Gone (NaNoWriMo 2014)

Chapter 1

Evie sat at her desk, staring at her laptop. Her white Sony headphones were over her ears, blocking out the world. She could listen to music without hearing anyone outside the world of her iPod. She hated the headphones. They were a ‘gift’ from her parents.

“So you can listen without being disturbed!” They had said. Evie disagreed. She thought that the heavy headphones made her look like one of those kids in the corner who she always saw at lunch. Constantly alone, these kids wore all black and listened to what she assumed was heavy metal on their noise-blocking headphones. Evie was the opposite.

With a constant smile on her face, she always had someone by her side or vying for her attention. It wasn’t that she was “popular,” because to be popular, you had to be in a very specific group and she wasn’t in that group. She was liked. People waved at her in the halls, the popular group smiled at her, and she had her friends.

She had wanted earbuds. Tiny white items that fit perfectly in her ear. They were almost unnoticeable, and she could share them with her friends so that they could listen to Ed Sheeran together. They made her feel cute. It was strange that simple, tiny devices could do that.

She hated the headphones with a passion. But she loved her parents, and they had looked so pleaded with their gift idea that she had been forced to obligingly smile and look pleased.

So now, Evie was wearing the headphones and looking at random pictures on the internet. She looked at the posts.

“The sun has come out.”

 “The sun is gay.”

“white girl voice Why are the hot ones always gay?”

 She screenshotted it and kept scrolling. Her internet bliss was interrupted by a shout from downstairs.

“Evie! Lunchtime! Come eat! You need energy!” Her mom’s voice traveled up the stairs. Evie’s mom stayed at home. She was a housewife. She claimed it was so that she could “spend more time with my darling Evie!” but Evie wished her mom would get a life. She was a teenage girl; she didn’t want to have to constantly deal with her mom.

Her dad was a lawyer. He worked until late in the evening in the City. Every night, he came home at exactly seven o’clock, perfect timing for the whole family to have dinner. Dinner was Evie’s favorite time of day. She could be with her dad, and her mom magically stopped nagging her about cleaning her room or her B+ in geometry or whatever the topic of the day was.

Evie pulled off her headphones and thumped down the stairs into the kitchen. She looked to see what smelled so good. Staring into the big, black pot, she saw the usual— Kale with an arbitrary Costco-bought sauce, and, of course, some wholesome, healthy, nutritious brown rice.

“Wow, Mom… uh, did you make this dish?” Evie knew to be skeptical of her mom’s cooking skills.

“Oh, no, it’s with that Costco sauce! You know, the ones that I love? But I added a bunch of stuff to it, so it’s practically a new dish. Here, have some rice!” Evie’s mom plopped a glob of rice onto her plate and topped it off with her vegetable concoction. Evie sat at the table and started to eat. If she tried hard enough, she could totally ignore the kale, and Evie was an expert at trying. She had been forced to eat the slimy green leaves so often that she was practically immune to them.

“Isn’t it great? I’m so impressed with myself! You know, I’ve used these sauces so much I think I could make them myself. Tomorrow I’ll try to do that!” Evie’s mom was glowing with her “cooking” success. Evie didn’t see what the big deal was. All her mom had to do was put sauce in a pot and add the health-booster of the day.

Evie’s mom was a health nut. If she read one thing about flaxseeds reducing the risk of cancer, they would be on a flaxseed-only diet until her mom saw another study that showed how much better tempeh was than flaxseeds. Usually Evie didn’t mind, but kale (which seemed to be her mom’s only permanent health craze) was unbearable. She hated everything about it, from the color to the taste.

Evie finished choking down her lunch and ran back up the stairs, eager to get back to doing nothing. She turned up her music and started unconsciously singing to herself. She was in the middle of a jam session when she realized, with a jolt, that it was Sunday and she hadn’t done any of her homework due the next day. She opened up her homework and freaked out as she realized that the next day she had a geometry test and an essay due.

She studied until it was dark, and then she tried to figure out what to write for her essay. The prompt was, “What makes a good essay?” and Evie was stuck on it. She finally started writing. It was midnight by the time she finished.

I was there the entire time, lurking in the shadows. I watched her. What a good, sweet, happy girl. How adorable. I started plotting my battle with her. It would be a good battle. Not for her, of course. She wouldn’t know she was fighting it until it was over and I had won. I was excited.

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YAY IT'S NANOWRIMO TIME! This is my first time doing this and I don't usually write fiction so don't judge I know it sucks but it'll get better. My friends' dad works at NaNoWriMo by the way and I saw him and told him I was doing this and he got so happy and it made me really happy so yeahhhh uh bye. 

xoxo umaumauma