Autumn turned into winter sooner than I could guess which meant that the days were shorter and I woke up to the most unpleasant, cold rush. My room is shaped like a pentagon with a square attached to one of the faces – along two walls of the square shaped part of my room are windows, and that convenient location just so happens to be where my bed is. I don’t know if it’s a draft or just the fact my parents don’t use heating until it’s a right snowstorm out, but every morning I have to wake up and get out of bed like I’ve just taken an ice bath. Another problem is the fact that I can NEVER sleep in pyjama pants; they always make me uncomfortable so my only choices thereafter are to sleep in my old basketball shorts, black that are wispy and light, or I sleep in my underwear. Either way, my legs are freezing by the time I make the trek to the bathroom. I’d say it’s relatively the same sensation as taking a nice, scalding hot shower and then stepping out into the winter air – it feels so much colder in the given situation.

I rolled out of bed ten minutes later than I usually did and changed while still lying in bed, to preserve the warmth I possessed. Then, I sprinted to the bathroom in my warm tights, skirt and uniform top and brushed my teeth, hair and washed my face. Mission accomplished: that was how I got ready in the cold Canadian winter, in less than fifteen minutes. After a quick breakfast, I was out of the house and walking with Sebastian again. There was a certain comfort in planning everything, and knowing you had a routine to rest with. I’d always walk with Seb to school, we’d always pick up Meredith, we’d always end up at the school at the same time, we’d always sit in the halls, we’d always see Connor, then the bell would ring and our school day would commence.

At lunch, well, lunch was the only really varied part of my day, since Sebastian doesn’t have my lunch and Meredith and I would often just sit with whomever we felt like, at the moment. We’d always find ourselves within a motley crew and would somehow find the time to enjoy forty-five minutes killing time before forth period.

Today, we sat with Ada and her really mellow friends, but I’m afraid they were too chill for us, and we eventually got bored and dismissed ourselves to go and walk around the halls, peering into classes to see who was inside. We’d talk about a lot of things that I wouldn’t recall later, which was best anyways because most jokes aren’t that funny when captured and typed up; strict “you had to be there” kind of stuff.

As we chatted our way down the hall, a boy was leaving his class to bring the class attendance down to the office, and before I could sort myself out to nonchalantly turn the other way, he was already near me. Of course I’d run into Oliver of all people at a time like this. A nerve near the base of my nose twitched subtly with contempt. He was probably doing God-knows-what with my sworn nemesis, telling her everything he told to me, making her feel special... Why should I let something like that down? He was a nice guy, but he was also the very nice guy that got away and was trapped in Vickie’s fishing line.

“Uh, hey, Charmander,” he offered, amiably, using the Pokemon that had been a nickname by him for me when we would talk on the phone late at night in the summer. I remember how I’d whisper as clearly as I could into the phone, and constantly moved around the bed to make myself comfortable. It was boiling and lying on a warm bed isn’t exactly comfortable.

“Hi, Olly,” was my response, and I felt a little tug at my heart at the fact I hadn’t shown any sympathy at all. What worried me was the voice in my head going, “One day, you’ll realize he was trying to let things go back to how they used to be and your lack of cooperation will be what makes him forget you. He’s going to realize you’re a wasted effort and just go, ‘forget it’, and you’re going to wish he didn’t.” I couldn’t help but agree that the conscience was right, once again, and I was definitely going to regret this all – but before I could change anything, he grew rigid with regret and discomfort and continued down the hall. I’m sorry, I wanted to say. I wish I wasn’t so stubborn.

But there really wasn’t anything I could do about it now.

I had told Meredith about Kenneth, in a question of if they were related and she told me she’d never heard of him at all. She did make an effort to make full use of his Facebook profile and looked through as many photos as she could, while over at my house. After a while, she turned to me with an expression of utter shock on her face.

“He’s hot!” was her declaration after a few seconds of staring.

I choked on my drink, spilling a bit of water on my English notes. “What? No, he isn’t, really.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t know you were in need of glasses,” she said, with a tone that would make a parent furious. “But, really: he’s got a cute face, he’s tall, he’s educated (look at his comment replies!), he’s obviously humorous, and he’s fit – look at those forearms.”

“No, God, no, stop! I work with him!”

“And that makes you a lucky, lucky girl.”

“I think you need to get out more.” I said, dabbing a tissue over the papers so the ink wouldn’t run. “Or, I could introduce you to him...”

She took on the exact expression of a deer caught in headlights. “WHAT? NO! DON’T YOU DARE!”

I giggled, getting up to throw the tissues away. “Jesus, calm down; you sound like I told you I was going to have romantic relations with your brother!”

She grimaced in a way that was almost comedic to me. “RUSSEL? YOU COULDN’T EVEN JOKE ABOUT THAT!”

At work, I told Kenneth about the situation and he laughed, and then shrugged. “I don’t think that’d work out. I’m two years older than you guys! You’re cool – far more mature than most of the kids I know – but I don’t know your friend.”

“Well, that’s understandable,” I was rather pleased at his praise, of course. “But if, by some twist of fate, you change your mind, I’d like to see you two married in a house with two perfect children and a dog.”

He gave me a strange look before we went back to playing X’s and O’s on the shop whiteboard. “First comes love, and then comes despair – two hearts damaged beyond repair.”

We laughed and straightened back up when a lady come up to place an order. I mixed strawberry and vanilla frozen yogurt and set it into the machine, and after I passed it to her, Kenneth and I went back to our game and conversation. While discussing the best ways to kill a zombie, I got a text from Connor.

From: Connor Aiden Parker ;)

Hey, there’s this thing next weekend. Do you wanna come?

I held up a finger to pause Kenneth and his opinion on a recent zombie horror film, and the intermission caused him to look over my shoulder at the message on my screen. I sent back a reply of, “Oh, really? Uh, where is it?” and then turned to my co-worker with puzzlement. “Never been to one of these raucous high school parties.”

His eyebrows raised and he smirked. “Really? I thought you were the hardcore, drinker type.”

I rolled my eyes at his sarcasm and read Connor’s reply. “I’ll tell you details later.” I shrugged it off and set the phone back in my pocket – it was only Wednesday so there was still time for him to fill me in.

“Anyways, a gun’s clearly the most practical weapon in a zombie apocalypse.” He said, matter-of-factly.

“What? No! When the whole world’s died out, who’s going to tell you where to find ammo?” I retorted. “And we live in Canada! Where can you find a decent gun shop here? You’d have to trek up to Inuit County – would you want to face rabid polar bears?”

“Okay, but it’s more practical than your obvious choice of melee weapons: melee are short range and the blood goes everywhere. Didn’t you watch 28 Days Later?” He asked, dropping some change in the register and making himself a dessert. “Just a drop of blood in the guy’s eye and he was infected. I doubt if you were in the centre of a horde and had a samurai sword or a chainsaw, you’d be able to make clean cuts while staying uninfected.”

“Then I’d just wear a mask! It’s easier to find a mask than a gun, anyways!”

“You, Charlotte,” he said slowly, as his frozen yogurt swirled into his bowl. “Make a worthy opponent.”

I grinned and nodded. “I know.”

I remember when Sebastian and I used to kid around like this, and we still sometimes do, but I missed this feeling of childishness while Ken and I dug away at his heaping mound of ice cream. It was pretty ironic, in a way. Adolescence is all about growing up and changing, and a first, part-time job was the bridge to adulthood; yet I was sitting here at my first workplace eating ice cream with an awesome new friend and chatting about video games, Pokémon and films. Who knows how many times I’ve perhaps passed him by and not even given him a second glance but now we were regular mates who could joke and have serious talks within the same day.

When I got home and started up the old N64 for some more endearing pixel gaming, Connor called with the details for the jam on Saturday night. It was to be at Damian’s house, there wouldn’t be too many people, and we’d just be hanging out. I didn’t expect Damian to be the kind of kid to throw parties, so that was a momentary surprise, but it ebbed away as my mind formulated excuses that could get me to this party. The house was a ten-minute walk from mine, so I (thankfully) wouldn’t need to ask my parents for a ride. After I hung up with him, I called Meredith if she’d like to come with me – she said no, but she could tell my parents I was sleeping over at her house, which was a Godsend. I then called Ada, who told me she’d love to come and would meet me at one of the streets on the way there, from which we’d walk together. I told my parents I’d be sleeping over at Meredith’s house and they were cool with it. I was set.

I started to get a little anxious over the span of the next two days until the actual party. My mum knew, as a psychologist generally does, but I told her I was stressed for my exams in February and she believed, me thankfully. My dad was pretty oblivious, so he wasn’t much of a worry. On Friday, I had no homework at all and my shift was easy – I got my first pay and it was great. I wasn’t really used to so much money and the combination of my anticipation for the next day to come made me a little paranoid, so I put it away in the checking account my parents let me establish, what with my new income.

The feeling I had all day Saturday was the exact same as I used to have, back when I’d have birthday get-togethers: the day had finally come, but now I was counting down the hours until I was no longer preparing. I had butterflies and jitters. I couldn’t wait. Time went by so slowly, even though I did things that I usually did instead of homework – I went on the Internet, played some games, listened to music, watched TV, but I got bored easily. This was torture, and probably the same feeling prisoners on Death Row had when they waited for some outstanding testimony to be made to possibly, by the grace of God, save them.

But then, during a game of Tetris, I chanced a glance at the time display in the bottom right of my screen and saw it was already eight, or at least quarter past. At Game Over, I closed my laptop and set up a backpack with some things I might need, like a bus ticket and a toothbrush for when I later crashed at Ada’s house. I tugged my jeans on and called down to my parents in the den. “I’m going now!”

“Take care – call if you need a ride, and make sure you’re warm, it’s cold out,” my mum replied, and then I was out the door.

I started down the direction to Meredith’s house, but turned right instead of left once I was out of view of my home (where my parents might be watching). Soon enough, I saw Ada perched on a large, decorative rock someone set as part of the landscaping for their garden. She looked cool with her satchel and loose plaid shirt. “Aren’t you cold?” I asked her, but she shook her head.

“Nah, Native blood – my tribe doesn’t call me She Who Runs the Tundra with the Wolves for nothing, you know,” but I wasn’t entirely sure if she was kidding or not. That’s the thing about Ada: not only was she a magnificently smooth liar, she didn’t really care much for anything and always looked perfect, despite the fact she did the total opposite of try. She was an actual young hippy. She cared for the environment since she was young, and not just because being green was a fashion trend. She wore clothes from other people she knew – hand-me-downs that weren’t yet her size. The way she wore large, sometimes revealing clothing on her tiny body no doubt made people curious as to what was beneath. She was walking attraction in the most imperfect sense.

The house was quicker to get to, probably because we weren’t walking alone. The house lights were dim but there was the significant throb of music, and people were constantly slipping in and out. The house itself looked like a lovely, well-kept thing and was not densely surrounded by other, neighbouring houses like my own community was. It was large and when we got in, I could see that photographs on the walls were removed – save for the ones placed higher up on the wall. There weren’t any expensive vases or anything of that sort around, so I was pretty sure that he had them all hidden in a safe place.

There was a bunch of people everywhere and when I saw Damian leaning against his stairs with a can of Coke in his hand, I couldn’t help but feel bad for him. Ada left me with a tap on my shoulder to go in search of mischief to cause, no doubt, so I put my nerves aside and leaned next to Damian, who looked up at me with this permanent look of shock on his face, conveyed through those eyes. I didn’t even need to talk with him to know he was an introvert and did not accept all of these people in his home.

“They told me they’d only invited a few people,” he said in a tone at the level of a whisper. The first thing he had ever spoken to me and it wasn’t even a greeting but at the same time, I didn’t really need a greeting from him. He was in an unstable mood and I just wanted to hug him, even if I’d never known him before. “People don’t usually see me here; even though this is my house they don’t say a word to me.”

I felt sympathy far too strongly – I always did, it was actually a pain to feel worse for people who weren’t having such a great day. “What happened?”

“Jeff and Luke told me they had invited a total of five people, but I decided to hide things away, anyways,” he dropped his eyes to the ground, and I struggled to hear his voice over the sound of the pulsing bass line and people chattering. “I never invite them to my house because they’re always assholes to me.” He shrugged before looking up to me – a sign that he didn’t feel it was the time to open up to me right there about his troubled life. “Charlotte, right?” I nodded and he looked back to the people in his den dead across from us.

“You were in three of my classes last year, do you know that?” I looked to him in surprise, shaking my head.

“I’m sorry, but I really don’t,” I felt really bad, but he smiled at me.

“I was seeing if you were a liar – I’ve never seen you before this year,” a strange feeling of relief washed over me. “Sometimes, you tell people something and they feel bad, so they’ll lie to you to make themselves feel like better people. If you felt ashamed enough, you would’ve lied and told me you remembered, or something. It’s good you didn’t, though – people always do that to me.”

Sooner than I could remark upon that, I felt an arm around my shoulders and a kiss on my temple. “Hey, Char,” a familiar husky voice drawled in my ear and a shiver ran down my spine, my skin burning where Connor touched it. Damian swallowed uncomfortably and looked away; Connor was talking to me about how glad he was I could make it, and how I should get a drink, so I offered the quiet boy a smile and a faint touch to the cheek. “I’ll see you later, Damian.”

Connor led me by the hand through the crowds of people into the kitchen where a keg and a couple of cans stood around it. He passed me a red cup and helped me pour some beer into it, but I’d never been a beer drinker. I’d tasted it before but it wasn’t as delicious as I’d assumed it would be – I didn’t know how people could drink it so often by choice. I pretended to take a sip, and winced as the liquid actually passed between my lips. Bitter and hurt my stomach – or maybe that was just my nerves. I felt like something bad was going to happen.

He talked to me about random things and flattered me a lot – I could tell he was at least buzzed with alcohol. I tried to follow along, but I was completely sober. I could see Ada, down in the corner of the den with a guy really close to her. Suddenly, I felt like a killjoy, so I took a gulp of beer down my throat before I could mentally object to it, or let it simmer on my tongue. It burned on the way and made me sick. I felt a little light headed, but only if I let go of the dead focus I had to stay completely conscious. If I closed my eyes and just let myself relax, then I felt dizzy, but it was a good nausea and probably the same feeling that turns people into alcoholics. I wasn’t running away from any problems, but it was almost a nice feeling, to me.

I was led upstairs and all I could think was, “Oh no, I’m going to get raped, aren’t I?” So naturally I was a tad bit afraid, but when he opened the door, I saw Connor’s friends there – that was good – but I also saw they were completely and totally stoned, passing a little pipe around. The room smelled vile and the smoke rose, drifting out the window; as I looked around and saw photos of a little boy, a backpack in the corner and a pretty neat bed, I figured the room was Damian’s. A wave of pity washed over me – he wasn’t even drinking beer at this party, there was no doubt that he wouldn’t tolerate pot smoke, either. Damn, if this was my situation, I’d be dead – my parents would kill me if they came home from a vacation and found the smell of marijuana lingering on my sheets.

“Hey, Charlotte – wow, you look really pretty today. And your hair is, like, really curly and soft looking,” Jeff called to me and I basically just murmured some form of thanks before Connor pulled me to sit down. I must’ve been a bit more out of my element than I usually was because the tug caught me off balance and I stumbled, falling in his lap. My face grew red but he didn’t move me off, instead he wrapped his arms around my waist and rested his chin on my shoulder. This didn’t make my face cool down any and I felt a bit of pressure as the pipe was passed my way. I was never high on drugs and thought it was disgusting – I had the impression that everyone who used it was disgusting, but when Connor picked it from some other guy’s hand and sucked in deep, I realized that he was definitely a stoner. Despite the fact he hung out with skaters (prime weed heads, in my school) he never really came off as a smoker at all. He smelled good, completely different from the stereotype I had set. I felt shallow, but it was understandable, right? I mean, all through school – all through my life, actually – people have always preached to never do drugs and kids always nodded their heads and followed. I just assumed it was bad, just like I knew that stealing was bad and violence was bad, and thought that everyone who committed such terrible acts were just as such: terrible.

Connor pulled my hair over the shoulder furthest from him and gave me a kiss on the cheek, then held the pipe to my lips, holding my upper back like a paediatrician using a stethoscope to check the breathing of a kid. “Just breathe in and hold it in your lungs. Don’t swallow or you’ll choke.” I didn’t know what compelled me to, but I let him bring the pipe to my lips and I sucked in, like I used to when I had asthma and I had to take the orange and blue inhalers. Holding the smoke made my eyes water, though, and I blew it in Connor’s face. He looked a little surprised, but then smirked. “Have you done weed before? You didn’t even cough.”

I shook my head and waited for the rush I expected, but I didn’t feel anything. My throat was sore and my eyes were watery, and there was this strange feeling in my stomach that made me want to throw up – but that feeling soon went away and I felt numb. Everything was in slow motion and I barely even noticed that Connor’s lips were constantly meeting with my skin, I turned and our lips met. I didn’t know what I was doing, and I probably wouldn’t be able to do it again, but we were kissing pretty heavy. The last thing I remember was that nobody else really noticed us, but then the short-term memory loss kicked in and I didn’t have a clue of anything else.

I’d imagine that things didn’t go too far, though, because Ada came and found me in the room the next morning, lying with Connor on Damian’s bed. My clothes were still on, thankfully, if not a bit ruffled, and his were on, too. She woke me up and got me food – I was really hungry, for some reason – and walked me back to her house. She helped me sober up, let me use her shower and checked me in any way police and parents would for drugs. When I was given the okay, she walked me to my street. I guess Ada was a good friend, at that, since despite the fact she didn’t give a shit for anyone, she cared enough for people. That was good. I’d rather have a friend passionate about people than solely passionate about their own life.

Labels: nanowrimo