Page 7 of Advice from a Sunflower

Oh, and he cares. He’s compassionate. He notices things that most guys ignore. I shake the thoughts out of my head before they go any further.

“Nothing, I’m fine. I’m sure you did great on your test.”

I notice the bus nearing our stop and stand up before the driver even slows down.

I’m blocked in by Eli, but I hope he takes my readiness as a sign that our conversation is over. When the driver finally pulls the doors open, I push past him and practically jog down the street to my house, ignoring the dirty looks I get from everyone I pass.

Two years. That’s all I have to get through before I’m away from this horrible place and all the people in it. Including Eli and his ignorant teenage boy mind that can recognize when my face drops from a sad thought, but not that I’m falling completely in love with him more and more with every conversation we have.

Marnie and Denise make quick work of getting ready before they each leave to spend their evenings outside of our sad little home. I cook myself dinner and then spend the rest of the night writing out a fictional romance that’s been dancing around my mind for the past week, squeezing nearly ten thousand words out before I pass out on my computer. The last thing I remember are the creaks and moans coming from the basement, begging to be heard and tended to.

After all this time, I still haven’t gotten used to it.

Chapter 5

Lyla

16 years old

Halloween in The Hollow is no different than any other weekday night, the only exception being that the creeps pass for normal in their everyday clothes and girls like Marnie get to dress as their inner vixens without being judged for it.

I’ve never liked dressing up and going door-to-door, begging my neighbors for candy. They usually never have it anyway. Most of the people on our side of town don’t even have money for groceries to feed their family on a regular basis, and their food stamps aren’t reloaded until the beginning of the month. I wonder every year why we can’t get together and just move the holiday over one day. That way the kids don’t have to listen to every adult complain about how much they wanted to buy candy this year, they just couldn’t make it work and to come back the next day.

Now that we’re in high school, Halloween is less about candy and trick-or-treating and more about dressing in as little as possible and getting drunk in the woods just behind Old Man McFarland’s property. He’s a deaf elderly man with no neighbors for miles, so it’s the perfect place for teenagers to act out their hormonal urges as loudly as they like without being harassed by the police.

The police are usually too busy on Halloween handling the drunk adults to bother with a little innocent partying from their kids. Denise has always found herself in the bull pin on November first, screaming into the phone for one of us to come bail her out. She and her church friends stand in the middle of the town’s square and preach about the shame of worshipping the devil and celebrating a pagan holiday. Someone usually initiates a debate with her that ends in some sort of altercation and the police are called. Most times, the sheriff waives the majority of her fee for Marnie and me, making us promise to give him free coffee at the diner we both waitress at part-time in exchange. He finishes his negotiation with a wink in Marnie’s direction as his eyes linger over her low-cut shirt.

This Halloween is no different than any other, except Marnie has taken an interest in my social life and is now trying to force me into going out to the woods with her.

“Come on, Mouse. We’re juniors now. That means upperclassmen. Don’t you want to have some fun for once in your life?” she goads, spreading a third layer of bronzer over her face.

She seems to be ignoring the fact that her neck is five shades lighter than her face now and there’s a clear line where the makeup ends and her natural skin tone begins. I don’t have the heart to point it out.

“I’ll have fun right here in my bed,” I insist, patting down my ratty comforter while trying to regain my train of thought for a scene I’m working on in my most recent short story. The characters have been bothering me all day and it only took Marnie five minutes to make me completely lose it.

She must be satisfied with the shade of orange that’s now spread across her cheeks because she closes the compact container and slams it onto her vanity.

“I’m serious. Next year we’ll be seniors and you’ll probably have some ridiculous college prep that you’ll insist on doing. Then you’re off to college. Please, just come out with me this once.”

I don’t understand her sudden interest in my social life, or her need to involve me in hers. She’s practically ignored me all summer, barely spending time at home before the school year began. So much so, that Denise threatened putting prison bars on our bedroom windows.

Her lips puff out in a pathetic frown and I finally give in, slamming my laptop on a defeated sigh. The story wasn’t going to come back to me anytime soon, anyway.

“Fine,” I relent, earning a high-pitched squeal as she reopens her vanity drawer.

No one does anything special to decorate the woods. I always pictured pretty lights hanging in the trees and tables set up with drinks the way I’ve seen in movies. A mystical forest filled with teenage mayhem. Instead, the only light is coming from the full moon above and a wimpy bonfire that Chase Wilks is manning, completely stoned and distracted by Caitlyn, Marnie’s best friend for the moment, sitting on his lap.

A keg sits in a muddy spot with red plastic cups littering the ground around it and the other drinks are sitting in the beds of pickup trucks surrounding the area. In order to grab one, you have to pay the owner of the truck in some way. Anything from a kiss to a blow job will do. Marnie has already planted herself next to Josh Melkis, her boytoy of the evening, and has left me alone to wander through the crowd of our intoxicated classmates.

“I never thought I’d see you at one of these things,” a male voice whispers directly into my ear once I stop beside a tree set back away from the crowd. I feel his breath against my neck and step forward, my fists balled at my sides to see who it belongs to.

Ryan Atkins. Captain of the baseball team and former plaything of my sister’s.

“Hell must have frozen over,” he adds, taking a sip from his muddy cup.

“I guess so.”

I glance around to see who else I know that could get me out of any further interaction with him but come up short. I’m just as invisible to these people here as I am in school.

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