Dark and Dirty Like You've Never Seen

I looked up at my front door and let out a long sigh. The two story white house with the blue shutters has been my home for as long as I can remember. From the road you would look at the house and think it was a beautiful home and that a nice family must live there. As you approach the house, you’ll notice the peeling paint on the shutters and the dirt and grime building up along the sides of the house. That’s kind of how I viewed my home life. From the exterior, people would say “Oh, what a lovely little family you have!” but once they are able to approach us and get a good look into our home life, they will see that it is slowly falling apart.
I trudge up the stairs and pushed the door open slowly. Maybe I can get past them I thought to myself. I laid my backpack on the couch and started to walk up to my room. I breathed out a sigh of relief when I got to my bedroom door. I thought I was home free when I started to turn the door knob until I heard my dad yell up the stairs at me.

"Stop leaving your stuff in the living room!"

"Don't yell at her like that!" My mom yelled at him.

Great. To avoid hearing them fight, I went back down there, grabbed my stuff and ran to my room. I turned my radio on and popped in a mixed C.D. I sat at my desk and turned on my laptop that I bought by myself with the money I earned at a summer job. When the screen kicked on, I went to check my email. I had one email from Lacy. Lacy and I had grown up together and went through all of school together, up until I had to switch schools, although with a little pouting she was able to get her parents to let her come to St. Patrick’s as of this year, but for some reason we turned out nothing alike. Lacy is extremely annoying and never knows when to shut up. She is very materialistic and flirts with any guy in a ten mile radius. I liked to think of myself as laid back and more of a listener then a talker. My family has never had a lot of money so I didn’t really care for the material things, and if any guy is brave enough to come up and try to talk or flirt with me, good luck, because I sure as hell am not making the first move and have a hard time telling a guy how I feel about them discretely. Knowing this about Lacy, I sighed as I saw her username pop up on my screen. I clicked on it to reveal the message.

Sub: Hey!
To: G0p1@yintr@ffic@aol.com
From: OmG_i_LoVe_YoOh@aol.com Fwd: /
Body: Hey, girly! How was school? My day was pretty cool. Like, oh my gosh, I so got to talk to Sam today. He's such a cutie.

I rolled my eyes. I scanned through the message to get through all her mushy details of how yummy Sam was and what she would do to him. I finally got to a part of the message that actually looked worth reading.

... So, I totally saw you with that new boy. Lucky girl. He looks kinda cute; a little scary looking with all that metal in his face, though. Either way, I want details! Write back please! Love you!
Lacy.

I felt my face heat up slightly. I shut my laptop, deciding to write her back later. Besides, there aren’t really any details to fill her in on. I walked over to my closet with the mirror on the back and looked at myself for a little bit. I’m not what you would call a looker. I wasn’t fat but I definitely didn’t think of myself as skinny. Not as skinny as I would like to be. I’ve always had this bad self-image of myself. No, I’ve never had an eating disorder. Trust me, though, it has crossed my mind before. I would never be able to do that to myself, though. I have naturally dark brown hair, like the color of dark chocolate; not quite black, not really brown. My eyes are a dark, solid forest green. My eyes are probably my favorite feature. I looked myself up and down slowly. I stood at a measly five foot flat. This is definitely my least favorite feature. Some days I actually like how I look; today is not one of those days. My hair was slightly messy and my school uniform was starting to wrinkle from wearing it all day. I shuddered and pealed of the unflattering outfit. I turned away from the mirror when I was down to nothing but my underwear. I really don’t want to see what I look like naked. It just makes me upset. How do you guys find this attractive? Do they even find me attractive at all? Does Frank think I’m attractive? I shook my head at the thought. Of course not; he doesn’t even know me. All he did was give me a ride home. Sighing, I realized I’m not exactly sure the last time I had a real boyfriend. I breathed out heavily at the thought and slipped into an oversized t-shirt and basketball shorts, and threw my hair up into a messy bun. I had nothing to do for the day, so it looks like another lounge day to me.

I woke up around 6:30 the next morning. I slowly crawled out of bed and made my way tiredly down the hall to the bathroom. I stepped in the shower and turned on the water. The cold water that shot out first made me gasp and wake up the rest of the way. I sat in the hot shower as long as I could without being late. I finished up and headed quickly back to my room and started to change into my uniform. I looked at the clock. It was only 7:15. My bus wouldn’t be here for another twenty minutes. I lay down on my bed for just a few more minutes of relaxation. I slowly let my eyes fall shut and snuggled into my pillows. Before I knew it, I had dozed off. I opened my eyes to the sound of hissing air of the bus taking off. I looked over at the clock to see it read 7:38. I jumped up out of bed just in time to see my bus drive right past my house.

Well shit. My dad was going to kill me. He hates when I miss the bus, because that means he has to get up and drive me to school, usually hung over. I gulped as I pulled my jacket on and put my back pack on my shoulders. I made my way quietly downstairs until I found myself standing in front of my parents’ bedroom door. I knocked lightly at first but when no one said anything, I knocked hard a few times then stood back from the door. I heard grumbling and shuffling around. I could hear my heart beat pounding in my ears and my palms broke into a cold sweat. The door swung open and my dad stood there with a scowl on his face.

“I’m sorry” was all I could manage to stutter out.

“Go start the truck.” He tossed his keys at me. I turned around and walked quickly to the front door and out to my dad’s truck. I sat in the passenger seat and waited impatiently for my dad to come outside. It was already 7:40 and classes start at eight. A minute later my dad trudges outside. I had been tapping my feet impatiently but as soon as he got in the vehicle and shut the door, I halted any movement.

It was a silent drive all the way to St. Patricks. When he pulled up to the front of the school I grabbed my bag and started to jump out of the car, when I felt my dad’s hand grab tightly onto my wrist. I winced as he yanked me back in the seat.

“Please let me go” I begged in a sharp whisper. I didn’t want anyone to notice what was going on. He gripped my wrist tighter and I fought the urge to yell out and managed to only let a small whimper escape.

“This is the last time I’m doing this. Next time, you’re walking.” He let go of my wrist and I jumped out of the car as fast as I could, slamming the door behind me. I heard the tires screech as he peeled out of the parking lot. I checked my phone. Only two minutes until classes started. I ran down the hall and quickly tried to open my locker. I was going so fast I kept messing up the combination. As soon as I got my locker to swing open, the bell sounded through the building indicating that class had started. I sighed heavily and thought about skipping class. I looked up at the top shelf of the locker and stared at my books. I noticed Franks books were still in the locker, too. Well now there was defiantly no reason to go to class I thought to myself. I looked up and down the hall to make sure no one was watching. I took off quickly but silently down the hall towards the girls’ bathroom. I turned the corner only to run, literally right into Frank. I stifled a scream with my hands.

“What are you doing?” I hissed.

“What are doing?”

“Why do you always answer my question with a question?” I crossed my arms over my chest. He just smiled slyly instead of answer. I huffed out a sigh in frustration. “Well, I’m skipping class ‘cause I was late. Now your turn.”

“Skipping class ‘cause I forgot the combination.” He smiled a goofy grin at me. I just shook my head at him and laughed. “So where does someone go when they’re skipping class?”

“Well,…” Before I could come up with some smart ass answer, I heard clicking of shoes coming down the hall. I knew it was one of the sisters making her rounds around the school. “Shit.”

“What?”

“Come on!” I grabbed him by the tie and pulled him into the girls’ restroom. I looked under the stalls to make sure no one was in there.

“Wow, the girls’ bathroom really is nicer” Frank said looking around the room.

“Ugh, get in here.” I whispered pushing him into one of the stalls. I quickly followed behind him and slowly shut the door and locked it. “Stand on the seat” I said as I tried to get on it myself without falling. I felt his hands on either side of my waist to help me the rest of the way up before he climbed up next to me. We stood there in silence as the clicking got louder. I looked over at Frank who was staring at the ground looking for shadows. I noticed he had one hand on the wall behind him for support and the other one still rested on my waist. I started to shake. God Anglea, this is not a good time! I mentally yelled at myself. We heard the clicking finally reach the bathroom. We heard the sister slowly walk in and grab the stall next to us. I took in one last gulp of air before I held my breath. I saw that Frank was barely moving, let alone breathing. The sister was humming some hymn while she did her business. Frank and I looked at each other and smiled. After what felt like hours, Sister finally finished up and walked out of the bathroom. We heard the clicking get further and further away before we were finally able to breathe again. We both let out a huge gasp of air and began to laugh.

“Come on, we better get out of here” He said stepping off the toilet seat onto the floor. I nodded and stepped down slowly, too. “So what do we do now?”

“How about you show me the boys’ bathroom?” I said nudging him suggestively. He chuckled and grabbed my hand.

“Sounds like a plan to me.” He led me out of the girls’ bathroom and back into the hall. I let him lead the way to our next destination while I concentrated on the electricity flowing from his hand to mine.