FIRST PART
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I'm waiting for her in her house's street, as every other Wednesday morning .
I don't care at all if summer started two weeks ago: every Wednesday I wake up at seven for not arriving late at Heidi's house, as I did during school days.
For sure I know that I have to wait at least two hours without sitting, under the sun of Earmen Sprites* before that Heidi gets ready, but I just have fun looking at her house and thinking about what she would like to do in the morning.
She finally exits out: skinny shorts jeans, a large sleevless-shirt with a palm drawn on it, a long blond braid falling down her back... -"You're so gorgeous today"-"What? I just put some random clothes on!"-"I wish my random clothes were that beautiful"-" Oh shut the hell up!"- then she smiles. -"So were do you wanna go?"-"Hmm.. I've such a great idea! Follow me"-"What? Heidi tell me.."-"Just follow me "-"Heidi do you remeber the last time I "followed" you?"- I say, making quotation marks with my fingers -"C'mon, we didn't even get arrested!"-"But they took us to the police station!"-"I swear to God that I won't take you to anywhere dangerous"- says her, like she was repeating a second grade poem about peace and butterflies and love and bla bla bla... -"I hate you. Let's go."- She started running to the bus stop and I runned behind her, sweating like a pig and breathing fastly. When I finally reach her, with my best convincing voice I say -" You should enter in the athletes squad next year"- she looks at me like a grandma looks at her dumb five years old grandson -"Do you really think I'm that dumb? I mean, spending my last year at High School running and jumping?!"- Now I actually feel like a dumb five years old grandson. -"No...? I guess..."-"Exactly. I'll party all night, get drunk, vomite my soul, scream, love"-"I don't see how you could do this things...
•We are going to study a lot, so we need to sleep the night.
•And we are not twenty one yet so bye bye alcool.
•I can't see how vomiting would even be fun.
•Screaming hurts your throat.
•Loving... Maybe is the only good thing"-" O my gosh Ingrid, why do you always have to ruin all my day dreams?!"- Again, but this time I am also a nerdy five years old. Then she smiles and I understand she was ironic. Oh thanks god. I don't even imagine what my life looked like without Heidi: when we were in eighth grade, she walked next to me and said -"You are the most un-Earmen Sprites person here. I think we should be friends"- so she became my best friend. In High School she was, since first day, the coolest girl: beautiful, smart, fun, a little weird and good at sports. So I thought that she would hang out with the cool kids and leaved me alone... But she didn't. She demonstrated that she believed in our friendship and so did I from that moment. Without the cool girl that protect me I would just be a nerdy sixteen years old with no friends...
Then we take the bus, with no tickets. I'm sit in front of Heidi, terrified. I would love to tell her how not carefull and responsible is to do it, but I just would look like a nerd.
We finally arrived at George Finnsley's Street: a lonely, dirty, smelly and with not-absolutely-cute-mice street -"So... here we are!"-"Here we are...where?"- she changed her facial expression from "I'm so freaking exited" to "Oh, you're like the others..." I try to recover with a -"I...I'm not saying that I don't like it!"-
but Heidi looks like she isn't even listening at me. She walks to the street, pointing an enormous garden full of withe things. -"What...?"- I whisper.
Then I understand, shivering.
-"Did you take me to a...cemetery?"-"Duh!"- she says like is the most normal thing in the world -"Do you like it?"- I swallow loudly, frightened -"S...Sure!"- then I try to laugh, but it looks like an awkward orgasm.
After several minutes I understand that we are going to do a pick-nick, in a cemetery... Okay, hmm I wouldn't aspect that, but it's okay.
-"I prepared peanut butter sandwiches"-"Cool, I love them"- then we seet on the ground next to a dude called Archibald Nexture, that aparently died at the age of a hundred and ten years, but he got no flowers... I feel disappointed with his relatives! If I would live that much I would receive a lot of flowers, but never as much as Heidi would...
-"Do you wanna know a thing?"-"Hmm sure"- I say, but no: I don't wanna now anything , I'm just so hungry and scared that my stomach will start to make strange noises.
-"Elisa Brilghton said me a thing"- I'm not even listening. My brain can just think of PEANUT BUTTER! PEANUT BUTTER! PEANUT BUTTER!
Then, in a middle of a gossip and a stomach World War, I hear that.
My name. What can Elisa Brilghton say about me? My mind just gets full of mean things to say to me and yes, they are a lot. -"What did she say?"- I ask, trying miserably to act cool and not extremely nervous and anxious. -"She said that you like me! I mean, she is so dumb! Hahahahaha"- she keep laughing. I can't breath. I thought about "Ingrid is a stupid fat bitch" or "Ingrid is a vergin ew" or even "I saw Ingrid eating her own used tampoon last month". Sure, they would hurt, but not as this. They would remain just stupid gossipes. But this is more.
Heidi noticed that i was preparing to have a panic attack. I didn't have one since seventh grade, but in a second I turned in the nerdy kid with braces and glasses that I was. I'm staring at nothing, silently crying. I can'y let her see what I am in reality.
I start running to exit of the cemetery, crying out loudly. I run the fastest I can, I don't give a shit if I'm tired. I have to go away. The most far possible from Heidi. Then I fall under a street lamp, lost in the most difficult city to get lost into. While I was running I didn't noticed that it started raining really hard: now I am all wet, screaming and crying, seet on a lonely street, shivering.
I don't have any idea of what time could it be, but I prefer entering from my bedroom's window, so I won't get any questions to answer.
I'm in front of the mirror , talking to myself while crying-"You ruined everything. You promised that you were wrong. You said that you don't like girls. You're cool. Cool girls like boys. YOU ARE NOT A MONSTER!"- Then I slowly fall into my knees, incapable of talking anymore, because
my word are covered by my sobs.
Then just the darkness.* "The only city in California that makes you wanna suicide just at the idea of visiting it."
"Suicides provocated by boredom since 1863"
"The city forgotten by (in order of importance)
•Oprah
•God
•Every human being
•Barney
•Obama"
All things that Heidi loves to say about our city