Celebrity Status [The Yearlings]

There was a moment when I thought that little pr—k would take the apple. I thought that maybe he’d take it and eat it, and then we could call breathe a sigh of relief and go back to being normal. As normal as this family could be, anyway. But I knew that it was too good for him. It was too easy of an answer for him to just take the f—king fruit from my hand and be happy. A bitter little pissant that thought he was brave by beating his chest louder than anyone else. He had no real backbone—he was just like a frightened animal when it’s cornered. He thought that he could just react, and that would be enough to defeat his enemies.

When he knocked the apple out of my hand I cracked a wry smile. He was acting like the child he was, and it was just going to show Ary that I was right. He still had a lot of growing up to do before she could trust him. He was too concerned with himself and needed to be taught a lesson. I wasn’t even angry so much that he had struck the thing out of my hand, though it was a shame for him to waste food. I looked to Ary and then back to Gus. He seemed to be playing right into my plan to make him look foolish. I opened my mouth to say something, but there was no time for what was about to happen.

Spit. He spit on me. On. My. F—king. Face.

I stand in a flash, ready to obliterate him. No one is allowed to touch me and get away with it. I have never allowed anyone—not in my life, not since I was a child—to do anything so disrespectful to me without some sort of retaliation. There’s screaming as I swing myself at Gus but I’m not fast enough, and February has wedged herself there to stop me. I can’t f—king believe that she would stop me. It makes me so angry I just want to strangle him. I want to punch his face into a bloody f—king pulp. I want him to cough up blood after I’m down with him. I can see him whimpering after it all—I would use him as an example when I’m done with him. No one will cross me, no one will ever even think about doing anything like that.

But he’s already out the door before I can so much as get a hair on his head. And February is at the door. She’s there, beautiful, angelic in her defense of Gus. I turn from her and scream, “F—king Motherf—ker! Stupid f—king son of a b—h c—t a—hole! God… D—mnit!” I yell as I grab onto some knick knack of his near his bed and smash it to the floor. I grab one of his shirts and tear the thing in half in my hands, fuming. I can hear February talking and I turn to her. She’s defending him? She’s… she’s blaming me? It’s my fault that he’s a little s—t? It’s my fault that he spat in my face? Whose side is she on, anyway? Who the h—l did she think that she was? Who did she think she was talking to, telling me that I couldn’t be so mean to him.

“Why don’t you f—king go to him then, if you love him so much!” I yell after her, knowing full well the words will carry down the stairwell and throughout the rest of the house. I’m still heaving, my face red, standing there in the middle of the room like a fool. I take up the napkin and apple pieces and growl. I want to go down the stairs, but I’m stopped by February’s plea. She is the only one stopping me from tearing this whole house down. She’s the only one that could have stopped me from tearing him limb from limb. I stomp around the room, and kick a box with Gus’s things. I let out another yell and begin smashing things with reckless abandon, wanting to get out my anger on something, anything.

I want to destroy things that he loves. I want to destroy things that make him happy. I want him to be ashamed of what he’s done to me. It’s not fair. It’s not fair that no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, nothing comes easily for me. I can’t run this house any better than anyone else. I can’t even get us all to have a civil dinner with one another. No, even February was turning from me for a fool. For an idiot that couldn’t keep himself together, that was so sensitive a drop of rain could set him off. God.

Everyone always chose someone else over me—wasn’t that how it worked? That for everything that I put onto my back for everyone else, no one gave me an ounce of credit. Instead they just waited for me to drop something, or worse—they waited for my back to break.

I stand, chest heaving as I throw something of his against the wall, and place an arm against the bed post. There was nothing that I was getting out of this destruction. It may have made me happy to ruin some of his things, but it wasn’t going to bring me what I wanted. I wanted to be here with February, and for him to be happy. I wanted all of them to be eating dinner together. I wanted to watch all of them flirt and laugh, for October to observe and for Julyan to make a wise-ass comment. And I wanted to be normal, and to go to bed at night without the stress. Without the fear that something else would teeter out of control the next day.

I pound my fist against the wall as I stand there, letting out a frustrated sigh. There was nothing left inside of me, just like this room. I was alone. Maybe I just brought it upon myself. Maybe I just needed to be alone for some time. I was wrong in bringing them all here. My whole life had been about getting away from the chaos that kept drawing me in, the normalcy of family life. I just wished so desperately I had someone else to show me the way, someone that could give me some sense to what we were doing wrong.

When my mother died—she abandoned me. There wasn’t a goodbye for me. There wasn’t a—she f—king just left me. She left me to deal with the whole mess that was our life. Our home. If you could even call it that. She had been addicted to different things. She took them because she didn’t want to have to deal with the world anymore. It was like that was what adults did. My father took to the bottle, and my mother took as many pills as she could get her hands on. She would try and keep things safe for us when they first started to fall apart. She would break a few dishes. Smash a few things of his. And he would come home and find her.

She would say that it was too hard for her. She was doddering after getting up on the pills. She would just putter around the house like a ghost. I think she left us a long time before, truth be told. And I tried. I tried so hard to keep them together. To keep everything the way that it was supposed to be. We were supposed to be a family, and to be happy. Not two people who yelled all the time, and passed out in the living room or the bathroom. Or broke my picture frame because I’d forgotten to turn off the light before going outside. I just wasn’t strong enough to keep them together.

I wasn’t about to let this fall apart. Not like before. I wasn’t going to let them go this way. I would regroup. I would—I would find a way to punish them, to make them feel for what they were doing. For the way that they were ruining this family. I would make everything right, and we would all be together and stay together. I just… I just needed time. I needed time to figure it all out. I was just too tired to do it now. I was too tired to deal with all of their bulls—t. I just wanted to go to bed and sleep for days and days. I would just recharge.

They said it was too much for her. That she had just taken one too many—that maybe she’d gotten confused. It was because I—I failed her. I’d been the one who was supposed to watch her when she got too unhinged. I should have known better, but I just wasn’t strong enough. It wasn’t fair.

I was walking the corridor now, my hand tracing along the wall. I was still fuming, but feeling numb now. I didn’t want to feel anything. I just wanted some sort of respite from it all. Somewhere to get away from all the madness. At last I settled on the least popular room in the house, and turned the knob. I took a step inside and recognized December alone, as usual. December. I’d never taken enough time to make sure she was all right. I had all but forgotten this little one, hoping the others could take care of her. Or that she was strong enough to be on her own.

“Hello December,” I said quietly. I stepped in meekly, taking a seat on a chair near her, sliding my back down, and sighing. I had to think this through. I looked to her and then dug in my pocket for the napkin. I pulled it out and opened it to reveal a few slices of apples. I could still fake a smile for her. The children didn’t have to know that the grown-ups were fighting. She deserved some happiness. So now I would put my mask on, and pretend that I was fine. That there was nothing underneath the surface that couldn’t be pushed way, way down, down to my toes and beneath me. “Did you get enough to eat at dinner? Are you feeling okay?”

Night was falling with a vengeance, a few lamp posts here and there scattering their pools of refuge in sharp contrast to the velvety blackness of dusk. The streets were nearly deserted by this hour, with all the usual denizens safely tucked away in their houses for the evening. Not quite all, however, as the waif-like figure of one Juniper Pearl wended her way home. A few notes rang out in the quiet, obscurely sung in a thin, reedy voice, following the jaunty tune of an old sailor shanty about rum and wenches. The resounding "Yo ho ho!" was followed by the skinny girl catching one of the light posts and swinging around it in nimble style only to lose her grip and go sailing into a row of metal trash cans with a raucus clanging that disturbed several alley cats from their prowl.

"Oops! I'm ok fair citizens, I'm aaaaaall right!" she called out cheerfully to the empty street. A white tooth grin flashed, dazzling against a face streaked black with engine grease and soot. Hair bleached even fairer in the gloom to a ghostly silver and trailing downward in long tangled locks. Today had been a good day, a very good day. Joon had been up to her elbows in the guts of a faulty two-man aircraft, starting at six that morning, she had only just seen how dark the sky was turning and wriggled out from the belly of the beast to turn hop-skipping steps towards home. She felt a moment's guilt at how late it must be, Ary and Jan had a tendency to wring their hands and wail when she wasn't home to sit down and eat with them. It was just so easy to lose track of time when a fascinating problem presented itself, and the aircraft had been positively riveting!Ahh well, what was nestled in the front pocket of her overalls would make Ary settle down and have the little ones smiling in no time. She patted the spot gingerly, ensuring that her earlier antics hadn't damaged the contents. Almost there. Just a hop over a fence here, and slide down the flag pole on the other side, duck between the narrow gap in a stone wall...the route was an obstacle course, but familiar day or night. And now the lights of their run-down little home shown out like beacons in the night. All the shutters being broken, nothing filtered the golden beams and they cast glimmering streams out into the dingy street. An aroma of cooking meat accompanied in wafts of mouthwatering intensity, and provided the exact motivation to kick up the pace to a brisk trot over the last few yards.

She had just reached the door and lifted a hand to open the latch, when it was ripped from her grasp and a body came whipping out of it and ramming straight into her open arms. With a squeal of shock, both figures took a tumble off the stoop and landed on the dirt street, with Joon sprawled inelligantly as the bottom cushion. Eyes narrowed, she wrinkled her nose indignantly at the person who turned out to be Gus, straddling her stomach. "You don't need to bowl me over to get a hug, Gus..." The sassy comeback halted mid-sentence as the boy lept up and took off down the street, leaving her to flail about like an upside down turtle. Seconds later, Ary came pelting after him, not even noticing the girl in the gutter, she turned in hot pursuit of the fleeing figure.

"No, really...I'm great...this is super comfy, actually." The sarcastic words addressed a once more empty doorway, and Joon gave a wry snort, hauling herself back up to her feet. Inside it was warm and deliciously scented of food, but an empty table glared back at her own cross expression. "Fooooood, where are you hiiiiding?" She pattered into the kitchen, but found only a couple of apple slices, one of which rapidly disappeared, crunching delightfully between her teeth. Smacking lips, she headed back out to interrogate the others on the victual disappearance, and was just in time to catch the tail end of a heated tirade issuing from the direction of the bedrooms. The crack of something breaking against the wall and a general commotion of items being thrown about and knocked over pulled her up short. Toby and Aibrean were frozen by the ruckus, appearing shell-shocked by whatever had obviously occurred during dinner. Julyan also stood in the room, like some kind of statue, a plate of sliced meat balanced in one palm.

The food drew Joon like a bear to honey, and she batted her lashes at the boy in possession of it, filching a slice to cram in her mouth and mumble around. "Oh goody, so Jan's in a pleasant mood?" Toby's face bore dirty streaks from crying, and Aibrean looked little better, it seemed as though the simmering volcano had spewed over once again. The house fostered an atmosphere of unhealthy tension, with all its vastly differing personalities shoehorned into one space. With the final shreds of beef making tasty paths down her throat, she offered a grin to the others present and dug around in her overalls pocket to withdraw a crumpled paper bag. "Leave Jan to me, how's about a cookie?" She pulled out three from the precious little stash, pressing one into each outstretched hand. "No tattling to Ary that I gave them out before you finished dinner!" The girl gave an offkilter chortle, her blackened face squinting up in a smile as she spun on one food and padded off in search of January.

Each room turned up empty, until Juniper reached the half-open door of December's little corner. Poking her head through, she found Jan seated beside the youngest girl. ]"Oh, there you are. I hear you've been spreading a little merriment and cheer." Her expression remained oh so innocent, despite the fact she obviously knew that was not the case.