Falling (beginning of Chapter 1)
When I said I wanted to travel the world? When I complained about how much I wanted to move from our dump in the corner of the city?
I didn’t mean to a flat of dust in the middle of nowhere. I look up to the white house that has windows half covered by dangling, crooked shutters and I know I definitely didn’t mean this place.
It’s a slim, two story house painted to match every other one on the block. Meaning the three surrounding houses; all run down with the same wilting despair.
I pay the for the taxi and shake my head to get my long hair out of my face. I want to cut it, but I know that Papá would have a heart attack.
I watch the car drive away and feel stupid. You’re not in a movie, I think to myself. I snap up the handle on my suitcase and drag it up the driveway.
I stop to text my best friend from home. Hey Dawn. Made it.
I keep walking and pray that Esper didn’t do anything horrid, like paint my room purple. I hurry to the door. Up close the paint is even more worn. Mold peeks through the cracks in the siding, slipping onto the old fashioned porch.
The whole thing feels fake, like a homey movie that’s taking place in the 1950s. I imagine a woman in a faded red apron, knitting, always patient until her husband comes home. A man driving in front of the fading sun. The thought reminds me of my own mother and I swallow tears that try to take this moment away from me.
I’ve spent too much time letting sadness control my life. Telling me what I can and cannot do. I am determined to start fresh.
No one answers my yell, so I fish out the key they mailed to me from the pocket of my hoodie. After a soft click, I’m in. Stark, blank walls, and shiny, fake wood floors stare back at me.
“¿Hola? Anyone here?” I hear a bass banging from upstairs, so I haul my many bags up the narrow path.
“Esper?”
Bang! “What do you want?” What a wonderful homecoming, I sigh.
“IT’S Elizabeth,” I yell.
“What?”
“Your sister, pendeja!”
“What?”
“Turn. It. Off!” After a moment, the scream of smashing drums and hard punk comes to a complete silence. The door opens with a pop.
“What do you want?” Esper asks.
“Excuse me? You haven’t seen me for, what, nine weeks, and this is the hello I get?” Sometimes time doesn’t mean much, but I’d have thought that at least blood did.
“Fine,” she starts sarcastically, “Hello sister o’ mine-”
I give up. I knew a welcome party was too much to ask for.
I sweat as I haul my stuff up the narrow stairs.
“Where’s my room,” I demand.
“You’re in here.” And without further ado, she slams the door in my face. This door is to my room too, I think. I kick it in frustration as the music comes on again. Ow! I grab my throbbing foot and fall over my bag. I try to get up again, but I only fall back down, this time my butt landing on something hard in the black duffel.
I kick open the door and drag myself and my stuff into my new room, one bag at a time; the whole time glaring at Esperanza’s back. When I finally throw my last bag into the room I fall against the bed and close my eyes.
I don’t even know what my room looks like because I was too busy trying to hate Esperanza’s cute halter top. Five minutes in, and I’m already tired and mad at her. I have to admit I’m too scared to look around. If I never do, I can easily keep up this perfect image in my mind. A room all to my own. The only sound: silence, within its pale blue walls. I could cover it in sticky notes, anchoring myself with words. While I’m in fantasy land, I can almost see my sister: the perfect twin everyone else sees. Like in the books, when the twins can read each other’s minds and switch places.
What if it’s awful? I sneak a peek through one open eye. The first thing I notice is the completely white walls. There is one queen sized bed in the corner, it's pink comforter thrown half onto the floor. No way! I’ve been begging for a bigger bed for ages! I stand and go sit on it, bouncing on the new mattress. My bubble of happiness bursts when I realize it’s the only bed in the room. I stop bouncing and stomp over to Esper, scowling at her while I smack the back of her head.
“What do you want now?” The calm impatience is completely different from the hot rage I’m used to dealing with.
“Where’s my bed?”
“What do you mean where’s the bed? It’s right there-”
“What I mean is where is my bed!”
“Didn’t Papá tell you? We have to share.” So, my darling father doesn’t think it’s bad enough that we have to share a room, now we have to share a bed?
“What happened to my bed?”
“The bunk bed broke, so Papá gave Vio your bed, and fixed up the bottom bunk for Manu.”
“How do you break a bunk bed! Why couldn’t he have just gone ahead and fixed the whole thing?”
“Vio was jumping on the top bed and he fell through. The springs and all were completely ruined,” Esper explains, her voice monotone. How is she not more affected by this?
Giving up on my anger I continue my journey around the room, trailing my fingers along the trim. My old desk sits, waiting to be used, against the wall next to the door. The only thing separating our two desks is the door.
The familiar wood of the table scratches at my fingertips when I rub the edge. My dad always wants to buy me a new desk, but I won’t let him. Hera and I hold many memories and she always gives me inspiration. I tried to explain this to Papá, but he couldn’t stop laughing at the fact that I named my desk.
She has regal characteristics. It's a thin top standing on sturdy legs and she gives me lots of splinters, so the name fit. Hera is a Greek goddess who seems to be good for being jealous. She is also known for turning her husband’s affairs into vengeful spiders and cows.
Next, I open, what I’m guessing is, our closet door. Instead, I am surprised to see a huge bathroom. Esper has covered half of it, floor to counter to ceiling, in shampoos, makeup, lotions, and who knows what else. I make a mental note to make her clean it up later.
Directly out of the bathroom, waits yet another set of doors. Behind them, I find half a closet. Esper has cramped her sparkly wardrobe into half of the space, much of it spilling onto my half. Shouldn’t your twin be the perfect roommate? She is supposed to know everything about me. Then again, that might be why she kept it such a disaster: she knows I hate messy rooms.
Even after shoving the doors shut, there is still more to the room. Pushing away unpacked boxes, I find a fireplace. A fireplace in my room! Very fast the messy closet and the cold wood floors all seem forgettable. I have an honest to goodness fireplace in my bedroom! This fact gives me the energy to unpack my boxes.
I start by piling all my bags and boxes with clothes in or around the closet; I’ll fix it later. Then I begin to unpack my books onto my bookshelf and onto my desk. I spend an hour setting up my desk just right. I have a spot for pencils and red pens, and another for black pens and highlighters. I have shelves for my papers and everything is labeled to the smallest detail.
I stand up and try to see the room from a new angle. While standing back to admire my progress of unpacking, the monster in my stomach awakens. I decide to explore the downstairs and more specifically: the refrigerator. This time with the hope to avoid previous disasters. When I get into the hall, I take a step back and bend down to tie my sneakers.
Wham! I feel the pain slam into me before I even register what happened. I gently prod my face and scream in pain.
“¡Hay Dios! ¡Que paso, Elizabeth!” my sister says.
I look up at her and wince as blood runs into my mouth. “I hate you…” I realize that when she opened the door it had been what hit me in the face. I rush into the bathroom and hold the towel against my face. After tossing the now ruined towel in the trash, I rinse the blood off and try to gauge the damage in the mirror.
“I think your nose is broken,” she says matter-of-factly. As she stands back and raises an eyebrow at my situation, I hold back an eye roll that will hurt too much to be worth it.
I can already tell that the pink of the initial impact is going to fade to a dull blue bruise, slowly spreading to my eye. I cringe at the idea of my first day of school being with a black eye. I look like I got into a fist fight. I can hear the rumors already: the new girl that just got out of a juvenile detention center.
“Why the did you have to open the door so hard!”
“It gets stuck sometimes, so I have to ram into it to open the door. Why were you kneeling right there anyway?” she adds, suspicious.
“I was tying my shoe!” We both huff and she storms out of the bathroom by the door to our room. I finish cleaning up and lean down to empty the trash can. When I get back up I drop the bloody mess in a heap on the floor. I scream.
Esper runs in, exasperated, “What is it now?” she yells. The enormous rat barks and takes a charge at me. “Oh, you met Bunny.”
“That thing is a bunny?” I yell. She picks it up and pets it soothingly, whispering into it’s little ear.
“No! It’s a dog, idiot,” she mutters. I demand to know what it is doing in this house and she explains that it is Luna’s pet. The rat dog barks.
“Well, it sure matches her personality,” I say. My little sister was supposed to idol me. When she came back from the hospital, a little pink bundle, all I saw was hope. I imagined her looking up to me and being a darling little princess. Something to balance out the evil of getting stuck with Esper as a twin. Turns out, she’s a little brat. Too smart for her own good. I think she wants to like me, but feels she has to choose me or Esper. One or the other because she can’t imagine having both of us. And the way of getting in with Esper seemed to be by being rude
I go downstairs and take a peek at everything. Down the stairs to the right is what I’m guessing is Luna, Manu, and Vio’s room, next to a tight bathroom. Then there is a tired door that leads to a basement. Across the hall is a small living room, opening into a large kitchen and dining room. When I look out the window, I see a slim porch and big yard with plush grass.
“Pretty isn’t it?” I spin around and see Esper leaning against the door frame. We look at each other for a moment and I feel like I’m six years old again; skipping to the playground with my twin sister.
Then she returns to character and stomps back to her room with a diet coke in her hand. I grab a glass of water and start making an egg sandwich for lunch. I turn on the stove and put the oil in a frying pan for my scrambled egg. Once I get the egg going I find some frozen bacon in the freezer.
Anything can be microwaved, right?
Esper always does the breakfast; I’m more of a rice-for-dinner kind of cook. I love cooking even though I was never a natural talent at the skill. Cooking for eight people doesn’t leave a lot of room for gourmet. I enjoy making dinner though, the chore everyone else bargains away. Dessert is another specialty, my favorite part about baking is icing cakes. It’s an art that requires a light touch. Not that I’m any good at it.
Google says to put you can put the bacon in the microwave for four to six minutes. I am careful when I place two strips of bacon, wrapped in paper towels, on a plate like it said. Then I time it for the least amount of time, just to be safe.
I zone out before I sniff the air and realize that it smells kind of funny… Beeeeeeep.
Uh oh! I squeeze my eyes shut as I push the microwave’s button to open it. Completely burnt.
Shit. Everything. The paper towels and the plate are all blackened. There are even specks of it on the walls of the microwave. How does this even happen? Wait… where’s the bacon?
After picking apart what’s left, I find absolutely no bacon. I shove the ruined plate, along with the remains of what has to be the bacon, into the trash. Then I kick the trash can for good measure.
The neighbor’s dog keeps barking and I lean out of the back door to yell at it to shut up. I am surprised used by something running through the door, claws scampering over my bare feet. I scream until I realize it's just the dog.
“Get out!” I yell. “You were the one making all that racket?” I ask it. I thought the neighbor had some big Great Dane or something. My fear of dogs is the only thing that ever kept Luna from getting the puppy she always wanted. I guess Papá finally gave in. I think back to his grand announcement that we were moving.
Sizzle! POP! The oil spatters in the frying pan I had heated up for the eggs. I hurry to turn off the burner. Ouch! A hot speck hit the underside of my arm. I pick up the pan, now going crazy, and drop it in the sink. When I pour water on it steams up like a fire.
I clean up the mess, shooing the dog back outside with a broom, and decide to just go with a plain old bowl of cereal.
I eat it on my saucer chair while pondering what to do next. It’s only noon after all.
***
Falling by Whitney Flores
fiction, YA (15-18)
excerpt: 2,564/ 50,528
Falling is a novel of love and despair. Pain and putting pieces back together. Bizzie and Yael are the love story you've been searching for. You will end up rallying for them through all their challenges.
Synopsis: Bizzie starts her story by receiving the news that her family of seven will be moving, except her brother who is off at college getting secretly engaged.
After shaking off the past and getting settled in her new home, Bizzie starts at her new school and starts to meet some interesting characters. People like Taya, who is all big personality and hair and the color pink. And people like Yael who are as far from that as you can get in her “everything sucks” worldview.
But, there is something different about Yael and Bizzie sees that. She sees it even through all the anger and grief and drinking.
All is going well, when everyone except Bizzie decides to throw a birthday party for Bizzie and her twin sister, Esper. Only one problem: Bizzie’s mom died on her birthday years ago and no one in the family has celebrated it since. That night an accident occurs. Or not so much an accident as it clearly two people’s fault. Yael is attacked and Bizzie tries to come to her rescue which only results in both getting beaten up. Bizzie ends up in the hospital with Yael falling asleep in the visitor’s chair next to her.
She pulls through, but the road to recovery is rough. Bizzie is stuck in a wheelchair like her little sister with no voice, dependent on writing and communicating using American Sign Language. Don’t worry, Bizzie gets a happy ending with everyone coming together for her brother’s wedding. The end. Except Yael’s pregnant from the night of the attack.
I am a 15-year-old genderfluid teen from the middle of nowhere Virginia. I am a homeschooled sophomore in high school, taking classes at my local community college. This is my first novel, but I have others that I am currently working on. I also write poetry and have a blog: asmackofeverything.weebly.com. I write mostly fiction from a female point of view. I try to write about diversity and the troubles found in the wake of it. I find that perspective from my Panamanian side and my queer angle. I also write characters of different races and mental capabilities. When I'm not reading or writing I am playing music and practicing for my black belt.
Normal Is the Setting On the Dryer
In the books
the girl always has
this perfect life
and then it all falls apart and then she meets a boy and he puts it back together.
That’s not my story.
My life it kind of a wreck.
And I like it that way.
I party too much
and treat people like shit.
I drink
and I talk back to my parents.
I ignore my brother even though I love him.
I push people away-
even though my happiness depends on them.
Forget just my life being a mess, I’m the disaster.
And I’m okay with that. I like my life the way it is.
So,
why did everything have to change?
He died
And so did I.
Inside I mean.
The outside part will
hopefully
come later.
That’s the plan.
If he had to die,
why shouldn’t I?
I couldn’t live life without him.
Without him to stop me from drinking too much-
I don’t listen to anybody else.
Without him to stop me from chasing
after the wrong boys-
they were his friends first, he knows them better.
Without him to comment on every little thing…
I’d just miss that.
Hypothetically
Even if I lived.
If I was sad,
what kind of life am I even living?
But if I was happy,
could that mean I was forgetting him?
Oh god,
what if I forgot him?
I remember
The night he died.
Well, sort of.
I was high above the clouds
the night I got the news.
I remember the party.
The smell
of sweat and weed.
The rush of bodies.
against me.
The feeling
I was on top of the world.
And then I fell.
Hard.
Down.
Down.
Down.
Until I hit the ground with a splat.
“Your brother was murdered.”
Just like that.
My parents told it to me cold.
No,
sit down, honey
or
drink some tea, honey.
No,
“Your brother was murdered.”
It repeats.
Echoing in my mind until
it’s all I can think.
Except I can’t quite grasp it.
It’s sand slipping through my fingers.
I can see the words when I close my eyes.
But I can’t understand.
You can’t understand
something
if it isn’t real.
And at that moment it wasn’t.
Not until later.
Later
I woke up with a pounding headache.
The words from my dream
still throbbing in my mind.
“Your brother was murdered.”
I giggle at the thought.
It was all a dream.
I go into his room.
But he isn’t there.
And he isn’t in the kitchen
eating his stupid sugar cereal and still keeping his lean figure
And he isn’t watching TV
slouching and shouting nonsensical obscenities at sports.
And he isn’t in any of the places I look.
I ask my mom where he is.
And she screams at me.
“Shut up! Just shut up!”
I shut up.
And I don’t talk for the next 72 hours.
I cry, silently.
I scream, silently.
I write my suicide note, silently.
I take the pills, silently.
I wake up
Cold.
Scratchy.
Bright.
Is this hell?
Yes, but you’re not dead
It’s the kind of hell where they watch
you sleep.
It’s the kind of hell where they force feed
your friends.
It’s the kind of hell where they tell you
to get better.
And maybe you don’t want to.
Maybe this personal spiral
you’ve created for yourself
is just where you want to be.
Maybe this is where you deserve to be.
Because you ignored your brother.
Because you called him names.
And slept with his friends.
And didn’t stay with him that night.
You didn’t stay with him that night.
You didn’t stay
with him that night
because
you’d rather be at that party
you’d rather be drinking
you’d rather be smoking
you’d rather be doing anything to break free of the sadness
even if it was only for a little while.
A netted drain
that catches all the bad
like knots of hair.
But lets the good thoughts
slip through like running
Water.
That’s my mind.
My ugly, twisty place I call
Home.
“You’re not normal!”
And so it finally comes out.
Standing in our living room
facing in standoff.
She looks stricken with horror to finally have said it aloud,
she doesn’t know
that I’ve known
that she’s been thinking it
this the entire time.
She thought it when she found my limp body.
She thought it when she saw me in the hospital.
She thought it when she drove me home.
“Normal
is the
setting on the dryer,” I say,
“None of us are normal.”
Wasting Time
Is it a waste of time to sit,
staring out the window- wishing-
taking in what you can't quite have?
Is it a waste of time to clean,
to put effort into something that
will only be undone?
Is it a waste of time to love,
knowing it will only ending
in a blink of an eye. So fast you can't
quite catch it, so slow you can only replay it
over and over.
Is it a waste of time to live,
for you can only die?