Shadows

Shadows

This is a rather ambitious little thing. Planning on having at least three really different, fucked-up characters, each part focusing on a different one, and then somehow drawing them together. Woot.

Chapter One: Rhonda

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A plus sign.

She checked the back of the box again. Houston, we have confirmation.

"So easy you can do it at home!" it proclaimed. How fortunate. You can now watch your world shatter from the comfort of your own bathroom.

The eyes staring back from the mirror were somehow not her own. They were too calm. Too calm to be a sixteen-year old girlegnaegnant and alone.

She wished she could cry, scream, put her fist through the fucking mirror and get rid of those intent eyes. But her body refused to move, refused to do anything but stand. She could feel the blood beat through her head. Shallow breaths. She began to shake, fingers and toes tingling.

All at once her brain began to function again, began to race. Thoughts racing faster than she could keep up with, thousands overlapping like so many wires. Always undertoned by a steady beat of unintelligible terror. She began to bite her left thumbnail against her will.

An abortion. There was no other way. But how? And where? Abortion clinics are not something you look up in the yellow pages. She could not even think of asking someone. As if her miut uut up a high fence around that area of thought, simply going blank when she tried to fathom it. No entry.

All at once she decided that the most logical next step would be to write 'Rhonda is a slut' across her forehead. Or simply 'slut'. Leave the name out of it.

Her mind so tangential almost to the point of madness, she began to think of her name. Rhonda, like the Beach Boys song. Her parents, children of the sixties, always going on about the silly song, the song that had been on the radio when they had shared their first stolen kiss at the age of seventeen. Once, only a year before, when her parents were away at some party, she had finally dug through their stacks of records to find the song. It was on a forty-five, a little bigger than a CD. She could clearly remember the years of duhat hat she had disturbed looking for it, the funny acrid taste that it made in her throat. The dust-jacket was cheap, ripped, covered in scribbles, blue, ball-point pen hearts and curls . The faint, jumpy hiss when she put the song on was somehow comforting in the empty house.

"What's that, Rhondi?" Back to reality. Bathroom door open now. Small, lisping voice. Her little sister. Almost the spitting image of Rhonda herself, blonde hair and big, doe-brown eyes. In ten years, she would have the same full t ant and slight limbs. And the same slender hips, made for skintight, low-rise jeans.

"Fuck off, you little brat! Don't you ever fucking knock?" The words that came out of her mouth were wrong, all wrong. She dropped the test with a clatter into the sink, twisting her neck sideways towards the now-open door fast enough to make her muscle twang unhappily.

Little Kara (for that was the sister's name) looked dumbfounded. Almost in slow motion her face crumpled into itself and she began to wail, great globular tears sliding down her cheeks and off her chin. The purest substance known to man, the undistilled crocodile tears of a spoilt seven- year-old. Rhonda though distantly that it was a good thing they were alone in the house, parents already off to work. Their hour-long commute from the 'burbs meant that she was in charge of getting the little brat ready and onto the school bus in the morning.

She briefly thought of shoving the little, crying monster into a closet. Or wrapping her fingers tightly around its slender throat. But her conscience won out.

"Kari-bum, I'm sorry" She bent down and touched one small shoulder, which was whipped violently out of her range with a hiss. Rhonda felt the rage build up, the urge to slap, to pinch tender flesh. "Look, stop crying, I didn't mean it."

"No." Said in the most nerve-grating pitch known to man.

Rhonda shut her eyes, willing a lightning-bolt to strike her dead. Her life was not meant to be like this. In one night she had managed to fuck herself completely. Utterly. Totally.

That night had been a month before. She remembered clear as day going to the party, at a friend-of-a-friend's. No occasion for the shindig, other than the friend-of-a-friend's parents being out of town. It was late when she got there, the party in full-swing. She caught the eye of a guy who, at the time, she fancied herself madly in love with.

Ah yes, Kurt Atkinson. Two years older than herself. Spiked brown hair. Blue eyes. Tall, bulky with muscles.

They eyed each other for what seemed, in Rhonda's estimation, eons. When he came over and started flirting, , she was overjoyed. When he asked her to dance, she was enchanted. And when he offered her two tiny pills, she washed them down cheerfully, accompanied by a shot of green-apple vodka.

After that the night was like pearls strung together on a thread of black. Orbs of brief consciess,ess, tied together by long bouts of blank time.

Scene One: Rhonda and Kurt dancing to Billy Idol, on top of a table of some sort. Spinning. Chandelier in their faces, twinkling and clattering. Rhonda almost slips off the edge, but is caught and doesn't care. She can't stop laughing.

Scene Two: Rhonda and Kurt on a set of stairs, presumably going to the second floor, which are being used as a communal make-out area. Five other couples there. Kurt kissing her, taste of cigarettes and cheap beer. Careless hands up her shirt. Twisting, racing lights in front of her eyes distract her.

Scene Three: Rhonda and Kurt in someone else's bedroom. In the queen-size bed, Rhonda on her back. Kurt on top, grunting, pushing into her. She doesn't care. She can't feel the lower half er ber body anyway. Kurt seems to have developed wings. Huge, muscular wings. Angel wings that taper down into points that brush the back of his calves. White as a virgin's wedding dress. She reaches around his barrel-chest to twine her fingers in the soft feathers, marveling at their airy flexibility.

Scene Four: Still in the bed, Kurt snoring beside her. Hazy moonlight. Rhonda sticks one tottery foot onto the floor. Squish under her toes. She reached down and scrabbles to pick up a condom, a used condom. Brings it close to her face, she can see the rip even with her head still swimming. Head clears. She slaps Kurt ard ard as she can across the chest as he sleeps. He wakes up, blackens her eye, goes back to sleep. She limps down the stairs. Tells everyone that she ran into a door.

Kara was still crying.

"Please stop!" She looked up at the counter and had a sudden flash of inspiration. "Do you wanna try some of my mascara?" She grabbed it off the edge.

Instantly Kara stopped screeching, but looked cagey, wary, her snub nose still sniffling.

"But the thing is, you have to stop crying. Mascara runs if you cry."

Kara scrubbed at her eyes with tiny fists, nodding.

"Now, promise you won't tell mom and dad. I didn't mean it anyway." She received another wary look. "And I'll take you to a movie this weekend." Added to sweeten the deal. It was Monday anyway, the promise would be forgotten by then.

"Kay." So Rhonda set her up on the counter, carefully going over already- thick eyelashes with sticky blackness.

TBC.

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Thanks for reading. Reviews are muchly appreci. Yo. You can drop one here, email me (kohl_boys_rule_all@yahoo.ca) or AIM me (explaintherainxp). Thanks. xo.