Florida
Melissa
"They were here and I let them go. They were here. They loved me. They made me feel better about myself. They were here. They made me laugh till my stomach hurt. They held me close when I shivered and cried. They were here. But they are gone. Just like that. They were in front of me; I'm the reason they left. I drove them far away. I pushed them away. I said the worst things at the greatest times and said the greatest things at the worst times. I did the right things in the wrong times and the wrong things in the right times. I am the villain in my story and the victim of my actions. My ego is my downfall. I'm alone. I'm a living, walking disappointment."
It's senior year and it's about to end. I've applied for college in Germany, I'm taking summer courses to teach me German, I need to be fluent, I think I'll be majored in Mechanical Engineering. My SAT scores were great, 1820 on SAT and 1430 on SAT Subject Tests. My GPA is somewhere between 4.02 and 4.3. My test grades are straight As except for Chemistry, it's the only B on my grade book. I don't know what exactly is my problem with Chemistry, but there is a problem that I wanted to solve, but it won't be effective if it stayed as it is. My friends aren't as busy as I am, my friends don't care that much about their grades since their SAT scores are great, they've sat back, relaxed, and chilled as if they're done with the year already. I've never been done with any year. My mother keeps saying that I am not so smart in my social life, but extremely smart in education. I learn fast and grasp academic information quickly.
I hand over my history exam paper to the teacher and exit the classroom. my next class is two hours later, so I go home to grab a bite.
On my way home I decide to take the long road from the beach take a stroll till I meet the street which I need to get to so I'd reach home, I see a guy's silhouette from the distance, he's painting I guess, he has a brush and is carefully moving it on the sheet standing before him, he has broad shoulders which are hunched up a bit adjusted so his arms and hands would move well, his hair is in short curls, his body seems well built, healthy build, but shaky, I slowly notice who he is.
"Gavin!" I call out, he nods his head in my direction, there's another brush in his mouth. He's so typical, like one of those crazy artists you see in movies, messy with himself, has a lot of thoughts and untamed demons, can lash out at you any second, is sick, creates original, inspiring and occasionally depressing art. But unlike all other artists, Gavin takes good care of himself, picks expensive and amazing clothes to wear, knows what fits his body and personality and eyes and hair and everything else that you need to match your clothes with. His smell is always sensational with all the branded perfumes he buys. He's always shaved and never looks like a mad scientist or the brilliant artist in a movie. He's got a dark side to himself, nevertheless he's the best company you can have, he doesn't speak much when he's upset or angry or allowing someone to grief. On his good days which are usually all his days except for Fridays, he speaks a lot, makes light conversations, funny ones who would leave you clutching your stomach from the pain you gain because of the hard laughter he causes the whole group sitting around. When it's really boring Gavin would get up and impersonate someone, anyone just for the sake of having something to do and the sake of entertaining the present people. Sometimes, he'd just randomly get up and sing and dance and gets everyone to their feet. He's the closest friend I have. It's just everything about that light head despite those heavily weighed shoulders that make him special. I don't know how can someone be so sick and feel pain constantly and have so much odds that don't serve his favor yet somehow he finds a way to smile, somehow he is not sad and he is not dark, somehow he is not the cliché you expect him to be.
I reach him and find what he's coloring to be somehow hypnotizing, it's filled with figures like whirlpools and spirals, like octopus tentacles, ones deeper than others going deep and deep in the wood, he likes carving and coloring. The background takes pastel powder colors, like spots, and each spiral takes a different color, some take stripes, he darkens depths creating shadows making it scary but inspirational, breathtaking. He's frowning which either means he's concentrating or he's upset and trying to contain his anger.
"What's up?" I say.
He's still silent, his chest heaving as if he just finished a good run.
"Gav..." I say concernedly
"Yeah, yeah, I'm here,"
"You okay?"
"I'm fine" he's not, but he's calm so it's good, he's managing, he never talks about why he's upset so I drop it.
"Skipping school?"
"No, exam's in three hours"
"So, skipping classes."
"No, no, just taking a break, wanted to, you know, whatever it is I do over here,"
"You make art" I say
"Why aren't you at school?" he's changing the subject. One thing about Gavin is that he doesn't know how to reply to compliments and hates talking about his art.
"Just came back, going home to get a snack and take a nap, my next class's in two hours, I'm allowed to go home," Gavin's dark today, he's on one of his "Mood Swings" it's what he calls them, Mood Swings.
"Huh," he's staring at the sea, his hazel eyes glowing bright in the sun
"Well, I'll go, and this is really good," I point at his painting
"Yeah, sure, thanks," he glances at me for a second and then goes back to staring from his painting to the seas and back again, he's thinking deeply. I leave him with his thoughts.
Evan
"I don't know how I ended up loving her, I don't how one person can change your life the way she changed mine. I was lonely, I was quiet, I was unnoticed. I was living on my own. I was living for myself. I was miserable. She made me love and feel loved, even though I know she doesn't love me the way I love her, I am nothing but a friend to her. She can make millions and millions of those. I can be replaced. I know I am no lover to her, I am nothing special, I am not closer to her than any of our friends, but it's just that we're so alike, it's the small things about her that make her different from me, that make her complete me. And although I know I'll never be someone of much value to her, hearing her name makes me smile, talking about her makes my eyes light up with happiness and joy, and just the sight of her makes me feel like I have the whole world at my feet, like I can never have anything more. Like there's nothing better on this earth. I know she doesn't love me and I know she never will, is it crazy that despite my knowledge I still am not miserable when I think about our friendship? Is it normal that I am thankful to have her as a friend? I don't know what is wrong with me, but it is a sickness I hope that has no remedy. I choose to stay in love with this sweet girl even though she will never feel the same about me."
We're done with this year. I just took my last class in my sophomore year in high school. One thing I've learned about high school in these two years is that it's bullshit. It's all crap, you have to be invisible to avoid being an accident, a cliché, the bullied kid, the bully, the stoner, the nerd, and the list goes on and on. You are pathetic and academically achieved, or feared and hated, or alone and bullied, or nothing and invisible. It's so hard to avoid being something in high school, if it's not your choice then it's the choice of the kind people who offer you a seat during lunchtime when you come in late and every single table is taken. Let it be the drama club, let be the nerd, let it be the popular kids, for god's sake all you know is that it's not your fucking choice, because you cannot say no, you can't be offered a seat in a room with no empty seats or no kind people enough to offer you a seat and say 'No, thanks, I'll just go sit in that corner by myself, on the floor, like a hobo, nah I'd rather do that, thanks for the offer, bye!' you just can't do that. And the moment you place yourself on a seat with a group in the cafeteria is the moment you are marked. You get marked by the whole school. More specifically you get categorized. They could create a category all for you if you're weird enough or smart enough or even stupid enough, you just have to be enough of anything so you'd get noticed and then you get categorized. I've chosen to be invisible. I don't eat lunch, I stuff myself in the morning with enough breakfast to keep me going till the end of the day (bonus point: I lost some weight), and during lunchtime I just stand outside in the parking lot, when people occasionally come out I slip away unnoticed to the back of the school before they call me "Parking-Lot-Guy" or "Parker" or anything of that sort. I've done a good job at being invisible these two years, but I don't know if I can handle another two years of pretending I don't exist.
I walk outside the school as fast as I can, there's fuzz all around me filled with all these hugs and kisses and Goodbyes and I-Will-Miss-Yous all as if they're leaving the country, it's summer for god's sake they'll be seeing each other probably more than they do on school days, when will this cheesy crap be over already? I plan my summer to be the summer I lose weight and gain muscles and become more muscular, it's also the summer I move out from my parents' house. I already got a job at the local bookstore / record store / DVD rent store / ANYthing you could think of store so I think I can pull it off. Mom said the house is open for when I feel like it was too early and dad said he's proud and not to listen to my mom "it's the tough times when you can't handle anything anymore that prove you wrong, when things get tough get on your feet not on your road back to ground zero" he said, I love my dad for saying that, it's a bit exaggerative considering I'll be two streets away, but he's right.
Brooklyn
Tyler
"It was unfair how they made me feel guilty. But it was fair because I am guilty. I am guilty of hurting everyone. I'm guilty of ingratitude. I am guilty of selfishness. I am guilty over and over and over again. I will always be guilty for my problems. I will always be responsible for how broken the people who surround me are. I've never had an actual social life, and the one time I finally have it, I let it slip. It's falling, all at once, everything I have built or was born with it built for me. Everything I have and own, whether I sweat to have it, or I got it as a gift. This all lays on my shoulders. My family, my friendships, my relations with other people, my routines, my whole life, it's all falling. It's being destroyed right in front of my eyes. It's falling and crumbling and turning to ash. All because of me. All because of the nameless actions I have done. All because of that stone heart of mine. Their existence almost melt all the snow away, almost. But then they left, they had the right to leave. They had to honor their dead, but they took a piece of me, the hot one, the fire part, the one that kept the ice melted, and now there's only coldness and numbness and nothing but an ice cold heart. I am nothing but a cruel, vicious monster, who turns everything he touches grey. Who breaks every heart he lays hands on, wets every eyes he looks into, and burns every soul he finds around. I am something that needs taming and could not be tamed."
I just left the airport after booking the ticket to my first destination for this summer, I'm planning to visit as much as I can in this country before I leave it because I don't know if I may be leaving it for good. The first destination is Florida, in a week, I will stay there for two weeks, they say it's where you can have the perfect definition of summer, I wonder if it goes the same way if you're spending the summer alone because all your friends are going to tours in their future colleges all over the globe and not just the country. Smart group I've surrounded myself with, all about their future, I'm one of those too, but I decided to enjoy this country and myself altogether before I get into the serious work of college. My college will be in Portugal, I think I'll like it there, I like the idea of Portugal, I googled it and found great photos, but these are the photos that tourists see, these are places for tourism, not the people who live there, and I will be common, I will be a citizen not a tourist nor a visitor.
I enter the house and see my sister on the couch and the TV on.
"You're back." She says curiously
"Yeah.."
"Where were you?"
"Airport. Booking my ticket for Florida"
"Ha," she says
I head to the kitchen.
"You ate?" I ask
"No, don't eat I'll make something in a bit" I sense something in her voice, something has been wrong since I've came home.
For one, she isn't at work. Second, she still isn't speaking about the whole Portugal thing. She's pretty upset about it, she doesn't want us separated, we've been living all our lives together, she raised me, after our mother died and our father turned into an addict, an alcoholic, and got arrested for something we never asked of. After we got into the foster system and she turned eighteen, she got a home and a job and kept saving money, and eventually after going through hell, she succeeded in taking me under her care, I was her responsibility the people from the foster system who came by each month said so. "He's your responsibility, is that clear?" and "You need to understand that being his sister isn't enough. He's got needs. He's a tough responsibility." This one lady was going nonstop about how I might give her trouble, she wouldn't stop talking and I was about to cry as a kid she was all like "He's a good kid I get from your old foster families, but he does need good care, money, education, food, water, shelter, care, advice, sentimental and materialistic needs. He's like a pet, except he can talk and cry and say he hates you and you must tolerate all that kind of trouble, but you won't give any trouble, right? Just saying that admitting you can't take care of him is not wrong if you can't" and even after all that and a whole system convincing her that she couldn't handle a seven year old kid while she was nineteen, but she'd never listened to them, or at least never took their options into account, after all, she'd spent a year trying to have me by her side.
"What're we eating?" I ask
"Mexican" she answers
"Okay, I'll just wash and come help" I start stalking away, but she stops me "Hey, Ty" she calls
"Yeah?"
"You know I want you to go to Portugal right?"
"Zoey can I wash up and then we could talk about this? All of it? For all the time you want? Please?"
"Yeah...yeah sure"
I walk away thinking of a billion possibilities of what she may want to say. She could say she got a transfer from her office in Brooklyn to Portugal. They are a worldwide company, so they can easily transfer her, only if they want to. They never want to transfer someone if that someone wants to be transferred, so that possibility is pretty limited, very unlikely to happen. She could say I'm allowed to go unless I don't stay there and promise to come back. I know I've been planning to go and not come back, but I was hoping I could find my sister a job there once I'm all settled in, I've had a lot of fantasies about how I could be reunited with my sister, but the only realistic way is to come back to the states. I don't know why exactly don't I have that much of pertinence towards my country, I owe that country my life and everything I own. I should be devoted to it, I should love it, and I do, I love this country so much I know I'll take my rights here, I know I'll be treated as human and I know I could come back and will be welcomed whenever I want, but I just feel like leaving. I feel like I don't want to be in a place where I get reminded by the fostering system and JDC and all that crap we've been going through during our times here, it's not the country's fault but it just doesn't feel safe or home anymore. It feels like the haunted house from my nightmares and I need to get away from that. I don't want to leave. I need to.
"Do you want any help?" I call as I head to the living room
"Yeah, could you please come and help grill this?"
"Sure, yeah" I head there and start grilling the chicken, I knew what she meant, this is what Zoey cooks when she wants to talk to me about something that is either really concerning her or really upsetting her, in this case I'd go for it's both. It's a pretty easy task, I help a lot in the kitchen, I like helping her, I feel like it's a little thank you for all she's done for me. Besides, I like cooking and the smell of food and the way it takes a lot of time on the clock but no time in body clock or in the brain clock. We finish and head to the living room, it's where we eat usually.
"So, about the whole Portugal thing," she starts
"Yeah?"
"I think you should go, but it's just I don't want you to leave, but I can't hold you back either. You've been working so hard for this, I think you should go, it's not like you won't be around for breaks or something, plus I'll be busy at work"
"Thank you," I nod and give her hug
"Can you just not go full traveling the whole vacation, I'll need my time with you like the rest of the country you know" she grins, I chuckle
"Yeah, don't worry I'll come back early"
I can see her eyes start watering and I know she's about to cry but she's not a crier. She's a tough girl, and she's doesn't like drama, and it's not because she's only lived with a guy or that she's been treated unfairly and thrown into different houses in different years, it's because she still has hope in life and still thinks that no matter what she's going through, someone out there somewhere must be going through the same thing and another someone out there in some place has it much worse and is struggling to only live and someone somewhere has it much better, but in their minds there's a hell. That's what she believes, and I think it's what keeps her going too.
When we're done with dinner I check with her everything and which college applications I've filled and which I haven't yet, she ignores all those that are in the states and pretends she doesn't see them. I spot Brown's application and I know my grades and GPA and SAT scores could get me in there and I think about it. For a split second I consider it, and then I go back on that as an option and then I think, what could possibly happen that is so bad and so frightening? Worst case scenario: I don't get in, I go somewhere else, it'd be like destiny is trying to tell me to leave the country
Best case scenario: I get in and then there are two options:
a) I go to Brown
b) I go somewhere else
I think I'm more scared of the bright side more than I am of the dark side. I don't like to choose. If I get it I want to have like one option, get in go there. Don't get in, don't go there. And that's it. But if I get in I'll have this inner conflict. This warzone in my head. One side is all "Stay with your sister, she needs you, you owe her that much" and the other side would be like "Screw that, you go for your future and drag your sister into it later on" and there's the heart and it's all like "But she has done so much for you to you successful, but she doesn't deserve to be alone, but leaving would give her the opportunity to meet someone, but she doesn't want you to leave, but you also need a future and a career, but you can't drag her into your path, she has her own way..." and that circle would have no beginning and no end, just the rounds it keeps going in, just the conflict. And I don't think it's all Head-VS-Heart kind of conflict. I think my heart agrees with my head on practical basis, but also believes in fate and coincidences, I don't think my conflict exists only between my mind and heart, I think every organ inside my has a billion different opinions and is fighting itself more than it is fighting all other organs. I think that's twisted. I think I'm twisted, too.
Kansas
Leslie
"I don't know how to feel. I believe I'm guilty. I'm guilty of not trying to get closer to her. I'm guilty of not trying hard enough. I'm guilty of not understanding how she felt. I'm guilty I didn't notice. I'm guilty I thought it was a mask for fame. I'm guilty I never talked about the things I noticed. I'm guilty I didn't feel her do it. I'm guilty I haven't been there. I'm guilty and sick and ashamed and I don't deserve to on this earth. I don't believe I deserve to be alive. I don't deserve love or loyalty or friends. I don't deserve happiness or love or relationships. I don't deserve anything. I deserve nothing because that's exactly what I am, nothing. I admit it. Not to the whole world, not to my family, not to my friends, not to anyone alive, but I know it, and I know they know it too, I don't have to tell them. I am nothing. I live my whole life regretting things I haven't done, I have always lived in fear, I have acted to be brave, but that was only pretence. I am not brave, I am a coward. I'm not a good girl, I am chaos. I'm not positive, I am all the negativity the world could get. I need to sort my life. I need to sort myself. I need help, but I can't ask for it."
"So we're spending practically the whole summer in Florida" Gen is more stating it than she is asking it
"Not the whole summer" mom says
"Yes three months is considered the whole summer, mom, or at least what I have to spend with my friends" that's Charlie, she's a senior and needs the vacation to spend with her friends, last summer before they're separated. I can't imagine how that feels, but then again, I have no friends to imagine that with. I don't even mind spending the whole summer there, I guess I might make a few friends, I also might not, but there's a 40% chance I will, and a 100% chance I'll try. So I don't mind, I don't even like Kansas, so it's no big deal in my opinion.
"Fine Charlie, you can spend a month and then come back to your friends."
"Thank you" she sighs
Gen was about to speak up when mom held her hand up "No. No, you're spending three months there, and that's that, I don't care if you want to spend it with Jason or any of your messed up friends, I don't want you around them anymore anyway"
"No, no, no, you don't get to make that decision for me, it's unfair, I'm almost sixte-e-e-en mom come on" she says calmly but somehow in a tone of rage. I don't know how she manages to do that. She talks angry words with a calm voice and a sense of rage, which is pretty cool and very scary.
"We'll see about that." Mom leaves the house, I'm guessing she's taking Daisy, our husky dog for a walk. It calms her, always does the trick, every time.
"I don't think it's a bad idea." I say in a low voice "Family vacation for once, you know, we haven't had that in a long time"
"Yes, but it will still be a family vacation if it was two weeks or something" Charlie says
"You still get to leave after one month, don't be whiny bitch," Charlie holds her tongue, we've gotten used to Gen's language.
She uses phrases like the cool kids in TV shows. The ones who say Don't be a whiny bitch or Stop being a pain the ass or Who's that motherfucker with and other phrases which should be censored in my very honest opinion. If there was a life censor for all humans' sentences, Gen's words would all be like "I BEEEEP know BEEEEEP and BEEEP, wait who's that BEEEEP" and eventually the number of Gen's cusses and curses and intentionally censored words would make the whole system explode in about one day. So Charlie held her tongue, she knew Gen doesn't mean it the way she should mean it, or the way normal people would mean it. If Gen means to insult, she uses sarcasm, ignorance, and cold looks.
I go to the garage and play some music, practice some songs. All of us sisters have some sort of talent. Literal talent, musical talent, artistic talent. My sister Gen draws portraits of humans and galaxies and stuff that would take your breath away for quite the time. Gen, she writes, but she denies it, I'd like to think of her as a poet, a future rebellion, she can lead the whole world into change, hell her true talent lies in her sharp mind. She notices things, keeps quiet about the, she learns stuff, and comprehends faster than Charlie and I can ever. She's very persuasive, she has a lot of potential in the politics side, whether with the law as a lawyer or a policewoman, or against the law as a politician rebellion. She reads, but not much of what Charlie reads. They have that much difference between them. Charlie's more into the fantasies, the novels, the literature, the thoughts, the stories, those places to where she escapes all the time, those places I think she can create a vast of when I read her Creative Writing essay the other day, she has potential in the literature world. Novels wise. Gen reads about psychology and body language and the type of How-To-Be –Successful-In-Seven-Days books, yet she always says If that who wrote that book were successful, they would've never written it in the first place, it's bull, it's to test on people. Is her famous saying about that stuff, yet she always reads them. She writes great poetry from time to time. She once left me a poem, I never knew why, but she left to me and it was the greatest thing I'd ever read.
If it wasn't for the stars in the skies
If it wasn't for the dreams of the night
And the secrets that people do hide
And the words that feel of the tide
If it wasn't for the thoughts of the wise
If it wasn't for the tears of the fright
And the feelings of emptiness yet pride
And the children that wander the wild
If it wasn't for the agony in their cries
If it wasn't for the hope of put off light
Wouldn't they have been lost nor been gone
Wouldn't they have been left without a song.
I, on the other hand, love to sing and dance and do things that are more commonly found, I'm not that different. I play piano and guitar and I'm learning to play violin. But my true passion lies within singing, sports, and dancing. Anything else is just a hobby.
I play on the piano the note that I've beentrying to learn, a song I like to sing, the first one I'll try to sing whileplaying, it's odd given that I play all these instruments and sing, but I'venever sang while playing an instrument all at once. I find it distracting, but Ithink I need to try, I might succeed and I guess the voice seems so much betterwhen it's accompanied by music.(