Eponine

My hopeless romantic is showing again.

 

“I love him,” I sang. “But everyday I’m learning all my life, I’ve only been pretending. Without me, his world will go on turning; the world is full of happiness that I have never known. I love him. I love him. I love him—but only on my own.” The choir director stopped the pianist for a second to applaud me. I took a slight bow from my waist as my piano teacher years ago taught me. My choir director smiled brightly at me while I blushed slightly from the attention from him and everyone else in choir.

 

“You’ve really improved a lot since you first auditioned,” he said, clasping his hands together. “You’ve been practicing this Les Miserables  number a lot lately, haven’t you?” I smoothed out my uniform and smiled for him as the rest of the applause died down.

 

“I really wanted to sing this,” I said genuinely. “It speaks to me.” My choir director leaned back, not expecting my intelligent sounding answer, but nonetheless pleased. I turned around to face everyone else, scanning over the bass section and smiling a little wider.

 

 

                        *            *            *            *         

 

“Corrie, wait up!” Zack yelled from behind me, getting off the school bus. I smiled even wider than before.

 

“Hurry up, Nathaniel,” I called back to him, making my way through the neighborhood. Zack threw a playful glare before clapping me on the shoulder. He never got why I called him by his first name. He never got that I loved the Romantic period, and Nathaniel is the most romantic name God ever made.

 

“That was great singing today, Corrie,” Zack said. “AMDA would love you. You could probably win a few scholarships that way.” Zack waited for me to explode with enthusiasm—to tell him how much I loved singing, that it was my lifelong dream and that I wanted to be a famous Broadway star.

 

“I’m not moving all the way out to New York,” I said pointedly.

 

“There’s an AMDA here in LA, you don’t have to go to New York,” Zack pointed out. “I don’t get it. Why wouldn’t you go, Corrie? You have the talent. You have talent no other girl at school has. That’s like me giving up my scholarship for debate at San Diego State.”

 

“They gave you the scholarship?” I asked, surprised. Zack lifted an eyebrow.

 

“I told you that months ago,” Zack said. “Don’t you remember? Right before the Homecoming dance?” I grimaced. I totally forgot. I tended to block out things in my mind that I didn’t want to remember.

 

“I can’t believe you’re going to be gone soon,” I said wistfully. “Choir won’t be the same without you.”

 

“They’ll always have their little star,” Zack said, gently pinching my left cheek. “I know Mr. Artega is going to miss you when you graduate. In like three years.” I grimaced even more. The last thing I wanted was Zack Meyers, this seventeen-year-old bass singer who could argue his way out of a straight jacket, never mind a paper bag, was calling attention to the fact that I was a mere fourteen-year-old still struggling with acne and brace issues and a voice that was bigger than my body. I tossed my braids behind my back and felt them bounce on my baby pink backpack.

 

We continued our walk to our respective houses. I’m not sure how old Zack was when they first moved in, but as far as I could remember, Zack and I grew up together. As we approached my house first, he kicked a loose board in the faded white picket fence like he used to do when we were little until my dad threatened to make him replace it with his own pocket money. I looked at Zack’s house and wondered how Zack’s family could stand to live next to mine. Maybe our house, faded paint, dying rose bushes, and a dead Volkswagen made Zack’s pale yellow Victorian style home look even better by comparison. I had always wanted to live in Zack’s castle for as long as I remembered. I wanted to float around in my princess dress costume from when I was four, and wait by the window for my prince to come. Zack said he always knew I was a romantic from the day I was old enough to walk and talk.

 

Dying was a good word to describe the roses, but since they weren’t dead yet, I saw a few red, tender leaves sprouting out of the branches, getting ready to bear new flowers. I touched them gently, wondering what they would look like in full bloom. Zack waited for me patiently to get done admiring them before we walked to my driveway, filled with dead car debris from years of my dad trying to fix this old car.

 

Zack and I dropped our backpacks at the edge of the driveway and crammed into the dead Volkswagen bus that my dad used to cruise in before he met my mom and put the car in permanent park. The bus always came back to life when Zack and I played in here as children, pretending it was our house. Before we took relationships seriously, Zack and I always used to play mommy and daddy to the little wildflowers that grew in the cracks of the decaying, rusted vehicle. We used to sit on the back seat, sipping our juice boxes like coffee the way my parents did after they put me down for bed.

 

“Corrie, reach into the glove compartment,” Zack said. “I hid the vodka in there.” I reached in, unsure if I would grab a black widow spider instead of the bottle, but to my dismay, the bottle was alone. I took the cap off, taking three big gulps until I knew I was focused on getting the whole bottle down. Zack took the bottle out of my hand before looking at me suspiciously.

 

“You hate vodka,” he stated simply. I shrugged. I missed our apple juice packets.

 

“And?” I said. “You’re the one who got it.”

 

“It doesn’t mean you had to drink it,” Zack said, taking a swig.

 

“I’m not letting it go to waste,” I said harshly, tugging on the elastic bands at the end of my braids and shaking them free. Zack had a bewildered look on his face as my wild, curly hair settled against my back again.

 

“It’s bad for your voice,” Zack said firmly. “I’m not going to let you waste your voice.”

 

“Then what the hell did you bring it for?” I demanded. “Why didn’t you just leave it in your house?”

 

“Why did you drink it?” Zack asked flatly. I turned away from his fiery blue stare. I looked at my watch for a distraction and arbitrarily made a mental note of the day and time: May 14^th, 2009, 4:19 PM.

 

“Consider it your birthday gift,” I said. “For tomorrow.” Zack leaned back, not quite believing me, but willing to take it as an answer.

 

“Fair enough,” Zack said. “I won’t be around tomorrow anyway, considering the orientation weekend starts tomorrow.” I turned to him, smiling.

 

“We can’t celebrate it over the weekend,” I said logically. “You won’t be here. Then finals week starts soon, so we’ll be doing nothing but homework. And then when it’s time for you to graduate, you won’t be in class because you’ll be practicing. You’ll be home before I will, and I’ll be busy with the competition for choir and the end of the year performance, too. I won’t be able to celebrate with you any other time, Zack. Don’t you think that’s a good reason to take a drink with you now?” Zack nodded, smiling gently.

 

“True,” Zack said. “Plus, not to mention my post-graduation camp out.” I gulped audibly. That was the one unpleasant thing that I was unable to flush from my mind.

 

“You’re sure?” I asked. Zack rolled his eyes.

 

“For the last time, yes,” Zack said. “Maddie agreed. Don’t be so hard on her, Corrie. Maddie and I made this pact long ago when we first got together. It’s finally time for us, Corrie. I’ve been waiting for years. Now I’ll finally get to show her how much I love her.” I nodded my head. Zack put the bottle by the back seat and began to scoot to the gaping opening where a door once was.

 

“I’ll talk to you tomorrow,” Zack said, putting his feet on the concrete and going to the sidewalk to get his backpack. When he was gone, I opened the bottle again, and took a drink. I noticed that I could smell his cologne where his fingers were on the bottle.

 

                        *            *            *            *

 

“Corrie, are you done yet?” my little brother whined. I was never able to convince my parents to buy a decent printer—as in one that was made sometime after 2000. As the last page slowly and noisily came through, I pulled it out from the rotating wheels to speed up the process. I ran up the stairs, past the piano where my music sheets sat gathering dust, and ignored my mom as she told me to pick up the sheets from the floor and raced to my room. I held the sheets of paper to my chest as I pressed my back up against the door in the darkness. I could see the light across the way in the elegant, Victorian home and I saw a silhouette pacing back and forth, reading off of a paper. I looked down at the pages, the reason why I didn’t want to be a singer.

 

“Sweet pea, honeysuckle, and marigold were the children that grew in our home,” I read aloud. “I never thought he would abandon his wife and daughters. But perhaps he wanted daughters that climbed on his lap and a wife who was old enough to understand the need in his lap.” AMDA, I don’t believe, has scholarships for poets.

 

Zack’s shadow continued to pace, probably reading something more important than a love poem from the child across the way. He had more important things to read—like a brochure for San Diego State. Or perhaps a camping gear list that no doubt involved candles. I was so glad I didn’t turn on the lights. I’m sure he knew there was nothing for me to pace back and forth for. Poetry just read better to me in the dark.

 

I saw her walk in. Even though I could only see her shadow, everything I despised about her shone through the shade. I hated that she was tall enough to reach up to kiss him. I hated that her blond hair was straightened and styled so he could easily run his fingers through her hair. I hated how she acted like he was supposed to treat her like she were his whole world and nothing else existed before her. I lost track of the time I wasted, standing there, watching them interact before they broke out into another one of their numberless fights. Zack held up the paper he was reading through and yelled something incoherent at her. She yelled back, yanking the paper out of his hand, crumpling it up and throwing it to the ground. I fell, crumpled and thrown down like the most unloved creature alive. My fists balled up, poetry from nights and nights before this one were trapped in my angry fingers.

 

“For Christ's sake,” I wailed desolately. “Just put me out of my f*****g misery and marry her!”

 

                        *            *            *            *

 

Zack didn’t keep his promise; he probably felt that college life was just much more exciting that he forgot that the bus for the orientation left early in the morning before school even started. I buried my face in my arms in choir, wishing that I weren’t the star student because my choir director wondered why I wasn’t singing my heart out anymore. I was pretty sure I was going to quit choir as soon as freshman year ended. I planned on trying to get out before even the year ended.

 

I boarded the bus, the familiar streets blurring into obscurity. I stared at the concrete sidewalk, not wanting to read the street signs, admire the beautiful colors of everyone else’s gardens and wishing I could get lost instead of my feet instinctively knowing where to step. When I looked up, I had walked a few extra steps and ended up in front of Zack’s gorgeous home. I pushed the gate of his perfect, white picket fence open and walked down the brick path to the large porch of his home. I refused to look to my right where the porch swing froze with no loving couple to swing on it.

 

Mrs. Meyers never minded if I came over or waltzed right in like I lived there. Mrs. Meyers knew the path I always took whenever I came inside and reminded me that I was welcome to anything I wanted or needed. I trudged up the winding stairs, then I walked down the hallway until I found Zack’s room. I thought I saw a tiny cloth scrap that looked hot pink, and I tried to rationalize that maybe I didn’t know all of Zack’s favorite colors. I looked across the way through his window and realized that if Zack had the shade up during the day, he could see clearly into my room. I sighed. I would go on dreaming, I was sure. That’s all I did anyhow. Now that Zack was leaving, it was simply going to be permanent.

 

I heard a crinkle under my beat up sneakers and found the piece of paper I saw Maddie throw to the ground. I almost didn’t want to touch it as if the smell of her fruity body spray were going to make me sick—and it’s not my fault that I’m allergic to mango, either. Nervously, I opened up the paper. I didn’t see a list or pictures of wild nights on the beach with crazed college students. I sat on the bed and read it to myself, smiling before looking to my window again. 
 

Zack and I have at least one commonality: we never name people in our poetry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Reviews

[perfectlymetiKulous]

This was so extraordinarily touching. In such a short time, I cared about Corrie. I am hopeful for her, and just wanting her to see the value in her own talents. It makes me remember how I was when I was an angst-filled teenage girl... smiling and wincing at the same time.

This was a lovely piece. Thanks so much for sharing this with me. I don't think I've read anything where emotion was so vividly captured.

[BeetleBug]

interesting. very interesting.

[Drew Wade]

ahh, this is touching and filled with hope. you have a great knack for coming up with unconventional scenarios. the ending is so great, because it's a 'what just happened there?' kind of thing... I love endings that make me say, this may have happened, or it could have gone some other way completely.. very nice. also, the future date in it was weird and inspired.

the one complaint about this story is that the protagonist seems to old to be fourteen years old.. you know? she thinks really deeply, and I'm willing to accept that if she's really smart, but is she?? so maybe that's one area you could explain more. other than that, fantastic, as your stuff is.