Voodoo Doll • Calum Hood

The Pretender

It’s a warm morning in November when Victoria and I are walking to our school. The school is not far away from her house. I like to walk but not when I have to go school in the morning. Victoria is complaining about the fact we had to go walking instead of going with the bike. Our bikes broke at the party of one of Victoria’s friends. Some kids who were drunk thought it was funny to kick the bikes and jump on it. That’s not even the worst part because I got a really bad hangover. I’m not that kind of girl that likes to party all day all night, but Victoria is. Victoria told me to leave my laptop for one night and that had to go with her. I was supposed to Skype with my Internet friend that night but she had to go to her grandparents. I was really curious who gave the party on a Sunday night because it is ridiculous to do it on a night before school. Victoria told me it was the party of one of her friends she was not telling me who. When we arrived the party she left me alone in the crowd of drunk kids. So I thought I would join them and drank all of the Bacardi cola. That is the only thing I could remember and that Victoria and I danced on the road on our way to her home.

“Joanne, I think we’re going to be late.” I gave her the face and only she knows what that means. “I wish that our bikes were still working.” I say to Victoria. When I said that I heard the school bell ringing in a distance. I smirk and look at the right of me to see Victoria shaking her head. “No way!” she says and I ask her: “Are you ready?” and start to run. I hear her screaming behind me: “No Joanne wait for me!” After running for like five minutes I arrive the school. I open the door and throw my leather jacket in my locker. I walk the way to my class and see in my eye corner Victoria walking inside the school. “I said wait for me.” Victoria says to me. “And I said we should walk to the party.” I say and smirk. I walk on time in the class because I hear the second bell ranging. “Good that you decide to come as well Joanne.” My math teacher said to me while I was walking to my place. I glare to her and decide to ignore her for the rest of the lesson. The class was really boring, a lot of girls were talking about their weekend and the boys were talking about some music video of Eminem. As always I sat alone and didn’t say a thing. The rest of the day was not more fun then the math class. I mean school isn’t a funhouse but the could’ve make it a bit more fun right? Victoria has an hour longer school then I have so I walk alone to my house. It is a twenty minutes walk but I have all the time of the world because I don’t want to go to the house. My father is a fire fighter so he has to work twice a week twenty-four hours. Today is one of the two so he’s not home and my stepmother would ignore me either way. Most of the times I’m alone in my room if my little isn’t home, when she is she annoys me to death. I walk past the park I always went with my grandfather and decide to walk in the park for a bit. My feet hurt so I throw my bag on the grass and sit next to it. I put my earphone in my right ear and put the song The Pretender by Foo Fighters on. It is peaceful to sit here, watching other people walking past me. I imagine what people would do or think or how they actually are, I do this sometimes when I’m bored. There is a little boy with his teddy bear and with his mother or sister I think, I guess his mother. The boy is wearing a panda onesie and it’s adorable. The mother is wearing a long hippie trousers and a sweater with purple and yellow stripes. I think they’re on their way to her husband and they’re going to play with the son together. Or the mother is going to make a big ass cake for the three of them. I smile when I think about those family moments.

It let me think about ones I asked my mother to make a big cake for my father. My mother asked me a bit annoyed why we should bake a cake for him. I told her that I was concerned about him because he’s in the hospital. I thought that a cake would help him to get better. My mother switched moods in one second she smiled and I saw her walking to the kitchen. I heard her grabbing the bowl, guard and cake mix.

I see a boy of my age or maybe older walking past me. He has red hair and it is clearly bleached and I can see he got his eyebrow pierced. That’s a big turn on when a boy has piercings and tattoos and colourful hair. Het noticed me looking at him, how Victoria would say it I was eye fucking him. He smirks and that was a sign that I would look away because I feel so awkward when people notice I stared at them. I want to see him again because he looks hella fine. This time I only see his back, that’s a shame because I like his face. He wears a lot of black like I do he wears a black leather jacket, black skinny jeans, a black tanktop and black leather boots like me. The only thing that he wears and I do not wear is a snapback that is also black or maybe really dark grey. He’s probably going to his girlfriend, and his girlfriend would be perfect. She has lilac hair and she got her lip pierced and would have a perfect taste for clothes. He would bang her tonight uh I mean make love to her. It’s the same thing though. When he’s out of my sight I stand up and grab my bag. It’s almost half past five and I think my stepmother won’t be s happy that I’m too late home. It is a long way home but at the moment I don’t care anymore. It’s always the same story when I come home; someone is yelling or just had a fight or the fight has just began. Most of the time I sneak into the house and no one will notice it. I open the door of the house when I arrive. I drop my bag under the stairs and put my leather jacket in the wardrobe. “Fuck you!” I got scared because I thought someone was yelling upstairs but I hear it behind me. I walk to my bag that isn’t under the stairs anymore. I think someone kicked it or threw with it or both.  I walk to the couch and see my two stepsisters fighting with each other. I try my best to ignore it but I still hear every word. “Go and kill yourself and don’t want to see you again!” Maya says and I here the come back of Lay: “It is your own fucking fault!” I see my bag under the coffee table but my stepsister stand in front of it. I walk past it and go on my knees to grab my bag. “Fuck yourself Lay!” I hear Maya yelling and also hear something fall into pieces. I stand up and see the broken vase on the ground and Lay with a bleeding nose. I sigh and throw my back next to the stairs and walk to the kitchen. I grab some ice cubs and towel to put the ice cubs in it. I give it to Lay and I see Maya left the house. “Thanks but you didn’t had to do it.” Lay says and I roll my eyes. Why can’t she be thankful for what I did instead of saying this. There is an other thing that I don’t understand Lay is eighteen years old and she doesn’t know how to protect her self from her sister of sixteen years old. I walk upstairs and se my little sister reading a book and texting her friends at the same time. I give her a kiss on her forehead in response I get a smile of her. “Jo, do I need to help you with making diner?” Tessa asks me. I totally forgot I had to make diner for tonight. “No boo, but you can make the table ready before we have to eat.” I say to her and she nods. I walk downstairs and see Maya sitting on the couch. I ignore her and walk past her to the kitchen to find Lay who is already making diner. “Joanne you can go now I’m already busy.” She says sassy. I roll my eyes and walk away and see Maya walking to the door. “I’m going see you later, bye.” Maya says and closes the door before I could say anything back. I’m going to sit on the couch where Maya sat earlier and watch some family guy. An half hour later when the diner is ready, Maya comes back with red eyes and a creepy smile on her face. “What?!” she creams more then asking. “Nothing” I say quickly. Everyone else are already sitting at the diner table. The first thing my stepmother says when she sees Maya: “ Maya what did you do outside?” Maya response with: “Nothing!” It was clearly that she did something but she won’t admit it. “You smoked weed again?” my stepmother asks. “Oh my god really mum? Because I smile for ones in my life you think I smoked weed.” Maya screams. I see my brother rolling his eyes and he walks to the kitchen and comes back with a bowl noodles. He walks with the bowl upstairs, Tessa saw him to and copy his moves.  I see my little stepbrother crying and hugging Lay. I walk to the wardrobe and grab my leather jacket. When I walk through the door way I hear my stepmother screaming: “You’re not my daughter anymore!” I stop and see in my right corner the Marlboro cigarettes as fast I can I grab them and walk further and close the door behind me. I lit the cigarette when I walked past the corner. It’s a bit chilly outside but still warm for a November night. I don’t know where to go, most of the time I go to Victoria but her parents got angry because she was so drunk last night. She texted me when I walked to my house later this day. Her father wanted to talk about her behaviour and how they could ever trust her again. I see the park where I was earlier today. I decide to walk a bit in the park. I reject it straight away, I see a bench so I walk to it and sit on it. I sigh and think about what will happen with Maya because it’s not the first time that she smoked weed. I hear some weird noises behind the bench. I look behind me and see a little bunny hopping towards me. “Hey there little fella.” I say to the bunny, it got scared and I see it go away of me. “Well, you’re not the first one who runs away of me.” I say more to myself then to the bunny.

“Why are you not answering me?” I ask him concerned. “Because I don’t need you, not her not in my life no where!” he says, that’s harsh. “Why are we still together t-“ I couldn’t finish my sentence because he hit me in the face. It burns so badly but I won’t let him see my feelings, not this time. “Jo, it’s two months so it’s not even official that we’re together.” I nod because it’s true two months are nothing and we didn’t even say that we were dating or something like that. He comes closer to me and kisses my forehead and says: “Don’t follow, don’t ever search for me. I would even hate you more if you did.” And with that he walked away. Two moths late I got a letter of him and I refused to open it because I didn’t want to read what he had to say. But I was to curious and open it. 

“Dear Joanne,

Thank you for not following me, I ran away of you and other people who loved me. You’re not the only one. You’re not that special if that’s what you were thinking. I don’t think that the love I got was something I deserved and you didn’t follow me when I said it. You gave me the power to kill myself thank you!

Lots of love,

Timothy .”

 

That coward was right he didn’t deserve the love at all. He did so many things that could break the heart of someone and he totally destroyed mine. He was to weak to face the consequence. The most that hurts me is that he said I gave him the power to kill him. I look at the left of me and see someone walking towards me. When he gets closer and closer I see him more clearly. It is the boy with red hair that I saw earlier today. I search in my leather jacket for another cigarette; I lit it up when I found one. It feels so good when I inhale the smoke it makes me feel less stressful. The guy recognizes me when he looks at me. He sits next to me and now I can see he had cried or smoked weed. “Smoking kills you, you know that right?” he finally asks. He is such an idiot does he really think I don’t know it is deadly? I just smirk and say: “That’s why I smoke.” I can see he didn’t expect this answer. “My name is Michael.” He looks into my eyes waiting for me to say my name. “Hi Michael my name is Joanne.” I tell him but I’m not sure why I tell a strange guy my name. He isn’t that stranger because I know his name right? I’m asking to many questions to myself when I’m nervous. “Why are your eyes red?” I ask him because I’m a curious motherfucker, I mean girl. I bring my hand to his face because I see a tear rolling down his cheek. I wipe it away with my thumb and I try to smile so he would see it’s okay to cry if he wants to. Michael grabs my hand with both of his hands and says: “You have really cold hands!” I just smile sheepish because I don’t how to react on this. He let go my hands and smirks. “Joanne why are you at this time outside?” Michael asks but I won’t answer him because he didn’t tell me why he was crying. “Michael it’s kind of weird to meet people at this time in a park.” I say randomly. “It is weird but I am also weird.” I smirk and look at my phone and see it’s already nine o’clock. “Michael I have to go but I’ll see you tomorrow same place and at three o’clock?” I ask him and all he does is nodding. When I walk away he stays on the bench. I look again on my phone and see two missed calls of Tessa. I call her back and hear immediately her voice. “Jo please come back, they’re not fighting anymore but I feel so lonely.” That poor girl I answer her with: “I’m on my way Tess!” I put my phone away and start running to the house. “Shit!” I curse to myself. I have an English test tomorrow morning. I will screw it anyway; school can suck my balls if I had any. My plan is to drop out of school and marry a rich men. My worst plan that I ever made. I open the door from the house and no one. I walk upstairs to my little sister I see her crying on her bed with her phone in her hands. I hug her and don’t say anything. She needs a hug and nothing more because I know that she doesn’t like the fights. I change my clothes when she fell asleep. I’m wearing my black pyjama trousers and banana pullover. I jump in my own bed take some sleeping pills and fall asleep in ten minutes.