Angelique

Angelique:  It’s raining.  Oh great.

Cupping my hands around the tip of my cigarette, I press my thumb on the flint wheel of my lighter.  The wind blows the tiny flame out before I even take my thumb off the gas.  I huddle tighter.

Someone in a hurry bumps me.  I don’t even look up.

Finally, the flare of light catches the cigarette paper, and I’m lit up and puffing furiously.

It’s three am.  She got me up at two, my phone ringing an electronic version of “We R Who We R” – ringtone muzak of Ke$ha.  I should change that – you can’t even tell what the song is when it plays.  But what’s the dif, when no one ever calls me, except my mother, when she wants something, like to be picked up from the hospital at two am.

A Mom and her kid come out through the big, sliding, automated hospital doors, and hurry past me.  The kid looks at me smoking and holds her nose with her fingers, scowls.

Really.

I didn’t even know my mother had left.  I was sleeping when she decided she had to come to the ER for an enema or some shit, to get, well, some shit.  

First, she tells me on the phone that she needs surgery.  So will I come?

Of course, I believe her.  She’s a pathological liar, and I know that, but I believe her.  I’m here, aren’t I?

But of course when I get here at two-thirty, pajama bottoms under a big, black sweater, I find her in an examinating room waiting for test results, and then the doc comes in to tell her they haven’t found anything wrong that a stool softener won’t cure in a day, but she tells him, “Ooooh Doctor, but it huuurts,” so now she’s getting dressed and waiting for her Demerol prescription, or Dilaudid if they’ll give it to her.

“I guess I’m no longer needed here,” I said.

“But you have to drive me home!” she cried.

“You got here yourself, now get yourself home!”

Honestly, Dilaudid for constipation?  I am so done.

Tossing my cigarette -- throwing it down hard -- I tuck my head down against the wind and rain, and head into the parking lot.  I don’t even have my license yet, all I have is a permit.  I could get arrested.  This is ridiculous.  I bark a short laugh at the insanity.

Ke$ha blares from my phone.  It’s her.

“I’m coming out now,” she says.

“Fine,” I say with an exaggerated sigh.  “I’ll be in the car.”

Miya

Miya: 

“OMG, I had a pair of earrings just like these when I was in high school!”

     My mother holds up what look like two cd’s in bright blue, only smaller – but not that much smaller.  She pretend dangles them from her ears and peers into the mirror on the counter because her eyes aren’t so good, and I want to die, and I’m thinking how old she looks squinting to see like that, and how she shouldn’t say things like “OMG,” no one should say OMG if they’re over twenty-five…

     “Nice.  You should get them.  They totally match your shirt,” I say.

     “I know, right?”

     Another thing no one over twenty-five should say, but whatever.  If she’s happy, she’ll totally buy me the silver hoops I have my eye on, even though they’re like thirty-two bucks, and she lost her job.  If she gets the blue cd earrings, she’ll feel like she has to buy me earrings too.  I know my mom.

I’m out of money because me and my boyfriend used up the minutes on my prepaid – and who, by the way, who has to have a prepaid cell with limited minutes they have to pay for themselves, it’s so unfair… anyway, I had to buy more minutes with my allowance or die from embarrassment plus probably Seth would’ve broken up with me if I couldn’t text him anymore until next month.  I have to get the unlimited Net 10 minutes next month, when I have some money saved.

     If I have any money saved, which I won’t at this rate, not after I used up my birthday gift card on the shirt that hangs off my shoulder, and can you believe my mom said I can wear it to school even though it’s against the dress code?  She was all, “If someone sees you, just put it back on your shoulder and pretend you didn’t know, and then when no one’s looking, slide it off again.”

     Remembering that, I make a decision:

     “Mom, remember you said I could clean the upstairs bathroom to make some extra money?  Could you advance me some so I can get these earrings?” 

     I put back the thirty-two dollar pair, and grab a $10 pair I can afford if I take on the bathroom cleaning job.

     “Only if you get these,” my mom says, picking up the more expensive earrings I really wanted.  “How about we go halves?”

     “You’re going to pay me sixteen dollars to clean the bathroom?”

     Smiling, she shrugs.  “Just make sure you really scrub the floor, behind the toilet too.”

     I love when she pretends to be tough.  Playing along, I roll my eyes and sigh. 

     “Fine.”

     My mother puts back the blue earrings she wanted, and we buy the silver hoops for me, and I pretend it doesn’t matter, I pretend she owes it to me or something, but deep down?

     She can say “OMG” whenever she wants.  I kinda like it.

Sonny

New Outsider Girl, Sonny, is only thirteen.  She’s beginning to get her teenaged personality, is beginning to get annoyed with her mother’s interference in her life, but… in some ways, she’s still a kid, and wants her mother to continue to take charge.

Sunny:  My mother makes schedules:

     Tells me “it’s 7:45, time to get dressed.” (seriously!), “it’s 5:00, time for homework”, “it’s 5:45, time to put on your karate uniform”, “it’s 6:15, time for dinner,” and worst of all, “It’s 10:00, time for bed,” like I can’t tell when I’m tired!  She says if I don’t go to bed by ten I’ll be a bitch in the morning and she has to work and she doesn’t have time to deal with that so “Lights out now Molly!”

My mother hates messes:

     Comes into my room to watch iCarly with me, looks around and grimaces and I have to say, “Why do you always do this, you always say you’re coming in to hang out with me and then you look around and think about how messy I am!”  She says, “I didn’t say anything,” which to be fair, is true, but I know what she’s thinking.  

My mother hates messes and makes schedules and it drives me crazy, but sometimes, it’s not so bad.  Sometimes I’m so glad she does these things for me:

     After Justin Hollister whispered in my ear, “Could you find out if Hannah likes me,” when I liked him, my mother stepped over mismatched shoes and scraps of fashion, around a giant stuffed dog, and squished between books and clothes and dolls to get to me, bawling on my bed, to hold me tight, and it was like she was never going to let go, and she cried with me, and she said, “What a mess we are.  It’ll be okay,” until it was.

My mother has probably scheduled when it’ll be time for me to grow up, but she’s not in a hurry for that.  Sometimes I think, I’m not either.

Alyssa

Alyssa:  I wonder why I do it.  Sometimes I wonder.  

Like, why do I pick up my room, why do I do the dishes, why do I put away my clothes and do my laundry?

Why do I write, when no one notices.

I feel like I’m maybe invisible, like 

No, not invisible, exactly.  It’s more that everyone sees me fine but they turn away, and I don’t know why and so I also don’t know why I do anything for anyone – even when it’s just for me, which it never is anyway -- because it doesn’t ever work.  It doesn’t make anyone happy.

They yell, they kiss they have lives and I’m not there not for them, I mean not for my parents, not for anyone

It seems like, sometimes.

I shouldn’t talk like this.  If my mother heard me she’d cry and call me mean probably and she’d be right because it is mean to talk about someone and especially to say they don’t love you when all they ask is you don’t get in the way and you let them have a grown-up conversation once in a while—

That’s what they’d say.  I mean, my parents.  My mother, okay?

And they got me this computer, I mean she did, she got me this computer which I didn’t ask for because I liked my old laptop just as good only this one goes online only I never do that because I don’t do facebook or anything because no one wants to know what I’m thinking or doing

Sometimes it seems that way.

Sometimes it seems like she gets me things just so she can see if I’m using them, like, “Honey why don’t you go write, you like to write, go use your new computer,” and I’m thinking, I only wanted to sit with you awhile.  Only I never say that.

I just go up to my room and write

And sometimes I delete what I’ve written as soon as I’m done because maybe when I’m not here she comes in my room and checks to see what I’ve been doing.  Just in case, I also wink through web sites, like at least fifteen a night, because that seems normal and I want her to think I’m normal.

She doesn’t think I am, it seems like.

Well, I’m not making that up, because she takes me to a therapist in New Haven and she says I’m a good girl but I don’t know what to do with myself, like that’s a crime.

I know what I want to do, or I used to, but then I got all mixed up between what I want to do and what I’m supposed to be, like, supposed to be a good girl, but what is that, exactly?  Supposed to be normal so I try really hard, and supposed to not be underfoot and supposed to not talk so much because her ears are hurting and it’s not me, it’s her she says, it’s her job and she gets tired and she understands why some women have children when they’re young but she thought she had to do something with her life first only now look at her, all she is is my mother.  She hates that.

Sometimes it seems like

I mean isn’t it normal to

Like shouldn’t doesn’t every kid want to

Me!  Not every or any kid, me!  I just want to curl up in a ball next to her and if she cries it’s okay and if I cry it’s okay and it’s no trouble, I’m no trouble, I just think if I could get hugged, well that’s what I really want to do.

sometime.

Cherish

Cherish:  New Outsider Girl Cherish is a young mother, trying to complete high school and still raise her son Jonah with love and attention.

     Cherish: “But I don’t like school.  I want to stay with you,” my son says, pushing out his lower lip.

     My heart breaks for just an instant, and then I’m back on task.

     “Jonah, you have to go to school.  Mommy has to go to school.  Same as every day.  It’s the same every day!  Come3 on baby, why do you have to do this to me?  Put on your shoes.”

     “No.”

     “Jonah!”  I break.  I grab him hard and pull him to me.  I shove his feet into his sneakers.  “You don’t need me to dress you, Jonah.  You’re a big boy.”

     He clutches at me, but falls when I move back too quickly.

     Great, now he’s crying.  Great, that means there will be no time to make my lunch or get to my first class on time, and it’s all his fault and I hate—

     Pulling him into a hug, I say, “It’s okay, baby.  Mommy’s here.  I love you so much, baby.”

     “Can I go with you today?  I want to stay with you,” he says, pouting again, tears stopped in their tracks on his cheeks, guilting me until I wipe them away with my sleeve.

     I’m angry again.  Everyday we have this stupid argument!  He thinks I don’t want to be with him, but I am with him almost all the time.  After school, I don’t do my homework, I play knights and pirates with him.  I read to him, I bathe him, I feed him a fucking butter sandwich because he won’t eat the grilled cheese with bacon that I made specially for him.  I watch “Tutenstein” and “Little Bill”. 

     And after he’s in bed, when he gets up at ten o’clock, when I’ve finally has time to start my own homework – when he comes out of our room into the living room and my mother yells, “Jonah get your ass back in bed this minute!” and he tilts his head, smiles and says, “One more hug kiss?”…

     I drop everything, and I hug his scrawny body, kiss him on the lips and tuck his head under my chin so I can suck up the scent of baby that still lingers in his hair even though he’s already four.

     I will never graduate if I don’t get to school.  I will get another zero today on my homework. 

     “Quit babying him Cherish,” my mother says.

     “Please can I go with you?” Jonah asks me.  “You can walk with your friends and I’ll be really quiet.”

     I laugh at that.

“Hey,” I say.  “How about if instead of Gran driving you, you walk with me and my friends.”

“Cherish, honest to God in His Kingdom, how you gonna ever make something of your life if you don’t start teaching him life is what it is and get used to it, so what it sucks!  Get yourself to school girl!  Come on Jonah.  You with me.”

Zipping Jonah’s hoodie, I say to my mother.  “Naah Ma, he’s with me today.”

She looks at me like I’m the stupidest child who ever walked the earth.  She rolls her eyes.  “I’m gonna be late for work,” she says.  Leaving, she doesn’t even stop to kiss her grandson.

I pull him close.  “One more hug kiss,” I say.  We hold on tight for each other, believing that no matter what anyone says, we’re going to make it.

So what if we’re a little late. 

Gemma

Gemma first appeared in an unpublished short story, “Wings”, then in OGW 9/24/09 and 10/29/09.  Gemma’s mother abandoned her when she was a child.  Mom was addicted to smoking faery dust, and now that Gem’s an adolescent she has what all the daughters of dusters got – wings.  Horrified and outcast, Gemma left home for NYC to find her mother, and herself. 

Gemma:  Fear wrapped around my neck like Samantha, Ian’s pet python, gone wild.  Tightening, then loosening so I could almost taste air again… and then tight again, choking me.

Gemma, get a hold of yourself, the reasonable, somehow calm me said inside.

Aaaaaaaa cough cough gasp Aaaaaaa… (sound fading out to nothing) said the real me, the anxiety-driven, wings-fluttering, freaked-out me.

“Are you gonna knock?” said Iris.

“She’s chicken,” said Lola.

“Just knock,” said Ian.

“I’m here for you no matter what,” said Luke.

“Knock!” everyone shouted at once.

I did.  I thrust my arm out and rapped hard on the door twice, paused, and then a third time.  All the voices in my head were quiet.  I was alone in the hall outside the fifth floor walk-up.  My knock seemed to linger in the empty air.  When the air stilled, I knocked again, more gently, calmly this time because I was sure no one was home.

“Who is it?  Who’s out there?”  said a gruff voice, and I jumped back.  “Who are you?” said the voice.  Old woman?  Old man?  I couldn’t tell, but I imagined a milky eyeball pressed against the peep hole.

“Gemma,” I said.  “Um, it’s me, Gemma?  I’m looking for my mother?”

“I ain’t her.  Go away!”

“I’m here for you,” Luke said in my head before I could run. 

“Oh. Um.  Do you know um Belle um Green?  Or, I mean maybe she calls herself Belle LaGuin?  I was told, well, I mean, I heard she lives here?”  I pulled my jacket closer, forgetting for a moment that Luke and I had cut out a hole for my wings and they were out there for anyone to see now. 

I am looking for my mother, and that’s nothing to be ashamed of! I thought, and with that, my wings beat, and I rose up off the floor.  Gemma, me, adolescent faery.  On my own in New York, and doing fine.  I pounded on the door this time.

The door opened a crack.  “All right, all right.  Just come down from there.  I’ll tell you what I know.”  A gnarled hand appeared around the edge of the open door, and a long finger with a sharp, yellowed nail beckoned.  “Come on, quit your lollygagging and get in before someone sees you.  This is a nice neighborhood.”

Casey

It’s the night of the big party, and Casey still has to convince her mother (Nancy from CROSSES) that she’ll be “good”.  Of course, Casey has other plans.  No one, however, expects how wild the party will really be…  If you’re following this thread, re-read OGW 10/1, 11/5, 11/12, 12/10, 12/31.

Casey:  “Mom, you look fine.  Mom you’re beautiful!  Leave your hair alone!  You’re fine!  It’s not like you’re going in—“

“Is that a threat Casey?  Because you should just be glad you have a mother who will jump up on a mement’s notice—“

“Can we go now?”

     “Where’s the fire, Casey, huh?”

     “Mommy, please—“

     “What’s really going on?”

     “There’s nothing going on Mom, let’s just go.  Please!”

     To tell you the truth, I don’t know if something’s going on or not, I just know that Rain called me and said she wasn’t going to the party if Kayla wasn’t going, and Kayla was crying when I called.  She wasn’t going to the party on her bike, ‘that’s for sure’is what she said. ‘I’m never riding that piece of junk again’  I asked did she mean the mountain bike she got for Christmas because—and she just said, ‘You wouldn’t understand Casey.  You’re only fifteen.’  I was like, ‘Thanks Kayla, why do you have to say that to me?  You said age was just a number—‘  She goes, “I was talking about Brian and me, Sweetie,’ and I thought I’m not your sweetie and you’re only sixteen anyway, but then I said okay, and I called Rain back then because she usually drives us all around, but she said no way was she driving tonight because she was going to have fun for once.  I was like, ‘I can’t do any drugs, my mother made me promise,’which was almost true.  Rain was all yellin’ and shit then about ‘who said anything about drugs, don’t be such a baby Casey, tell Kayla to get her Mom to drive us’so I was like, ‘Whatever,’ but only to myself and after I hung up, while I was calling Kayla back, who only started crying and saying maybe she shouldn’t go to the party at all but then she said she was getting a text, and it was Rain, and whatever it said calmed Kayla down so she said to me, “Casey, could your mother drive us?” I sighed, and I really really didn’t want my mother to drive us because she was going to act the way she was now—

     “Okay, I’m ready.  Is there anything between my teeth—“

     “Mom, you’re just driving, you’re not going in, please please pretty please?”

     She sighed.  She rubbed toothpaste on her teeth, and I did the same, and we saw each other in the mirror and grinned.  “I love you Mommy,” I said.

     “I love you too Casey.  Let’s go.  Does my hair really look okay?  Do you think I should grow it out?”

     “You’re beautiful.  You’re the best, Mom.”  I pretended to ruffle her spiked hair, which of course you couldn’t really do because it would probably bite your hand, that’s just what I thought because it was so stiff with mousse, and also because it belonged to my Mom and she got really mad if you touched her hair and plus she would bite you herself if you rubbed her the wrong way. 

     “Do you need help?” she asked me when we were in her car, a red Mustang convertible with fangs for sure.

     “Mom, I think I can buckle my own seatbelt.”

     She leaned over me anyway.  I rolled my eyes and gently pushed her away.  “Remember what I told you,” she said. 

     “I know Mom, I’ll never ever no matter who offers it to me or how old I am, I’ll never take a pill.  I promised you that already!”

     “Just checking.  Maybe I should check in with Michelle, see how she’s doing.”

     “Please Mom!  Kayla will have a cow.  Please, just drive and be quiet please.”

     I was thinking, as we drove in the warm night air, how good it felt to be driving with my mother, and going out with my best friends, and going to my first kegger.  I was also, I admit it, thinking, if someone offers me an Oxy, I’ll probably take it. 

Maree

Maree:  Appearing first in OGW 10/8 and 11/19, Maree is becoming increasingly frustrated with her adoptive family. 

Maree:  A sort of clanging knocking -- the sound of metal being hammered into place – rises from the basement through the heating vent in the kitchen.  Assuming that sound goes both ways, I realize that Bill – my adoptive father, down in the basement working on the furnace – can probably hear everything I say.  I’m in a hurry to finish this conversation anyway, and it’s not just because I don’t want to upset him. 

But I also really, really don’t want to upset him.

“Let’s just forget it,” I say, almost whispering.

“First you tell me what I ever did to you,” Renee says.

“Nothing!  I mean nothing bad.”

“You come home and you call me Renee instead of Mom, and I’m supposed to forget it?  Honestly, I don’t know who you are anymore.”

“I just want to forget it,” I say at first, but ‘Mom’ sticks in my throat, and I can’t get it out and call Renee that anymore, even though I guess I should.  She wants me to. 

“I mean, what’s wrong with calling you Renee, it’s your name.”

“I mean, I only raised you.  Why should you call me Mom.  I’m only your mother.”

“But you’re not my mother!”  The banging in the basement stops suddenly, and I inhale sharply.  Not fear, not fear, I won’t be afraid… but I am afraid.  I’m quiet.  Waiting for Bill to charge up the stairs, pulling his belt off as he comes.  When that doesn’t happen, and the hammering resumes, I exhale.  I didn’t even know I was holding my breath.  I never know when I’m holding my breath, and that’s part of the problem.  I’m always afraid.  If Renee were my real mother, she would protect me.

My mother will protect me.

I want to – have to – believe that.  My friend Aimee tells me I shouldn’t get my hopes up.  She says she’s afraid for me.  But my hopes aren’t up, I’m just being realistic.  A mother, a real mother, protects.  Renee is just Renee, and that’s why I can’t always go swimming with the other kids in summer and sometimes I don’t shower after gym at school so everyone calls me -- or at least thinks that -- I’m gross.  At least they don’t call me – well, I don’t know what they’d call me, because I’ve never shown my bruises, strips of raised flesh from Bill’s belt.

“I’m sorry, Mom,” I say, defeated.  I give Renee a hug.  She doesn’t hug back at first, but then she does, and once again I haven’t been breathing because now I exhale. 

Everything’s okay.  But she’s not my mother.  Now, more than ever, I’m determined that no matter what Aimee says to warn me, I don’t care.  I’m going to find my birth mother, my real mother, and then, then everything will really be okay.  I will be loved for real.

“I love you,” Renee says as if she read my mind.  She kisses my forehead.

I step back, smiling, not breathing, and then I hurry upstairs just as Bill is coming up from the basement.

Juliet

Juliet began as a character in a novel-in-progress, Let Her Cry, and then appeared in OGW 10/22/09.  Juliet is working on a “one-girl show”, hoping to become a performer like her mother.  Unfortunately, Juliet’s mother is bipolar, which often takes too much of Juliet’s time and energy, and leaves her with little left to work on herself.

Juliet: 

Juliet:  Story of My Life

(a “one-girl” show)

starring Juliet McCarthy as herself

(One small dot of light expands… expands, expands, becoming a halo, illuminating Juliet’s face, becoming a spotlight of her whole body.  She is crouched on the floor, holding the microphone in one hand, tapping a cigarette with the other.  A black and white movie reel plays in the backround:  loud sounds of reels spinning, the movie is crackly -- family scenes, like a montage of old family movies

Wait.  Too campy.  Not authentic enough.  Change to: (Natural lighting dims.  Juliet is crouched on the floor, tapping a cigarette with one hand, tapping keys on a laptop computer with the other.  She is illuminated by the light from her computer screen.  The microphone rests on the floor by her feet.  Her toes, barefeet, scrunch.

Slides click into place behind Juliet -- family scenes -- click, click, then faster and faster, clickity clickity click, in time with Juliet tapping out words on her computer.  She reads:)

                                                            Juliet:

After the big fight over Hootie.  Mom in fishnet tights and a big tee shirt with Dad’s Irish-green down vest over it for warmth.  He’s so happy when she kisses him.

            I’m happy too.  No, really.  Mom’s eyes look like clichés – sad clown or raccoon eyes, streaked make-up.  From the fight.  But it’s over now, they’re happy, and I’m happy.

            Really.  (Looks up at the audience.)

            But you don’t believe me.

           

            After the big fight, Mom with raccoon eyes kisses Dad and he runs his hands over her down vest.  They retreat to the bedroom, and Dad leaves his drink.  Scotch Rocks.

            I’m so happy for them, and the fact that they don’t see me anymore.  I’m so happy for me -- and the fact that I don’t see me anymore.

           

            (Juliet looks down at her computer and types as she reads:)  I don’t believe in me.

            I drink the scotch. (Mimes drinking a glassful in one gulp.)

            Tap my cigarette.  Suck hard.  Crouched over laptop on the floor of my room, Achilles tendons stretching, knees popping.  Writing.

            This is my story.

(The last slide clicks into place – it is Juliet, posed as she was a moment ago -- as she was in her bedroom that night.  She rises, and faces the screen and the slide, reaching out to touch her own image.)

Maree

Maree first showed up in OGW 10/8/09.  In this entry, we learn that Maree’s alienation from her family stems from her being adopted.  As Maree’s story evolves, perhaps her birth mother will reappear in her life.  Perhaps Maree will find peace with her adopted family.  Who knows?

Maree:  Everyone thinks I’m Godless, but I’m not.  Even I have called myself Godless, have fought with Julia over Jesus (me:  he doesn’t exist!  You’re stupid!), have told Hannah that nobody in any religion believes God lives in McDonald’s so she better just shut up before the men in white coats come to take her away (Hannah:  Boo hoo bawl cry, I’m telling my Mama). 

But here’s the truth.  I do have a God, a secret Goddess.  In my heart, I call her Mom.

I know it’s crazy.  I know my real Mom didn’t want me and that’s how I ended up with this crazy Christian band of do-gooders I call my adopted family.  But here’s what I do:

I lie down or sit up in lotus position.  I put in earplugs and all I can hear is the steady, slowing pulse of my own blood in my ears.  I go deep, down into my heart, and there is a door.  When I knock, it opens. 

Gently, softly, quietly.

Sometimes there is a bed suspended on a porch by the beach (saw that in a magazine), and I lie down on it.  She lies next to me.

Sometimes there is a velvet couch in a small room full of gauzy hanging scarves, windchimes and purple pillows.  She waits for me there, and I crawl onto her lap.

My favorite is the open room, wooden floors.  I take off my shoes, and suddenly I’m dressed in a long, flowing gown of layers and layers of sheer material, and I begin to dance.  She joins me.  She lifts me up, high above her head.  I float, I spin, I fly.  She is with me, and when we’ve finished dancing, she applauds me, even though she did all the work.

She is my Goddess.  I call her Mom. 

Gemma

Gemma is back!  Gemma first appeared in an unpublished short story, “Wings.”  Gemma’s mother abandoned her when she was a child.  Mom was addicted to smoking faery dust, and now that Gem’s an adolescent she has what all the daughters of dusters got – wings.  Horrified and outcast, Gemma has left home for NYC to find her mother, others like her, and maybe herself.

Gemma:

“Truth or Dare,” I said to Luke.  I didn’t really care which he picked.  I was so f*cked up, I didn’t care anymore.  I just wanted to go home…

Wait.  I couldn’t go home.  I was here.  Here was home now. 

Whoa.  I was really loopy, really a mess.  If I’d just taken the dare or told the truth I wouldn’t have had to keep drinking.  But even with all the magical weirdness in the room – the deformities or whatever – the horns, the tails, the wings, the scales – it still felt freaky to be me.  It still felt like everyone was staring at me.  Wait, was everyone staring at me? 

Lola definitely was.  Well ha ha to her.  I leaned on Luke and asked him again, “Truth or Dare?”

“Or consequence,” said Lola.  She looked like she regretted starting this game.

Luke’s tail lashed back and forth as he thought.  “Truth,” he said, smiling at me. 

Was he really smiling?  At me?  It might’ve been the wine.  Or the schnapps. 

Ooo!  That was definitely Luke’s hand on my knee.  My wings fluttered.

“What did you do the first time you knew you were different?” I asked.  I did care, in spite of all I’d had to drink.  Not only did I care, I had to know.

“I know what I would’ve done,” he said, smirking.  “I would’ve done this –“ 

And then, just like that he kissed me!  His lips were just right too, not too soft, not too rough, not too wet or dry.  Perfect really.  I sighed as his shaggy bangs brushed my nose.

“Your turn, Gemma!  Your turn!” Lola was so pissed off. 

I didn’t dare grin.  But Luke had me all fluttery and smooshy and suddenly glad…

I shouted so loud that everyone laughed, “Dare!” and then I threw off my bomber jacket and let my wings free!

I flexed, shook them out, and… and… and…

I flew!

Kayla

Kayla is a new character.  She is coping with a sick mother who isn’t always available, and at the same time with a huge crush on a popular boy who doesn’t seem to know she’s alive.  I like Kayla’s honesty.

Kayla:

            I told my mother -- I was crying and everything -- I told her that everyone has their belly button pierced, and if she didn’t let me then it was her fault if Brian Kepler didn’t like me, and it was her fault if I didn’t get invited to his party this weekend, and you know what she did?  She laid there on the couch with her eyes closed, doing her deep breathing thing which nobody else’s mother does, I mean really, and then she said “Party?” 

            I was kinda stuck then, because I would never lie to my mother, I just wouldn’t, because she always said that would be the worst thing I could ever do, but on the other hand, I couldn’t tell her deets about the party because Brian’s parents were going out of town and that’s why it was such a big deal – there were going to be no adults and a keg and the pool and everyone who mattered was going to be there, and my friend Rain said she was going to lose her virginity Saturday night, and if Brian were to ask me, I would too, only he won’t ask because my mother won’t let me get my belly button pierced –

            “Just a party.  You know Brian, Mommy!  You know how much I love him.  Please, Mom!”  I said, adjusting her pillow.

            She winced when I moved her, but then she sighed, so I her neck was hurting more than usual.  Her pain was bad, I knew it, because otherwise she’d totally be sitting up, leaning forward on her hands, looking into my eyes for the truth –

            And then, I never could’ve lied, but all of a sudden it seemed easy, because she was lost in her world of hurt, and so I said, “It’s his birthday.  He invited me specially.  It’s almost like a, like a date!”

            “Are you asking if you can go?”  She was happier than she was letting on.  She really wanted to believe someone like Brian Kepler would ask me out.  She was crazy that way, thinking I was totally popular and everyone liked me, and all the boys loved me, when actually the opposite was true.

            I started rubbing my mother’s foot.  She sighed with relief, and I said, “So I can go, right?”

            “I don’t know, Kayla, it’s not a good time—“

            “It’s never a good time with you!”

            “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—“

            Okay, so sue me – she was weak and I needed to get my belly button pierced, and I knew if I kept at it, kept pushing her, she’d give in, if for no other reason than guilt over being sick and being afraid that that made her a bad mother.  I knew how she thought.  I didn’t want to take advantage of her, but my love for Brian was so real, so powerful, it was all I could think about, it was like a hot knife in my heart.  I knew I could get him to like me if only -- and so I said to my mother, “Can I get my belly button pierced before the party Saturday?  I have the form you just have to sign and Rain’s mother will take us.”