Track 13: Saturday Savior

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^Sorry, Rocco-lovers...no Rocco again this chapter, but I hope this gif of him will sustain you.

This chapter is dedicated to meeramiller007 and ZelZel7 <3


Misery Loves Company

By: theinkslingerr

Track 13: Saturday Savior




When I was six, I was jealous of this kid named Flynn because he knew how to skip rocks across Hampstead Lake and I didn't.

I spent most of that summer stalking him, watching him pick up flat stones before throwing back his arm and sending them skidding across the glassy surface.

I copied Flynn, and practiced all summer, but all my stones sank.

For a whole day, I'd been worried about what would happen when I finally bumped into Josh. For a whole day, stress and tension were at an all time high as I imagined every possible scenario.

Now that the anticipation was over, I felt kind of empty.

Now that I'd lost my momentum, I felt like all those rocks I'd sunk when I was six years old.

~~~

I turned the knob on my front door and stepped inside. I hadn't called Enid to come and get me, and Josh hadn't said anything else. He'd simply gotten up, opened the door, and exited the stairwell. His right elbow was bleeding, leaving small droplets of blood behind.

I don't remember how long I sat in that stairwell, but when I stood up to leave a sharp pain shot through my left ankle. I sat back down and sighed. Now, I actually had a legitimate reason to go to the nurse, but I still couldn't because I was also soaking wet, and that would invite questions I couldn't answer. So instead of going to the nurse's office or back to class, I limped home in the fading rain.

The first thing I did when I got inside was limp into the kitchen to get some ice for my ankle. My mom was sitting at the kitchen table in tweety bird scrubs eating yogurt. I stiffened, surprised to see her home again, but recovered quickly. If she didn't care that I was skipping school then why should I?

"Hey," I murmured, limping over to the refrigerator.

I could feel her eyes on my ankle as she murmured a greeting in return.

I opened the freezer, not surprised to find it still empty, and grabbed the ice tray. She wasn't going to ask why I was skipping school two days in a row. She wasn't going to ask about my ankle- and that was ok.

After what had happened with Josh earlier on the rooftop, I was holding up pretty well. Actually, despite everything that had happened this week, I was holding up pretty well.

Until my Mom asked, "Is there any ice cream left in there?"

The ice tray clattered to the linoleum floor, spitting ice cubes everywhere, and I did what I usually made fun of people in movies for doing. I slid to my knees and started bawling my eyes out.

I don't know why my Mom's question about ice cream set me off, but it did, and everything I'd experienced during this rollercoaster of a week poured out in bitter, salty tears. The confusion, sadness, anger, and helplessness I'd been trying to shove down threatened to overwhelm me, and the only thing that could've made it worse was someone asking if I was ok. That's why I'm glad my Mom didn't. After a couple seconds of awkward silence, I heard the scrape of a kitchen chair against the floor and felt my Mom behind me. At first she kind of just knelt there while I sobbed, but then she started patting my shoulder. "All you had to say was no," she mumbled.

I turned and threw myself at her, knocking her into a sitting position so I could bury my face in her chest.

She continued to pat my back stiffly. After a few minutes, she stood, pulling me up with her. "Alright, alright. Go sit on the couch." I rubbed the back of my hands over my eyes and nodded before limping into the living room. Since my Mom was a nurse, I already knew to stick a throw pillow under my ankle to help with the blood flow. I waited on the couch by myself, sniffling and hiccuping while my Mom cleaned the kitchen. Soon she came in with a ziploc bag full of ice wrapped in paper towels. She sat down on the other end of the coach and felt around my ankle.

"Ow..."

She gave me a pointed look. "You're fine. It's only twisted, not sprained or broken." Then she stuck the bag with ice on it.

As we sat there in silence, I wondered if she was going to ask me what happened. And if she did, how I would respond. I'd tried telling her about Josh's bullying when it first started and her advice to me was: just ignore it. I doubt she'd remember all that now, so it seemed kind of pointless to explain everything.

"Keep this elevated and iced, ok? I've got a double this weekend so I won't be able to do anything if you make it worse."

She was working the whole weekend. Of course. Why would my mom, who was a nurse, stay home and take care of me when she could go to work and take care of other people?

I simply nodded and pulled a blanket over myself. "I'll be fine. I...uh...tripped during gym."

"That's what I figured," she said with a sigh. "You've always been clumsy."

I thought of Josh saying something similar on the roof and flinched. She paused and gave me a weird look. "I've never seen anyone cry that much over a mild twist though."

I refrained from rolling my eyes and shrugged. "Yeah, well. I don't know. Maybe I'm getting my period or something."

"Oh, then I'm glad I'll be gone all weekend. You're mean when you're PMSing." It was her attempt at humor, but it fell flat and made me feel worse than I already did. "I still wasn't able to go grocery shopping, but I can leave you fifty bucks for pizza or Chinese."

"Thanks."

"Uh huh. I need to take a shower before I go back in," she picked up the TV remote and tossed it in my lap then went upstairs.

An hour later, she was gone and the silence was the loudest it had ever been.

~~~

Around the time school ended, I got a call from Enid. I almost didn't pick up because I hated talking on the phone, but I picked up, because I knew she had to be worried.

I was right.

"Where are you?!" Enid screeched the second I answered.

I flinched at the shrill sound. "Home."

"Do you still have all your limbs?"

"Yes, they're all accounted for. Why?"

"Because as soon as you left, Josh asked to talk to Mrs. Mayer out in the hallway. When she came back in, he wasn't with her so everyone lost it. We figured he'd gone after you for revenge!" she babbled.

"Oh. Um..." He'd definitely come after me, but not for revenge.

"Where'd you even go, Miz? Did he find you? Did he try and hurt you? He's a lot taller now, but I bet I could still take him!"

That got me to laugh. "Yeah, probably..."

Her voice softened. "Seriously. Did anything happen?"

Everything happened. I let out six years of pent up anger and resentment, twisted my ankle, and Josh proved to be more confusing than ever. What happened on the rooftop was too much to think about, too much to rehash at the moment. I didn't even have the energy to lie, so I just said, "Later, Enid. Later."

"I knew it! No, you have to tell me now."

"I...I can't even get into it over the phone."

"Then I'm coming over! I've gotta drop off your back pack anyway!"

"Can you leave it by the door?" I pleaded.

"What?" she sounded insulted. "I'm not doing that. Come on, I'll pick up some Red Robin on the way, and we can just sit and talk about it."

"Enid, no-"

"Do you want a chocolate malt or a vanilla malt?"

"I don't wanna talk about it ok?!" I shouted, surprising myself. She always pushed and pushed until I did what she wanted. This morning was a perfect example of that. I hadn't wanted to go to school, because I wasn't ready to face Josh. Enid came over with donuts, and the next thing I knew, I was on a rooftop in the pouring rain shouting at him. If I didn't want to relive that right this second, then...I shouldn't have to.

"Wow," Enid said after a few moments of silence. "It must've been bad."

"Thanks for grabbing my stuff," I said, changing the subject. "Just leave it by the door whenever. I'll probably be asleep."

"Yeah," Enid replied, voice flat. "Listen, Mrs. Mayer told me to tell you she wants to talk to you first thing Monday morning."

I swallowed the lump in my throat. The thought of going back to school was terrifying. "We're supposed to go to Philly..."

"I couldn't exactly tell her that, now could I?"

"Yeah, guess so."

"You gonna watch the first episode? It goes live in about an hour."

"Huh?"

"Misery Loves Company," she said with mild irritation. "You know, the web show you're in?"

So much had happened today, I'd more or less forgotten it was supposed to be uploaded to Youtube at 3:30. "Yeah, um, I'll watch it." All at once I thought of how crazy it'd been yesterday, how insensitive Enid had acted, Dom's hands all over my face, Jae's harsh words, and those stupid, stupid cue cards. There was a big part of me that didn't want to see the end result. "Hey, I gotta go. I'll call you later."

"Sure." Enid replied in a clipped tone. Then the line went dead before I could say anything else.

~~~

I spent the entire weekend on the couch.

On Friday, after my phone call with Enid, I hobbled upstairs and changed out of my wet clothes, then back downstairs to settle in for a long night of doing absolutely nothing. Once I put the bag of ice back on my ankle, I drifted into a deep sleep. By the time I woke up, the sun had gone down and my ankle was feeling much better. I was also starving, so I ordered pizza and cinnamon sticks from Pizza Hut. When the acne-ridden delivery guy arrived, I paid him and noticed my ratty back pack leaning up against the side of the house. Enid must've dropped it off while I was asleep. I grabbed it and locked myself back in the house.

That was the only time I got fresh air that weekend.

Besides making sure my ankle stayed elevated and icing it intermittently, I watched cheesy black and white movies on Netflix, stuffed my face with pizza and cinnamon sticks, and dozed off and on. In fact, the most productive thing I did was create a "Couch Slug" playlist on my phone. And listen to more Blue Vendetta.

I didn't call Enid, because I knew if I did she'd ask if I watched the first episode of Misery Loves Company, and I'd either have to lie or admit I was desperately avoiding it.

That lasted until Sunday night.

For most of the weekend, my laptop had lived under a pillow on the love seat taunting me. I valiantly ignored it, not wanting to see my awkward, unattractive self onscreen or read any of the mean comments I'm sure people would leave.

But curiosity eventually won out and I powered up my old MacBook Pro at 9:51 that night.

I said hello to John Cusack (because he was my background) before taking a deep breath and launching Safari. I started typing out Youtube and my Mac filled in the rest of the web address since it was on my favorites list. My finger hovered over the enter key for an eternity while reasons I shouldn't press it flooded my mind. I eventually closed my eyes, gathered every shred of courage I had, and clicked "enter."

Enid's channel loaded up instantly. It looked a lot different since the last time I'd logged on. There was a giant banner across the top showcasing Enid and the boys of Blue Vendetta with the words "Misery Loves Company featuring Blue Vendetta." There was also a new video with the same name, front and center.

I took another deep breath and clicked on the video. That's when I noticed something I don't know how I missed before:

The video already had over two million views.

~~~

Author's notes: Surprise! Another update! I know, I can't believe it either. I'm usually so slow haha.

And just for fun, here's Misery's "Couch Slug" playlist in case you wanna spend a weekend in:

1. Agoraphobia by Deer Hunter

2. Saturday Savior by Failure

3. Deep Sea Divers by Darwin Deez

4. Someone Else by the Radio Dept

5. Soft Shock by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs

6. Fabulously Lazy by Franz Ferdinand

7. Bored by Deftones

8. A Pallet by Oil Boom

9. Ever (Foreign Flag) by Team Sleep

10. The Secret Place by the Daysleepers

11. Closing Scene by the Radio Dept

Also: you guys got another glimpse of Misery's Mom. How'd you feel about the way she reacted to Misery's distress?

And has that ever happened to you before? Where you're upset and the most random thing sets you off?

Please VOTE and SHARE. <3 And let me know if I should create a trailer for the book, because I've been thinking about it. :)

You are reading the story above: TeenFic.Net