damn, the least he could do was respond, even just a little bit.
Niklas: wtf do you want?
Finally, something! But Ryan was taken aback; what was he going to do with Niklas? What was he…
Ryan: ye wan’ maybe go out?
Niklas: i have a gf, dipshit
Ryan: i wasnt asking for a date. i was just asking like friends and shit
Niklas: alright. what do you want? im hungry asf
Food, that sounded easy enough. But what kind of food did Niklas want?
Ryan: what kind of food ye want?
Niklas: taco bell
Taco Bell?! What the fuck?!
Ryan: wtf!? there food sucks!
Niklas: i. want. taco bell.
Ryan: why tho!?
Niklas: alright, asshole. if you can think of anything better here, go ahead!
“Katja, what’s for dinner tonight?” Ryan asked aloud after slamming his pencil down onto the table.
“We’re having goulash with tzimmes and fig newtons,” Katja merely answered as she tried to help Marcus with his Spanish assignments.
Goulash, Ryan knew was some type of orange soup with meat, veggies, and paprika and looked like Cheeto vomit. Tzimmes was a type of stew with carrots and raisins, and Ryan seriously did not feel like shitting out his guts that night. Also, the less he said about fig newtons, the better.
Ryan: aight. you win. but im only doing this for u.
Niklas looked up and smirked; he figured that Taco Bell ought to give him some revenge for what he had to go through this morning.
“Psst, Riley!” Ryan whispered, “You wanna get some Taco Bell with me and Nikki?”
“Taco Bell?!” Riley exclaimed in a hushed and shocked whisper, “Nigga, are you trippin’?! Their food nasty as fuck!”
“Alright then, never mind!” Ryan said, “You’re too fucking stupid to leave here anyways. I heard you were failing tenth for what, the third time? Damn, just drop out alread-“
And that was when Riley swiftly kicked that motherfucker in the shin, making him wince in extreme agony. He should’ve considered himself lucky that she prevented herself from doing much more damage.
“Alright, damn! Shit!” Ryan barely exhaled, still wincing in agony, “I’m sorry, okay? I’ll let you go to Taco Bell with us!”
Riley slowly looked up and stared straight into Ryan’s soul for several minutes. “Can I bring Marilyn?”
“Hell no,” Ryan answered, “I’m not letting that bitch tag along with us-” He stopped and gulped because he didn’t want Riley to kick him in the shin a second time. “You know what? Fine, see if I care.”
“Thank you.” Riley stared at Ryan again, this time for a few moments, before she looked back down and mumbled to herself-
…
“Right, is everyone here?” Ryan asked at the playground right before dinnertime. He counted himself, Niklas, Riley, Niklas’s girlfriend Marianne, and Ryan’s girlfriend Sydney.
“Hold on, Marilyn’s not here,” Riley pointed out with no success.
“Alright, everyone’s here.” Ryan opened the driver’s door to his red mid-2000s car. “Does everyone know what they’re ordering from Taco Bell?”
“Taco Bell?” Sydney said, “I’ve eaten a lot of shit in my life so far, but Taco Bell is really shitty.”
“Oi, don’t look at me!” Ryan said defensively, “Going to Taco Bell wasn’t my idea! Now get in the fucking car before somebody-“
“Hold on! I thought I told you that Marilyn wasn’t here yet!” Riley exclaimed irritably.
“Good,” Ryan replied, “Fuck her. She should’ve gotten here on time if she wanted to-“
“Ayy, bitch! What’s up?” Marilyn screamed at the top of her lungs as she ran towards Ryan’s car with both feet hopping as if they had springs on them.
“What’s up?” Riley screeched right into everyone’s ears. She glanced at the clock in the car; it was 5:28. Everyone was supposed to meet up by 5:30, so technically, Marilyn was on time.
Niklas, and Ryan especially, were both disappointed that they had to include Marilyn on their adventure for some fucking tacos because if they didn’t, Riley would kick their asses. In fact, just to make sure Riley was completely off their asses, they turned on a favorite song of Niklas’s.
“Babe, what’s with all the old people music?” Sydney asked Ryan as they rode along.
“It’s not my fucking idea,” Ryan answered irritably, “You can blame the birthday boy sitting right next to me. He’s the one who likes all of this old shit!”
Niklas slid down in his seat and scowled. It wasn’t his fault that 1970s rock music appealed to him and was better than most other types of music. Marianne looked over at him from the back seat and gave him a tiny smile, showing him that at least she gave a shit about his musical tastes.
“Girl, you wanna know what my daddy said to me right before I left?” Marilyn asked Riley after a short while.
“No, what?” Riley said.
“We were talking about which colleges I wanted to attend, and I told him that I didn’t want to go to college. So he was all like, ‘Well, what are you going to do with your life after high school?’. And I told him that I wanted to be a stripper,” Marilyn said.
Everyone in the car looked completely baffled, especially Riley. “Why the fuck do you want to be a stripper for?” she asked.
“Because it makes a lot of money!” Marilyn explained, “But apparently, my daddy didn’t like that idea because he was all like, ‘Well, what happens if you don’t go to college? You’ll make less money!’. And I told him, ‘Well, if that’s the case, then why are there so many people who got Master’s degrees still working at McDonald’s?’. And then he got pissed off and grounded me for two weeks.”
“Yeah, uh, listen to your dad. He’s got a point,” Sydney said, “The most you can get with anything nowadays is a fast-food job. You’re not gonna get paid for shit if you don’t go to college. You’re not gonna get paid for shit if you do anything. I speak from experience.”
Riley and Marilyn along with everyone else just stared at Sydney in crestfallen melancholy because holy shit was that depressing to hear.
“Thank you for choosing Taco Bell. Hold on a minute,” some apathetic lady said over the intercom when they finally appeared at the cursed place.
While waiting for what seemed like forever (probably because like most fast-food restaurants, Taco Bell sometimes has to deal with understaffed places), Ryan turned his head and asked whether everyone knew what they were ordering.
“Thank you for waiting,” that same lady said after a several minutes, “What can I get for you?”
Niklas was the first one to whisper his order into Ryan’s ear.
“Erhm, yeah, I’d like to get a Waffle Taco with a Mountain Dew,” Ryan told the intercom.
“…Sir, we don’t have that yet.”
Ryan quickly turned his head towards the birthday boy, and, with his eye twitching, mouthed, “What the fuck?!”
“I didn’t know!” Niklas mouthed back.
“Well, you better fucking pick something else because they don’t have… whatever the fuck a Waffle Taco is!” Ryan told him aloud.
“What the fuck is a Waffle Taco?!” Sydney asked in bafflement.
“Shit if I know!” Ryan answered, throwing his hands up in frustration, “It sounds fucking stupid anyways!”
“It’s a waffle as a taco shell with beef in it… fuck you, Ryan!” Niklas shouted.
“Well, that sounds fucking stupid!” Ryan said, “You better order something else ’cause there’s, like, a fuck ton of cars behind us!” He muttered under his breath, “Fucking dumb ass.”
Niklas huffed heavily through his nose and reluctantly changed his order to a Grande Scrambler with a Mountain Dew. Ryan ordered a a Beefy Nacho Griller with a Sierra Mist, Riley ordered two crunchy Taco Supremes with a Pepsi, Marilyn ordered two soft Taco Supremes with no beef and a bottle of water, Sydney ordered a Steak Quesadilla with a Tropicana Pink Lemonade, and Marianne ordered nachos and cheese. Sounded delicious, right? Well, it did… until Ryan heard the total amount that he was supposed to pay.
“Oh, shit,” Ryan said to himself.
Sydney heard because she leaned forward towards Ryan and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t have any money with me,” Ryan answered in a barely audible voice.
Well, everyone heard that because they all leaned over, stared at him, and made a huge stink.
“Are you fucking kidding me, Ryan?!” Sydney yelled angrily, “How the fuck do you order fast food and not have the money to pay for it?!”
“Well, I didn’t think that this many people would show up!” Ryan argued, his face turning red and his hands beginning to shake.
“Damn, you’d think you would check just in case,” Riley muttered to herself.
Ryan heard that. “Oi, bitch! I wasn’t even thinking that this many people would show up! I thought the only people who were going to show up was me, Nikki, Sydney, and-“
“Hold on, hold on. I got you guys,” Marilyn said as she pulled a credit card out of her jean pocket.
“Where did you get that from?” Marianne asked.
“It’s actually my daddy’s credit card that I stole from him,” Marilyn answered, “That’s what happens when you’re a pussy ass bitch.”
It was the first time that anyone, especially Ryan, was thankful for Marilyn Cheong’s presence. They got their food and drove to the most secret place they could think of at the moment- Grant Park.
“Jesus, that statue scares the shit out of me,” Marianne told Niklas after they sat down on a wooden bench when Ryan, Riley, Marilyn, and Sydney left them alone.
“What statue?” Niklas asked.
Marianne pointed to the bronze statue of a little girl who looked like she was jumping around in the rain.
“Oh… I’ve never noticed that before,” Niklas stated.
“You mean you’ve never noticed the creepy statues here at all?” Marianne in a faux shocked tone.
“No, I don’t really go here that often,” Niklas answered.
Both were completely silent for a few minutes before Marianne asked Niklas, “So uh… how have things been with you lately?”
Niklas sighed and answered, “If I’m being honest, I’m not really sure. I mean, some day I feel just fine, and then others, well… I don’t know. I just feel as if there’s no hope at all sometimes. It’s like, what’s the point?” He bent down into his laps and covered his face with his hands.
While she was watching Niklas almost have a meltdown, Marianne looked down at him and asked, “Is it okay if I hold your hand?”
“No,” Niklas answered in a tiny voice.
“…Well, can I least sit beside you?”
Niklas didn’t say anything, but it did help him calm down eventually… after a few minutes. When he looked up and saw his girlfriend still sitting there, he said, “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that in front of you.”
“Nah, it’s okay,” Marianne reassured him.
Niklas took some deep, shaky breaths and said in a low, quiet voice, “Thanks for staying with me.”
“No problem,” Marianne said. The pair stayed silent for several more minutes before she asked, “So uh… what do you wanna do?”
Niklas looked up. “What do you mean?”
“I mean…” Marianne leaned onto her boyfriend and rubbed her index finger up and down on his dark gray sweater. Niklas immediately got the idea as he grinned, then smirked, then leaned closer, then-
It felt good; it was like eating a strawberry dipped in Belgian chocolate and washing it down with a nice cold glass of bubbly water, which sounded a hell of a lot better than the Taco Bell they had. He didn’t want it to happen, but alas, all good things had to come to an end.
“That make you feel any better?” Marianne asked with a sly smirk on her face.
Niklas quickly looked down and bit his bottom lip; yes, it did made him feel better. No, he wasn’t about to publicly admit it.
“Come on, I know you enjoyed that,” Marianne said, widening that sly smirk of hers and elbowing her boyfriend’s arm.
Niklas chuckled and mumbled, “Maybe.”
“That’s my boy!” Marianne said, wrapping her arms around Niklas once more and collided her lips with his.
Obviously, Niklas more than willingly returned that favor because this time, he toppled on top of Marianne, and they made out to high heaven until Niklas heard somebody clear their throat… or at least, he thought he heard somebody clear their throat. Maybe it came from him, maybe it came from Marianne, or maybe it was just some auditory hallucination. Who knew? Either way, he kept making out until he heard yet another and even louder throat-clearing. Nope, that definitely wasn’t an auditory hallucination; that was a real person staring at the pair and quite possibly being grossed out by them making out. Niklas looked up and discovered a very drunk and disorientated Tamie holding a water bottle halfway filled with bootleg vodka. Oh, shit.
“Oh, shit!” Niklas groaned to himself, planting his face into the palms of both of his hands.
“What’s wrong?” Marianne asked.
“Tamie’s drunk again,” Niklas answered in a low, quiet mumble, not wanting to piss that drunk bastard off lest she tried to beat the shit out of him.
“Oh.” Both of them stared at the drunk Tamie stumbling over herself before Marianne stood up from her seat and asked Niklas, “Do you think we should help her?”
“No, don’t,” Niklas answered in a hushed whisper, “Just let her do her thing until she eventually passes out.”
Marianne turned her head in confusion and shock and inquired, “Are you fucking crazy?! Your friend here needs our help, and you’re just gonna let her suffer like this?!”
Niklas heaved a hefty sigh and relented. “Alright, fine. I’ll help too.” He dragged his ass off of the bench and, with the help of Marianne, grabbed one of Tamie’s arms and dragged her towards the bench they had been sitting at. That was a strenuous pain in the ass to do because Tamie was one fat motherfucker.
“You want anything from us?” Marianne asked Tamie.
Tamie drunkenly shook her head and bent over to grab her stomach, praying to God that she wouldn’t barf her guts out.
“Are you sure? Because I’m willing to give you the rest of my nachos if you want them,” Marianne said.
No response from Tamie. Perhaps she was too sick to eat even the slightest bit of carbohydrate.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” Niklas asked.
“What are you being such an asshole for?” Marianne replied in a hushed whisper, “I thought she was your friend.”
“She is!”
“Then why don’t you want to help her?”
“Because she’s like this all the time! What’s the fucking point?”
“You know, you can help other people without having a point for it. You don’t have to be such an asshole about this.”
“I’m not trying to be an asshole. I’m just-“
“Oh, shit! Is Tamie drunk again?” a young woman’s voice interrupted the pair’s argument.
Niklas and Marianne jumped in surprised fear as they looked behind them and saw Ryan, Sydney, Marilyn, and Riley just standing there.
“Jesus Christ, we could hear you from playground!” Sydney said.
Niklas and Marianne looked at each other; were they really that loud? And if so, was it really any of their businesses?
“Damn, ya’ll must’ve been fucking each other real good for ya’ll to be this fucking loud!” Marilyn cackled.
Niklas’s face turned red, then purple as his jaw slightly dropped, his mouth dried too much for words, his eye twitched, and his hands balled into fists and shook. He was getting super close to beating the ever-living shit out of Marilyn when Marianne said irritably, “Really, Marilyn. Is sex the only thing that’s ever on your mind?”
Marilyn blushed a deep maroon as Riley, Ryan, Sydney, and even Tamie snickered their asses off, Marianne smirked smugly, and Niklas unballed his fists and returned the color of his face to the color of his skin.
“Alright, damn. Shit,” Marilyn mumbled to herself as she silently sat down into the cold, crunchy grass, “I was just making a joke. You guys are assholes.”
Marianne sat down next to Marilyn and said, “You look really pissed off about my comment. If I’ve pissed you off, then I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to do that.”
“Nah, it’s cool,” Marilyn mumbled. She pulled her knees up to her face and added, “At least I know you ain’t gon’ beat the shit out me like my mom did.”
Everyone stared at Marilyn in astonishment and scared shock as they all sat down in a circle.
“That’s what she did to me and dad when we used to live in Berkeley, and she was a fucking meth head,” Marilyn continued. She sighed out, “I hope to God she never gets out of prison. And if she does get out of prison, then I hope somebody beats the shit out of her.”
Nobody spoke in the mist of the transforming night until Sydney piped up and said, “Well, at least your dad still cares about you. I don’t have a dad, and my mom was always a shrill bitch to me all the time growing up.” She exhaled heavily through her nose. “I’m so glad I live in an apartment by myself because going back to my mom’s place would be my worst fucking nightmare.”
“Damn, you’re lucky,” Marilyn told Sydney, “I wish I could live in an apartment by myself.”
Sydney shrugged. “I mean, she can be hurt by this all she wants, but she’s the one who hurt me first.”
“Yeah, I don’t think I could handle hurting anyone,” Tamie confessed, “Like, I don’t care about hurting myself, but I’m really scared of hurting of hurting someone else ’cause that makes me feel like shit and, like, a burden.” She sighed and added, “It’s why I never tried to kill myself.”
“Damn, I’ve never thought about that,” Niklas said, staring at Tamie in awe and empathy.
“Yeah, I’m kind of scared of hurting people, too,” Riley added on, “Sometimes, I have these thoughts about hurting people or killing them, and it makes me feel awful because I would never want to hurt somebody on purpose unless they tried to hurt me first. But still, it sucks because what if I accidentally hurt someone I like?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of how I am, too,” Niklas said, “You know? Like, sometimes I get so pissed off that when I get into a fight sometimes, I’m scared that I’m gonna fucking kill someone.”
“Is that how you are with me when we get into fights?” Ryan asked.
Niklas turned around with his thick eyebrows furrowed in anger and exclaimed, “Fuck you!”
“Fuck you too, mate!” Ryan said, trying hard not to laugh but failing, which only pissed off Niklas more.
“Fuck you!” Niklas lunged at Ryan with his teeth clenched and his fingers clawing at Ryan’s sweater. “I’m going to fucking kill you, you piece of shit!”
“Oh, so you’re not afraid of killing someone now, are you? Well, fuck you too!”
“Will you two stop it? You’re both acting like little kids,” Marianne said.
Niklas, realizing that he was getting nowhere by fighting Ryan, quickly shoved him and sat back down in the grass.
“So, Ryan,” Sydney said, “What are you scared of the most?”
Ryan blushed and brushed his scratchy beard with the back of his hand. “I’m not scared of anything.”
“Bullshit. You’re scared of something,” Marianne scoffed. Niklas only coughed in a mocking fashion.
“No, I’m not!” Ryan argued, his face turning red and his finger tapping on his leg.
“He’s scared shitless of needles, especially when he has to go to the doctor,” Riley pointed out with a slight smirk on her face.
“That’s bullshit!” Ryan shouted at the top of his lungs, his muscles tensing up.
“Well then, what are you afraid of?!” Sydney impatiently asked, her eye twitching as if she was about to lose her shit at any moment.
Damn, he really wasn’t getting out of this, was he? Ryan huffed through his nose and sighed out in a low mumble, “Spiders.”
The rest of the gang stared at Ryan, not really sure whether they should believe in him or what. Then Riley, Marilyn, and Sydney started snickering, then giggling, before finally just laughing out loud.
“What’s so fucking funny?!” Ryan hollered, “You know how fucking dangerous spiders are in Australia?! Those little fuckers can kill you if you’re bitten!”
“Yeah, but only the poisonous ones,” Riley pointed out, “But I see you scream about even the tiniest fucking ones!” She, Sydney, and Marilyn all started shrieking in laughter again.
Ryan’s cheek burned in embarrassment and shame; they weren’t going to understand about Australian spiders, were they? Spiders were pretty scary creatures, especially the poisonous ones. Besides, there were some more petty shit to be afraid of, right? Surely, somebody in the group was afraid of something less threatening than spiders. “Oi, Marianne,” he said, “What’s your biggest fear?” He was sure she was gonna say something stupid.
Ryan was right. “Damn, you guys have been sharing your trauma, and now I’m gonna look like privileged bitch,” Marianne sighed. She took a deep breath before continuing with, “Do you guys remember that show Bear in the Big Blue House that used to air on Playhouse Disney? I don’t know why, but that bear always used to scare the shit out of me when I was a little kid. The way he used to sniff at the camera reminded me of some old pedophile.” She took her phone out and searched for a video on YouTube. “I didn’t actually get over my fear until I watched this video.”
“Jesus fucking Christ!” Ryan shouted at the top of his lungs, “What the fuck is wrong with you?!”
“Oh, my God! That is so fucked up!” Sydney shrieked in a shrill voice.
Niklas slowly backed away from Marianne; even he was wondering what the hell was wrong with his girlfriend.
Just then, Marilyn giggled like a little bitch again, but this time it was at something on her phone.
“What’s so fucking funny?!” Ryan inquired. He snatched the phone out of Marilyn’s hands and immediately sunk his mouth in.
“What the fuck, Marilyn?!” Ryan shouted angrily at the top of his lungs, “Are you a fucking stupid bitch or what?!”
“Wait, what’s going on?” Sydney asked as she, Riley, Tamie, and Niklas rushed over to Ryan clutching tightly to Marilyn’s phone. It only took one look to see what the big fuss was.
“Damn, Marilyn! Are you trying to get us caught?!” Riley grouched, throwing her hands up in the air, “You ain’t gotta tag all of us in everything!”
“Why ya’ll getting upset for?! It’s just a picture!” Marilyn said.
“It’s not just a picture, you dumb bitch!” Niklas replied angrily, “You do realize what kind of house we live in, right?! Pretty soon, somebody’s gonna report us missing and-“
Everyone’s phones started vibrating; it was several missing person notifications for Niklas, Ryan, Riley, and Tamie.
“Oh, shit. You guys are fucked,” Sydney said.
…
“Does anybody know where Niklas, Ryan, Tamie, and Riley are?” Katja announced to everyone in the living room for a special meeting.
Everyone stared at her and Greg with blank looks on their faces, except for Marcus, who was shaking and shifting his eyes left to right.
“Marcus, do you know anything about their disappearances?” Greg asked.
Marcus gulped and started breathing heavily. He quickly prayed to Allah that nobody would ask him any more questions about this topic; he really didn’t want to get into any trouble.
“Would you like to talk for a bit in my room?” Greg asked him much more quietly.
Oh, no! It didn’t work! Marcus had no choice but to follow the tall, very threatening man into his room.
“Let me tell you this first thing,” Greg began as he shut the door, “You’re not going to be in any trouble if you tell me, and you’re not going to be in any trouble if you don’t know anything.”
Marcus almost sighed in relief, but since he was in a group home, he didn’t dare take Greg’s word for granted. So he gulped and squirmed in his spot next to Greg on his bed.
“Katja told me that you were doing some schoolwork in the kitchen this afternoon with Niklas and Riley. Is this true?”
Marcus squirmed in his seat even more; did Katja seriously snitch on him? He didn’t want to tell, but he was probably sure Greg was going to punish him for lying. “Y-Yeah, I was.”
Greg nodded. “And did Ryan come in to mess with Niklas during that time?”
Marcus nodded again.
“What did you see them doing to each other? Were they whispering to each other or passing notes or…”
Marcus’s heart beat so hard and quickly, his hands became so clammy, and his breathing was so heavy that he felt as if he was going to explode any second. He was… until Fern shouted out from the living room, “Oh, shit!”
Greg jumped up and ran straight into the living room; Marcus slipped in a quick thank-you to Allah as he slipped out behind him.
“What’s going on?” Greg asked.
“I found them!” Fern exclaimed rather arrogantly, shoving her phone into Greg’s face.
Greg grabbed Fern’s phone out of her hands and stared at the photo that was uploaded onto Marilyn’s Instagram account.
Greg sucked in his cheeks and handed Fern’s phone back to her. “Thank you for showing me this,” he said in a low voice.
…
“Are you just a fucking idiot, Marilyn?!” Niklas shouted at her, “You don’t realize you’ve just incriminated us?! And that includes you, too?!”
“Hold on, what’s going on?” Marianne asked after meeting up with the rest of the group.
“Marilyn just uploaded a picture of us onto her Instagram account!” Ryan answered, still pissed off about the whole ordeal.
“Oh, shit!” Marianne’s eyes opened in shock for a short while before they blinked and returned to normal. “Well, I’m glad my parents gave me a normal curfew unlike you guys.”
“Shut the fuck up, Marianne!” Ryan shouted. He turned to Marilyn and added, “You’re a fucking dumb bitch!”
“Alright, damn! You ain’t gotta be so salty about this!” Marilyn said, “If it’ll make you feel any better, I’ll delete the picture.”
“It’s too late for that!” Niklas argued, “We’ve already got missing persons reports on us!”
“Damn, it’s already gotten to that?” Marianne exclaimed, this time with her eyes genuinely big in shock, “You guys are fucked!”
Thinking about how much they were exactly fucked, Riley said, “I think we should head back now.”
Everyone else stared at her. “Wait, you mean right now?” Tamie asked.
Riley placed her hands on her hips and replied with, “Damn, ya’ll got any better ideas?!”
No, they didn’t because a white mini-bus pulled up near where they were, and a tall, black man stormed towards them. “What is going on here?!” he questioned in an angry, firm voice.
Oh, shit. It was Greg. Who was going to explain this to Greg?
“Well, ehrm… we were just ehrm… we were just celebrating Nikki’s birthday here,” Ryan explained in a feeble voice.
“What the fuck?!” Niklas whispered angrily to Ryan, “Why are you trying to pin the blame on me?!”
“Because it’s your fucking birthday, dipshit!” Ryan whispered back.
“Well, whose fucking idea was it to sneak out of the fucking house?!”
Greg looked over at the two boys quietly arguing and then at Ryan’s car, which was right across the mini-bus. “So, you drove everyone here to the park? Am I correct in assuming that?” he asked Ryan.
Damn, literally caught red-handed. “…Maybe,” he answered with a worried chuckled.
Greg was not impressed with that little answer. “Get in the car,” he said firmly in a no-nonsense voice.
Ryan sighed, slumped his shoulders, and dragged his feet towards his car while Greg guided Niklas, Riley, and Tamie into the mini-bus.
“Do you two need a ride?” Greg asked Sydney and Marilyn right before he hopped into the bus himself.
“I think I have enough spare change to catch a bus,” Sydney answered.
“I don’t need a ride. I can call home,” Marilyn reassured.
Greg nodded and closed the driver seat’s door. After he buckled up and made sure everyone else was buckled up as well, he honked at Ryan’s car, telling him it was time to go. Niklas, Riley, and Tamie laughed at that gesture.
“I’m glad to see the amount of trouble you’re all in is considered funny to you guys,” Greg said as he followed Ryan back home.
That shut everybody up. Actually, it was a little embarrassing to be caught by Greg in the way they were. Then again, it was more embarrassing to have someone pull the blankets off of you in the middle of the night and exposing your naked body in the process, barring you from using the bathroom until you were absolutely about to wet yourself in the hallway, have that very same person distract you from doing your schoolwork until you agreed to go out with him, and getting yelled at for picking out a restaurant nobody else in the group liked despite it literally being your birthday.
Niklas had had better birthdays; he had also had worse birthdays.
“So, Siënna,” Katja began while they were in her room, “I’m going to ask you a few questions that I hope you don’t mind answering.”
The tiny ten-year-old girl looked down at her swinging feet, her stomach filled with butterflies and… well, actually an entire zoo. She hoped this lady wasn’t going to ask why she was here in the first place.
“Are you ready?” Katja asked.
Siënna nodded, bracing herself for the worst.
“Alright then, I want you to be honest with me.” Katja took a deep breath and asked, “Have you had thoughts about killing yourself?”
Siënna shook her head.
“Have you had thoughts about hurting yourself?”
Another head shake.
“Have you had thoughts about killing someone else?”
Yet another head shake.
“Have you had thoughts about hurting someone else?”
There went a fourth head shake. What kind of person would think about hurting someone else or themselves, let alone killing?
“Alright, Siënna. I think that’s enough questioning for now,” Katja said, closing a black pocketbook that she had been writing in with a pen. After checking her bags to see if she had sneaked in any contraband, she got up and showed her to some room on the first floor. “This is going to be your room for some time,” she said, “Make yourself comfortable, and we’ll get you at 10:30 for Group Time, okay?”
Oké… d’accord… ganz gut… okay. She wasn’t quite ready to meet up with the other people in the home just yet.
Right before Katja turned around to leave, she exclaimed, “Oh, I almost forgot!” She handed Siënna a black composition notebook. “This is your journal,” she explained, “I expect you to write down at least half a page each day, okay?”
Yeah, that should work.
…
Cereza’s eyes popped open, and she wriggled around in her seat because it was about damn time she had a girl around her age in here.
“Siënna, why don’t you sit next to Cereza?” Katja suggested.
Cereza, the brown girl with the really curly brown hair, raised her hair and waved it in the air, desperately wanting Siënna to sit next to her in the plastic yellow chair.
Siënna looked over at Katja and sat down in the yellow chair next to Cereza; might as well since she had no choice.
“Alright, I think we can get started now,” Katja said. She then went on and on about tolerance or something among those lines; Siënna had trouble concentrating due to the fact that Cereza kept staring at her on and off throughout the whole thing, and there were big teenagers around her who looked really bored and apathetic about the whole thing. She hoped that they weren’t going to beat her up or bully her for being a new kid.
…
“And this is our kitchen,” Cereza said to Siënna right before dinner, “And in the living room, these are our books.”
Siënna’s eyes lit up like Christmas lights, particularly at the sky blue book with the scarlet lettering that was in the center of the center tan shelf. “Who’s Faustine Louis?” she asked.
Faustine, who had been reading on the stuffy orange couch the entire time, looked up at the two young girls and casually answered, “Oh, that’s just me.”
Siënna’s Christmas-light gray eyes looked like they were about to explode in brightness. “You wrote this?” she asked in awe and excitement.
Faustine rolled her eyes and nodded. “I was only eleven when I wrote it. It can’t be that great.”
At that point, Siënna’s eyes took up three-quarters of her face. Eleven years old?! That was seriously awesome! “How’d you do it?! I mean, what made you write an entire book at eleven?!”
Faustine sighed through her nostrils. Of course the new kid had to ask that question of all questions. She reflected back to late July of 2009 in Port Townsend, Washington. Faustine could remember it clearly- Ryan and Tamie were stuck at home for getting high and eating a whole basket of blackberries while Riley, Marilyn, Niklas, Charlotte, Sydney, Mr. and Mrs. Johannsson, and Maurice were sailing around in some tiny boat that could barely support all of their body weight. Anyways, while everyone else was doing their own things, Faustine had noticed Marilyn’s father Mr. Cheong’s old dusty 1980s typewriter sitting around on a dark tan bureau. That gave Faustine some ideas.
It was like there were two Faustines in her head, and they were both arguing against each other nonstop. Guess which Faustine won?
“And that’s how I became a published author at the young age of eleven,” Faustine concluded.
Wow. That was a wild trip. “That’s really amazing,” Siënna said in even bigger awe and excitement.
Faustine sighed through her nostrils and stated, “Again, I was only eleven when it was published. It’s probably not that great.”
Just then, Anima stepped out of the kitchen and told the girls that dinner was ready. It was kibbeling, french fries, and chocolate mousse. “I see you’ve been having a deep and intellectual conversation with God over there,” she said to Siënna, pointing over at Faustine, who had just gotten off the couch.
Faustine sighed loudly through her mouth and rolled her eyes extra hard. “Please, stop,” she groaned.
“Why? I thought you’d be proud about being a published author at the age of eleven and being a high school senior at only fourteen,” Anima said very loudly and very condescendingly.
“Oh, boy. I can see that I’m not going to get anywhere with you by arguing,” Faustine muttered to herself before putting her book up and walking into the kitchen.
Cereza walked Siënna into the kitchen and whispered, “And that’s the house asshole, Anima.”
Siënna’s ears burned red; she had never heard someone close to her age call someone an asshole before. Too bad Anima heard all of that.
“House asshole?” she questioned, “What house asshole? There’s at least five of them in here, especially this guy.” She poked Niklas’s cheek when she said that last part.
“Get your fucking finger out of my face before I beat the shit out of you,” Niklas growled meanly, little droplets of spit splattering onto Anima’s cheeks.
Siënna shivered in fear and slumped down in her seat. This was the type of thing she was fearing in the group home. She hoped this boy, or man, wasn’t going to beat her up. She remembered a couple of lines from one of her favorite books- Der Wunschpunsch by Michael Ende- and began reciting them under her breath. Too bad Niklas heard that.
“Hey, kid. That sounds like German you’re reciting,” he said, “Are you sure you can speak German?”
Siënna looked up at the tall, block-shaped man with black hair and green eyes. Here was her chance to prove that she wasn’t such an easy target to attack; she had to remember not to get physical or else one of the caretakers would restrain her. “I can speak German,” she insisted with a stone cold look on her innocent face.
“I’m sure you can,” Niklas said. He then muttered to himself in German, “Little shit.”
Oh, no! Siënna was NOT going to take that lying down. She ended up telling Katja.
“Niklas, come here!” Katja commanded sternly with her eyebrows furrowed into her forehead. She ended up scolding him about how inconsiderate and threatening it was to call someone a little shit, especially a new kid.
“How the fuck would she know what I said?! She doesn’t even know the language!” Niklas exclaimed angrily.
“Okay then, what did you say under your breath?”
He said it again: “kleine Scheiße”.
Katja, whose native language was, like Niklas’s, German, said, “So you did call Siënna a little shit.”
“I didn’t call her that! I was just-” But it was pretty obvious that Katja wasn’t going to hear out what Niklas was going to say, so he just gave up.
Just then, Riley walked into the kitchen from the bathroom and stared at Siënna. Siënna stared back.
“What the hell is going on in here?” Riley asked.
Siënna looked up at Riley and stated, pointing at her, “You have the same hairstyle as me!”
Riley looked at the new kid in confusion and then looked at her hair. “What are you talking about?”
“Those little twintails at the side,” Siënna answered, “I have those, too. What made you want that hairstyle?”
Just then, Kishi got out of her chair and stared at both Riley and Siënna, saying, “Yeah, I’ve just noticed that, too. It’s such a weird coincidence, you know. I mean-“
Riley touched her hair and sighed as she reluctantly told the story of why she had two little pigtails on the sides of her head. It was November of 2010, and Riley was sound asleep in her room, sprawled out on her twin-size bed with the white blankets spread out all over the place beneath her. Next thing she knew, Anima was kneeling right over her with a sharp pair of scissors and had cut off a lot of red hair. In fact, the haircut was so horrendous that Riley ended up having almost all of her hair shaved off, leaving her with a hairstyle used more by boys.
“Now, I don’t know if it was because she thought I was talking shit about her or what,” Riley said, “But now I have to remind myself about my hair every time because of dipshits like her.” Riley pointed at Anima eating her french fries and concluded, “And this time, I absolutely am talking shit about you!”
“Me?” Anima said, pretending to be innocent, “Why are you saying such bad stuff about me for?”
“I know what the fuck you did all those years ago!” Riley shouted, “And I ain’t about to forgive you for what you’ve done to my hair! Do you realize how traumatizing that was for me?! For several months, people were thinking that I was a boy or a butch lesbian!”
“So?” Anima said heartlessly, clearly trying hard to show that she wasn’t hurt by that last statement.
“What’s so bad about that?” Siënna asked.
“I’m not a boy, and I’m not a butch lesbian!” Riley answered, her face almost as red as her hair.
“Alright, damn. Shit. I was just wondering,” Anima mumbled under her breath.
Siënna was pretty insulted by Riley’s response; she was asking a simple question, what was the big deal? And what was so bad about being a boy or being a lesbian? It wasn’t that big of a deal… at least, not really in Belgium. Should she tell? She should, but seeing the mean looks on everyone’s faces made her slump back into her seat to make her invisible since she had just given herself the repetition of being the house snitch.
Well, it could be worse. At least they didn’t beat her up when the caretakers weren’t looking.
“Can I have everyone’s attention, please?” Katja said at the beginning of Group Time.
Yeah… like that was going to happen anytime soon. From Niklas and Ryan trying to fight each other to Ryu-jin and Minha arguing over something stupid to Fern belting out whatever Top 40 song was popular at the moment, nobody was paying attention to whatever the hell Katja was about to say. Looked like it was Greg’s job to do something about that.
“Everyone, Katja has something to say!” Greg called out, cupping his hands around his mouth like a megaphone, “So it will be really considerate of you guys to pay attention to what she is about to say.”
Finally, everyone calmed the fuck down so that Katja could make her big announcemenet.
A new kid? That oughta get some interesting results! A new kid meant that there was some new meat to pounce on and a new target to hit on!
“Don’t worry,” Katja continued on, “Greg is in charge while I was gone, and there will be a cop car driving by at least once a day.”
Any intrigue that was in anyone’s soul was quickly replaced with groans and complaints because fuck the police.
“The police officers aren’t going to come into the house,” Greg reassured, “Not unless something serious happens, of course.”
That didn’t stop the complaints. “Jesus, you’re acting like we’re all criminals here!” Anima whined.
Niklas snorted and glared at Ryan. Ryan glared back and flipped him the bird. Niklas would’ve kicked him in the shins, but Ryan was directly across from him because their little fight earlier, so he just ended up flipping him back off.
“I will be back by early March at the latest,” Katja said. She picked up a black suitcase that was sitting beside the front door and concluded with, “See you soon. I’ll miss you all.”
Bis bald, Katja Schacter…
…
It was just after lunchtime at the YouChannell Home, and Fern and Niklas were washing the spots of grape jelly off of white plates with Fern singing some song by Rihanna and Niklas trying hard to not yell at her. He ultimately didn’t do a very good job at it.
“Will you shut the fuck up?” Niklas grunted under his breath.
Fern looked over at Niklas with a mean and nasty glare and asked, “What the fuck you got against expressing myself?”
“I’ve got something against expressing yourself LOUDLY in my ears while everyone’s here minding their own damn business,” Niklas argued.
“Exactly,” Fern said, “Mind your damn business.” She continued to wash the dishes and sing that same Rihanna song- very loudly. Niklas couldn’t mind his damn business any longer.
“Can’t even sing that well anyways,” he muttered under breath just quietly enough for only Fern to hear. Needless to say, Fern couldn’t mind her business any longer either.
Even though Fern wasn’t completely sure whether Niklas had bruised her back or not, she fought back by popping him a real sweet one in the mouth. Niklas responded by pulling on Fern’s hair- or… weave.
“Aw, hell no, you stanky ass son of a bitch!” Fern screeched at the top of her lungs like a banshee. She jumped right on top of Niklas’s back and started pulling his hair.
That was when Greg ran into the kitchen and tried to separate the pair apart. First, he pulled Niklas away from Fern. Then he pushed Fern away from Niklas. It was pretty hard to do, but that was just how things were for Greg in the YouChannell Group Home.
“WorldStar!” Ryu-jin, who was dusting the furniture in the living room, shouted.
Greg ignored that as he separated the pair and guided them to the Vent Room. “I wanna know the full story,” he said in his most professional tone of voice.
“She started it,” Niklas grumbled, pointing at Fern, who was sitting directly across from him on a blue beanbag chair.
“Actually, no! I was minding my own damn business when he was yelling at me to shut my mouth,” Fern argued.
“Yeah, because you fucking singing straight into my ears!” Niklas exclaimed, “And at the top of your lungs!”
“Well, maybe you should’ve minded your own damn business!” Fern shouted.
“I was!” Niklas shouted back, “You were the one getting up in everyone’s shit!”
Greg took a deep breath and said, “So… what I’m seeing is that you, Fern, is that you were singing while you were washing the dishes, and you, Niklas, didn’t want Fern to sing while washing the dishes. Am I correct in saying that?”
Fern and Niklas nodded in agreement- the first time they had ever agreed on anything that day.
“Niklas, did you tell Fern to keep it down with the singing?” Greg asked.
“Yes, I did!” Niklas answered irritably, “And she wouldn’t shut the fuck up!”
“‘Cause you was being a damn hater about it!” Fern argued, “Besides, why you so upset about me expressing myself anyways?!”
“Because you were expressing yourself at the top of your lungs and in everyone’s ears!” Niklas shouted.
“Alright, Niklas. Let’s take a deep breath,” Greg said, “Inhale-” He inhaled. “-Exhale.” He exhaled. He, Niklas, and even Fern (unintentionally) inhaled and exhaled for a few moments before asking Niklas, “How do you think you should respond whenever you think Fern is singing too loudly?”
Niklas sighed through his nostrils and answered in a low voice, “Tell her to keep it down, like, all nice and stuff.”
“And how would you respond, Fern?”
Fern huffed through her nostrils and slumped into her beanbag chair. “I don’t know. I guess… sing in, like, a lower volume or something like that.”
“You see,” Greg began, “You know how to resolve your conflicts calmly, yet your anger is getting the best of you. The next time you get angry, walk away from the situation, take a deep breath, come up with how you should solve the problem. Do you both understand where I’m coming from?”
Niklas and Fern nodded, mostly because they just wanted to get the hell out of the Vent Room.
“Good. I’m glad we got this settled then.” With that out of the way, Fern was sent to vacuum the living room and Niklas to take out the trash with Ryan and Tamie.
...
“How come you make us take all of these pills even though you’re constantly on all of our asses about doing drugs?” Anima asked Greg during dinnertime. They were having stoemp, cassoeula, and cheesecake.
Greg put down his fork and asked, “What do you mean by that?”
“I mean, you’re always saying that drugs are bad for you, yet we’re always having to take medication, which, by definition, are drugs,” Anima explained.
Everyone in the YouChannell Home put down their silverware and gaped their mouths open.
“Ooh, that’s a real ballsy thing to say here,” Tamie said to herself.
Niklas cleared his throat and told Anima, “Bitch, some of us NEED our medication to survive, especially you.”
Anima snorted and gave Niklas that same look as one of the scenes from Freaks and Geeks.
“Excuse me?” Niklas said, his eyes slightly twitching, “I’m pretty fucking sure that without your meds, you’d be the most fucked up bitch in this place!”
“Niklas,” Greg said in a warning voice, “This is NOT something to say to someone. You could’ve hurt Anima’s feelings by saying that.”
Niklas snorted. “Yeah, like she had any feelings in the first place,” he muttered under his breath.
Anima heard that. “I’m pretty damn sure that you’re in the same situation as I am, motherfucker!” she argued.
“No, I’m not!” Niklas argued back, “I don’t get into stupid shit all the time and get kicked out of a school that practically accepts everyone like you did!”
Anima’s face glowed a bright red as she sprang out of her chair and lunged at Niklas with Niklas trying to throw her off and Greg trying to separate the pair to take them to the Vent Room.
“Damn, you’se just asking to get your ass kicked today, aren’t you?!” Fern shouted at Niklas as he was dragged into the Vent Room.
“Fuck you!” Niklas shouted back right before Greg shut the Vent Room’s door.
“Niklas,” Greg started, “I want you to look at me.” When Niklas reluctantly looked up at Greg, he said, “You’ve been getting into a lot of arguments and fights today. Are you upset about something that I don’t know about?”
“Yeah. He’s upset about not having a fucking life,” Anima answered meanly.
“Mind you business, dipshit!” Niklas yelled angrily.
“Yeah, I think someone else told you that earlier this morning,” Anima said, chuckling to herself.
“Anima, sit down in your beanbag chair. I’ll get to you in a minute,” Greg said. He turned back to Niklas and did that same deep breathing exercise again. That took a good while before Niklas sank down into a blue beanbag chair and Greg repeated, “I see you’ve been getting into a lot of arguments and fights today. Are you upset about something that I don’t know about?”
Niklas huffed through his nose and mumbled, “I don’t know.”
“Yeah, that’s why he’s gotta be up in everyone else’s business,” Anima scoffed on her green beanbag chair.
“I told you to mind your BUSINESS!” Niklas growled loudly enough to shake the whole room.
“Don’t be a hypocrite, dipshit! Don’t do my girl Fern dirty!” Anima said.
“I’ll get to you in a minute, Anima,” Greg said. Again, sitting on a red beanbag chair, he turned back to Niklas and said, “Are you sure you don’t know what you’re upset about or are you saying that because you don’t want to tell me?”
“I’m being serious,” Niklas replied in a grunt.
Greg nodded and said, “It’s okay to be upset, but that’s not an excuse to pick on people and saying something offensive for no reason. If you really need to let it all out, you can always come to me, okay? And you have a journal I’ve given you. Either way, don’t start any fights just to express your anger. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Niklas nodded and rolled his eyes, only because he just wanted to get the whole thing over with
“And as for you-” Greg finally turned to Anima. “There are better ways to solve your problems. You could’ve told Niklas not to make fun of you instead of lunging at him without a second thought.”
“I was doing that when I called him a jackass and a hypocrite!” Anima balked.
“You could’ve told him not to pick on your without calling him a jackass and a hypocrite,” Greg pointed out, “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Anima sighed, rolled her eyes, and nodded because like Niklas, she too wanted to get the whole thing over with.
“Good. I’m glad we got this settled then.” With that out of the way, Greg took Niklas and Anima back to the dinner table to finish eating. While he was eating his cheesecake, he looked over at the kids arguing and shouting at each other and wondered when Katja was ever coming back with the new kid; he also wondered what the new kid was going to be like and how they were going to adjust to this chaotic mess.
Ryan stiffened in fear. Oh… shit. Tears stung his eyes, but he was too scared to let them fall down onto his cheeks.
“Where have you been this whole time?!”
That memory was still playing in Ryan’s head as he was walking home from school on a Friday afternoon. It was cold and cloudy outside. Perfect- it matched his mood.
“I heard Ryan broke up with his girl Bridget on Monday, and now he’s single,” Marilyn told Riley on the way home from school, “Did he?”
“Where the hell did you hear that from?” Riley asked.
“I was in the bathroom on Monday, and I saw Bridget show this girl, Diet Pepsi, a positive pregnancy test and what had happened to her on Saturday,” Marilyn answered.
“Diet Pepsi?!” Riley exclaimed, “Ain’t that bitch get suspended for something just a few days ago?!”
“I don’t even remember,” Marilyn said, “But I do think that the positive pregnancy test had something to do with it.” She was quiet for a minute before she looked up at Ryan and shouted, “Ayy, Ryan! Is it true that you’re single?”
Ryan turned around with his eyebrows furrowed in anger and his fists clenched. “Who the fuck told you that?!” he asked.
Marilyn shrugged, but she slyly side-eyed Riley. “I don’t remember, but I heard someone it from someone at school.”
“Bitch, don’t you side-eye me like I’m the one who told you that!” Riley shouted.
Marilyn ignored that and walked up to Ryan. “So, is it true? That you’re single?”
Ryan’s eyes enlarged, and his muscles tensed up. It looked like he was about to pummel the living shit out of Marilyn. Then, he did the strangest thing.
Oh boy, that motherfucker Ryan had completely snapped. Marilyn fully embraced the shit storm and ran towards him with her arms wide open, but Ryan pushed her out of the way and stared at Riley. Riley ran for her life and for sweet Jesus, but it was too late. Ryan had caught her and pulled her close to his chest.
Ryan smelled like sweat, Axe body spray, and God knew what other types of body odor a boy could obtain. Either way, he stank to high heaven. Riley quickly pushed Ryan out of her comfort zone and shouted at him, “You need to take a fucking shower with soap and shit!”
“Gee, thanks for the constructive criticism, Riley!” Ryan shouted back. He turned to the other YouChannell occupants and asked, “Anyone else want a hug?!”
Everyone in the YouChannell Home (and even those who weren’t in the YouChannell Home) rightfully ran away from him because his pupils were dilated, and he was breathing heavily with his arms out, ready to torment his next victim. Besides, giving out random hugs for no God damn reason sounded creepy as hell. It took Greg five minutes to get Ryan and to calm him down.
…
It was Group Time, and that day’s topic was probably about some self-improvement shit or something among the lines. It didn’t really matter because Ryan wasn’t listening; he was too fucking bored out of his mind. God damn, what the hell was he gonna do?! He was seated between Marcus and Niklas. He quickly and repeatedly tapped his foot, thinking about… well, something. Was it worth kicking Marcus or Niklas? Marcus might get irritated if Ryan kicked him, but he wouldn’t get super pissed, so it wasn’t worth it.
So he shifted his focus onto Niklas. Still tapping his foot, he thought about what would happen if he started kicking Niklas. Niklas gets pissed off really easily, so kicking him would ought to produce some fun results. So that was what Ryan did. He kicked softly, at first, just so that Niklas would get annoyed, but not so pissed that he would interrupt Group Time. Then, Ryan slowly started kicking harder and harder and harder until-
“Will you quit fucking kicking my leg?!” Niklas shouted at Ryan.
Results.
“Ryan, do I need to seat you next to me?” Greg asked sternly.
“No.”
But it was obvious that Ryan was lying out of his ass, so Greg moved Ryan next to him and continued on with whatever the fuck Group Time was about. This time, he noticed that he was sitting next to Faustine, and a lot of ideas were going through his mind, especially a childhood favorite.
“Punch buggy. Can’t punch back,” Ryan whispered very quietly, punching Faustine in the arm. He figured that since Faustine was deaf, she wouldn’t hear what he had said.
Apparently, and unfortunately for Ryan, Faustine did hear what Ryan had said because she stomped her foot onto Ryan’s foot- hard.
“Ow, fuck!” Ryan yelped in agony, “What the fuck, Fantasy?!”
“Don’t call me that,” Faustine stated flatly.
“Why’d you fucking step on my foot for?!” Ryan inquired as he winced in pain.
“Yes, Faustine. Why did you step on Ryan’s foot like that?” Katja asked.
Faustine casually shrugged and answered, “He shouldn’t have punched me in the arm if he didn’t want me to step on his foot.”
Everyone stared at Faustine like she was some dangerous sociopath until Ryan shouted out, “What the fuck are you talking about?!”
“Every action has a reaction.” And with that, Faustine said no more.
Greg looked over at Ryan, who was bouncing both of his legs, and motioned for him to walk into the Vent Room. “Is there anything you want to talk to me about?”
“No!” Ryan answered all too quickly as his eyes darted back and forth and as he rocked back and forth on his feet.
“Are you sure?” Greg said, “You seem to be anxious about something.”
Shit! Ryan stopped rocking and shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants. That was when he felt a small piece of paper in his right pocket. Sydney! Greg couldn’t know about this! He took a deep breath and pulled his hands out of his pockets, looked up at Greg, and said-
“No, thank you. I’m good,” Greg answered calmly, “Can we talk it out however?”
Ryan sighed heavily and stomped around the perimeter. He really didn’t want to talk it out, but he didn’t have a choice, so he plopped down onto a red beanbag chair and looked up at Greg.
“Ryan, I’m disappointed in you for trying to distract everyone from Group Time. First, you decided to kick Niklas, and then you decided to punch Faustine,” Greg said, “Are you sure there’s nothing on your mind that you want to talk about?”
“No, there isn’t!” Ryan huffed, “Why the hell are you always up in my ass for?!”
“Alright then. If that’s your answer, well, you’re free to talk to me about it whenever you’re ready,” Greg said. He cleared his throat and added, “Now, about your behavior during Group Time.”
For the next five minutes, Ryan had to listen to Greg drone on and on about how not kicking Niklas in the leg and not punching Faustine in the arm was a better idea than doing those two things and asked whether he was even paying attention to what Greg and Katja were going on about during Group Time or not. Then he had to apologize to Niklas for kicking him and to Faustine for punching her in the arm.
“I’m sorry for stomping on your foot in a way that gave you an extreme case of agony,” Faustine apologized except not really because she didn’t show an ounce of remorse in her voice. Also, Niklas did not express any forgiveness when he mumbled that he forgave Ryan for kicking him.
And with that, Group Time continued on with whatever the hell it was about.
…
It was dinnertime at the YouChannell Home, and everyone was having fried eggs, vinegret, and bungeoppang.
“Ay, does anyone know where the salt is?” Fern asked very loudly.
The saltshaker was right next to Ryan’s plate, but he damn sure didn’t hear a word of what Fern had just said.
“Ay, bitch! Pass the fucking salt!” Fern shouted at Ryan.
“Fern, I think we can say that a little more politely,” Katja said calmly yet firmly, staring straight at her.
Fern cleared her throat and said much more “politely” through clenched teeth, “Please pass the salt, Ryan.”
Ryan unenthusiastically passed the salt to Fern.
“We had to do that all the time when I was in Salem,” Cereza stated.
“I didn’t know you were in Salem,” Ryu-jin said.
“Yeah, during Christmas break,” Cereza said, “We had to do that all the time when I was in Salem, and their food was bland and terrible.”
“Oh, is that why you decided to stay here?” Katja asked.
Cereza shrugged. “I mean… a little.” Cereza proceeded to go on about how there was something weird about the couple that had tried to foster her- like how they were kind of racist but at the same time not racist and how they tried way too hard to be very very inclusive without even considering her as a person. That led to Ami scolding her about how she should be grateful that she wasn’t placed in a white conservative household where she would’ve heard a lot of racist jokes aimed at her. That led to Anima telling Ami to calm the fuck down and to not let everything get political. That led to Ami arguing with Anima and them almost getting into a fight.
“Oh, God! Can we please talk about something else?!” Ryan groaned.
“Yeah!” Ryu-jin agreed, “We should be talking about things like Bridget-”
Ryan didn’t exactly remember what had happened next, but the next thing he knew, he was on the floor pummeling the living shit out of Ryu-jin.
It took five minutes for Greg to drag Ryan off of Ryu-jin and drag him into the Vent Room, which was a pretty difficult thing to do because Ryan was a pretty big guy.
“I was wanting to talk about Bridget Jones’s Diary. That was such a good movie,” Ryu-jin groaned, slowly pulling himself up off the concrete floor.
“No you weren’t,” Faustine mumbled under her breath, “You were about to bring up Bridget Myers just to start some drama.”
Meanwhile, in the Vent Room, Ryan was still thrashing around and shouting out threats while Greg was trying to calm him down.
“I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL THAT LITTLE SHIT!” Ryan hollered at the top of his lungs.
“Ryan, look at me,” Greg said, “Let’s practice our deep breathing.”
Ryan practiced his deep breathing, how successful that turned out was debatable, until he crumbled down onto a red beanbag chair and covered his face. He started shaking uncontrollably.
“Ryan,” Greg said gently, crouching down to his level, “What’s going on?”
It took a while for Ryan to calm down enough for him to mumble out-
“…Oh.” Greg sat down on a blue beanbag chair across from Ryan. “I’m so sorry about that.”
Ryan inched away, not wanting to be touched.
“Is that why you ditched school on Monday?” Greg asked.
Ryan nodded.
“And how long were you out of school?”
Ryan shrugged. “I don’t know… I guess the whole day?”
“So, you decided to skip school the whole day to avoid Bridget?”
Ryan sighed through his nose and curled up into a tighter ball. He felt something slip out of his pocket. He looked and picked it back up. It was a tiny slip of paper- the same that Sydney had written her phone number on. “Yeah, pretty much,” he answered.
Greg and Ryan just sat there for a few agonizing silent minutes until Greg cleared his throat. “Well, I’m glad you told me the truth, but you’re still going to have to be disciplined for skipping school. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Ryan nodded.
“I want you to apologize to Ryu-jin for beating him up,” Greg said. He got up and motioned for Ryan to come back into the kitchen where they saw Ryu-jin standing next to Katja. “Ryu-jin, Ryan has something to say to you.” He turned to Ryan and asked what he needed to say.
Ryan looked down at his feet for a short while before he sighed through his nostrils and mumbled, “I’m sorry for attacking you.”
“Thank you for your apology,” Greg said.
“Ryu-jin, you have something to say to Ryan, too, don’t you?” Katja said to Ryu-jin.
Ryu-jin looked around the room and bit his lips before he reluctantly said, “I’m sorry for bringing up your ex-girlfriend without your permission.”
“Thank you for your apology,” Katja said.
Ryan and Ryu-jin stood stiffly and stared at each other awkwardly until Ryu-jin slowly took out his shaking hand and asked Ryan-
Over the past several days, Anima wondered and thought about when her glasses were coming in from the eye doctor and worried about whether that girl she saw at the Safeway really was Penelope or just a girl who looked a lot like her. It was getting into her head so much that by the time her glasses did get into the eye doctor’s place, Anima was practically obsessed over this idea.
“Have you picked your glasses yet?” Katja said as she and Anima were waiting in the waiting room.
Anima shrugged and quickly glanced at the glasses that were still there on the counter.
She sure as shit wasn’t going to tell Katja about those.
“Anima Hatsune!” the receptionist from the front desk called out.
“This is it,” Katja whispered to the young girl as she grabbed her hand and walked up to the front desk.
This was it. The rest of her life as she would know it was about to begin… or would it?
“Your glasses will be ready in a minute,” the receptionist said.
Fuck, another minute of fucking waiting! That was just fucking great! “Fucking hell!” Anima grumbled under her breath.
“Anima, it’s not going to take much longer. You’re just going to have to wait for another minute,” Katja said.
“Well, this is fucking stupid!” Anima argued, slumping back into her chair, “Why the fuck do we have to wait here for who the hell knows how long if they still don’t have my glasses ready?!”
“They’re just adjusting the finishing touches,” Katja firmly explained, “Then, when they’re finished, they’ll call us again, and we can go on as usual.”
So the two ladies sat their on their leather chairs and waited… and waited… and waited some more. Anima sighed long and hard, glancing at Katja reading a magazine, and picked up her Lucky Star manga and began to glimpse at the pages, not really paying attention to any of the dialogue or characters until-
“Anima Hatsune!” the receptionist called again.
Oh God, what now?! “How long are my glasses going to take?” Anima asked, almost grumbled.
“Your glasses are ready now,” the receptionist said, pointing at the other receptionist with the light tan and coily, curly black hair.
Oh, that was quick. Anima walked over to the other receptionist and sat down at the light tan table where her glasses were waiting for her in a green glasses case. She opened up the case and put on the inevitable.
“Well Anima, do they fit well?” the other receptionist asked.
“How do you like them?” Katja asked.
Anima turned to Katja and the other receptionist and-
“Oh, you look great!” Katja exclaimed.
“They look so beautiful on you,” the other receptionist said.
Anima’s eyes darted to the floor. Of course they would say that; one lived with her, and the other was practically being paid to say that. Was she really expected to believe all of that?
“Thank you. Have a nice day,” the first receptionist said as Anima and Katja left the eye doctor’s office.
“Thanks, you too,” Katja replied.
The pair drove all the way to Nach Cuma Middle School in complete silence. It felt weird for Anima to be able to see so many things outside with so many small, subtle details. Was this how the whole world was supposed to be the entire time?
“Alright, we’re finally here!” Katja chirped. She parked right in front of the middle school and led the young Asian with the new glasses into the front office where she checked her in and saw Anima be handed in a sky blue excused-absence slip. “Have a nice day at school,” Katja said to Anima right before she left.
Anima froze in self-conscious fear. She knew she was going to be on her own for the whole school day, but she didn’t realize that Katja was just gonna dump her. What the hell? She looked down at the excused-absence slip and sighed, trudging into Ms. Blume’s classroom where the teacher was helping some douchebag seventh-grader named Dylan with his assignment- something about analogous colors and some wild animal.
“Like I said, Dylan,” Ms. Blume was saying, “You just need to look at the color wheel to find out what the next color is. For example, if you choose green, you can either use yellow-green or blue-green as your next option-”
Just then, Ms. Blume looked over her shoulders and saw Anima just standing there with her excused-absence slip tight around her fingers.
“Oh, Anima!” Ms. Blume said, grabbing the slip out of Anima’s hand, “I didn’t see you there! Glad you could make it!”
Anima only barely nodded and dragged her feet towards her seat where she saw Violet Blume and Kyla Wong doing their assignments. Kyla Wong and Violet Blume were the last two people that Anima had ever wanted to see.
“Hey, Anima,” Kyla’s voice said… or at least, Anima thought that was Kyla’s voice. She looked up; sure enough, that was Kyla’s voice.
“Are those glasses real?” Kyla asked.
Anima nodded. And then Kyla said the weirdest thing.
Oh, God. Was she just being serious, or was Kyla just fucking with her?
“Yeah, hipster glasses are really in style right now,” Violet added.
Oh… they were being serious. But still, did Anima really pick hipster glasses? If so, then ewww…
Other than that, nothing really happened except for the fact that she could finally see what the hell was going on without squinting her damn eyes. The day was a rather average day until it was time to get on the bus to go home. That day, Anima sat in a seat in the middle of the bus alone because Kishi had to go to the dentist early in the afternoon. She was very lonely, especially since Lidiya and Amanda were talking it up like it was nothing, and she debated whether this day was even worth it when someone cleared their throat. Anima looked up.
Anima felt her ears and face warm up. “N-No,” Anima stuttered, “You can sit next to me.”
“Thanks.” Penelope breathed out a sigh of relief and plopped down on the leather grayish-red seat next to Anima. She looked over at her seat neighbor and analyzed her for what seemed like an eternity until she asked, “Haven’t I seen you before?”
Oh, shit. Anima’s ears and face were absolutely on fire. “…We have?”
Penelope nodded. “Yeah, we met on Halloween in the woods, remember? You must be Anima.”
Oh, so she wasn’t going to mention that one time at the Safeway. Anima just nodded and mumbled, “Catherine.”
“Huh?” Penelope tilted her head and stared at Anima in sheer confusion.
“I… I thought you were someone else.” Anima’s eyes quickly darted to the floor in shame. She would never be able to tell this beautiful girl the real reason for the slip-up.
“Oh.” Penelope stared at her feet for pretty much a really long time before she finally looked up at Anima and said, “You look really pretty.”
Anima’s ears and face were practically burning, and her heart was thumping so hard and loudly that she felt as if it was about to explode out of her chest. “You… You really think so?”
Penelope nodded. “Yeah, really.”
“Oh… my… GOD!” Anima thought to herself, feeling faint and dizzy. So she was recognized by Penelope, glasses and all. And Penelope thought she was pretty! That was something, right? “Th-Thanks. You too.”
It was Penelope’s turn to blush and drift her eyes back to her feet. “You really think that?”
Anima nodded, finally having the courage to stare at Penelope’s beautiful face. Penelope had such beautiful brown eyes and a cute nose. She was beginning to calm down, her heartbeat returned to normal, her ears and face began to cool off, and she even reached her hand out to hold onto Penelope’s. She was enjoying herself… that was until-
“HA, GAYYY!” some middle-school boy shouted (probably referencing Community) at Anima and Penelope.
Anima jumped in her seat and looked up at some white boy in front of them staring at the two girls.
“Piss off, Christian,” Penelope told the asshole seventh-grader.
“Is that your girlfriend?” Christian asked in a sneering way.
Anima gulped as she felt Penelope squeeze her hand. Girlfriend… used in a sneering way. She looked up at him; he had an asshole smirk on his face, his cold, gray eyes pierced through the girls like arrows shot from a bow, and his thin eyebrows were arched up, ready to fall onto the girls at any time.
“Why the hell are you so concerned about my personal business?” Penelope inquired.
Christian wheezed and loudly laughed his ass off. “Ha, gayyy! You’re a dyke!” he shouted right at the top of his lungs. He fell back into his seat and still laughed his ass off.
Dyke. Gay. There went those words again. That grimy, slithering feeling of disgust. Disgust. And for what? What did they even do to this little shit?! Anima sprung out of her seat and lunged for Christian, her heart beating loudly against her chest and her muscles tensing up. “What the fuck did you say, you little shit?!” she yelled.
“I called you a DYKE!” Christian repeated himself, putting much unneeded emphasis on the word “dyke”. That was enough for Anima to leap over the seat and tackle Christian.
“Anima, stop!” Penelope cried out, “He’s not worth it!”
But Anima didn’t stop pummeling Christian, and Christian didn’t stop trying to throw Anima off of him and his seat.
“WorldStar!” Ryu-jin shrieked at the top of his lungs, holding his phone up to record the whole thing.
That comment inspired Christian to pull on Anima’s hair as hard as he can to mess up her face. Anima responded to that by trying to scratch on his legs.
“Stop!” Penelope cried out once more.
As usual, Penelope’s plea failed; it wasn’t until the school bus screeched to a striking halt and threw everyone forward. “Both of you stop fighting or else I’m going to take this bus back to the school and have all of you suspended!” the bus driver barked.
Just then, Niklas got up in Anima’s face and swooped her off of Christian by the arms and shouted in her ears, “Will you quit fucking fighting?! Some of us want to go home!”
Anima slumped back into her seat and scowled the rest of the way home. When the bus stopped on her street, Penelope quickly handed her a small piece of paper; it was her name with her phone number on it. Anima slipped a tiny smile out.
“You’re a faggot!” Christian shouted at Anima one more time just to rub salt in the wound.
That did it. Anima lunged towards the asshole seventh-grader once more and was about to tear his shirt off of him when Niklas pinned her arms behind her back and dragged her off the bus.
“What the fuck are you so offended for?” Niklas inquired after the bus left, “He’s just some stupid asshole!”
“How the hell would you know?!” Anima answered back with a growl.
“Are you seriously getting offended about some somebody who hasn’t even hit puberty calling you a dyke-” And then Ryu-jin realized something and started cackling his ass off. “Oh, holy shit!”
Anima’s face grew red, her hands grew clammy, her muscles tensed up, and her teeth clenched together once more as she got ready to fight Ryu-jin, but then she thought about what he had said and questioned, “What the hell do you mean?!”
“He thinks you’re a lesbian,” Ryu-jin answered.
Anima stopped walking and stared at Ryu-jin for several minutes in complete silence before she blurted out, “Lesbian?!”
“He thinks you’re a gay woman,” Niklas answered.
Gay? Anima? She stopped completely in her tracks and thought about what Ryu-jin and Niklas had just said. She straightened the glasses that had been moved around her head during her fight Christian and thought about why they fought in the first place. Then the words came back to her- gay, dyke, faggot. The remorseless smirk on Christian’s face, his cold, gray eyes piercing through her and Penelope like daggers. Was this really such a bad thing? Was it really wrong to be attracted to Penelope? Was it really wrong to be attracted to… Catherine?
Anima hated Christmas vacation more than any other vacation in the world, and it wasn’t because she wasn’t a Christian despite Christmas being a Christian holiday, and it also wasn’t because Christmas was about being with family despite Anima’s… that. No, it all started at 7:30 in the morning when she walked into the kitchen and discovered Greg’s mother, Ms. Addison, cooking some scrambled eggs. “Where’s Greg?” she asked, her eyes beginning to adjust to reality.
Ms. Addison looked over at Anima and answered-
“Oh.” Anima had completely forgotten about Greg going to Washington state for a wedding. She bet it was probably a lot more exciting than her Christmas break would ever be. But that wasn’t the biggest reason why Anima hated Christmas vacation.
No, the biggest reason why Anima hated Christmas vacation was the fact that every holiday, Kishi would always visit her parents in Sapporo. Without Kishi, Anima had nothing to do nor did she have anyone else to hang out with. With Kishi in Sapporo, Lidiya in Eugene, and Amanda in Alabama, Anima didn’t even have anyone else to talk to. Oh sure, she could always pretend to play Menstrual Man and Butthole Boy with Piro, but Anima didn’t think that this was an appropriate thing to do during Christmas vacation.
Just as Anima was about to push her chair in and sulk back up to her room, Kishi walked out of hers with a brown leather suitcase, staring right into Anima’s eyes. This was always the worst part of Kishi leaving because Anima always hated looking into Kishi’s tearful eyes. It made her eyes tear up, too.
“Oh, Anima! I’m gonna miss you so much!” Kishi cried out, running towards her best friend and hugging her.
Oh, how sweet it was to feel Kishi’s warm, loving embrace around her, but oh, how awful it was that Kishi had to leave so soon and be gone for so long! “I’m gonna miss you, too!” Anima replied back, tears stinging her eyes.
“Kishi, we’re going to be late for your flight if we don’t hurry up!” Katja exclaimed from the front door’s doorway.
“I’m coming!” Kishi exclaimed back, picking up her suitcase. She looked at Anima once more and mustered out a tiny good-bye. The only thing Anima could muster back was an even smaller wave as she watched Katja and Kishi drive away in a small white car to the airport to catch a plane all the way to Sapporo. Oh, how painful it was to be all alone!
“It’s hard to say good-bye to a friend, isn’t it?” Ms. Addison said, gently placing her old wrinkly hand onto Anima’s shoulder.
Anima jerked away and answered rudely, “She’s not going to be gone forever! You know she’s coming back in January, right?!” Then she stalked over towards her room and sulked.
However bad Anima had during this Christmas vacation, she didn’t have it as bad as Ryan did.
“Ryan, we’re not supposed to have our phones at the kitchen table. Put your phone in your room,” Ms. Addison firmly yet calmly told him.
“‘Kay,” Ryan answered in a barely audible mumble, clearly not giving a shit about what the old black lady said.
Ms. Addison walked over to where Ryan was sitting and asked, “Ryan, did you not understand what I’ve said, or are you ignoring me?”
What did that bitch think was the answer? Ryan kept on texting on his phone, which turned out to be the wrong move because Ms. Addison promptly swiped his phone out of his hands.
“What the fuck?!” Ryan objected.
“I told you to put your phone into your room,” Ms. Addison reminded him firmly, “But because you ignored my request, I am going to take your phone away from you for the day.”
Ryan quickly stood up from his chair and stared straight at Ms. Addison’s brown eyes, his own brown eyes filled with anger and sternness, his muscles tense and rock solid, and his mouth a straight line. Ryan also took his phone back. He didn’t want to look too angry because the other kids in the group home might laugh at him, and nobody would take him seriously.
“Ryan, I have dealt with tall white men staring me down for practically my entire life. I am not afraid of you,” Ms. Addison said, taking Ryan’s phone back.
Anima, who was taking her plate to the sink, quickly snorted and chuckled.
“I know you’re laughing at me, asshole!” Ryan said, quickly turning around and staring at the tiny Asian.
Anima’s failed attempt at a rebuttal was, “That wasn’t a laugh! That was a sneeze!”
“Bullshit!” Ryan exclaimed, about to punch the shit out of Anima when Ms. Addison gently guided him into the Vent Room.
“Ryan, I want to talk about your phone situation,” Ms. Addison said.
Ryan stared at Ms. Addison again- not in anger that time, but in shock. What the fuck was she going on about?
“Who is this Bridget girl you’ve been texting?”
Ryan’s heart skipped a beat as he slumped down onto the floor. “She’s my girlfriend. Why do you ask that?” he answered meekly.
“I’m just wanting to make sure you’re telling her to have a happy Christmas,” Ms. Addison merely said.
Yeah, right. “So, that’s it?”
This time, Ms. Addison stared back at Ryan.
“You’re not gonna say anything about how I’m not grown enough to make my own fucking decisions even though I’m almost eighteen and already grown?!” Ryan continued.
“Ryan, you are acting impulsive right now,” Ms. Addison said.
“Okay, and?! I’m still grown enough to make my own fucking decisions and be with anyone I want to be! A lot of countries have sixteen as the legal age for adulthood, so I don’t see why I’m still stuck in this shithole with all these other little kids and shit!”
“Take a deep breath and look at me,” Ms. Addison said, “All I’m asking from you is to be careful and think about the consequences. Because we’re all going to take a lot of risks, and the one thing I want to be sure of if whether the risk is worth it and how to be safe about it.”
“That’s it?! Be safe and think about the consequences?!” Ryan’s face turned red, and his fists clenched. Then he let it all out. “You’re doing a real shit job at your job, you know that?! You’re not supposed to tell people to be safe and think about whatever fucking consequences there are about sex or some shit like that! You’re supposed to ground me for like a week and tell me that I can’t go out! God, you’re irritating!”
Ms. Addison stared at Ryan for a minute, surprised and completely thrown off by his mini-rant. Once she comprehended what he had said, she took a deep breath and said, “Alright then. Have it your way.” Then she opened the Vent Room’s door and sent Ryan on his way, his phone still in her hand.
…
“Anyone has a five?” Marcus asked a little while after lunch. He, Anima, Ryu-jin, Minha, Ryan, and Niklas were playing Go Fish at the kitchen table.
“Go fuck yourself,” Anima answered, trying hard not to snicker.
“You mean ‘Go Fish’,” Niklas mumbled.
“No, I mean ‘Go Fuck Yourself’,” Anima argued.
“Yeah, well, the game isn’t called ‘Go Fuck Yourself’. It’s called ‘Go Fish’! Either say the right sentence or get the hell out of the game!” Niklas argued back, fully exposing his Black Sabbath T-shirt, which was just a black T-shirt with “Black Sabbath” written across the chest in big purple letters.
“Hey, Nikki. Isn’t that the shirt that Marianne gave you for Christmas this year?” Minha asked.
“Hanukkah,” Niklas corrected the girl.
“I’ve been meaning to ask this, but why the fuck do you celebrate that instead of Christmas like everyone else? Isn’t Hanukkah like Jewish Christmas anyways?” Anima asked.
“Because I’m Jewish, dipshit,” Niklas answered irritably, “And no, Hanukkah isn’t the Jewish version of Christmas.”
“Then what the hell is it supposed to be then?” Anima questioned, getting irritated as fuck.
“Hanukkah is a holiday celebrating the rededication of the Holy Temple. Every night, for eight nights, we light candles on something called a menorah. The menorah has nine candles, and one candle is used to light the other eight candles,” Niklas answered.
“Oh.” Everyone else was confused by Niklas’s explanation of Hanukkah, but seeing the pissed-off look on his face, they didn’t bother asking any more questions.
“Well, what about you, Marcus? I never see you get anything for Christmas either,” Minha pointed out after a little while.
“I don’t celebrate Christmas,” Marcus answered, “I’m Islamic.”
“Oh.” Everyone else was confused by Marcus simple answer, but remembering Niklas’s pissed-off look on his face, they didn’t bother asking any more questions.
“Anyways, does anyone have a five?” Marcus asked, going back to the game.
Everyone else looked away from Marcus because they didn’t have any fives- everyone except for Ryan, that was.
“Ryan, do have any fives?” Marcus asked one more time.
Ryan, who hadn’t been paying attention to anything going on in the past several minutes, looked up at Marcus and said, “What?”
“I was asking if you had any fives,” Marcus repeated, clearly getting annoyed.
“Oh.” Ryan hastily looked at his cards and mumbled, “Go fuck yourself.”
Marcus sighed loudly as he took another card from the deck while Niklas slapped the palm of his hand onto his forehead and grunted, “Oh, God! This shit again?!”
Ryan shrugged his shoulders and flatly answered-
Niklas threw his cards onto the brown kitchen table and stormed upstairs to his room; Ryan proceeded to do the same thing, except with a lot less enthusiasm than Niklas.
“Sheesh, all I wanted was a five,” Marcus grumbled to himself.
…
It was after bedtime, and Ryan was in his room staring at the ceiling. He missed Bridget, who had been at her grandparents’ house in Bend the entire day, more than ever. He wanted something to do with her, to be with her, to touch her, to… to do a whole lot more than to touch and hold her. He was sure Bridget wanted to do the same with him as well.
Right. He had to do something. He sneaked downstairs towards Katja’s room and slowly (yet quietly) opened the door, where he found his phone in the second drawer of a peach-colored dresser drawer. Then, with his car keys balled into his fist, he sneaked out of the YouChannell Group Home and drove all the way to Bridget’s house, texting an apology and offering a favor.
After all, there was fuck all else to do in a Portland, Oregon group home.
Every Thanksgiving, there would always be a fight when getting dressed- it was usually Niklas and Ryan fighting, though there have been some other fights in the past years. On this day, it was just Niklas and Ryan fighting in the bathroom.
“You two, break it up!” Greg told the boys, separating the boys with his hands.
“But it’s a Thanksgiving tradition!” Ryan exclaimed in a rather whiny voice.
“It’s a Thanksgiving tradition to YOU, dipshit!” Niklas argued, kicking Ryan in the shin.
“It takes two to tango, dumb ass!” Ryan argued back, kicking Niklas right back in the shin.
“Well, this tradition is going to end this year!” Greg announced, “From now on, you two are going to get dressed in your own rooms instead of fighting in the bathroom every Thanksgiving morning. Do I make myself clear?”
Ryan and Niklas rolled their eyes and nodded. They reluctantly dragged their feet to their rooms and got dressed for the day, which made Greg beam with satisfaction.
Meanwhile, Anima, Piro, Kishi, Shibi, and Bitty were out front just hanging out, staring at houses in their neighborhood.
“Look!” Bitty exclaimed, pointing to the house across the YouChannell Home, “There’s gonna be some new people moving soon!”
Sure enough, there was a “Sold” sign posted in front of the house in front of the YouChannell Home.
Anima sensed a strange feeling of familiarity with that house. Where did that house come from, and why does she know about it? Oh yeah… it was because she had been thinking about Penelope only a while back.
“I didn’t even notice that this house was for sale,” Kishi said. She turned to Bitty and asked, “So, when are the new neighbors moving in?”
Bitty shrugged. “I don’t know,” she answered.
The gang was quiet for a moment until Shibi answered, “My mom and dad said the new neighbors are moving in in March.”
March?! “What the fu-”
“That’s almost four months from now!” Kishi interrupted Anima. She looked back at the house and said, “I wonder who’s moving in.”
Anima wondered that, too. She hoped it was Penelope moving in, even though she knew it was a fat chance that they would ever get to meet each other again. But still, a girl could dream.
“Anima! Kishi! Piro! It’s time for breakfast!” Katja called out from the front door.
“Hold on, I gotta do a Thanksgiving tradition!” Anima called back.
“Wait, what Thanksgiving tradition?” Kishi asked.
Anima smirked and took a piece-of-shit green MP3 player out of her jean pocket. She turned it on, expecting to epically pose to Creed’s “Higher”. Instead, the green piece of shit barely made a put of a noise before dying. What the fuck?
“Just get in the house,” Katja said flatly.
…
It was Thanksgiving dinner, and everyone was going to have turkey, green bean and cheddar casserole, buttermilk biscuits, and cranberry cobbler. But before anyone could dig in, Greg decided that it was a good idea for the whole house to give thanks.
Greg gave thanks for being there for so many people and for the friendships he had managed to have.
Katja gave thanks for the opportunity to make a difference in many people’s lives.
Marcus gave thanks for a chance at life to follow his dreams and meet many amazing people.
Kishi gave thanks for a wonderful life and many amazing friends.
Piro gave thanks for My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic.
Then it was Anima’s turn.
“What the fuck am I supposed to say?” Anima asked, looking up from her feet.
“Just say what you’re thankful for,” Greg answered.
“Thankful for what?!” Anima couldn’t think of shit, and she wasn’t ready to admit it.
“That’s okay, Anima. You can take your time,” Greg said.
Anima tensed up and looked around the table, trying to think of what random thing she could claim she was thankful for.
“Listen, it’s not that complex,” Faustine said, “Just say something and get this whole thing over with.”
“Well, shut up and let me think!” Anima shouted, clenching her fists. She stared back at her feet and tried to go back where she was thinking. Okay, she’s got it. She looked up at the crowd and took a deep breath. Wait, what was she going to say again? “Hold on, I forgot what I was going to say.”
Fern huffed and exclaimed, “Little girl, will you hurry it the fuck up and just say something?!”
“What?! What the fuck do you want me to say?!” Anima shouted back.
“Just something! Now hurry it the fuck up!” Ryan answered back in a louder yell.
Anima was about to throw her plate across the table when Ami shouted, “It’s okay, Anima! Take your time! Thanksgiving isn’t that important anyways!”
“Shut up, Ami!” Anima shouted back at her.
Ami slid back into her seat and mumbled to herself, “Jesus, I was only trying to make you feel better.”
Okay, where was she again? Anima rubbed her temples together to get some thought into her head. Let’s see… one, two, three-
“Hey, asshole!” Niklas shouted at Anima, “Some of us actually want to eat!”
Axel conked out at the table. This made Anima so pissed off that she threw her plate on the ground and ran towards her room where she stayed for pretty much the rest of the day.
…
“I see a phoenix flying up in the sky,” Kishi said as she and Anima were lying down on the living room floor staring at the ceiling, “What do you see?”
“A bunch of squiggles,” Anima flatly answered. That was mostly true, but she didn’t really want to admit what else she was seeing.
Kishi huffed. “Anima, you always do this!” she whined. She turned onto her back and added, “Can’t you even pretend to see anything up there?!”
Anima squinted towards the ceiling so hard she could actually see something… she saw herself and Penelope in white wedding dresses holding each other’s hands tightly together.
It was beautiful! Anima had never felt so happy to be with someone her entire life! All she wanted to do right then and there was to stay with Penelope forever and ever and ever and always. Anima looked up at Penelope’s sweet chocolate eyes, but something was off about her. Penelope’s eyes and hair were still brown, but the coloring was off; the hair was a lighter shade while the eyes were a darker shade. And as if that weren’t enough, background turned red and Penelope, who was no longer Penelope, pinned Anima down to the ground.
It was-
“Catherine?!” Anima exclaimed, “What the hell are you doing here?!”
“Listen here, you little shit!” Catherine shouted at Anima, holding her arms to the ground, “I’m gonna fuck you up just like how you fucked me up!”
“What are you talking about?!” Anima inquired angrily, “I didn’t do anything to you!”
But Catherine wasn’t having any of it because she kept Anima’s arms pinned to the ground as she hiked her knee up and kneed her in the-
And then Anima woke up, her chest tight and her heart racing. She turned around to talk to Kishi, but Kishi had already gone to bed. So she looked up at the ceiling to find another picture to see. Alas, she didn’t see anything.
“So, since Obama has been elected again, our politics won’t change much,” Mrs. Brown was lecturing, “That is because at the moment, both the House and the Senate are Democrat majority. However, that could change in 2014.” She walked to the smartboard and started writing. “Suppose if more people vote for Republicans than Democrats in the 2014 midterms. Would Barack Obama be able to pass most of his desired policies or not?”
Tamie was recovering from a nasty hangover in Mrs. Brown’s US Government class while the teacher was going on about Obama or some shit like that. Mrs. Brown, wiping her chestnut brown hair away from her brown eyes, peered the cramp stuffy classroom- students either writing half-assed notes, playing on their phones while trying to be as subtle as possible, or, Tamie’s case, sleeping. “Tamara,” Mrs. Brown called out as if she caught the student napping.
Technically, Tamie was napping, but not because she was bored with the lesson. “Yeah?”
“Suppose if more people vote for Republicans than Democrats in the 2014 midterms, would Barack Obama be able to pass most of his desired policies or not?”
“Pro-Probably not,” Tamie belched before conking out.
Mrs. Brown stared at a passed-out Tamie and stated haughtily, “That’s exactly what I thought.”
…
“I heard that someone’s moving into that house across the street,” Fern said as everyone was walking home from school.
Tamie, who had been trying hard not to pass out on the sidewalk, looked up at Fern in front of her and asked, “Renting or buying?”
“I’m assuming renting since ain’t nobody able to buy shit anymore,” Fern answered with a shrug.
Charlotte, who had also been walking with them, stared straight at Fern and said, “Probably because the current politicians up in Washington are making it as hard as possible to actually afford anything, so now you need a college degree and two jobs in order to make it.”
Fern turned her head to Charlotte and replied with, “Little girl, ain’t nobody here asked for your opinion.”
“Then why’d you say something in public?” Charlotte asked condescendingly.
Fern just stared at Charlotte, flabbergasted, which made Tamie say-
Fern pushed Tamie as hard as she could and exclaimed, “Bitch, shut your fucking mouth!” Then she stormed all the way home.
Charlotte and Tamie cackled as soon as Fern was out of earshot. “Wow, she’s tight this afternoon, isn’t she?” Charlotte said.
“They’re always like that,” Tamie answered.
Charlotte and Tamie laughed again when Riley walked up to them and asked Tamie, “What the fuck are doing laughing with her, bitch? Ain’t you supposed to be walking home with us for Group Time?”
“Hey, don’t talk to my best friend like that! We were having an entertaining conversation that was meant to be private!” Charlotte barked back at Riley.
Riley rolled her eyes and grabbed Tamie’s wrist; Tamie smirked and shrugged because A) she knew that she would get a needlessly long lecture from Greg or Katja for being late for Group Time and B) she knew Charlotte was joking when she called her her best friend. So unfortunately, it was off to Group Time with Riley, Greg, Katja, the rest of the gang, and a still very tight Fern in the YouChannell Home.
…
“Ay, what are we making for dinner?” Tamie asked Katja in the kitchen right after Group Time had ended.
“Oh, I don’t know…” Katja took out a sharp kitchen knife and a brown wooden cutting board. “I was thinking about letting you take the night off and just letting you relax.”
Tamie was taken aback. “What?”
“Kishi’s going to help me cook dinner tonight,” Katja stated as a matter of fact, “I was thinking that you should take a break and enjoy yourself for a little bit.”
“What the fuck for? I didn’t even do anything.”
“Oh, you know…” Katja gently pushed Tamie out of the kitchen when she noticed Fern playing on her phone. “Fern, why don’t you hang out with Tamie for a little bit?”
Fern? Tamie? Together? Really? After what had happened on the way home from school that afternoon? What a joke.
“You two can have a makeover!” Katja suggested.
Fern scoffed, which made Tamie clench her fist. Then, seeing the pissed-off look on Katja’s face, Tamie unclenched her fists, and Fern cleared her throat and chirped much too happily, “Come on, Tamie~!” She grabbed Tamie’s wrist and dragged the fat ass to her room… where Riley was sitting on Fern’s bed.
“So erhm… what the fuck are we doing here?” Tamie asked as Riley started brushing her hair.
Fern looked up from the hair ties and mirror on her wooden desk and inquired, “You really don’t know?”
Tamie shook her head while Riley was still brushing her hair.
“Girl, how the fuck do you forget your own birthday?!” Riley questioned, beginning to cackle in laughter.
“Hold on, you forgot your birthday?!” Fern shouted, wrapping the hair ties on her wrists and carrying her mirror. She and Riley shrieked with laughter for a few minutes before Fern asked Tamie, “So how old are you?”
Tamie shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?!” Fern exclaimed. She and Riley laughed. “What year was you born in?”
“Erhm… I think 1994…”
“1994… and you’re a senior, right?”
Tamie nodded.
“You’re eighteen.”
Tamie nodded again just as Riley finished brushing her hair. Fern split Tamie’s hair into two parts and balled one up part into a bun on top of the head. She repeated the same step, finished, and announced, “Your makeover is now complete!”
Tamie, still wearing her school uniform, stared at the mirror Fern was holding.
“Listen, I ain’t no motherfucking miracle worker! You’se ugly as shit, and this is the best I can do for you!” Fern exclaimed, throwing the mirror across the room.
Tamie sighed and supposed that the female commodity thing was just a ploy from Katja to distract her from a surprise for her birthday. Speaking of birthday ploys…
“Dinner’s ready~!” Kishi shouted from the kitchen.
About time. Tamie quickly ran into the kitchen and sat down in the chair right in front of the big chocolate cake. Along with the cake was caponata and cotoletta, foods that Tamie enjoyed very much.
Greg lit the candles and began singing, “Happy Birthday to you~!” with everyone else following suit, which made Tamie very very happy indeed. Then she noticed one guy who wasn’t singing- Niklas. Instead, he was reading some note he had carried into the kitchen.
“You selfish bastard!” Tamie screeched as she leaped over the table and began to wrestle Niklas.
Greg and Katja ran to tear the two apart.
“What the fuck is wrong with you, you crazy bitch?!” Niklas shouted back as he tried to grab Tamie’s hair but instead got dragged into Greg’s room.
“You don’t really care about me, do you?!” Tamie screamed back as Katja dragged her into the Vent Room where they stayed for the next thirty minutes or so.
“Tamie, Tamie!” Katja tried to soothe, “Look at my eyes for a minute.”
Tamie slowly looked up at Katja’s eyes, but it wasn’t just hers.
The other person Tamie had seen besides Katja was her main hallucination, Breanna. Breanna had been with Tamie ever since she was around twelve years old- the first time she had been committed into a psychiatric hospital. Tamie quickly pushed her away and screamed, “GET AWAY FROM ME! GET AWAY FROM ME!”
“Tamie!” Katja said once more, “Look at my eyes one more time.”
Tamie, who was trembling so badly it felt as if the whole Vent Room was shaking, looked at Katja’s eyes once more.
“What color are my eyes?” Katja asked.
That was a pretty hard thing to tell because both Katja and Breanna had the same eye color. “…Brown?” she guessed.
Katja nodded. “Okay, are they light brown, medium brown, or dark brown?”
That was much easier; Breanna’s were dark brown. “Medium brown.”
Katja nodded again and smiled. “You’re doing a great job right now.” She pushed several strands of hair in front of her shoulder and asked, “Now, what color is my hair?”
Now, this was easy! “Light brown?”
Katja nodded once more and said, “That’s right. You’re doing a great job.” She asked if she could touch Tamie’s hands and got a ‘yes’ for an answer. She then proceeded to gently hold the trembling girl’s hands. “Are you ready to tell me what happened at the kitchen with Niklas?”
Tamie, who had almost calmed down, began shaking again and whimpering. “Oh God. Oh God, oh God, oh God!”
Katja had to soothe the poor girl once more. “It’s okay, Tamie. Take your time.”
That was exactly what Tamie did…
…
“That stupid, selfish BITCH!” Niklas screamed at the top of his lungs in Greg’s room.
“Niklas,” Greg began, “Let’s practice our deep breathing. Inhale-” He inhaled. “-Exhale.” He exhaled. After several minutes, Niklas followed the breathing techniques for a long, long time.
“Is it okay for you to tell me what happened at the dinner table?” Greg asked when the men stopped taking deep breaths.
Niklas sighed and rubbed the sides of his head. “I don’t know. I was just minding my own business when she just started to beat the shit out of me for no reason.”
Greg nodded. “I noticed you were looking at something on your lap. Can you tell me what it was?”
Niklas sighed and pulled out a piece of paper out of his jean pocket. This was what is said-
Greg stared at the letter for a few minutes before asking, “Isn’t this the letter Marianne sent you while you were in the hospital?”
Niklas nodded.
“Well, what made you bring it with you to the dinner table?”
Niklas stared at the floor, then at the rumpled peach sheets on Greg’s king-sized bed, and mumbled, “‘Cause I’m feeling a little sad, I guess…”
Greg nodded. “Do you feel like telling me why you’re feeling sad or not?”
Niklas shook his head and looked away towards the door. He didn’t want to worry Greg and the rest than he already had, especially not Marianne.
“Niklas,” Greg began in this serious voice, “Have you been thinking about suicide lately?”
Shit. How did he know? There was no way of escaping, so Niklas might as well have nodded.
“Is there anything I can do to help you?”
Niklas rubbed his forehead and ran his fingers through his hair. “I’m sorry.” He slowly looked up at Greg and asked him, “Can you tell Tamie that I’m sorry please?”
Greg stared at Niklas and said, “You don’t want to tell her yourself?”
“No, I’m gonna fuck it all up!” Niklas cried, grabbing patches of his hair. Tears started stinging his eyes, but he wouldn’t let have the honor of letting him fall.
“I’ll tell you what,” Greg said after taking in deep breaths with Niklas, “I’ll walk you to the Vent Room where Tamie is, and I’ll let you tell her whatever it is you need to say to her. Is that a deal?”
Niklas wiped his tears away with his wrist and reluctantly nodded. He got up with Greg and walked towards the Vent Room where Katja and Tamie were. It took a while for the door of that room to open, but when it did there stood Tamie with swollen eyes and hunched shoulders.
“Tamie,” Greg started, “Niklas has something to say to you.”
Tamie and Niklas just stared at each other for what seemed like forever until Niklas finally sighed and said, “I’m sorry for not paying attention to you at the dinner table.”
Tamie nodded and grabbed Niklas’s hands. She noticed that tears had been in his eyes.
“Tamie?” Katja began, “Do you have anything to say to Niklas?”
Tamie looked all around the hallway for a few minutes before she hanged her head low and mumbled, “I’m sorry for being the shit out of you during dinner.” She shook hands with the boy.
“Thank you very much for apologizing, both of you,” Katja said, “Now, let’s go back to eating dinner before it gets too cold.”
So they all went back to the dinner table, and Tamie saw the look on Niklas’s face. Was he depressed or something? Maybe. Then again, he could’ve been having a bad day or something like that, and at that point he was eating his food like a good boy. And Tamie guessed she could forgive him, too. So she went back to eating her food like a good girl, too.
Oh, and one last thing. That veal… was dry. Real dry.
ManictheMod 