I looked up at the sky, its dawn setting, and closed my eyes. You know, at times, I still felt your arms wrapped around me, your breath on my neck, your hair spilled everywhere, and the look in your eyes. You were more than just someone my heart yearned for, you were more than that. And you knew that. I knew that too, and I think we both did the first time we set eyes upon each other. We just didn’t realize it then. We were too young.
But I wish we had, so every moment we spent together, regardless of what feelings we had shared, whether it were positive or negative, would have existed for eternity. The clouds in the blue sky drifted over me, as I closed my eyes. Opening them, I realized my eyes had gone dry. Sometimes, your heart hurts too much to cry. You were my oxygen. Without you, I would slowly choke until the day I find you again.
It was the 9th year since Ted Nelson High School had been built, and its been running good ever since. Sure, you had the bad students, but you had the good students too. A lot of seniors were all set off for college, and a lot of freshmen were ready to embrace the learning. Its been 3 months since the start of the new school year, and for a lot, everything’s been well. Everybody’s been making friends, and most of everyone has done good academically so far, since Ted Nelson High School wasn’t just a regular public school.
Ted Nelson was a regular school, however, since there were two nearby high schools, they split the students going in by grades. Ted Nelson was more of the average school, but there were geniuses that went here. The other school Van Roxwell, was the private school where they offered dorms and basically had either the rich or the extremely smart people go to.
Below the two was Dovan High School, which had people of bad grades, and bad attitudes. That school had strict teachers, and was made to prepare those who didn’t care about school, basically start caring about it.
Erin wasn’t really anything special. She was one of those teenagers that were smart, but were completely lazy. One of those teenagers that had deep thoughts, but half the time still acted like a child. She wasn’t really the kind of person to be talented at one thing, but she was the kind that was okay at some things. She’s one of those girls you’d see joking around with a bunch of friends, and yet she was one of those girls who had this sad look in her eyes when she wasn’t talking.
Erin Gonzaldez, a 14-teen-year-old freshman at Ted Nelson High School, was basically a childish teenager. She liked video games, did good on her tests (she never did her homework), loved music, loved laughing, loved being around her friends.
She loved laughing, she was a pervert, she talked a lot, immature, annoying, and sarcastic, yet she was really modest and kind. On the outside, she didn’t look like the kind of person that would seem like that. You see her alone, she was one of those goody two shoe nerds, and with friends, as one of those annoying immature freshman. But that was a bit wrong.
Today, the 4 foot 9 14-year-old, dressed in old sneakers, ripped jeans, a black urban shirt with blue graffiti of a city on it, and a black and grey checkered hoodie zipped up to her…flat-ish-growing chest. Her bright hazel eyes with golden specks glowed immensely, accentuating the fact that she was in a joyous mood. Her chocolate-brown hair, tied up in a messy bun, bounced as she jumped up and down around her best friends, and her side bangs bounced up and down with her.
“Damnit!” Erin screamed, in the middle of lunch, gaining the attention of her two friends, her two best friends. Eileen, a 5’5” girl, looked at her with a questioning/worried expression on her face. “Yes Erin?” she said, after Erin’s random outburst.
Erin grinned and merely shrugged, “I don’t know, I just felt like cussing. Y’know, don’t cha’ get that urge at times? Oh my god, look, a birdie!” Erin pointed her hand at the bird, a smile forming on her creamy white face, and ran and jumped at the bird, falling face flat on the floor, and ran crying back to Eileen and hugged the towering girl. For some reason, Erin liked birds. But she liked penguins more, since they made her feel tall. Well, the short ones.
Eileen smacked Erin on the head, and Erin screamed and howled in pain. “Damnit, I’m going to dieeeeeee!” Erin cried, and jumped on Eileen’s back who almost fell back from the sudden weight that added onto the gravity already pushing down on her, despite the fact that Erin had weighed around 90 lbs compared to Eileen’s 117 lbs from her height and lean muscles she had on the track team. Eileen actually only liked running, aside from her and Erin’s addiction to video games.
Eileen seemed quiet, if she was away from Erin since the taller girl was usually quiet, but if Erin was there, Eileen became a talkative, sarcastic person. Before, Eileen used to be annoyed with Erin, but the small girl grew onto her as the two shared their love for the gaming systems.
Next to them, Joe, who was Erin’s cousin but went to the same high school as Erin, started laughing at the two. Joe was completely different from the two, he was the nice guy, he was funny, smart, and the guy a lot of girl’s liked. His hair was left down, just messy and up to his ears, and he had light brown eyes unlike Erin’s. Joe was taller than Erin, and almost as tall as Eileen and was athletic since he played soccer and was already the school’s Center Midfielder.
Erin glared at Joe for the sudden laughter, and jumped on his back, but since he was pretty ready, he caught her onto her back and started running. “Giddyup! Yeahh, this is my bitch right here!” Erin yelled at the watching people who were ‘disturbed’ by the energetic girl.
Joe started running back to Eileen, and when he passed by, Eileen stuck out her foot and tripped Joe, who fell, and sent Erin flying off his back. “Holy Shizz!” Erin yelled as she fell on top of an on walking passing girl in a huge collision. Joe and Eileen immediately went to the two, looking if the two were hurt. Erin jumped up, worried if she had hurt the girl from something fun. Hence the saying, ‘Its fun till someone gets hurt…’ However, one look at the girl’s shocked face, Erin started cracking up and rolled on to her back, to busy crying in laughter than to say sorry. The girl, sat up, with a ferocious glare and a light blush on her cheeks. ‘…Then it’shilarious’, thought Erin, as Eileen hit her on the head again trying to tell Erin it was time to apologize.
Wiping an invisible tear from her eye, Erin stopped laughing to observe the girl. She was on her knees, in a white tang-top with a grey striped pullover, with a belt hung loosely along her waist, with dark blue skinny jeans, compared to Erin’s slightly baggy ripped jeans (Erin did not want to have to shop in the kids section of a store, so she bought things people her age bought, even though if the stuff were big for her.
The girl, glaring at her, was obviously angry. “What the hell was that for!” she said taking a hand to her head, sure that a bump would grow. The girl had long dirty blonde hair that she left dangling down, and had light blue eyes that were nice to look at. Erin realized she had been staring instead of apologizing, and shook herself out of the thoughts quickly. Stuttering from the embarrassment, Erin lowered her head, and mumbled, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be thrown at you.” With a grin, Erin slightly turned her head to eye Eileen, who blushed and looked away realizing that she had caused the accident.
The girl sighed, and stood up. A group of her friends went over to her, and asked if she was alright. Erin stood up to, and made a ‘peh’, noise, realizing that she was shorter than the girl she knocked over, and was at least up to her shoulders, and presumed she was around 5’3. Erin bowed her head slightly, and said sorry again, before the girl nodded, and forgave her, and left with her own friends.
Erin returned to Joe and Eileen, and jokingly glared at Joe for grinning at her, and at Eileen for tripping Joe. Two different messages sent with one look, but the three laughed off what happened anyways, and walked around until lunch had ended.
--
After lunch, Erin had her last two periods with Joe, so the two walked off to their Conceptual Physics class, which had a substitute, so they were practically free to do anything.
“You were checking her out,” Joe teased, poking Erin’s cheek, causing Erin to grab his arm and bite it hard. “Ow! What the hell?” Joe said, rubbing his arm. Erin had a habit of biting Joe when she was embarrassed, or angry, since when she was small she had always chewed on his sleeve or on a pillow, or on his arm. Joe was still surprised Erin hadn’t grown out of that habit yet.
“I wasn’t checking her out! I was…um…shocked!” Erin said, doing badly at covering up. So far, only Joe really knew about her, cause he was the closest person to her. He was family, and her best friend, so he was closer to her than Eileen was. Yeah, Erin liked girls, but Erin didn’t like stereotyping or labeling herself, so she didn’t really say much about.
“But you have to admit she is pretty,” Joe continued teasing, smirking at the faint blush on the shorter girl’s cheeks grow. “Or maybe, since you were on top of her, you may have thought she was, hmm, sexy?” Joe said, poking at Erin’s cheek again. Erin bit his finger, and bit hard, glaring at Joe. Joe yelped in pain, and pulled his hand back, getting attention from a few curious classmates. Erin grinned and crossed her arms, and ‘hmphed’ in victory.
Joe gave her a weak laugh, and smiled. “Just admit though, I think you have a crush,” he said, and patted Erin’s head. Erin turned her head, and put her head down on her desk. “Okay, okay, but I don’t even know her, so nothing will happen.”
“Hush, you fool, you talk like that, you’ll jinx whatever chances you may have. One thing for sure is that I think you two would look like a good couple, and that you need to make sure you get her name next time you see her-“
Joe’s words were blocked off when the door suddenly opened, and the girl of their subject walked in. Joe smirked and whispered into Erin’s ear, “Woah, god must love you,” and she blushed and pushed his face away and looked at the girl. She had her back pack on, and a slip in her hands.
Judging from earlier, she had friends, so she wasn’t a transfer student, so she was probably switching classes. And oh my, Erin was right.
The substitute read the paper, and had the class quiet down. Since the class room was built so it was three per row, and Erin, Joe had an empty seat, it was obvious where she was going to sit.
The substitute looked at the paper, and coughed. “Okay, well, it seems like we have a student coming into this class, anyways, this is Faye Nelson, so I guess your sitting next to the young gir…lady at the back.”
Erin glared at the substitute, who indirectly implied that she was short, and Joe had to blow air on her to calm the girl down. Faye looked at the seat, then at Erin, and Erin caught her gaze. It was over in a matter of seconds, but to Erin, it felt like a lot. Erin looked away, and at Joe, who was smirking madly. “Jeez, what the hell!” Erin said obviously flustered. “Look, Joe, nothing, there’s nothing. I don’t have anything more than a crush, okay!” Erin said seriously. Joe simply smiled at her and raised his hands as if in a surrender.
“What ever you say Erin…what ever you say,” he muttered, and smiled at the upcoming girl.
The five foot 3 girl approached their desk, and sat in the corner seat, next to Erin who sat in the middle. Erin turned to her and gave her a sad smile, and said, “Look, um, Faye, I’m really sorry about earlier, that was an accident. Do you really, honestly, truthfully, forgive mwah?” Erin could have been serious, but she didn’t want to ruin her image, so she batted her eyes at Faye, who looked at her so…seriously.
It wasn’t even as if Faye was trying to hold back a giggle, which confused Erin a lot, but after the seriously strange look, Faye gave Erin a light smile. “Oh, don’t worry about it, umm…what’s your name?” Faye said.
Erin grinned, and stuck out her hand. “I’m Erin, Erin Gonzaldez. I’m 14, yes, I’m short. I’m Hispanic, German, and French cause of Ancestors, but that’s in my blood and a few of my amazing features, but for now you can presume I’m American. Or black. Or green. I like green. Anyways, yeah, don’t expect me to be…er…un-immature… at all. That’s like, once every red moon,” Erin said, introducing herself. Faye smiled, and shook her hand, and Erin felt happy.
At first, Faye didn’t seem like a nice person, but she really was. Erin presumed she was probably flustered from being hit. Faye opened her eyes and Erin looked at the cerulean orbs before her, amazed that it looked so much like the ocean. “Well, Erin, my name is Faye Nelson as you know it, I’m 14…and I guess I’m just your ordinary Caucasian-Russian girl. I had to get a class change cause they put me in the wrong classes when I got here…”
Erin tilted her head, “Wrong classes?”
Faye smiled, and continued, “I’m originally from Van Roxwell, but I decided to be here since its been expected of me to be here, but I came here with my friends from Van Roxwell and switched with the top ten students of here for the rest of high school. Actually though, I barely made it to Van Roxwell…”
Erin stared at her, and she had a big smile. “Woah, you still made it, you must be really smart! I know a lot of smart people, and they didn’t make it. If you barely made it…then…woah!” Erin moved her hands to show the awesomeness she found in Faye.
“Hi there Faye, I’m Joe, Erin’s cousin,” Joe smiled, moving Erin out of the way. Faye smiled at him, looked back at Erin, and looked back at him. “Um, wow, you two kinda’ look a like…except that Erin is shorter…and I like her eyes better.”
Erin blushed, and turned away, and suddenly turned back, and leaned towards Faye, and picked up her hands. Looking straight into the other girl’s eyes, she pouted. “Faye, this is a serious matter we need to discuss…” Joe stared wide-eyed, thinking that either his cousin was going to share her secret, or ask her out and engage in hot girl action which had further excited him.
“…Do you like penguins?”
Faye looked at Erin, before giggling lightly. “Actually, yeah, I like penguins. However, Otters are my favorite animals since they make smelly poop.”
Erin smiled, and laughed. “No, no, no, Otters are cute, but there smelly poop is to smelly for my smexy penguins! Penguins PWN Otters!” Erin said, moving her hands again to express her feelings. “I mean, there bundles of cuteness, and yet they live in such a cold place, but there always together their whole lives! Plus, they swim fast. And they can dance! Well, in the movie they danced, but they’re still awesome!”
Faye smiled at the younger girl’s energy, wishing she had had the organs Erin had...and she sadly looked at Erin’s hazel eyes. They were…unusual, since they had flecks of gold, but there was sunlight from a window reflecting into her eyes, causing the golden flecks to shine out even more.
“So Faye, what do you do? I mean, outside of the academic cheese-it’s the government corrupts our youthful brains with technological jimbo jambo brain disfunctionalizer ray beams?” Erin said with a bright smile.
Faye looked at her, lost, but with a silly smile still planted on her face. “Well…I draw. I love drawing…well, you can say I’m an artist. But…but its not like its my dream or anything…”
Joe raised an eyebrow, and asked, “Than what do you really want to do?”
Faye looked down, “Secret,” and looked at Erin and Joe, “Well, you two?”
Erin grinned, “I love photography, I mean, I like taking pictures and stuff…and Joe loves his soccer. Oh, Faye, you should meet Eileen. I mean, she runs in track, but she is a freaking kick-arse singer! She’s our other best friend, the tall girl that was with us when,” Erin glared at Joe, “Joe threw me onto you.”
Joe rose his hands up in the air, with a grin on his face, “Woah, that wasn’t me. God hates you. That’s why. Its cause your’ retarded. Cause’ you can’t run.” He said, crossing his arms. Faye looked at Erin, who looked away, and punched Joe in the arm, who winced and whispered a sorry. Erin looked at Faye, who was hoping for an explanation.
“My right leg…I can’t lift it up fast. I used to run with Eileen, that’s how we met, but…things happened and I stopped running,” Erin explained.
Faye looked at the shorter girl’s leg, and gave her a sympathetic smile, and class ended.
--
School was over pretty fast, like usual, and Erin walked home from school. Her house wasn’t that far away, but she was glad it was close since a lot of people thought of her as a middle school kid and tried to pick on her, or if pedophiles happened to drive by. Erin shuddered at the thought, she’d only get in the car if Jessica Alba were the pedophile, since that’d be awesome. Plus she could brag to Joe about it!
Laughing inside her head, Erin’s smile completely went away as she stepped in front of her house, and all the bad memories filled in her head. Her eyes darkened, and she took out her key and opened her door. As usual, it was completely messy, and her mom was up and about. Irritated, Erin slammed the door shut, as if taking out her anger onto it, and went straight for her room which was in the hallway far away.
“Erin? Is that you?” her mom called out, which Erin ignored. A frown replaced the small girl’s face, and she entered her room, kicking the door closed and locking the door. After throwing her backpack onto her bed, she leaned back against the door as she slid down the front, and gripped her head tight in anger, as memories flashed through her; she clenched her teeth together in anger.
She heard footsteps in the hallway in front of her bedroom door, and she moved away from the door, unsure if it were from the idea of wanting be away from her mother, or an unconscious fear she now had. She jumped onto her bed, which took up half of her room which were full of posters and pictures of things she took. She ignored her mother’s constant knocking, and refused to talk back when her mother spoke to her.
“Erin, what do you want for dinner? I went to buy groceries…”
Erin bit her lip, and went over her desk next to her bed and a window. On it was her laptop, cameras, film, and in the top cabinet on the side were all her wires and previous pictures. In the bottom cabinet, she no longer wanted to look at and kept it locked shut.
“Erin, answer the door. I’ll make your favorite, okay? Tonight will be chicken alfredo, I’ll even have mushrooms in it. So come out now…Erin!” her mother begged, and Erin glared at her door, and flipped the cover for her Mac open, and clicked on Itunes.
Turning up her speakers loud, she put on a The White Tie Affair song, and the annoyance of her mother quickly dispersed. Within minutes, her mother would acknowledge the fact that no matter what she did, nothing would change, so she left faster than Erin had expected.
Erin flipped out her phone, and dialed a number, turning down the music to hear the dialing. “Hello?” the voice on the other line said. Erin stood up, and opened her window, and climbed out. “Hey Joe, I’m gonna come over, mmkay?”
“Oh, sure. Your ma bug you again?” Joe said casually, and Erin heard a yelp, and recognized it was Joe’s dog, Stapler. Yeah, he named it stapler, since when Stapler was a puppy he’d bite everything, even if you just tapped him on the head. At the time though, the small puppy was unnamed, but now he was known as Stapler. Erin thought it was a pretty cool name though, even if people thought it was weird, just cause she and Stapler held a special bond. Stapler didn’t bite Erin as hard as he usually does with everyone else, so it was either a gentle nibble. Erin being the weird girl she was, she’d nibble lightly on Staplers ear back.
“Yeah…Ooh, can Stapler roll over yet?” Erin asked, bouncing her way out of the window before shutting it closed and walking over her lawn. She heard a sigh on the phone, and in sad disappointment, she knew that Joe was going to start scolding her.
“Erin, its been two years. Its time you forgave her, I mean, after your dad died, of course she’d go through a hard time…-“
Erin stopped in her tracks, and yelled, “What the hell do you mean? You call what she did to me her going through a hard time! God, she’s lucky she’s not in jail right now, that fucking bi-“
“Erin! For Christ’s sake, she’s your mother! You need to grow up and get over what happened!”
Erin, biting her lip again, went silent on the phone, and with a final decision, she said, “Never mind going to your house. I’ll go somewhere else.”
“Erin, wait-“ Joe started, but Erin had already hung up the phone. Erin turned around and walked down the sidewalk, knowing where she would go. No video games at Eileen’s house, she’d be like Joe… I can’t go to any of my other friend’s houses, I don’t know where the hell they live when they know where I do…guess I just gotta go there… the short girl thought, and started walking to Downtown, which would take only around 10 minutes since the Town was in the middle of all the neighbor hoods, which was basically filled with all the businesses, from the mall to dental care.
Walking down the street, Erin shoved her hands into her pocket and sighed, and looked up at the sky. It was probably 4 pm right now, and it was still bright out since Daylights Savings had started, which was annoying to Erin since she was a sleep-in sleeper. “Aww heffers…” Erin said, as she checked her pockets for money, which there were none in.
“Poopie Cows…” Erin muttered, kicking a pebble down the sidewalk. There goes her hope of staying at the arcade, so Erin changed destinations, now heading to North of the town where there was the town’s main park and a forest, and basically the wilderness. You could hike or camp in that area, however, it was dangerous to go off the trails. But, Erin was bored, and she wanted to find a place to take pictures since she at least had her phone with her, which had a camera on it. She could send it to her computer and upload it, and fix the resolution and pixel size, and make it into a better quality image than what you usually get from a camera phone.
Okay, Erin wasn’t just good at video games, she was good at the computer too, but she liked photography better than the two.
After walking for nearly an hour, Erin reached the edge of the park. Since it was almost dark, Erin quickly changed her mind. She was not in the mood to be going down the mountain in the midst of the night. Hell, who would aside from rapists, hobo’s, runaways, and murderers? Hmm, perhaps there is a secret society of penguins hidden…Erin shook herself before she completely alluded herself into an endless dream of the blubbery birds. The short girl sighed, and stood in the middle of the park, waiting for something that wouldn’t happen.
Yeah, Erin was a poser. Or in her opinion she was. Half the time she was as miserable as you could get, but she didn’t want to let others be down just because she was down, so she covered everything with a grin. A grin and anything that came to her mind would be said, as random or inappropriate as she was. She didn’t want people to worry about her, or bust into her business and bug her.
Erin went to the playground, and climbed to the top of the second floor of the mini fort, and climbed dangerously onto the roof, avoiding nasty spills that could involve her smashing her head into a metal pole that held up the fort. Lying on the roof, she closed her eyes, seeing the person who she really was. Pretending hurts after a while, and sometimes you forget who you were in the first place. The cold metal roof chilled her back, and since it was approaching night time, the wind usually got stronger around the hills. The wind passing through the trees made an eerie scream of pain that the mountain has held.
Trees…I like trees…Erin thought. Actually, it was funny. Erin looked up to trees. They were old, strong, and knowledgeable. To her, most of them lived through hundreds of years, seeing their friends being cut down for human construction. They lived through wars, fires, droughts, pollution, and when everything is wiped out, a seed will be there for the trees to help itself. Trees were strong, and Erin wanted to be strong. And taller.
The loud scream the trees cried out, the pain they have suffered for hundreds of years, reached Erin’s souls. And It hurt so much she cried. Or teared. Erin looked up at the sky, it was already transitioning from a deep orange, to a dark blue.
Erin smiled, she loved this time. The time where the sky had no sun or moon, and was a dark blue, cold color, and it calmed Erin. Erin usually went out taking pictures around these times, Dusks And Dawn. She didn’t need sun rises or sun sets. All she needed was the feelings of the world asleep, and for once, peaceful.
Erin wasn’t anything special. No, not at all.
She was waiting on her own, and waiting all alone for the time where the world would freeze at a moment like this, where it was quiet, the trees didn’t howl in pain, and everybody was starting to sleep.