#i cannot explain how nervous i am to post any sort of writing online so idk s/o to my frands

[lothkit]

☆ Fear

I haven’t written in so long, I’m so sorry, this is awful,

Gemma | mentioned: Gillian | @pleasantprefects

1495 words

Summary: This summer - There’s something under Gemma Watts’ kitchen sink. What she finds might surprise you!

12 July, 2006

Gillybean!! I found out the most interesting bit of news at the last family dinner. My stepmum heard from my grandmother that she heard from one of her friends on the Board of Governors that Trelawney really IS retiring this year. I wonder who they got to replace the old bat? Maybe they’ll just do away with the subject all together?? I know everyone thinks it’s “soft” but it’s a really good class to take a nap. My grandmother says they’ll find someone though--she was saying that her family back in India is descended from a famous Seer, so she KNOWS it’s a real subject, and she’ll make them keep teaching it, McGonagall be damned, so help her. That’s what she said, anyway.

I know it’s only been two weeks, but if you wanted to come visit, Shivani says you should do it this month and not next. Apparently she’s getting a new bird next month, and she said it’s not a fwooper so I can only imagine what she’s bringing home now.

I really do hope you come, because it’s so BORING, and I just wanna go for a flight around the Tor but my father says not to unless I’m going with someone else, to never fly alone, just in case something happens. I don’t think it would--and anyway, I have to be the BEST at flying, so I can be the best Keeper. I can’t be afraid of anything! (And DON’T laugh either! You laughed in Defense Against the Dark Arts when we did that lesson on Boggarts and mine was a VAMPIRE. They’re SCARY, Gillian! They have scary sharp fangs and they eat people!!)

Anyway, if you CAN’T come we’re planning on visiting London the last week of August...

The summer holidays are always the worst time of the year for Gemma. It’s not that she doesn’t love her family, when they’re around (because she does, she adores her father, when he’s around; and Shivani really isn’t too terrible, when she’s not asking Gemma to clean the fwoopers’ cages). It’s that she loves Gillian just so much. They’re practically sisters now—they’ve been inseparable since meeting on the Hogwarts Express. Almost every moment of their lives during the school year is spent together. The only exceptions are the winter holidays, and they barely count. The two months separated from each other seem so unbearable to Gemma most days, like she’s missing an arm. Sending an owl isn’t the same as waking up in the middle of the night to share a thought—it’s not the same as turning over and just being able to look at her face as Gillian shares the latest piece of gossip, like what Griffin thinks about that snooty Ravenclaw boy in the year above them, or the predication Trelawney’s going to make about Gillian’s love life this week. Sure, they can visit, but it’s not the same. Gillian has a way of making herself seem like the only person in the room that matters, so Gemma feels her absence everywhere she goes.

This is what she’s thinking about as she chews her quill and ponders over what else to include in today’s letter, when the cabinet below the sink starts to rattle. Her father’s great grey owl, Astolat, hoots in fear and flies off. “Shivani!” Gemma shouts into the next room, but that just makes Astolat hoot again and the cabinet shake harder. Heaving a great and dramatic sigh, Gemma puts her quill down on the kitchen table and pushes her chair back. “ShivaNI, something’s under the sink!”

Her stepmother calls back, “In just a second, Gemma, I’m Silencing the fwoopers!” At that, Gemma wrinkles her nose. She hated the stupid fwoopers and their stupid fluorescent feathers, even if they did make for good quills (Gillian really liked the bright yellow one Gemma gave her).

She stands in the kitchen, unsure of what else to do. The cabinet is rattling harder now, insistent on being opened; elsewhere in the house, she can hear the brief squawk of a fwooper trying to resist its monthly Silencing charm. Shivani seems far too busy with her stupid birds to do anything about it, but before there was a Shivani, Gemma was the lady of the House. Her father often let her take care of important tasks, and wasn’t checking out strange things one of those? Besides, Gemma was a Gryffindor. She could handle whatever was under the sink. It was probably just a puffskein anyway and everyone knew they were harmless.

Annoyed, she opens up the cabinet, and out crawls a perfectly well and fine Gillian Chow.

“Hey, babe,” Gillian says, her eyes bright and shining.

Gemma’s jaw drops. How did Gillian get under her sink? She shouldn’t even fit under there. But Gillian doesn’t offer any explanation, just looks at her curiously. Intently, even. And Gemma can feel her heart just about burst in excitement. She rushes forward, going to envelop her in a giant hug—she must have done it as a prank, and what a great one! This is why Gemma loves her so much, she thinks; because Gillian always keeps her guessing.

Gillian doesn’t move at first, doesn’t wrap her arms around Gemma in return. She can feel her relax though, as she murmurs something in the crook of Gemma’s neck. “I’m so happy to see you! That was a good one!” she says, grinning as she hugs Gillian tightly. She feels her best friend’s smile against her shoulder, and a shiver runs down Gemma’s spine.

“Me too,” Gillian whispers, her teeth grazing Gemma’s neck. “I’m starved.”

“Huh?” Gemma tries to look up, just in time to see Gillian’s incisors lengthen—

And she’s wrenched away from Gillian’s grasp by her stepmother’s soft hands. Gillian snarls for a moment; then there is a loud CRACK! and she is replaced by a giant snake slithering like mad.

“Riddikulus!” Shivani says, swishing her wand in the air. The snake quickly turns into rubber, and bounces harmlessly, causing her to chuckle. In an instant, the boggart vanishes.

Gemma stands blinking in the middle of the kitchen. Shivani stows her wand behind her right ear and turns to her. “I told you to wait, Gemma,” she says. Her voice is stern, but her eyes are concerned as they roam over her face. She flushes under the scrutiny, looking down at her feet. She feels guilty, though she can’t explain why, exactly.

“I—but Gillian—” Gemma stutters, looking frantically from her stepmother to the spot where the Not-Gillian had just stood. “But—”

“Surely Professor Burnsides covered boggarts with you.”

“Well, he d-did, but…” But it wasn’t like that before. Gemma bites her lip and looks back down at the ground. Gillian definitely wasn’t her Boggart before--it was a vampire, she had just written that down! She mumbles something about that, but Shivani waves her hand and steers her to sit back down at the kitchen table. Gemma numbly obeys.

Another wave of her wand, and the teapot is already whistling and pouring two steaming cups, one of which Shivani pushes towards Gemma before taking her own seat. “I know what you’re going through, love,” she says. She takes a long sip of her tea. “It’s perfectly natural.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gemma replies, crossing her arms across her chest.

Shivani gives her a hard look, and she resists the urge to flinch. Instead she raises her chin in defiance. Her stepmother’s eyes soften as she busies herself with her own mug. “I absolutely do, darling, but you have to know, it’s not exactly… let’s say, proper, for a young woman of your name, and social standing to… hmm.” She frowns into her tea, and clears her throat. “There are certain things we—your father and I, and your grandparents—well, that we expect from you, down the line. It’s perfectly fine, especially while you’re still in school to experiment—”

“Experiment?! What do you mean experiment?”

“—but you must remember who you are, Gemma darling,” Shivani continues, as if Gemma hadn’t spoken at all. “You are a Joshi like your father, somewhere in there, and well, your grandmother especially expects certain things. You mustn’t allow a simple dalliance—”

“I don’t know what that word even means,” Gemma frowns and sinks back in her chair. “Gillian’s m-my friend,” she lies miserably. “We wouldn’t, ever, not really.”

Shivani reaches a hand across the table, palm up. “Just take care that whatever you do in school doesn’t cut you off from—well, you don’t want people to think you’re unmarriageable, darling. A good marriage, a Pureblood boy, that’s all we want for you in the end. As long as you’re careful… well, I suppose we’ll just keep this between us, yes?”

Gemma stares down at the extended hand in the middle of the table. Oh, she thinks, soft and small even in her own mind. She gingerly clasps her stepmother’s hand with her own. “I understand.”

[moonsofmars-writes]

Just a normal date

Fandom: Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro, Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Relationships: Jim Lake Jr./Claire Nuñez Characters: Jim Lake Jr. (Tales of Arcadia), Claire Nuñez Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Sort Of, Fluff, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Some light angst, Anxious Jim, Post-Season 3 (Trollhunters), jlaire, Inspired by Fanart, Halloween

Summary: While in New Jersey, Claire asks Jim out for a surprise date.

“Jim, stop.” When he looks up, he finds Claire watching him with furrowed brows and pursed lips.

“What? I didn’t say anything!”

“You are overthinking! Don’t try to deny it,” she adds when he opens his mouth, “I can see it. Calm down, everything will be fine.” Her gaze softens, her grip on his hand tightens a little. “We are going to have fun, I promise. Trust me?”

Notes: I saw this amazing fanart by @sparemoon​ and simply had to write something about it because I loved the idea! It’s just so perfect! I hope you enjoy! 

It’s been weeks since they left Arcadia, weeks since he chose to become, as Merlin put it, a “true Trollhunter.” Yet Jim is still not used to feeling so incredibly vulnerable when he walks on plain sight, where everyone could see him and - well, most likely run away screaming. 

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” He asks, looking around nervously. Perhaps he is worrying too much; it’s late, the moon is a thin silver cut in the dark blue of the sky, and the streets are illuminated only by the warm light of the lampposts. The few people they met were dark, distant figures that quickly disappeared in other roads. He still feels nervous as he was walking in broad daylight. After all, this is not Arcadia. He highly doubts that here in New Jersey people would ignore a weird guy made of stone wandering in their roads, if they noticed him. He truly misses home right now. He and his friends hunted Goblins and fought Gumm-Gumms nightly and the only person who ever got suspicious was Eli! Things were so much easier there. 

“Don’t worry!” Claire glances back at him, a reassuring smile on her lips, and keeps dragging him down the street. “There is no danger, I promise you. I have a plan!” 

Read on AO3

“If you say so,” Jim says under his breath. His muscles are still tense and he is ready to jump away from the road if he hears someone approaching. Why has Claire insisted that they walked down the streets? But she seemed so sure when she asked him out for a date, so excited when she convinced him to go into town by her side, that Jim didn’t have the heart to refuse. They have grown closer during their trip and there have been plenty of strolls, just the two of them, holding hands and stargazing, but the last time they had a date in town was ... wait, how long ago was it? There had been that time before the Eternal Night, with Toby and Darci, but Morgana definitely ruined it. And before … Well, there were their patrols but they weren't very romantic - maybe before Gunmar got out of the Darklands? No, before there was Angor Rot and ... Jim sighs, giving up. Apparently being Trollhunters ruined way too many of their dates. 

That’s another reason why Claire deserves to have this. A normal date - or the closest thing to a normal date her half-troll boyfriend can offer her. She would deserve so much more, though, he muses, watching her walk in front of him. She deserves to be taken to dance or to the movie theatre or to eat something in a fancy restaurant - with someone who can actually eat with her instead of munching the cutlery. He hates the fact that he can’t do any of these things anymore. 

“Jim, stop.” When he looks up, he finds Claire watching him with furrowed brows and pursed lips. 

“What? I didn’t say anything!”

“You are overthinking! Don’t try to deny it,” she adds when he opens his mouth, “I can see it. Calm down, everything will be fine.” Her gaze softens, her grip on his hand tightens a little. “We are going to have fun, I promise. Trust me?”

It’s not like Jim has any other choice when she looks at him like that. “Always,” he mutters and he feels his cheeks getting warmer when she laughs. She let her hair down tonight and wears dark makeup around her eyes that make them look larger and intense. She is beautiful. 

“Okay Romeo, then let’s go! We are almost there!” She turns around, making her black skirt lift a little around her legs. The dress she is wearing is new, it has large sleeves and a hood, but he hasn't had much time to admire her before she put on a sweater. Has he told her already how good she looks with that dress? Maybe he should tell her again, if only to see her smile. He’ll have to remember to do that later. 

“Can you tell me where we are going now?” He asks instead. 

She turns just for a moment to wink at him, “You’ll see.” 

Jim knows better than to ask her again, he is not going to convince her to talk. He sighs and keeps following her, occasionally glancing around to make sure that no one is watching them from the windows. 

He hears the music first - loud and rhythmical, it feels closer every step he takes. His ears twitch and his nose wrinkles when the smell of smoke and food reaches him. That’s when they turn the corner and he can finally see the house down the street. Jim halts, his mouth falling open. The walls are illuminated by multicoloured lights and he can see the silhouettes of people dancing in the yard. “Is that - a party?”

“Yes!” Her mouth is curved into a wide grin, “Here’s where I came this morning. They said everyone could come and that we could join whenever we wanted!”

“But Claire, I …” He swallows and takes a step back, eyes darting from side to side looking for a hiding place. “I am so sorry, I can’t come with you! They would start screaming as soon as they see me, and I just don’t - I don’t want to ruin everything. You’ll get in trouble and - and the others are waiting for us, I can’t risk them being discovered!” His chest starts hurting and he has to stop to take a deep breath. 

“Jim, calm down, please!” Claire says as she reaches him and takes his hands in hers, “it’s okay! Do you -”

“It’s not okay!” He interrupts her, “You deserve someone who can take you at parties or wherever you want to go, and instead you are stuck with me.” He looks down, mouth clenched, and pulls back, away from the light of the lampposts and towards the shadow. 

“Jim, please, stop." He hesitates, eyes still fixed on the ground, and that's enough for her to reach him. He feels her fingers travel along his chin and cheeks, then rubbing tiny circles on his skin. "Look at me," she whispers. When he does, he finds her staring at him with determined eyes, brows slightly furrowed. “I don’t want a random guy who can take me at parties," she says firmly. "I want you, Jim Lake Jr. You and no one else. Do you get it? I love you, no matter where you can or cannot take me." 

He stares at her for long moments, breath stuck in his throat. She is not lying, she wouldn’t - she is really okay with it. Something warm seems to melt in his chest, and finally he feels his muscles relaxing. "I love you too," he manages to croak, making her smile. 

"Now, please, breathe."

He does, and his chest starts feeling lighter. Heaving a sigh, he leans towards her until their foreheads are touching. “You are incredible, Claire Nuñez.”

“We both are,” she chuckles, “Now, will you let me explain?”

His voice is small when he answers, “Okay.” 

“Do you know what day it is?”

“Erm … Saturday?”

“No - well, yes, but it’s not just a common Saturday!”

Jim lifts an eyebrow, “Oh?”

She grins and takes something out of her purse. He doesn’t get what she is doing until she has stuffed it into her mouth and gave him a wide smile to show a pair of white plastic fangs. “It’s Halloween, Jim! Tonight we can be whatever we want!”

Halloween? Oh. Oh. “Claire,” he says breathlessly, “you are a genius!” 

“I know,” she laughs as she takes off her sweater, revealing her dress - now he gets it, it's a costume! “Now, let me finish my makeup and then let’s go having some fun!” 

Minutes later, they are entering the house’s yard, Claire now wearing black lipstick and some face powder. She waves at someone in the crowd, most likely the people she spoke with this morning, but Jim is too distracted by the people to identify them. Everyone is wearing costumes, makeup, even masks and fake horns and fangs. His gut clenches when he notices that some people still stare at him, but theirs are not looks of fear, they are looks of - wonder and admiration? 

“Wow dude, cool makeup!” A girl comments walking past him, winking at him front under a black witch hat. “Where did you get those fangs?”

“I, uhm, online?” Jim mutters before Claire drags him away. The girl is soon lost in the crowd, but she is not the only one who compliments him for his “incredible costume” before they finally get to the dance floor. 

Claire spins around so that she can face him and takes both his hands. “Now, may I have this dance?” She asks, beaming at him. 

“Of course,” he smiles, “No Troll assassin should ruin it this time.”

“Don’t say that!” She laughs, “Now, dance with me.”

Admittedly, Jim didn't have much time to practice his dancing skills in the past few months, and at first, he feels a little awkward. What if he ends up drawing attention, what if someone realises his it's not a costume? But then, he focuses on her. Claire dances, eyes closed, a wide smile on her lips, so obviously having fun that his heart warms. Finally, he lets himself go and dances with her - and it’s liberating, like the burden he felt over his shoulders until now has finally disappeared. A laugh escapes him as he takes her hand in his to make her twirl. No one is looking at them - not for the reasons he feared at least, and for once, he realises, no one is going to attack them in the middle of their date. For once, he can be a normal boy enjoying a date with his girlfriend. He can be just Jim again, tonight. 

[aleatoryalarmalligator]

life story 43

My father started an eHarmony account in October of 2004, I remember quite distinctly. He was matched with a bunch of women, who he started talking to quite a bit. I never did enjoy they way he spoke about them. I think in his attempt to compliment, he would say things to me like 'See her. She's nice, very docile, look at her exotic curly hair.' and such. I felt like we were talking about pure bred dogs more than we were talking about women. For fun, I started an eHarmony account, but only to see what kind of personality the website thought I had, since they tend to ask you this questionnaire and try to match you with a similar personality type before continuing to attempt to find a match for you. It said that I was too strange to match up with anyone – it said it differently than in those terms, but that was the message I took from it, and that nobody on their website had my personality or was compatible so it rejected me outright. After a few months of online searching my father eventually matched up with a woman down in Boise. She was around his age, blonde. Her name was Patty. He started taking trips down to Boise to meet her every few weeks and was on the phone with her frequently.

I was just happy to have him out of my hair. Since Tammy was gone, he had naturally decided to focus on all that was wrong with me again, which was beginning to be a bit of a pattern. It hadn't happened with all of his girlfriends, but it seemed like I had to get punished for his frustration for a good many of his own failed relationships. So far there had been Denise, Marlene, Jodi, Tammy and now Patty. And I had been really mistreated due to the previous three.

Patty turned out to be a millionaire. I think her father had been an acclaimed dentist of some sort and she had been his only child and sole ere. Then she had married another millionaire, and had eventually divorced, which ended up giving her even more money. She had a job where she earned quite a bit each year, and then she had an extreme mishap take place during a surgery, which she sued for and made even more money. She didn't try to flaunt her money, but it would be impossible to say that it didn't affect who she was. It was a little intimidating for my father I imagine to feel so outclassed, seeing as he was a mere factory worker, and our house was sort of falling apart.

Patty didn't have it easy however. Her father had had very little to do with Patty. Her mother had been extremely religious, and sick. For most of Patty's teen years, she had no friends, and since her father had abandoned her and her mother, she stayed home with her mom to take care of her. And her mother shamed her all the time for never being good enough. Patty became worried about being fat, and though she never would admit it, it was clear that she had and was still suffering from anorexia. There was some element to this, some sad undercurrent in Patty that stems from deep wells of suffering and aloneness. I never had a personal conversation with Patty, but I felt like there were elements to her person that I instinctively understood very well.

As for the botched surgery, basically, I don't remember the details, but I believe one of her appendixes ruptured. They misdiagnosed it, and found out later what it actually was. They had to do surgery to clean her up. But they messed that up too. Somehow she started to get this increased infection, that spread to her intestines. She was on death's doorstep. They had to open her up again and take her intestines out. But the anesthetic didn't actually work. She was one of those rare unfortunate people who don't react properly to what they give you in surgery. So, she ended up feeling all of it. She felt the doctors digging in her guts, squeezing out her intestines, but the part of the anesthetic that kept her immobile did work. She felt all of this, and could not make a sound. All in all, this whole thing took about two or three years for her to recover. This story always bothered me.

So my dad started being gone for entire weekends. I was pretty happy about this all in all. I don't know if the feeling is universal, but when I am left alone, particularly when certain people leave – even if I love them, I get this tingling sensation of inner glee when I have the house to myself. The silence seems loud in this weird way, and I feel this nervous excitement, even if it really isn't going to change much about what I have to do or what I could or will be doing in the whole. I just enjoy being left to my own devices. Of course, then there are moments sometimes late at night where I get creeped out and feel a little icky. The lights seem too bright and too dim at the same time, and I start feeling like there is someone watching me. I start missing the sounds of people cooking and talking, or the television playing. There is an emptiness that feels melancholic when it comes to waking up in the morning to that vague empty house. So there is that side of things too.

My dad would have to drive down all the way to Southern Idaho, which is very dry and agricultural – whereas Northern Idaho has a few wheat and lentil fields and the like and can be dry and deserty as well, but is far more forested and full of rivers and gets to start looking more and more like Canada the more north you are. When you are in southern Idaho, it is quite common to see fresh produce being sold in small roadside stands. My father would often buy a bunch of this stuff and bring it back to us. I always thought this was great. Suffering from extreme depression as I was, I had a tendency to eat more than I ever have in my entire life. I would often eat the equivalent of two or three bowls of soup, and four sandwiches back to back. I became especially obsessed with tomato sandwiches, and I remember one time, I actually ate six or seven sandwiches. I absolutely cannot imagine eating that much now, but at the time, it really took everything to feel content. Sometimes too, though Patty was suffering from anorexia, she was actually a master at cooking candies, and desert treats. The best deserts I have ever eaten where made by her, and sent up north with my father for us to eat. I would always really look forward to these treats. But at this time in my life, I was always anxious, always unhappy. There seemed to be nothing that ever made me feel better. So I ate.

I wrote this short story about a school shooter, a discontented student who wanted to seek revenge on a school, not dissimilar to my own. I rarely have ever written fiction, and the concept of writing in the vein of seeing things through the eyes of a killer is not an untouched element of fiction, but this short story just kind of came to me one day in class. Basically, I wrote this story about how the killer took his gun and went from class to class slaughtering everyone. He started off by entering the school, and shooting the office woman, a redhead identical to the redhead office woman in my own school. The feelings I got to write this came from personal frustration. I never wanted to put a bullet in anyone's head actually. But with this really isolated resentful feeling I had towards school, I could see that if I had been born a slightly different person I might have had those inclinations. There was this underlying cruelty and systemic bullying about the very nature of school in general, that I felt could push a certain type of person the wrong way. I could recognize that element in myself to some degree. So in a way, I felt not a kinship (as killing innocent people has never meant much to me and was actually horrible), but a link of understanding to what the feelings of some real school shooters feel. The story never stipulated that I personally felt the main character was all bad or all good. There were certain elements of the story that were at times – seeing the killer at a distance. I wasn't trying to glorify the situation. I was simply letting my mind go to a dark place.

Anyway, I wrote this story, and then I accidentally dropped it in the hallway after school. The janitor found it, and read it. They were disturbed, and so they gave it to the office. I am sure the redhead office woman, who had already gotten me in trouble, and hated my guts – read it and felt threatened by it – as it clearly explained how she was shot in the head first thing, and her head smashed against the table and her twitching body fell violently to the ground. The story was painfully detailed. This story found it's way to the principal's office, and they pinpointed me as the author of the story. I didn't deny it, but it took a long time to try to explain to these dolts that I was personally not interested in killing anyone. I was simply exploring dark ideas. They eventually just gave me three detentions and I was free to go.

My father had wanted Patty to see us as a happy and healthy family, so we went to a photographer to have a family photo (I will post it at the bottom of this). I was a redhead at the time, and hadn't really had a chance to dress nicely for the occasion. I had just gotten out of school, it was a foggy day. I was wearing a red button up I had stolen from my father. I used to hate the picture. I don't anymore. It really wasn't that bad. You can see for yourself.

I missed Zack all the time. When I thought about him, I would have trouble breathing. In my mind, I imagined that now that he was finally free from school, he was living in this ethereal plain of existence – like heaven, but not as good and he was also still alive. It was hard to really comprehend that there was any downsides to a world that didn't force you to go to school. I was warned that work would be worse, but I doubted that. Strangely though, I was also beginning to appreciate the meaning of an education somewhat. I didn't want to ever go to college or be academic, but perhaps I was seeing getting bad grades as something that was expected of me. There was almost something even more unnerving about a student who was rebellious but passed all their courses with flying colors. Not that I was ever that student. It just seemed like an elevated version of rebellion. A next level.

Sarah told me around this time that she sensed that Noah had a crush on me. He was always eager to talk to me, to be close to me. I hadn't noticed it before. I had usually argued with him just for the sake of arguing. And he had never been too insulted by it, and rather enjoyed the sparing of ideas. I admit, my hatred of him was unfounded. Noah gave off creep vibes every here and again, but he never said or did anything inappropriate towards me or my friends personally. I was intentionally being an obtuse child to avoid recognizing that I had in fact pushed Zack away for about a month. So I decided to start being mean to him. It was wrong. But I didn't want him to like me. I didn't want someone to be interested in me when I felt nothing for them in return. So I started criticizing him for small dumb things. Noah smoked weed occasionally, and I made sure to make him know just what a loser I thought he was. Sure, Zack smoked weed literally every morning before he went to school for the previous three years I had known him, but when Noah did it, I made it into being something disgusting. I made him feel badly about himself. It wasn't very nice of me.

I tried very hard to have a crush on this new kid in the class below me named Richard. He had long dirty hair, he seemed to like HIM, and had safety pins in his nose and lips. Those safety pins did legitimately intrigue me. And he seemed subtly rebellious. What also intrigued me was that he was without decent parents. He lived with his cousins, who also had a good for nothing mom. They all lived out in the woods, and had to walk three miles just to get to a main road every morning for school. There was a legitimately edgy vibe to Richard for this reason. But really, I had troubles feeling very connected, and temporary intrigue was all that it ever was. I tried to convince myself that I was interested in him, mostly to get over Zack, but also fill my time in school with something rather than nothing. But the whole thing was too contrived and I couldn't fool myself into it. And Richard just wasn't very smart. He didn't seem as pie in the sky as Zack, or as mentally unstable. He just seemed bored. Where Zack seemed dirty, at the time he actually was more hygienic than he wanted to let people know. He brushed his teeth, and his hair. His clothes were laundered. So you had the best of both worlds. Richard really was a mess. I don't think they had running water where they were living. After about a month, without telling my friends, I finally just gave up on trying to replace Zack. There was just no replacing him.

For the first month of my going to school, my mother stayed at friends house. These noteworthy friends of  hers were named Jim and Connie, a couple in their late fifties, somewhat barfly material, but nothing completely out of the norm. They had a three bedroom home, and an outdoor swimming pool. There was a musty 70's grime to their home, but they for the most part kept the place pretty clean, though I felt there trash compactor was kind of gross, though I do not recall the reason why. Jim played guitar and was a bit of a wannabe Bob Dylan. They all casually drank each night. My mom would often times leave us there, and go stay with Danny during the nights. Jim found out that I was a beginner in learning to play guitar, and there was one night where he basically spent the entire night talking to me about his love for music. Aside from 60-70's folk music, he also was very into 80's hair metal. He remembered my father's band Ogre back in the 70's and was very impressed that I was of  'that lineage'. Jim was okay, but I always found him a little bit annoying, however, I felt that perhaps he had some things to teach me. He was also very encouraging about me being a musician, and after having the ridiculous backlash from my school and from home, I took all the encouragement I could get. He ended up teaching me Every Rose Has It's Thorn on guitar, which was campy to me, but very easy to play, and I was proud that I knew the song – even while I didn't particularly enjoy the song itself.

Connie seemed a little bit crazy. She just seemed to say weird things out of the blue, and wasn't able to follow conversation very well. With that said, she was actually very nice. Far nicer than Jim. I found out from Allison a few years later, that Jim was being a creep towards her, making gross statements about what a 'pretty little girl' she was. He kept saying perverted things to her. She was nine years old at the time. Allison remembers Jim getting really inappropriate with his remarks, and Connie overheard it. She was really upset and crying, telling Jim he was disgusting. I think it was one of those things where it hurt because she felt rejected by her husband – he preferring to ogle over younger women, saw him as a sick pervert attracted to children, but was so deeply entrenched in the marriage - with a realization that it was either stay with Jim, or die alone. She cried, and apologized to Allison as best she could. Had I known about it, I would have kept Allison a little closer.

Most of the time though, nobody was home. They had this dog named Emily who seemed to constantly need attention. They had three cats, none of them particularly friendly, though the most unfriendly one seemed to like me alright. David would often stay in our mom's room while she was away, and he would play Lord of the Rings video games for hours and hours. He was oftentimes in such a bad mood that nobody could talk to him for days. I felt this was very strange for a boy his age. He had this raging temper that was hard to understand. Allison was at the time, completely obsessed with animals, so she watched Animal Planet literally all weekend. Animal rescue shows, nature and wildlife shows. She confessed to me when she got older that she had had a crush on Steve Irwin.

I generally spent the weekend in the side room, either watching things on VH1 like 200 Best Rock Songs of All Time, or something like that. And if I wasn't watching that, I would be watching hours and hours of UFO investigations or history channel specials on conspiracies and mysteries, most of them related to UFO stuff. There was very little to eat aside from Little Debbie's, so I always felt a little bit gross. I would overhear my mom talking to Danny on the phone, and I remember one time I distinctly listened in to this really annoying phone conversation she was having with him. Basically, my mother talked babytalk and sort of little girlish on the phone towards him. I always thought that was strange, and I have seen it a lot since. Why do some men only feel dominant when their girlfriend or wife is infantized? This was not the least of this conversation I found frustrating. She was trying to ask him what he wanted to eat, and he was getting mad at her for not somehow already knowing him better than he knew himself. She was stammering and trying to figure out what he wanted. Eventually he coldly told her he didn't want he food – just to be an ass, and after having made her feel thoroughly dumb about herself. She then told him that she had watched some reboot of the Exorcist, which was honestly terrible, but she seemed to like it. Danny started criticizing her and telling her she was stupid for believing in demonic possession. I tended to agree, but the way he kept cutting her down was really mean. I couldn't figure out what the hell was wrong with him.

In the end, Jim and Connie got mad because their dog Emily attacked one of their cats, and the cat knocked over a lamp. Jim and Connie were convinced that there was no way this could have happened, and instead blamed Allison and David for rough housing – though this was not the case. My mom got frustrated and tried to side with Allison and David, but kind of got dismissed. So she found another place to keep us for the weekend.

So, the next arrangement was Willy's. Willy was a mentally handicapped man who had for some reason inherited hundreds of thousands of dollars. He was very very large, and very loud. He lived in a fancy part of Clarkston known as The Heights as it was on the hillside above the rest of the town. This was one of the stranger places we had ever stayed. Basically, it wasn't a mansion, but a very large and new home. It wasn't the kind of place I was accustomed to living. However, Willy didn't have any furniture save a couch upstairs. He never once did the dishes. Rather than pay for the garbage man to come out and pick up his garbage, he threw all these bags into this car garage, and that room smelled absolutely disgusting. The whole house smelled of trash, actually, and a good portion of the room were unused.

We rented the basement though, so we didn't have to share the same living space. And Willy was usually gone, spending a good portion of his time at the bar or on his family's ranch. Occasionally, he would come home at night with young women he met at the bar, and have very loud crazy wild sex upstairs. We learned to ignore it for the most part. You got the strong sense that he was going to run out of money sooner rather than later when you looked at how he chose to live. Roxanne had at some point bought a boxer pup that she couldn't adequately take care of. My mom took him temporarily. I don't remember his name. He sometimes would get loose and run around in the fields around this big place. There was no way anyone could catch him. After about a month or so, our mother ended up selling him to breeders, who kept him and another boxer so they could get puppies to sell. I hope his life went well. Technically, though statistically he would have died a few years ago now, he actually may still be alive, though if that is the case, he would be around thirteen years old.

Most of the weekends that I was over, I was very bored. I didn't read back then very often, and mostly I would just listen to music. I drew a little bit sometimes as well. We would eat our TV dinners and Little Debbie's and everyone would fight over who got the Xbox. David wanted it all the time, but I still seemed to be able to control things for the most part. The Xbox was this new thing back then. I remember the excitement that you could put music on it. I tried to burn all my music onto it. There were these strange eerie nights I would have. My mom was working as a bartender in those days, and she often times wouldn't be home till very late. Allison and David would crash on the floor, and I would just listen to the weird sounds that the Xbox made when there was no game being played and you were left with the dashboard. It sounded like dissonant alien noises. There were these repetitive whispers in the sound of the Xbox that were used for a noise affect. I read somewhere that these inaudible talking murmurs were actually real astronaut recordings. It really made me feel uneasy. And when I looked out of the house, there was nothing but fields that went on for miles and miles of nothing, and the night sky which reminded me of this vacant impersonal nothingness that reflects right back at mankind when they look up at the sky. It just had a way of making my hairs stand on end and caused me to feel somewhat paranoid.

Roxanne started bringing Jeremy Frye over more often now to visit. She was obsessed with him to the point of revering him almost as some type of religious figure, and it looked as though he were here to stay. He was a meth dealer, and they were both often doing meth. However, he controlled how much Roxanne was allowed to take, and he forced her to do whatever it is he wanted her to do. She kept a clean house now, but it was due to her fear that he would beat her. Somehow, they were both very obsessed with ICP and their version of Christianity. It was an obviously unhealthy relationship. And Jeremy was the type of person who felt he owned everyone around him, particularly women. It was really disturbing and gross. With men, he would put on this overly hyperactive friendly act that was completely phony. And Roxanne thought that Jeremy knew EVERYTHING. After talking to me for a short time, Jeremy told Roxanne that, though I seemed like a good girl, I didn't do drugs, liked writing and reading to some degree, I was actually going to end up being this huge slut and party like crazy. This among several other things he often said, annoyed me greatly.

Willy's was also the place where David started to really act out in a disturbing manner. Up to that point, it was mostly denying of strange facts or instances and freak outs that were very disturbing and out of control. He was still a small child at the time, but something seemed very wrong with him. I tried several times to explain what was happening to my father, but he always denied it. Generally, my parents saw me as the person that was supposed to control all these details about David or Allison, to keep it out of their own hair. As a young child, something was very wrong with his psyche. He needed help. My mom left Allison and David alone one weekend at Willy's on a weekend where I didn't want to babysit. David attacked Allison with a knife. Her chased her into a closet and then waited for her to come out for over an hour. She was nine, and he was eight. I didn't hear about it for some time, but when I did, I was genuinely disturbed. When I told my parents about it, they instead decided that punishing Allison was best. They blamed him for instigating it. It's really hard to explain how frustrated this made me. I felt badly for David, but it also caused a bridge between us. David could literally attack our sister with a knife claiming he was going to kill her. I knew he needed mental help, and that was ultimately what I wanted to see, but instead Allison always took the blame. And honestly, it was a sexism thing. My mother's family has always felt that women deserve the abuse that the man brings to the table, and my father in some areas saw women as manipulative treacherous tricksters that are set on making men lose their minds. So ultimately, it wasn't bad parenting, toxic masculinity, mental illness or anything of the sort that was at fault. Allison simply being born female was.

PART 42 - http://tinyurl.com/ycnng83q

PART 41 - http://tinyurl.com/y84kmttv

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PART 3 - http://tinyurl.com/mwp9atx

PART 2 - http://tinyurl.com/lbt6xq2

PART 1 - http://tinyurl.com/l8xbvg8