My Stupid Girl Read online

  My Stupid Girl

  AURORA SMITH

  Copyright © 2013 Aurora Smith

  All rights reserved.

  Front cover by E. Cosby

  Back cover by Erin Perez

  Author photo by Ecubed Photography

  Inspiration from Psalm 63:3

  ISBN: 148198344X

  ISBN-13: 978-1481983440

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to my father who taught me to be a voracious reader despite dyslexia thus giving me the incredible gift of a life-long love for words.

  CONTENTS

  Acknowledgments

  1. Ice And Walls

  2. It’s A Party

  3. Over The River And Through The Woods

  4. Almost

  5. In Over My Head

  6. Sick (As A Dog)

  7. In The Still Of The Night

  8. Rachel

  9. Teams?

  10. Oh No She Didn’t!

  11. Grandma’s Law

  12. Keep Your Feet Up!

  13. Going Steady

  14. The Red Suit

  15. Kidnapped

  16. Brand New Used

  17. It’s Getting Hot, Hot, Hot

  18. Stop, Drop, And Roll

  19. Crashing Down

  20. Isaiah

  21. A New Father

  22. Birth Father

  23. Michelle

  24. Ambulance

  25. Black Hole

  26. Say What, Now?

  27. Birthdays And Amniotic Fluid

  28. Birth Is Rad

  29. Fatherly Advice

  30. Otis Redding

  31. Lucy

  About The Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Three people helped me write this book.

  My editor Rachel: you’re amazing like whoa! We are like two peas in a pod. You get me!

  Evelyn: you’ve read this story about as many times as I have. You’ve always been encouraging as well as brutally honest. Thank you!

  Finally: Tami - my step mother. You are amazing and I’m sorry I left that one part of the book in there that you hate. You believing in me meant everything in the world!

  I love you three ladies!

  The author worked very hard on this book

  and encourages you to give it away

  when you’re finished with it.

  Caring is sharing.

  Do the right thing.

  1. ICE AND WALLS

  Have you ever planned to go somewhere but the whole time you’re there you’re wondering, “what the heck am I doing here?”

  Well, that’s pretty much my life. But today was particularly bad.

  I was at a park near my dad’s house that I’d been to a million times before. There was a beautiful lake, frozen solid at the moment, swarming with sweet, happy families who all wore colorful beanies and scarves. The kids danced around and ate falling snowflakes while the grown-ups smiled at each other over steaming cups of hot chocolate.

  Excuse me while I vomit.

  Me and my friends occupied the only bench near the frozen lake. Some genius in the park's planning department had loaded up the playground area with a ton of benches but left the lake benchless. No problem in the summer, but kind of a big deal during the winter, when the playground was useless under a foot of snow. Geniuses work at the parks department, apparently. Geniuses who only plan around one season. The warm one.

  My group hadn’t gotten too much attention in the morning, with snowflakes and hot chocolate for breakfast. But now we were getting dirty looks from all of the people who had brought lunch for their families. Really? It was 17 degrees out. I know the lake is super-cool, but eat in your car. Don’t make your five-year-old sit on a freezing bench and take off their gloves to eat a crappy tuna fish sandwich so that you can say you had a winter family outing.

  I sat on the edge of the picnic bench, three layers between me and the cold wood. My elbows rested on my knees as I observed my surroundings. I wore my usual long-sleeved black shirt and a thick black hoodie, the hood up, of course. Over that, was a thick black coat I’d scored from a thrift store. I was sure it was an old military coat, but it didn’t really matter. It looked cool and it was insanely warm. It must have been made out of genetically altered super-wool. I wore tight, black skinny jeans and my combat boots that came up to the middle of my calves. They counteracted my stunningly terrible chicken legs, which were extraordinarily un-proportioned to my thick chest and big shoulders. I looked like an upturned triangle; my legs looked like they were going to break in half at any moment under the weight of the ginormous top half of my body. Body-builders kill for this look, apparently. Newsflash: I am not a bodybuilder.

  I have naturally tan skin, so I wore foundation at least three shades lighter than my skin tone to lighten up my face. I had on thick black eyeliner and black mascara, which made my short lashes seem longer, but that’s not really why I wore it. I liked the thickness it added. My lashes were already reasonably thick, but with mascara you could hardly see the muddy green colored eyes that were hiding. I had two lip rings, one in the right corner of my mouth, and the other in the left corner, and an eyebrow ring in my left eyebrow. My hair went down to my shoulders and I had a curtain of thick black bangs that completely covered my right eye. A curtain that was to be avoided by anyone who didn’t want to die a slow and painful death. Oh, and I’m a boy.

  This might seem a little weird. Honestly, I like paying attention to my appearance. For some reason, my brain works better when I can figure out a combination that works. I like the control that makeup gives me. In case you haven’t noticed, I actually care quite a bit about how I look. I’m just not going for bodybuilder-chic.

  I took a deep drag of my cigarette and stared blankly out over the frozen lake as I exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. It was freezing out, but I didn’t believe in snow suits. To keep from shivering, I might have had a pair of long underwear on under my pants, but I would never admit that.

  My best friends Johnny, Isaiah, and Michelle were all with me. Or rather, I was there with them. I didn’t want to come (as usual) but they drug me out (as usual) insisting that we make the frolicking townsfolk feel uncomfortable as a team. It was working.

  We all sat in a circle around the bench, saying nothing, just staring at anyone who dared to look in our direction. Our fellow citizens were not pleased. This was not a shocker for us. People in this small, incredibly boring town didn't like us.

  Johnny was the only one of us who left his hair a natural color; it was spiked and was reddish brown. The three of us made sure Johnny knew how preppy he was every chance we got. His face was spotted with freckles so thick that they went down to his neck and hands. His eyes were a deep blue. Johnny was the chipper one of the bunch; his attitude was fed by that mass of riotous freckles, I think. He didn’t change much about his appearance like the rest of us. He hung out with us more by default, because no other groups in school wanted to have a freckle-faced, eyeliner wearing “freak.“ So he came to hang out with us punks.

  Isaiah was a tall, scrawny, long faced, grump. He had the driest sense of humor on the face of the planet; you could choke and die from lack of humidity in Isaiah’s presence. He was the most in-your-face about his fashion, wearing bright red combat boots, tight blue jeans and a belt with a gigantic, sparkling skull that was, I swear, bigger than Isaiah’s own head. Today he had on a long-sleeved black-and-white striped shirt and a black short-sleeved shirt on over it. The t-shirt looked like it had blood dripping out of a hole where Isaiah’s heart would be. Fitting, considering how heartless his comments usually were. (Ba DUM!) He wore black, fingerless gloves, his finger nails completely black. His dark hair was shorter than mine, but still long, for a boy. The lip
ring in the left corner of his mouth clinked against the tongue ring that he constantly swiped across his teeth. He wore the palest foundation that he could get his hands on, along with eyeliner in a complete circle of faded black that extended down over the soft part under his eye and then circled above it, to right below his eyebrows.

  Isaiah always looked like a really tired vampire. A tired vampire who was in need of a blood fix but might continuously get punched out by whoever it was he tried to woo.

  Michelle, bless her, was like the group mascot. She was way too skinny and wore lots of makeup, even for our band of misfits. She had about six earrings in each ear, chains hanging off many of them. She wore a burgundy-black lipstick. Today she had purple hair, but it would probably be pink tomorrow. Her eyes were a dark brown, almost black. With the dark lips and the heavily-mascaraed black eyes, her face looked like it was actually black with white patches pasted on, serving as skin. She reminded me of one of those mean, black, feral cats that popped out at you and tried to scratch your face off if you met them in a dark alley late at night. I’m not sure what Michelle’s face really looked like under all that makeup, I imagined it was probably not horrible. But she didn’t care to share, so I didn’t care to look. She never bugged me about my “mask,” and I never bugged her about hers. That was one of the nice things about this group.

  There were just the four of us, all lonely and unconcerned with anything other than ourselves. We lived in Kalispell, Montana. Not the best place for four freaks. Other than that, I guess it was okay. It was pretty but it did get really cold. As I mentioned previously. Seventeen degrees. Stupid cold.

  I was concentrating on the smoke coming out of my mouth when I saw a big white van that said "Valley Christian" in happy cursive on the side. The giant vehicle was creeping around the corner at the little access road near the lake, going slowly to avoid a spin out, I guess. Careful Christians. Thrilling.

  I was suddenly totally ready to go.

  Kid after kid came spilling out of the van. It was a freaking clown car. We knew them, kind of. They went to our school and held prayer meetings in the middle of the football field. Most of those prayer meetings probably involved praying for our poor condemned souls. I had never actually talked to any of them before. This suddenly seemed odd to me since they were all for saving the world.

  I guess I wasn't a part of their "world," I was too different.

  A girl I had seen many times, but, of course, never talked to, popped out of the van looking wobbly in her big black snow-suit and heavy black jacket. Most of her face was covered up, but I could still see her smiling. That was the girl who was always smiling. She had big lips, her nose and cheeks were covered with tiny freckles (nothing like Johnny’s blanket of Irish), and she had long eyelashes you could see from a block away. Her face was friendly, open, and very un-intimidating, which was odd because she was so pretty. Usually, insanely pretty girls get this look of ice-queen. It’s a scale, some have it more than less, but it’s always there. But not for this one.

  Her name was Lucy Peterson, but Isaiah always called her “badonkadonk” because she had an amazing butt. I’m not a butt-watching jerk or anything; she was pretty well-known for her derriere. She looked like one of those pin-up girls from 50's cartoons: big chest, tiny waist, a big booty, curvy hips, and those athletic legs that were nothing but solid muscle. She was distracting, really. Her face was young and innocent-looking, and her body was… not.

  She did seem as innocent as her face suggested, though, regardless of the Betty Boop body. The girl was always happy and laughing loudly, drawing attention to herself with her unreasonable joyfulness. I was willing to bet she pooped rainbows and threw up skittles. She was that ridiculous.

  When she finally made it out of the church van, she hovered, helping others get out of the still-spewing clown-van. Lucy looked less concerned with her beauty than the other girls. Most of the others sported perfect hair and matching outfits, while she just had her hair all tucked underneath a bright blue beanie that matched her stunning eyes. Not that I had ever noticed the perfect shade of her crystal blue eyes before…

  The pink and brown scarf around her neck looked thick. I noticed her black snow suit didn't curve around her famous body, unlike the rest of the girls in her group. Instead of a pin-up cartoon, she looked like a black marshmallow with sprinkles on top. Her round face almost looked chubby with all that fluff around it.

  I’d had a few classes with her; she was always the life of the classroom. As I watched her waddle around, chattering with her church group, I realized that she never seemed to get actual work done in any of the classes we’d had together. But she still got passing grades. Helps to be beautiful, I guess. From the flamboyant happiness she was tossing all over, the chick looked like she didn't have a care in the world.

  She was really irritating.

  A big guy, her boyfriend, trailed her. Mark or Mike or something or other, was big and popular. He was a handsome guy, if you go for that tall, dark, and handsome type. He played on the football team and dated the prettiest girl in school. Mike (Mark?) was pretty much the king of the world, or at least the Kalispell High School world, which was the only world that mattered to most of them. I thought Mark (Mike?) was a joke. I'm sure he had great parents who adored him and gave him everything his precious heart desired. Adorable.

  "What are you looking at?" Michelle asked, sneering at the large group that just joined the crowd at the lake’s edge.

  "Nothing, shut up," I said irritably. She muttered something back at me, but ignored my bad mood. Thank goodness for friends who get you. Or, if not “friends who get you” at least “friends who are as weird as you are.”

  I inhaled again from my cigarette and blew the smoke out in little rings. I should start singing like that caterpillar from Alice and Wonderland, maybe then I would disappear without having to get up and slog through the snow. I heard Johnny laughing behind me. Then I felt a pain in my arm as he punched me to get my attention.

  “Dude, it’s that girl.”

  “What girl?” I asked, acting like I hadn’t noticed Lucy.

  “The one I was telling you about, the girl that I tutored for math last week.”

  “Oh,” was my only response. Johnny had gone on and on about this girl who sat so close to him during tutoring that her hair tickled his face the entire time. I thought he had been exaggerating, but now that I saw who he had been talking about, I realized that he was telling the truth. He had probably been completely freaked out the whole time too. Johnny wasn’t the big stud he made himself out to be. But that girl, she was definitely the type to get way too close without realizing how insanely close she actually was.

  "Let’s go." I flicked my cigarette in the snow and stood up. I took one more look at my classmates, the church group that had no clue I even existed. I saw the black, sprinkled marshmallow spinning around in a kind of chaotic way. She obviously had no idea what she was doing. I looked down at her feet and saw brand new skates. She’d probably purchased them yesterday, brand new skates for a one day thing. She acted like she didn't care how silly she looked, like she was perfectly at ease in her own skin. The stupid twirls and the uneven, jerky movements ended up looking like fun, rather than the train wrecks they were.

  I wondered what that kind of self-assurance would feel like. I didn't even know how to comprehend such a feeling.

  She was skating out to the middle of the lake. A few “unconventional” spins morphed into a race back into Mr. Perfect’s arms. What a delectable couple. I could see them now: married, him balding and her 70 pounds overweight. The American dream.

  I turned around, put my earphones in, and turned up my music as we all walked to my car, a beat down little Rabbit convertible. That car was old and dingy, but it was awesome. I loved driving it. It was always like an adventure. Never really knew how it was going to turn out. I was grabbing the keys out of my pocket, when Johnny hit my arm and pointed to the lake. I looked over and saw Lucy sta
nding awkwardly; I knew at once what was happening by the look of terror in her eyes. Something had happened to her footing. Mr. Perfect was standing a few feet away from her waving his hands wildly for her to walk over slowly.

  What an idiot.

  "She needs to sit down, take off her skates and scoot," I said to no one in particular. No one even responded to me; what I was saying was so obvious. Most of her group was all huddled together on the shore, chatting. The ones in skates were off at another part of the frozen pond, doing a kind of dance, the “killing time and not looking like a total fool by pointlessly moving around” kind of dance. The few that had noticed Lucy’s panic were frantically looking around, trying to find a branch, form a chain, get an adult. That was at least more helpful then what Mike (Mark?) was trying to do. But obviously, none of the church group had paid attention in PE class when they went over this very thing. Everyone was trying to talk, to each other, to her, to Mark, to the snowflakes… Hippies.

  I wasn't much of a conversationalist so, if that were me, I would be good to go. I’d listened in class. I’d just tune them out and do my thing. Skateless and scooting. Lucy, however, started to walk slowly towards Mark (Mike?), when I heard a loud crack. Goosebumps instantly rose on my arm and all the hair stood up on the back of my neck. I got a crazy rush of adrenaline all the way down to my fingertips.

  "Hey, tell her to sit down!" I yelled to the crowd, startling my own group. I saw Isaiah jump from the corner of my eye. Down near the pond, two people turned toward me but, before they registered what I’d said, I heard another crack. Lucy froze again as a visible crack grew in the ice near her feet; this time she should have just kept walking. My body tensed with that second crack. I knew what was going to happen; my head was already playing it in slow motion. Her body jerked a little as the ice below her shifted.