Nightmare of it All.

This Chapter is introducing you more to important characters and setting an idea for you of the task at hand for Penn. I've had to leave this book for a long time and come back to it when I got the heart so be kind. =)

Years ago I was a different person, as most people do change with age. But not like me.

 

 

I remember when I returned to Burmue I walked down the familiar path that I always took to school. Along that road are rows of houses that protrude from the grassy landscape like black skyscrapers. Wealthy people lived in these houses, including some of my closest friends, although I never knew why. Inside it was nice enough, with large balcony windows that give you a view of the largest and only attractive lake in our town. All the houses had big vases that were too beautiful to really hold anything, the carpet that was so thick that it was like a soft forest, and hanging lights that shone gold throughout the whole house like a projector. These houses still weren’t homey. A prison cell would be more comfortable, in my opinion.

 

 

My eyes searched the garages with all of their Porsches and Mustangs nervously. I had finally moved away to rid myself of, not exactly these people, but this town and here I was again, my flip flops clopping on the sidewalk like horse hooves, as if I were casually on my way to my first class again. I hadn’t wanted to see my old friends, one especially in particular, but I found myself yelling, "Mom, I’m going for a walk!" up the stairs and knew exactly where my feet would take me. If I was meant to see these people, I would. If not I felt that God would keep my past classmates sitting inside watching their big screens. There is a reason for everything.

 

"Penn." My name rang in my ear like the loudest rock concert going off in my head. It was said with no emotion, no remorse, no surprise. "Hello, Maura," I tried to say calmly, although the giant ball in my throat wasn’t making it easy. I turned around and saw her standing there in an oversized t-shirt and toothpick legs poking from the bottom of a torn and dirty seam. She looked sick or maybe she just hadn’t gotten any sun in awhile. Her usually brilliant eyes were hidden behind thick, ugly frames. Her eyebrows were thick and her bun looked like it had been pulled back and then laid on for days now. Even though she was completely alien to the beautiful best friend I had before I wasn’t an ounce surprised. This is how Maura worked. She liked being a wreck and from what I had heard, she had made a life of it.

 

"I haven’t seen you around in awhile," she said. "I saw your mom at the grocery store the other day but she ignored me." My Mom would. She hated Maura and hated the things we messed up together as kids.

 

 

"I’m sure she just didn’t see you," I lied. "And yeah, I moved to South Carolina." She squeezed together her thin lips in jealousy. I felt my face getting hot and I was almost sure that I was breaking out into hives as I did the last time I saw Maura 3 years ago. I could speak to her mother when I saw her at football games, but I think it might have hurt Mrs. Shane. She’d look at me with sappy eyes and the fakest smile I had ever seen. She kept repeating how good it was that I was going to college. It must be hard seeing the friend, whom she always assumed would be living in poverty and sin right now, to succeed while her precious little daughter hid track marks and toted around three babies, all to different fathers.

 

Maura had been standing there quiet for a long time and I was starting to sweat. It wasn’t even hot. Pennsylvania always seemed cold to me, even during the summer. But her pastel green eyes were eating right through me. At one point, I would have felt sorry for her. I would have helped her or given her money. I had changed my thinking since then. You can’t save someone that doesn’t want to be saved and my best friend Maura wasn’t Maura anymore. She wasn’t someone I missed. "Well, I’ve got to go but it was really..."

 

"You’re really making something of yourself, aren’t ya’?" She was sarcastic, but the truth was that I was making something of myself. She shifted toothpicks and put her thin hand on her razorblade hip."I can tell. I barely noticed you walk down the street with your bleached hair and tan skin. You’re darker than me now. Who would have thought? You always did want to be me."

 

"Needless to say, Maura, I’ve changed my goals." I was always a fighter. I got it from my Dad and Maura was so good at crawling under my skin. She always had been. But I turned away, anyways. I continued walking towards our high school, wiping away sweat and praying that I had kept my composure on the outside more than my insides. My gut was exploding like someone had just set gunpowder off in my stomach. She screamed words at me with a cutting tone but I was different than the girl she once knew. I had mastered the art of being deaf when I had to be. But there are some words that can always break through my barrier.

 

"I can’t even believe you’d come back here after what your fucked up dad did."

 

 

 

There was a small rap on my door. I knew it was Mom. The only time she knocked on my door lightly without barging in is when she felt pity for me or if she had bad news. In this case, I was sure it was both so I rolled onto my side and pulled my pillowy pink comforter over my head. I didn’t want to see light right now. It hurt my head. "Penn? Penn Avery? Please, come out of your room. You’ve been in here all day and it’s really not good for you."

 

I had been in my hometown for a total of two days and I was already regretting the decision. If it wasn’t for the overwhelming feeling of guilt and fear from my dream I wouldn’t have been there at all. What did my brother want from me? Why would he ask me to do this? Better question, was I insane? I heard footsteps so obnoxious and loud that it sounded like a baby elephant dancing down the hallway towards my door. "Sly, please." The thudding of feet stopped and I knew, by sisterly instinct, that my younger brother was leaning in front of my mom and spying into my room. He was constantly concerned about me, though he’d never admit it to me.

 

My Mom had wanted a son once she married my stepfather. With me being her only child, and my father having several uncovered love children, I think she almost had Sly so soon after their marriage to get back at him. Names were important to her and when she was pregnant the doctors promised her another girl and disappointed, she picked out the named Sylvia after the writer, Sylvia Plath. She was, of course, overjoyed when my brother came, and not a little sister, but she just couldn’t part with the name fully so they wittingly named him Sly. I always thanked my little brother for turning out to be a boy because I would have been really embarrassed to have a sister named Sylvia. What a hideous name.

 

"What’s up." He was five years younger than me and had just turned 16 in May. Mom always said I would regret all those years I spent sitting on him and tickling him until he cried and making him do stupid things with my older sister force such as try to climb into a groundhog hole because now he wasn’t even full grown and the boy towered over me. With one swift movement he could lay me on my a*s if he wanted to. I know this, because before he had learned his own strength, he had done this. Luckily for me, I was blessed with a brother that was more a friend than anything. One of the worst things for him would to see me be hurt. "Your sister has been laying in here all day," my Mom said, as if she were telling on me to my younger teenage brother.

 

 

"Why," he stated, rather than asked. I could smell his sour sweat from lacrosse practice and I was sure he was looking at himself in my length wide mirror, patting down his thick brown curls as he always did. I pulled the comforter closer to my face in attempt to avoid the smell. "Why did you come home, Penn. I thought you said you were never coming back."

 

 

"Yeah, well, something told me to come back." It was quiet for a long time. My hair was over my face and tickling my nose so I came up for air and turned to look at my curious family. Sly’s eyes looked confused, but in that way that they would look if you were trying to understand a crazy person. Mom looked concerned. I faked a smile and rolled out of bed and started for my suitcase. I rummaged, hoping they would go away. But when they didn’t I knew I had to give them an explanation. "Listen. This is going to sound crazy but..." I looked at the contents in my suitcase to avoid their stares. Clothes full of bright colors (mostly pink), tampons, notepads (as I was missing a week of classes so I was assigned to write a paper on what I learned while I was away), make up, and my photo album. I picked it up and opened automatically to the page. I turned it to their eyes. Mom got my concerned, Sly became more interested. "I found this picture of him in South Carolina. South Carolina. In my apartment by my bedroom door. How could this have gotten there?"

 

My mom opened her mouth to answer, her uneven jagged teeth pointing out at me like the aerial view of New York City, both nothing came out. "Maybe Shane put it there?"

 

I shook my head. "Why would Dad drive twelve hours away just to put this in my apartment?" I turned the book back to me and rubbed my finger along the plastic home for the last memory I would ever have of Thierry. He smiled up at me, with that big toothy smile and eyes as happy as can be. "I had a dream that night..."

 

"Oh for Godsake, Penn!" Mom stomped away. She hated hearing about my dreams. In high school I was into all of the "dream reading" books and analyzed everyone’s, plus my own, dreams. But since I had moved to South Carolina my dreams and nightmares had left me alone, besides this one. Sly was left standing in the doorway, his burly arms full of Livestrong bracelets leaning on the frame. "Listen, whatever your doing here is cool. I’m glad your home. Just don’t do anything stupid. K?" I closed the photo album and shot him a comforting look. "I haven’t gotten in trouble for awhile. Have faith in me." He looked at my uneasily and before he walked away he said quickly, "Oh, by the way... Cobra called. He knows your home." He glanced up at me with quick and disturbed eyes and then hurried along down the hallway and then stairs with those big baby elephant steps.

 

 

 

"You’re either going to help me, or your not. No matter which way you choose, you need to know that this is strictly business. Don’t invite me to parties. Don’t call me to cruise." I was dead serious for the first time in talking to Cobra. We sat in the Wendy’s parking lot, him leaning against his s****y little Beamer and me sitting on the hood of Sly’s new BMW that I was borrowing for the week I was here. Cobra smiled at my cooly, his eyes hidden behind large seashell shaped aviators. He was nothing like when I had left. His head was buzzed, very different from the long, blonde surfer hair that looked almost like a helmet. He was as pale as soapy water and if it was even possible, he was skinnier than before. I started to become less worried about any physical neglect towards me because I could just as easily snap him into tiny pieces. Cobra didn’t need to have strength, though. He’s always just needed to have power over people. He was manipulative and liar. At one point he used his model-like looks and boyish charm to get anything he wanted. Even me.

 

"You don’t cruise anymore?" he said with a wide smile.

 

"No." His smile didn’t fade. He didn’t believe me. He reached into his mile deep pockets and searched around, his tongue poking out of his fat lips. His alien fingers pulled out a little prepaid phone. I was taken aback and my face must have showed it because his smile faded. "Yeah, things have kind of been different since you left, Penn. You can’t come back and expect things to be the same." I was silent, because I hadn’t expected that at all. One thing I DIDN’T expect though was for Cobra to be poor. I wondered what had happened, but I didn’t ask. He flipped open the phone and scrolled with his thumb through contacts. "So... what you are saying is that you need to me to publish a book for you that you didn’t even write yet? And you want me to do this for free?"

 

"Oh no, I have money if you need money. But I want it being spent on honorable things." His head yanked up and he, with two solid steps, came so close to my face that I could smell aftershave and marijuana. I could see through his aviator glasses and his pupils were as large and dark as night. He pursed his lips at me. "You don’t f*****g know what has happened since you’ve left. You don’t know anything about me." He got so much closer that I almost worried that he was going to kiss me so leaned back further on my hood. His hands made a fist and he punched at the medal aside my leg.

 

He started walking towards his beamer with an angry bounce and I called after him. "Cobra, I don’t care what has happened since I left. You still owe me."

 

He stopped before he got in his car, his eyes never meeting mine again. "Start writing." I nodded my head and was relieved by a gust of wind through my hair. He stood there a few seconds. I tried to comprehend the man that stood before me. One of the best friends I had ever had, the worst lover I had ever had, and the one who started my self destruction. He wasn’t at all as epically monsterous as I had begun to imagine him in my mind. He was just a coward.

 

He slammed the door and screeched away around the parking lot, circling once just so he could drop his sunglasses and look straight into my eyes with the icy blue irises I used to trust. I drove home, pulled up the steep driveway and yanked the notepad out of my purse. My college essay would have to wait because more and more as the days went by in this place I felt my soul get lost in the dusty fields and shadowy mountains all over again. Every second I could feel the pressure on my shoulders. Thierry had come to me in my deepest sleep and told me to tell his story. Trouble is, I had spent the years since his death doing my best to forget it.

 

I flipped the cover of the pad and pressed my pen against the page. I would use pen so that it was permanent. I couldn’t erase it and I couldn’t hide from it. The ink flowed and so did the memories of my brother- the good, the bad, and the nightmare of it all.

 

Reviews

[Kirsten Ashenbrenner]

Well done. I like it.

You have a voice, a knack for storytelling.
Keep at it :)

~Kirsten~

[speakingcolors]

Pretty awesome. The way you write, it makes me feel what the speaker feels, not just know it. I love the characters almost as much as I love their names. Great job. As always with anything people write, there is some grammatical stuff and places where it could flow a bit better, but that's not why I read stuff on here. Can't wait for the next chapter.

[Emmie M]

That was really good. I like that part where she thought that he was trying to kiss her =D

[He@ther!]

Wow I love it!!:) Excellent characters and the atmosphere is awesome:)

[thecoolone52]

ehy that was really good.......... i flew through it............. it only took me like 20 mins to read.............................................. i liked the characters and your mom hahaha and all the other ones you threw in there......... anyway super duper write cant wait for the next one