Blood? Bikes? What?

Hello folks,

Some of you have been with me since my Tumblr days… Some of you have found me when I had 50 pages going on all at once.  Some people found me through Twitter.

Respect to the veterans.  Rejoice to the new comers.

Just know that as long as you end up here: http://www.bloodandbikes.com/  

You’re good.

Here’s to my official website.

A new time in my life.  A new theme. A new attitude… all within the same awesome person… (your mom) … I mean, me.

Follow me there.  All future posts will be there.  All pictures/videos/blogs/projects will be there. 🙂

Stay with me and I’ll stay with you

-Jade (formerly known as IGJ) …Now known as Blood and Bikes!

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Lesson Learned, Love.

Sometimes it’s when we are driving…  He has his hand on the wheel and suddenly he cocks his head up, tilting it to one side.  His chin is pointed towards me.  His smile is for me.  He places his hand lightly on my head.  I can feel his skin on my temple, my cheekbone, my ear, my hair.  He has gentle fingers, but I push my head into his hand, making his palm smash against the side of my face.  I like to feel him on me, make sure he’s real… I look at him.  I blink.  He smiles. I look at him. I close my eyes.  I sigh into his hand again.  Then he drops his arm back down to switch gears.  My left hand jumps on top of his hand like the shell of a turtle.  He continues to switch gears. Up and down…Left and right… I finally give up on my hand being on top of his, my fingers acting like the legs of a crab.  I let my hand slide down to his wrist.  My fingers wrap around his arm, clinging to his forearm as if this were how I charged my body…as if he was my energy source.  I couldn’t let go… or else I would stop working.

Sometimes it’s the way he waits on me.   Whether I have to shower, or work, or read… He waits for me.  He’s never impatient.  He never interrupts.  His eyes watch me. I can feel it.  I hurry even though he tells me not to.  I tell him to go off… because I’ll catch up with him later.  It will take too long. I have to shower.  He nods.  “I’ll see you later,” I say.  I take a shower.  I come back into my room.  There he is.  He hasn’t moved.   I sigh, I tell him he should have gone and got something done…but inside I’m so happy he’s still there.  Things are just better when he’s there.  It’s like all of these clichés from cards and books and movies are being put to the test and are actually coming out as being true… Those phrases: “I can’t go on without you.”  “What’s the point if you’re not there?”  …All of those lines start making sense for no reason.  Except I guess there is a reason.  It’s love.

Or maybe it’s a time like last night.  A few days earlier I was complaining about the cold.  I was always cold, especially at night when I went to sleep.  “Did your parents ever give you a water bottle with warm water in it when you went to sleep?” he asked finally.  I shook my head.  No.  They had never done that.  Who does that?  One water bottle isn’t going to keep my whole body warm anyway.  “My parents would do that for me when I was cold or sick…” he shrugged…almost apologetically because I had ridiculed the idea so harshly.  I felt somewhat bad.  But I didn’t say anything.
So you know how sometimes you can get sick within the span of eight minutes?  You feel ice cold, but your head is on fire?  You’re trembling with the chills, and your limbs are aching so painfully that even the biggest band aid could not help?  Well that happened to me last night.  All of a sudden I was sick.  Terribly sick.  We stopped watching the movie, due to my strange and sudden illness. (Dead Poet Society if anyone was wondering).   I tried to lie down.  I wore Dia’s old sweater I stole from her closet.  I put on some of my boyfriends sweatpants… He started talking.  Asking if I was okay.  He might have said other things… But I couldn’t really hear him. I hurt too much.  He asked me if I wanted Nyquil.  I shook my head. Nooo.  I hurt too much.  I wanted to cry.  But I didn’t…because what kind of girlfriend is so much of a wimp that she cries just when she is sick?  He lied down next to me for a couple of minutes.  His eyes were constantly watching me.  My eyes were closed—too tired and too much in pain to be romantic…but he watched me all the same.

Suddenly he got up and turned the lights off and left the room.  I wanted to cry.  I didn’t want to get him sick, but I didn’t want to be alone.  He probably was going to let me sleep it off.  I liked it better when he was there next to me.  Why was he so thoughtful and easily able to leave me when I was feeling like this?  Then suddenly he came back in.  My anxiety and panic disappeared.  Where had he gone? The light from the hall turned his body into a blacked out shadow in front of the door way.  He shut the door behind him, leaving the light off… turning his body invisible as it joined the darkness.  He leaned over me with one of his hands perched just next to me with all of his weight on it.  He  lifted the blanket that was over me.  Why was he taking the blanket off of me?  Then he stuck his hand underneath the covers and slid something under the blanket.  He pressed it against my cramping abdomen.  My hands curiously crept toward my belly button which was so warm all of a sudden.  It was a water bottle filled with hot water.  Then my boyfriend lied next to me again.  The bottle crinkled as I moved it up and down my whole entire body.  Funny.  I never thought one little water bottle could make me feel so warm.  His parents were on to something.

I wanted to cry.   Not because I was cold.   Not because I hurt.  But because I wasn’t just holding a water bottle in my trembling hands.  The plastic that bounced against my clothes, then my skin when I put it under my sweater… It contained so much more than just  warm liquid that kept my skin from goosebumps.  It was that moment of passing something on that you learned from someone you loved, to another someone you loved.  It’s like the action of one of my boyfriend’s parents giving him a warm water bottle when he wasn’t feeling good was the beginning of the concept of love.  The concept, when my boyfriend was a young one, was understood and appreciated…But it wasn’t complete.  It was like when he was younger, the reason of keeping him warm with a water bottle was plenty enough and all that was expected from the action.  But the full purpose was not unraveled until he was able to give me the water bottle at a moment when I was in pain.  When he slid the warm plastic under the blankets, he slid the explanation of love under to me as well.

What’s better than learning the concept of being loved?

Learning how to love another being.

That’s what his parents had indirectly taught him when he was younger—when he received the bottle to keep him warm.

He was not just taught love.  He was taught how to love.

And I cried…Because he used what he had been taught by his parents with me…a sweaty, trembling little girl, curled up in fetal position letting herself be suffocated in layers of sweaters and blankets.

Tears filled my eyes.  They overflowed the edges of my eyelids and slid down my temples and into my tangled hair.

“How do you feel?” he asks.  His large eyes are searching my face.  He does’t like his eyes because they aren’t symmetrical and he likes symmetrical things.  I like his eyes because they aren’t symmetrical and I like things that don’t match up perfectly.

“I’m okay.” I say out loud.  I feel like I’m in love I say in my head.  I’m in love…

-IGJ

P.S.  Reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close” by Jonathan Safran Foer.  Pretty good read…  My boyfriend is reading East of Eden (I think it’s kicking his butt)…but he’s trying.

Highlighter by Jade Frampton

Highlighter by Jade Frampton

 

The little girl jumped from rock to rock with the springs of exploration and youth.  Squatting down with one leg, she would push against the stones and always be surprised when she returned to earth time and time again.  The larger stones became small pebbles as she crept out of the thickets and neared the water that was clear and true like the glass of a look out window.  The cool liquid met her feet sending shivers up her little calves.  Then the sun came to her rescue, smoothing away the goose bumps on her limbs. 

Her scraggly locks of hair that she had loosened from the bun her mother had tied onto her round head hung like curtains in front of her eyes.  All the better, she thought, an adventure was always more fun when you couldn’t see where one was going.  Her bangs, however, did not cover the rest of her face.  Her front fringe of hair stopped short, revealing sunburned cheeks and new freckles under peeling skin.  Her tiny hand clutched a bright neon green highlighter.  Every now and then, when she felt especially lonely, she would kneel down to pick up a rock and color a large sour green spot on it. Then she would toss it back, making sure the side that had been highlighted was facing upward.  She did this because once when she was walking alone near the Virgin River she had found a rock with a bright orange color sprayed onto it.  Her loneliness had been chased away  by the thought that someone must have marked the rock.  The very thought of someone else once having been there before her was fascinating.  A stranger had been there just like she was standing there now.  There was a friend somewhere in the past.  And ever since then, she decided to leave her own bright markings on rocks so that just in case another lonely girl was walking out by the Virgin river, she may see the rock and think of the person who had been there before.   And then maybe that lonely stranger would go looking for the one who had highlighted all of those many rocks with green.  Maybe she would go looking for the green highlighting artist.  It was the possibility of meeting a friend that kept her squatting up and down, signing each rock that looked lonesome.  All she wanted was a sign of life.  A stirring in the rocks that proved that there was another little girl out there who wanted to play.

 

A young woman, hardly twenty perhaps, is stumbling through the brush.  A young man who is barely older than she, Charlie, is hurrying after.  The sun is high in the sky, but annoyingly bright because of the cloud cover.  The rays are bouncing against the river’s reflection and the glimmering is giving Charlie a head ache.  Eve has large sunglasses that hide her dry, puffy eyes, but she is still a victim of a terrible headache as well.  Once the couple reaches the clearing of the thick trees, there is only the scattering of pebbles that lead to the river.  The heel of Eve’s shoe pushes through the pebbles. Her arms flap in the air in a fluster and she regains her balance just before she nearly plummets to the ground.  She leans forward, rounding her back and rips the heels from her feet with a low grunt that lets Charlie hear the struggle between his girlfriend and the straps of her shoes.  He rubs his forehead with his fingers, puts his hands on his waist, and then lets out a long, exhausted sigh.  He looks at Eve.  It seems with every hour that she becomes more aggravated, the more loose strands of hair fall from her ponytail that was so neatly done this morning.  Only hours ago she had been smiling, dancing, laughing.  She was happy.  He could see it in her eyes.  Now he couldn’t even look her in the eyes…Not because of those ridiculously over-sized glasses she was wearing that covered her blue eyes, but because he did not know what to say with his eyes when her baby blues asked his own for help.  When Eve realizes that her eyes have failed to get a reply from her boyfriend, she loses her patience and decides to use her lips instead.

“What were we thinking?” she cries out as she sets her glasses onto her head like a hair band.  It seems she is talking to the river more than she is to Charlie. 

“I dunno,” he shrugs. “Maybe that we loved each other?”  He seems to be talking more to himself than Eve or the river.

“Oh, don’t pull that love shit out now.”  Her fist presses on her forehead with her face scrunched up, forcing her eyes closed as if she has found the exact location of where her headache originated.

“Look, I know that this isn’t the best of situations…but, Eve, you don’t have to be so hurtful.  I love you.  You know that.  Please.  No matter what happens, I won’t leave.  I won’t abandon you, or… or the… baby.”

At the word “baby”, Eve begins sobbing uncontrollably.  Her hands dig through her shirt and deep into her lower abdomen in hopes of destroying whatever is inside of her.  The action will prove to be wishful thinking. She shakes her head with snot running down her nose and into her mouth thanks to her upper lip that is too thin to stop anything from getting in.  Charlie runs to her with his shirt wrapped around his hand like a glove.  He wipes her face clean, preparing her cheeks for a new wave of regret in liquid form to come sliding down once again. 

“Everything is going to be fine.  It will be okay.  I can take care of you…Of us!”  He is now cradling her head awkwardly with his chest.

“Ok…Yes…Ok,” she says. But she cries harder because she thinks he is lying.  And then Charlie begins to cry the loudest because he thinks that she believes him.  The guilt he has felt all day is now being accompanied by shame as he realizes that he cannot yet even take care of himself.  Was he staying with Eve now that she was pregnant because he loved her or because he had become so dependent upon her that he could not imagine life without her?  He would put up with the stranger growing inside of his girlfriend if only that meant that Eve would put up with him. 

Their intimate moment that they shared through their extended hug, shameless tears, and terrified apprehension came to an abrupt end.  Charlie’s pager went off, and somehow through all of the weeping, it was heard.  Charlie let go of his girlfriend’s face, which, by this time, was water painted with runny eyeliner. He looks down at his belt. 

“…It’s my work,” he said apologetically.

   She nods.  Looks at his damp face, “I’ll stay here for a bit.”

“Are you sure? I can drive you home.”

“My parents don’t live too far from here. I’ll be fine.”

“If you say so… You sure?” He took his first steps backwards, still facing Eve.

She nods again.  She continued to nod as she watched him trudge over the loose pebbles and through the brush.  That, she thought, was her Charlie trying to make money to be her soon-to-be husband.  As soon as he disappeared from the branches and trunks of trees, she let her body relax and collapses onto the rocks, exhausted.  Her neck extends to the heavy clouds above and the glasses that were resting on her head like a hair ornament slip off and fall onto the rocks.  She looks down, letting her hands finally let go of her not-so-empty stomach to pick up her glasses for inspection.  They are not damaged.  The rays of the sun play with the storming clouds and a rock catches her eye as the first rain drop of the storm falls onto her head.  She picks up the curiously colored rock, observing the weak greenish color faded onto its surface.  Her lips shake in disbelief as she remembers her childhood wish…All she wanted was a sign of life.  A stirring in the rocks that proved that there was another little girl out there who wanted to play…

 

She stands ups up, dizzied by the new clarity that has been given to her disoriented thoughts.  She twists her torso and whips her shoulder through, sending the ugly green rock into the Virgin River.  Then she turns and runs through the trees, holding her clacking heels in one hand and sunglasses in the other.   When she reaches the road, Charlie is already gone.  It is raining.  She is crying.  Her clothes are soaked through and are hanging heavy on her shoulders.  Her face is wet.  She vomits. Her eyes widen as she witnesses a sickening green spreading itself onto the pavement.

　

 

 

Nothing’s for free…Except a rant from me!

I’ve laid some short stories on all of you.  I have also given you all a rather broad update on my life (thanks for all of the congratulations by the way).  I haven’t given you a more in depth, thoughtful observation of my life…  And since I can’t sleep at the moment and school starts tomorrow, I thought this would be a good time.

FREEWRITE. STARTING 9 23 PM

I’ve had trouble sleeping lately.  In the past week, if you were looking for me at two o’clock in the morning, you would be wrong to look in my bed.  Wrong, not because you were supposed to be guessing where I was supposed to be, because I was supposed to be in bed.  But wrong because if you were to guess where I was at two o’clock in the morning and say “sleeping in your bed!” you would be wrong…because I was not.  Instead I was rummaging through the kitchen.  And, folks, we can’t even all this nighttime snacking because, first of all, it technically was in the early hours of the morning, and two, it wasn’t snacking…It was more like feasting.

I’d eat alone in our kitchen that seemed rather large when there was no one else there eating beside me.  I’d walk around, maybe twirl around when I thought no one was looking.  I may or may not have began talking to myself while eating my meal that was very satisfying at the least.  My dog would lift her nose into the air, smelling the food.  Her eyes would study me curiously, wondering why this human was up while all of the others were deep in sleep. . . Or maybe I’m just trying to be to clever with my imagination and her eyes were actually just studying my food curiously.  Or maybe she wasn’t even curious about my food.  Maybe she was just looking at my food. . . .

Which is something that I’ll never understand.  How can one not look at something and not ask a question about it…Unless of course they knew everything about that thing… But even then, if I knew everything about a book, say perhaps, I could still wonder about who was going to read it next or if my boyfriend would like it … Or something like that. Anyway.  You get the idea.

Sometimes I wish I knew everything.  I know, I know… I know what you’re thinking.  You’re saying, but Jade! Then where would the adventure be?  What would be the point in living if there was nothing else to learn?  It is the process not the end result.  It is working to find out the answer, not the answer itself.  But putting all of those great, inspiring, and very most likely true things aside… (Please, really, mentally do this right now)…

Think about that time when everyone knew something and you didn’t.  Think about that time that boy (or girl?) said something about a topic that you wanted to be able to elaborate more on so you could impress them, but you couldn’t…because you simply didn’t know anything about that topic.  I hate when people give their surprised, “Oh, but you have HAD to have heard of it” looks when I say I haven’t heard of what they are talking about… Even if it is as simple as a movie.  I want to reply, “Oh, thank you. I wasn’t aware that I knew so little about the world, but now I really feel like I hardly know a thing…”

Of course I know they don’t mean to say/do something that I hate.  Of course they are simply too flabbergasted and overwhelmed by the fact that I don’t know who this hip/hop artist is or how to spell bologna.  I know it all comes as quite a shock that I don’t know everything… But back to the people we want to impress my life…And you can go back to that “great, inspiring” mood that I told you to throw out the window a couple of minutes ago and say, “But you SHOULDN’T want to impress anyone, Jade.  You should just be yourself and that will be impressive enough for the RIGHT people.”

Who are we kidding, guys?  I want to impress the world.  All at the same time.  I want to great. I want to be great to myself and to others.  Call me selfish, unrealistic, or greedy.  Maybe I am those things, but at least I have my wants…my desires.

When there is someone dear that I want to impress…I’m not talking co-worker or boss, because that’s simply too edgy, too cold of an example to use.  I’m talking someone you are falling hard for… you want to know everything for them.  When they ask you a question… Well, when they ask me a question, I want to have the answer. I want them to think I know everything that they’ll ever need to know.  When they talk about something and ask me about it and I can’t give them my say on it?  You know what?  I ache.  My eyes wince from the pain.  My stomach aches from the emptiness inside that is quickly filling up with shame.

Oh, knowledge… why can I never have all of you?  It’s not even for me. It’s to give to someone else…

Perhaps that’s why…

Maybe it’s a self respect thing.  Maybe I have to want to earn the knowledge for myself for me to finally grasp it.  Then maybe I can share it with someone else.

That makes sense.

It also sounds more like that “great” and “inspiring” stuff that I told you all to throw out the window… Crap, that “great” and “inspiring” stuff always seems to do a boomerang on me and hit me in the face.

(Side note: Why did I just put quotations around those words all of a sudden?)

Impressing people… Ugh.  I tried to go to sleep a few minutes ago…Extra early so I could look nice and perty for my dear boyfriend who is coming back tomorrow night.  But I’m totally up and walking around and getting to look extra tired again.  Plus,… I’m sick.  So… that doesn’t help.  And now I’m all stressed about it.  And now I can’t sleep even more than before.

Gah!

I’m reading  Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.  I must say that I am always impressed by novels that manage to embarrass me on train rides and in other public places when it makes me laugh out loud (which leads into a coughing and hacking because I’m sick. No good, I tell you).

Okay. I’m tired.  I’m done.  For all of you who stuck it out with this blog and read ‘till the end.

HOLY CRAP? How’d you do that?

J

Thanks for staying with me.

May you all learn something, first for yourselves, and then to share to others later.

-IGJ

FREEWRITE FINISH 9:42

P.S.  No wonder I couldn’t sleep. I had all of these words stuck in my head and trying to get out.

P.S.S.  I hope you all enjoyed my little cover with Misty doing “Pork and Beans”…If you haven’t seen it, you can find (and watch!) it on my page here:

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/pages/Jade-Frampton/166928736727757

P.S.S.  I also got to interview Adam Haferty.  I think his band that I just discovered is one of my top 5 discoveries of 2011 so really… check it out:

http://threadsence.com/Blog/inside-the-green-room-with-jade-frampton-adam-halferty/

P.S.S.S.  If freewrites aren’t your thing and you still need to fall asleep…then maybe a evening walk might help?

Abandoned Knife

Abandoned Knife by Jade Frampton

I sat with my legs crossed and my hands cupping the Chai that warmed my palms.  My V-neck shirt was especially low and so thin that one could possibly see my belly button if they stared hard enough.  Since when did my confidence become so great that I would let my simple shirts reveal the lacey intimates that seemed to not so bashfully wrap themselves around my breasts as they once had when I was younger.  I was comfortable in my skin.  For once. Finally.

The only thing–or person should I say– that was making me uncomfortable was the person sitting in front of me.  He was uncomfortable and not aware of being uncomfortable.  He wore a vest over a cleverly colored button-up shirt.  It looked unnatural on him.  He was comfortable in a plain white undershirt and basketball shorts.  This wasn’t from his regular wardrobe.  He was wearing what I would want a man to wear.  His attire was only to impress, and maybe it would have if he could have hidden how forced that collar wrapped around his thick veined neck was.  His fingers pulsed on the small coffee table anxiously.  They were pounding so hard on the surface of our table that they could have been sending me a message in Morse code.  Probably some message asking for me to help him. Save him. Rescue him from the present moment he was stuck in…to send him back to the past.  But I didn’t know Morse code.  I didn’t then, and I sure as hell don’t know now.  His blue eyes were still bright, but they were bloodshot.  Late nights studying.  Late nights worrying.  Late nights thinking.  Late nights alone.  I knew where bloodshot eyes came from.  I blinked once. Twice. My dark eyes were moist. Rested. Refreshed. Ready.   His blonde hair was so light that the top speckled like a star would.  It was the longest that I had ever seen it, which wasn’t very long at all since he had always kept it neatly buzzed.  It stuck out longer in the front in a desperate attempt to categorize itself into some style of the modern day.  I smiled at the attempt.  It wasn’t him at all.  Who was he trying to be?  Probably anyone but the person who had turned me down before, I guessed.

“Those earrings,” he said, “They’re nice.”

I lifted my fingers to the black feathers that hung from the sides of my head.  I smiled.  He had never noticed anything I had worn before.  If he ever did, he was always making fun of the way I tried to put an outfit together.

“I’m glad you could make it,” I said while spinning the cup around in my hands, “I was in the city to drop off my… boyfriend… I didn’t think until last minute to call…”

“No. Yeah. No. I’m glad you called. I’m glad. It’s so good to see you.  You look great.”

“Thanks.  So do you,” I lied.  He looked like a wreck.  Like the near-end result of slow chaos.

“No… No, I don’t,” he paused, “So how is school.  Have you declared yourself as another starving artist?”

I nodded and laughed, “I will declare my doom next semester. I  still want to be an English major even though I don’t plan so much on teaching…I know my dad and you don‘t think…”

“I’m just kidding.  You’ve always been good at writing… the things you come up with.  No one thinks of them.”

“I don’t come up with them,” my cheeks felt hot, “…They just come up to me.”

“I never understood how you could do that.  I never understood what goes on in there,” he pointed to my head.  “It’s like you’ve got a million stories up there unraveling themselves at 500 miles per hour.”

“Well you get math,” I said smugly, “so we’re even.”

He had always been so good with math.  He was studying to be an engineer.  He loved physics, calculus, and numbers.  He loved when things could be fitted together perfectly and completely.  I loved when things were left open, full of perfection (in my own sense) and completeness still…and full of possibility, but most importantly, full of multiple, if not an infinite amount, of possibilities.  I envied the security he would have in only four years and yet I think if that kind of security and structure were handed to me on a platter I would slap it away like it were a grotesque plate of vermin and run for my life…literally run for my life, the life that was always seemingly “to be determined” even when I took the time that I didn’t have to catch my breath, smell the flowers…  Wallace spoke and yanked me away from my mind that was, again, working at 500 miles per hour in hard thought nonsense.

“I never understood how you are so logical even though you hate all of the calculations and formulas that come with things for them to make sense.  You’re the most rational girl I know,” he said trying to laugh, but he couldn’t because he was serious.  His compliment was flattering, but not as flattering as it might have been if he had given it to me in the very distant past.  I might have been flattered even now if I wasn’t still thinking about him and  his keen, machine-like mind in comparison to my soft, weightless light bulb blinking head.  No wonder my head was so big and round, and no wonder his was so square and straight edged.  Just look at his jaw.  It was set so straight and tight.  His lips never quivered.  And my jaw…crooked and never biting down a sentence completely.  I was always biting on my lips so curiously, desiring more, more, more.

“Thank you.  I guess when I realized not everything makes sense, things finally started to,” I sipped on my tea.

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” he sighed.  He looked at me lovingly.  I looked at him.  His blue eyes searched mine.  I wondered… His hand tapped on the table softer now.  I wondered… His lips were dry and thirsty.  I wondered…how did I ever think that we were meant to be together?  What had occupied my head to make me think that we were compatible?  His ideas could only be built on what was black and white.  My mind’s thoughts only swam in pools of gray.  His heart beat to the most practical rhythm and mine danced and skipped just because it felt good to make my chest flutter.

“Are you happy?” he asked me.

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“I love my classes.  I’m playing well. My family is, well, under the circumstances, they are doing well. I still go on walks at night and…”

“That’s good” he said impatiently,  “Does he make you happy?”

I wanted to ask who.  I wanted to pretend.  But I knew who he was talking about.  I wrapped my fingers around the arms of my chair to muster enough strength for the rest of the conversation.

“Yes. He does, Wallace.”

His bright blue eyes darkened.  His mouth remained straight and unmoving.  In fact, looking at him, all in all, he hardly moved.  Maybe writing had gotten to my eyes and made me observe while just looking at things, because when I was just looking at Wallace, I saw the sadness overcome him slowly like a leaky ceiling, finally giving way to the weight of all of the water that had been puddling up on top of it.  The paint of the ceiling had first  become soggy and glossed with wetness.  Then the wood absorbed the water and slumped liked rotting, melting cheese.

And then, like I said, the whole ceiling collapsed.

“What is he like?” he collapsed.

“Does it matter?” I shook my head.

“I want to know what he’s like. I’m your best friend.  Can’t you tell me?”

I looked at him sternly, like a mother.  Then I realized that I wanted to be anything but his mother at that moment.  If I acted as his mother for a second longer, I would lose him as a friend.

“He’s smart.  He’s funny.  He listens and then he talks.  He says he’s an impatient person, but he always takes the time to explain the things to me that I don’t understand.  He admits when he doesn’t know something.  He pays attention to detail.  He never forgets about the bigger picture though.”

“Janet told me he ‘saw your eyes’ and then he knew that he needed to be with you,” Wallace waved his arms into the air romantically sarcastic and rushed when he quoted my boyfriend, “Is this true?”

Did it matter if it was? Apparently Wallace thought so.

“That’s what he told me,” I said.

Wallace stood up.  I automatically stood as well.  He stepped around the table so his eyes drilled in to mine, and with a kind of fierceness I thought he didn’t have, he revealed a kind of passion I had asked him for many months ago.

“Why didn’t I see your eyes before?” he asked regretfully.

My lips quivered.  My warm brown eyes were cold like a blown out candle.  I didn’t bite my lip though.  I didn’t want more.  He looked at me bewildered, hurt,, alone.  I recognized these eyes.  I had seen them in my own reflection those many months ago.  I lost my breath.  What was I to say?

Could I go with a cold shouldered cliché like “Too little too late?”  But that wasn’t it.  It wasn’t too little.  He gave me nothing at all when I had asked him for it.   He didn’t want it.  He didn’t want me.  What did I do?  I did become a poor lost puppy, but only to myself.  I gave my pathetic eyes to myself through a mirror before a long hot shower.  I didn’t give them to him like he was doing to me now. I didn’t make him feel guilty like he was trying to do to me.  He was trying, but it wasn’t working.  Why wasn’t it working?  Because I was thinking about him.  Not Wallace.  No. But him.  My boyfriend, James.  See, I have this image of him that I have stored in my head so when James’ is gone or when I want to be happy– or when he’s gone and I want to be happy– I can think of that moment with him and use it to make me happy… and make it seem like he’s in the same room with me.

This memory is of me sitting with my head laying hopelessly on my desk.  I’m whining.  I can’t do it, I say.  What? He asks.  I can’t do it, I repeat with a pouting lip.  My frown can’t last though, smiling always came more naturally to me.  So then I whine with a childish grin and I say I can’t dooooo it.   And he, who is sitting on the ground with his back against my dresser leans his head back against one of the drawers and smiles so big that I was sure for a second that a frown couldn’t possibly fit on his face.  His laugh flows through his smile and fills the room with such a carefree echo.  Yes you can, he says.  Of course you can.  And I smile…and he smiles and…

I realize I’m still in the coffee shop.  Wallace is standing in front of me.  I’m still smiling from remembering that moment with James.  Wallace’s pride is not only hurt now, but he is insulted.  I try to erase the smile from my face–to take it back to save Wallace but…smiling always came more naturally to me and I wanted to smile.  I was thinking of James.  I wasn’t trying to get Wallace back for the terrible pain of experiencing the confusion that came with the rejection he had forced me to experience.  I remember wondering what was so wrong with me to not deserve Wallace… Now it all made sense.  It all came together.  It was perfect and complete.  It was black and white. It all made perfect sense.  Almost like math. I wasn’t heartless. I wasn’t trying to be cruel.   I was just… happy.

Wallace… the way you looked at me… Why couldn’t the proud engineer in you understand that?  Didn’t it make sense?

“…Because, Wallace, you know why…” I began to answer his first initial question…

He swallowed, getting ready for the blow.

“Because they weren’t meant for you,” I whispered.

His eyes lifted from my face and looked straight ahead.  He was always a bit taller than the average man.  He could not see straight through me, I was always too full of thoughts that were speeding 500 miles per hour.  But now he was looking straight ahead, seeing over me.  His throat made a sound, like he had just forced a number of words back down to his chest and into his heart.  Then, without looking at me again, he walked past me.  He pushed the glass door open and left.  I don’t think he was trying to be rude.  I think he was racing his tears to the car–something a lot of men probably would do.  I don’t know.  I’m not a man.  I knew my tears too well.  I knew they could beat me in any race to hide my face.  My eyes swelled up.  I felt terrible.  A blow to the stomach.  My weightless mind suddenly felt too heavy for my neck.  I … I…

My phone rang.  It was James. I answered.

“ I made it okay.  Sat next to a crying baby again.  Just my luck!  How was getting coffee with your old friend?  You’re not still there are you…? I’m  not interrupting, am I?  I can call back later…”

I saw James in that moment.  His rich laughter filled the air of the coffee shop even though he was 3,000 miles away from me.  His smile filled my vision and fogged up the windows so I couldn’t see Wallace’s car skid passed the glass in a reckless fury.  I only saw James throwing his head back against my dresser, smiling… Yes you can, he says.  Of course you can.  And I smile…and he smiles and…

Tanchoo Shrugged. . .

Tanchoo Shrugged by Jade Frampton-

–

“Really?” Tanchoo asked, leaning his forehead toward her.

“You don’t think so?” Princess Baby said tucking her chin toward the collar of her dress tentatively, “You don’t feel it?”  She turned her neck around, scanning her surroundings to make sure she really thought so.  The floor was stamped with stains from the bottom of strangers’ shoes and rubber bike tires.  The air was full of an aroma that could only come from a mixture of too many different people.  The smell came from black skin with dark pores and fair skin with freckles.  The scent was dirty.  Dirty hands. Dirty coats. Dirty minds.  And the sounds that bounced off the ceiling were constantly changing.  There was the soothing voice of a mother, calming her child in the chair next to her.  There was the rushed and desperate voices of the men with glazed eyes and cut off gloves.  And sometimes, when passing under a tunnel, all one could hear was the piercing echoes of the rails grinding against the wheels.  And when that happened, Princess Baby thought, no matter what one was telling the person next to them, one was forced to shut up and look into their eyes.  Only a sincere stare could cut through the noise of the tunnel and reach the person one’s voice was cut off from. When one went through that tunnel, words meant nothing.  It wasn’t what one was saying…It was what one wasn’t saying.

If luck would have it, one might get to sit down on one of the dusty old chairs.  The Tanchoo and Princess Baby, however, were trapped near the doors by a fierce fence made of bikes with spiked pedals and respect of the elderly and families that needed the seats more than they did.  The couple held on to the bar parallel with the trembling doors.  After only a couple stops, however, Princess Baby would always lose her balance and stumble.  This girl was quite forgetful.  She wouldn’t remember the force of the train, and would clumsily lose her balance after letting her grip relax.  So every few stops Tanchoo would have to catch her by the elbow and steady her.  She would smile at him, and after teasingly rolling his eyes, the edges of his lips would turn up tenderly.  Sometimes the unfamiliar men standing next to them or on the side by the second set of doors would see this.  They would smile sheepishly as if they were witnessing something too intimate for the eyes of the public.  They had all caught a young woman’s elbow at one point in time.   They remembered what it felt like to be the man who gave a young lady her balance back.

The girl looked at her fingers that were wrapped around the bar.  They were cold and white.  They were always cold, but the bar was responsible for their lack of color.  The boy’s hands were wrapped around the bar just centimeters above her own hand.  His fingers were still the native color of his body–a glowing bronze.  Standing made her tired. She leaned her head against his arm and sighed.  She let the thread of his shirt trace its pattern onto her temple.  She wondered how tired he must be, and–if she was leaning so heavily on his arm–how tired his arm must be.  She lifted her head quickly, apologetically. His body tensed, and his attention immediately turned to her with his eyes asking what he had done wrong.  She smiled. Everything was okay.  He smiled. Good.  She placed her head back onto his shoulder, not letting the whole weight of her thoughts weigh down his arm this time.  She would think of happy thoughts; light, weightless thoughts.  His heart beated deep into his chest, shaking both of their bodies with each pump.  The violence of his heart scared her, but it made her feel alive.

Images of the city passed them through the windows like a slideshow on fast forward.  Lights became a blur, buildings became large shapeless shadows, and advertisements on billboards failed to draw customers in and instead entertained a train passenger or two for mere seconds before it disappeared from their view and from their minds.  So many different people sat pocketed in the train.  A family coming back from visiting Grandma’s sat across to the Princess Baby’s left.  The mother did have that soothing tone Princess Baby had heard earlier, but her stern tone of impatience threatened her children just as often.  The father stole kisses from the mother’s plump cheeks, and she giggled high into the air as a reminder of love when her voice began to strain.  Princess Baby looked away,  pretending not to see, but her smile was as guilty as her eyes. Tanchoo smiled, what had his eyes missed?  He looked around.  Two girls in sparkling party dresses stood uncomfortably in the aisle.  The dusty seats and dusty men kept the two girl’s close together.  Their smoky eyes were ready for the bars.  Their heels were ready for the clubs.  Their lovely locks of hair ready for fingers to pull at.

“They’re so pretty,” Princess Baby whispered admiringly.

“Yes, they are,” Tanchoo agreed.

Princess Baby bit her lip, never letting herself ask why Tanchoo was standing next to her and not them.  The fact was that he was standing next to her and not them, and as long as this was the fact, she would never risk herself in questioning why it was a fact.  There was always someone more beautiful… someone more handsome… Someone more intelligent…Someone simply more than someone else.  It was a dilemma that Princess Baby had decided she would never have the answer to.  Or maybe the answer was standing right next to her, looking at her, trying to read her thoughts, trying to listen to what she wasn’t saying out loud.  The answer smiled at her.  She shivered off the many troubling doubts for the moment.

“Are you cold?” he asked.  His hands reached for the throat of his sweater, ready to strip himself of the layer that had indented its pattern onto the side of her face.

“Keep it,” she nodded, “I’m okay.”

An old lady with hair as white as Jasmine rice sat in a chair near the automatic doors.  Princess Baby wondered how the old woman commuted this way.  This woman probably took this train every week.  Her eyes were tired and longing.  Her skin was dry and heavy.  Her bony knuckles rested on her large flower printed carpet bag ever so light–as if they weighed less than the bones of a skeleton.  Princess Baby thought she should hold on tighter to her bag.  The woman needed to look more apt to fend for herself and her possessions on a train at night like this…, but then Princess Baby looked again and realized that this woman had nothing left to fight for.  Carpet bag or no carpet bag…she just wanted to get home so she could watch her favorite soap opera before she tucked herself into bed.

A man with a briefcase sat behind where Tanchoo was standing.  Princess Baby guessed that he was in his mid-forties.  She studied his bright eyes whenever he stopped rubbing them with his fingers that seemed to dig into the hollows of his eyes as if they were trying to revive something that had died long ago.  It was then that she realized he was barely thirty…He wasn’t living. He was dying.  Her eyes jumped to Tanchoo in a panic.  He was not rubbing his eyes.  They were not bright or sleep deprived.  Tanchoo’s eyes were similar to coal in two ways: they were dark and they were warm.  She looked down at his hand. He was not holding a briefcase, he was holding her hand.  He was barely twenty.  He was the spitting image of youth itself.  She smiled, relieved that he held no resemblance to the man that sat behind him.

Tanchoo’s eyes escaped passed Princess Baby’s shoulders.  Two rugged looking men, both wearing caps sat in the chairs just behind her where she could not see them.  Their eyes danced around Princess Baby, and their fingers fidgeted constantly on their laps.  They leaned forward with their elbows on their knees, and then a second later they would lean back with their shoulders leaning on the back of the seat’s filth.  They kept repeating the shifting of their weight, forward…backward…forward…backward.

“What are you thinking about?” Princess Baby’s smile called his attention back to her.

“What?”

“You look troubled. What’s on your mind?”

“I just want to be there already,” he smiled, lying in the sincerest way possible, “I can’t wait.”

“I know!” she squeaked excitedly, “Me neither!”

Another couple walked onto the train the next stop.  They moved together like one body.  Her hair fell upon the young man’s shoulders just as much as it did hers.  Her lips were bubble gum pink…and so were his.  And as if this didn’t tell the story thorough enough, she reached for his chin and pulled his sparkling lips to hers.  His hands pulled her hips in.  To them, they were the only two on the train.  Princess Baby began to wonder…were there really two bodies in front of her and Tanchoo  or had there been this one blob of a single entity all along?

Princess Baby inhaled the smells of different people, different ideas, different destinations…

“Aren’t train rides so romantic?”

"Tanchoo Shrugged" inspired by and dedicated to...Tanchoo.

Lust Before France. . .

Lust Before France by Jade Frampton

She was the submissive one?  So men thought, and so did the man who was sitting on the bed.  She stood before him in a black coat.  His masculine eyes, dominant and hungry, stared at her throat: the most bare part of her body.  Her bare feet tip-toed toward the bed, pretending to still be wearing the stilettos she had kicked off only minutes before.  The big black coat that hung from her shoulders fell to the floor.  The man sitting on the bed lifted his arm, his hand was in the air with his fingers stretched out. Reaching…  She placed her hands on the bed.  Her fingers curled into the blankets, hooking her nails into the mattress.  She coughed over her shoulder.  Her eyes flashed at the man.  He only stared at her body. Her eyebrows relaxed. Her back arched while she pretended to be expecting pleasure.  The man’s throat hummed with a thirst that no holy water could satisfy.  She was the submissive one? So men thought.  And so did the man who was sitting on the bed with his arms extended toward her body.  She pounced on him like a cat.  Her body on his.  Her hand pressed against the blankets, the sheets and then slipped under a large fluffly pillow of security…

–

What had once been a diner was now a bar and hotel near its own death.  A girl with a heavy black coat and long legs sat drinking hard liquor.   The young man sitting next to her sipped on a cheap beer.  His eyes combed through her black tangled hair.  She wheezed before she coughed into her hands.  Blood dabbled her palms, and she turned them away from her.  When a pure light shines into the darkness, shadows can’t help but notice.  This woman felt his gaze on her hair, on her eyes, on her hollow cheek bones.  She looked every way but his, her neck straining to avoid the rays of his eyes.  If he would only look away from her face, anywhere but her face.  Her legs, her neck, her breasts…She had not looked into his eyes, and yet the warmth from his gaze made her cheeks swell a deep crimson.

Sticking to the script she asked, “Would you like to talk, young man?”

His eyes jumped to her eyes and he nodded in silence.

“I have a room upstairs…” she said as she stood up.

He scratched his head, not believing his luck.  Up a spiral staircase they went.  His head studied the steps as he heard the silent swaying of her hips.  She lead him to the end of the smoky hall.  Once they reached the last door, she turned to him and smiled.  Her dark sunken eyes were outdone by her waxy red lips.  She coughed hard, whipping her neck back and forward. The man said nothing. She opened the door, and while walking straight to the bed, she let the coat fall from her shoulders.  She crouched on top of the bed, her knees digging into the mattress, and her back arched like a rainbow with a cauldron full of gold waiting for the young man at the end of that arch.

The young man, who was hardly a man at all, stood straight and stiff.  His eyes never left her face.  The dim of the lamp light shone on the woman’s face, and he realized that this woman was hardly a woman at all.  She could not be older than he.

“Are you coming?” she asked, sounding older than she was.  The young man shook his head.  Her eyes that were so cool suddenly blinked into a panic.
“Then what do you want?” she asked sharply.

“What is your name?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Where are you from?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said, becoming more and more impatient.

“I am James.  I am from Boston.  I am here only for a few more hours.  I leave for France tomorrow evening.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“I can help you.”

“If you won’t come to bed, then you should leave.”

“You asked me what I want. I want to help you.”

“You’re the one who needs help,” she hissed.  He began to walk toward her with his hands facing up, warm and open.  She jumped back to the head of the bed and pulled a revolver from under one of the fluffed up pillows.  She pointed at him, cocking it with familiarity.

“No one leaves this bedroom alive but me,” she said in a French accent.

“What do you want?” the young American asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” she continued on in her native accent.

“I can help you,” he said, his eyes never leaving her face.  His eyes didn’t even try to stare down the trembling revolver in her hands.  He only searched her face.  Her eyelashes batted up and down irritated.

“I can kill you,” she said.

“Let me help you first.  You are unwell.  You’re beautiful,  but your lungs aren’t.  My sister had the same symptoms.  We took her to a doctor.  She is better now.  I can help you too. Let me take care of you.”

The reminder of her congested lungs started a series of terrible coughs.  She wiped her mouth after she finished hacking, leaving blood that smeared her lips.  It was hardly noticeable because of the natural shade of red that her lips were, and because of the lack of light in the room.  Her lips were naturally the color of expiring blood.

“Fine,” she cried, “It’s either you or me, soldier.”  One slow tear slid down her cheek.  She stood up, and walked to the dresser with the gun still in her pale hand.  She opened the drawer and pulled out a Bible.  The old leather bound book was crushing a dead rose within its pages.  She walked up to the young man, her fragile frame seeming to have more strength than any woman of her size.  She pressed the Bible to his chest.

“I’m in love with your eyes,” she said, “Funny that I am the tempted one.  It isn’t fair that life would deprive me of loving you.  I got all of the rotten men.”  Her thick accent haunted his American ears.

She then pressed her dark lips to his.  His tongue tingled as he tasted her tongue, her breathe, her blood…

She then whipped her body back with two swift steps backward.  She smiled at him, the first sincere emotion she had let a human being see since she was a small child on the streets of Paris.  She raised the revolver to her head and pulled the trigger.  The blood spurted onto the young man. She fell to the ground.  He stared at her face.  This time his warm gaze had no effect on her rigid cheek bones.  She was beautiful.  She was dead.  The dark pool of blood that grew on the carpet said so.

He let the Bible in his hands fall open to the page that the rose had been suffocated in.

“Each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.”–JAMES 1 VERSES 13-18

He closed the book.  He would need another cheap beer before he sailed to France.

Cloud 20 Update

I suppose before I go into any creative writing or random thoughts, it is only fair to give everyone an update on where I am in my life.

We will start with school. I finished my first semester at my new school as a transfer student. I couldn’t have been more happy. My teachers are caring and passionate about what they are teaching. Class discussions are not accelerated by the teachers but by other nerdy, quirky students like myself. Next semester, despite my dad’s concern, I will officially be declaring myself as an English Major with an emphasis in Creative Writing.

My grades have been solid (I think). I haven’t asked any of my teachers about grades, but my best estimation of where I am at is, I believe, exactly where I would like to be. (If my grades were perfect, I might be concerned that I’m not living my life to the fullest to be honest).

 Coaches & Team & Tennis… (I’m not really supposed to be blogging about details when it comes to sports…) but I will say that I’m in the greatest shape I’ve ever been in. My jeans are all loose on me. I’m fit and can go all day long on court. My coaches are amazing. I have improved so much. They care. They are supportive. I COULD NOT ASK for better coaches to guide me through my college tennis career.

My team is so supportive. When I’m pushing myself they are pushing me harder. They are there for me on the court, like they are expected to be…and then they are there for me off the court just because they care. Being around them makes me a better person, and I can only hope that I do the same for them.

OK. So that’s school and tennis.

Family. My sisters and I are close as ever. Phone calls have been squeezed in between weights, tennis, band practices, piano lessons, basketball practices, dates, hang outs with friends, and just pure hustling around in our lives…They haven’t been as often, but a cute text message, email, tweet, phone call, skype call, card, gift, surprise package… always seems to sneak its way into our lives. Meg and Dia have been busy getting ready for their next tour. The little ones are getting better at dolling up and going out. Rena’s been out running miles in the evenings for her team, Nikki’s been spitting out masterpieces from her desk, and Misty has been meddling with art, guitar, piano, basketball, etc. The Bay area has definitely been nice. I still have many more adventures waiting for me in SF. I have many adventures waiting for me in Berkeley. I still have many adventures waiting for me on my own little cozy campus… I just love that these amazing places are all less than an hour a way. How lovely is that?

My parents are good. They are working through everything. …and I respect that.

Okay… Tennis. School…Family… Location… Ah. Boys.

Or, should I say boy?

Yes, yes… I think I should.

For quite a while now, and maybe some of you through all of my blogs have realized, that despite my search for that perfect someone…I’ve been completely afraid of a relationship and distrustful of anyone that I’m supposed to let in to my little circle. Just by blogging, it’s apparent that I’m open with people…but to really let someone into my world… well that’s almost impossible. I close myself off and I freak myself out about all of that kind of stuff.  …You know that.

Fact: I cringe when I hear words like “relationship”, “Marriage”, “Boyfriend” “Commitment”. I just don’t believe those boys that tell me I’m their everything. Being a writer, I believe in words so much. I just don’t believe in their words. To me, lines like “When I look into your eyes, time stops”… seem like floating balloons that come to take me off my feet…and I feel like it’s my job to pull out a sharp needle and pop them before they take me too far off the ground where I might fall a great distance and break something…like my heart.

I am a romantic… but with my mentality, I was quite sure I was doomed. Earlier this semester, I broke someone else’s heart. I told him I wasn’t looking for anything and that I wasn’t ready for a relationship. He was ready to jump into the ocean with me, and I wasn’t even ready to test the waters. He was heart broken. I felt like I had just stolen candy from a poor innocent little boy and I burn every time I think about that situation with him. I wasn’t ready for anything, but I spent time with him…it wasn’t fair for him to throw his heart out at me while I was just skipping along the battlegrounds of friendship. I hurt him. It could have possibly been avoided. My fault. I don’t know if I’m glad to learn from that, because it didn’t hurt me. It hurt him. I’m sorry.  But I did learn…

So with this being unready and unsure of the boys that throw me the cheesiest, most romantic lines you could send my way… I felt I was doomed. How can you trust what people say? How can you trust what people even do when you haven’t known them for very long? So what if they seemed nice? So what if they say they like you? So what if this was the first time they ever felt this with someone? What was I supposed to do? Trust them given these certain circumstances? I’m the girl behind the great wall of China, and letting my guard down just isn’t going to happen…

Many fish in the sea… Swim around… That’s my motto. Be friends with everyone. Get to know everyone. Never have to commit. Never have to trust. Never have to hurt. Why take the risk? Everything was perfect. Tennis. School. Family. I was happy.

Well someone didn’t agree with me. Someone didn’t like my motto. Someone would respect it, but also… he decided to do something about it. And as unsure as I was about what he said and what he did while we spent time together at school, he somehow made it over my great wall of Jade with only a hop, skip, and a jump.

And to put a big ol’ story into a short paragraph:  After spontaneously flying to Utah to spend time with me, meet my family, see where I come from, and… ask me to be his girlfriend… we’re officially together. He has given me a bundle of helium balloons, and I have misplaced my sharp needle (by accident or on purpose?). Now I’m just holding onto the strings and seeing where these balloons take me…Whether we land on top of the highest mountain or fall into the thickets of heart break, he will be right there with me. …Of course I’m a bit scared, but I have a good feeling about this–and usually when I let the balloons float where they may, I don’t.  So… cross your fingers for me. Smile with me.  This is exciting.

Thanks for listening to my rambling. Updates are always not as interesting to me since A. I already know what is going on. B. I feel like it’s me talking about me and that is all–not really giving you guys any insight or thoughts/etc.  But anyway, Thanks for reading.  Thanks for commenting.  Those little comments you guys sprinkle on me even when my blog is trickling down to almost nothing really give me a lift and makes me promise myself to never stop writing.  So, really, thank you.

That’s all for now. If you need to reach me, I’ll be on cloud 20.

Simply,

Photo by my boyfriend! ❤

Why Nikki Paints…

I’m leaning against the wall, I don’t notice the silence which is weird considering that I always like to fill the air with chattering.  My head is tilted ever so slightly with my forehead slanted forward hovering over a large canvas.  My eyes are concentrating on the paintbrush.  The paint on the brush meeting the paint already on the canvas…Color meeting color…It’s a party.  My little sister’s tiny nimble hands are steady, but not tense.  They are perfect.  The colors dance, never missing a step on the canvas.  How does she do it?  I don’t know.  Her large eyes are steady.  When they blink, they blink slowly, like the tired wings of a butterfly.

“Why do you do it?” I ask.

She looks up into my eyes.  Then her daring stare floats back down to her masterpiece in the making.  Maybe because we’re sisters or maybe just because, but she understands my question immediately.  No more explanation is needed.

“It keeps me going.”

I stayed quiet.  I talk a lot, so when I remain silent, Nikk knows that’s an invitation to keep talking.

She licks her lips. “People…They can ditch you.  They can ignore you.  They can hurt you and be mean.  But painting.  Art.  It will never leave.  It will never neglect me.  It will never be rude just for the sake of being rude.  It will never hurt me.”

The simplicity of her answer stung.  She was not even at the legal age of driving and she had already lost faith in humanity.   I wondered if I was a little to blame.  I never trust people very easily.  Perhaps she takes after her older sister.

“It’s weird, I know…” she started after I did say anything.

“No, no” I assured, “I understand completely.”

I wanted to give her a bold speech from the heart.  I wanted to assure her that there were people out there that would never leave her side once they had reached that point… I wanted to tell her that there was still so much good in the world, she only had to step out into it and give it time… But my heart ached from the sadness in her painting.  The smiling face she was giving life to suddenly seemed so sad.  I didn’t trust my voice.  It would tremble in her ears.  Instead I nodded when she looked up at me, maybe slightly confused by the unusual amount of silence I was letting cling to the air.  Her large eyelashes bowed again and I smiled.

“Well,” I sighed deeply, “I’m glad that you do it.  It’s lovely.”

I walked to the door to leave.

“Thank you,” she smiled without looking up from the canvas.

I let myself out.  Closed the door quietly… I can’t wait to see it when she’s done.

Ellen’s Valentine’s Day

Ellen’s Valentine’s Day

By Jade Frampton

Ellen woke up. Her ear pounded with pain. She smashed her fingers against her ear clumsily. She must have slept on it the wrong way. That wasn’t surprising because she was sleeping on the couch. Her room, which was actually shared with her roommate, was not accessible at the moment. Her roommate was sleeping inside, and the door was locked. When Ellen came home last night from her evening classes, she knocked on the door to hopefully be let in but her roommate did not answer. Her roommate must have been asleep. Ellen had then resorted to the couch. It seemed to be a good idea at the time, however now that her ear was hurting, she had her doubts. She used the toilet and then looked at herself in the mirror of the bathroom that she shared with her suitemates. Her long-sleeved shirt was wrinkled but wearable. Her long purple dress fell past her bulging knees, and her white stockings were fuzzy from a night’s slumber on the couch. Her shoes were still on. Everything was wrinkled. Her mother hated when her clothes were wrinkled, but her mother wasn’t here. Ellen’s mother was two hours away, watching the morning news while eating her breakfast. Ellen tried to smooth her dress out, but her energy was being used in vain. She decided to use that energy toward making breakfast. With her fringe brushing her eyes in a way that most would think would be intolerable, she ate her routine four bowls of Lucky Charms. She loved when the colorful cereal began to discolor the milk. Maybe that is why she left the plastic bowl of lumpy milk on the dining table–so her roommate could enjoy the discoloring of the dairy as well. Ellen placed her homework in her oversized purse. Backpacks were for children. She wasn’t a child. She was a young lady. All of her papers never would slide in perfect though. Sometimes a paper would get caught in the zipper. She hated when that happened. Today must have been a better day though because she only had to fold and shove a few papers to zipper her purse up. No paper jamming today.

She headed out the door and began her walk to class. Everyone was dressed in heavy winter jackets except for Ellen. She was not cold. Aside from that, she really liked her purple dress. Maybe that was why she was wearing it for the second day. Or maybe she just forgot to change. A group of boys passed her by. They stared at her dress. They stared at her breasts that were so big they still managed to bulge through her modest turtle neck and dress that layered itself on top of her shirt. Their eyes passed over her body quickly and then they hastily looked away. They must have known Ellen because whatever it was that they were murmuring about as they walked passed, had snippets of her name in them. Ellen did not notice however. Her head was down. Her eyes were down. Or maybe they were looking forward at what was ahead of her, it was hard to tell because her thick uncombed locks were curtaining her face. Two girls passed her.

“Hi, Ellen!” they said with more enthusiasm than Ellen understood.

“Oh… Hi!” Ellen’s head swung up, trying to mimic their smiles. The two girls’ smiles were too large however and Ellen failed to match their grins.

“How are you, Ellen?” they asked.

“Oh. I am okay. I’m a little tired. I have a math test on Friday. I’m also helping some friends with homework over the weekend. I’m a little busy. I’m hungry too. I’m so stoked for the basketball game tomorrow night. Are you going?”

But the two girls were already passed her, far away in distance and in conversation. Ellen decided that they probably were going to the basketball game tomorrow night. She would probably see them there. She could talk to them later. They must be tired too.

Once Ellen was settled into her desk for her first math class of the very late morning, the teacher greeted her students with a smile.

“As agreed in last class, you all may take out your lunch now and eat it for the first bit of lecture…”

Ellen’s body that uncomfortably fit between her chair and desk suddenly stiffened. She bent over her purse. Her hand slipped twice with perspiration before she managed to zipper open her bag. She thrust her hand inside her purse letting her fingers feel around the material like the legs of a spider. No food. She opened the purse wider, causing it to rip at the edges of the zipper. The boy sitting beside her, along with many other students had been staring at her, apprehending yet another series of hystericals from Ellen. What a strange spectacle Ellen was. Her breathing became heavy and uneven. She always sat in the corner of class, but now the teacher could hear Ellen’s lungs from across the room.

“Ellen, why is everything alright?” the teacher asked.

“I…” Ellen stammered, “I… I forgot my lunch!”

Everything about Ellen was big…Especially her tears. They soaked through her dress. The snot running down her nose disgusted all of the girls in the class while it fascinated the boys in a kind of awesome and gross way. Some girls stared at Ellen with large, pitying eyes, sighing every few seconds while watching Ellen squirm disturbingly in her chair. Some boys’ eyes wandered around the room feeling uncomfortable because of two reasons: Ellen was crying and Ellen herself. Others, boys and girls, snickered under their malicious breath. And then some laughed even louder because they did not know what to do. One girl, her name was Sage, only stared at Ellen. Occasionally she would blink. She did not laugh. She did not sigh. She did not pity. She understood. She was a strange watchful girl. One might wonder why would anyone waste their time watching like she did.

The teacher finally moved forward. She assisted Ellen outside of the classroom and rolled her eyes and sighed until Ellen calmed down. Once Ellen’s sobs had calmed into something small enough to be mistaken for hiccups, the teacher returned to her classroom where she planned on doing only what she was paid to do, teach. Ellen walked down the hallway and out of the building. She began to cry again. Her turtleneck sleeves that were once white were now stained a pasty yellow. Her hair glistened in the sun, almost gracefully. But then it stuck to her face and clung to her damp cheeks. She sat at one of the picnic tables outside. She always seemed to be something to look at. A spectacle. She was hardly neglected in that sense. Everyone acknowledged her in one way or another. Ellen always received a reaction from every single person that was within twenty yards of her. Everyone except, perhaps, maybe Sage. But Sage was a strange girl. She only watched and never immediately reacted to anything. She was as still as the oak tree she would sit under in the afternoons.

Ellen never looked up very often. She had to be addressed to loudly for her neck to have enough reason to jerk her chin up. Maybe her head was heavy, which is very possible given that everything about Ellen was heavy. However, whenever Carl was around, Ellen’s head was always lifted high enough to see her surroundings. One might even realize that her eyes were beautifully blue if Carl was around because she sometimes whisked away her hair from her face to make sure Carl would not be missed by her clear eyes. Carl, like Ellen, also sang in the school choir. He had a beautiful voice. His voice was as sweet as honey and as clear as an empty glass. He was also kind-hearted and thoughtful. Once, a year and a half ago, he had told Ellen that she had a nice voice. Ever since then, Ellen never missed an opportunity to spy on her singing angel. And it was now, while she was sitting on the picnic table that Carl walked by. Her head jumped up like it usually did. Then she remembered how she came about the picnic table. She remembered that she should be in class now, eating lunch with the rest of her classmates like they had agreed upon only two days ago. How careless she was sometimes to forget such an agreement. She felt ashamed. Her head fell down even though she wanted so much to watch Carl pass by her like he always did, like a wonderful bird soaring through the clouds.

How strange. His shoes stopped right in front of Ellen’s. The birds in the sky never stopped for Ellen.

“Ellen?” his voice rang into her ears. Her head flew up, her chin loosely hanging from under her lips.

“Yes? Hello, Carl,” she wiped her nose bashfully. Her cheeks grew a patchy red.

“Hi, Ellen, how are you?” he smiled. His teeth were as perfect as his voice, Ellen confirmed. She had never been this close to him. She could almost smell him. Almost.

“Oh. I’m tired. I am kind of hungry. I…” Ellen’s mouth fell loose in confusion.

Carl held out a single red rose to her.

“Happy Valentines Day, Ellen,” he said. She looked up at him suspiciously. He smiled in return, confidence in his eyes. She then snatched the rose from his hand as if she were expecting him to change his mind. She was not so stupid. But he continued on smiling once she had received her little present. Then she smiled.

“Oh!” she exclaimed. She said nothing else, too busy to tend to her rose to remember to say thank you. Carl laughed light heartedly and then walked away letting Ellen and her rose get acquainted. Ellen smelled her rose. Her plump fingers petted the petals like a widow would her many cats. As beautiful as the rose was, she knew Carl would be rounding the corner soon and there was only one thing that was more beautiful than the rose Carl had given her and that one thing was Carl. She looked away from her gift to watch the remaining steps of Carl take him away from her. His steps stopped at the end of the sidewalk where he met Sarah at the corner. He had no rose for Sarah. Ellen blinked and pressed her lips together in a sour smile of satisfaction. Sarah’s eyes gleamed passed Carl and studied the rose in Ellen’s hands. “Awe, you’re so sweet,” she said to him through moist and pouty lips. Carl placed his hand on Sarah’s waist. He kissed her. Ellen’s smile flattened to a bare meaningless strip on her salty face.

He gave her a flower, but he gave Sarah a kiss.

All of this happened while Sage sat underneath her all-seeing oak tree. Sage saw the rose. Sage saw the kiss. She stared at Ellen. Occasionally Sage would blink. She did not laugh. She did not sigh. She did not pity. She understood. She was a strange watchful girl. One might wonder why would anyone waste their time watching like she did.