My fingers hurt, but I don't let them have a chance to cramp and stuck. I hear it, it's almost coming and I'm not willing to let myself down. Not today, not right now. For this seems to be the most efficient way to get the burdens out of me and as if, from here, nothing else could ever reach near me anymore. And it does really, even though if just for this moment. At least while I'm doing it, it's too much of a sensation to even bother about anything else's existence.
The sweat threatens to slide down my face from my hair line, even though I took my shirt out right to prevent that. I bend my head back and close my eyes. There we are.
She's a little runaway
One, two, three, four - one, two, and at the third bend of the G string on the seventh fret, together with the B string pressed still on the fifth, the solo part starts and I show no mercy. Runaway by Bon Jovi plays on my radio, audibly enough for my guitar to be what is heard the most. The creases on my fingertips only don't become open cuts of sliding and pressing them on the strings this aggressively, because they're by now very well calloused of eleven years submitting them to this torture.
But I like this torture, I like this pain. I still frown my face and look down at how I move they so accurately almost as if I was looking at a dead body instead. The shifting between the highest to the lowest scratchy noises I perform, and then going to even highest notes than before, it gets the chills down my spine and makes me want to turn up the volume to its maximum and silence the world forever.
But I know I can't, because neither the guitar solo lasts forever, anyway.
"Are you deaf? I'm calling you!" I stop in place and look ahead as I open my eyes again, shaking my guitar unconsciously to vibrate the last note as it slowly fades away to be overtaken by my mother's bangs on the door of my bedroom.
"And turn that shit down." She bursts it open and I immediately turn around to her walking inside furiously, straight to where my radio keeps doing its thing. Although she speaks about the guitar.
"That shouldn't even ever have been invented in the first place." She adds as if she's talking to herself, but making sure I hear it. I frown my face again, now with true rage for her having walked into my room in such manners, when she knows this is the last place I'd like her to be in. And if that wasn't enough, she has the audacity to turn the radio off, not just mute it, and that I don't know if she's aware of how much irritates me.
"Why did you buy me one, then?" I immediately question lowly with a hint of sarcasm, not really thinking about putting the instrument away from my body anytime soon. But I step in front of its amplifier as I see her turning and looking at it, before she could even think about touching it. So she looks at me sharply instead, almost shouting "Your father bought it! You think I don't wish you'd play it at his hears instead so he feels glad to be dead?"
"Don't!" Now I shout too, "Don't you say that about father and don't you say that about me, Goddamnit!"
Tears suddenly form in my eyes, the more I want them not to. But she touched a sensitive topic and didn't even care of doing it with some consideration. On the contrary. She knows very well she did, even before she spoke. And now, as if I have been the one to disrespect her as if she didn't deserve it, she slaps me on the face again.
I flinch instinctively, consequently tripping on the wire that connects the guitar hanging on my body to the amplifier upon my furniture. That one makes a slightly shrilling noise as the guitar hits the floor with me, and I only gasp because of that. Immediately, my mother grasps on my neck and turns me around to face her leaning over me with the rampageous expression I'm so unfortunately familiar with.
"You tell me what to do or not one more time..." She starts threatening in between her teeth, her dangerous ways burning my soul through my eyes and ears and I tear of anger a bit more. It's sad that this has to be my daily routine, my life, so much that I find myself used to it by now. And frankly, I get more and more tired of it at each time. If before I remained to witness it, now I feel it in my very skin too. Because she was left with no one else to scare, so her own children will do.
Except that one of them is already seventeen years old and doesn't only curls up in a corner, sobbing in hopes it makes the pain go away. Because that pain has been making me stronger and determined to let its causer know that she can't get to us so easily anymore. Yet, I still find myself under her furious hold, helpless.
She doesn't finish her threat and simply throws me even more onto the ground, getting away and walking out of the room heavily.
"There's someone on the phone for you." She mutters instead, right before unnecessarily slamming the door shut after her, thinking that makes me fear her any more. Two seconds later I let my head hit fallen on the floor and sigh as I close my eyes, letting the last tears drip.
×××××
"Hello?" I ask on the orange phone against my face after I take it quickly from the equally orange support attached to the wall right at the kitchen entrance.
"Diana?" A shy voice speaks on the other side.
"What?" I ask I bit more sharply than I intended, trying to ignore the fact that this person doesn't know what to call me. But my face is surely still red of the impact and of fury, and that also makes me impatient for not knowing who am I talking to nor why a stranger wants to talk to me nor what do they want.
"I uh... I'm Caroline Stuart, I.. saw your papers... for the band?" Her voice trembles, but the words reach very well my disturbed mind and manage to suddenly ease it.
"Oh.." I pronounce, slowly understanding where this may be leading to, and my heart beats fast for another whole different reason.
"Well, I... thought maybe.. I would like to join." She changes her words, trying to prove herself determined, and I look widely at the wall in front of me in disbelief. She is determined, because she's someone wanting to form a band with me. Even more when she's someone wanting to form a band with me. Finally!
"Hello?" I hear her swallow dryly, and I suddenly realise my intense silence.
"Caroline, I.." I start, trying to decide each of my thoughts I want to let her know first, and she stays quiet. "I mean, you can join!" I say excited, letting a smile of mine be heard and she chuckles relieved, but somewhat nervously. I immediately ask, now without a single drop of any negative feeling in the way I do, "What do you play?"
"Keys." I gasp quietly of contentment. Keys and guitar alone might be an interesting combination, since there's still no one else in this case. If it were simply guitar with drums it would still sound awsome, but I fear it's a bit overheard of, not to talk about how guitar with guitar would probably sound weird. But the keys, they give melody and beat all at once and you practically don't even need the guitar at all. But in this specific case, though, the more the better.
I want to ask so much more things, and there's so much more we need to talk about, so, for now, I offer "You know what? We shall talk about it all more properly tomorrow at school."
YOU ARE READING
Little Freak {HS}
Teen Fiction'Only no one can get rid of the undesirable if not especially mindful and actively search for it' ××××× It's late 80's and the last year in my small town high school. I may need to mention the new long haired boy that...
