Sunshine (8 page)

“What about all of our stuff?” Trei says.
“We’ll get it. Bring it home for you,” Alex says out of nowhere.
Whatever. As long as it’s all in one piece, I don’t care. I’m too freaked out to care.
Stevie and Jade take their truck, Boo and Trei take Boo’s van, Myles decides to come along in his jeep, and I drive by myself—creepy clown makeup dripping off my face in a gold sequined jacket. It’s starting to rain, and I have to blast the radio to keep all these thoughts from flooding through my head.
I’m the first one there, so there’s no one to ask if I’m seeing things.
By the trash, I see my collection of notebooks that no one’s even supposed to know about covered by old newspapers. In the tree in the front yard there are more of my notebooks, their pages floating around. My tiny toy piano is smashed in the middle of the lawn, its teeth a broken smile.
Without thinking and just barely noticing the other cars pulling up, I’m running through my house and up the stairs to my room. My mom looks like an alien just burst through the door. She hadn’t expected me to ruin her fun.
I don’t even know what I’m saying, more like screaming.
She’s done some pretty nasty things, but this time she’s snapped.
When I can finally gather my brain enough, I manage to get out one clear, very loud sentence: “What are you doing?”
She starts walking toward me. She’s so close that I can smell her nasty rose perfume. “You think I’m going to let you ruin everything, don’t you?”
“What are you talking about? What have I ruined?” I’m still screaming, and I’m about to get louder because I’ve just spotted all of the damage she’s caused to my room. My clothes are thrown around, the sheets on my bed are ripped off and the mattress is completely flipped over.
“You think you’re so smart, you stupid girl,” she spits in my face.
I have no idea what she’s talking about. Smart about what exactly? And what set her off into this little freak out?
“You and Adam can rot in Hell for all that I care.”
“What did Adam do?”
“She thinks she’s going to get away with it. She thinks she’s so smart.” Now she’s talking to herself and I still have no idea what she means.
“What’s wrong with you?” I can’t help it.
She turns and looks at me, her eyes crazed. The eyeliner is melted half way down her face like she’s been sweating. “He’s never coming back, you know. He doesn’t love you.”
I can only guess she’s talking about Adam.
Then she smiles. “No one does. How can they?” She snorts. I get a whiff of alcohol. She’s drunk. She’s drunk and insane.
She says this is to hurt me, but only what she says about Adam not coming back accomplishes that. Adam is never coming home again. I know it.
I wrestle a notebook from first grade out of her hands and she looks like we were in the middle of a tea party and I just started shouting for no reason.
Once I get out of the house, I start running, throwing whatever I can carry onto the front lawn. I run past Stevie and Jade who are gathering my notebooks off of the grass. I run past Boo, Trei, and Myles, who are digging things out of the bushes. I don’t care if they’re trying to stop me. The wind flies past me and my pulse thuds in my ears. I run past houses, I run past the 7-eleven, I run so fast I think my lungs are going bust out of my chest.
The rain pounds harder when I stop at the beach. I sit on the ground. The wet sand is seeping through my pants as the waves go up and come back, barely touching the tips of my boots. I think about going in, seeing how long I can hold my breath. Instead I sit here, thinking and thinking.
Sometimes, thinking can be a bad thing.
I think of a dream—a memory—I used to have a lot.
Adam takes me to the beach in a snow storm. We walk up and down the shore for hours. I pretend the sun is out and that the summer sun is warming my face as little flakes of ice melt on my cheeks. I’m happy.
Of all places, I just had to stop here. I thought Adam was always going to be there. He was one of the things in my life that I could count on, the one thing that would never change. Now it suddenly
has
changed. I’m not his real daughter anyway. How could I think I
deserved
him? He doesn’t even
have to
talk to me or call. I’m not his responsibility. Not anymore.
Not ever.
I dig my hands into the sand so I don’t have to worry about them finding something sharp.
Maybe if I had been a normal child, Mom would have loved me instead of seeing me as a huge chore to do. Maybe if Adam had just hated me the way she does he wouldn’t be leaving.
I don’t realize that while I’m sitting in the soggy, cold sand and rain that someone has sat down next to me. I can tell by the converse that it’s Myles. No one else I know wears them. We sit listening to the rain pound on the sand in silence.
He got to the beach pretty fast. Even if he had started running when I had, he wouldn’t have been able to catch up to me. “How did you know where I was?” I ask after several long minutes.
He ignores my question. “Everyone is looking for you.”
I shrug. “They know I’m fine.”
We’re quiet again for several more long minutes.
“Maybe we should get out of the rain. You’re getting soaked,” he says.
I shrug again. I don’t want to talk. I don’t care if I’m getting wet.
Then Myles does something I don’t expect him to do. He takes off his coat and wraps it around my shoulders. I don’t realize until now that I’m shaking, and I would shrug it off if I wasn't so cold.
“Do you want me to take you home?” he asks.
I don’t look up, but I imagine him sitting there, his extra fake arms hanging. “No.”
“Where do you want to go then?”
“Nowhere.”
“You can’t sit here forever,” he says gently.
“I can’t go home.”
We’re quiet again. He places a hand on my shoulder. Any other time I would snap at him, but I’m too tired right now to yell anymore. “Things will get better. They always do,” he offers.
He stands up and holds his hand out to help me up. I reluctantly grab it, letting go as soon as I’m standing. We walk to Myles’ car in silence.
Mom’s miraculously disappeared when we get back to the house. We’re there a while picking up things from the yard. Then I go into the house and pack my clothes. I don’t talk to anyone, and I think everyone knows better than to say anything to me.
I get into my car after we’ve taken everything out of the house that is mine apart from my piano, which Jade promises that he’ll get somewhere far away from my mother by tomorrow. As I pull out of the driveway, I stare up at the house. I come to the realization of something that I’ve always known, but never really thought about until now.
It’s just a house.
I close my eyes for a split second as I pull out of the driveway, hoping that when I open them I’ll see something different in the building I lived in for most of my life. When I open my eyes it’s still just a house.
Maybe things will get better like Myles said.
They have to.

Chapter 8
Everyone Wears A Mask
“Good good things happen in bad towns.”-The Yeah Yeah Yeahs

I’m officially living in Stevie and Jade’s spare room and I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep for a while. Mainly because my piano is now in their garage in a spot where I can’t play it until we clear out what’s supposed to be the basement apartment area. Ever since Stevie and Jade moved into this house, the apartment has been a big junky mass of junk. Not that I’m really complaining about the no sleep thing. I’d rather not sleep than fall asleep only to be woken up by nightmares.
Well, Memories.
There’s a knock on my door at noon, and I’m still in my pajamas.
“Happy Birthday,” Myles, Boo and Trei all say as I open the door.
“Uhm, thanks.” I’m not sure why they’re here so early. We weren’t supposed to hang out until later.
“Go change, we’re kidnapping you,” Trei informs me.
I sigh, ready to protest. I was planning on eating ice-cream and watching
Lifetime
all day, but my friends are trying to cheer me up, so I obey.
I throw on jeans and a t-shirt, sliding on my trench coat and glasses. They’re waiting in a huge van I’ve never seen before when I go outside.
“Hey, happy birthday,” Adrienne says from the window of the driver’s seat. He’s wearing huge shades and smiling at me.
I’m kind of surprised to see him there, but I go with it. “Thanks.” I open a door and climb into the back next to Boo. Trei and Myles sit in front of us.
“Happy Birthday, Sophie,” Alex turns in the passenger seat. She’s wearing a plain white V-neck and a short black skirt. It would look trashy on most people, but with that round baby face, it looks cute on her. “Where to?”
First, we stop at a costume store where they’re practically giving stuff away. The kind they only set up around Halloween and the rest of the year it’s a thrift store or something. We split up, and I go straight for the candy. Adrienne seems to have the same idea. I make the most of a situation. I don’t know why I care, but I want this guy to not hate me.
“So, hey.” I pretend I need to add gummy body parts to my already growing pile of Reese’s and Candy Corn so I can get closer. “Thanks for bringing our stuff back from the school and everything.”
Adrienne waves a hand in front of him like he’s swatting at a bug. “Don’t mention it. A friend of Myles’ is our friend too.”
So maybe he doesn’t hate me. Maybe he was having a bad day or something yesterday.
Adrienne pats me on the shoulder as he follows Alex to the checkout counter. I’m not sure why, but I’m only a tiny bit uncomfortable when his hand touches me.
Then we head back into town to get Leena. It’s kind of weird picking up my sister from her friend’s house without seeing her all day. She’s been living with Adam at my gram’s house. He has enough money to get an apartment, but he hasn’t. The only reason I can think of is that he doesn’t really think it’s over. The only time I’ve talked to him since he left was to ask if Leena could come over tonight. He seemed preoccupied.
Too preoccupied to talk to me.
We go back to Stevie and Jade’s house after that
When Stevie opens the door all the way, I can see that he’s dressed almost completely in drag. He’s wearing a silver sequined top and black pants with a pair of my old combat boots underneath. He’s wearing red lipstick and black eyeliner. Top that off with a sprinkling of glitter all over.
After I introduce everyone, we all go to separate rooms to get changed. When I emerge as Columbia, Myles is back in his spider costume, Boo in his Geisha one, and Trei is Alice once again. Alex and Adrienne change things up by dressing as Dorothy and The Scarecrow from
The Wizard of OZ
. Stevie poses us in various ways so he can take pictures. Jade shows up dressed as Johnny Depp in
Cry Baby
, a single tear painted on his cheek. “Hey,” he interrupts. “You guys don’t have any pillowcases. Do you think you could go downstairs in the hall closet to get some?” he asks me.
I head downstairs and straight to the closet. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that someone has left the door to the unfinished apartment slightly open. Jade or Stevie must have wanted something and probably left the door open in order to escape the pile of hoardings before it swallowed them whole.
There’s a white envelope with my name on it taped to the door when I go to shut it. Inside is a birthday card with cartoon animals on it meant for little kids. All that’s written inside is, “Happy Birthday, go inside.”
Why would they want me to open the door to the junk apartment? Is this some kind of Halloween trick where I open the door a bunch of stuffed snakes pop out at me like those fake cans of peanuts? I take my chances.
I open the door cautiously, and I’m surprised it isn’t blocked by anything when I look inside. The surprise turns to shock when I take in what’s in front of me. Nah, shocked is definitely
not
the word here. I can’t even find a word for what I feel when I open that door.
Inside, there’s what looks like a living room. There’s a TV and a green L shaped couch. Behind the couch, there’s a kitchen with a fridge and a stove and a sink. I walk inside and open another door. It’s a bedroom with a black and white striped comforter on the bed. I’ve seen enough.
Heading back upstairs, I’m convinced that I’m hallucinating. Stevie is blocking the way up with everyone trailing behind him. I back up so that everyone can fit.
“Surprise!” they all shout.
“Uh, what?” leaves my mouth.
Stevie takes my hand and leads me back inside the no longer unfinished apartment. They all stare at me as we stand in the living room. “Wait a minute,” I say.
“Welcome home,” Jade says as he hugs me.
Just when I think I can die happy, Jade leads me into another room. I think this is the part where they show me where they stuffed all of the junk that was in the basement. I’m wrong of course.
He opens the door to the left of the bedroom that I thought was a closet. It’s a room large enough to house my piano, a new toy piano, all of my microphones, a drum set, and a violin. There’s sound proof purple foam from wall to wall and in the corner there’s what looks like a closet with a window in it.
“You guys, this is way too much,” I somehow manage to say, realizing for the first time that I never thought the basement was this big until now. It must have cost them a fortune for this room alone.
“No, it isn’t,” Stevie says, tucking a curl behind his ear that only pops out when he hugs me.
Boo sits down at the drums and Trei sits on the piano bench. Leena picks up the violin and starts strumming it like a guitar.
Myles, Alex and Adrienne look around, taking in all of it.
“But what about all of your stuff?” I ask.
“Well, we sold some of it to come up with the money for some things, and we kept some of it and gave it to you,” Stevie explains.
My jaw drops.
“Oh,” Jade says, suddenly remembering something. “We got you some actual presents, too.” He opens the closet in the room to reveal what I recognize as a make-shift recording booth. It has a microphone and more purple foamy noise blocking material all over the walls. There are also two boxes wrapped in obnoxious pink and purple striped paper on the floor inside.
He hands them to me and I open them. The first one is recording software, the other a laptop.
“Holy shit,” is what escapes my mouth.
They smile.
“This is…mine?”
Jade and Stevie each put one of their arms over my shoulders.
“It’s all yours Sunshine. That way you can get that music career of yours started,” Stevie says.
“But, when?”
“We’ve been working on it for a while,” Jade says. “We figured it would happen sooner or later, and that you’d need a place of your own when it did.”
“Good thing we had it ready for tonight anyway,” Stevie laughs. “Well, except the piano. We had to get you out of the house for a few hours to lug it in.
Maybe it's the shock of it all, but I still can’t really grasp what’s going on. My mouth hangs wide open; I don’t know what to say. Then everyone starts clapping and jumping up and down, so I join in for lack of any other motor function seeming to work at the moment.
I’m thinking about my brand new home the whole time we’re going door to door collecting our free candy. I have an apartment! An apartment that is just mine with the two best neighbors in the world! I can’t believe Stevie and Jade did this for me. I’m the luckiest person on Earth.
Leena insists that she walk between Myles and I, holding both of our hands. The people at her school had thrown an assembly on Halloween safety. They told all of the kids to check their candy before eating it, and of course, hold hands with the person you are with when crossing the street. Leena wants to make sure nothing bad is going to happen, so Myles and I are on either side of her: me holding her right hand, and Myles holding her left. I’ll be the first to admit, it’s weird; this little space she occupies between us. It feels like something I’ve never felt before. Like Leena is a wire between us, linking us together in some odd way. I’m not sure if I should like this feeling, so I ignore it.
It’s strange, but even this weird feeling that I’m ignoring doesn’t ruin my awesome mood. We loot the neighborhood for what seems like hours before we start heading back.
Then it happens.
I see them.
And they’re with
him
.
I try to ignore it for as long as I can. I look around at my friends, and they don’t seem to notice until we get closer. My heart starts pounding faster and faster. My hands get so sweaty that Leena lets go for a split second so she can wipe her palm onto her costume.
Barbie and her friends are all dressed as—what else?—Barbies. It’s a crowd of about six girls, all of whom are dressed as various types of Barbie dolls. There’s an ethnic Barbie, There’s skipper, there’s hooker Barbie. Barbie herself is dressed head to toe in pink sparkly crap. Jack is dressed as what can only be Ken. He has a black suit on, his dirty blond hair slicked back.
Yeah I know, isn’t there anything else to do on Halloween besides way too old kids going trick or treating? The answer is no, apparently not.
We have to pass each other.
Lenna, Myles, and I are walking ahead of everyone else. They are so close that I can’t ignore them anymore. I’m pretending to stare off into space. It’s so easy for everyone to disregard the Jack and Barbie parade besides me.
They don’t do anything. They don’t
say
anything. But Jack’s arm brushes mine as we cross paths on the narrow sidewalk, and when it does, his grey eyes stare right into mine.
And he smiles.
I can’t breathe, and everything is starting to slow down on me. I can feel everything hyper sensitively, and I don’t like it.
My mouth is dry.
My palms are sweating.
My skin is crawling.
My stomach is turning.
“Let’s go,” I say, semi-snapping out of it and tugging Leena and in turn, tugging Myles forward.
I need to go home before something horrible happens.