I didn’t really know the boy helping me. I’d seen him around, but he was like a shadow, living in the background, no friends, never speaking up.
I managed to focus on him and nodded. I had no idea if I was going to be okay or die, but he looked so worried; I had to let him go. He reached toward me like he wanted to caress my face—it made me shiver—but he dropped his hand and left, casting one glance back over his shoulder from the doorway, backlit by the bright hallway. I saw something flash in his eyes, something I recognized, but could not then name.
When the acid rock started, so slow and deep a bass, I knew it had been yearning that I saw in his eyes. I know because I’d seen it in the mirror many, many times.
It stabbed me to the core. And it reminded me of his name. Asa. Merc and his pals called him something else, though.
I guess he made his bus, but I missed mine. After he left, I went in a stall and threw up, then I peed. I peed blood and I almost fainted when I saw it.
Finally, I staggered out of the stall, washed my face again, and left the bathroom.
The hall was empty and dark. Everyone had gone home. If only there’d been one person left, one nice person, with a car, but of course there wasn’t.
I pulled out my cell phone to call home and found it dead. Shit. I remembered that I’d been kicked hard in that area—my front left pants pocket…if my phone hadn’t been there, I might have been okay, but then my dick would have been broken instead. See? There’s always a silver lining if you look hard enough.
I had a three mile walk ahead of me. I’d run it some days, and others I’d enjoyed the walk, but this time I could only limp along trying not to make the pain worse.
Halfway home I just gave up. I quit. I threw up in someone’s bushes; I felt pee—or blood—run down my leg. And it started to rain, a slow, cold drizzle that would have done November proud, except this was early May.
I’d had to dash into the woods twice as worse things that—never mind. I had cramps, okay? By then it was raining so hard that if I had crapped in my pants no one would’ve ever been able to tell anyway, but I was so ashamed already. Well, enough about that.
I wanted nothing more than my mom or dad’s arms around me, a hot shower, a handful of aspirin and my bed, but when I got home the house was dark. No one was there.
Going in the back door, I stepped into the mud room and started peeling my dripping wet clothes off. Stepping into the kitchen naked and shivering, I flicked on the light and saw a note on the table. And then I remembered. Today was my dad’s fiftieth birthday and we’d all been going out to a fancy dinner. I was late and they’d gone ahead without me.
I just went to bed.
Well, there’s plenty more but let’s just leave it that I was grounded forever, passive-aggressived to death, given That Patented Mother’s Look of Disappointment, and told that fighting was wrong. No kidding.
I can’t tell you exactly when I mentally turned that final corner, but it doesn’t really matter. I was so pissed and so hurt that I took my parents’ brand-new car, to, you know, do it in. Kill it along with myself. That way if they didn’t mind losing me, they might miss the car.
I’m speeding down the highway, angry, hurt and sobbing. I flick on the radio, still set to the salesman’s stations, and this song came on. Slow and moody and then speeding up, a desperate guttural deep bass beat of drums like my heart and acid like my tears, and I had to wipe my eyes. It was hard, likelife, it was dark, like my thoughts, and I loved it. It stirred me, matched me, explained me, understood me and for some reason, I knew I was not alone. The song was long, and I passed the cliff I was going to drive over, and then when the song ended, I saw I was almost home.
I turned the radio back off, wiped my eyes, felt my heart slow down, my sense of self come back. I drove into the driveway and parked, turned off the engine, and sat quietly in the silence.
When I looked up my dad was standing there, angry but smiling and shaking his head. He had no freaking clue. I loved him for it.
I thought about Asa and the last yearning look he’d given me, and I wanted to find out what it was he yearned for. I thought that tomorrow, at school, I’d ask him. Maybe, like me, he just yearned for a friend.
Sighing, I got out of the car and my dad enfolded me in his arms.
Instead of an exit, I’d found an entrance. I was home.
And tomorrow, I would look again for Asa, and try to give him what the music had given me.
Pineapple Promises by Alisa Lindfield-Pratt
I sampled a piece of pineapple from the tasting platter. The yellow flesh was juicy and sweet, with tart undertones. As I bent down for another piece, a striking woman approached—her arms laden with pineapples. With long, flowing chestnut hair, deep teal eyes, and red lips as bright as the ripest strawberries, she exuded tropical allure. When our eyes met, her smile blossomed like sunlight filtering through the louvers.
“Pineapples are like summer in a sweet, tart treat. Aren’t they?” she said.
The woody aroma of her perfume mingled with the ripe pineapples’ scent and caressed my nostrils. I swallowed my bite and answered, “They are. I love pineapples, but for some reason, I don’t buy them very often.”
She set the fruit on a nearby table, affording me a moment to admire her profile. Her lemon blouse, its top button casually undone, hinting at a subtle cleavage, paired with dark green knickerbockers that hugged her thighs.
“Perhaps you need the right reason,” she said softly, her smile deepening. “I guarantee these are the best pineapples you’ve ever tasted, and I should know, they were grown by my parents.”
“Oh, then I’m sure they are the best,” I blurted, “I’ll have to buy lots.”
