Chapter Text
The cold water from the small water fountains in Faraway Park wasn’t enough to wring out the dirt clinging to Aubrey’s yellow-white varsity jacket. Her hands were dry and stained with mucky tire lint, her arms aching from a long evening of wiping down windshields. Her clothes were starting to feel heavy and bothersome. Her hair, mussed, hung over the sides of her face like window drapes in greasy coils, and she felt like a perfect slob.
There wasn’t much she could do about it. It was at least evidence of a day’s good, hard work. And to her peace of mind, she finally got her earnings in for the week, and could afford something a little extra for dinner. She couldn’t be happier than to be subjected to a break from the unchanging TV dinners and canned chicken noodle soup, even if just for one night.
In all honesty, Aubrey did like her job. The pay was better than her prior situation, working behind the counter at a miserable convenience store where everyone was tired and on edge. And she liked to take her current job as a worthy experience. She liked to believe she had a passable knowledge of how cars worked. When she was younger, her father would constantly ramble about stuff like that, and would let her help when the car needed tinkering. As a result, Aubrey knew a little more about cars than most did at her high school. She blew air from her nose and a small grin tugged at her lips. Her boss, Richie, was nice enough to take her under his wing. It wasn’t always easy, but she put in enough elbow grease, made it work, and got to check out a good couple of nifty cars while she was at it. Maybe she wasn’t doing so bad after all.
She quickly splashed water on her face, shivering as the chill air combined with the chilly water froze her, patting herself dry with the hem of her black top.
Aubrey hopped on her bicycle, and made straight down the road for Faraway Plaza.
Cycling into the parking lot, she was greeted by Kim and Angel, propped up along the rim of the plaza’s water fountain. Kim had a cigarette hanging off her lips, and she was howling with laughter, trying to dunk Angel’s head into the water.
Kim tugged on his button-up collar, Angel’s nose only an inch away from the water. “Kim!” he whined, and she let him go, and now they were both laughing.
Kim noticed Aubrey’s bike pull up against the curbside. “Oh! Hey Aubs,”
“Hi Boss!” Angel waved.
Kim put out her cancer stick, smearing it into the fountain’s rim. “I don’t mean to offend, but, Aubs, You look like hell.”
Aubrey exasperated and rolled her eyes. “You can say that again,”
“So, what are ‘ya up to tonight?” Kim asked.
“I’m gonna pick up some groceries. And then I’m going straight home. I’ll see you guys tomorrow.” Aubrey raised a hand up at her two friends as she walked away, in Othermart’s direction. Kim and Angel nodded, shouting ‘goodbye’, and ‘we’re skipping out on algebra, right?’ as she retreated further down the sidewalk, disappearing into the grocery store.
Kim relieved a long sigh, stretching her back and gazing off towards the dark stretch of blue sky that blanketed little Faraway. Thin swaths of clouds swept like sand along the horizon, and the moths busily gathered underneath the light of the streetlamps.
“Angel,” she said, in her raspy voice, “Your sister’s like, okay with you being out this late?”
Angel blew a raspberry. “Bah. She’s always so uptight! What time is it anyway?”
“Mmm. Around half-past ten.”
Kim watched with amusement as all the color drained out of Angel’s face. “Ha, ha,” he tried to laugh. “That’s not late at all.” He watched with erratic eyes as Kim unwrapped a stick of gum, and swatted away a little bug-worm creature that had slithered beside her onto the fountain rim. He thought back to his sister, sitting cross-legged on the sofa and with a permanent wrinkle in her brow, and sat there curled in a ball, and was only just a little afraid for his life.
–
Aubrey always preferred to do her shopping late, for two main reasons. One, when it was late, it was quiet. There was never a whole lot of people clogging up the aisles late at night, except for people like herself. People who knew how to mind their own business, because when you lived out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by highways and dark woods, away from big cities that never slept, people tended to be more cautious and aware of themselves.
She meandered the frozen goods section, a long, cool hallway devoid of people and noise other than the faint humming of the fluorescent lights fixed above the aisles, and Sable on Blond ringing softly throughout the store from the speakers. An icy-daubed package of toaster waffles under her arm, she left the aisle, moving into another one which was just as deserted. Nobody was around to give her the stink eye, or look at her as if she were to pounce on them like some sort of rabid mutt would a piece of meat.
She did her best to pay no mind to it when it happened, when classmates jeered at her behind her back, or when a parent pulled their whining children close and told them, as if she were deaf, that ‘that scary young lady’ would steal them away if she saw their flowing tears over their sibling receiving a fudge bar while they did not.
She’d gotten quite good at not caring what other people thought of her. Why did it have to matter what a stranger thought of her when she knew herself better than anyone else? It was partly her fault in the long run, anyway. She led a street gang for God’s sake. She couldn’t complain about it. She was practically the dictionary-description of every Good Samaritan’s nightmares, to boost: dyed hair, colored contacts, cut-up tops, the occasional ripped jeans, and a devil-may-care attitude towards the world. She was simply a ‘no-good hoodlum’. She was used to hearing people talk about her whenever, and wherever she was. Still, walking around a deserted Othermart made her realize she’d been taking nighttime and its solemn quietness for granted.
Aubrey’s head was hung low as she picked a package of instant ramen off the shelves.
She presumed her basket was full of enough food to last her at least a few weeks. Toaster waffles, spaghetti, a few cans of cheap tomato sauce, a frozen package of assorted vegetables, four packs of instant ramen, and a treat just for tonight. A banana muffin. And that was all she could spare for food. It’s been this way since forever. When was the last time she’d had a proper home cooked meal? Has it really been that long? She could almost taste Hero’s cooking lingering on her tongue. Thanksgiving stuffing. She could smell it, too. In her absentmindedness, she wound up wandering into the hygienic aisles.
Aubrey eyed the shelves stocked with bottles of soap up and down. She was always running out of soap. She picked up some sort of vanilla body wash. She was about to grab a small bottle of hair conditioner as well, then she realized how much her basket was filling up. She put the conditioner back and sighed as she dug around her bag for her wallet. Just as expected, she didn’t have enough.
She didn’t bother looking at the shampoo. She hadn’t bought shampoo for a long time, because she’d just been using body wash on her hair– it was cheaper. It wasn’t a difficult choice, having to choose between shampoo or rent and food.
She probed further down the hygiene aisles, and eventually found what she was looking for, feminine hygiene products. Whether or not she could afford it, she definitely needed them more than shampoo. She dropped a box into her basket, and hastily whipped out her wallet once again. Of course she was a few dollars short. She shoved her wallet back into her bag and loudly groaned, holding down the urge to rip out her hair.
Her mind was racing. She looked left and right. Twice. There was nobody. The soft music playing from the speakers was starting to drill loudly in her ears. She bit down on her lip. Chapped. Her eyebrows knitted together. An angel and a devil perched themselves on either side of her shoulders, and the latter basked in its victory. She held her breath and turned away, letting her backpack strap slide down her arm, and quickly shoved the box inside. When she exhaled, it felt like tiny needles were pricking at her throat.
She stole, yes. Not for the cheap thrills, and not to snag candy or cigarettes like her gang did. But because she needed to. She was beginning to accept the fact that she was a ‘criminal’. She had been for years at this point. She never robbed from cash registers or banks, just the essentials from grocery stores or drugstores. Food, medicine, anything of the sort, it had all been slipped inside her backpack, her jacket, or even inside her shirts at some point.
She stole so much that she eventually learned the ins and outs to avoid getting caught, and eventually stealing came to her as easily as a walk in the park. But the guilt was always there. In a way, it never did get any easier.
Aubrey left Othermart that day with two boxes of hygienic products and a tube of toothpaste. Unpaid for.
Feeling the chill wind nip at her nose as she slung the grocery bags over her bike’s handles, she wasn’t eager to be returning home. She hated having to go home. When the day was done and there was nowhere else for her to go, she had no place to go but back home. Back to her mother. Back to her room in the attic. Back to the holes in her roof and peeling wallpaper. Home.
She decided to make a short detour before she returned home. Departing from the Plaza’s parking lot, she strode on her bike down the road, through lines of billowy trees, and took the first right when the road split. The road took her down to a nicer neighborhood. She watched as the roads became cleaner, and the grass neater. Her attention drifted to the rows of high-brow houses lining the streets and the spotless cars sitting on their driveways. Through some of their speckless windows, she could see the lights were on, illuminating either a homely dining room or a crowded sitting room through the cracks in their curtains. It looked warm. And it felt so far away.
Aubrey clicked her tongue out of habit when she caught sight of Sunny’s house in the distance, looking almost lonely as it sat at the dead end of the road. Also out of habit, she stomped down on the pedals. She didn’t know what came over her and why she decided she should come out all the way over here. She pinched her sinus. Her head felt foggy, like muddy dishwater. She took sight of Sunny’s illuminated windows, and the pinwheels still stuck like a lifeline to their clean-cut front yard. God knows how long they’d been there. Then she caught a glimpse of their backyard, though speckled densely with trees, she could make out the shape of their old treehouse.
A strange nostalgia washed over Aubrey, a little like sinking into a warm bath. She remembered the days she and her friends spent as they built it together. It was during the middle of summer, and it was insufferably hot. Hero was engrossed in his work, nailing bolts into place and hauling planks of wood to-and-fro. She and Kel were bickering, as usual, over something stupid. Mari had just brought out a pitcher of fresh lemonade, and Sunny was lying next to a pile of wood planks, sweating enough to water the grass, trying to avoid being noticed so he wouldn’t get called to help with construction. Mari’s tape deck was playing softly in the background, a lighthearted tune from The Beach Boys.
She recalled springtime next. Even then, being at home was like being drowned in a small well. Suffocating, and claustrophobic. It was when Dad was still around. No matter how much she hid herself in her deplorable attic room, no matter how many blankets she piled over herself and no matter how hard she plugged her ears, she could still hear their voices, still managing to seep in like rain did the rifts in her roof. Their screaming matches just never seemed to stop. She remembered suddenly feeling so furious towards her house’s lousy and thin walls, and during the times the police would come knocking on their door because someone had filed a noise complaint, and their neighbors, who would come by and stick their noses in places it didn’t belong. It utterly exhausted her just to think about it.
Most days, she could suck up how much her parent’s fighting upsetted her. Go to school and see her friends with a smile on her face– grin and bear, grin and bear, she’d tell herself, or else people are going to start asking questions. But still, she wasn’t superhuman. And she wasn’t the sort of person to forgive and forget. It was just too much. She remembered, clearly, sneaking out– climbing out of her window, or sometimes just walking right through the front door (when they were being particularly loud, it was like she didn’t exist at all). She would then use her time away from home at the park, or she’d go to her friends and ask if they wanted to hang out. Except for when it was late, which was usually the case. She never got any sleep when her parents were having a scrap.
She recalled finding herself running straight for Sunny’s house some nights. Some particularly awful nights. And she would climb up their shared treehouse, and take refuge in it until the morning. She would curl up helplessly in a corner, wrapping herself with Mari’s picnic blanket, and she’d make up bedtime stories for herself, which would eventually lull her to sleep.
Sometimes, Sunny would show up. She never knew how he knew she’d be there, but she suspected she must’ve let something slip during one of her rambling sessions. When he found her, it was late in the night, because he was a night owl and couldn’t sleep sometimes. He would quietly creep up the ladder, and seeing she was there, he would quickly run back inside the house to retrieve a pillow for her, and maybe another blanket, because he was always worrying if she was warm enough. If she was still awake, he’d make her a mug of honeyed milk. And sometimes they would talk. He always asked her if she was okay, first of all. She would always smile and tell him that it was just her parents again. It always saddened him more than she could imagine that she was just expected to tolerate something like that. Then he would hug her. And he’d stay there all night until all her tears were dried and she’d drifted off to sleep, and with time he’d fall asleep with her.
Aubrey furiously rubbed at her suddenly glassy eyes with her arm. “Goddamn it, Sunny,” she muttered, her voice strained, sparing one last glance towards the treehouse. Nothing good that happened to her ever stuck around for long. Before her emotions had a chance to swallow her whole, she swerved her bike the other way around and started to ride away from the neighborhood as quickly as she could.
–
Halfway home, she got off her bike and walked with it the rest of the way. Maundering down the street, she made it to her house, avoiding eye contact with the amount of garbage bags and other fly-attracting litter that carelessly mottled her front yard, and made it onto her doorstep, kicking away an empty beer can that laid in front of the door, as if in some sort of ill-made attempt the beer can was welcoming her home.
She unlocked the door, then scrambled to open the disheveled storm door, shutting it tight behind her, leaving it trembling as it clicked shut. Instantly, the stagnant and stifling stink of rotten fruit and cigarettes assaulted her nostrils. How Aubrey wasn’t currently lying helpless in a hospital bed, inescapably sick due to secondhand smoke-inhalation or mold or something like that, she wouldn’t know. Keeping a tight hold on the paper bag that held her groceries, she made swiftly through her less-than lamentable living room. The kitchen ceiling lamp flickered in and out. Bottles of alcohol and beer cans were strewn about every inch of the godforsaken place. Loose cigarette butts along with neglected bags of trash, overlooked stacks of newspapers and bank notices, just– garbage. Filth. Everywhere.
Aubrey stuffed the frozen things in the barren freezer compartment of the refrigerator, the handles sticky with grease. Then she took out a burn-stained pot, filled it with water and stuck it on the stovetop. As the water started to bubble, she tore open a package of the instant ramen she bought, dropping the noodles into the water, along with the flavor packets. She ended up with a mess of sesame oil over her fingers, which she licked off and wiped her hands on her jean skirt. She was going to change into cleaner clothes soon, anyway. Once her noodles had cooked, she transferred the ramen into a bowl and sighed, staring at the steam rising from the oily soup.
Just as Aubrey expected, there was nothing from the woman on the sofa. She just sat there, her hazy eyes fixated on the television screen that was playing some tawdry game show as if it was something holy, something worth of every ounce of her unbridled attention. The television was supported by an overturned cardboard box. There was a bottle of scotch in her mother’s hand. She sat there and stared at the screen, not in the way a living person does. It was as if she wasn’t there at all. There wasn’t a flicker in her eyes or any kind of acknowledgment that anything else around her existed. Just her, the TV, and the liquor. Frustrated, Aubrey jerked away, maneuvering through boxes and heaps of junk to get through to her room.
There was a time when Aubrey’s mother wore sun dresses and big-brimmed hats and did her hair up in various, pretty styles. She would smile and she would laugh, and she frequented parties, even after Aubrey was born. She wondered when everything went wrong, because all that was left was this shell of a person. A repudiated husk, not living, merely existing. A defeated hatred settled at the bottom of Aubrey’s stomach, for her mother, her father, for everything under the sun.
She climbed up the ladder to her attic room as soon as she’d finished her bowl of oily instant ramen. She felt full, dirty, and all she wanted was a shower and to sleep. She tossed her bag down on the floor. The attic was the only room in the house where she could escape the rotten-fruit-cigarette stench that clung to the house like an invisible cobweb. She shrugged off her jacket and held it up, tracing her fingers over the motor oil stains and dirt spots. She threw it aside, landing clumsily on top of a basket, which housed a growing pile of laundry. Her own washing machine was too banged up to do a proper job of washing. She was constantly finding herself on impromptu trips to the laundromat.
Aubrey switched on her desk lamp, grabbed her muffin from the paper bag and plopped down in front of her pet rabbit Bun-Bun’s makeshift enclosure, taking bites out of the muffin. He was sound asleep. She smiled at him, reaching a hand out and softly stroking his fur. His ears fluttered for a moment, before he eased into his bed of dried grass as before.
Aubrey unhooked her pearl necklace and took out her hoop earrings, dropping them onto her chipped desk. She rummaged through her bag, taking out her stolen wares, sliding the bottle of soap under her arm. She crept back down her ladder, back into the dingy hallway, slipping into the bathroom.
The bathroom wasn’t much better off than the rest of the house, but it beat being in the living room. Yellowed floor tiles, dirty clothes slewed in the corners, a freezer during cold days and an oven during hot ones.
She leaned over against the sink counter, observing herself through a dull, smudged mirror. She discovered how true Kim’s statement was, that she looked like hell. There were ugly dark crescents sitting beneath her eyes. Her hair was awry and windblown. Her skin had an unhealthy look to it. She undid her teal headband and peeled off her colored eye contacts.
Kneeling down by the side of her tub, she twisted the knobs, holding a hand under the jagged and cold water gushing from the faucet, feeling for the water to warm. She sat there for a while and waited, but there was no change. Just a polar jet of chilly water freezing her hand.
She grumbled to nobody in particular and prepared herself for yet another ice shower.
She never liked ice-cold showers, but slowly, over these four years, it was something she just had to learn to tolerate. At first, when her mother began to neglect paying the heating bills, she absolutely loathed the lack of hot water, going as far as to heat up pots of water on the stove and use it to fill a bath. But as the years passed her by, cold showers were just a normal facet to her daily life. It was bearable during the summer. However, during the colder months, Aubrey would begrudgingly find herself perched on Kim’s doorstep, with a towel tucked under her arm. Kim really was a great friend. She’s done pretty much everything for her, piercing her ears, dying her hair, letting her use her shower. She owed her more than she could account for.
Aubrey stepped out of the shower, simply feeling cold. She shivered, patting her hair dry with a thin towel. For a moment she wished she were using Kim’s shower instead. For one, they had hot water. And warm, fluffy towels. But there was nothing to be done about it, so she hurried to dry herself so she could finally rest.
She’d slipped on an old bunny graphic tee-shirt and an old pair of shorts. Her hair was sopping wet and her limbs were aching from head to toe. Aubrey flung herself onto her bed, which creaked egregiously when she landed. Feeling frustrated with herself, she smothered her face into her pillow. She knew she couldn’t keep living like this, but what else could she do about it? When it came to school, she was just barely scraping by. It surely wasn’t enough to secure herself a decent future. She didn’t know what else to do, and thinking about it was bound to give her a headache. Maybe she could accomplish more if she just tried, but her motivation was sparse and dwindling, especially when she had such a mass of problems on her mind every second of the day. Living expenses, work, her mom, the Hooligans, her old friends–
For God’s sake, why was she thinking about them again? Aubrey tossed away the blankets tangled in her legs and sat up, slumping on the floor and reaching under her desk for a dusty cardboard box. She dragged it out, dust bunnies along with it. She opened it up. It was full of her records and tapes. She just needed a way to drown out her own head. She scoured through the records. She recognized some that her parents owned, and the records and mixtapes that Sunny had gifted to her lying at the bottom of the box, which were promptly ignored. And sticking out amongst them like a sore thumb, was an old Duran Duran record. Why did she still have this? This wasn’t hers. She must have forgotten to give this back to… Sunny. Four years ago. Aubrey rolled her eyes and pushed it back down.
The records that interested her lay scattered about her on the floor, leaving most of the older records and tapes sitting in the box. She’d had most of these since she was a little girl. One by one, she looked at them. There was Blondie, Led Zeppelin, The Five Satins, just to name a few.
One particular album caught her attention. Michael Jackson. His 1975 album. She held it out, dusting off the cover. This… she’d also gotten this as a gift from Sunny. She looked at the mixtapes from Sunny that were piled beneath the box. Sunny really loved to give her music, didn’t he? There was nothing more than a bleak look on her face as she held onto the record. It was worn out around the edges, flecked with lint.
She set it aside and rearranged everything else she’d taken out back into the box, pushing it back under her desk. She stood up, her legs sort of shaking. She went over to her record player on her desk that sat beside her seedy old television. She unfastened the lid, and let the record sleeve slip out of the cover and into her hand. She twirled the record around in her hands. It was almost as good as new. She flipped it over and set it down onto the player, moving the needle over the edge of the disc, watching it spin.
Aubrey lowered the lid and collapsed down on her bed, clutching her pillow to her chest, and tried to listen to the music instead of to her thoughts. And it worked, for a while, until One Day In Your Life started to play, and she at once lifted her head from the recesses of her pillow and rolled over to face the player.
Once again, she was sinking into a nostalgia trip. Except these ones were sweeter than the ones at the treehouse. Which meant they ached more than the bad ones. Aubrey felt the sudden and staggering urge to cry.
“This was my mom’s music… it’s nice, isn’t it?” a little twelve-year old Aubrey once said, stretching her legs out on the carpet, in the middle of a Ronettes song playing from Mari’s tape deck. She had brought over some of her mom’s mixtapes. This one in particular held some of Aubrey’s favorites.
A starry-eyed Sunny was sat cross-legged next to her, holding the case to the mixtape rolling in the player.
“Pretty,” he said, and he meant it.
Aubrey burst into a fit of wonderfully toothy smiles. “Right?”
They sat there and just grinned, childishly to one another, until the song had ended. Aubrey immediately brightened up when her ears caught onto the intro for ‘One Day In Your Life’.
“Sunny!” Aubrey stood up, fluffing out her skirt. She looked down at Sunny, who stared up at her in a sort of awe. She said, “Wanna dance?”
“Huh– Huh?” Sunny squeaked.
Aubrey held her hand out. “Dance! Don’t worry, it’s easier than you think,”
Sunny fiddled with this hands in his lap, “I– I don’t know… easy for you, maybe…” he tried to look everywhere else but towards an expectant Aubrey.
“Aw, please try! I’ll be right here to help you! Please…?” she pleaded. She didn’t know how she felt about acting so desperate, she felt like she was begging her mother for a treat. But once again her cheeks were rosy when Sunny looked at her, with a look in his eyes that told her he was seriously considering it.
“I guess– I guess I can try–” Sunny was cut off when Aubrey tugged on his arms, pulling him in front of her. She took hold of his hands, and motioned for him to lay them on her waist. Once he did, she rested her own hands over his shoulders. She was essentially just dragging him around, Sunny having no idea what he should do. She swayed along to the music, trying to remember what those characters in the movies did when there was a dance and there was slow music playing. She spun a little, or tried to, and laughed when Sunny accidentally stepped on her foot, and his ears were completely washed red.
In time, Sunny managed to get a decent hang of the dancing, doing his best to keep up with Aubrey. He smiled a little too. He tried to dip Aubrey forward, sort of dramatically, nearly tripping over her when he felt himself losing his balance. Now they were both laughing.
Aubrey remembered that Basil and Kel had both emerged from the kitchen, both with a stupid simper spreading ear to ear. Basil had a camera in his hands. Oh, gosh, she remembered how upset she was after that. Sunny could do nothing but sink disheartedly into the sofa, his face as red as the bright poppies that grew on Basil’s front lawn. Now, those photographs were tucked away somewhere in Basil’s photo album. Unless he was mad at her, and her face was scribbled out, or if they were gone entirely. She couldn’t blame him.
The song faded out along with her pitiable trip down memory lane. Aubrey shuffled around in her bed, stretching across to switch her desk lamp off, and the room went dark. She pulled her blanket up to her chin and shut her eyes.
Strangely enough, she didn’t— couldn’t feel angry that night. She found that she felt a bit lonely, a bit regretful, and undeniably miserable.