You Call it Misery, I'll Call it Love

Mary Kate. Oh, what a picture! She’s beautiful! I’ll tell you, every time I see her in the halls at school, I just want to pick her up and kiss her! She’s worth a lot more than everyone gives her credit for. I was talking to a kid in my science class the other day. I forget his name. Anyways, he was talking about how no one gets Mary Kate. She’s creepy he says. Creepy in what way, I have no idea.

Mary Kate’s quiet. She doesn’t open up very easily. She’s hiding something, I can tell. There’s something there that she wants to show, but she doesn’t. Every time I’m with her, I love her. She really makes me feel like I can talk to anyone! Maybe that’s because she does a lot of the listening, whereas I do most of the talking.

My name’s Darren, by the way. I’m a senior in high school and I’m currently in my fourteenth and final foster home. My foster parents told me that they filed the adoption papers yesterday and that the process will be quick. I want this so badly! This is what I’ve wanted for my entire life! But here’s the thing, they’re moving in a few months. To another state! To Oregon! This all means that I’ll be leaving Mary Kate behind. She’s the one good thing that’s happen to me ever since I moved here. I know that we haven’t really gotten to know each other really well, but I’m totally interested in knowing her better than I do! I just--, oh, I don’t want to bore you with the details…

It was just a normal day, the sun was shining and the halls were full with happy high school students. This weekend was the homecoming dance. Everyone was excited about it. Everyone either had a date or a group of close friends that they were going with. I’ve been trying to sum up the courage to ask Mary Kate out all week. She’s at her locker right now. Probably getting ready to go to science class after her hour long Spanish class. I walked up to her and noticed that she had a purplish bruise developing around her left eye. She saw me and just smiled.

“Hey,” she whispered.

“Hey, what’s up?” I ask.

“Nothing much. Spanish was painfully boring, you?” she asks me.

“Same, the last class I just had was brutal murder! I mean, I hate US history!” I complain. Mary Kate laughs and slams her locker door shut and we begin walking to our last period class.

“So, homecoming’s coming up,” I start, hoping she’ll bite.

“Yeah.” Yeah, just a yeah… you’ve got to be kidding me.

“So, are you going?” I ask.

“No,” she says rather quickly. This stuns me… I wasn’t expecting her to shut me down so quick. “My father doesn’t want me to go out that night. We’re supposed to be going out with my sister and her husband,” she says.

“Oh, nice,” I say. “Well…”

“Are you going?” she asks.

“Probably not,” I say.

“Oh, well, I hope my not going has nothing to do with it!” she says politely. That’s the nice thing about Mary Kate, she’s very polite, she knows what to say and when to say it. I smile and shake my head no.

“It won’t. I was just wondering if you were going or not,” I say. “If you were, we could have hung out or something.” She laughs.

“Well, I got to go, I’ll talk to you later,” she says with a smile. I smile back and say good bye with a wave and head off in the other direction to my last class, which is dreadfully English.

I sat through English thinking all about Mary Kate and how much I’d love it if she’d go to the Homecoming Dance with me. Although she said no, I have a feeling that she’ll be willing to go to something else with me. Our conversation went well, despite my being nervous about it.

English flew by, surprisingly. We were reading some Shakespeare and my teacher assigned a nasty four page paper that would be due the following Monday. I quickly scribbled down the assignment and walked out of the classroom. I didn’t see Mary Kate that afternoon. I got on my bus and went home. I got home and found my adoptive mother cooking something in the kitchen.

“Hey,” I call out. “I’m home.”

“Hey, sweetie!” she says, coming into the front hall to greet me. She smiles as she hugs me. I smile when she pulls back. “How are you?”

“Good!”

“Did you ask her?” she asks.

“Yeah, she’s not going, something about her father wanting her to stay home that night,” I tell her.

“Oh well, that’s too bad! Maybe you could invite her over here some day?” she asks. “Maybe on a Friday? Order pizza and I’ll let you get a movie on pay-per-view?” she encourages. “It’ll be fun! Just ask her!”

I smile. That’s what I love about my new mom, she’s very supportive and loves to help people. She really wants me to go out with Mary Kate, that is if Mary Kate ever agrees to do something with me, which I’m sure she will, eventually.

“Maybe,” I say as I walk further into the house and smell the chocolate chip cookies that are baking in the oven. “Cookies!”

“Oh yes! I thought you might like some! Maybe you’ll help me? I need to put some together in a basket for the social services office,” she explains.

“Okay,” I say, agreeing to help her. “Where’s the baskets?” She brings me a basket from the other room and shows me how she wants them to be placed in the basket. It’s rather simple. Just pile them neatly inside of the basket and munch on a few as you go.

As I was piling the cookies in the baskets, I couldn’t help but think about Mary Kate and what she might be doing right now. Little did I know, it was going to change our relationship forever.

“Dad! Would you fucking stop kicking me?” Mary Kate screamed at her father. He was drunk, again. And it was only four in the afternoon. She grabbed out at his leg, trying to grab it and hold it still. He’d been kicking her for twenty minutes because she was going to take a shower when he wanted to use the bathroom.

“What’d you say?” he screamed down at her.

“I said would you fucking stop kicking me!” she screamed back up at him. He saw her hand grabbing at his leg, trying to stop him from kicking her. He moved his foot so it was right about her hand, he stomped down hard on her hand, crushing the bones in it. She screamed out louder than before. “Darren!” she mistakenly screamed.

“Who?” he asked. “Who’s Darren?”

“No one!”

“Then why’d you scream Darren?” he asked, still crunching her hand beneath his foot.

“Dad! Stop!” she said, rolling over and getting up slowly. He ran into the bathroom and slammed the door behind her.

Mary Kate ran down the stairs and down into the basement. She found the first aid kit and opened it. She flexed her hands and tried to bend it in every position. Bones cracked and she screamed out in pain. She slowly pushed them all back into the original places and stabilized her hand in a brace. She then sunk down against the stone cold wall and put her head into her good hand and cried.