Capítulo 16: Someone's Tiny Person Goes Berserk
When a book fails, it doesn't necessarily mean that the story behind it sucked. Usually, complaints about a series are the result of too many annoying characters. Most readers don't want to read about a person they hate.
You're still here. Obviously, I haven't been irritating enough. I decided to devote a few sentences in which I attempt to put myself in some other people's point of view. Perhaps the perspective of other annoying characters will make you stop reading. I'll give you a short vacation from my tiny person.
Julia: Ben is such an idiot. I have a lot of money and won't tell him my secrets. He needs to get a life just like me. Maybe he can buy himself a life from my closet. I am free from him today. I'm so happy I don't know what to do with myself.
Austin: I can't believe that the sun was so shiny today. When I opened my eyes, I was sure things were going to be too terrible to pretend they were good. Then the yellow light of the sun met my face and reddened it worse into acne-nation. I knew everything was going to be okay.
Stuart: I'm pretty sure Ben is a devil trying to make me choke on my smoothie each morning. His curly hair reaches out to snatch my throat whenever he passes me, and his eyes are like windows into the fiery depths of hell. I would know. I see that place whenever I close my eyes.
Kim: Tiny people are loud.
Willie:
Dr. White: Everyone has a light that needs to glow into the darkness and continue to widen. Yet, as the light shines brighter, the unknown's depth grows bigger than imaginable. Did I mention I'm brainy and smart and stuff?
Kyle: Your shoe's untied. Ha. Made you look.
Mom and Dad; Everybody who has ever known me or will know me or may meet me in the future: BEN IS A LIVING NIGHTMARE.
There. Your vacation is over. I pray this has been enough evidence to make you stop reading.
Wow, you are stubborn.
✎✎✎
I woke up to a shove on my arm. It was like that irritating sibling back at home who keeps poking you as you try to read this and find enjoyment somewhere. (You won't.) Even though the action doesn't cause pain on the monitor, it makes you want to throw yourself off a cliff. All of this annoyance seems to make it more fun for the poker.
I turned over. Kyle's face spread into a wide, infuriating grin.
"Geez, Ben, I forgot you're such a sound sleeper. For a minute there I could've sworn you were dead."
"What?"
I glanced at my clock. It was a Saturday, and I was conscious at the hour of nine o'clock AM.
Kyle had on his grey t-shirt and shredded jeans. His dark eyes were full of movement. Thump. Thump. Thump thump thump. I glanced at the ground to find his foot tapping at a rapid pace. Wait…
Was he seriously waiting for me to get up?
"Go away." I buried my face in my pillow. "Wake me up tomorrow."
Excuses. I needed a good excuse, but it was a Saturday. I don't talk to people on Saturdays. I use Saturdays to create secret YouTube accounts and leave hate comments. I give thumbs downs to dancing cat videos. I reread YA fiction. I don't leave the house, especially not with the ticking temper bomb that is Kyle Wood.
The bed tilted. "Oh, come on, Ben. I'm only here for the weekend. I figured we could, you know, go around town and…reminisce and stuff."
Remi-what?
I tugged my blanket over my head. "Sounds cheery."
It was supposed to be sarcastic. I'm pretty sure we've spoken about this topic before. Sarcasm is something you either get or you don't. I understand the concept fine, but people don't understand how to keep their "jokes" from sounding like harsh judgment.
Think about it. You're talking to your friends (or tolerated acquaintances). All of a sudden, one says, "Wow, you're an ugly fish."
Do they mean to insult you in order to say that this friendship/frenemy thing isn't working out? Do they really mean the opposite in order to be funny? Either way, the use of sarcasm always ends with a pillow to the face.
Speaking of which, Kyle threw a pillow in my face.
"Get. Out. Of. Bed. Or I'll drag. You out myself. I'm. Just. Trying to spend. Some time with you. You. Lazy. Cow."
People have really taken to comparing me to farm animals lately.
"Kyle!" I shielded myself with my blanket. I pointed to the pile of books on my desk. "I can't leave. I have homework."
He hit harder. "You never do your homework!"
"Says who?"
"You! Every freaking day I lived here. Did they wipe your memory clean in the therapy torture chamber?"
"What?"
"Why did you get arrested!?"
My heart turned to lead and sunk towards my feet. I held my blanket shield. "I don't have to tell you anything."
Kyle ceased fire. "We can do this the easy way or the hard way. The choice is yours."
"The no way," I said. "You can't play good cop-bad cop with me."
Kyle dropped the pillow. "I think you're mistaken."
"How?"
"There is no good cop."
Cold hands wrapped around my ankles, and I was on the floor. I turned around. Kyle was sprawled out on my bed, getting his stupid scent all over it.
I'm not kidding. He looked like a cat.
And I hate cats.
I have a feeling you know which direction this conversation is heading. I could put in a chapter break here. But I don't want to. Before he had a chance to throw a triumphant comment, I shoved myself off the ground and tackled him.
He was too quick for me.
How does he sense people's motions that fast? When did he get that strong? How did we flip off the bed anyway? It was all a blur.
Here's what I know: as quickly as I'd been choking him with a pillow, Kyle had me in a headlock. He tightened his arm around my neck. Dark hair flipped out of my face. I saw nothing but a victorious smirk.
"So, here's what's gonna happen," Kyle said. "You're going to stop being a butt, and we're going to go have some fun."
Yes, I replaced the word he used with something else. Sue me.
I attempted to cross my arms. "How about no?"
"You gonna tell me what happened at the gas station?"
"Why do you care?"
He unwrapped his arm, shoved me aside, and sauntered towards my dresser. "Have it your way then."
My brother. That's all I have to say.
He revealed a water bottle from behind his back and unscrewed it. Moments later, I was on the Titanic. My head was drenched. He smiled. My mouth fell open when he shook the bottle around and splashed it on me again.
"Kyle!"
I tackled him and we rolled across the ground. We shouted choice words. The pile of books on my desk collapsed and earthquaked all over the place. The scraps of the letter spread like confetti. Long story short, I ended up getting dressed and doing exactly what he wanted. Because Kyle runs an imaginary, yet effective, dictatorship.
"Where are we going anyway?"
"Dunno." Kyle pranced ahead of me. "Guess wherever the wind takes us."
I shook my head. My brother was going totally cliché on me, and you for that matter. Didn't he realize his part of the minor antagonist in my nonlinear story?
Sorry, I meant non-life, not whatever it says above.
Stupid autocorrect.
We peeked into Mom and Dad's bedroom. Empty. They must've yelled "ABANDON SHIP" when they heard Kyle's plan in full force from my bedroom. Smart move. How will Kyle respond to the threat?
Checkmate.
"So." Kyle shoved on his jacket. "Are you going to tell me about what happened with the cops or am I going to have to beat it out of you?" I stared at him when he chuckled. "My favorite conspiracy theory so far is that you kidnapped the governor to rig the elections for Peterson. I knew you wouldn't care enough to ever do that. But they still managed to turn this into a campaign slogan."
Kyle held out his phone. Peterson the Saint helps rehabilitate a troubled youth.
I hated my temptation to grin. Was Peterson funding the therapy sessions? Since when does paying for an upper-class psycho's meds equal charity? Maybe this was all bogus. Dad needed to cover up Peterson's "orphans with cancer are a waste of time" statement. I was the last resort to make the devil likable.
Kyle shrugged and dragged me towards his roofless car. I'm pretty sure he mumbled something about my similarity to livestock when his cellphone rang. The call that saved and destroyed me all at once took full force.
He turned the key and yawned. "Yellow?"
I leaned against the side of the frozen car, confident that his girlfriend had called back. Maybe he would run without the "hit" part of the game.
Nope.
A chipperish voice squeaked across the line. "Whoa, whoa, who is this? Julia who?" I tensed. "How did you get my number? Yeah, okay. Sure. You wanna…yeah fine. Yes, he's here."
He turned to me with his phone outstretched, shaking it around as if that increased my temptation to talk into it. "Some girl…Julia something…wants to talk to you."
I arched my eyebrow.
Kyle swiped the phone and tapped it. "Julia?" he said, "You're on speaker. Ben's here with me."
"Ben?"
I jumped at Julia's voice. "Yeah?"
"Where are you?"
"My driveway."
"Well, are you doing anything important?"
Yes, Tiny Person said. I'm cherishing the last moments before the slaughter. Life doesn't stay good long. It would end, he would leave, and everyone would fight.
"Nope," Kyle answered for me
I glared daggers through my brother's heart. He laughed without sound.
"OK," Julia said, "You need to pick me up. Then we need to go to Kim's house. Now."
Kyle snorted, "Why, going to a make-out party?"
I could feel Julia's face hardening from across the line. My features started to sag. I'm pretty sure I looked like a whimpering puppy compared to the fierce warrior princess that is Julia White.
She sighed, "Look, it's Kim. She's having some sort of…episode. I don't know, but her family called me and said that she's locked herself in her bedroom and she keeps screaming and throwing things and…She asked for us, Ben. She asked for us both."
Right. I didn't even know Kim's last name.
"Where's your dad?" I asked.
"He's at a meeting two hours away come on Ben!"
I don't think Julia's breathing pattern is healthy.
Before I could say a word, before I could even begin to protest, Kyle swerved out of the driveway.
"We'll be right there," he said.
Then he hung up.
✎✎✎
"Thank you." Julia slipped into the backseat. "Do you know where you're going?"
"I've got it handled, Sweetheart," Kyle said.
I glanced at the back-view mirror to find something I never thought possible.
Julia looked…human. Raccoon eyes, spaghetti hair…a stained t-shirt and sweats. It was blowing my mind. Face, hair, clothes. Are those the only things that made her look like some spoiled-bratty-angel-demon-thing?
"Answer me one thing, Princess," Kyle grumbled. "Don't you have your own car?"
"It's getting fixed."
Her face was like a pancake in its batter form.
I managed to speak because I thought I was supposed to. "Has Kim ever done this before?"
"Not in a long time."
She swiped her fingers to pick at each nail. They were down to the nub. Her eyes flew up to the mirror.
I darted my head for the window.
The car pulled to a stop faster than it should have. A hand snagged my own and I found myself moving in the direction that Julia desired.
"Wait here," she ordered my brother.
He looked at me, but said nothing. I held eye-contact until a door blocked my vision. My tiny person clung to the shred of hope that he wouldn't move. Kyle would leave fate to fate and give up on the devious tricks swirling around his brain. This time he'd…
A scream pierced the air.
There are many different types of shouts. People have sniffling cries that are combined with tears and running noses. Someone might shout a "war-cry" and enter battle. In the most severe cases, screams are a way to fight off pain.
In Kim's scream, I heard chaos. Instead of one tiny person, there were two. One held a shotgun towards the other. The second tiny person wished to outvoice the first. There were gunshots, but no hits. Only painful conflict. I'd never been witness to such sounds in all my non-life. I could think of only one term to capture the essence of the moment.
Kim was a wounded stagerina.
(As in, deer and ballerina? Kyle is hilarious.)
I took in the house. Mismatched items were strewn across the walls and floors. The dark atmosphere made me want to go curl up in a hole and die. I could've sworn I've read about a room like this in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein.
"Julia!" a woman exclaimed.
I didn't study Kim's mom. It's a typical family, Jewish like Kim, but without all the bleach hair-dye. They all have their like-things and differences like any other. I did, however, notice an absurd number of younger children. Kim's siblings. I felt like I was trapped in a singing-dancing orphan movie.
A dark man stood beside her. "Thank you for coming. Kim is in her bedroom."
The parents stepped out of our way. It reminded me of the scene in a hospital prior to a death or a miracle. The victim's family steps out when the surgeon arrives, entrusting a life to medical hands. I shook my head. This wasn't a medic. This was fierce warrior princess Julia White, the same girl who decided to yell at a suicidal kid in front of a fake historical artifact. It was also me. The kid who didn't know Kim's last name.
But to each his own.
"Kim?" Julia stepped past three hallway doors and rasped her knuckles on the darkest one. She pinched her lip between her teeth. "It's Julia…"
I whipped my head around when the front door creaked open. Austin thumped inside. He was followed by a dazed Willie, whose jet-black hair was disheveled, his cellphone clenched in his hand.
Did everyone here run their lives based on how this girl was feeling?
I needed to be an exception. I would not care for three important reasons: this was Grand Canyon deep, I am selfish, and Kyle was waiting outside to slaughter everybody. Guess it's true what they say. Friends can bring out the best of each other. Or the worst.
My attention turned back to Julia. Her voice was soft. "Kim…"
Kim's screams petrified my head, like a fork jabbing through my ear as someone twisted it. They evolved into sobs, sniffling quiet. My ears throbbed in aftershocks. Quiet is worse. Quiet means she had time to think. Thinking is bad. The tiny people had stopped shooting at each other, awaiting the opportunity for a sneak attack. Julia wouldn't be able to handle this. This was worse than me at the fountain. This was…
"Kim…" Julia's palm rested on the wood. "We're here. We're all here."
Wait, that was mature.
No. Julia didn't know how to react properly. She was screwed in the head. She'd proved that at the fountain.
Yet here she was. Calm as a female Gandhi.
Austin stepped beside her. "Well, except Stuart. He's at some rehab center for wackjobs…" Julia gave him what I can only describe as "the look." A rock of a swallow pushed down his throat. "I mean…come on Kim. We're all here, just let us inside."
I confused my anger for caring about the situation. I grabbed the door handle and yanked it against its hinge.
Locks are stubborn.
An object rammed against the wall and snatched us with dead silence. Julia whispered into the door, her voice at a steady beat. Nothing sounded.
As most humans and a few aliens know, with nothing, there's always something.
Willie pushed ahead when the door handle clicked on the other end. He turned the knob.
We slipped inside to find Kim with her fists gripping the post of her bed. I swallowed. Her unnaturally blonde bun was lopped to the side. Black lines drew out of her eyes. The tiny people had tortured her, inside and out. But the extent of their damage proved past the obvious. It was her scratched, scarlet neck laced with fingerprints that gave me horror movie flashbacks.
The way it looked…scarred, almost interrogated. They weren't recent.
That's when I remembered that Kim always wore a turtleneck to therapy.
I didn't ask her about it. Maybe I should've. Maybe I was supposed to join everyone on the emotional charade, ask her about her story, and listen to what she had to say. But I'm me. I tucked the thought away and stuffed it in my pocket. I lost a penny there once. Maybe I would lose the question and compassion crap too.
"Kim!" Julia wrapped her friend in a hug.
What is a hug anyway? Is it what we do in our culture because we don't put kisses on each other's cheeks? Maybe we started hugging because we were inspired by the special snakes that squeeze their prey to death. If you think about it, hugs are just like anything else. They can have different purposes depending on the situation.
It's just a matter of figuring out which is meant for what.
Where were we?
Oh, yeah.
I followed Austin, who found a spot on the floor and leaned against Kim's bed. Willie joined Julia on Kim's other side.
Without a second glance, Kim turned her tearful face into Willie's shoulder. A boulder nudged my shoulder. Austin bounced his eyebrows around his forehead and looked over at our friends on the bed.
I shrugged. He slapped his forehead.
"Shhh." Julia tucked a loose hair into Kim's bun.
Kim shrugged her away. I felt an adrenaline pump gouge over my veins like a five-year-old running on Mountain Dew. Blowing off Julia? Let me just say: mistake. Bad decision. She was going to freak. She doesn't understand it when people want to be left alone. She's going to jump off the bed and…
Julia stood to close the door. Her eyes snuck contact with mine as she leaned against a mini dresser and watched the sunlight poke through the window.
Everything I know about the universe is wrong.
Kim sobbed. "…just wouldn't…stop. Kept saying that…that…"
Austin's flat voice made me jump. "It's okay."
"Yeah." Julia inched closer.
I stared at the floor. Schizophrenia is an interesting condition. Much like autism, it's unique to each individual. Some people may hear voices or see hallucinations. Each person responds to the stress differently.
Get out of my head, Dr. White. I'm starting to sound like a psychologist.
We were silent for a long time. Tiny Person wanted to grapple Julia's behavior above everyone else's. Instead, I focused on the details of the carpet.
I don't remember them.
As I tried to ready an excuse to sneak out, a voice spoke that I didn't recognize. I thought I was going nuts, but Austin tensed beside me.
Willie's lips brushed Kim's hair. "We're here now."
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