The Mendacity of Winnie Hart

Chapter Two

The rush of wind made me stagger back from my window a bit, immediately regretting opening it. I slammed it shut, and walked back over to my bed where all of my schoolwork sat. Only six weeks into school, and I had more work than I'd ever had before. Whoever said senior year was supposed to be the slacker year clearly didn't go to my school.

I held a hand up to my forehead, wondering why I was feeling so hot. If there wasn't practically a tornado outside, I would've let the cool evening air relieve me. I chalked it up to stress, and continued on with my work. All of my classes besides my study hall were pretty heavy with their workloads, an unfortunate fact for me.

Wren and I had different classes for everything but first period, and different teachers for everything but math. So, I was pretty much on my own with this, not that I particularly wanted it the other way. Sometimes when I got stuck on a question, I did think it would be nice to have two heads to put together.

I sighed, and shut my laptop, feeling the rumble of my stomach. Dinner wasn't the main thing on my mind today, so I had skipped it, but I was hungry now as a result. I wandered downstairs, the wooden stairs creaking under the pressure. It would be a lie to say I loved the house we were in now, but it was a hell of a lot better than my old one. Sure, this one was creaky, and drafty. It was pretty small, just enough room for my mom and I, and the stove only worked some of the time. Sometimes I swore I could hear footsteps on the roof, like Santa Claus was ready to litter us with presents every day. But what it didn't have, was memories.

Our kitchen was more barren than I thought it would be, so it took me a while to ransack it to find something suitable to make.The best I found were some pierogis I could boil. They didn't look very appetizing, but I'd rather eat them than go hungry. As I stood at the stove, slowly stirring them, I heard the front door open and shut.

I turned towards the entryway, waiting for my mom to walk through the kitchen. She jumped when she saw me, and set her purse down on the table.

"Oh, hi Winnie," she said, brushing some crumbs off of the table. She looked tired, but nowadays she always looked tired. Her brown hair, which matched mine, was up in a claw clip and her clothes looked like they were constricting her. "What are you making?"

"Just some pierogis," I answered, turning back to my food. As expected, my mother walked out of the room after the brief interaction. We didn't talk as much as we used to anymore; our relationship was just different. She kept to herself, and I kept to mine aside from small pleasantries. She never delved into my personal life, and I'm sure she didn't want me snooping into hers. I wanted to have a good relationship with her, but there were too many unspoken words that no one wanted to say.

The pot was bubbling, but I realized I wasn't that hungry anymore.

•••

"So how did your essay turn out?" I asked Wren, tapping my pen against my paper as I thought of what year Lenin ruled the Soviet Union.

"Well, apparently it was supposed to be typed and printed, not written. The ink mishap was all for naught. That dinged me ten points, and apparently my thesis wasn't strong enough, another five points. My conclusion wasn't even really a conclusion."

"What does that mean?" I asked, halting the tapping to turn and look at her.

"It was more like the lyrics to the Brady Bunch theme song all swapped around," she mused, holding a hand to her chin as she thought about it.

"That truly makes no sense."

"I was under pressure! I was writing the conclusion as Miss Mendoza was walking around collecting the papers. I think it would've been worse if I hadn't written the conclusion at all." She huffed out a breath of frustration. "Anyways, Miss Mendoza emailed me last night after grading it and told me to see her before class today. As if her inane deadlines aren't the reason that cause everyone to flunk her dumb essays. She's a Leo, I shouldn't be surprised."