These Words Are My Heart and Soul

The clock came two thirty-five. I sat nervously at a table, staring blankly into the iced macchiato with caramel infusion and an unhealthy swirl of cream sitting comfortably on top. My straw fished around as I feverishly and timidly swirled it, mixing the cubes and the coffee and the flavor around.

My friends sat on a nearby table, chattering eagerly and waving when I occasionally looked over at them.

As the time grew on and three pm approached, I began to grow angry as well as bewildered. But he entered the shop, smiling as his eyes met mine. He wandered past me, kissing my head lightly, and wandering over to the counter where he ordered his chocolate frappe (the non alcoholic kind, like the ones in New England).

I waited impatiently, until his butt crash-landed next to mine on the seat, where his arm snaked round my waist and pulled me close to him, kissing my head again.

“Sorry I’m late, I slept in. What is it you needed to tell me, babe?”

Wincing ever-so-slightly - and hopefully unnoticeably - at the word ‘babe’, I smiled shyly and took his hands. Frank cocked an eyebrow and looked warily into my eyes, the green of them reflecting in his hazel ones - or was it green in his? Anyways, I digress.

“Uhm… the thing is…” I started.

He put his straw in his mouth and smiled warmly at me, sucking at the straw as the thick liquid rose up it. I concentrated on it a little too long, losing my train of thought, until he shook my hands slightly and smiled through his straw again.

“I’m… I’m…”

I took a deep breath and sighed, before plunging head-first without a float right into the deep-shit.

“Frankie, I’m pregnant.”

Eyes widening and the grip on my hands tightening, the straw hung loosely on his bottom lip as his mouth fell open.

“You’re what…?”

“P-pregnant,” I muttered, feeling my heart sink into my stomach.

He sat watching me, aghast. I swear I saw fear in his eyes, but it quickly changed into something I couldn’t recognize.

“Is… w-well, uhm… m-m-?”

“It’s yours, Frankie. I got my period a few days after the… incident,” I explained, strangely unabashed by his… question, I guess you’d call it.

He sighed, relieved, but I still couldn’t see what was in his eyes.

“Really!?” he yelled, a big juicy grin bouncing across his lips.

I looked at him, shocked that he was so happy. The whole store was looking at him disapprovingly, apart from the girls, who happily and eagerly looked onto our backwards conversation. They got up and scrambled over, fighting for seats close to and around me.

“You told him?! Frankie, are ya happy!?”

He looked at them, appearing marginally harassed, before grinning broadly.

“Hell no.”

Feeling my heart sink again, I slid my hands away from his. He grabbed them back again.

“I’m ecstatic,” he smiled warmly and calmly.

My eyes welling up with tears, I exclaimed happily and threw a hug onto him, which he appreciatively returned. His fingers stroking my hair, he begin chanting plans and the future in my ear, a bit louder than my ears could take but I didn’t want to break the comfortable position I was in from the hug.

He did, instead, and began kissing all of my face before landing on my lips in one big sloppy kiss of happy approval. Cariad fished in her pocket and handed me a grain of rice. I looked at her confusedly and she grinned.

“Your baby is the size of a grain of rice,” she giggled, repeating the words from earlier.

I laughed and threw the rice at her. She looked stunned for a second, before grinning and sticking her hand in her bag of pistachios, fishing one out to throw at me. My face morphed into a look of ‘O.o’, before I dug into my pocket and pulled out a pack of Skittles and an open pack of dry roasted peanuts. Thus the war began.

The other girls joined in, all of us giggling as various nuts flew back and forth across the table. Frank just watched intently, munching away at my packet of Skittles that he unfortunately stole. Getting bored, I just stood up and climbed over the table, falling on Cariad and proceeding to play fight with her. Frank’s eyebrow raised and a smirk played on his lips, which made me pounce on him - with a kinky “Rawr!” - and start play fighting with him instead.

The girls all yelled encouragement at me, whilst other people in the room muttered and watched disapprovingly, and Frank started tickling me which made me squeal with laughter. That is, until a counter girl and the manager came over.

“I’m sorry, but we’ve received a number of complaints. We’re going to have to ask you to leave,” the manager said, his deep tones annoying me slightly.

“Fine! But we’ll be back tomorrow!” I chorused, throwing a peanut at him and dashing out the door.

We heard him sigh as we left, but he didn’t mutter to the girl or yell we were barred. After all, we were their most frequent and their best paying customers!

I still can’t believe we got thrown out of Starbucks.

***
It was a cold, windy September afternoon and my seventeenth birthday was rapidly approaching.

My mom was getting worse.

Whenever I visited, and we’d ask how we each were, I’d say I was fine - leaving out all my sordid little affairs - and she’d say she was fine and stop talking. I tried coaxing information out of her, but I got hardly anything.

Fat Old Bastard (a nickname I’d taken to calling moms boyfriend) frequently shouted, in a rather profane way, for her to slave round after him, and I rarely got asked if I wanted anything.

I so desperately wanted to move back in with her, but every time I brought it up, especially with FOB around, she’d say no, saying that it would be a shame I had to give up my independence for an imaginary reason. She claimed I was making it all up; but I could see in her eyes.

“Just drop it, love. I have Mitchell to look after me now. He’s doing a wonderful job. It’d be awful for you to run fae your own problems to try solve my imaginary ones you’ve invented in that pretty head of yours. I’m fine, I swear. Me and Mitch are doing great. I love you, dear, but you’ve got to live your own life at some point. What’s going on in your life that makes you want to run fae it back to your mother? It must be pretty bad. Just leave it. I don’t want to hear any more. You’ll be fine without me. Like I said, I love you, but I don’t need you under my feet when me and Mitch are doing so well. Sorry, love. It sounds harsh when I think about it, but it’s true. Live your own life, love. Not mine. You’re the kid, I’m supposed to try live your life. Just, go back home and listen to that music of yours.”

Music of mine? She meant the stuff she used to listen to, before Mitch went through it all and forced her to listen to his shit. There was no more Meatloaf, or Metallica, or Led Zepplin. He made her listen to forties shite, from when he was a kid. Way before my moms time; she was only thirty-five, and preferred rock and roll eighties and seventies. The fucking asshole was changing her.

I got up, readjusting my skirt and snatching up my back, giving my mom a slight glare before muttering that I love her and leaving. She did look hurt, I know, but it didn’t look anything like what I was feeling. She’d basically told me to fuck off out of her life; he had something to do with it.

He hated me. He hated not being number one in her eyes. But, why should he be? He was obviously controlling her somehow, maybe drugging her or threatening her and she couldn’t get out.

I sympathized; my life had been like that with Gerard. And as I left my mom’s house, for one of the last times before her death, I was plagued by thoughts of what it used to be like. Tears came and I desperately tried not to let them reign, but they fell against my will. I couldn’t let Cariad and Kayte and Jenah see me cry. They’d fuss.

Kayte and Jenah did what my mom did too, in the end. Jenah’s parents took punishment too literally, hitting her all the time; Katye’s life was unbearably empty, having her parents disown her for being bisexual and having her siblings reject her for her prostitution, and having every boyfriend and buddy she’d ever had hurt her and call her worse that shit, all because she decided to be open minded.

I miss everyone again…
***