Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

Yes, this is the next part. None of you guys can really tell if you like it or not until you read more, right? This is where it starts getting more interesting.
And Emma, honey, if you thought the last section made them ******** up, your home life must be PERFECT. Cause wait til you read THIS section. 3nodding

November 14th LATER
Jesus Christ.
I can’t stand this ******** family! My mom wanted us to have a family meal. A family meal! Doesn’t she know that family dinners are like putting fire near a gas leak? Oh, god, of course she doesn’t know. Typical craziness.
My mom went to get the chicken to put on the table, right? She was carrying it into the kitchen, when out of nowhere she dropped it. The moment it hit the ground, she let out this awful scream. Alice came running, and my dad got kind of freaked out for a second. He thought Mom was hurt. He was like, “Christ, are you okay?!” Then he realized it was just the chicken that fell, and the platter had split. My mom was still screaming, still screaming her head off…my dad tried to calm her down by putting his hand on her shoulder, but she smacked it away and screamed even more.
Atticus and Alice were both trying to relax her. They brought mom to a chair and sat her down, but she was sobbing…and god, I don’t even know. I cleaned up the plate. My mom was sitting there, the tears staining her face, wetting her blue shirt. Her hair was all out of place, she’d been running her hands through it frantically. She let out a long, screeching sort of moan sound…it was just…god it was just hard to hear. She was yelling. “I know, I know, I know!! Why are you doing this?” She was yelling it over and over again, beating her hands against the chairs, shaking her head violently.
Right then Edgar, who I hadn’t realized had been pacing back and forth in the kitchen, seemed to snap. He took a few angry steps into the living room and just roared, “SHUT THE ******** UP!!”
My mother’s face went white, and she got quite still. My father, Atticus, stood to face his son. Alice surveyed Edgar passively, her eyes staring out lazily from the dark, bluish makeup clouding them, and I could almost hear the disgust spitting at Edgar from those eyes, as though she judged him for being too weak to hold himself back. It was weird, actually. In that vague moment of paused time, I looked at Alice, with her vividly striking stare, at her indifference but total involvement, and I thought her strangely pretty. It didn’t seem like a weird thing to think at the time, but looking back on it, I wonder where that thought came from in the midst of all that craziness.
But the moment was gone a moment later when my mother recovered from the shock of Edgar’s roar, and she wailed all the louder. Alice no longer tried to calm my mother down, but sighed about herself in a blank state of giving up, like a girl who has just checked the tag on an overpriced shirt. My dad was frowning intensely, an ordinary expression for him, but when I looked at him closer I thought I saw something in his eyes that was quite alarming. I can’t quite name it, but it unnerved me more than even my mother’s sudden breakdown.
My dad shook his head as if clearing his thoughts, though who could, with that ruckus? He finally snapped his head up as Mom let out another fresh scream and glared at Edgar. “What’s your problem?!”
“She’s my ********’ problem!”
“Yeah, well, we’re all having trouble here, so stop being so selfish! Why’ve I got such a selfish son?”
“Oh, yeah, that’s right. Blame me! It’s easier, isn’t it, than blaming yourself?”
“You’ll speak to me with respect, Edgar!”
“You don’t deserve my respect!”
“Now you just shut your mouth right now-!”
“No I won’t shut my ******** mouth! I’d get to be as loud as I want if she wasn’t screaming her ******** head off!”
“You won’t talk to me like that in my own damn house!”
“Oh, ******** you.”
“EXCUSE ME?!” Dad finally lost it completely.
“Shut up, both of you!” Alice, who had been trying to keep all the noise out of her head, gave up the attempt.
My mom screamed.
Edgar roared at my dad, and Dad roared right back at Edgar.
My mother screamed on…
Alice glared at the wall, as if hoping it would burst into flames.
Mom let out a shriek that made me wince.
Finally, my dad yelled, an enormous foghorn type of sound, to no one in particular. “God ******** it!”
We stood silent for a minute. Well, as silent as is possible while Mom still shrieked. Dad finally led Mom upstairs and left her to her room. When he came back down again, Edgar was sitting down, perfectly straight and stiff, staring tensely at the center of the table. One of the things that makes Edgar hard to read is his hooded eyelashes- it’s hard to see what the blue eyes underneath them are saying when they’re so hidden.
Everyone in my family has blue eyes, except for my dad, whose eyes are a simple dark brown. Edgar’s are very light, but not watery, like many people I’ve seen with surprisingly light blue eyes. Alice’s I’ve already described- though when she’s not filtering any strong emotions through them, they’re just a pleasant, middle sort of blue, almost royal. My mother’s are very dark. I don’t know anyone else with eyes that dark that aren’t brown. They’re almost black. When I think back to when I was younger, or back to that day in my mom’s study, they seem lighter than they are now. My eyes aren’t solid at all- they seem to be a sort of layering and design combination of the rest of my family. My grandmother’s eyes are almost purple. Maybe my mom’s eyes will become like her mother’s, when she’s that old. Aren’t people supposed to turn into their mothers when they grow up? Jeez, what a thought.
Anyhow, I’m getting off track.
Edgar was sitting all straight and stiff. Alice was running her tongue over her front teeth, a habit that signals to the rest of us like a blinking red light that she’s stressed out. She was fingering a ring- the ring Eva gave her on their one-month anniversary. I remember because Alice ran into my room, so different than she is now, clutching the ring and positively beaming…
“What’s up with you?” I’d asked.
She’d swayed her hips from side to side in obvious pleasure. “Oh, nothin’!”
I’d paused my paper macheing and watched her. “Seriously, what?”
She’d held back for a moment, then given in and happily thrust her finger towards me. “She got me a ring!”
You must remember, I’d only been about eleven at the time. I’d gone back to my newspaper dog. “You’re so weird.”
She’d rolled her eyes at me, in that childish sort of way she used to have, and flounced happily out of the room. I heard her sing-song-y voice halfway down the hall. “I’m gonna make a saaaandwich!”
Today, however, the way she played with that ring was completely different. It was an empty, lonely, begging sort of way in which she fingered that bit of jewelry. Until I met Alice, I never understood how a little hunk of pretty-looking rock could seem so sad.
Anyways, when my dad came back in, I was leaning against the kitchen doorway, my arms crossed. I suppose I must have worn a bit of a scowl, though I can’t really help it. I tend to frown when I think. Dad looked rather tense, in a tired sort of way. He sat down heavily, told me to go get some sandwich bread. We ate in silence.
I think I should ask Dad if he thinks Mom needs new meds. Can’t they stop working right if you’ve used the same ones for too long? My acne rinse does that- every few months I have to switch the brand. But Dad won’t go talk to Mom’s doctor; he hates doctors. He’s sick of them. When Mom was first diagnosed, it took months to find a medicine that worked. That was at least five years ago; I was maybe eight. Her problem isn’t that bad, and the meds seemed to work, so we’ve been fine. Life went on as usual. Soccer practice, school work, puberty, meeting Marco. Marco’s my best friend, by the way. Anyways, things were fine. But now I’m not so sure they’re going to stay that way…I mean, something’s not right. Mom hasn’t had a lapse like tonight’s in ages.
Anyways, I have to go ‘cause I still haven’t finished my stupid social studies homework (as if knowing which general lead the blah blah blah army in the war of 1812 is going to really affect me later in life).
Signing off,
Ada Keegan


Thank you! Now COMMENT!! Tell me what you think so far of the characters and the happenings....