FicWad

Rain was falling once again in rhythmic patterns down the panes of the glass outside the window, illuminated by light filtering from a lamp outside. I scooted closer to the slightly damp window and traced a pattern in the mist left on the frosted glass.

I hadn't even gotten to the third letter of 'help' when it faded into nothingness again.

I sighed and stood up again, making sure not to step on the floorboards that creaked. I gently lowered myself onto a corner of the bed, then eased slowly and quietly along the edge until I found a place I could climb under the covers. I scrunched down protectively in them until only my eyes were visible and pulled him to me.
The blue fur darkened and lightened in the weak lamplight as I stroked it one way and then the other. His arms were open wide in a hug that seemed to wait an eternity for somebody to fall into them, but in one, glued to his mitten-hand, was a small cookie. His heart.

I blew out the breath I was holding and threw him over the edge of the bed, where he made a soft flump on the ground. Sitting up, I launched myself across the room to where my guitar was, my insomnia making the need so apparent I couldn't waste another second. Sitting back on the edge of the bed, I reached over and flicked on the lamp, then leaned farther to dig a notebook out of the bedside table. Glancing over to make sure the door was locked, I plucked the pen out of the folds of the composition book and flipped to the page that had been marked. I read once over the chords I had written, mixed with a few words scribbled here and there. Picking up where I had left off last time, I dove into the beautiful mess I had created, letting the chords fill me. I found myself singing the words softly to myself, even though I really didn't want to be heard by the outside world. I felt otherworldly when I played, literally lost myself in the music. There are very few things in the world that can cause you to have such a deep reaction to it, to be tied to so spiritually that it just becomes a part of you. Music is mine.

A sudden clap of thunder finally broke the spell and I stopped, feeling the tiredness setting in. I lay my guitar across my legs and looked up to see the rain lashing the window suddenly and fervently. I loved the rain, the way the darkness soothed my wounds and the rain washed away my guilt and worries. The message it carried was simple and understood; it is raining, there is nothing you can do about it. It will eventually be over, but there is no use in fighting it. I closed my eyes.

Simple.

I took a deep breath. Opening my eyes after a moment that seemed like eternity, I moved my guitar to the bed beside me and reached to close the notebook. When I picked it up, the pages flopped open and out fell a note. I hesitated a moment, then bent to pick it up. I wasn't sure at first of what it was, but when I opened and unfolded the crumpled note I instantly regretted it. It wasn't a note, it was a picture.

I wasn't fully aware of the tear that had spilled from my eye until it dropped onto my thigh. Angrily, I brushed it away and smashed the picture up, stuffed it in the notebook, and threw it into the bedside table. I turned off the light without even moving my guitar and flopped onto the bed, ontop of the covers, sprawled helplessly and hoping for an immediate sleep to overtake me, and give me my escape.

Quickly I shot a glance at the bedside clock, daring the time. It was exactly 4:20am, the date I'd been born. Unlike most people, I didn't wish on the 11:11 standards. It was too common. Too used.

I closed my eyes and wished I could die.


_______________________________________________________________________________________________



"Its okay, VIdel. It'll be okay."

He brushed my brown bangs away from my forehead and made me look into his hazel eyes.

"How do you know, Petey?"

"I just do."

The silence that reigned then, after that sentence, hurt like a knife had finally managed to slice into our bond, our friendship.

"I don't wanna go." I said finally. "What if I never see you guys again? We promised we'd be together...till we die."
Petey gave a small laugh and sat closer to me.

"Ehh, don't get all sappy on me." He insisted, blushing hard, something rare. "We'll be here, me and Joey. I promise. Then, when we're finally old enough, we'll all go far away from here and live together, and Joey'll look after you and you'll look after me. Like always."

I let out a sigh and a giggle at the same time and bit my lip.

Like always.

"Peter Lewis Kingston Wentz the Third, godammit, you'd better be."

He smiled at me, that smirk; that winning half-grin, the smile that would one day reign as theee smile, and I found myself getting lost in it; it was so comforting and familiar and full of a unexplainable kind of warmth. Something finally made me start paying attention to what was going on--something that shattered my sense of protection.

I don't know what made him do it, but suddenly he leaned close forward and caught the side of my mouth with his lips. He pulled away at once, blushing furiously a blotchy crimson colour that looked like poorly mixed paint.

"Sorry, I kinda missed."

He didn't know where to look after that. He sat back against the wall too quickly and bit his lip. The moonlight seeping through the window reflected what had to be my spit shining around his mouth.

My heart was pounding a hollow in my chest as I wiped the side of my mouth experimentally and found it dry, though.

"What was that for?" I said finally.

"...The kiss?"

"Sorry excuse for a kiss, by the way." I felt sarcasm fill the cracks that had tried to break my voice, a sorry excuse for understanding.

"Sorry," he repeated Now his flushed face was clearly visible in the near-darkness. "It was my first try, give me a break."

"Twelve and never kissed?"

"I'll be thirteen soon!"

"That just makes it more pathetic."

"Why?" He shot back. "Who've you been kissing?"

"Joey."

His face fell and he looked away. "Oh."

It hurt to see him like that. Maybe because it just wasn't Petey to be on the pathetic end of the stick,

My Petey.

It made me lean forward and hug him.

"Just kidding, Petey. You happen to be my first, too. But Joey's gonna kill you."

He made a high-pitched noise in his throat and shook his head violently.

"He can spare one kiss."

He let me hug him for a second, then let out a huge sigh and got to his feet heavily, dragging me with him.

"I gotta go." He said. "I dunno if Joey and the others know I'm missing from our room yet."

He pulled gently away from me and fumbled in his hoodie pocket. "Wait, um, I got you this."

I watched as he pulled out a furry blue thing and handed it to me. It's arms were already open in a hug for me.

"Remember when I always used to steal your cookie at snack time and you'd bite me to give it back? This is so you'll always remember me--as the Cookie Monster." He said with a shifty smile. "And---and so Walbut Gabs Marquee can finally rest in peace."

"...Okay."


_______________________________________________________________________________________________


I think I should probably clarify at this point, so you know what you're getting yourself into. I'm not that child I once was who saw the world around her but didn't have the words to express herself. I'm now a mature adult.
I have my own story, my own scars, and I have finally found my voice. Sure, I'm not talking in particular to anyone, or you as the reader. Mostly, I explain my world this way in my own head, I've always been one to narrate my current situation. It helps me to think. I'm not the most emotionally and mentally figured out person; if anything, I've turned into an observer of the world around me. Its a survival strategy.
Anyhow, I wanted to talk about the dream I had that night. It was a memory, but then my dreams usually are memories. That or nightmares. But getting back to it, I couldn't believe I had all but forgotten about it. At one time it had been all I could think about. Its all very cliche, innit, your first kiss. But I can't help but look back on it and think one thought that had escaped me until here I was, almost four years later.
And that night had come back to visit me, all the emotions I had felt made sense in that dream, everything so much more vivid then I had remembered it, hit me like a freight train. And I couldn't stop thinking about it.

It was perfect.

And what else, but what usually happens to things that are perfect?

They are destroyed.

At this point I was beginning to hate myself for replaying it, over and over.

So, to distract myself for the time being, I will tell you everything about myself.

And I'm going to tell you in the most cliche, self-depreciating, general way I can think of, so that you can look at me as though I'm some sort of normal. Also, in a way that is completely unlike myself.

My name is Videl, like most boring stories start. I'm your average teenage, angsty, melodramatic mess. A junior at my high school. The tender age of 17. I live in wonderful Chicago, the burbs of it anyway. Glenview, to be exact. I think. I arrived here about a month ago, at the beginning of the summer, and its just what you would expect it to be: shitty and crowded. Just kidding, although there are plenty of people, but I like this city simply because people tend to mind their own business, for the most part. Its my home, and I was never one of those pricks that intentionally and naively make everything that is pretty much not by choice in their life into their entire life. I do love some things pretty adamantly about this city, how its always busy, there is always something going on, and you don't feel as alone as you actually are; it is just distracting enough. The art is another; one sanctuary I call in my life is art. I am lucky to be surrounded by it. You can find me going downtown often by myself, ducking into museums to see my guilty pleasure, or breaking out my guitar in one of the many parks and finding peace in the heart of such business.

Wow that description meandered far from average.

What interrupted my thoughts was the buzzing against my thigh that usually meant I was about to be irritated. I flipped it out with one hand, not pausing in my walk, and checked it.


"Where are you?"
-Addie

Without bothering to reply, I rolled my eyes, a bad habit of mine, and put the phone back in my pocket, hoisting my guitar case further up my shoulder.

It was a hot day, but with my hoodie and guitar case over my shoulder I was glad to find some relief in the shade. The relentless and uncalled for heat waves of the Chicagoan summer were definitely not to my liking; I preferred the cold and somber winter.

For the entire month I'd been here, I'd stopped by the park at least once a day. It was the only place I could be left alone.

Finding my favored bench on the far side of the park, I settled onto it and took a relaxing look around. It was empty.

The park was of small size, but the thing I liked most was that it was usually deserted this time in the evening. It had a small playground with just a set of swings and a row of monkey bars, and that was it. Pretty sad excuse of a park, but for the time being it was solitude. The sun was midset over the rim of the earth and the ridges created by houses reaching stubbornly for the sky; the air seemed frozen in another life, the breeze that had been escapading bravely across it had weakened and dropped.

The world was still.

"Thank god," I muttered aloud and began to unzip my prized possession-- a Fender CD-60, that I had found on Craigslist for incredibly cheap. That was probably the moment I had used up all my luck in life. I heard footsteps. Jerking my head up, I knew the little kids had come to run me off with accusing stares from their taunt-faced mothers.

"God's got nothin' to do with it," it was a man, homeless by the look of it. He was carrying a large sack over his shoulder, wearing a tattered and torn Bears sweatshirt and a beanie with even more holes in it. He stood a fair distance from me so I wasn't alarmed, and its not like homeless people are dangerous for the most part. You leave them be, maybe shake some spare change at them to stop their accusing stares, and they're on their way. This one was no different, muttering about not being able to eat tonight.

I sighed and pulled my hoodie closer around me. "I don't have money," he shook his mug at me, and I saw the WORLD'S BEST DAD printed across it. For a second I considered and fumbled in my pocket finally, shoving a couple dollars I had into it. I don't believe in fate, but just seeing the mug brought me another memory.

This time I was four, and my dad was visiting me. I wondered if I should even call it that, its being generous. He was there to beg my mother for more money to feed his alcohol and gambling addiction. I think my mother had actually gotten it for him, but she told him it was from me. That I had picked it out. Which was true, but then again I couldn't read. But he sure got a kick out of it, telling me what a cute kid I was. If I did know what it read I sure as hell wouldn't have given it to him. But I remembered feeling a little better when I saw him smiling so much over it and patting my head. He took me out for icecream for the first time, and I remembered that it actually turned out to be a good day. After that I never saw him or that mug again.

World's Best Dad muttered a dozen thanks and went on his way, mumbling now about angels and demons being in his city, but not before giving me a toothless excuse for a smile. I sat back down again and leaned back, biting my lip. I was remembering too many detailed things, and it wasn't going to end well at the rate I was going.

But I couldn't help but entertain the thought that wouldn't it all be an epic paradox in the plot if that turned out to actually be my long-last dad, and oh the irony--At this point I reminded myself that overthinking was going to be the death of me, and was busied myself with getting my guitar out. When I had it situated in my lap I strummed experimentally, finding the keys satisfactory and got my notebook out. It was a different one, a new one Addie had given me as a token of friendship. I hadn't wanted to open that nightstand drawer since I had regretted the result. I cleared my throat to warm it up and heard footsteps suddenly. I glanced up.

It was a little boy, alone. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he wandered up to the swings, not seeming to notice me. I watched as he stopped in front of one and attempted to vault himself into the seat, then turned my attention back to playing. I cleared my throat, and I looked up again to make sure the kid was minding his own business but he had vanished. "Good, alone at last," I mused.

"BOO!"

"HOLY FUCK!" I jumped up and whipped around. It was the kid, standing right behind me, snuck up on me he did, little twat. He was pealing in laughter. I eyed the brave little boy and rolled my eyes. "What you doing sneaking up on people, kid? Gave me a damn heart attack,"

"Hi, I'm Hayden, whatcha doing?"

I raised an eyebrow at him, "Being scared shitless by little kids, what's it look like?"

He stopped giggling and stared up at me with his wide hazel eyes, and shook back his hair, apparently not impressed by my profanities. "How come you wanna be alone? Don't you have friends?"

I tilted my head and quirked my eyebrow a little higher "Kid, if you haven't noticed, where's your damn parents at? They let you out alone? You're like 5,"

"--I'm almost 6!" He protested, shaking his black hair out of his eyes again.

"Look kid, go play on the swing or leave me alone. How bout that?" I was starting to get a headache.
I'm arguing with a five-year-old. Why does that not surprise me?

"Push me on the swing," he suddenly demanded.

"What? No, I'm busy." I adjusted my guitar on my hip."Anyway, I can't put this down."

"Pleaassseee?" He begged, and then he pulled out his trick card. Puppy eyes.

I am a sucker if there ever was one for puppy eyes.

I considered. "No."

The kid puffed out his chest and glared at me. "Hey, what are you, some sort of punker?!"

"Huh?"

"God, I hate punkers... Especially bald ones with green make-up who wear... masks over ugly faces." The kid spat.

"Are you--are you quoting Ninja Turtles, kid--" I began in a monotone, completely annoyed at the situation by now.

"Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Heroes in the half shell! Turtle Power!"

I threw my hands in the air at that point. "ALRIGHT! Okay kid!"

Hayden stopped belting out the theme song at the top of his lungs and leaped at me, eyes shining. "Yay!

My response was to groan reluctantly and put my guitar down on the bench.

Running circles around me, he led me to the swingset, and stopped in front of one

Hayden smiled and climbed up, with some difficulty, into the remaining swing. "Push me really good! You look strong," He swung his short little legs back and forth, his face still lit up.
"Push," He instructed, and I sighed and stood behind him, Hayden grinning. I grabbed the chains around his little body and pulled back, backing up with the swing, and gave it a good push. Flying forward, he laughed maniacally and swung his legs. "Turtle power!" He yelled, and suddenly he heaved forward in the seat, waving his arms wildly to maintain his balance, but he began to slide, as if in slow motion, and landed with a resounding smack in the grass.

Holy.

My mouth fell open and I froze. He hadn't moved from where he'd crash-landed.

Shit.

The god-awful noise kids make when they're hurt, even scratched, is more than I can take. It makes me want to start screaming too.

Hayden, however, was silent.

Did he die?

"Hayden? Kid, are you okay?"

I kneeled next to him and shook his shoulder roughly, and when he didn't move, I finally rolled him over.

He looked stupefied.

His eyes were completely blank as he turned them on me. "What happened?"

I knit my brow and resisted the urge to run away. Did he have amnesia or something?

"You fell, kid."

Hayden's face immediately clouded over. "Oh no, I messed up!" He insisted.
He looked like he might cry.

Hurriedly, I sat him up and settled down beside him. "No you didn't. You just....fell. There is a difference."

"Its all my fault," He mumbled, his eyes lost.

"No kid, it isn't. Its not the end of the world. You're gonna fall sometimes, sometimes no one's gonna catch you. You can't be scared, you just have to realize you're not dead, so get back up and keep fuckin' trying."

"You cussed a lot," he whispered, but nodded his head. "My mommy told me not to cuss, but my mommy's dead. I think she hates me, because she's not here," He looked away from me, tears welling in his eyes.

His eyes, unfocused for the moment over my shoulder, suddenly went huge as plates.
"Shredder's here," he whispered.

Utterly confused, I gulped and pushed back his hair to check his eyes. "Oh fuck, you actually did get fucked up," I whipped out my phone and prepared to call 911.

"He just ran away with your guitar."

Instantly I whipped my head around, and my heart dropped. World's Best Dad was SPRINTING away from the park, turning the corner onto another street, with my whole world.

"ARE YOU FUCKING ME!" I bolted to my feet without a second thought, sprinting across the park, following the direction he'd gone. I honestly could have run track, and right now I was racing like my life depended on it.

"Lady!" I heard Hayden call behind me, but I didn't have time to stop. "Stay there! Wait til I come back!"

This was my fucking day. I’m nice to people for once and all it does is get me to dig my own grave. Story of my life.

By now the sun had set and the I was racing into the night, down one street and down an alleyway between two houses in the neighborhood. Before I knew it I had ended up onto a main street, cars flying hurriedly along. Several people were walking along the sidewalk, going about their night, but the bastard was nowhere in sight. I paused to catch my breath for a split second, looking around in several directions down the side streets, but it seemed hopeless. Suddenly I caught sight of his ratty blue jacket running down the street a ways and parting down another alley. I bolted after him, dodging a white sedan that skidded and honked at me. "YOU MOTHERFUCKER!" I bellowed, causing several people to look at me, mostly irritated at my sudden outburst.

"LADY!" I heard behind me, and I twisted around to see that damn kid had followed me! He stood on the sidewalk, his face anxious. I opened my mouth, out of breath, but before I could speak, he darted into the oncoming traffic lane.

"KID!"

It happened before I could even think. One of the best things about having the reflexes I do. All I knew in the next split second was that I had to move, fast.

The kid was frozen in place, his feet rooted to the ground, and the I saw the blank and horrified look in his eyes.

I knew that look.

And then there was pain. A lot of pain.
And then there was nothing.

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Author's Note:
Oh man, please don't hate me. It doesn't end here, that's all I can tell you!
Chapter 3 should be up later tonight.
I LIVE for reviews/ratings, so please shower me with love and I will make this your favorite story!