Belman,
I don't know why you're making Charlie date Billy-- you know they are not gay.
You made the choice here, okay? You can't be both genders when-
What part of 'gay and proud' is too complicated for you to
Look, I know I'm being a jerk, but there's just no way to face the fact that you look like a
We can't be friends when you're spending all your time combing your mustache
It just makes it worse when I think about it too much, so stop using my mascara
Yeah, I miss you, too. A lot. It changes everything. Sorry.
--Jacob
While I was pondering this, I caught the unmistakable scent of con
I ran my fingers across my moustache, feeling the mascara that he had lent me. It was so hard to imagine having to go buy my own. I could picture him writing this —scrawling the angry letters in his girly handwriting, slashing through line after line when the words came out sounding too-gay, maybe even snapping the pen in his manicured hand; that would explain the ink splatters. I could imagine the frustration pulling his plucked eyebrows together and crumpling his forehead. If I'd been there, I might have laughed. Just get a gender change, Jacob. I would have told him. Just do it before Billy can find out.
Vomiting was the last thing I felt like doing now as I reread the words I'd already memorized, but his answer to my pleading note —passed from Charlie to Billy to him, just like second grade, as he'd pointed out —made me projectile vomit all over Charlie’s basket of fresh peaches. He had just picked them from the tree he grew in the basement. I always thought it was a marijuana garden he had been tending to in the early hours of the morning, but those peaches were DAMN good!
What was surprising was how much each peach wounded me —as if the delicate hairs on the skin of the peaches had cutting edges.
gealing spaghetti noodles and a jar of sauce in the microwave rising from the kitchen. (I have a very keen sense of smell…) Charlie has a very unusual way of cooking. He likes to make sure everything is mushy, and he adds the wrong spices to all the wrong meals. For instance, he ruined my life on my 5th birthday when he added cayenne pepper to my birthday cake. Oh, woe is me.
I shoved the wrinkled paper into my back pocket and ran, making it downstairs just in time to snatch the sauce Charlie’d put in the microwave before it exploded and killed everyone within a 4 mile radius. I am quite the lifesaver if I do say so myself…
"What did I do wrong?" Charlie demanded.
"You're not supposed to cause any more nuclear explosions, Dad. And it’s bad for microwaves." I swiftly removed the lid as I spoke, poured half the sauce into a cotton rag, and then hung the rag outside in the window to heat up in the sun.
Charlie watched my adjustments with pursed lips. I noticed he had taken the extra time to put on a layer of gloss over the several coats of mauve lipstick he had already slathered on. "Did I get the noodles right?” he asked.
I looked in the pan on the stove —the source of the smell that had alerted me. "Stirring helps, moron… " I said bitterly. I found an axe and tried to de-clump the mushy hunk that was scalded to the bottom. It was no use. It could be used as a cement substitute.
Charlie sighed.
"So what's all this about?" I asked him.
He folded his arms across his chest and pressed the back of his legs to the windows. He bent backwards to stare cross-eyed into the sheeting rain. "I am sure I have no idea about the topic of conversation that you are spouting in my face," he grumbled.
I was mystified. Charlie cooking? And what was with the proper language? Edward wasn't here yet; usually my dad reserved this kind of strangeness for my boyfriend's benefit, doing his best to illustrate the theme of "unwelcome" with every grammatically incorrect word and awkward posture. Charlie's efforts were unnecessary —Edward could clearly tell that he was partially insane just by looking at his crooked mustache.
The word “gossypribomagraphoglnia” had me chewing on the inside of my nose with a spoon while I stirred. It was not the right word, not at all. I needed something more accurate to describe the situation I was in. . . . But words like “omnivore” and “unattractive” sounded moronic when you used them in multilingual conversation.
Edward had another obscene word in mind, and that word was the source of the tension I felt. It put my teeth on edge of my other set of teeth just to think about it.
Pants. Ugh. I shuddered away from the thought of having to wear proper clothing.
"Did I miss something? Since when do you make dinner?" I asked Charlie. The pasta lump let out a strange gurgling sound, sunk to the bottom, and burnt as I poked it. "Or make UFO’s, I should say."
Charlie bobbed his head like a mental chicken. "There's no law that says you have the authority to tell me when not to create biohazardous materials!”
"You would know," I replied, grinning as I eyed the badge pinned to his leather jacket. I noticed he had a new badge too; it was orange and said “Least fun to work with award”. I was so proud.
"Ha. Good one." He struggled to remove the jacket as if my glance had reminded him he was still confined to the leathery demon, and hung it on the peg reserved for his gear. His gun belt was already slung in place —he hadn't had the fiery urge to wear that to the station for a few weeks. There had been no more disturbing disappearances to trouble the small town of
I stabbed the noodles in silence, guessing that Charlie would get around to talking about whatever was bothering him in his own time. My dad was not a man of many words, in fact, he hardly knew how to speak. But his stranger-than-normal behavior told me that he actually was going to try speaking tonight.
I glanced at the clock routinely —something I did every few minutes around this time. Less than a half hour to go until the pudding in the fridge was solid enough to eat.
Afternoons were the hardest part of my day. Ever since my father (and water nymph), Charlie Swan, had informed me about the peaches he’d been growing on the sly —a plan he had devised in order to get me poisoned so that I couldn't graduate on time with my boyfriend (and vampire), Edward Cullen —Edward had been allowed to see me only from nine-twenty-nine till nine-thirty p.m., always inside the confines of my home and under the supervision of my dad's unfailingly crabby glare.
This was an escalation from the previous, slightly less stringent grounding that I'd earned for an unexplained three-day disappearance and one episode of cliff diving.
Of course, I still saw Edward at school, only because Charlie was too lazy to do anything about that. And then, Edward spent almost every night in my room, too, but Charlie wasn't precisely aware of that, actually, if he was aware of that, he would probably hang me and Edward, then he would get scared when Edward would still be alive after 3 hours of hanging. Edward’s ability to make insanely good pumpkin pie.
Though the 1 minute in the afternoon was the only time I spent with Edward, it was enough to make me happy. Still, I endured my punishment without complaining because —for one thing —I knew the only other option would be the poisonous peaches, and —for another —because I couldn't bear to hurt my dad by moving out now, when a much more permanent separation hovered, invisible to Charlie, so close on my horizon.
My dad sat down on the table with a loud grunt and unfolded the collapsible lamp he won at the carnival; within seconds he was clucking like a chicken.
"I don't know why you got that lamp dad, it never stays inflated.”
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