Details: While Ryan was not abused as a child, he was mostly neglected by his mother Nicole (1973-2002), father Joseph (b. 1974), and uncle David (b. 1979). His uncle was also a former housemate in the YouChannell Home as a boy. Like his uncle, Ryan dappled into Xanax and marijuana and crime. He would commit crimes such as theft to vandalism. He was put into a boy’s home prior to being put into the YouChannell Home. He has Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
Ryan likes looking at women, being reckless, and messing with other people (especially Niklas). He doesn’t like having anxiety, the fact that his family never seems to pay any attention to him, and his cousin Beatrice (b. 2001) repeating the same mistakes he made.
Ryan is a fun and energetic person. He is very healthy and spirited. He is also quite lazy and makes a lot of stupid decisions (whether it be the drugs or not). However, when he gets angry, he gets extremely violent and rages for hours.
The first thing Anima woke up to was total blackness. She couldn’t see or hear anything going on. She didn’t even know where her legs were. All she knew was that it was completely dark outside… or inside… and that she wanted out. Then, a stage light flashed right on top of her. Actually, two other stage lights flashed on top of two people who looked way too eerily familiar…
“You disgust me,” the woman snarled as she grabbed Anima by the shirt collar.
Anima’s face turned as red as a tomato and as hot as lava in a volcano. “Wh-What are you even talking about?!”
“Don’t talk back to me like that, you little pig!” the woman screeched at Anima as she slammed her against some sort of wall… a wall Anima couldn’t see because, well… everything was black.
“Get your hands off of me!” Anima screamed, trying to wriggle out of this monster’s grasp.
“No! Why should I take my hands off of me when you can’t even follow your own advice, you hypocrite?!” the woman screamed back, tightening her grip on Anima’s shirt.
“I didn’t put my hands on her! I didn’t put my hands on her!” Anima screeched, tears and snot running down her face onto her chin and eventually her shirt. Her breath was fast and hot, like the smoke coming out of a speeding locomotive train, and her angry tears were blurring her already shitty vision.
“Liar! Don’t give me any of that shit!” the woman’s rage pierced the skies. She slowly picked up Anima over her head and slammed her onto the pitch-dark ground. Anima didn’t see exactly what all came out of her, but she was pretty sure she was bleeding somewhere. When she looked up, she saw the woman standing over her menacingly. The woman held up her fist, her body shaking all over, but then she suddenly put her fist down for whatever reason.
“You’re not even worth it,” the woman growled in a low voice. With an angry glare, she turned away and walked out into the abyss, never to be seen again.
While Anima tried to get up and process what had happened, another person showed up and looked down at her. This person was a man with an evil smirk on his face.
“You know, we’re not that different, you and I,” the man told Anima, deviously licking his lips and rubbing his hands.
Anima barely lifted her head and barked, “What the fuck are you talking about?! We’re nothing alike, you creep!”
“Oh, don’t give me any of that, darling. We all know what you’ve done.” Just like that, the man also walked out into the abyss, never to be seen again.
What the hell had happened? Why did those two people look so familiar to her? Why did they sound and act so familiar? Were those two people her… no, they couldn’t be! She had been separated from them for years, and they were both locked up somewhere. It couldn’t have been them!
Anima tried to get up to confront the two, but, for some reason, her arms were completely pinned down. How?! Anima looked up to see if on those people was pinning her down to the ground again, but they weren’t there. It was someone else… someone else who also looked eerily familiar. This person was a white girl with brown hair. No, could it be…?
…Catherine?! But how?! And what was she talking about with impulses, or rather, impulsives, as she had always said?
“What are you talking about?!” Anima questioned, finally standing to her, “I didn’t do shit to you! I thought you wanted this just as much as I did! Don’t give me all of that bullshit!”
“You’re right,” Catherine admitted, bowing her head down.
“You’re damn right I’m right- what?!” After her eyes stopped blurring, Anima stared right into Catherine’s eyes, but it wasn’t her eyes. It was Penelope’s. It was Penelope’s soft brown eyes that stared lovingly into her soul as she lifted her up into her loving embrace.
Anima blinked back tears and asked in almost a whisper, “You-You really mean that?”
“Of course,” Penelope answered with a warm smile on her face.
For the first time in her life, something was glowing inside of Anima’s heart- something positive. Had there really been nothing wrong with her this whole time? Her relationship with Penelope… it was really okay? It was… there was nothing wrong with her. Why couldn’t she be herself and love Penelope?
“Anima,” Penelope began again.
“There’s… nothing wrong with me,” Anima said quietly to herself.
“Anima,” Penelope repeated.
“Everything’s gonna be okay,” Anima said more loudly, “I’ve done nothing wrong at all. In fact, I’m fine just the way I a-“
“Anima!” Penelope shouted, but it didn’t sound like her voice this time.
Anima opened her eyes and woke up to Katja standing right in front of her bed, staring straight into Anima’s soul with concern creasing her forehead and eyes.
Anima slowly propped herself up by the elbows and stared right back at Katja. “Wha… What happened?” she groggily asked.
“You were talking in your sleep,” Katja explained, kneeling down next to the young girl.
Talking in her sleep?! That was just absurd! “I don’t talk in my sleep,” Anima confidently insisted, sitting up straight.
Katja gently held Anima’s hand and quietly reassured her, “Well, whatever happens, Greg and I will always be here to help and support you no matter what. We love you just the way you are, and we will never abandon you for something you can’t choose.”
Help and support her no matter what? Love her jus the way she was? Never abandon her for something she couldn’t choose? What was this woman talking about? Anima almost asked Katja what the fuck she was talking about, but then… it all clicked. Katja must’ve been talking about what had happened yesterday afternoon after she had been caught with Penelope by her mother.
Jesus… was she really that out of it yesterday? If so, then what had happened yesterday could be what Katja was going on about. Anima looked down at herself and noticed she was wearing different clothes compared to yesterday. She also realized her hair had been tied up into a ponytail. Jesus Christ, did she throw up yesterday, too?!
“Breakfast is on the kitchen table,” Katja said, finally standing up and walking out of Anima’s room.
A few moments after Katja had left, Anima slowly got out of bed and put her socks and shoes on. Then, when she walked out of her room, she noticed a slip of notebook paper taped onto her door with something written on. Anima tore it off and read-
Typical Kishi to make something like that, but it was at least a nice sentiment. And it was something Anima needed at that moment, too. That was nice.
Anima finally arrived at the kitchen and sat down to eat her kitchen. Breakfast was pancakes and miso soup- an okay breakfast to start the day off with. The food was kind of cold, but it was still edible. After eating for a minute, however, Anima had feeling that the whole house was staring at her. So, she turned her head and saw Ryu-jin standing right in front of her with a shit-eating smirk on his stupid little face.
“Hey, I heard you’re a-” Ryu-jin started obnoxiously, leaning right into Anima’s face and breathing onto her skin with the same shit-eating grin on his face.
Oh, God. The good feeling just couldn’t last, could it? Anima bent her head down onto the table and tried to eat her breakfast as quickly as possible without any further incidents, but that asshole Ryu-jin wasn’t about to let up. He opened his mouth once more, but, thankfully, someone came to the rescue- someone special to Anima.
“Hey! You leave her alone, or else!” Kishi yelled at Ryu-jin from across the kitchen table with her fists clenched and pumped up like she was Rocky Balboa.
“Or else what?” Ryu-jin asked, staring at Kishi, trying hard not to laugh.
Kishi pushed her chair back and slowly marched towards the jackass, her fists still clenched and pumped up like Rocky Balboa’s.
“Alright, damn! Shit!” Ryu-jin said with an awkward chuckle, raising his hands up in surrender and walking back, “I was just messing with her!”
“Kishi, sit down and finish your breakfast. We don’t threaten people with violence,” Greg lectured, “Ryu-jin, we don’t make fun of people for something that’s out of their control.”
“I wasn’t making fun of her!” Ryu-jin balked, “I was teasing her, and-“
“My God, will you two just quit bickering? It’s too early to deal with all of this nonsense,” Faustine said to Ryu-jin and Kishi while she was working on her valedictorian speech.
Meanwhile, Katja had been staring out from the kitchen window. “My, it sure is a beautiful day outside today,” she commented as she opened the window, “It’s the perfect day for a high-school graduation.”
Faustine lowered her head and covered it with her arms. Steam was pouring out of her ears.
“Speaking of graduation…” Greg said. He looked over at Ryan, Tamie, and Faustine and added, “We’re a little late for graduation rehearsal. Remember, if we don’t make it to that, then we can’t attend graduation.” He looked over at Faustine and told her to hurry up.
“I just don’t fucking get that,” Ryan commented as the seniors left the house, “I mean, what if you’re sick before the rehearsal, but if you get better by the time it’s time to graduate?”
“If you’re sick, you’re sick,” Faustine blatantly answered right before slamming the door shut.
After breakfast had finished and everyone had finished their morning chores, Anima gave a quick smile and nod to Kishi. Kishi returned the favor. Then, right before Group Time, Anima walked outside towards the woods. She didn’t exactly know why she was walking towards the woods, but she guessed she just wanted some closure. She still remembered what Penelope had said about her parents way back earlier on Valentine’s Day.
“Remember this afternoon when Christian Seger called us faggots, lezbos, and dykes?”
…
“He’s not the only thing that thinks like that,” Penelope explained, “Lots of people think that, too. My parents are really closed-minded. You know how I like singing?”
Anima wished she could hear her sweet singing voice right about now. As she walked further into the woods, she didn’t hear anything coming from Penelope. Did her parents really disown her? Had she already left for Troutdale, or was she really abandoned by her parents? She hoped it wasn’t the latter. Her heart pounding against her chest, Anima ran further and further into woods, until she finally heard it- that sweet, beautiful singing voice!
After all the shit she had faced in the past 24 hours, it was such a relief to hear Penelope’s beautiful singing voice! Anima crept closer and closer to hear more of it, but then… something bad happened. Anima made an awful noise- a very awful noise. The worst noise she had ever made.
CRACK!
Anima jumped and fell back; Penelope also jumped and fell over the log. The girls soon got back on their feet and stared at each other for what seemed like forever.
“Anima?” Penelope asked, blinking rapidly.
“…Penelope?!” Anima exclaimed, “I can’t believe you’re still here!”
“Well, I don’t leave for Track Camp until-” And then Penelope blushed and looked down at her toes. She rubbed her arm and asked quietly, “This is about yesterday, isn’t it?”
Anima nodded and walked towards her girlfriend, her head bent down. “I thought your parents said they didn’t accept you for who you are,” she said, “I remember every word of it.”
Penelope blinked without saying a word for way too long before she sighed and asked what Anima was talking about.
“Don’t give me that shit!” Anima insisted, her face turning red, “I remember all the words you’ve said to me right before Valentine’s Day!” With her fists clenched and her eyes squeezed shut, she repeated every word Penelope had said to her about not only her parents, but also about that asshole Christian Seger.
Penelope sighed and explained, “Anima, listen. Yes, it’s true that my parents don’t really like who I am. And no, they didn’t accept me being gay. But that doesn’t mean they’re gonna kick me out.” She took a deep breath, stared at Anima, and asked, “You’re not getting kicked out, are you?”
Anima shook her head. “My folks took it pretty well,” she said.
Penelope smiled and hugged Anima. “See, everything’s gonna be okay!” she said. She caressed her head onto Anima’s and said more quietly, “It’s gonna be okay.”
The two girls stared into each other’s eyes for what seemed like everlasting moments before they inched closer and-
The girls didn’t know how long they had kissed, but by God, did it feel sooo good, especially considering the shit they had gone through yesterday! Finally, the girls broke away from each other and each inhaled deeply, their faces pink and flushed with glee.
“Hey, what time is it?” Anima asked after a few minutes.
Penelope looked down at her phone and answered, “It’s 9:49.”
“Oh, shit!” Anima exclaimed, “My folks are gonna be pissed if I’m late coming back home!” Anima pecked a quick kiss onto Penelope’s cheek and said she’d see her tomorrow.
“See you, too!” Penelope said, waving her hand.
As Anima ran back towards the YouChannell Group Home, she looked up at the clear blue sky and realized that everything was going to be okay.
“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.
“Damn, you’re really gonna drop out?” Marilyn asked Riley as they sat next to each other on the black plastic swings one warm, cloudy afternoon.
Riley sighed sadly and nodded. “Yep.”
Marilyn stared at her best friend for the longest time until she finally asked, “So, what are you planning to do?”
Riley looked up at the sky, thinking about Marilyn’s question. What was she going to do? It was damn near impossible to get a good job without a high school diploma, so the best thing she could do was…
Marilyn nodded. “Damn, I can’t believe this is actually happening. You know, a few years ago, I thought that I was the one who was gonna drop out of high school and you was gonna be the one who was gonna barely graduate high school and get a good job.”
Riley nodded, even though her ears burned from Marilyn’s implications of being a dumb ass. “You think I got a shot at anything?”
“Of course!” Marilyn answered enthusiastically, “Strippers make a fuckton money, and they ain’t gotta have a diploma for shit!”
Riley glared at her best friend for what seemed like forever with her eyes squinted and her mouth turned into a mean frown. How the fuck was she supposed to be a stripper when she lived in a group home?! Marilyn knew she lived in a group home, so she should’ve known this shit wasn’t possible. “Gee, thanks,” she grunted with clenched teeth. She cleared her throat and asked, “So, what are you planning on doing?”
Marilyn sighed and placed her elbows on her lap. “My daddy says I have to go to UC Berkeley,” she answered glumly.
Riley’s eyes grew big as she stared at her best friend yet again. “Ain’t that in California?”
Marilyn nodded, tears stinging her eyes.
“Damn, you’re gonna go all the way back to Berkeley, which is fucking hours away, all because your daddy wants you to go to college?”
Marilyn nodded, her face drooping with overwhelming sadness.
“And you don’t even wanna go to college?”
Marilyn shuddered, the closest she would ever get to crying. “No!” she cried out, “I don’t even give a shit about school in the first place! Why would I give a shit about college?!”
“Well, you can meet a lot of hot men, and you got a lot of freedom with money and…” Riley couldn’t think of anything else. What was so great about college again?
Oh, well. Not like it mattered to Marilyn because she turned her head towards Riley with a huge smirk on her face and her eyes squinted like a foxy cat. And then, she jumped out of her swing, pulled Riley up with her, and squeezed her in a tight bear hug.
Tears stung Riley’s eyes as she looked up at Marilyn one last time (she hoped it wasn’t) and said, “Aww, girl! You really believe that?”
“Of course!” Marilyn answered much more cheerfully, “And I’m gonna miss you so much when I’m gone!”
Well, if Marilyn’s bear hug didn’t release the waterworks, then that sentence sure did. “I’m gonna miss you, too!” Riley cried, fulling embracing Marilyn’s hug while also giving her friend a tight bear hug.
The girls hugged each other and cried for several minutes until Marilyn’s phone buzzed in her shorts’ pocket. “I gotta go now,” she said, “But Imma be supporting you all the way through!” She ran away and shouted at the top of her lungs, “Bye!”
“I’m gonna support you, too, girl!” Riley shouted back, “I love you!” She plopped back down on the swing she had been sitting on and looked up at the sky. The clouds had been blocking the view of the sun for the whole day, but at least it hadn’t been raining. That was something.
“Oi, Greg’s said it’s time to go inside,” some guy’s Australian accent interrupted Riley’s thoughts.
Riley looked up and saw Ryan standing right over in front of her view. “Damn, you were blocking my view,” she said sarcastically.
As the two walked home from the playground, Ryan stared at Riley and said, “You know, I heard you and Marilyn talking about your futures.”
“Yeah, and?” Riley replied.
Ryan scoffed. “Good luck getting a job and a GED, especially both at the same time. Seriously, you’re gonna need a whole lot of fucking luck to pull it off!” He cackled in laughter, grabbing his sides while walking at the same time.
“And what the fuck are you gonna do after you graduate high school?” Riley asked in a serious voice with a scowl frozen on her face.
That stopped Ryan’s laughing. “I… I don’t know,” he confessed, “I didn’t really think that far ahead.”
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” Riley mumbled to herself.
And so the two young adults walked home in silence, not knowing what to say to each other. They didn’t think they would grow up this fast. And now that they were grown, they weren’t exactly sure what to do with their lives. They didn’t have much control of their lives as teenagers (and living in a group home didn’t help matters either), yet they suddenly get a whole lot of control the second they turn eighteen or graduate from high school. What the hell were they supposed to do with all that control of their lives, though?
Life really was confusing, and being a failure in something didn’t really help matters.
Credit Recovery should be the easiest class to take for a failing high school student, especially since the teacher’s job was to help said student with whatever subject they were struggling with. This was not the case for Riley despite getting as much help from her teacher Mrs. Hayes as possible. It was only her second class of the day, and yet she was already feeling tired and faint from all the difficult schoolwork she had to do, and Mrs. Hayes’s help didn’t make things much easier. She was struggling with her English II assignments when somebody knocked on the door.
“Mrs. Schaefer needs to see Riley Wilson in her office,” some Asian tenth-grade office worker with long, slick black hair said to Mrs. Hayes.
Mrs. Hayes, with her short gray afro on her head, nodded at Riley and motioned her to follow the girl to Mrs. Schaefer’s office.
“What the fuck does she want you for?” Marilyn, who was sitting next to Riley at a gray plastic table, asked in a whisper.
“I don’t know,” Riley whispered back. She slightly trembled as she followed the office worker into Mrs. Schaefer’s office. Mrs. Schaefer was the twelfth-grade student counselor, and with the amount of college posters hung up all over the tiny dandelion-colored walls, everyone knew how much of a no-nonsense person she was.
“Is there something you need me for?” Riley asked as she timidly sat down in a navy blue leather chair.
“Yes, I need to talk about some things with you,” Mrs. Schaefer answered. She looked up straight at Riley, her short light brown hair cut into a bob and her brown eyes staring into the girl’s soul without any light in them. “I noticed you’re failing the tenth grade yet again… for the third time…”
The third time?! No, it couldn’t be! Riley just couldn’t believe her ears. “Is this true?” she asked in a small voice.
The serious-looking school counselor nodded. “Now normally, I would recommend you repeat the tenth grade again for summer school, but seeing as this is the third time you’re failing it, well… I can’t believe I’m actually recommending this, but I think you would be better off just getting your GED. Do you think a GED would work out better for you?”
Riley looked down at her lap, her hands trembling with fear and anger- at either the school counselor or herself, she didn’t know. Giving up was seen as a bad thing; everyone was expected to graduate and go to college. That was how people were supposed to get jobs and money. On the other hand, this was the third time she had failed the tenth grade, and she didn’t want to repeat it a fourth time or be a twenty-something-year-old graduating high school. Riley heaved a shuddered sigh; she couldn’t believe it, but-
Riley barely looked up at Mrs. Schaefer, expecting a shocked expression on her face. But Mrs. Schaefer’s facial expression was the same as it was when Riley first walked into her office- blank. Was dropping just not a big deal for this woman?!
“Alright then, if you think that’s the best option for you, then here-” Mrs. Schaefer handed Riley a form for her to sign. “You can fill this out right outside of my office while I interview someone else. If you get finished before I’m done with the next student, just give it to the secretary. Any questions?”
Riley shook her head and slowly dragged her feet out of the counselor’s office with her head low and her fingers barely grasping the form. She sat down on another navy blue leather chair right across the secretary’s desk and stared at the dreaded form for several minutes while business went on as usual. The paper blurred from the tears stinging her eyes, but this was all real.
While she was trying her best to fill out the hated form, Mrs. Schaefer said to that same office worker from her office, “Go get me Faustine Louis from Mr. Frazier’s college trigonometry class, Lily.”
Lily, with a big smile on her face, skipped out of Mrs. Schaefer’s office and out of sight, where she returned a few moments later with Faustine herself. Faustine looked over at Riley with a confused look on her face. What was Riley doing in the counselor’s office, and why was she filling out some form? More importantly, what was Faustine supposed to be doing in the counselor’s office?
“Is there anything you need from me?” Faustine asked Mrs. Schaefer as she sat down onto the navy blue leather chair.
“Yes, I actually want to say congratulations on being this year’s valedictorian,” Mrs. Schaefer answered with a smile on her face- the first hint of emotion she had ever shown that day.
Oh, was that it? “Thank you,” Faustine said with a mere poker face.
“I mean, I’ve never seen this before!” Mrs. Schaefer continued on, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen a disabled valedictorian before! It’s kind of revolutionary if I’m being honest with you! How do you do this- become a valedictorian in spite of your disability?”
Faustine blushed and looked down at her feet. “I ehrm… I don’t really let my disability get in the way of my studies, thank you very much.”
It was as if Faustine’s words had fallen onto deaf ears because Mrs. Schaefer kept going on and on about how wonderful and inspiring it was for a deaf, disabled girl to graduate from high school as a valedictorian, a sentence that broke apart Faustine’s world. All she could do was stare at the ignorant school counselor and nod every once in a while to give the illusion of listening. At the end of it all, the only response Faustine could come up with was-
…
“Fuck Mrs. Schaefer!” Ryan exclaimed at the top of his lungs on the way home from school.
“What makes you say that?” Greg asked him.
“She says I have to shave my fucking beard off for graduation!” Ryan bitched, “What kind of fucking bullshit rule is that?!”
“You know, Ryan, maybe they want you to shave your beard off so that you’ll look more professional,” Faustine pointed out, her head low to the ground.
“Fucking God damn, Fantasy,” Ryan grumbled to himself before he looked up at Faustine with agitation in his eyes and shouted at her, “Fuck you, bitch!”
“Ryan, don’t take your frustration out on Faustine,” Greg scolded.
“Yeah, motherfucker. Be thankful you’re even gonna graduate at all!” Riley added with her hands balled into fists.
Everyone, especially Tamie and Ryan, stopped in their tracks with eyes as wide as the jaws that have dropped.
“I’m sorry, bitch. What was that?” Ryan asked with a quivering smile, trying desperately hard not to laugh.
“I said, ‘Be thankful you’ve even gonna graduate at all’,” Riley repeated with clenched teeth and fists.
The façade was trying to have failed; he fell down hard onto the ground and absolutely shrieked in laughter. “Holy shit, you’re fucking failing again?!” he asked as he clutched his stomach.
Seeing Ryan laugh even made Tamie laugh. “I don’t know what’s the fucking point of graduating from twelve years of school only to have to go to four more fucking years of school,” she said.
“You’re more likely to get a job with a college degree than without one,” Faustine answered.
That only made Ryan laugh even harder. “Oh, holy shit! Riley, mate, looks like you’re fucked!” he shouted.
With tears stinging her eyes and her fists tightly clenched, Riley started to run towards Ryan to beat the ever loving shit out of him before Greg grabbed her and dragged her back.
“Let’s take a walk around the block and talk it out,” Greg said in a quiet, soothing voice. He and Riley walked around the neighborhood while the rest of the YouChannell gang walked home. Finally, when the pair each sat down on a swing, Greg looked over at Riley and asked, “Is there anything on your mind you want to talk about?”
A whole day of stress, despair, and anger finally took a toll on Riley, and she bursted into tears, confessing the whole ordeal to Greg- all of it- the dropping-out, the GED form, the overwhelming feeling of failure, and the teasing- all of it.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Greg said, patting Riley’s knee, “But you know, it’s not the end of the world.”
“What the hell are you talking about?!” Riley shouted with tears running down her eyes, “I thought you was always making a big deal about us graduating high school and all that shit!”
“Yes, I do emphasize on you guys graduating high school,” Greg said, “But it’s not the end of the world if you don’t. You said you’re applying to get your GED, right?”
Riley nodded.
“See, that’s better than nothing. A lot of people in your situation would’ve given up right there on the spot, but you’ve decided to keep on marching, even if what you originally wanted wasn’t going to happen. And I’m proud of you for that!”
Riley smiled a tiny bit. “And I’m also thinking about getting a job while I’m trying to get my GED,” she added in a tiny voice.
“You see? That’s a big step forward!” Greg held Riley’s hand and added-
“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.
First period had just ended at Nach Cuma Middle School, and every student was outside for Courtyard Break. Courtyard Break was a rare occurrence at the middle school, only happening once or twice a year, usually during the ending of a semester, maybe once a week during state testing week after the actual tests. Students could buy snacks and drinks for a dollar or two and chat up with their friends for a while until the second-period bell rings.
“Hey, have you guys seen some moving vans at that empty house?” Amanda asked as she, Lidiya, Kishi, and Anima were enjoying their sweet, sweet (temporary) freedom.
“The one across the street from us?” Kishi said.
Amanda nodded. “I saw some moving vans when I was taking Leila to the playground the other day.” Leila was Amanda’s little sister.
“Wow, really?” Kishi gushed, “I hope it’s a girl our age!”
Lidiya rolled her eyes and said, “It’s pretty unlikely that a girl our age is gonna move in across the street from us and be our friend at the same time.”
While Lidiya, Kishi, and Amanda were arguing about the probability of a girl their age moving into the same neighborhood as them and being their friend, Anima was too busy paying attention to what Violet Blume, Kyla Wong, Avery Watson, and McKenna Suzuki were laughing about. They were hunched over, their shoulders shaking up and down in laughter… mean laughter. What were they laughing about?
What was so fucking funny?
“Hey, Anima,” Kishi interrupted Anima’s thoughts, “Are you okay?”
Anima snapped out of whatever it was that was bothering her. “Wha- oh. Oh, yeah… yeah, I’m fine.”
“What were you so focused on?” Lidiya asked.
Anima shrugged. She didn’t want to look like an insecure asshole in front of her friends, and she especially didn’t want them involved with whatever Kyla, Avery, Violet, and McKenna were laughing about.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Kishi asked.
“I said I’m fine!” Anima snapped. She cleared her throat and repeated in a smaller, quieter voice, “I said I’m fine.”
Kishi, Lidiya, and Amanda all stared at her, not really believing a single word she had said. Then they went back to their conversation about the new neighbor moving into the neighborhood, leaving Anima all alone with her thoughts. She wished she had someone to talk to about her deep, personal secrets. Someone with brown hair, pale skin, brown eyes…
On second thought, maybe not…
…
Anima was still worrying about that incidence during Courtyard Break and what exactly Avery was showing to Kyla, Violet, and McKenna while she was in ICT2 nearly at the end of the day. She stared at her website project on some shitty mid-2000s computer, trying hard not to think about what had happened. It was impossible; Avery was in her class sitting right across from her. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, McKenna Suzuki walked into the classroom and said to Avery in a whisper, “Did you see that movie trailer with Selena Gomez in it?”
“You mean the same one in Wizards of Waverly Place?” Avery answered, clearly confused as hell.
“Hold on, I gotta pull it up on YouTube,” McKenna said. She pulled up YouTube and typed in the name of the movie with Selena Gomez in it.
Avery gasped. “Oh my God, my whole childhood is ruined!” she exclaimed in a hushed whisper.
“I know, right?” McKenna said, trying hard not to laugh.
“And Vanessa Hudgens from High School Musical, too?!”
“Wait, you’re surprised about Vanessa Hudgens?”
The two girls were trying their damnedest not to laugh and not to be noticed. That lasted only a couple of moments.
“Hey, do you know where that cheerleader video is? I didn’t get it in your text,” McKenna told Avery.
Cheerleader video?! What cheerleader video?! Was it the one of… Anima doing that dumb cheer on Halloween?! Oh, God. Anima’s stomach started gurgling, and she felt as if she was going to throw up at any minute.
“Hold on, let me pull it up.” Avery typed in the name of the video McKenna wanted and clicked on it after a few minutes of browsing. The two girls started giggling like crazy. Anima almost didn’t want to look over her back, but she felt too much curiosity to not know. Turned out the video that they were originally laughing about was from 2008. Anima sighed in relief.
“Are you two just going to laugh at YouTube videos, or do you actually need something important from me?” Mrs. Mol, the ICT2 teacher, asked Avery and especially McKenna.
McKenna cleared her throat and quickly composed herself. She told the teacher that she needed some white blonde bitch named Miranda Vogel and some white brunette bitch named Savannah Vogel for dismissal.
“Thank God,” Kishi sighed after Miranda, Savannah, and McKenna left the room, “If I had to hear about Miranda and Savannah talking about their vacation to Disneyland one more time, I was going to scream!”
Disneyland? Damn. Anima had a weird feeling that those two shows that Avery and McKenna were talking had something to do with Disney. “Do you know who Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens are?”
Kishi shrugged with a confused look on her face. “Beats me.”
Anima turned back to her computer and sighed. Damn it.
...
“Ayy, bitch! You hear about that movie with Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens in it?” Marilyn asked Riley at the YouChannell Home after school.
Riley, who was too busy trying to do some World History homework, slightly shrugged and answered, “What movie?”
“Spring Breakers, nigga! Spring Breakers!” Marilyn exclaimed, “It’s got Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens in it!”
Riley looked up. “Hol’ up, you serious?”
“Hell yeah, bitch!” She showed Riley the trailer from her phone. Riley was left speechless for a moment.
“So when’s it coming out?” Riley asked.
“March 22. You wanna come see it with me when it comes out? I already got tickets for it with my daddy’s credit card!”
How the fuck-?! Damn, privileged bitch! Fuck made her think that Riley was gonna be able to watch a movie with that many bikini-clad girls in it?!
...
Tamie had just finished cooking ratatouille, buckwheat kasha, and ostkaka for dinner, and she slumped against the kitchen sink, ready to pass out at any moment. The only thing she had any energy for was to yell out, “FOOD’S READY!”
That might not have been a good idea because Ryu-jin zipped down the stairs and crashed right into Tamie… with his face right into her boobs.
“Get off, jackass!” Tamie growled, trying her damnedest to get herself up.
Ryu-jin rubbed his nose and pulled himself up to his knees. He didn’t notice that despite being such a fat fuck, Tamie had some pretty big tits. “I didn’t know fat asses like you could have some nice tits,” he told her.
That was probably the worst thing one could tell an overweight woman because Tamie kicked Ryu-jin right in the balls with the edge of her foot.
“WorldStar!” Anima shouted as she walked into the kitchen.
“Shut up, Anima!” Ryu-jin screeched, bending over to lessen the pain of being kicked in the balls.
Anima chuckled to herself and stated, “This looks just like an anime scene.”
“Shut up, Anima!” Ryu-jin screeched even louder, his body dropping to the floor.
“You shut the fuck up!” Tamie yelled at Ryu-jin. She darted her eyes up at Anima and growled, “What the fuck are you looking at?!”
“Alright, damn! Shit!” Anima said, stomping away from the pair.
Five minutes later, after Katja settled down whatever the hell was going on with Tamie and Ryu-jin, everyone was eating their dinner at the dinner table.
“Oi, anybody heard about that movie with Selena Gomez in it?” Ryan announced after swallowing his kasha.
Yes, everyone has heard about that movie with Selena Gomez in it. Nobody would shut the fuck up about it.
“Marilyn said she’s got tickets for it,” Riley said, chewing on her ratatouille.
Greg sipped his cup of coffee and asked, “What’s the name of the movie?”
“Spring Breakers,” Ryan and Riley answered at the same time.
Greg looked up the movie on Google and clicked on the trailer’s link; he quickly exited out of the internet as soon as he actually saw the trailer. “You’re not going to see that movie,” he sternly told Ryan and Riley.
Riley simply nodded and rolled her eyes; Ryan, on the other hand, balked and objected. “Why the fuck not?! It’s got Selena Gomez in it!” he exclaimed, “You know, Selena Gomez, from the Disney Channel!”
Greg was going to explain to Ryan that Selena Gomez grew up and was going to star in more raunchy and inappropriate acting roles (all while thinking about Dana Plato from Diff’rent Strokes) when Anima pushed her plate off the table and shouted-
Everyone stared at Anima like she had grown a second head or like she was on crack cocaine or some shit, and then they all laughed.
“What the fuck?! I’m being serious!” Anima yelled, clenching her fists in case she needed to punch anybody.
“Holy shit! You don’t know who Selena Gomez is?!” Ryan exclaimed, laughing his ass off.
“Well to be fair, Ryan, not everyone is attracted to teenage girls who look like they’re ten years old,” Riley mumbled under her breath.
Ryan heard that. “Yeah, used to. Now I’ve got a girlfriend who’s older than me!”
“Well, congratulations,” Riley said, “Which university is she currently attending, and what’s her major?”
Everyone who was laughing at Anima were laughing at Ryan, which made him clench his fists and blush. He was about to yell at someone or beat the shit out of someone when Anima interrupted his thoughts and screamed, “CAN SOMEONE JUST TELL WHO THE FUCK SELENA GOMEZ IS?! WHO IS SHE?! WHO IS SHE?! WHO IS SHE?!”
“Yeah, who is Selena Gomez? I’ve never heard of her,” Kishi said much more calmly.
“I’ve never heard of her either,” Siënna added.
The kitchen grew silent as Ryan tried to process the fact that three people, three girls, had no idea who the fuck Selena Gomez was.
“Ryan, can you please explain who Selena Gomez is?” Katja asked with a touch of exasperation in her voice.
Because it was understandable that Katja and Greg didn’t know who Selena Gomez was, Ryan complied. “You guys heard of Wizards of Waverly Place?” he asked the three underage girls.
Kishi and Siënna both nodded. “Oh, yeah! That show was on the Disney Channel, wasn’t it?” Kishi said.
“Yeah, it was on the Disney Channel back in the day,” Ryan replied. He looked over at Anima and asked, “You’ve heard of Disney Channel, right?”
“No,” Anima answered flatly.
“Holy shit, you’re dumb,” Ryan said quietly so that only Anima could hear him, “Okay, so, Selena Gomez was an actress on this show on the Disney Channel called Wizards of Waverly Place. Here-” He quickly pulled up a video on YouTube. “You can see her on the show’s intro.”
“You see the girl with the black hair?” Ryan elaborated, “That’s Selena Gomez.”
“Oh.” Anima stayed silent for a several minutes. “How do you know these things?”
“Probably because he used to have a crush on this girl,” Riley mumbled under her breath.
Ryan heard that. “Oi, bitch! Used to! Now I don’t anymore!”
“Oh yeah, I forgot about your adult girlfriend for a second,” Riley mumbled again, this time making her that only Ryan heard that.
Ryan was about to tell Riley exactly where she could shove her unnecessary comments when Katja told Ryan, “Okay, let’s click off of YouTube and eat our dinner.”
Ryan reluctantly exited out of YouTube (which kind of proved Riley’s point in retrospect) and slumped down into his seat. “Okay, so we all know who Selena Gomez is, right?”
Everyone nodded. “Thank you for telling me,” Kishi said.
Ryan nodded and looked over at Anima. “You know who Selena Gomez is now, right?”
Anima slowly nodded. “I don’t get it,” she blatantly stated.
Ryan sat up in his seat. “What the fuck do you mean, you don’t get it?”
“I don’t get why people like her so much,” Anima explained just as blatantly as she did the previous statement.
Riley choked on her drink and laughed when she saw Ryan blush like mad. “Oh, shit!” she chuckled.
“Look, do I have to explain everything to you again?!” Ryan inquired Anima, his hands clammy and sweaty.
Anima shrugged, drinking her glass of water and subtly enjoying the shit show she was causing at the dinner table. “Look, all I’m saying is that she’s not very good and that she looks like a ten-year-old girl.”
Ryan blushed a bright red- brighter than the color of his hair and brighter than the blood that was boiling inside of his body.
“It’s okay, girlfriend,” Riley reassured Anima, placing her hand onto the girl’s shoulder, “He’s just salty because he’s the only one who thinks Selena Gomez is sexy.” She turned to Ryan and added loudly, “Which she isn’t because she does look like a ten-year-old girl!”
Ryan’s lips opened and closed, his face, cheeks, and ears burning, his blood boiling, and his arms and hands shaking. He was about to strangle the little shit when Greg gently guided him to the Vent Room.
“Well, that was eventful,” Tamie mumbled to herself.
It sure was, and Anima still didn’t understand the appeal of Selena Gomez. But hey, at least she knew who she was.
“Did you guys hear about Leandra Miller?” Kishi asked Anima, Amanda, and Lidiya on the school bus that was parked right in front of the high school.
“Who’s that?” Amanda asked.
“She’s this teen mom who’s been in the eighth grade for who even knows how long,” Lidiya explained. She turned to Kishi and asked, “What about her?”
“Well, someone told me that she dropped out of school to become a stripper, and-“
Anima didn’t hear and didn’t care about what Kishi had to say about Leandra Miller because she was too busy looking for Penelope. The person she should’ve looked out for was Christian Seger.
“What’s up, faggot?” he asked staring straight into Anima’s soul in the seat in front of hers.
Anima sighed and groaned internally; what did this fucking asshole want?
“What the hell do you want?” Anima asked in a groan.
“What’s up, faggot?” Christian repeated.
Anima felt a sinking feeling in her stomach; there was that word again, and there was that arrogant smirk on Christian’s face.
“You looking out for your girlfriend?” Christian asked in a snarky tone of voice, “You going lezbo for her?”
“Fuck off, asshole,” Anima growled, her fists clenching up into balls.
But that asshole Christian did not fuck off. In fact, he stuck his face right into Anima’s face and exclaimed, “Why are you getting so butthurt about something that’s not even a big deal? It was just a joke! I wasn’t being serious or anything!” He took a deep breath and added, “You’re acting like a real fag-“
“Piss off, Christian!” a high-school girl’s voice interrupted the almost fight that was about to happen with anger in her voice.
Both Christian and Anima looked up and saw Penelope standing over them. Christian slowly slid back down into his seat, yet he still had that asshole smirk on his face.
“Ignore him,” Penelope told Anima as she sat down next to her, “He’s just trying to piss you off so that he can have a reason to make fun of you.”
Well maybe that was true, but that didn’t make all those comments Christian had hurled at her hurt any less.
“So uh… how have you been lately?” Penelope asked, rubbing her arm and blushing a bright pink.
Anima shrugged and answered as casually as she could, “I don’t know. Okay, I guess. How about you?”
Penelope also shrugged and answered as casually as she could, “I guess I’ve been doing okay as well.”
Both girls sat silently and stared away from each, then at each other, blushing and swinging their legs with perfect synchronization. Then, Penelope placed a slip of paper into Anima’s hands and whispered, “Hey, meet me in the woods at seven, okay?”
Anima blushed a bright red and looked down at the slip of paper in her hands; it was Penelope’s phone number. That made Anima blush even more. She quickly shoved the slip of paper into her skirt pocket and hoped that nobody noticed her blushing… only for that asshole Christian to be leaning over the back of his seat watching over both Anima and Penelope.
“Ha ha! Gayyy!” Christian shouted at the top of his lungs, pointing at the two girls and laughing his ass off, “I told you that you were a fucking lezbo!”
Anima immediately jumped out of her seat. “Get fucked, asshole!” she shouted back.
“Anima, stop!” Penelope whispered anxiously, pulling her arm.
“Hey, everyone! This girl’s a fucking lesbian!” Christian screeched extremely loudly, pointing at Anima and laughing meanly.
Luckily, nobody seemed to give a shit about what Anima was or wasn’t, but she was so enraged that she clenched her fists and was about to lung at Christian when the bus stopped to a screeching halt, pushing everyone forward. “I’M GONNA KICK YOUR FUCKING ASS, BITCH!” she screamed. She pulled her fist back, getting ready to pop Christian a real sweet one in the jaw when-
“Will you shut the fuck up and get off the bus, please?! Some of us want to go home!” Ryan yelled at her.
Anima lowered her fist and looked back at Ryan, whose face was red and eyebrows angrily furrowed into his forehead. She limped down and looked over at Penelope, who had buried her face into her hands in shame. Penelope slowly looked up at Anima and mumbled, “I’ll see you at seven, okay?”
Anima hastily nodded and quickly hopped off the bus, not looking at anyone.
“What was that all about?” Lidiya asked as soon as the bus pulled away from their stop.
Anima shrugged; like hell she was going to tell anyone.
“I bet it had something to do with that girl she was sitting with,” Amanda answered like she knew everything in the world.
Anima quickly turned around angrily inquired, “What the hell are you talking about?!”
“Well, you two were whispering to each other an awful lot, so I was just thinking something’s up between you two,” Amanda explained.
“Yeah, I was just thinking about that, too,” Kishi added.
Anima blushed the brightest red she had ever blushed. “There…There’s nothing between me and th-that girl!” she stuttered, “We…We were just sitting next to each other, that’s all!”
“Oh, really?” Amanda teased, leaning up into Anima’s face, “Then why have you been blushing this entire time, huh?”
“Yeah, you have been blushing this entire time,” Kishi stated, “Are you okay, Anima?”
“I’m fine!” Anima snapped. She then cleared her throat and repeated more calmly, “I’m fine.”
The other girls, especially Amanda, weren’t very convinced because Amanda opened her big fat mouth and stated, “You know, you and Lidiya are kind of the same.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Anima questioned.
“Yeah, Amanda,” Lidiya said, her face right into Amanda’s, “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Amanda looked around the street to make sure that no one was around to hear before she took a deep breath and answered with-
Anima and Lidiya both blushed profusely because OH, HELL NO!
“Damn it, Amanda!” Lidiya exclaimed, “I thought I told you not to use so much anime terminology!”
Anima, on the other hand, was completely silent. She went from zero- “Amanda?”
“What’s up?” Amanda casually asked.
-to one hundred- “You are one DEAD MOTHERFUCKER!” -real quick. Anima lunged at Amanda as violently as possible.
“I’M GONNA FUCKING KILL YOU, YOU GODDAMN WEEABOO PIECE OF SHIT!” Anima’s threat pierced the skies while she chased a screaming and terrified Amanda around the path.
“Anima, stop!” Kishi cried out, “This is getting really scary now!”
“Jesus, Anima! She was just screwing around! Can’t you take a joke?!” Lidiya griped.
Apparently, she couldn’t because she was still chasing Amanda around with Greg running after her. In fact, it took damn near ten minutes for Anima to calm her shit, and that was because Greg was holding her back.
…
Dinner had just ended, and Anima was buried into the stuffy orange couch in the living room because she damn sure ain’t gonna be able to go outside, though for what she had forgotten. She watched as Ryan walked down the hallway to meet up with Greg.
“Hey,” Ryan said to Greg as casually as possible.
“Hey,” Greg said, “You need something from me?”
“Yeah, I need to talk to you about something,” Ryan mumbled, putting his hands behind his back.
“Alright, let’s talk.” Greg and Ryan walked towards the door of Greg’s room where Ryan stiffened up with his light brown eyes darting from left to right.
“Ryan,” Greg began, “Are you comfortable enough to be having a conversation right now? Because we can always-“
And that was when Ryan zipped into Greg’s room and slammed the door shut.
“Ryan!” Greg exclaimed, pounding his fist on the door, “Open the door now!”
Damn, why hadn’t Anima thought about that? She looked down in her skirt pocket and felt something in it. No, it couldn’t be… the slip of paper with Penelope’s phone number on it?! Wait a minute- Penelope! She was waiting for Anima in the woods! What time was it?! 6:48?! Right, time to leave. Anima quickly put on a red-and-white-striped T-shirt and jeans and climbed out of the first floor’s bathroom window.
The sticks on the ground and the grass growing over it snapped and crushed under Anima’s sneakers as she desperately ran deeper into the woods, yearning to hear just a little whisper of Penelope’s singing. Finally, just as she reached the deepest sections of the woods with the pond right behind it, she saw her- the most beautiful girl in the whole world.
God, she was just so beautiful! Her chocolate brown hair fell down to her waist like a waterfall falling into a sparkling lake. Her figure, though chubby, had the right amount of fat and softness to feel like plopping down onto a cloud of cotton candy. And her voice! Dear God, her voice! It was deep, yet graceful, like floating into the deepest parts of heaven. Anima yearned to hear that heavenly voice flow into her ears. Instead, she heard the cracking of a branch.
Shit!
“Jesus, you scared me!” Penelope exclaimed, her hands clutched tightly to her chest.
Scared her?! Anima scared herself! “Sorry!” she said as she blushed and her eyes quickly darted to the ground.
“You’re late,” Penelope said.
Was she? Anima stared at her phone- 7:10. Damn, she really was late. “Sorry,” she said. She looked all around the woods until her eyes finally managed to focus on Penelope and asked, “So… why did you want me here in the first place?”
It was Penelope’s turn to blush, and boy, did she blush a bright red. Her chocolate brown eyes darted from left to right, her mouth opened and shut before she took a deep breath and confessed, “I… I have a crush on you.”
Those six words that came of Penelope’s mouth impaled Anima right through the heart. Those were the exact same words she had said to Catherine about a year ago.
That “huh” had killed Anima once before, and she didn’t want to kill Penelope with the same kind of “huh” that Catherine had previously used on her. She looked up at Penelope and then quickly looked down at her feet. What the hell was going on? Why was her heart beating so quickly and so loudly? Why did her cheeks feel so hot? Why did she have a tingly feeling between her legs? Unless… no, her too? Apparently so; she had to admit it herself.
“I… I have a crush on you, too,” Anima confessed with the last couple of words being barely audible.
That didn’t matter to Penelope because she blushed an even brighter red, a red so bright that Anima thought she was going to become blind in a minute or two. “You… You too?”
Anima could barely get the one word out. “…Y-Yeah.”
Tears stung Penelope’s eyes and she relaxed her body and tightly wrapped her arms around Anima’s body. “Oh my God, thank you!” she breathed out.
Anima looked over at Penelope, still with tears in her eyes. “What’s up?” she asked.
Penelope sniffled and said, “Remember this afternoon when Christian Seger called us faggots, lezbos, and dykes?”
Oh… that. “Yeah, why?”
“He’s not the only thing that thinks like that,” Penelope explained, “Lots of people think that, too. My parents are really closed-minded. You know how I like singing?”
Anima nodded, trying to figure out where this was going.
“Well, they wouldn’t let me join Choir because they thought I would be better off in Track and Cross Country. And I hate it! It sucks! I’m like, the worst person on the team! But they won’t let me change it because they want me to win as many scholarships as possible to pay for college.”
Anima stared at Penelope for a minute, then looked down at the ground. One part of her couldn’t relate; Greg and Katja didn’t choose her activities or her interests for her. On the other hands, her parents were really strict… actually, they were way more than strict. Not to mention the fact that when she was caught with Catherine… never mind. She didn’t want to think about that ever again. “I’m sorry you have to deal with that,” she just said.
“It’s okay,” Penelope said, “I’m used to it by now.”
Used to it. Damn, that hit hard… too hard.
“Listen, I have to go soon or else my parents are gonna ground me for, like, a week,” Penelope said, “Can I get your phone number before I go?”
Anima quickly put her number into Penelope’s phone.
“Thanks, gotta go. I love you!” Penelope turned around and ran out of the woods, her feet bouncing with joy and energy.
Anima blushed the brightest red she had ever blushed. I love you. I love you. She had never been told those words before, not by Greg, not by Katja, not by her parents or the people in that other, and especially not by Catherine. Her heart started beating profusely, and her hands became clammy. She swallowed and swallowed again, discovering that her throat was too tight for any words. Finally, after several minutes, she found the energy to barely utter-
She wondered whether or not Greg and Katja were on her ass.
…
“Ryan!” Greg exclaimed, pounding his fist on the door, “Open the door now!”
Ryan didn’t give a shit about that because he was busy frantically for his cell phone to call Sydney. Which cabinet could it be in? First drawer, second drawer, third drawer- aha! A smartphone with a dark green cover was hidden until a pile of manila folders. He quickly swiped it out of the cabinet and began to dial Sydney’s number. With his hands shaking, he hurriedly tapped Sydney’s phone number to called. He waited and waited and waited until-
“Hello?” Sydney’s voice came out of Ryan’s phone.
“What’s up?” Ryan tried to ask as casually as possible.
“Who is this?” Sydney asked.
Ryan gulped and licked his lips. “It’s Ryan.”
“Oh…” Nothing was said for a few minutes until Sydney asked, “Whatcha calling for?”
“Oh, you know…” Ryan rolled around on Greg’s bed and said-
“Oh.” Sydney was silent on the other end of the phone for a little bit before she said, “I like your accent. Where are you from?”
“Melbourne.”
“…Where the fuck is that?”
“Australia.”
“Oh yeah… I forgot you told me that the first time we met.” Sydney laughed, which made Ryan chuckle. “So… how you doing?”
Ryan breathed out and rolled over on the bed once more. “Erhm… I’ve been doing fine. What’s up with you?”
“Work. Weed. Booze. The usual.”
Ryan laughed and said, “Yeah, that’s how it is with me, too.”
“I thought you said your parents were strict.”
Ryan blinked and darted his eyes from left to right just in case Katja or God forbid Greg was there. “Yeah, well… I only do it when they’re not around.” He still wasn’t going to tell Sydney about his family situation.
“Oh, wow! I can see that somebody’s been in juvie at least a couple of times.”
Ryan snorted and laughed loudly, then took a deep breath, praying that nobody heard him. “Yeah, like you haven’t.”
“No, actually. I haven’t.”
Damn. “How the fuck did you manage to do that?”
“I don’t know. I guess I just don’t get caught. How the fuck do you get caught so many times?”
Ryan gulped and licked his lips. “I don’t know… I wasn’t trying to get caught or some shit like that, but erhm-” Then he heard a clicking sound coming from the doorbell, and next thing he knew, Greg was standing right in front of the doorway with one hand on one hip.
Ryan gulped and licked his lips again. “Hold on, I gotta go now,” he told Sydney, “I’ll see you soon, right?”
“Yeah,” Sydney said, “See you soon. I love you.”
Love! “Love you too, babe! Bye!” Ryan exclaimed happily. He hung up and quickly ran out of Greg’s room when the tall black man stopped him.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Greg asked.
“You told me to get out of your room. Remember?” Ryan answered with a sly smirk.
“Not with that in your pocket,” Greg said, snatching Ryan’s phone out of his khaki pocket.
“Alright, damn. Shit.” Ryan was about to walk upstairs to his room when he bumped into Anima, who was about to walk to her room herself. “Oi, watch where you’re going, little midget cunt!” he exclaimed.
“No, you watch out yourself!” Anima exclaimed back. She ran into her room and started breathing heavily and swiftly with her heart practically trying to escape from her body. Penelope loved her; she had said so herself! She could still hear the words in her mind, and she loved it! In fact, she loved it so much that she accidentally let out a little squeal.
“Are you okay, Anima?” Greg asked as he ran into her room.
Anima jumped and looked over at Greg standing in her doorway. “I’m fine,” she answered, blushing and crossing her arms across her chest.
“Are you sure? I thought I heard you squealing-“
“I said I’m fine!” Anima shouted, blushing an even brighter red.
“Okay then,” Greg said, “I was just checking up on you.” He slowly backed away and told her goodnight.
As soon as she was sure Greg was gone, Anima sighed in relief and plopped down onto her bed and rolled around. Butterflies were fluttering in her stomach, and a smile cracked up onto her face. Penelope loved her; she had said so herself. Penelope loved her.
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-
Ryan spent that entire weekend wondering and worrying about what to do with Bridget. He really didn’t expect the whole pregnancy thing to happen again, and to be quite frank, he didn’t really want a child… at least, not so soon. Would Bridget? That was to be determined on Monday.
“Hey,” Ryan awkwardly said to Bridget when he walked into the high school’s common area Monday morning.
“Hey,” Bridget replied, her light blue eyes glued to the floor. Something was up. That was making Ryan’s skin clammy and his heart race.
“So, ehrm… what have you been doing?” Ryan asked, his brown eyes darting between Bridget and the concrete floor.
Bridget sighed. “Listen, Ryan. My parents are making me move away, and I was just thinking-”
“Babe, babe,” Ryan soothed his girl by placing his hands onto her shoulders, “It’s going to be okay. Whatever happens, I’m gonna be there for you and the baby. I’m ready.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not going to matter anyways,” Bridget muttered to herself.
Ryan heard that. “You got an abortion?”
“What, no!” Bridget’s eyes bulged out of her eye sockets. “I was trying to tell you that my parents are making me live with my grandparents in Bend! Can’t you just listen for just one minute?!”
…Oh. “What the hell is that supposed to mean?!” Ryan inquired.
“You’re always arguing!” Bridget explained, “Just like what happened on Saturday when you came home! You wouldn’t even let my dad or yours get a single word in because you got so pissed off!”
“Why the fuck would I let them speak if they’re just gonna spew out nothing but bullshit?!” Ryan argued, his face getting redder by the second.
“There you go again arguing without letting anyone else speak!” Bridget exclaimed, “God, you can be so immature sometimes!”
“I’m immature?!” Ryan said. His face grew redder than his hair as he yelled out, “I’M IMMATURE?!”
Several other students stared at the arguing couple as the two just stood there staring at each other.
“What the fuck are you looking at?!” Ryan shouted at the onlookers.
The onlookers slowly and awkwardly walked away, but that didn’t mean that they were no longer interested in whatever Ryan and Bridget were going on about.
“You see?!” Bridget exclaimed, “You always jump into any and every thing just to argue, and you don’t even know what the hell you’re talking about!”
“What the fuck are you talking about?!”
“What the fuck are YOU talking about?! Are you even listening to the words that are coming out of my mouth?!”
Ryan’s mouth opened and closed, yet no words came out of it. His heart began beating fast, his muscles tensed up, and his skin turned clammy. He stared at Bridget, wondering what to even say.
“Jesus Christ,” Bridget sighed angrily, “I should’ve known you wouldn’t have anything useful to say.” She turned away and added, “Have a nice life, Ryan. Because I am absolutely done with your shit!” She stormed towards the downstairs girls’ bathroom while Ryan stood absolutely still like a statue rooted into the concrete. The final words that Bridget had said to him buzzed in his head as Alyssa resurfaced into his memory with the exact same words said to him three years earlier.
Any and every symptom that Ryan had the previous moment tenfolded as he still stood there as stiff and as frozen as an icicle, which was a little bit fitting because Bridget was now giving him the cold shoulder, or rather, the frigid shoulder.
The school bell’s loud ringing snapped Ryan out of his anger, and suddenly, a thousand pounds of misery ran him over like a giant snowball swiftly rolling down a hill as well as a country’s worth of snow from an avalanche piling onto him. What the hell was he supposed to do? What could he do? He saw Bridget walk out of the bathroom, and he made a run for the boys’ bathroom himself. Ryan felt nothing except for the shaking of his hands and his arms as he locked himself into a stall and tried to comprehend what the hell just happened. Nothing felt real; he was practically in his own world. Did Bridget really just break up with him and especially at this time?! While she was pregnant with his child of all things?!
The late bell rang just as Ryan popped a Xanax bar into his mouth and curled up into a ball near the dirty, smelly toilet. He couldn’t go out and face anyone; he especially couldn’t go out and face Bridget. He stayed in the stall for several minutes, embracing the chilling silence before he finally sneaked out of the bathroom and ran, ran, ran away from the school, not even looking back to see if anyone would catch him or miss him.
Outside was cold and cloudy- fitting weather to match Ryan’s feelings. The only thing that was missing was rain. Anyways, he trudged around the town like a mindless zombie, not knowing what was going on in the world or who anyone else was. He didn’t care about anyone, and nobody cared about him. A huge piece of him, right in the middle of his heart, was missing, and it damn sure wasn’t coming back anytime soon. Ryan sighed. He had never felt so alone in his life before.
Ryan shivered and quickly rubbed his arms. It was so damn cold, Ryan wanted to think about anything else but how fucking cold it was! Almost… but not quite. Not when… she had just broken up with him, and not when he’s gotten another flashback from… that other girl. So he trudged over to a silver metal bench and sat down, shivering and rapidly tapping his foot. He shuddered, the closest he would ever get to crying, especially in public.
“Hey!” a girl’s voice interrupted Ryan’s thoughts.
Ryan didn’t acknowledge that. He still stared into space, trying to have absolutely nothing going on in his mind.
“Hey!” the girl’s voice interrupted again, this time louder and more blunt.
This time, Ryan slowly looked up and saw a short, chubby white girl with long strawberry blonde hair and freckles splattered all over her face.
Ryan barely nodded, still numb from all the pain that had occurred that morning.
“You sure? Because you look like you’re having a nasty hangover,” the girl told him.
Ryan nodded again, but he could tell that this girl wasn’t convinced because her eyebrows were still creased in concern. Damn, he really wasn’t good at fooling anyone today, was he? He sighed and admitted, “I might as well tell you that ehrm…” This wasn’t going to be easy. “…my girlfriend and I just broke up this morning.” He looked away and rubbed his muscles, hoping that this girl wasn’t watching him cry.
“Oh, damn,” the girl said, “I’m sorry about that.” She got up and asked, “You want me to fix you anything to eat?”
Ryan looked up. “Where to?”
The girl shrugged. “Where I work,” she simply answered, grabbing Ryan’s hand and pulling up onto his feet.
Ryan wasn’t sure whether he wanted to actually go or not, but he figured that following some random stranger was better than thinking about… her… ever again. He shrugged and followed the other girl.
“I forgot to ask you this, but what’s your name?” the girl asked Ryan as they were walking down the street.
The pair was completely silent until they walked into a restaurant called Pig ‘N Pancake and Sydney sat Ryan down in a booth.
“If you need anything, let me know,” Sydney said to the young man, “It’s all on me.”
Ryan nodded and stared at the menu, grateful to have something else to distract him. Man, all the stuff here was expensive! How the fuck were so many people able to afford to eat here?!
“I’ll just have some vanilla ice cream,” Ryan told Sydney.
“Is that all?” Sydney asked, “Don’t you want a drink or anything?”
Ryan looked away; this bitch was a minimum-wage waitress. How the hell was she going to pay for all of this?
“Look, don’t worry about the prices,” Sydney reassured him, “I’ll take of it all.”
Ryan hesitated and sighed. He ordered the vanilla ice cream and a cup of Sierra Mist. The food didn’t take long to arrive to his booth; the same could be said about the shit-show that had happened that morning. The Sierra Mist burned his throat, and the ice cream melted in his bowl, but he still felt uncomfortable and awkward in the restaurant. He had heard somewhere that the world was going to end on the 22 of December 2012, and in a way, it already had. At least, his did. Had things gone differently, maybe he and Bridget would still be together.
My, how things have changed in such a short time.
“Hey, you wanna come to my house when I get off work?” Sydney asked Ryan after a few hours.
Ryan, who had been playing with his melted ice cream, looked up at Sydney and wondered what the hell she was going on about. “You serious?”
“Yeah, I’m being serious right now,” Sydney answered.
Ryan considered. He really should get home; he was already in enough shit with Katja and especially Greg, all things considered. However, he could always delay the shit-show that was inevitably coming sooner or later. Besides, it was a better idea than getting yelled at and being reminded of what had happened this morning. He nodded and got out of his seat.
“Great, I’m getting off at four,” Sydney said, “I’ll see you soon?”
Ryan nodded, then sat back down. What time was it again? 11:34 in the morning? Fuck, that was a long time! Better fuck around on the internet just to pass time and not think about… her again. He was in the middle of fucking around on FaceBook when he noticed that there was a text from some random number. He tapped on it; it was a missing persons notice describing a seventeen-year-old boy who was 6’1″, 183 pounds with red hair and light brown eyes answering to the name of Ryan Daniel Crenshaw. Oh shit… it was Ryan! He quickly turned his phone off and laid his head onto the table.
“Alright, you ready to go?” Sydney asked Ryan when four o’clock finally arrived.
Ryan nodded and stood up, stretching on the way, exposing his stomach just a tad bit.
“Aight, let’s go.” Sydney drove Ryan to her home in her blue early 2000s Chrysler Sebring. It was cold as shit in her car, and there was a ton of paper cups from McDonald’s, but it would be considered rude to point that out to the person inviting Ryan over to her house.
Sydney must’ve noticed Ryan observing the inside of her car because she apologized for it. “Sorry about all of that,” she said, “I keep meaning to clean it out, but I get so tired when I get home from work that I forget.”
Ryan nodded, understanding what she meant.
Finally, they arrived at Sydney’s house, which was just a depressing blue-gray apartment that was bare, dirty, and dusty. McDonald’s paper cups and paper plates were scattered all over the dark gray concrete floor, and a Pizza Hut box with half a slice of pepperoni pizza laid sadly on an ordinary brown coffee table.
“Damn,” Ryan commented, “No offense, but are you busy with both work and college?”
Sydney looked up at Ryan with a confused look on her face and asked, “What college?”
“Well, you live in this cramp ass flat with a bunch of fast food on the floor, and you go to work all day every day,” Ryan pointed out.
Sydney stared at Ryan like he was intoxicated as hell for a few minutes until she put two and two together and said, “Oh, no. I only have my GED. I work full-time to pay the bills for myself.”
Ryan was in awe. “You mean… you live here by yourself?”
Sydney nodded.
“What… What about your parents? What happened to them?”
Sydney’s olive green eyes darted to the floor, filled with worry and sadness, and quietly answered-
“Oh.” Ryan and Sydney stared at each other for an agonizing few minutes. What the fuck kind of idiot asks a random about their parents, especially if they just met them for the first time?
“What about your parents?” Sydney asked, “Are they, like, strict or something like that?”
This time, it was Ryan’s turn to have his own light brown eyes dart to the floor with worry and sadness in his eyes and quietly answer, “Yeah… something like that.” Believe it or not, it would’ve been a hell of a lot more uncomfortable to explain his family situation than it would’ve been for Sydney.
“So uh… anyways, you wanna come inside?”
Ryan nodded and stepped inside the shabby apartment’s living room… or what was allegedly the living room.
“You want anything to eat?”
“What do you have?”
“Hold on, let me check.” Sydney walked into her kitchen, which was equally as dirty, and opened a white refrigerator. “I have some booze,” she called out, “You want some of that?”
Ryan considered. He was probably already in enough trouble for being a runaway and for ditching school, so he figured he might as well get fucked up and forget the whole day even happened. “Yeah, I’ll have some.”
Sydney came back with two cans of Colt 45’s and a small plastic bag of marijuana. She set the stuff down and walked across the living room, where she grabbed a glass bong. She flopped down onto a stuffy dark green couch and turned the television on to Maury. During the middle of the show, Sydney looked over at Ryan, handed him the bong, and asked, “Hey, where’d you come from? I’ve never seen you around here before.”
Ryan took a big huff of marijuana and answered in a slight mumble, “Australia.”
“Oh,” Sydney said, “I’ve never met an Aussie before.” She stared at Ryan for several minutes and stated, “I like your accents.”
Ryan felt his cheeks and ears burn as he took another big huff from the bong. “You-You really think so?”
Sydney nodded, and she sipped a drink of Colt 45. Ryan, on the other hand, decided not to let that get to him and just focused on the rest of the Maury episode. It was quiet in the apartment for a bit until the DNA result determined that some guy (Ryan wasn’t paying any attention) wasn’t the father of some lady’s kid. The “father” screamed, the mother screamed, and Sydney especially screamed, all at the top of their lungs. Ryan almost pissed himself in fear.
“Oh, my God damn GOD!” Sydney shouted, her shrill voice rattling the entire room. She turned to Ryan and explained, “See, this is why I don’t want any kids! I’m so scared that I’m gonna find the perfect man and have a child only for him to not even be the father! I would NEVER want to bring any child into this kind of situation!”
Kids… kids… That word made Ryan’s world start spinning around and made him feel lightheaded and dizzy. He didn’t know whether it was the weed or the Colt 45 that did it, but the whole world went black, and he no longer felt any sense of reality.
“Ryan, Ryan!” Sydney shrieked at the top of her lungs, “Holy fucking shit!”
Ryan slowly and groggily opened his eyes and saw Sydney on top of him, her strawberry blonde hair almost covering her face and her hands tightly gripping onto Ryan’s orange school vest.
Ryan moaned and slowly nodded his head, unsure of what the fuck had happened.
“Jesus fucking Christ, Ryan!” Sydney exclaimed loudly, “What the hell happened to you?!”
Ryan slowly pulled himself up to his knees and rubbed his eyes. “I… I don’t know,” he lied, “I guess I must’ve gotten so fucked up.” He didn’t think he would ever tell Sydney the whole truth. It would be too shameful.
“Oh.” Sydney stared at Ryan for a minute, then at the floor for another minute before she said, “I think it might be time for you to go home, Ryan.”
Ryan got up and stared at Sydney for a minute. He wanted to ask her what the fuck she was talking about, but he didn’t want to get into an argument with another girl. He still remembered what had happened that morning.
“Here,” Sydney said after writing something down and handing it to Ryan, “Call me anytime you need me, okay?”
Ryan hastily nodded and stumbled out of Sydney’s apartment to catch a bus. The people-and-perfume smell of the city bus he was on nauseated him, but he didn’t want any more attention than he was probably going to get coming back… home? Damn, was that where he was going? Apparently so because he arrived at a white two-story house with a caramel brown roof. He discovered his feet dragging him towards the brown wooden door; what the hell was he doing?! Why wasn’t his body listening to his brain?! And where the hell did that knocking sound come from?!
The door opened, and Ryan was face to face with Greg of all people.
“Ryan?!” Greg exclaimed.
Ryan stiffened in fear. Oh… shit. Tears stung his eyes, but he was too scared to let them fall down onto his cheeks.
ManictheMod 