Just Write

No

"I don't know what to write!"

"Just try."

"Everyone says that, but it's not that easy!"

"Then go off of that."

"You're not making any sense, Denise."

"Challenge the block. Punch it, kick it, offend it, climb it... anything to get away from it."

"Still makes no sense. Can I go get a snack?"

"No. You're going to sit here until you write something."

"Hmph."

Stella pushed her chair out as she walked out of the room, leaving her sister Denise sitting in the chair next to hers, staring at the computer screen, as if she herself were trying to figure out what they could do with it.

She opened the refrigerator forcefully, scanning the contents to try to find something edible and good to eat. Half a brown apple from a week ago? Nope. I should probably toss that out soon. Not now, though. Quinoa leftovers? Too healthy. Yesterday's sandwich? Too soon. Closing the fridge, she looked through the pantry for anything. Finally she found something, a bag of salt-and-vinegar chips, and brought them over to the island. After a few moments of sitting there, crunching on her chips, her sister came down and sat next to her.

"Sorry for pushing you like that. I didn't mean to be rude or controlling. I guess I'm just used to it coming so naturally for me, I expected you to be able to do it too."

Ugh. She's doing that thing where she makes me feel bad that I can't do something so she can take credit for "apologizing," making me the bad guy. Like guilt tripping, but worse, Stella thought, munching slower and slower.

"Gmbrf" was her reply. She didn't make eye contact, just stared at the thick, curvy lettering on the bag.

Denise sighed. "It's not all your fault, either." Ha. Yeah, thanks for making me feel better. "I'm not the best teacher."

Suddenly she couldn't hold her thoughts in anymore. For some reason, those tiny words didn't feel tiny anymore. "Oh, thank you so much for clearing that up for me! I was just beating myself up for not being able to write anything because my sister was staring at me and because I'm not as amazing and capable as she is! Whatever! I don't care that I can't write, or do math, or do anything! I don't need that stuff! I'll be a jewelry maker or a painter! Just leave me alone, and stop trying!" With that, Stella stomped away from Denise for the second time in ten minutes up to her room. As she jumped onto her bed, she couldn't get comfortable, especially not with that computer screen staring down at her from the desk. She got up, slammed the computer shut, and lunged back onto the bed, pulling the blankets up overtop of her. She let her blonde hair fall onto her shoulders and her face.

She didn't want Denise to come up and "apologize" again, Stella told herself. But a tiny part of her did want to hear her say sorry, to hug her and maybe let her get mad at her again. When she didn't come, Stella just had a whole pile of jumbled-up feelings--and add that to school and her parents, it was a big mess.

At school, she was failing. She had D's in ELA and social studies and a D- in math. The only classes that she had a relatively good grade in were PE (A-) and science (B+). Everyone's pushes to "find something" weren't helping, and add that to her sister being perfect in ever subject (except PE), it was a lot on her back. The friend problem was mostly taken care of. Her two friends were Elizabeth, or Liz, and Kindle. Stella had known Kindle since kindergarten, and Liz had moved to town two years ago. Stella wasn't the friendliest to Liz at first, but after weeks of Kindle inviting Liz over to their hang-outs without telling Stella and pushing Stella to be "nice to the new girl" they became friends.

Stella and Denise's parents both worked a lot, but only one of them wanted to. Their mother, Diana, worked at an architecture firm, and she worked sometimes worked ten hours a day, coming home exhausted and unable to make dinner (they had takeout a lot). Their father, Spencer, was a wallpaper salesman and a terrible cook. He worked at Wallpaper Workstation, which was a small, ancient building across town. It had brown walls outside and crazy diamond-and-rose wallpaper inside with rolls and rolls and rolls of colorful paper all around the room. Even in their bathroom they had wallpaper with blue suns and white moons. Spencer hated his job, and sometimes joked that if he worked another day there he would go blind. But every day, he went back and did it again, selling daisy striped paper to people he would never imagine would use wallpaper in their house.

Lately their parents had been working more and more. One night, a few weeks before the incident with Denise, Stella had been watching TV when both her parents walked in at 8:30 PM. They sat down at the table, Diana putting her head in her hands wearily and Spencer putting his head fully on the table. Denise was upstairs working on a project for school, so Stella had been alone for hours, eating only a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner. She went up to both of their tired faces and said in a controlled tone, "Why were you late this time?" She sat down in a chair next to them.

"Honey, does it really matter? I'm so tired," her mother said, sighing.

"Yes, it does, because a kid shouldn't eat a sandwich by herself four nights a week!"

"I'm sorry, but there were lots of backorders for this one family's house, and they needed it done by tomorrow, so I worked on it in a coffee shop for a little while..." Her voice trailed off and her eyelids drooped, almost making Stella lean down and comfort her mother. Then her eyes opened as if realizing something.

Stella got up from her chair, pushing it out behind her. "Wait. You went to a coffee shop instead of home?"

"Does home have a peppermint latte?" It came out before Diana could stop herself. Stella could tell her mom was tired, but that was no excuse for what she had said. Her mouth dropped in amazement that she could actually say something like that, that it was allowed for something that offensive to come out of a mother's mouth. Even Spencer had looked up in surprise. Stella, ignoring her father's hand coming to her shoulder, walked angrily away from the kitchen table. As she started to ascend the stairs she looked back at her parents. Neither had left their seat at the table to try to apologize. That didn't help Stella's annoyance one bit.