AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I tossed her half-chewed bite into my mouth.
All the girls at the table squealed.
“Ben! Ew!” Jess exclaimed.
“That was some good eats.” I defended.
“She did you a solid, bro. Already chewed it for you,” Win mused.
“Exactly.” I agreed.
“That is disgusting,” Jess declared.
“Well, next time, listen to me when I say you don’t like something. Then I won’t have to eat your half-chewed food.”
“You liked it,” Rush heckled.
“Damn right, I did.” Leaning in toward Jess, I whispered, “You made it taste extra sweet.”
“It was slobber,” she deadpanned.
I laughed. “Eat your pineapple-less pizza before it gets cold.”
We all went back to eating with everyone talking over each other and fighting over who got to eat what, and I relaxed for what felt like the first time in days.
It was a nice ten minutes.
16
Jess
It was kinda surreal. An odd way to feel about reality, I know. But maybe not, considering my knowledge of reality was a bit, ah, limited at the moment.
It made me wonder, though. Why did sitting here with my friends, having pizza and listening to them all laugh, feel surreal? It was my normal reality, right?
So did it just feel surreal because my mind was all messed up, or was it something else? How was I supposed to know?
I felt like the freaking twilight zone. Or maybe I was the Bermuda Triangle. Lost.
I liked being here, though. Glancing around the table filled with people joking and arguing over food. It felt nice to be part of them, like even if my mind was pretty empty, I wasn’t alone. Maybe the few memories I did have were what made me feel like this.
Maybe being here with all of them felt surreal because the only thing I had to compare it to was a childhood that was the opposite. Born and raised on the wrong side of town. Not really realizing it was “wrong” until I learned not everyone lived the way we did. Until I saw neighborhoods that weren’t barren, dirty, and dangerous. Places you could go outside in the dark and not have to worry about getting jumped or worse.
Houses with yards and trees where you couldn’t hear the neighbors screaming through the shared walls. Roofs that didn’t leak when it rained and fridges with food that wasn’t past the expiration date.
My earliest memories were of parents who screamed and fought. Who did drugs in the bathroom when they thought no one was watching. My father left when I was five and took my brother with him. My mom was pissed he wasn’t taking me too. She didn’t want me. But Dad didn’t either.
In the end, he left. I stayed. Mom stopped caring if I saw her high, and I did my best to stay out of the way of her boyfriends who would come and go.
Like I said, maybe I wouldn’t have realized that stuff wasn’t normal if I hadn’t seen different. If not for the piano. One day after school, I heard a teacher playing, and I stood outside the door, listening to the music, connecting with it in a way I never had anything before.
I went there every day for a week, lingering outside the music room, just listening to the teacher play. One day, he caught me. I thought he’d for sure shove me in a closet for detention. But he asked me if I ever played.
I told him no but then sat down at the keys and played the song I’d been hearing him play for a week without even blinking.
They labeled me a prodigy. Some kind of musical genius. Those words never felt like they fit, but the music always did.
That teacher became a champion of sorts, teaching me how to play and read basic music. Letting me play after school every day when he usually did. One day, he had a friend in the room and asked if I’d play for her. Said it was my ticket out. I didn’t know what that meant, but I played like I normally did. And everything changed.
