4. Abigail – “Where words fail, music speaks”-Hans Christian Anderson
4
Abigail
“Where words fail, music speaks”-Hans Christian Anderson
“There ya are, B–” Duke stops mid-sentence, looking back and forth between us.
“What do we have here? Going for the easy ones these days, huh? Don’t blame ya. Insecure chicks love to prove they are pretty on their backs with their legs open wide.”
“Shut the fuck up, D.” Blake barks.
“Whoa, whoa, easy there tiger. I was just messing with you guys. Besides, I came up here to check on you and see if you wanted to join us for a round of beer ping-pong.”
“I’ll be down in a minute.” Blake seethes.
“Okay.” Duke turns around and is about to walk off but stops dead in his tracks before looking over his shoulder. His focus went straight to Blake.
“Dude, I know you’re going through things,” he turns his torso all the way around, looking between Blake and me. “But did you see those chicks down there? Your head has been all messed up after rehab, but I know your eyes aren’t. Those chicks are smoking hot down there.” Duke's voice goes up an octave.
I never felt so out of place in my life. Blake and all his friends were extremely good looking. I had no business coming to this party to hang out with them. I’m sure they all look at me as one of the dudes. A flicker of hope lived inside me that maybe that wasn’t the case with Blake and I, but I’m confident it is now.
“How about we do a line, get your head back in the game, and mingle?”
“Are you crazy? He almost died a few weeks ago.” I snap, interfering in their brainless conversation.
Duke points his attention at me. “Abs, I know you are on the crew with the band now, but I’ve known Blake for a long time. I know what he needs.”
I glare at Duke and then at Blake.
“I’ll be down in a minute,” Blake says. His jaw clenches as he stares at his friend.
Duke holds his hands up in the air as if he’s surrendering. “Alright, alright. Take your time.”
Duke leaves Blake's bedroom, door wide open. I look over at Blake, and his hands are clenched at his sides, as if he’s fighting a devil inside him at this very moment.
“We better get back down there,” he says, not taking his eyes off the door. He looks so stiff that if I touch him, he may topple over.
After a few moments, he walks away, but I grab his arm.
“Promise me, Blake. Promise me, you aren’t going to do coke or any other drug.” My eyes plead with him, and I’m shocked at the courage I’ve mustered to sound firm and fierce because inside, I felt nothing but fear right now.
He slowly cranes his neck to face me, and his eyes appear molten momentarily. I would be lying if I said he wasn’t scaring me with those dark blue eyes.
“You’re not my mom or dad, Abs.”
The way he says my name is harsh and cold. So cold a shiver runs through me, and my heart breaks a little at his words. “I’m not trying to sound like one, but I know how easy it is to relapse, and-.”
“I got it, you’re concerned. Don’t be. Just worry about yourself.” He averted his gaze and started walking towards the door until he was out of view. Taking the tiny piece of my heart, he broke off with him.
When we returned downstairs, he kept his distance from me, even though I felt his eyes on me all night.
The weekend was excruciating. It’s Monday now, and I’m back in this dungeon. High school was becoming bearable with Bkake, but I haven’t spoken to him since the party at his house. Blake didn’t come outside to meet me at our usual spot today for lunch. I keep replaying the look on his face in his bedroom. I wasn’t sure if he was frustrated with me or Duke. It was a confusing moment that was more significant than I ever deemed possible.
Once home, I tried to focus on my music to distract my mind.
“Hey, what’s going on with you and Blake?” My sister says as she walks into the living room with a healthy snack. Peanut butter and celery have been her go-to these days.
“What do you mean?” I ask without looking up. I continue to tighten my strings even though I’ve already tuned them perfectly.
She dips a celery stick into the peanut butter and takes a bite. I can hear her mouth chomp as she chews on the stick. Her loud chomping noises ring through my ears. I look up and purse my lips together. One of my pet peeves is hearing people chew, but I try to drown it out as I test my strings with my violin bow.
“So you're going to ignore me?”
I let out a deep sigh. “Nothing, we are just friends.”
“Well, the mood sure did change once you two returned from wherever you sneaked off to.”
“We didn’t sneak off. He was just showing me his room and some old records he got from his parents. He even had an old record player. An original record player.” Excitement fills my tone.
“You’re so weird.” She takes another bite of her celery. “Mom told me you met him at the hospital, and you guys meet up like two nights a week. Are you two, like, hooking up?.”
“No, we are just friends.” Irritation floods my veins, making my body full of rage, but I bury it deep down. My sister is asking me questions about myself. I would take her snarky remarks over nothing any day.
“We meet up and make music. That’s pretty much it.”
“Is that what you kids are calling it these days?” A small smirk curls across her lips.
“Whatever,” I say with a shake of my head.
“So you’re still chasing that dream, are you?” She motions to my violin with her celery stick.
“Not all of us can rely on our looks to make it in life. So ya, I am.” I focus back on playing my violin when I hear Adalee put her plate down.
“Look, I’m not here to cut you down or lecture you. I just want you to be careful. Mom told me that the kid was in the hospital for overdosing on drugs. He’s only sixteen, so that’s serious. And you are in no condition to be around people incapable of helping you or bringing you down even further.”
I look up and stare at her. Blinking. She must be joking. She doesn’t think hanging out with Blake is worse than being around our cousins and all the boyfriends they bring around, does she?
“Really? I don’t see you lecturing your beloved boyfriend on how he talks to me.”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” She says, flipping her ponytail over her shoulder.
“So some guy you're not even serious with can talk to me any he wants, and you think that’s okay?”
“That’s even worse,” I tell her.
“Don’t be so sensitive. He talks shit to everyone. He’s even told me I had peach fuzz on my chin like a billy goat. So you think I ran home and cried? No, I shaved it.”
“Oh, you’re right, it’s me who’s overreacting. Let me bash my cheeks in so I can have that porn star look like he likes. No biggie, right?”
“I don’t have a porn star look. It’s more exotic mixed with French. It’s why I love my nose. I will admit I have a petite French nose.”
My sister wasn’t always this self-centered; we used to be quite close, but ever since she started hanging out with my cousins, all she cares about is image and what guys she can fuck up mentally. She loved making men eat their hearts out, even if she liked the guy. I ignore her self-idolization, take my violin, and head upstairs.
I hear Adalee shout something behind me, but I don’t even acknowledge it. I slam the door and turn my back to it, sliding down to the ground—the words that were said to me the other night ring in my ears.
Now that you’ve lost weight the camera would love you.
You have to play the part and look the part, too.
You would be perfect if I could bash each cheek with my fist.
A tear trickles down my cheek, and I shake my head. “You're tough,” I tell myself as I lift my bow and start playing a song that has soothed me since I mastered it. When You Believe, by Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston.
After orchestra class the next day, I snuck out to my usual spot to eat lunch. Even though I wasn’t hungry, I told myself I needed to eat. Brittany, the only other girl I relied on to eat lunch with, who I called my friend, had an appointment with her doctor. She had an eating disorder, too, but on the opposite spectrum. She loved to eat. So, her mom was taking her to a dietician to get her on a strict diet to lose weight. She even hired a personal trainer to help with it all. Even though I thought that was a little extreme for fifteen, her parents had good-paying jobs. Her mom was a nurse, and her dad was a lawyer. So they can afford stuff like that without breaking the bank. Even though Britany was on the chunkier side, I felt like we were the same people. We obsessed over food, saw ourselves as unattractive, relied on our personalities to make friends, not our looks, and we were invisible to the outside world.
I kick my lunch bag and curse to myself. I’m not sure why Blake was punishing me. I was only trying to look out for him, but it’s like he'd rather me hate him than care for him. I put my headphones in and let the sun rays hit my face as I closed my eyes and listened to Whitney Houston's song, Where Do Broken Hearts Go?
I started to sing along once the chorus hit.
So here I am. And can you please tell me? Where do broken hearts go? Can they find their way home? Back to the open arms.
I get a whiff of marijuana, and I immediately stop singing. Opening my eyes, I look to my left, and no Blake. I look to my right and no Blake. A strand of smoke comes from behind me, and my body immediately tenses with butterflies in my stomach.
“What made you stop?” He says as he rounds the corner and sits next to me. “I don’t like singing in front of assholes. This show isn’t for free, ya know.”
He chuckles as he takes another hit of his blunt.
“Why do you care anyway?” I say as I take my earbuds out, put them back in their case, and slip them into the pocket of my backpack.
“Are you not eating again?” he says as he stares at the brown bag tipped over in front of me.
I just cross my arms over my chest and stare into the distance.
“You can’t scold me not to do drugs if you aren’t eating Abs.”
“I am eating.” The words come out rushed.
He gets up, tossing the blunt to the ground, picking up my lunch bag, and looks inside.
“Oh really?” He raises an eyebrow at me.
“You’re not my mom, like you told me.” I start to twirl a strand of my hair, which is up in my ponytail, my nerves getting the best of me.
“Look, I’m sorry I got short with you yesterday. I was just on edge that day. My brother keeps pushing football, and my dad-well it doesn’t even matter.”
“It does matter, Blake,” I say, uncrossing my arms. “I’m sorry, I care, but that’s what friends do. They care about eachother, talk about stuff that’s bothering them.”
He lets out a long sigh. “My dad and brother didn’t see me in the hospital on my birthday until I was released, which in that case they were forced But they promised to make it up to me and we all would do something, together, just the three of us. Soon, my brother is getting drafted to the NFL, and once that happens my dad will be too busy tending to his favorite son, and have no time for me. Then the day of the party, my dad and my perfect brother called me last minute to tell me plans changed, so we would have to reschedule again . So I said fuck it, and threw a party and I didn’t clean up as a huge fuck you to all of them.”
“Oh, Blake, I’m sorry. If I had known, I would have brought you a cake.”
He turns to face me with an are-you- serious-right-now-look, causing me to bite my lip.
“What? My family always has cake on our birthdays, no matter what. Even if we don’t do dinner or anything.”
“Why, it’s not like you would eat it.”
I look away in embarrassment because he’s right. I would take two bites and say I’m done.
“I’m sorry. That was a dickish thing to say.” He sighs and runs a hand through his hair, tugging at the roots.
“It’s just, on top of my dad and brother forgetting all about me, my dad is planning on getting married to this new woman now, which means they are selling that house and buying a brand new one since my dad can’t fathom the idea of living in a house where she had sex with her ex-husband.”
“Did he really say that?”
“Not to me, but I heard him talking to my brother.” Hey says.
“Oh, that sucks.”
“Yeah, and it may mean I’ll have to live with my brother full-time since I’m not eighteen.”
“Why can’t you live with your dad?”
“Because my stepmom isn’t a fan of me. She thinks I’ll be a bad influence on her son and her beloved twin daughters, who are not only thirteen but not my type.”
My heart swelled with satisfaction. Hearing those words gave me hope that Blake still considered me his type. Which meant he found me attractive.
“Why do you say that?”
“They are stuck up, future hoe bags that will probably lose their virginity within a year, two tops. Attention whores. Not my jam, Abs.”
“Oh,” I release the strand of hair. I’ve been twirling so fast that my fingers are starting to hurt.
“Why, who is your type? I’m sure you have a crush on someone in this school.” He nudges my shoulder playfully.
You.
“It’s not like he even knows I exist. So what’s the point in telling you?” I say instead.
“Oh, come on. With that hair, I’m sure he does.” He pulls a strand of hair from my ponytail, and it bounces straight up.
I glare at him as I tug the curly strand behind my ear.
. “I mean that in a good way; I love your curls. Rock ‘n’roll, baby. No one has hair like you and if I see another chick with blonde straight hair at this school, my dick will scream.”
“Wow, that's serious,” I say through a light laugh.
“Stop stalling, who is it?” He asks again.
I huff out a sigh. And tell him the first guy I did have a crush on before I met Blake. “Toby McCoy.”
He pierces his lips together, and at the same time, he furrows his eyebrows.
“What? Do you know him?” I ask, leaning closer to him, letting our knees touch, and the heat warms my body, making me forget the topic.
“Everyone knows he’s a huge douchebag. Geeze, Abs, you’re too good for him. Why would you like a dick-wad like that?
His words come at me like daggers, piercing, cold and hurtful.
“Like I said, it’s not like he even knows I exist anyways, so it doesn’t matter.”
“Stop cutting yourself short.” He looks me up and down. “You’re worth at least one date before expecting any action.”
“You jerk,” I swat his shoulder. “Why, Blake Killian, who do you have eyes for?”
He looked past me, deep in thought, squinting his eyes, and I wasn’t sure if it was because the sun was glaring at them or because of the question I had asked him.
“You better get to class, Abs. And you better at least eat your sandwich so the teachers don’t call your mom and drag you back in that mental fuck-show with the nurses and psychologists questioning and checking up on you every five minutes.”
I look down at my lunch. “Ya, I know.”
He leans in the bag, pulls out my apple, and switches it with a cookie from he pulls from inside his jacket pocket.
“This is worth the calories.” He winks as he gets up from the bench. He starts to walk off, and I force myself to bite the peanut butter cookie.
“Yo Abs.” He says as he turns his torso around enough to face me.
“Ya?”
“It’s probably best you didn’t get too close to me. I am selfish and demanding, remember. So being friends with me will only leave you empty. Especially since you’re more my type.”
He turned off to walk off, and this time, I was heartbroken and utterly confused by his words that came out of the left field. What the fuck? What just happened? Why was he back to being cold and distant again? I look back down at my cookie and decide to throw it away. Fuck those teachers, and fuck Blake Killian.