D2 :: Noe Fear

sometimes, i think i could use some help
sometimes, i think that i'm better than anybody else
back and forth
in and out of my shell

It's a beautiful day to be terrified. The sun is shining in a sweet blue sky, the birds are whistling old timey tunes, and all around you the park is filled with joyful children playing tag, spinning on the merry-go-round until they scream with dizziness, and picnicking with their loving parents. You have a glass of sweet tea in one hand and your favorite book in the other. It's a classic romance novel that's one hundred pages of contempt followed by two hundred pages of agonizing pining until — finally! — the pinkies touch on page three hundred and twenty-six and you have to loosen the top button on your shirt and fan yourself for a full five minutes before so much as contemplating a return to reality.

The problem? There's a teen in the gazebo where you like to sit and it's ruining your life.

How unbelievably rude of her. Where are you supposed to sit? Doesn't she know that other people want their turn? Obviously the polite thing to do would be for her to respect social order and decorum by vacating the gazebo immediately. Loitering like this is just —

The teen notices you glaring. Her face is an expressionless void. She sees you, but, obviously, she doesn't see anything she deems worthy of acknowledgment. Your face is boring. Your book is boring. You are boring. When she looks away, you feel dismissed. It's devastating.

How old is she to be like this? Four? Seventeen? You're a terrible judge of age and children are different than they were back in your day. She could be a particularly tall toddler for all you know, so skinny and seemingly unaware of other people. But no. That's just the pettiness talking, like one of the gossiping neighbors in your book. You know a teen when you see one. After all, she's got hooligan hands — you can see how chipped the black nail polish is from here — and obviously cuts her own hair. Badly. But maybe it's bad on purpose? Like that's what she was going for. Heinous. She isn't wearing a leather jacket, but she has leather jacket energy. Even when she finally leaves, you're going to need a sage smudge stick to cleanse the gazebo. Her rotten aura makes your skin crawl.

Your imagination runs wild. You think: She sleeps on a bed of broken beer bottles. She flosses with rat tails. Her first words were growling. She has razor blades for toenails. If she smiled it would snuff the sun right out of the sky, so clearly she never has and thank god for that. Her diary is bound in human skin. Her mother was a wolf and her father a pit of tar. She terrorizes librarians by requesting niche porn with strange names that trick them into having uncomfortable conversations with their coworkers when trying to figure out what in the world her awful words mean. She likes the smell of eggs.

Without any shadow of a doubt, you know that if you go up to her and say anything at all, then she'll seize the opportunity to spit in your open mouth.

What you don't know is that the actuality of her is worse than anything someone like you could fathom. The ratty t-shirt with its many unmended holes is the nicest thing she owns and she wore it special today, in some kind of misguided attempt to look cute for someone. She thinks the way she rolled the short sleeves up makes her gangly arms look athletic and maybe, if the sunshine hits her skin just right, it'll make the girl she's waiting for want to link arms. Maybe that sunshine could also emphasize how warm, how nice it feels to be close like that. Maybe it will be enough for Jett to finally realize that they're not friends... they're more than that... and they have been for years.

Urgh. Jett Wrenley. So cute. So slow on the uptake. So worth the trouble.

Noe runs a hand through her hair, grimacing at how it's greasier than she realized. Today probably won't be the day, but if it is then why does this have to be the kind of hair day she's having? Her stomach pains have gotten better since her family fled town without her and no one was left to make sure she fills her prescriptions regularly, choking down five different kinds of pills every morning and two more each night, but maybe one of those pills somehow did something good for her hair even if they seemed bad for the rest of her. Maybe she should start taking them again. Slumping against one of the gazebo posts, she scuffs her shoe over and over the ground, inexplicably anxious all of the sudden. The pills were good for that too, if only because they made it so hard to focus her thoughts. She always hated that, but the tradeoff isn't great. She picks at her wrist until one of the scabs from all of her senseless worrying cracks and fresh blood prickles to the surface. "Shit."

You gasp, utterly scandalized, the curse word carrying on the breeze as if it were meant for you. There are children and people of decency in this park. This wild youth has no consideration for others and you should tell her so. You march three full steps toward her before a shiver coils around your spine and you freeze, holding your breath as if passing by a graveyard. Someone should tell this teen off, but must that someone be you? Glancing around, you yearn for someone to come to your rescue like one of the scenes in your book. That teen has a lip ring. It's not safe for you to approach her.

Twin whines of frustration eek out from both of your throats, you and the teen in unhinged harmony. Both of you are too self-absorbed to realize, of course, but the greater universe enjoys a small chuckle over it. No matter how different two people are, there's always something they have in common. If only you didn't lack the compassion to realize that other people struggle too.

The girl in the gazebo is going through something. A lot of things, actually. Her family accumulated too much debt and were in such a hurry to escape their problems that they didn't realize they'd left one of their daughters behind until it was too late to go back for her. Now she's living in a parking garage basement and, unbeknownst to her or the wayward friends she keeps company with, they've become the ignorant guards of more stolen treasure than a dragon's hoard. And then there's this girl trouble. Well, it's not trouble according to Noe, but everyone else can tell it's trouble. Just because Noe has been utterly charmed by her best friend toying with her heart, patiently waiting for a day of realization that might make them something more, doesn't mean that every other person in the world can't immediately tell that they're in desperate need of a conversation. But who has time for that? It was difficult enough to schedule this definitely-not-not-a-date in between ducking into alleyways to escape loansharks or failing her algebra homework. On top of that, she hasn't been sleeping well since she stopped taking her pills. Astraea winding thread around swords all night long makes this faint rustling sound like sandpaper against fingertips...

You do not care. Why should you? You have your own problems to worry about and she's one of them. "Punk!" You hiss and her head whips around in your direction so quickly that you lose your footing, spilling sweet tea all over your shirt. The teen is grinning, her teeth looking as if she regularly chips away at them with a chisel until each one tapers into a crude point. She's going to devour you alive, you just know it. Scrambling to your feet, you shove past yet another teen who managed to creep up behind you in your unguarded distraction, her hand reaching out to you for god-knows-what reason. To murder you, probably. You run, turning heel too quickly to realize that the gazebo has finally been vacated, Noe hoping that she can lay claim to the helping hand you turned down.

Maybe, just maybe, it's finally time for pinkies to touch.

no, i don't need your help
to make me sick, to make me ill
i don’t need anybody else
cause i can break my heart myself



^{break my heart myself (remix) by bebe rexha and itzy.}