Some Little Princesses

The paper was glossy, smooth, cold. Just like all the stories inside of the little magazine. She had forgotten how much she really hated these things. Then again, a week without seeing one could do that to a person. Now, as she stared down at it, she simply wanted to rip it to pieces and watch it go up in a cloud of black smoke and flames.

Keaton sat next to her at the table, staring blankly at the page before him. It was his English homework, something that they all knew he would fail. It had nothing to do with any faith or lack thereof, it was a simple fact. Keaton failed at most things. Wesley failed at life.

Izzy failed at too many things to mention

Though she was getting better at the dishes.

"Can't you just throw it away? Why did you even waste your money on it?" she demanded as she carried the lunch dishes into the kitchen to wash them while Keaton and Wesley lounged at the table.

She could hear the scrap of a chair agianst the wooden floor and shuffling footsteps. "No, c'mon love, you're not going to be like that are you?"

He was drunk. It was typical for Wesley she had learned. If he could get his hands on alcohol, he drank. Sometimes he even shared with her, but never with Keaton. Every night, she would sit out on the porch with Wesley long after everyone else had gone to sleep, smoking cigarettes in silence.

"Those things are rubbish," Izzy snapped shaking her head. Warm, soapy water rushed around her hands as she plunged them down with the dishes. She actually liked the feel of the water as it moved past her hands, pulling the soap with it so that the bubble clung to the surface for dear life.

There was a slight pause as she spead her fingers wide one the bottom of the sink. "I like that rubbish," he objected. "Especially since there is a very pretty girl here...she looks like you," he slurred slightly. She could hear his brow furrowing as he forced his liquor-soaked brain to work. "I knew you didn't belong," he muttered shaking his head.

She had had enough. Her hands clenched into tiny fists as she spun around, her jaw clenched. The skin pulled taught over the skin giving it an even paler, more morbid look as she glared at him. "Yes! It's me and fuck you for mentioning it!" she yelled at him. "Goddammit, can't I have peace? I stayed! I stayed for Andrea! What more do you want? Do you want to ridicule me and mock me because of what that piece of shit says about me? It's not true!"

Keaton bumped past Wesley, his head bowed as he shuffled across the kitchen floor until he stood in front of Izzy. He reached out and took her hand in his. Their hands were about the same size, but his was warm, almost hot as it encircled her own. They stood there for a moment, the silence building around them. Even though tears burned and pricked behind her eyes, she didn't cry though.

"I'm sorry," she whispered instead forcing herself to pull her hand from Keaton's. She slipped around him and started towards the doorway where Wesley stood silent, his head bowed.

Sneakers squeaked as the boy behind her turned around. "Stay..." his voice begged her. She squeezed her eyes shut tight. She stood in the middle of the kitchen between a boy with a heart and a man she half hated some days. "Don't go Izzy...please?"

She hugged herself, her hair falling forward to hide her face once again as she bowed her own head. "For today," she promised. But with every promise she began to wonder if she would ever make herself leave. She didn't belong here. She knew that, they must know that. So why did she stay?

Because you want to belong... the voice in her head whispered. Even though you know you never will.