“certain girls were meant to be alone.” / from julie!
➤ @pyrflis — heathers starters ! [ ACCEPTING ]
catching the eye of the lovely juliette madden: almost unequivocally the wet dream of any boy at Ormond and for miles around. Frank Morrison’s got other things on his mind, though. For one: The bus stop seat, which he’s made the grave mistake of neglecting to wipe down before sliding onto, has him a hell of a lot wetter than anything else possible could. Queen of Ormond High or otherwise. He kicks a dent lazily into the pile of snow at his feet, peering with a distasteful wariness up at his approacher.
“ Come out all this way just to see me ? or catchin’ a bus outta town for a date? ” He’s never seen her outside of school. Not that he’s often there in the first place. So many faces, and so few that he can remember without having the helpful reminder of at least once smashing his fist into them. But it’s hard not to know Miss Juliette Madden, the pride of the school and, with how little it’s got going for it, the whole of Ormond altogether. A girl too good for such a small town, as many boys have proclaimed. Though it hasn’t stopped her from being too good for them — all their praises are, after all, in hopes of being slick enough to snatch up a date with the school queen.
Frank keeps to himself, in the peripheral of their buzzing excitement. There’s too much to do to bother investing in Ormond High’s self-interested circulation of rumour and gossip. Too many opportunities to slip out of class, to escape campus for more invigourating endeavours: keying cars, dribbling a basketball in an empty court, picking fights with the local boys at the outskirts of town. He could care less about what’s going on in the heads of Ormond High and their continuous infatuation with the prettiest girl in town.
And here comes Julie Madden, of all people, straying into his everyday haunt of all places.
He would’ve laughed at her response — if it weren’t for how genuine it sound. It catches him mid-kick; he lowers his leg, sinking sneaker back into snow, and fixes her with a furrowed brow and a frown.
‘ Certain girls were meant to be alone. ’ … what has pretty Juliette Madden, queen of Ormond, ever been subjected to that could possibly make her feel alone ?
Frank thinks, for a moment, of loneliness. Of returning to a cold and empty bungalow chock full of holes barely patched enough to hold together through the cruel winters. Of calls made from school, never to find the ear of their intended recipient. Of the evenings he’d sat at the foot of the wall by the phone, paper plate of pizza rolls and fish sticks in his lap, as he waits to give the attendance office’s receptionist her daily “fuck you” — and plenty other profanities so long as she dared to perpetuate their call of the day. ( They’d stopped calling when it became clear that Mr Andrews wasn’t invested in his only income, a living paycheque barely over 16 tossed to him from Family Service wasn’t home during regular hours. )
He thinks of Clive Andrews at the bar, passing cheque after cheque that never find their way to the bank from his hands. A non-issue for Andrews, so long as his empty hands were rewarded in turn with a glass of ice and a bottle of Stoli. Clive Andrews fumbling with the padlock on their broken door, too expensive to fix with their leftover money at the month's end, at two in the morning. Clive Andrews too sunken into such a drunken stupor that he still stinks of liquor in the mornings when he yells Frank into the car, the stench so morbid that Frank finds himself wishing that the dangerous sway of the truck would send them careening off iced roads — straight to Andrews’ and his end.
And here’s pretty Jules Madden, lonely.
“ Stuck out in the middle of Ormond, Nowhere, Alberta. That’ll make you feel alone, that’s for sure … and you’ve spent your whole life here? Christ. But s’ppose it ain't too bad when you're Queen of Ormond High with a buncha friends lined up to save you from boring to death. This place makes me wanna put a gun to my head. Though that's not a luxury I can afford. ” A couple quarters, though, buys him something temporary but just as good, if not better, than a firearm or even a hit of cocaine.
“ Not so bad when you’re iced the fuck out of your mind. ” He doesn’t take his eyes off of Madden as he pinches straw loosely between finger and thumb, sucking up a mouthful of cold cherry that chills gums and the roots of his teeth. The ice burns down his throat. It’s no shot of whiskey, but it’s a close enough substitute. Almost even better. ( Clive Andrews could use a Slurpee, he thinks bitterly. Or does Andrews have something that only the stink of liquor, an eventual defunct liver, and several hundred dollars a month can bury? ) With lips wet berry red and tongue half-numb, he tips the paper cup towards Madden. “ Try it. ”
It would be easy to mistake for kindness if one missed the bitterness, gritty and overt, in the unwavering force of the demand. Though the shred of sympathy, if one could call it that, is not unnoticeable. There’s a landslide of spite piled up inside, bursting at the seams so much that anyone with a brain in their head could see it in Frank's stalk and the bite of his words. ( Kids who were smart made sure to stay the hell away from Frank Morrison. ) But beneath that spite, if she could withstand the difficult trudge through it, is a striking sort of solidarity.
Poor Juliette Madden, far too beautiful for Ormond just as much as Frank Morrison is far too angry and hateful for it. What a fucking waste — the two of them holed up in this bitch of a town, more hazard and charm than Ormond deserves. But, hey, things could be worse.
At least there’s a 7-Eleven.
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