NaNoWriMo
I majored screwed up on my dates earlier in the story so you'll see farther on that I just add placeholders. I'm gonna go back and fix it after I've finished writing the whole piece. For now just the dates matter anyway.
February 10th, 87 total days till graduation, 70 days left of school
Dad has decided that I can’t be trusted and so he’s going to make sure the windows stay shut. I watch on my desk as he uses four heavy duty screws in both windows. He bolts them and then turns and glares at me muttering about how he just brought down the property value. Never mind that in the case of an emergency I won’t be able to escape. All he’s worried about is that the next buyer won’t like screw holes in their windows.
He also decides to move Tess into my room. It takes him two hours to break down and then rebuild her bed right beside me. She spends the entire time grumbling about being big enough to have her own room. I guess Mom used her countless nightmares as the excuse since she didn’t actually see what happened.
When it’s her bed time I’m told that I also need to head to bed. I decide not to argue. I’m in enough trouble as it is. We head up to the bedroom and I kiss Tess’ forehead as I tuck her into bed.
An hour later I’m lying in bed, not yet tired because I usually stay up quite a few hours later than Tess, when Tess sits straight up and starts to scream. I rush to her side to try to wake her up. “Tess,” I hiss shaking her shoulders, “Tess!”
Suddenly she stops screaming and goes limp in my arms.
“Tess?” I whisper wondering what just happened. I know Mom’s said she had nightmares but I’ve never actually heard her scream in the middle of the night. I always just assumed that Tess went and climbed into my parents bed after the nightmares. “Tess,” I whisper again.
“Mel?” she opens her eyes groggily. “What are you doing?”
“You were just screaming honey. Are you okay? Did you have a bad dream?”
Tess stretches her arms and shoulders in a big yawn. “Yeah, but I don’t really remember it. It was just bad. Scary.” She pushes herself back onto the mattress and closes her eyes. I sit there for a moment on the edge of the bed just watching her. Suddenly her eyes flutter back open. “Mel, can I sleep with you?”
“I’m right here in the bed next to you.”
“No, I mean, with you. Next to you.” She tries to pull herself out of bed but is so tired that she nearly falls over in the process.
I laugh quietly to myself as I help her over to my bed. She curls up into the fetal position as soon as she hits the sheets, her toes curling around the bed frame. I curl up beside her and feel her warmth against me.
“Hey, Mel, can I ask you a question,” she mumbles. Her body feels much more alert as she says this.
“Sure, Tess, what is it?”
“Why do you love Tyler?”
That’s an easy one. “He understands me in a way no one else does.”
“Not even me?” she sounds hurt but how could I expect her to understand? She’s only eleven.
I laugh softly and hug her close as my reply.
“Hey, Mel?”
“Yeah?”
“Why do you love Tyler even when he hits you?”
She knows? But how? I decide not to lie to her. I do enough lying and if my eleven year old baby sister knows then everyone else must too. “Because when you love someone you have to forgive them when they sometimes do bad things,” I respond after a long, empty pause.
“Even if they hurt you?”
“Forgiveness isn’t meant to be easy. But if you love someone enough then you forgive them, even for hurting you.”
“When I start dating, I’m never going to let a man hurt me.”
“I don’t think that’s a choice really. Unless you plan to break up every time you get hurt. But then you’ll never get married or have kids or anything. And I thought you wanted that.”
Tess is quiet for a minute. “But Daddy doesn’t hurt Mommy.”
“I didn’t mean, hit hurt. I meant just hurt hurt. You think Dad’s never done something that’s hurt Mom’s feelings or made her cry?”
“But they’re happy!” Tess protests a little too loudly.
I shush her before continuing. “Sure they are. But they weren’t always. Every couple goes through bad periods. Tyler and I are just going through a rough period right now.”
“So you think he’ll stop hitting you someday?”
“Yes I do,” I respond completely honestly.
“I hope so,” Tess says snuggling in closer to my chest. “I don’t like seeing you hurt and I especially don’t like to see you cry.”
With any luck Tess will find a man who treats her right from the day they meet until the day she dies. I pray for just that as I drift off to sleep.
February 14th, -0- total days till graduation, -0- days left of school
Mrs. Lavene had announced on Friday that my group had asked to use the class period to perform our experiment, and if there were no objections we would be doing just that. So in class today Bethany pulls out the two blood pressure cuffs and a stethoscope and Christopher supplies his stop watch and a pack of construction paper for our experiment. It only takes two people to actually perform the experiment and we only have two sets of equipment so someone’s going to have to sit out.
Alex volunteers to do just that, which I knew the bitch would. Just because we didn’t use her dumbass idea she thinks she doesn’t have to participate at all. I end up being one of the people changing the colored pieces of construction paper on cue from the person actually taking the measurements. It’s a boring job but then this whole experiment isn’t very exciting.
Actually, it turns out this experiment isn’t working. Trying to take someone’s blood pressure multiple times is damn near impossible because you have to keep blowing up the cuff and then releasing the pressure slowly. Repeat the cycle eight times for all the different colors we’re using and we had a lot of complaining kids trying to rub the life back into their arms. Looks like we’re going to have to think up something new next week.
After class I take off running to go find Tyler. I’ve decided to skip cheer practice (basketball season really isn’t that important anyway) because we’re planning on spending the rest of the day together on a very romantic date. When he sees me he scoops me up in his good arm. He went and had the stitches removed from his face and hands only yesterday but other than his broken arm he looks as good as new.
“Ready, baby?” he asks as I buckle my seat belt.
I’m so excited I can only grin in reply. I’m not sure what he has up his sleeve but I’m sure it’s something good. I’m surprised he didn’t wait till Valentine’s day to propose honestly, but I’m sort of glad that it was on our anniversary and not some Hallmark romance day. It was so much more meaningful that way.
As soon as we get out of the parking lot he grabs my hand and warns me to hold on tight. He starts doing about 20 over the speed limit racing in between traffic and stopping only when there’s a back up at a red light. Every single red light he leans over and kisses me, full and deep until I start squealing that the light is green again. Then he pulls away from me laughing and peels off again.
“Tyler,” I gasp as he pulls away from a kiss. “Where are we going?”
“You’ll see!” he shouts. “I don’t want to ruin the surprise.”
“Tyler, please,” I beg.
He smiles at me, “baby, patience. We’ll get there soon enough.”
A little less than ten minutes later we pull up building made of dark brick. I have absolutely no idea where we are and there are no signs on the building to give me any serious clues. I look at Tyler quizzically but he just shrugs his shoulders and smiles deviously. We both climb out of the car and walk into the building.
Inside the atmosphere is smoky but I can tell from the smell that this is due to a fog machine not due to cigarette smoke. Tyler ushers me to a table in front of a stage with a crimson red curtain drawn tightly together. A waitress comes to the table and gives us menus. I glance at the items. We’re in a coffee bar, that much I can make out for sure but I’m still not sure why we’re here.
I order a hazelnut latte and sit staring at Tyler, waiting for an explanation. But instead of squirming under my gaze he just ignores it. Instead he spends too much time admiring and pointing out obvious parts of our surroundings like the curtains, the carpet and the stools we’re sitting on.
I finish my second coffee before I realize why he brought me here. Not only is this a coffee house but tonight is a Valentine’s poetry reading. While I don’t read much poetry on my own I think that poetry in general is very romantic. People start climbing on stage reading poetry to their one and only true love and everyone in the audience snaps as at the end they walk into the audience and kiss their love.
Some people read about lost love and I feel awful for them. I think I must have forgotten what it’s like to be single on Valentine’s Day. It’s miserable and lonelier than being single any other day of the year, except for maybe Christmas. I’m busy pitying one of the people that just read when I glance up and realize that Tyler’s left the table. He didn’t tell me he was leaving. I look around frantically for him and then notice him on stage! What the hell is he doing up there.
I jump up from the table and am about to race up there and pull him down when he pulls a piece of paper and says into the mic, “I’m not really a poet but I’ve been working on this one for a while. Melissa, I love you.” Then he unfolds the paper and reads his poem.
It’s like he was in the bedroom when I talked to Tess the other time. The entire poem is about hurting someone you love and being so, so sorry for doing it. He talks about hard times and how better times are coming and that we just need to trust in each other.
It’s not a very poetic poem per say. It’s doesn’t rhyme and it’s not metered but it gets the point across. As he steps off the stage and everyone else is snapping I run up to him and kiss him. It feels like we stand there forever but it can’t be more than a few seconds before he pulls away and breathes across me cheek, “I love you, Melissa.”
“I love you too.” I’m crying and I know that my mascara will run and so I shouldn’t cry but I can’t help it. He’s never actually admitted to doing anything wrong. And he was up on that stage telling this room full of people that he was going to change because he loved me so much.
He wraps his arm around my waist and we walk back to our table together. Once back at the table I dig through my purse looking for a mirror so I can touch up my makeup. When I look up Tyler’s sitting in front of me with a really stupid look on his face. Then he hands me a package wrapped in red and silver wrapping paper. “Open it!” he encourages me.
I carefully take off the tape at one end and shake the box out onto the table. It’s a black velvet rectangular box. I open it and gasp at what is sitting on the puff of cotton inside. The label beneath he linked bracelet says that it’s 24 karat gold. There’s one single charm, a golden heart with the word love inlayed with tiny diamonds. “It’s beautiful,” I gasp.
“Do you like it?” he asks eagerly. “I found it while shopping for your engagement ring. Look, I already put my picture inside of the locket.” He takes the bracelet from me and expertly opens the charm. The picture is small but it’s him all right.
I throw my arms around his neck even though the table separates us. “Tyler, I love it! It’s so beautiful!”
He pulls himself from my grasp and then goes about fitting the bracelet onto my wrist. I jangle my wrist around a bit and admire how the diamonds catch the light.
“Baby, I really do want to change. You believe me don’t you?”
“Of course, and I know you will. We love each other. You’ll learn to control your temper and I’ll learn to behave better and we’ll be together forever,” I say with a smile so big the edges might not be on my face anymore.
Tyler leans over the table and kisses me. “I’m glad you understand baby. Now, we have to leave her in a bit so that we can make it to our next stop.”
I look at him questioningly but he just ignores it. “We can leave whenever,” I tell him instead.
So he calls the waitress over and asks for the check. Turns out four coffees ends up being close to $15. He mumbles about the price but ends up paying it and leaving a three dollar tip for our waitress.
Tyler starts up his Suburban and I’m shaking form the cold. He stays still a moment to get the heater running before he starts driving, much less recklessly this time, to our next destination. It turns out to be a new Italian restaurant that opened just outside of town about a month ago. I’ve wanted to try it out ever since it opened.
Once inside we decide to Lady and the Tramp it up for the night and order just one plate of spaghetti. Never was there a more romantic scene where both characters get their noses dirty, in my opinion. The waiter seems to read my mind and asks if he should bring forks to the table or not. I laugh pretty hard at this but Tyler doesn’t seem amused. In fact, he seems downright pissed about it for some reason
Then he gets a call from one of his buddies and excuses himself to take it. I don’t really mind. He normally turns the phone off on our dates so the occasional time he forgets I try not to get angry. When Tyler comes back to the table a few minutes later his face is literally red.
“Baby, what’s wrong?” I ask but he just shakes his head at me.
He digs through his wallet, pulls out a twenty and throws it on the table. “Let’s go,” he commands.
“But I’m not even finished here. And what about dessert?”
He leans over the table, looks me in the eye with a glare that I can only describe as evil. “I said, let’s go.”
But for whatever reason I don’t take the hint that he means right this second. “But can’t we at least get a box for the rest of the spaghetti?”
“Now!” he spits, banging his fist on the table.
I jump up from the booth and follow him out to the car trying not to make eye contact with anyone. I’m a little bit scared of what’s coming but I’m trying not to be because only just over an hour ago he promised me he’d change.
23,397 words