Push - Chapter Seven - By Lauren & Hattie
By GreenyDoodleI crept up the stairs that led to the door of my house. I tried as quietly as possible to open and close the door, and although my mom was a deep sleeper, I couldn’t take any chances. I shut the door carefully behind me, locked it and padded quietly up the stairs to my room. When I got in my room, I climbed out of what I was wearing and into some pajamas and tucked myself in bed, not worrying about my hair or teeth, just wanting to make sure that I was in bed before mom woke up at 5 to get ready for the day-- and the job she applied for the minute she found out that dad would be gone for more than a month.
I eventually fell asleep, which took some effort. I kept thinking about Galena and my dream, and wondering if it wasn’t really a dream and if Galena had used her poltergeist powers to erase it all. I had to remember to ask Griffin if they were capable of that sort of thing tomorrow morning when I saw him next. I dreamed about absolutely nothing until later that morning, when the sun shone through my windows and woke me up. I rolled from my back to my stomach to look at my clock. Ten in the morning, which made sense since I hadn’t laid down until four in the morning.
I got up and poured myself a bowl of Frosted Flakes, realizing for the first time how strange it was to not hear my dad coming down the stairs to make sure I’d done my house work. I drowned the sugary brown cereal in whole milk - something my dad saved for himself, though I have no idea why - and stuck my spoon in it. I crunched on breakfast for a few minutes, then I went to the living room to watch 30 Minute Meals, but then I realized I didn’t have to cook dinner for a month, and I flipped through the channels before deciding on just plain morning cartoons.
The park is just down the street from my house, I remembered Griffin saying earlier that morning. I trudged back up the stairs to my room and pulled on a pair of black skinny jeans and a gray and white striped Henley. I laced my black Converse high tops over short white socks, and jogged down the stairs. After I shouted to my mom that I’m going to be out for a while, I slipped on my thick, dark green winter coat and went out the door into the cold winter day outside. I twisted left and right through the near-desolate winter streets, heading toward the park and wondering which house was Griffin’s. I slowly pulled my feet along the gray, hard asphalt. After walking up and down the cold street about 3 times, angelic white flakes began to dot the street. I could barely tell the minutes from the hours, and barely felt the muscle pain in my legs because of the numbing cold of the snowy day. I stopped in my tracks for a minute and looked at the pale gray winter sky, watery snowflakes dropping endlessly on my face. I looked down at my feet, melted snow seeping in through the sides of my sneakers and my socks. I wiped a few loose droplets of water from my face, flinching at the sudden touch of my cold hand against my slightly warmer cheek. I noticed also that the snow was creeping up to my shins, soaking my pants as well as my feet. My teeth began to chatter, but I hugged myself and kept pressing on up and down the street for no reason. I just felt safer knowing that Griffin was here somewhere... knowing that if something went wrong he would see it.
And he would see me.
My legs and arms ached with a merciless pain that swam through my body, a headache screaming and pulsing in my brain, but I kept pressing on. Three hours bled into four, which bled into five, and the minutes still began to tick by, as my long legs continued to trek up and down the near-deserted street, keeping time with a rhythm that I created in my mind. I hugged myself tighter, but finally the pain in my body became to much to bear, and cold tears slipped down my pale cheeks.I dropped to my knees in the cold snow of the January afternoon, closed my eyes and slumped forward. I lay there for a few seconds, but eventually pick myself up again to power through the silence of the winter back to my own house. I doubled over for a second, but when I finally regained my balance, my heart skipped a bet when I heard a click and a creak from a door opening from one of the houses in front of me and brought me to a standstill.
I looked toward the row of neat and tidy houses laid out in front of me and saw one towards the end of the road with the door open, a confused and slightly adorable Griffin peeking out, his black hair ruffled left and right like he’d just rolled out of bed.
“Cadence?” Griffin called down the road. “What are you doing?” I made my way to his house, taking it all in as I did so. The walkway up to his house was lined with black tar that was getting wet from the snow. The dark, bare tree off to the left of his house was covered in a thin layer of ice, the tips of which were pointing effortlessly to the snow-covered ground.
“I was taking a little walk and looking for you.” It came out more as a question than an answer, but he didn’t tease about it like he usually would have.
He rubbed his eyes and stepped out into the cold winter light, his voice tired and slightly angered, although I could tell he was trying to be as nice as possible to me. “Well, you’ve found me. What d’you need?” I could barely believe it was him speaking, his voice wasn’t as smart as it usually was. I guess, like he said, I was dumbing him up. The thought made me blush for a second.
I realized then that I had no idea why I’d wanted to find him so bad, and I didn’t do or say anything but fidget with my fingers and stare at Griffin for a few seconds. He was wearing black, baggy, plaid pajama bottoms and a semi-tight plain black shirt. “Well, uh. My parents aren’t here right now, so... Do you want to come inside for a bit?” I blinked in surprise, then nodded, shoving my hands in my coat pockets. He stopped out of the doorway leaving enough room for me to step inside, head bent. Before I could go all the way into his house, I brushed the loose snow from my pants and coat, took off my shoes and socks and sighed in the leisurely warm air that his house blanketed me in. I turned around and closed the door behind me, slumping against it for a minute.
And then I saw his house.
Parts of the wallpaper in the small living room where I then stood were peeling off of the wall onto a dirty wood floor with several scratches littering it, along with empty beer cans and broken glass. A small table in the kitchen that was dotted with holes was home to two mismatching plastic chairs that looked like they belonged to an elementary school. Yellow tile covered the floor of the kitchen, but was pulled up in some places to show a dirty brown surface that at that time, I didn’t really want to know what it was. I felt my heart scream in silent agony for the boy standing in front of me. Now that I knew what his house was like, he seemed like a stranger. “Well, uh. My parents aren’t here right now, so... Do you want to come inside for a bit?” If they were home, what would I have seen? I walked further into the house when I noticed Griffin looking at me quizzically.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sticking his hands deep inside the pockets of his baggy pajama pants. I snapped back into reality after hearing his familiar voice, and sat down on the black leather couch that sat behind a red-brown wooden coffee table.
“Oh, nothing, just...” my words fell apart, and before I could piece them back together, Griffin interrupted me with, “Hey, listen, I’m just gonna clean up around the place a bit, you just... make yourself comfortable, okay?” I nodded to him and sprawled myself long across the couch, burying my head into the arm of the couch. I sat up for a minute, headache still pounding strong in my head, and unzipped my coat and took it off, only to lay back down and curl myself up in a tight, warm ball under my coat, which I used as a blanket.
“Cadence. Hey, Cadence, wake up!” My eyes slipped open when I woke up to a quiet Griffin whispering to me and shaking my shoulder to break me from my sleep. I couldn’t stop myself from smiling when I saw his face, and I sat upright and stretched. He backed up, and I surveyed the room, beer cans off the floor and not a shard of glass in sight. He cleaned up his place for me, I thought to myself. “Yes. Yes I did,” He joshed, smiling coyly at me. I smiled back and punched him lightly in the stomach. I noticed that he had changed out of his pajamas into a black shirt with a faded AC/DC logo on it over ripped faded blue jeans. His hair wasn’t as nappy as it was earlier, so I guessed he had brushed it, just not as well as he should have. “So,” he began, “Did you have any more dreams about Galena?”
I shook my head happily. “Nope, not a thought about her went through my mind about any of it. I just conked out, as my mom would say.” He laughed again, turning around and looking out the window as the snow continued to fall into a deep white blanket covering the ground.
“It’s beautiful...” I watched as the color in his eyes changed from blue to a deep teal, glittering with sheer joy. “Yeah.... it is....” I said to him, sighing and taking in the beauty that the sun created when it made the snow sparkle. I stood up next to him and we looked out the window for what seemed like forever. We looked at each other for a moment, and suddenly all time stopped. I looked at his eyes, which changed again from the teal to a bright green. We leaned in closer, and I could feel his hot breath on my face. My heart began to beat faster, and I could feel a cold sweat breaking out on my forehead. I could feel my face blush up, and right at the last moment, before our lips touched, I shied away, afraid of the consequence. I turned my head away and tucked my chin into my chest, pushing my hands into my jean pockets. I sat back down on the couch, my heart wrenching as I watched the look on his face turn into pure hurt, his eyes changing once again into a sad, dripping blue.
“So.....” I said, trying not to make things awkward. I spun a piece of my long brown hair with my finger, trying to think of what to say. I tried my hardest to slow down my heart, but every time I tried I would only miserably fail. “When did you say we were going to meet again? 3:30 AM?” I tried my hardest to make him laugh. “Or is that too early? Should we make it 3:45?” I smiled, trying desperately to make him do the same, which he did. He turned to face the large window in front of the house when he heard large black tires crunching over the freshly fallen snow, and I saw the blood run away from his face and his eyes change to a deep gray when someone stepped out of it and made their way towards the door.
Push - Chapter Six - By Hattie and Lauren
By GreenyDoodle
I arrived at home and entered cautiously, hoping to avoid
collision with my mother. Sadly, luck was not on my side and I
ran right into her while looking over my shoulder for
her.
"Where have you been? You left over two hours
ago!" I wasn't sure if the look on my mom's face was worry,
anger, or both.
"I walked to the park, and saw a school friend
there." I tried to push past to get to the safe haven of my room
where I could drown feelings out with music, but my mom stepped
into my path, cutting me off. "Come on, Mom. I just want to go
lie down. My head is pounding and I'm freezing." I realized how
stupid it was of me to go to the park in the middle of January,
and that Mom would probably think I was lying, but the strange
thing was, the entire time I was sitting next to Griffin I was
completely warm. Either that or I just didn't notice I was
freezing my butt off.
"Funny. Tell me the truth, where did you go? Some boy's house? That ditch I told you not to go in? Where?" Mom knit her eyebrows together, and now I could definitely tell the look she had was anger.
"I told you, Mom. The park. Yes, in the middle of winter. I didn't notice I was cold! There isn't any snow on the ground either, I had a jacket on, and I had on my sneakers. I was perfectly fine, but on the walk home I got cold. Let me go to my room, I want to go to sleep." She tried to stare me down again, but I returned her glare with equal force, if not more.
Finally she sighed and looked away, then back at me. "But you haven't had dinner yet."
"I'm not hungry."
"Don't starve yourself, honey."
"I'm not starving myself." I went to the other side of the hallway and before Mom could step in front of me again I pushed through and raced the few yards it took to get to my room. I shut the door behind me and locked it all in one swift move.
I started to make my way to my black radio that has been plastered with stickers of my favorite bands, but then I remembered the whispering voice and I stopped and made my way to my bed instead, never turning on the light. I kicked off my black Converse as I pulled my covers over my head, concealing myself in a blanket of total darkness.
I quickly fell asleep, not worrying about what
I was going to do when I woke up. I slept soundly, peacefully and
restfully until I heard something small drop to the ground. My
eyes snapped open, and I scanned the room. I saw, on the ground,
my large blue dictionary. I glanced up at the bookshelf from
which it fell and noticed straight-away the black, gaping hole
that it left among the other, much smaller books. I pulled the
covers off of me lazily and walked across my room to bend over
and retrieve the book. I watched around my dark room for anything
that might give me a clue as to why the book fell. After that, I
felt a cold breeze sweep over my room. I shivered and walked back
to the other side of my room to turn on my light. I felt my heart
begin to be faster,
Thuthump, Thuthump,
and watched in horror as I saw an invisible blade cut through the
lime green walls of my room a message in scraggly letters and
read it aloud to myself as the work was being done .
YOU WILL
PAY
I grabbed my door handle tightly and furiously,
my hands almost shaking from fright too much to actually get a
good hold on it. I ran out of my room, cold sweat breaking out on
my pale face and stringing together my thick brown hair. I
didn't turn back until I reached the doorway, where Galena's
strong, scary face awaited me. I screamed and sprinted away from
it, the cold of the house growing with every second. My
adrenaline pounded through my veins with my blood, almost
becoming a part of my being. I watched as the invisible
blade once again cut through the walls of my small house, writing
a long line through the paint right next to me as I ran. Out of
nowhere, I tripped on lord-knows-what, burning my knee on the
carpet of the large living room. I ran back to the back of
my strangely still and silent house and tried to open the back
door fiercely, the reassuring sound of my quick, unsteady breaths
to tell me that I’m alive. I fell again, and I give up. I flip
myself onto my back and stare up as a ghastly Galena Ann Morris
towers over me, expression dead-serious (no pun intended), a
large glass lamp poised over my head. She brought it down to my
face, her expression not changing, and I screamed.
And then I woke up.
I sat upright in bed, clutching the covers over me tightly, as if to make sure that I was alive and actually capable of doing so. I ran my fingers through my sweat-soaked hair and around my forehead which was dotted with large droplets of more sweat. I looked at the clock on my bedside table and read the time to myself. “1:29 AM,” I wheezed, thoughts flooding through me, memories of my dream flashing through my brain. Whenever I blinked, I saw Galena’s pale face, looking behind the same thick glasses that I had broken, with cracks zig-zagging through the left lens.
I sat in the dark for a minute, listening to the uneven sound of my heart as it pounded in my chest. I slowly threw the covers off of my body, got up and turned on the lights to examine my wall. There were no lines, the dictionary was safely in it’s place on the bookshelf, and the message that the invisible blade imprinted on my wall was completely erased. It was just a dream, it was just a dream. That didn’t happen. I told myself, trying to ease my thundering heart.
Knowing that the words weren’t there and the dictionary was on my bookshelf made me relax slightly, but I didn’t put my guard down. Every little noise outside set my heart to jumping, threatening each time to break out of my chest. I laid back down on my bed without turning off the lights and I pulled my dark purple cotton comforter up to my chin, eyes scanning the room for any sign of danger. I swallowed, my mouth dry. I started to think of Griffin to get my mind off things and hopefully make me fall asleep, though I knew that I wouldn’t be sleeping again that night.Griffin’s face calmed my bouncing heart considerably, which worried me. “I don’t like him like that,” I told myself, though I knew that was beginning to be a lie. Then I made a decision. I had never been more scared in my entire life, and I really didn’t care who was asleep, but I walked quietly to the living room and picked up the house phone off it’s charger on the coffee table by the couch. I walked with it back to my room and sat on my bed in the still silence, still listening to my heart. I sighed, thinking about how stupid this was. I picked up the slip of paper off of my bedside table and dialed the number on it. It ringed three times before I heard a tired and confused, “Hello?” from the other side of the phone.
“Hey.... did I wake you,” I replied to the voice, concerned.
“Um. Just a bit.” He paused. “Who is this...?”
“Oh, it’s Cadence. You told me to call when I could.... and something really.... frightening just happened.”
“...What happened?” I could tell he thought it had something to do with my dad.
“I just had this dream... Your stepsister.... I think she’s out for me....” I could feel the lump in my throat inviting me to cry, but I held the tears back and tried to keep my voice as normal and non-squeaky as possible.
“Crap.” Griffin said, a touch of anxiety to his voice before he sighed. “What makes you think that...?”
“She wrote a message on my wall, and she chased me through my house and she hit me in the face with a lamp.....” I could feel the fearful tears come and paint my cheeks with clear, salty liquid.
I heard him swallow over the phone. “Well... Didn’t you say it was a dream...?” He sounded like he was trying to make up some excuse for this not to be true.
“Well, yes, but it was so real... and on my radio a few days ago, the music changed to static, right? and it said something like, ‘ou ill ay’ or something, and on my wall in my dream it said ‘You will pay!’” And so I spilled all about the dream all that happened, all that’s happened before that could be linked to the dream, and what I thought.
“Mhmm. Can you meet me someplace? I can sneak out--”“Sneak out? I don’t think of you as the type to sneak out.”
“You’d be surprised, but listen, can come or not? Because I can explain two things to you if we meet up.” I could almost see him with his eyebrows raised, testing my toughness.
“Alright, I’m in. But where are we even going to go?”“The park? Can you do that? It’s just down the street from my house, so... That one bench in the park, maybe?”
“The one from yesterday? Sure, sounds good, but I’m changing into something lighter than the thing that I’m in so that I don’t look like a serial killer walking around to a park in nothing but black and red.”
He chuckled shortly and replied, “Okay, but don’t wear anything too bright.” Then he hung up.
When I could no longer hear his bittersweet voice, I could feel sadness rush up into my throat. I pulled myself out of what I was currently wearing and into a pair of skinny jeans and a pink and black Abbey Dawn hoodie. I walked out of the door after I laced up my sneakers and closed the door to my house quietly behind me, tiptoeing through the empty black streets towards the park in the middle of January at 2 in the morning.
I twisted through several streets and when I finally arrived to the street on which the park was located, I began to have second thoughts. What if my mom had awaken and was looking for me? Would she be waiting for me when I got home, her rare wrath set on me? I was already next to the park, looking around the large space at the entrance, thinking about whether or not to actually go in.
“So,” his voice scared me, and like someone in a horror movie, hood pulled over his face, he stepped forward, out of the shadows, hands in his pockets. He bared dark blue skinnies and a deep blue hoodie, light enough but not too light. “You think you can handle what I’m about to tell you?” he took his hands out of his hoodie’s pockets and took his hood off his head. I nodded, unsure. I stared at his bright blue eyes, glimmering in the dim, awkward light of the streets. The two of us walked silently to the bench where we saw each other the day before and sat down slowly.
“Okay, well... Galena wasn’t a normal kid, you know.” Griffin began hesitantly.
“Well, I know that. She was picked on daily and everything that goes with that.”
“No, I mean, she wasn’t like a normal human.” The confusion must have shown on my face, because he sighed at me and his eyes changed to a dark gray before he continued. “She was telekinetic, so she could move things with her mind. In death, someone who was telekinetic in life can move things in death by touching them - a poltergeist.”
I looked at him, not knowing how to reply. I could feel strong feelings bubble up inside me, although I really wasn’t sure what those feelings were-- were they relief? Anger? Depression? Fear? At that point, I really didn’t want to know what they were. “Okay, so can you tell me anything else?” I tried to keep my voice as low but as audible as possible.
“Yeah. When she says you’re going to pay, I’m sure you know now what that means. But with Galena, chances are it will be ten times as bad as what a normal poltergeist would do... Mainly because she was actually very strong in life, even if she wasn’t at school.” He paused, thinking. “Oh, she might try and kill you, too.”
“Ki-kill me? You’re really good at pep talks, Griffin. I appreciate you trying to calm me down.”
He shrugged, then bit his lip. “Well, I can help you out, you know. I... I have some powers of my own, you see.”
I didn’t say anything, I just looked at him, confusion once again showing on my face. “What?” It sounded more like an unbelievable statement rather than a question. “What powers?”
“Well, I’m a medium, for starters.”
“And that is...?”
“It means I can communicate with the spirit of someone who’s dead.” He paused, waiting for my reaction. My reaction was my heart lifting and dripping with hope. A shadow of smile appeared on my face, and he returned it before going on. “I also have empathy.”
“Isn’t that where you share in with another person’s pain, or whatever?”
“Yeah, but in the psychic version, its the ability to feel the physical or emotional feelings of someone else, either in person or with a person miles and miles away. It probably won’t help with this though, but it’s how I’ve known how you’ve felt this entire time. Like, just a few seconds ago you felt relief and hopefulness. However... I can only feel the emotions and things of people I have a close connection to.”
For some reason, I took this as flirting and I blushed. It probably had something to do with the fact he just said he is really close to me, even though we’ve only really been friends for two days. I hoped that the lack of light hid my blush.
“You might want to know I can read minds, too...” I drop my head clap my hand over my forehead, but he just laughed.
“Anything else?”
“Well, yes.” He pulled the chain that held his crystal out of his hoodie and showed me the pendant. “This changes color when the spiritual energy in the air rises. On Friday, do you remember when it was purple?” I nodded to him, signalling him to continue with his explanation. “Well, that meant that the spiritual energy was rising, and I cursed because the color was too dark to be a safe amount of energy.”
“The spirit was Galena, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah. She wasn’t strong enough to do much more than knock things over, but her energy was growing at an above-average rate for a poltergeist. She has a lot of hate fueling her.” He paused. “But that’s not all my pendant does. It also strengthens my power to see people’s auras. I’m still a teenager, obviously, and that means my powers aren’t as strong as adult aura-readers. So this necklace not only warns me when a spirit is near and how strong it is, but it helps me see people’s aura’s until I’m old enough and strong enough to see them perfectly without help.”
“Oh. Well, how can you help?”
“I can talk to her, for starters. She’s probably really strong now. It’s been about a month... Have you seen any signs of her besides her appearing in your dream?”
“Yeah. She knocked over my vase and then the trash can... I’ve heard her voice over the radio, saying ‘You’re going to pay.’... I’ve also felt her presence. I was sitting in my mom’s car yesterday morning and it suddenly got really, really cold. The cold even got through a super-thick cotton blanket that I hid under.”
“Be careful... If that’s all she’s doing, there’s a chance she’s not as strong as we thought. But then again, she might just be doing little things to scare you so that she doesn’t use up all her power in one go. The big thing might be coming, so be careful, okay? I don’t want you getting hurt.” He put his head down like he’d blushed, and I blushed too. When the two of us brought up our heads, we smiled awkwardly and continued to talk. After about an hour of talking about things that don’t have to do with Galena, we decide we should probably be heading back home... and if my mom were to wake up at three-thirty in the morning, wondering where I was, she would go all ‘dad’ on me, and that isn’t what I wanted. There were a few times that she turned into a second dad, and those weren’t the best times that I had ever had.
I got up to leave and started to walk away, but just a few seconds later I heard his footsteps behind me. He grabbed my shoulder lightly and turned me around. “We should meet here again, tomorrow. How about one-thirty again?” I looked at him and knitted my eyes together, puzzled. “In the morning?” He nodded, a worried look on his face, although I wasn’t sure why he would be worried, then I turned around and kept walking to get home as quickly as possible.
Push - Chapter Five - By Lauren and Hattie
By GreenyDoodle
"Hey, Cadence." Griffin said to me, closing his sketchbook
without looking at me.
"How did you know it was me?" I
inquired.
"Well, you're wearing socks that have 'Cadence' embroidered on them. I only know one person named Cadence - you." Griffin replied, looking at me over his square glasses, his eyes flashing into a vibrant green.
"Oh." I said, looking down at my knee-high red and gray striped socks that I use to keep my legs warm in the winter since the girls' uniform is a skirt year-round. "By the way, your eyes did that weird color changey thing again."
"What eye color changey thing?" He winced. "I think you're dumbing me up. Changey? Really?" He shook his head, laughing and pinching the bridge of his nose.
I rolled my eyes. "I'm not dumbing you up!" He gave me a look that said, 'Don't lie to yourself, Cadence.' I laughed. "And I'm sure you know what eye color changey thing I'm talking about. Your eyes are green when seconds ago they were navy."
"I still don't know what your talking about, but oh well..." He said, looking down at the cover of his sketchbook.
"So, whatcha drawing?" I asked, reaching for the book. He pulled it away and I put on a pouty face. "Aww, come on, lemme see!" I lean forward and grab the book from his hands before he could pull it further away. I open it up to the first page and I see a very detailed drawing of an eagle silhouetted against the hot desert sun. "Wow," I murmured, turning the page. The next picture was of a butterfly drying its wings after crawling out of its chrysalis. I began to turn the page, but he caught my wrist.
"Uh, I think that's enough..." I shook his hand off and continued to the next page. He ran his hand through his hair and sighed, knowing he wouldn't be able to stop me from looking at whatever was on the next page. I took one look at the drawing and knew why he didn't want me to see it.
It was of me. It was from that first day he arrived at school. I was sitting in my chair first period, smiling and looking down at my desk where my notebook was laid. I must've been looking at the picture of that griffin.
"Yeah..uh, pretend you never saw that, okay?" He grabbed the book from my limp hands and blushed.
I blinked then blushed as well, ducking my head. "That's gonna be hard...But, if it makes you feel better, you just made my day."
He grinned. "Yes, that does make me feel better. Thanks." He opened his sketchbook back up to a blank sheet, then looks at me. "You gonna keep smiling like an idiot or give me a real smile?" I laugh and blush again before putting on a semi-bittersweet smile, looking at my socks.
The minutes tick on by, and my gaze flits from his face to the drawing to the kids playing on the jungle gym and back to my socks, repeating the process while my thoughts run freely. I th0ught back on my conversation with my mom, and I wondered why she completely ignored the fact that I killed Galena. Was it her way of saying I didn't kill her, it was the boys that made a worse decision than I did? That it was my friends' fault for pushing me into it with threats? Because neither were true. I didn't have to do what my friends told me to. I could have ignored them, found better friends. Shoot, I could have befriended Galena. And while the boys that touched her did something wrong that they shouldn't have, they wouldn't have ever done that to her if I hadn't broken her glasses. While most people would try to blame it on other people to avoid the guilt they deserved, I always pinned the blame on myself. Sometimes I blamed myself even when I hadn't done anything wrong.
"I'm done." Griffin's voice brought me out of my deep thoughts, and I jumped with surprise.
"How long has it been?"
"A little less than an hour, why?" He handed me his sketchbook so I could take a look at his drawing, which I was sure was going to be amazing.
"No reason, I was just wondering." I took the notebook carefully to avoid ripping any pages by accident and I study the picture. It looks so realistic, it could pass for a real picture in black and white, well, if it weren't in a sketchbook, anyway. I sighed.
"What? Do you not like it?" His eyes changed
from the vibrant green to a blue tinted with worry and
curiosity.
"No, no, I love it. Uh...Would you..Would you mind if I kept it?" I asked tentatively. "Of course not. I drew it for you. I drew them both for you." He did a quick little scribble on the back of the page and ripped it out slowly and precisely so as not to tear into the drawing, then he flipped back to the picture of me smiling at my notebook and ripped it out. He looked at them once, as if making sure again that they were worthy of me, then handed them to me. I shuffled them together so that the corners lined up perfectly, then I laid them on my lap.
"So, what have you been up to?" I asked him, my head cocked to the side.
"Nothing much, really. What about you, Cadence?" He questioned me, continuing the drawing of the tree he had been working on earlier.
"Oh. Um." Could I trust him enough to tell him about my dad? "Well, my.."
His hand froze, pencil poised over the page that he was drawing on earlier, and he turned his head to look at me. "Yes? What?" It was like he knew I was nervous, hurt, scared, and everything, even though I was sure it didn’t show in my voice.
"My dad... He... He got into the hospital."
He raised his eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead. "What happened? Is he okay?"
"He's fine."
"...Are you avoiding the first question for a reason?" His eyes flashed red for a split second, then went back to blue.
"What...?" He was strange, that was for sure. "Well, I guess..."
"...You can tell me, I won't tell anybody, I won't do anything except talk to you about it. However... If you really don't want to tell me, then you don't have to... I just want to be here for you." He was pretty good at using the guilt trick on me. If I chose not to tell him, I'd feel guilty for not telling him because then he'd think I didn't trust him enough and I'd end up spilling. If I went ahead and told him, he might go back on his word and tell social services or something.
I told him everything on the spot. My father beat me, my mother was a passive lady who didn't fight back, and even about what happened that put him in the hospital. He listened intently the entire time I talked, and that made me feel good, like I was worth listening to, unlike what I've been used to with my father. I talked about it for a good half-hour, and when I was finished, he nodded and asked me if I wanted him to do anything.
"No! Um. No." He raised his eyebrows, as if daring me to be doubtful of my seemingly solid answer. "No, don't do anything. The most it'll do is piss him off."
"Really? That sucks. I could..." The look I gave him shot down anything he had to say before he said it, and he fell silent. "Well, just know I'm here for you, and everything that goes with that." He looked at his watch. "It's five-thirty... I'd better get home. We've been here since three."
I widened my eyes. "Five-thirty? Oh no... Knowing my mom, she'll have sent my name into that Amber Alert thing." I got up and brushed anything that might've been on the back of my skirt off, then I started to stretch, but I stopped before I did. "I forgot, do you have a phone number? I was wanting to call you some time ago, but...yeah."
"Oh, yeah. Of course." He gave me his cell phone number and told me to call whenever.
"Okay, thanks. I can't give you mine though because of my--"
"--Dad. I know, no worries. Just call whenever you get the chance. I hope your dad feels better, and it really sucks you have to deal with that on top of Galena's suicide." He grinned. "See you." Then he turned around and walked away, pencil in one hand and his sketchbook tucked under his arm, right after I realized the darkness of the purple crystal around his neck.
Push - Chapter Four - By Lauren & Hattie
By GreenyDoodleMy dad woke up soon after that in a small hospital bed. He looked at me and sputtered a bunch of nonsense, his spit flying with his words. I pursed my lips and waited for him to say something that made sense. When he did, it was, "Did you throw that vase on my head?" I nodded, because there was no point in lying to him. He was injured, and I did have a heart.
"Why?"
"You were hurting Mom." I tugged a ponytail holder off my wrist and tied my long auburn hair up into a high ponytail off of my neck which was, at this point bathed in sweat.
"No, I wasn't."
"Yeah, you were. You were holding her way too tight to just be a friendly hug. She couldn't breathe, and that was the only way I could think of to get you to stop." A cold finger touched the back of my neck, and I spun around. No one was there.
"What," Dad asked me, raising his eyebrows.
"Nothing." I say, and I turn back to face him.
"Anyway...Where am I?" He took a long look around the crisp white room. The only color besides white was the door, which was brown and the silver footrest and headrest on the hospital bed.
"You're in the hospital." I mumbled, looking down at my feet.
"And just why is that?" He raised his eyebrows even further, face seeming to grow in color. I didn't answer right away. "Cadence...hmm?"
"Your head got cut with that vase." I say, words darting out of my mouth and into the room faster than I thought them.
His face turned bright red as he ran his hand over the bandages on his head. I saw that the blood soaked through the gauze that enveloped his face and wrapped around his head in a thick headband.
The cold finger from earlier touched the top of my ear and ran itself down to make a swirl on the back of my neck, making me shiver. An icy breath reached my neck. I shrugged my shoulders up till they touched my earlobes, trying to cover my neck from the breath while trying to ignore it. "You...go....oo.....ay..." My eyes widened as I recognized these words from earlier this morning, the cause of all this. If I hadn't heard this on my radio, I wouldn't have yelled, Dad wouldn't have hit me, and so on, all leading down to this.
I shut the voice out of my mind, then focused back on Dad. "I'm sorry I hurt you, though... I really am this time, too. I just didn't want you to hurt Mom," I lied convincingly.
"Whatever. Go get me a goddamn beer, and maybe I'll forgive you."
I stood up, exasperated. "Okay, sure, fine." I walked right out the door and stop a doctor.
"Yeah? Need help with the patient in there?" She pointed at the door to my dad's room.
"He wants a beer."
"No alcohol for the patients." Her voice was sickly sweet and familiar, making me want to gag.
"Can you give him some drugs or something then? He's driving me nuts about how much he wants a beer." Okay - not really the truth.
"...Sure." Her sweet, girly voice echoed in my ears, making the room spin. Slowly, without noticing it, I sank to the floor, the icy voice right by my ear. "Are you okay?" The doctor asked me.
"...ay...."
"Shut up." I mumbled to the voice.
"You're going...." The voice was cut off by the doctor grabbing my shoulders.
"Hey! Hey. You wanna lay down for a while?" I shook my head, face burning with rage and sprinted without direction through what seemed like a million doors, down a flight of stairs and pushed past people in the waiting room. Past the strangers who waited on their loved ones who had even more life-threatening attacks than my dad, and past my mother, who I watched out of the corner of my eye as she saw me hustle out of the hospital, a shocked look on her face. I rushed through the hospital, trying to find my mom's gray Ford Escape in the large parking lot that was dotted excessively with cars and trucks of the staff and the loved ones of the patients. I found mom's car and shut myself in it, remembering my mom leaving the doors unlocked when we went inside because she was too worried about Dad to be distressing about her car being stolen. I didn't have my license to drive or even my permit yet -society doesn't want kids under 16 to have any freedom- so I was forced to wait inside the car for my mother to finish her visit with Dad, which, with my luck, would be a few hours.
The voice must've followed me to the car because I heard it just as I had settled in with a blanket I found in the trunk.
"You cannot hide." It had said, clearly for once. I ignored it, the hairs on my neck prickling. I suddenly grew cold even with the thick woolen blanket over me. A few minutes later: "I know you can hear me." I ignored it again, and after a few seconds of silence, something pulled my ponytail right out of my hair, ripping a few strands out with it.
"Ouch!" A cackle followed my yell, then nothing. I became warm again. I played little mini-games on my cell phone for a little more than an hour before my mom appeared on the pavement heading toward the car, keys in hand. I threw my phone into a little black cup holder, it's battery depleted considerably.
"Sorry for the wait, hon." She said after she opened the car door. "Did I really leave the baby unlocked?" She often referred to her Escape as "the baby" even though I told her it was lame for her to do it. Actually, I probably only feel that way because I've never been called anything like that in my entire life. I've always just been "Cadence," never "Pumpkin," or "Baby Girl," but when I think about that, I usually just shrug it off. I mean, how bad would I look if I were jealous of a car?
"Yeah. I guess it was because you were worried about Dad." I said, buckling my seat belt under the heavy blanket as she stuck the key in the ignition and started the car.
"I guess," She sighed. "We'd better be nice to him for awhile. When I walked in, he asked me where you were with his beer, why some doctor had come in to give him feel-happy drugs, and why the doctor was a girl. That sexist man...I should leave him." She said that quite often, but she never did. She claimed it was because she "loved" him too much. Really, I knew it was only because she was scared of what he might do when she told him he didn't have his slaves anymore.
"Aren't we usually nice? We do his bidding all the time."
"...Well, yes, but what you did will require doing a lot more than chores to make up for." She paused. "Unless he dies in there." I couldn't help but notice a hopeful note in her voice as she said that.
"Hopefully he will." I replied casually as she finally backed out of the parking lot.
She looked over at me for a second, then faced the road again, a smile on her face. She chuckled to herself for a second, then sighed. "We shouldn't think like that."
"Why not?"
"I can't explain it. It just isn't right." She pushed the air conditioning button, then looked at me with a surprised and scared expression on her face. "What?"
"The air conditioning just turned on,"
"And? You pressed the button. Did you expect hot air?"
"No. I thought I was turning the A/C off. It was cold in here...I thought maybe you'd turned it on." Mom said.
The voice. I hadn't noticed because I was busy imagining the perfect life without my drunk of a father. "Uhh...is the window open?"
Mom ran her finger across the top of her window, then shook her head, never taking her eyes off the road. "No. You?"
I did the same, then shook my head. "Negative." I stretched to the back of the car and touched part of the back windows with my finger, then came back to the front. "Neither are the back windows. Weird."
"Oh well. It's warmer now. Anyway, it's Saturday. Do you wanna just hang out at the house or go to the mall or...?"
"Um. The house is fine..."
"Okay. I'm going to find something to do with Cindy." Cindy was Mom's best friend.
"Okay? You don't need to tell me everything you're gonna do, you know." Mom always told me things I didn't really care about.
"Well, if I'm out with Cindy then you can't call me, remember?"
"I know that. You tell me that every time you go somewhere with her. I promise you my mind won't make an exception this time and forget not to call you." I looked out my window at the trees that blurred together, then at the clock that glowed green. 9:30 AM. I would not have chosen to spend 6 hours at a hospital, especially for my dad.
My thoughts wandered to Griffin in the silence. I wondered what he was doing right at that moment, and if he was thinking about me. No, no, you don't even know him. Get that kid off of your mind.
Once at home, I went to the freezer and got out a little cup of sherbet. Dad would kill me if he knew I'd taken one without his permission, but since he wasn't there, what the heck? I could do whatever I wanted, and he'd never know.
I sank into the cushions on my dad's chair, then turned on his special flat screen TV. I surfed through the channels until I found Food Network. It was time to watch some Rachel Ray, 30 Minute Meals. I like getting ideas from this channel so I can make my dad happy with dinner, especially since if I burn even just a corner of his steak he'll go off on me and lock me in my room...After he pretty much kills me, of course.
Eventually I fell into a fitful sleep, full of monsters with chilling voices and vases falling and at the very end, just before I woke up, Griffin's face, but it was quickly replaced the second I opened my eyes by my mom's concerned face.
"Are you alright? You were thrashing around and yelling at something to stop... I couldn't even wake you up. You don't usually sleep that deeply..." She glanced at the empty sherbet carton on the table beside my dad's squishy chair and grinned. "No more sherbet before sleeping, eh?"
I sit up, heart pounding. "What time is it?"
"Past three. When did you fall asleep?" Mom asked me, raising her eyebrows.
"Around ten."
"Dang. You completely conked out." She walked over to the couch and grabbed the remote, then proceeded to throw it at me. I caught it in a fit of panic, not wanting to be brained by a TV remote. "I assume you want that back, right?"
I shrug in reply. "There's nothing on at 3 PM. You know that." I twirl the remote around in my hand in a fit of boredom.
"Bored?" I nod. "Go for a walk or something. Don't sit around here being a bum." I look up at her. Her behavior is weird.
"Mom? You okay?"
"Yeah. Why wouldn't I be?"
"You're acting a little strange."
"I'm just being me. I might be a little peppier though, with your father gone. The doctors say he has to be in the hospital for a month at least." She laughed. "He was so mad when he heard that. Madder than he gets when he can't get a beer. He kept calling his room a sanitary prison cell."
My dad knows what a prison cell is like, too. He was in one for several months for abusing a random woman on the street because she wouldn't tell him her name. The laws against men hurting women these days. . . .Too bad my dad doesn't give a crap about them when it comes to his own family. "So," Mom said, changing the subject. "What d'you feel like doing, hon?" "What? I mean, I dunno. Nothing."
"Why don't you call up one of your friends? Lesley? Kaylee? Lianne? One of them?" Mom seemed like she was pleading for me to call one of them.
I debated pros and cons, and though there were more cons than pros, making Mom happy was in the pros, winning over all the cons. "Alright...I'll call...Kaylee." Kaylee was the one that was least involved with Galena and whatnot, so I decided she'd be best. Then Lesley. If Lesley couldn't do anything, I'd sit and watch TV. No way would I call Lianne.
I grabbed the home phone out of it's charger on the little wooden table next to my dad's chair. I nimbly dialed her number, and slowly brought the phone to my ear. Mom watched me eagerly.
"Hello?" Kaylee's soft but somehow strong voice answered.
"Uhh... Hi, Kaylee. It's Cadence." Surprise showed in her voice. "Cadence? No way. Lesley and Lianne will not believe this." Kaylee's excitement grew as she spoke.
"No, I'm not going to be friends with them again. I only called you because you're the one that wasn't really involved with--" I stopped myself, and looked at my mom, whose curiosity showed in her eyes.
"With what, C?" I turned her voice through my head, trying to come up with something else to say.
“You know what, Kay? My mom's calling me, I'll call you back." My thumb pressed the END button on the phone shakily, preparing for a list of questions from my mother.
"Involved with what, Cadence?" Mom immediately asked when I closed the phone and bit my lip.
"Oh, uh, a project at school...?" I tried out. I flinched at the way my words curled up at the end of the sentence involuntarily.
"A project? For what class?" "Um." I desperately tried to find a class that I recently had a project in, but when I hesitated, Mom nodded.
"That's what I thought." She shook her head. "Tell the truth, Cadence." She stared me down, and I couldn't help it, I spilled.
"I pretty much killed a girl at my school, okay?"
Mom's eyebrows raised, clearly surprised. "What?"
"This girl, her name was Galena." When I said Galena, a cool breeze whipped around my ankles and worked its way up to my face, making my hair dance around my head and cover my eyes for a spit second, which wasn't natural. Not inside a house with all the windows and doors closed due to cold weather outside. "My friends, Lianne, Lesley, and sometimes Kaylee would mess with her. They told me that if I didn't too, then they wouldn't be my friend anymore." I felt my eyes stinging, but I refrained from letting any tears fall. "I broke her glasses, she got contacts, some guys touched her, and she committed suicide that night. I pretty much killed her!"
Mom blinked, seeming like she was unsure whether to get mad or not. "How have you been hiding this for so long, C?"
"That's what you have to say? Really?" I turned away from her and walked out the front door. She didn't follow me, she didn't call me back, and I was glad.
I wasn't sure where I was going. I pressed on through the cold January air down several roads that I didn't know the name of, but I didn't care. I just needed to get away from the rest of the world around me and escape into my own thoughts which continuously flooded through me.
I ended up at the neighborhood park, and I stumbled over to a bench where I sat down next to some inconspicuous guy. I glance over at the sketchbook that was open in his lap without realizing it and take time to admire the detailed tree he'd started sketching. My eyes worked their way up to the guy's face, and with a sudden pang I realized who it was.
Push - Chapter Three - By Lauren & Hattie
By GreenyDoodleChapter 3
On the bus ride home, someone tapped my shoulder. I'd ignored it, but then the tapping continued. I turned in my seat to face whoever was tapping my shoulder, but, like most days, I was still all alone in the back of the bus. I heard a cackle of laughter, but I brushed it off as one of the boy's in the front of the bus and didn't think about it as much. Maybe someone was under my seat messing with me, trying to see what would happen, but no, I'd swung my bag around under the seat and didn't feel it hit anything, but I heard the cackle again, so I decided it was just the kids in the front of the bus.
Once home, I thanked my lucky stars that my dad wasn't home. Mom was, like always. Dad told her he'd hit her harder if she got a job because he thought that staying at home was "woman's work" and that it wouldn't be right for a woman to get a job and try to fit in with the hardworking men. He'd despised women who had jobs, and I'm fairly certain he only married my mom because she was the only unemployed woman for miles. I locked myself in my room and didn't hesitate to turn on my stereo and turn up the music to full blast. My mom knocked on my door loud enough so that I could hear it, and I turned down the radio and opened the door for her. She gave me a basket of clothes, trying to smile and hide the deep melancholy in her green eyes. "I washed some clothes for you, Honey. Make sure to put all of your clothes away in the right drawers and clean up your desk. This room looks a fright."
When she left the room, the resolution of the radio slowly went down, and static washed over the room thickly. I tried tuning the radio back to the station it was on originally, turning the dial back and fourth, but it just got worse. Then I realized something.
The noise I was hearing wasn't static.
It was... whispers.
I could make out some words, but only a few as I tried turning the dial left and right, the volume going up and down, when my mom came in. "Ooh, I love this song," she claimed happily, dancing to the tune that only her ears could hear, singing along softly to herself the song that was playing. She twirled away, a look on her face of pure joy. But I couldn't get the voices to shut up. I tried and tried to re-tune it, although I never could quite get it back to where it was before-- away from the static.
"You're.......ng........oo......" I picked up from the whispers.
"You're.....ing....oo....hay...." and they stopped dead. The static cut off, the voices cut out, and so did the music. I curled up in a little ball on my bed and waited on I wasn't sure what. I guess I fell asleep at some point, because I woke up around two A.M. to the static on my radio. I rolled over to face it, and out of desperation I pulled the plug on it. The static whispers continued to spill from the speakers and tumbled through the air angrily. I was tempted to cover my ears, but I wanted to know what the whispers were saying, so I refrained from doing so.
"You're.........ng......oo.............." I heard again. I strained my ears.
"You're.....ing.....oo...." Nothing new from what I heard earlier. The whispers started to jumble together, making it impossible to catch any parts of the words. I clamped my hands over my ears, waiting for the whispers to stop. They were making my mind swirl. I was unable to focus on one thought, and I squeezed my eyes shut and curled back up into my little fetal position. "Stop!"
I screamed at the top of my lungs through the house, my voice cracking in desperation. I heard feet hit the ground in the room a few doors down, and I felt my heart sink to my feet. If that was Dad, I was so dead for waking him up. I heard them stop at my door, but I couldn't tell if they were heavy footsteps or light ones. I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. I stared the doorknob down, daring it to turn, lying to myself that I wasn't scared. When it began to turn, I scrambled to turn the lamp beside my bed off, then to throw my thick, purple comforter over me in a fit of adrenaline. The door opened and I took a peek through the small opening between the mattress and the edge of my blanket to see who it was.
It was my dad. His face was noticeably purple even in the dark, his eyes and veins bulging out of his head with anger. He looked around my room, then his eyes stopped on my bed. He narrowed his eyes like he could see me through the thin opening, so I shut my eyes and prepared for him to walk toward me and throw my blanket off of me. I was still wearing my clothes, so he'd probably hit me for that. But if he caught my eyes open or figured I wasn't really asleep this late, he'd know that I hadn't just been talking --or in my case, yelling-- in my sleep, that I'd been awake and yelled that. Like I was trying to wake him up.
I heard him coming toward me with a lot of time before I heard each step. He was either taking his time or trying to get over faster by taking advantage of his long legs and taking long strides. They stopped just a few seconds later at the side of my bed. I felt him close a corner of my blanket into his fist, and he ripped it off a moment later, releasing all the warm heat that had been circling my body and replacing it with cold, fresh air that made me have to try hard not to shiver when the first blast of it came down on me.
His mouth was right by my ear, his breath hissing down to my nose. It stank and smelled strongly of beer. When he's drunk he hurts me more than usual, and I had to work harder to keep calm.
"Cadence!" He suddenly bellowed, scaring me out of my wits more than it would have if I'd been asleep.
"What?" I yelled.
"Why were you yelling a few minutes ago? It's almost 3 am! Why weren't you asleep?"
I instantly thought of a thousand comebacks that would have left him silent, but I didn't use any of them. I was smart enough to know that one comeback equaled five kicks to the face. "I don't remember yelling anything...I was asleep...I'm sorry...Did I wake you...?"
"That's bull. And of course you woke me! I wouldn't be in here telling you to shut up if you hadn't, dumbass!"
"I'm sorry. I, uh, don't mean to be so stupid."
"Haha, yeah, right. You do this to test me, don't you?" I shook my head vigorously, knowing it wouldn't do any good. "You make me sick. You're useless, pathetic, and everything that goes with that." He tugged me to my knees by my thick brown hair. I held in my cries so that my mom wouldn't wake up. If she came in here, then she'd start to cry or whimper. If she did that, my dad would push her into the hallway's wall so hard there would be another hole there to join the hole that my dad made when he had tried to punch me, I ducked, and his fist broke through the wall.
"Dad. Dad, stop." I pleaded. He grinned, releasing another wave of beer-breath at me. I turned my head -- or tried to. He wrenched my head back to facing him using my hair. He towed me to the edge of the bed, hand still holding my hair firmly, and kneed me in the stomach. I let out a soft cry and tried to bend over, he knew, of course, it would be a reflex. When I did, my head went down toward the ground but he kept a good, strong grip on my hair. He chuckled to himself when I cried out. I heard feet hit the ground in the next room, but I didn't register any worry for my mother. I was busy battling my own battles.
"Danny!" My mother exclaimed when she saw what was happening to me. "Let go of her ...Please..." My mom's voice had been firm and steady before, but I figured my dad had glared at her. I couldn't tell because I was holding my head down. A moment later my hair fell down past my face again, and I rubbed the top of my head. It pounded with pain, but I ignored it. I looked up at the scene before me. My dad had my mom in what could have been a hug if she hadn't been coughing and gasping for air.
I stood up, suddenly angry. "Let go of her!" I yelled, tugging on his thick, muscular arm. "You're suffocating her!" I looked down at my feet and listened to my mom gasp for air. My eyes wandered around the ground, only to find the vase that had spilled the night before. I looked up again at my father's back, watching as he strangled my mother in a too-tight bear hug. I looked next to my foot again, grabbed the vase that used to hold a rose, and held it up over his head. My mom's eyes widened as if to say, "No, don't," but I did anyway. I brought it down on the top of his shaved head, and watched the cascade of black and white glass as it clattered to the floor in a deadly waterfall, with my father who collapsed to the floor numbly. I saw a large cut in the back of his bald head, and hoped to God it was fatal.
My mom leaned with her back against the wall, breathing heavily while my heart thumped strongly in my head. The room began to spin as my adrenaline again pumped faster and faster through my veins. I watched as his head bled out onto the hard wood floor of my room. I looked up at my mother, who was still gasping for breath, and she looked back at me and nodded, her eyes wide and pleading. She ran out of the bedroom, and I wondered if I was going to get in trouble with the law for this as she dialed 9-1-1.
Push - Chapter Two - By Lauren & Hattie
By GreenyDoodleClasses went by without my learning or retaining any information. I didn't pay attention at all in class, I just sat at my desk, ignoring everyone who poked me in the back of the head, threw paper at me, and even the teacher, who called my name repeatedly. After a while the teachers stopped talking to me, probably trying to figure out why I'm so depressed over a girl killing herself when I was hardly connected to her at all.
"Cadence. What's that under your bangs?" Some random girl pushed my bangs aside and sees the circular bruise. "Whoa. How'd you get that?"
In my head, I called her all the bad names I can think of. I slapped her hand away--hard-- and reposition my bangs to how they were before she interfered. She drew more attention to me, which was not what I wanted or needed.
Mr. Lately cleared his throat to get our attention back. Only a handful of kids gave him their full attention, so he cleared his throat again, louder this time. "Class," he began, "We have a new student that will be joining us today." he gestured towards the door. "Would you like to introduce yourself, sir?"
A small murmur washed over the classroom, and the other kids were interested at last. They devoted their attention to the boy walking in, not to me, which allowed me to blend back into the back of the classroom. "I'm Griffin Stone..." he shifted his feet and stuck his hands in his pockets.
"And why don't you tell us a little about yourself, Griffin," Mr. Lately stared at him with sparkling expectancy. Griffin glared at him, inhaling sharply, and I saw his eyes flash from blue-gray to an angry green.
"I'd rather not, sir." Griffin said, sounding as if he were straining to keep his temper under control.
"Oh, come on, don't be shy!" Mr. Lately's eyes lost their sparkle, and it looked like his temper was starting to rise as well. Mr. Lately didn't like it when his students wouldn't do what he instructed.
"No." Griffin glared at Mr. Lately, who was startled by this. "Please just tell me where to sit." I knew he said this to be polite because the only open seat in the classroom was the one where Galena had sat.
"Ah...Next to Cadence Peirce, over there...Cadence, raise your hand." I raised my hand hesitantly, then brought it back down after just a second of being in the air. Griffin looked at me for a moment, studying me, and I shrunk down in my seat, squirming. He came to the back of the room and sat down right where Galena sat. He turned to me after a minute of settling in.
"Cadence?"
I glanced at him, turning my head slightly, so I could get a good look at him. Black hair, one single blond streak in the front. He was wearing the male uniform of our school, gray slacks, white button up, gray dress shoes, and gray tie. I looked up at his face, studying it in the one second I had before staring at him would seem strange. Blue-gray eyes again, no longer the dark, angry green that they were when Mr. Lately asked him to tell the class more about himself. "Uh..yeah."
He stuck out his hand. Something guys never do. Ever. I shook it tentatively, then looked away, wondering what's with him. "Pleasure to meet you."
"Why are you talking like that?" I blurted, regretting it instantly.
"Like what?" He knit together his eyebrows quizzically.
"All polite."
"I'm not speaking politely. I'm speaking intelligently." His eyes flashed ice-blue, then back to the blue-gray shade I've never seen in eyes before. "Why do your eyes change color like that?" I asked before I could stop myself. I had been so curious about him that I had completely forgotten that I was trying to keep quiet so people didn't notice me as much.
"Change color like what?" He played smoothly.
"Don't play dumb," I smiled. But I didn't press. I looked away from him and went back to my notebook, which I opened and started to doodle in idly.
In the middle of Mr. Lately's physics lecture, Griffin looked at my notebook and tapped my shoulder. "Mind if I see that a minute," he asked, and slowly slid my notebook off of my desk. He plucked up his pencil, plopped the notebook onto his desk and began to draw in it calmly. I saw his muscles relax, and I knew then that his comfort zone was his pencil, his paper and his imagination.
About ten minutes later, he handed me back the notebook. The drawing was amazing. It was of a griffin, standing proud and tall, holding a ribbon that had my name written on it in beautiful cursive. I stared at it for what seemed like forever and noticed Griffin's signature snug in the corner. "And you...drew this?" I stared at it in complete shock.
"Yeah, so?" his eyes flashed a beautiful sapphire blue when our eyes met, then got back their usual silvery sheen.
"That's...where did you learn to draw like that?" I asked, pausing a moment. "...And your eyes totally just went from gray to blue."
"I taught myself. Also, I might point out since you seem so keen on making sure I know my eyes apparently change color, one of your eyes is blue, the other green. I will continue pointing this out until you stop insisting my eye color changes." He smiled playfully.
"No way. You did not teach yourself, you're a master at drawing." I paused again, looking at the griffin again before looking up at him. I study his face closer, and with a pang I recognize Galena's nose on his face. My shock must have shown on my face.
"What's the matter, Cadence?"
"What? Nothing," I said a little too quickly.
He leans closer to me, my heart speeds up. "No, there's definitely something wrong." A girl who must have been listening to our conversation instead of Mr. Lately's lecture - not that I can blame her - spun around in her seat.
"She's just upset because some girl committed suicide last month,"
"Uhh..."
"Did you know the girl?" Griffin asked me, his eyes turning a light, pale green.
"No, uh, sort of..." I stumble over my words, sounding stupid. My face heats up, embarrassed. "I mean, no, not really. I'd seen her in the hallways and stuff, but otherwise, no..."
"Excuse me." Lianne butts in from my right. "Cadence broke her glasses, leading to the chick getting contacts, making her, like, totally hot, and so all these senior guys, they like, raped her and stuff, and so then, that night, the chick slit those big veins that like run up your arms..." Lianne made a swift cutting motion. "And...voila! Dead chick." I called Lianne as many bad names as I could think of in five seconds.
"Whoa. You broke the girl's glasses?"
I pointed a finger at Lianne coyly. "She made me. So did Lesley and Kaylee. My old friends." Lianne sat back in her chair, her face clearly showing that my last comment had stung her.
"...Doesn't matter who made who do what, though, Cadence...It's who did the deed that matters." Griffin said, and Lianne smirked at me.
"Hey, if we didn't have some seriously perverted seniors at our school, what I did would have been a favor. I made her look beautiful, even if it was just for a day. And besides, if I'd known Galena was going to go home and kill herself instead of calling the cops, I would never have done it. Even if it meant that Lianne, Lesley, and Kaylee were planning on ditching me if I didn't."
"Still, there are a lot of perverted guys here. I walked into the boys' bathroom and saw some dude feeling a girl up against her will in a stall." Griffin paused, recognition of something on his face. "What did you say the girl's name was?"
"Galena. Why?" Did he know her? Or did he mishear what I said?
"Morris?"
"Yeah. Why?" I repeated. He obviously knew someone named Galena Morris.
"Yes! Why?" I exclaimed, exasperated. He should have just asked her full name the first time. Geeze, he wasn't being polite or intelligent. Not even nosy. Just annoying.
"Galena Ann Morris was my half sister, then. We have the same dad." He looked up, thoughtful, his eyes flashing through colors so fast I couldn't even tell what colors were what. Mixed emotions, I realized.
"Oh, God." Thoughts sped through my mind, mixing with each other fighting for the number one spot at the list of my worries. "I'm so sorry." "I've only met her once, its not as big of a deal as it seems to be. We were twelve when we met, before she had to get glasses and everything. After that I'd only talked to her maybe once a year, and I'd only get to see what she looked like in the Christmas cards our dad, my mom, and I would get from her mom and her step-dad."
"Oh." I said while trying to swallow the lump that had formed in my throat as he spoke. I was unsuccessful.
"Yeah," he said, sounding like he was about to say more, but something caught his attention. His hand flew up to his neck, where I notice a silver chain around his neck. He gives it a small tug when he notices I'm staring at it, and a small shard of crystal appeared on the end of the chain. It was pretty shiny and a dark, dark purple. I looked at his face, wondering why his necklace had attracted his attention. "Damn," he whispers to himself spitefully. I saw his eyes flash. His face was passive, no emotion whatsoever. "What? What's wrong?" I whisper-yell to him fearfully. He looked at me with a fierce face, his eyes a strict teal. I could see in his eyes as he battled himself whether or not to tell me. "Not yet," he murmured, "It's not quite time." He looked back up at Mr. Lately, but I could tell that he was more intent on drowning out any more of my questions than actually learning anything. I sat straight up in my seat again and studied the animal that Griffin drew. I traced the outline of the griffin with my pinky, and studied the intent detail of everything. The way that the ribbon with my name on it cascaded down from the beak of the griffin, the way the shadows were perfectly placed on the creatures wings which were gracefully outstretched from one side to the other of the page.
I looked back over to him, dumbfounded that someone as young as him could have drawn something so beautiful, so completely perfect. I noticed him turn his head back to Mr. Lately quickly. He was looking at me, I thought to myself, and I felt my face go red. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye and smiled, but i wasn't exactly sure why. I was jolted back into reality when the bell rang, so I grabbed my binder and slipped my notebook into it. I took my time to get everything, and I noticed Griffin do the same. As I walked out of the room, I could feel my heart slow down, and I once again listened to the steady rhythm of my converse against the tile floor as I walked briskly to my locker.
Period after period went by and I learned that Griffin had second, fourth and fifth hour with me, as well as first. Why am I caring so much about him, I thought to myself angrily. I just met the kid. In each period that I had with him, he ended up having to sit right by me, behind me, or in front of me. You're kidding me, right? We went through all 4 of his introductions quickly, each one of him refusing point-blank to introduce himself. He asked every time for the teacher to just tell him where to sit, and each teacher complied about the same way Mr. Lately did.
At the end of the day, I found myself wishing the school day hadn't ended, which didn't make sense because even though I knew him pretty well, I should probably feel too guilty for pretty much killing his sister that I wouldn't want to hang around him.
Push - Chapter One - By Lauren & Hattie
By GreenyDoodleI watched the shadows dance across my wall. They'd never seemed so menacing, so sinister, so cold. I buried my head under my pillow until I realized what a child I was being. I stared again at the shadows, sizing them up. I notice one shadow was blacker than the others. My heart pounded when a vase next to my bed fell to the floor but didn't break, just spilled the single rose it held.
Last month, a girl at my school committed suicide.
She was the kind of girl who was a little "too" brainy, wore those big out-of-fashion glasses, and was picked on constantly.
I was one of her attackers, yeah, but it was only once. Before my friends started picking on her too, I just sat back and watched. I didn't want to get involved, whether it was the tormenting side or her side. But then when my friends threatened to ditch me if I didn't join in on the tormenting, I wasn't about to become someone who got picked on. I stood in front of her, grabbed her glasses and stepped on them mercilessly. She looked up at me, tears forming in the pits of her eyes which I now noticed were large, brown and beautiful, and she tried to run, but, since I had broken her glasses, she mostly stomped around wildly.
I knew then that's why her glasses were so big and thick. She needed them, otherwise she was good as blind. I looked at the crushed glass under my shoe, and walked away with a smug expression on my face as if my heart wasn't twisting in agony for her. About five guys from our school circled around her, pushing her around in the circle and throwing glass from her glasses at her. For some reason, she never reported it.
The following day, she came with contacts, her large brown eyes no longer covered by her thick glasses. She kept her chin held high through the day as some seniors poked fun at her, noticing how hot she suddenly was.
After school that same day, I was walking home and saw them corner her. I saw them do things to her they shouldn't, they were touching her, but I didn't do anything. I looked at her, and she stared at me, and as her eyes pleaded for help, she opened up her mouth and mouthed something I couldn't quite understand. She wasn't going to do anything, but I could tell that she'd had enough. She was ready to give up. I ran from there, horrified that I had pretty much caused that, but I couldn't shake the image of her eyes boring up at me from my mind. I didn't sleep that night, and I rushed to school the next morning, looked around for her. I didn't find her, but I knew that didn't necessarily mean she wasn't there.
She wasn't.
Galena Ann Morris committed suicide on December 19, 2009, and if I had reached out to help her, I could have saved her life. I'm a murderer.
I pulled my pillow over my head and make sure all my body is covered by something. I didn't reach down to grab the vase, or the rose. I let them sit there, and I never fell asleep.
In the morning, I stumbled down the hall to the kitchen where I started to pour some cereal, but I lost my appetite quickly. I heard footsteps coming from the stairs-- heavy ones, not my mother's featherweight ones. I stiffened, and started scarfing down my cereal. If he catches me not eating, he will knock me so hard I won--
"Cadence?" Dad asked me, putting a heavy hand on my shoulder. I did my best to make it feel like I'm relaxed.
"Yes, Dad?" I took another bite of Frosted Flakes.
"Have you done your morning chores?" He took a sip of his beer and rested his hand on the table calmly.
A lump formed in my throat, and I did my best to swallow. "No, but--"
"No?" Dad thundered. "No? Why haven't you? Suddenly becoming a princess now, are we? Did you think breakfast was more important than living in a clean house?" Dad raised his hand and smacked me on the side of the head, and I fell off my stool onto the cold, hard linoleum covering my kitchen floor.
"I'm sorry, I was planning on doing it next, I'm sorry! My alarm clock didn't go off! I'm sorry," I rushed to explain. I scrambled to my feet, pushing out apology after apology from my throat.
Dad spat on me. "Useless." He smacked my cereal bowl off the counter, and it shattered and Frosted Flakes spill everywhere. "Clean that up." He kicked my shin, downed the last of his beer and crushed the can against my forehead. He raised his hand and looked at me coldly, embers of rage burning in his eyes. He walked out the door and I heard his car door slam.
My mother came down the steps, holding her face with a wet cloth. I noticed when I saw her face a red hand mark creeping across her cheek from under the cloth. I straightened myself out, wanting to stay strong for her. "Did he...?"
I shrugged, then quickly cleaned up my father's mess. Another typical morning in the life of Cadence Alexandria Peirce.
Mom let out a small cry, then walked back upstairs and shut her door. I heard it lock, and I listened to her sobs as they echoed throughout the house. I felt like crying, too. I was pretty much responsible for Galena's death, and even though its almost been a month since, I couldn't stop feeling guilty, but I guess neither could anyone else at school. I decided I'd handle my dad's wrath for not doing my chores after school, so I quickly dumped the shards of glass from the bowl into the trash can. I turned around to grab my bag, and in the second my back is turned, the trash can fell over, its contents spilling everywhere. Just like with my vase, I realized. I swept it up silently and put it in the garage in a new bag, then I ran to my bus stop, a bruise sprouting on my shin, clearly visible through my thin knee high socks with Cadence sewn into them. I wear them because my school forces girls to wear short skirts year round, even in winter, like now.
Galena used to ride the same bus as me. Whenever I boarded it, I'd see her first, sitting alone in the front seat, or getting her head knocked against the window mercilessly in the one seat the driver's mirror can't see. My bus was the one bus that doesn't have a security camera on it, either, and nobody had bothered to report what was going on.
When I boarded the bus, all is silent, and almost every other window has a picture of Galena. I walked to the very back of the bus, past the boys that touched her, pushed past my "friends" who sat in the middle of the bus, where I sat right by the window. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved. Nobody did anything. The bus left the stop, Galena-less once again.
Once at school, most of the kids were quiet. That's how you know which ones tormented her and feel guilty now. I'm one of them. My "friends" pretended they didn't do anything by talking and laughing. I trekked past them, and they stopped to look at me. They didn't seem to get why I didn't want to hang out with them anymore, why I ignored them. They just looked at me like I'd gone nuts. Maybe I have, but I'm not completely sure yet. I continued walking to the school's double doors, listening to the steady rhythm of my Converse sneakers scraping against the rough asphalt.
In first period, I rubbed my forehead where my dad crushed his beer can against it. I could feel the bruise there, and I knew it was probably going to turn yellow or green, but my thick bangs hid it well enough that I thought nobody would notice.
I had first period with Galena. She sat to my left, and my friend Lianne sat to my right. Galena would glance over at me every few seconds, and that annoyed the crap out of me then. Now I kind of miss it. I'm pretty sure she did that because she was worried I'd smack her when the teacher wasn't looking or something. I wouldn't have ever had the guts to do that. I don't even know how I managed to crush her glasses. I wasn't thinking straight... Not that that's a good excuse, but it's still an excuse.
Lianne still sat by me, and she occasionally passed me a note, but after I read it, I'd crumple it up in my fist and pocket it. They had been full of Why aren't you talking to Lesley, Kaylee, and I? We miss you! Please reply. Don't ignore, please - Lianne which, against her wishes, I'd ignore. I hardly even looked at them after a while. My old friends were the reason I did that to Galena, possibly why she's dead now. I told myself this every night I laid motionless in my bed, mostly so I might not feel so guilty, although I knew I was right to feel as bad as I did. As I do still.
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