Page 1 of Reviving Kendall

Black Trash Bags

My breath puffs out in tiny plumes in front of my face. It's colder than a witch’s tit outside, but it's better to take my time on the walk home. I know what awaits me there, the same thing that waits every other night.

Shifting the leftover bag of Mexican food in my hand, I adjust my scarf around my face. The last thing I need is to get sick right now. Got to have money for bills and got to have a job for money. Waitressing requires a clean bill of health. I can’t be sneezing in someone's plate of tamales, can I?

HONK!

My palm slaps my chest as I jump back falling into a damp pile of leaves.

"Stay down in the dirt where you belong trailer trash!" Derrik, the school jock and womanizer, screams while hanging halfway out his window. He then finishes it off with a howl at the sky like a freaking looney tune.

"Idiots," I mumble standing up and dusting myself off. Damn it, now I've got to sit up tonight and wash my clothes. This is the only uniform I have for work and I won't have time for it to dry between school and my shift tomorrow. "Ugh, fucking dicks," I flip them off for good measure, even though they are long gone. I smooshed the leftovers in the bag and they spilt out into the ground. I dump the rest knowing some animal will thank me for that, but I carry the container and bag with me to throw away. The wetness from the leaves soaked into my pants andmakes the last bit of this walk absolute torture. So much for being warm.

I stomp into the Sleepy Pines Mobile Home Community, in a foul mood. Fingers crossed that no one will stop me between here and my Gramps’ trailer. It's close to midnight, but you never can tell with these folks.

Trying my best to be quiet, it doesn't stop the creak of rusty hinges when I open the door and catch it just in time for it not to slam against the side of the trailer. The smell that rolls out the door makes me gag. I can't stand the smell of cigarette smoke, especially if I'm trapped in a room with it. I take my last breath of fresh air before walking inside.

I don't bother locking the door behind me. There's nothing here for anyone to take and if it happens to be a serial killer, please come put me out of my misery. Choking down the bile trying to rise up, I go into the kitchen and clean up the mess Gramps left on the counter and sink. I swear to god. Sometimes the man forgets to eat and other times it's like an aftermath of letting a three-year-old cook. Tonight, was one of those nights. I sigh and take off my jacket. I hate bringing it inside. It always smells like smoke when I leave, but if I leave it outside someone is bound to take it. A real leather jacket sitting out in the open around here, yeah, I might as well say, 'Here what's mine is yours.'

I wouldn't give half a shit if it was mine. No, it used to be Brian's. He let me wear it one night and his mom let me keep it after...nope. Not going there tonight.

Washing the dishes in and around the sink, I wipe the flour and milk off the counters. There's no telling what he was trying to make today. One of these days he's going to burn this place to the ground. I wish he would, I think, but then feel immediately guilty because Gramps wouldn't likely make it out.

After drying my hands on the dish towel and sweeping up the mess on the floor, I make a bee line for my room. Gramps is up here by the kitchen and he's got his own bath. The only one good thing about this trailer, my own room and bathroom. I knew kids before who had neither and didn't even have a bed so yeah, I'm one lucky B.

I don't bother with the light switch in my room. Instead I walk straight to the window. Sleeping with it open isn't ideal for me not to get sick, but the stench is over powering tonight. It's a risk I'm willing to take. Not like the trailer gets all that warm anyways. I've got plenty of blankets piled on my bed to keep me toasty.

Stripping down, I find my favorite sleep shirt tucked in my top drawer. It's the only one I own and will probably try to ever own. Though, it doesn't look like those odds are going to be in my favor considering the holes all in it. Another piece of clothing that wasn't originally mine. But, I did win it fair and square literally off Will's back in a rowdy game of strip poker.

My brain is driving me insane tonight. I don't want to think of them right now. Especially after Derrik and his stupid buddies. That's probably what started the trip down memory lane anyways. If my guys were still around, Derrik would have been too chicken shit to pull something like that. He knows the VanPelt brothers would have stomped him a new asshole for it. Unfortunately, not just for me, the world will never know just what those guys were capable of if they put their minds to it. And I'll never know what could have actually been.

I shake my head and let out a silent scream for letting my brain go there. Taking my uniform into the bathroom, I give it a good scrub down in the sink. A washer and dryer are a luxury around here. Once I'm satisfied with my work, I wring it out in the sink and hang in on the coat hanger to take outside. Not the most brilliant of ideas, what with it being cold, but there's a slight breeze that I hope will help dry it faster.

I make quick work of running it out to the porch and then back inside to crawl underneath my covers. I'm exhausted and I get to get up and do it all over again in the morning.

A few hours later when my alarm goes off, I want to throw it through the still open window. I don't have the money to buy another though, so I settle for hitting the off button and getting up.

My sock clad feet drag as I make my way into the living room. I'm up way before Gramps, but that's no surprise. I normally am. There's a strange ticking noise coming from the porch. Ok, I'm awake. Grabbing the broom, I'm thinking of that raccoon in our garbage last week. It took me over an hour to clean that wreck up. There's no way that I'm doing that again.

Cracking the door, what I find is much worse. The ticking noise is coming from my hangers that I put out last night and the reason they are making so much noise is because they are empty. A note hangs from one of them. I yank it off to get a closer look, 'Even these Salvation Army rags are too good for you. We left you something suitable.'

Looking down I see one of our black trash bags at my feet with a hole in the side. Mother trucker, they better not have...walking around the side of the house I see that they did. Trash from the bag surrounds the trailer almost like they walked a full circle around it emptying it out of the bag. I just want to sit in the trash pile and cry right now, but I can't. This has to be cleaned before the park super wakes up. Gramps would catch hell for this. That's ok because my day can only look up from here, right? Turns out I am wrong.

One Sip at a Time

Standing at the entrance with the other kids of Sleepy Pines, we wait for the bus to roll up and take us all to school. Most teenagers would be ashamed to be riding the bus as a senior, but not me. I'm grateful as shit that I'm not having to walk to school in the cold. This used to be amusing when we were younger. Getting to stand here without parental supervision and joke around. Those days are long gone, though. And to think it all changed because Brian decided to work for a roofing company everyday two summers ago. Will, Casey and I all tried to talk him out of it. We weren't complaining by the time he bought Old Jennings' Camaro. Know how they say hind sight is 20/20? Yeah, I would have protested a little harder if I had known that in less than a year all three of them would die in that car.

I try to clear my mind. They've been stuck there lately, because I miss them more than breathing most days. Right after was the worst. I spiraled out of control and even have the scars on my wrists to prove it. My every intention was to die the day that I found out. Some would call our relationship unorthodox or even disgusting, but I didn't care. Still don't. Most people whispered about a melodramatic teenager from the trailer park trying to kill herself over some twisted version of puppy love. Those same people didn't know that Brian, Will and Casey were the only people to ever give two shits about me in my entire life. It actually mattered to them if I had food in my belly or if I came home at night. They were my world and I loved them with everything that's inside of me. I've wished a million times over that it could have been me. My therapist used to say that things happen for a reason, but I don't believe in that bullshit. People make decisions. That's why shit happens, not because the universe decides for them. Brian let Casey drive that day. Even though he was already seventeen, he'd only had his permit for a week. It was late on a Monday night and they were coming to pick me up from work. For whatever reason, they left late and they never could stand to leave me waiting on them. So, Casey was speeding and tried to beat the train. They say that he was only inches away from making it and what's worse is that they probably still would have if it hadn't been for that leak in the Camaro's gas tank. I didn't even get to go to the funerals. They considered me too much of a risk to myself to let me out of the hospital. So, my boyfriends...my best friends were put into the ground without even a goodbye from me.

The pain on days like today is excruciating. Those little white pills from my therapist help some, even though I think I should have doubled up this morning. This day already has a suck factor off the charts.

By the time the bus makes it to school, I've decided that I need all the coffee to make it through the day. I didn't get my cup this morning and had to skip breakfast too since I was too busy picking up trash. Too bad the cafeteria doesn't offer us coffee. Some bullshit about stunting our growth or something. Thankfully, this isn't my first rodeo. I've always got my travel mug and a box of those single serve instant coffee packs in my backpack. Now I've just got to find some hot water.

Walking around the side of the building, I tighten my coat around me. Late fall has always been my favorite. All of the leaves have changed colors and their tiny corpses litter the ground, crunching underneath your feet. The bite in the air is just enough to warrant a jacket and scarf, but you won't freeze to death if you don't.

Looks like one thing is on my side today, the side door has been left propped open. Probably to cool off the cafeteria without having to switch the air conditioning on. One of the best things is the fact that there's no one around here on this side. The less people I have to deal with today, the better.

Walking in, I see they're still serving breakfast. My stomach rumbles as I smell the biscuits and fruit. I shove my hand down the side pocket of my backpack in hopes that there might be some change in it. It's a hopeless venture, but it's worth a shot. Nada.

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