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Always On Her Toes: Chapter Two

Gouge Out My Eyes Why Don't You?

By Bridget MeierPublished 7 years ago 13 min read
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Chapter Two: Gouge Out My Eyes Why Don’t You?

I told DJ of the news and she gasped. Tears filled her eyes. So she left to be with him. Bryce, I mean. Who else? I mean, it’s his sister. Ok, that was stupid. Uh, why do I talk so choppy? That’s not the point. Anyways, I was almost jealous, that’s how upset she was. So I was alone in my studio. I looked around me, at the mirror me’s in the walls. I saw a girl in way over her head. I didn’t see me, the dancer. So I walked to the stereo, taking my jacket off along the way. I needed to decide, instrumental or lyrical? I chose lyrical, for a challenge. I chose "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor. I stood with my legs crossed, bent to the side, arm over my head. On the first note, I rose. Spreading my arms wide, I twirled. When I rose from the twirl I leaped into the air in a spiral. I allowed myself to crumple into a ball. I let myself lay all the way flat on my back; I made my torso rise first. I pretended to walk out the door in a moonwalk fashion. I danced for hours. By the time I was finished it was late, like 1 am. I walked down the street to my apartment. I walked up the stairs, my body tired. So I barely made it into my living room. I collapsed into my easy chair. I felt sleep coming on, but I wanted to know if Sierra was ok. I practically crawled to my kitchen. I got a Monster Energy drink out of my fridge. These were usually for the days that I had late interviews or Bryce when he stayed with me. So there was no harm in taking one to run to the hospital. I popped the top on it and sat with my back against the fridge door. I gingerly sipped the substance. The liquid burned my throat as it travelled into my stomach. I felt it spread from my core, almost like when you’re cold and you drink hot cocoa. I felt it spread into my arms, my legs. Warmth. With the Monster it was energy. I got up ten minutes later when I finished it.

“Well, you should’ve come,” DJ said slamming the door as I got up.

“I was just finishing a monster up. Then driving.”

“Well, it’s too late. “

“Is Bryce here?”

“No, and he doesn’t want to be. I don’t want him to be. “

“What happened, Deej?” I made my voice soft and grabbed her arm.

“He needed you, Karli! That’s what happened, that’s all that always happens.” She sighed, sounding defeated.

“Hey, I know I’m being ridiculous by being rude to him. But you know what they say: Truth hurts. Just give me some time to work through it.” She shook her head. She walked down the hallway and shut her door.

I didn’t know that I wouldn’t see her for a few weeks.

“I just don’t understand—Bryce I know I’m not her, ok? But I'm the only one besides Had that cares.” She must be on the phone. With the extra energy I had, I drove to school to get a good parking spot and to sleep. I know DJ didn’t want me there tonight.

I got there and the school was empty, clearly, given it was 2 am. My Camaro had a wide back seat, it was wide and at least taller than me. So I was able to sleep comfortably. I even had a pillow and blanket. Why? I refuse to sleep in hotels after that summer I was eleven. Sure, we’ll go on road trips me, Bryce, Hadley, and Deej. They’d all get hotel rooms; I’d sleep in my car. DJ says I’m weird but she thinks I’m a germaphobe. Bryce has been the one to sleep in here with me. I stared at the ceiling, thinking of that summer. It was my stepdad’s (Mitch) idea. He took me, my mom, and my little brother out to a Sleep Inn. He insisted I’d be with him and Jonah with mom, the screw-up.

I pushed the thought out of my head and replaced it with Jonah’s sixteenth. No, not a good time either. He threw his cake at the car Mitch was involved in buying. Jessica hasn’t spoken to me, at all. Said that I didn’t know how she felt about it, that I didn’t know what she went through since our brother caught him. She’s older than me at least three years. Jonah is just now turning eighteen in a month. My little brother is getting soo big! Besides that, he really never does look at me the same. So since I didn’t want to think about Jonah’s sixteenth, I thought about the first night Bryce stayed at the apartment.

It was a wet night. That was why he stayed. Flash flood warnings in the city, I think.

“Bryce, you’re not leaving. No matter what.”

“Ok, Karpet. I won’t. But what are the sleeping arrangements?” He was professional that way.

“Wherever you want, my beds open. I mean, like we’re going to do anything.” He nodded, contemplating this. He smiled. Once again, he must’ve had a better idea than me.

“What do you think about parking in the park?” He won, he always won. So we packed some snacks, got in his Tiara, they don’t make them much anymore, those vans. We packed blankets and movies and pillows. We also packed a few personal items. Me with my book light, book, and bear pillow pet. Him with his easel, charcoal, and oil paints. Then, of course, our phones and chargers. Pretty much anything you would need to survive a night camping.

Notice anything? Not my razor? I never cut when I’ve had a good day with Bryce. So like I remember, he had me laughing. Then he said something to me that began us.

“Can I paint you, Karpet?”

“Sure, how do you want me to pose?”

“Just, well do something natural, like read.” So I did, and it was a suspense novel. Dare Me by Megan Abbott. It’s based around a cheer squad and love triangles and there’s a death too. The ending is so weird though. I am not going to tell you because you might want to go and read it. So I was biting my lip mid page flip, and that’s what he painted. And it hangs in my room.

“I like it,” I said after he was finished with it. He simply nodded. The rest of that night all he did was stare. At me, I mean. That was when I knew the barrier between us had broken. The best friends/boyfriend ‘n’ girlfriend barrier. At first it had upset me. I mean, I didn’t want to lose Bryce as a friend, but we became an item anyway. It was a quiet thing, his affection being thrown onto the table. But it was quiet because we knew each other so well. That night was also the night I had first told Bryce about my constant staring at his lips. Also, that one little move where you look at the person’s lips, and then their eyes, and back down, licking your lips; that means you want to kiss them. I told him I thought he never got my body language.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I don’t remember falling asleep. I do, however, remember waking up. I awoke with tears in my eyes and a kink in my neck. It was only four, so the school wasn’t open. I decided to go to see Sierra, since I was right down the street from the hospital. I walk there, in full out pj’s.

“Sierra Mathodix, please.” The receptionist typed something into the computer.

“Room 358. Fourth floor.”

“Thank you.” And I was off. I got into an elevator and pressed ‘4’. I was standing against the wall. I sighed. The elevator stopped along the way to get a person on three. This person had the slightest Mexican features and light brown hair that wasn’t dyed. She had brown eyes. A close doppelganger to Sierra. Seeing her punched a hole through my heart. I finally made it to four. I stepped out of the elevator, thinking of the face I saw. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to see Sierra after all.

I stumbled through the hallway looking for room 358. Finally, I discovered some sort of pattern: odds on left, evens on right. So my eyes never left right. I also soon realized that I was walking in the same weird shape. I was seeing these numbers: 336 338 342 344 346 352 354. In that order. So I backtracked like seven times then saw some accidentally closed double doors. I pushed those open. Rooms 356 and 358 were stationed there. Well, that explains things, I thought. I reached the door and knocked. Nothing.

“Sierra….?” I said pushing the door open.

“Karli?” Bryce’s voice. Pushing the door all the way open, I saw him.

“Hey B. How is she?”

“Tired, ok, but tired.” He smiled a crooked smile. It was his signature move.

“That’s good.” I took a seat in the chair beside him.

“So, Karpet, what are you doing here?”

“Seeing Sierra, obviously.” I stated.

“She’s fine, I told you that. So why haven’t you left yet?”

“Because, uh…ermf. Uh. I-“

“Because secretly you want to see me too.” He said, all-knowing. I stared at him as he took a drink of whatever he was drinking.

“You’ve always done that, knew things before I did, I mean. And unsurprisingly, you’re right. But I just don’t know how to deal with things. Bad things that come from you,” I looked down to the left, "because those events hurt the most.” He nodded.

“You said you used the strike system. What was my first strike?”

“I’ll tell you that if you tell me when you first started liking me, what year I mean. And why.”

“How about March 2011? The rest I’ll tell you when you tell me the second strike. That’s for you to decide, when to tell me I mean.”

“Do you remember that day last April? When we were tubing down the Mississippi river with DJ, Hadley, Sierra, and Marci? When Marci wanted to go home and when everybody had offered a ride except you, and when you did offer she accepted. The entire time I was in the car with you all you two did was flirt.” I reddened with the little embarrassment.

“Huh, that’s funny.” He chuckled lightly, causing a flood of memories to pour out on my face.

We sat in silence for a long time. It was nice. The silence I mean. He looked at me quite often. I remembered the Bryce that was before me. This Bryce was different. He was partially defeated, a sense of weakness about him.

“Bryce, will you tell me why you changed?” This got his eyes away from my pajamas, which were covered in ducks.

“Changed?”

“You don’t seem-What’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Strong? Hardcore? Boxer-esque?” His tone got me. He sounded bitter. And angry.

“Yes. All of the above, actually. It’s like you don’t even have your tattoos.” He was covered in them. His left arm was a sleeve, full of horror movie details. Quotes, the killers, scenes, and the backdrop was a black and white checkerboard. At the start of the sleeve was Michael’s face. Except that it wasn’t all the way the mask. Half of it was his child face and the other was the mask. The tattooist did a wonderful job on the face of the child. His eyes were a slightly bewildered, deep blue. His eyebrows were straight, showing no emotion which in the end speaks loudest. The cheeks are slightly reddened. This is an effect of him going outside after killing his sister. Below that, is the first quote. "Tonight He comes home," is the quote. It’s on the first Halloween movies cover. Then after the quote, is another image. It’s a scene from Halloween, when you see Annie dead on the bed that played her grave. She’s sprawled out, as if crucified. She’s also face down. Her black hair was done beautifully. It fell in all the right places. The following image, is a Friday the 13th image. When he branches out and is behind the sheet, right before he gets his mask. I’m sure it's the third movie. The quote follows suit, "Do you know the terror of he who falls asleep? To the very toes he’s terrified. Because the ground gives way under him, and the dream begins…." That is said by Friedrich Nietzsche. To explain the quote, Freddy Krueger’s face pops up right below it. He’s holding up his knived hand, flipping off whomever, one of his signature moves. Below that is an image of Chucky when Tiffany is human. He’s on the bed, looking up at her. She’s doing her little stripper dance crap, and ending the sleeve is the quote. Hi I’m Chucky, I’ll be your friend til the end! If you don’t know that line, you suck. He moved it, I’d noticed, towards my hand. It didn’t faze me. On his right shoulder was a quote from a book: “Go home? You’re my home.” The book character who said it was both of our favorites, Travis Maddox. And his name (Travis Maddox’s) was signed, after a hyphen. The book it was from is called Beautiful Disaster and its counterpart Walking Disaster. Both books were by Jamie McGuire. On his wrist, because he was such a Potterhead, was a triangle with a line from the upper vertex to the middle of the base and inside the triangle with the line was a circle.

Then the tattoo on his back. It reminded me of too many times in the past. The tattoo on his back had "Never forget, we’re for always" in the tattooist’s fine script, across the main image. The main image was a cherry blossom tree, with cherry blossom flowers coming off of the branch. At the trunk, were the words. The tattoo covered his back, so the trunk would be just at the end of his tee shirt. He got that tattoo for me. I had one for him. Mine was as passionate and consisted of two feathers, vertical to one another, with words between them. The words were "Tell them stories" in his script, from a note, that he wrote one day to me, about us. I hadn’t noticed he was holding my hand until then.

“Uh, B, why’re you holding my hand?” I said, to save face.

“Because my hand misses your hand, and Hanz the hand wanted a hug.” I almost smiled; he was always goofy like that. I used to find it adorable. Currently, I find it as another factor in why I’ll be late for school.

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About the Creator

Bridget Meier

I am an activist. For rights and choices. For the silent. My medium is poetry, but I do have short stories and to-be-continued's. I have a whole book. I'm looking for it to be published soon. I'm a jack of all trades.

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