Pretty Follies

“Well dumbass of the day award goes to the one and only, Alex Gaskarth!” I looked up at Lorraine from my spot on the ground. She had her eyes closed in frustration. “I mean, really? You really are futile.”

I cringed as I rubbed my head in pain. My head throbbed as the memory of what had just happened flashed through my mind. I couldn’t help it though, I was delusional. I could have sworn I had heard water, had seen the stream up ahead.

Who could blame me for being buoyant? We had gone two days without food, water or civilization. I was carrying another human on my famished body. I was sweating, my clothes drenched from the perspiration and muggy air. I had my hopes up and I hallucinated.

Now my head was pounding and when I pulled my hand away from it, there was a little blood on my fingertips. “Fuck,” I muttered.

“Fucking great, Alex. That’s what you get for running and tripping. Why would you do that? You know you’re exhausted and not stable.” Lorraine dropped down to her knees so she didn’t have to use her ankle and crawled closer to me.

I caressed the arm that had broken my fall, trying to ignore the pounding in my head. My body ached all over. I couldn’t even pin point where the pain was coming from. All I knew was that my unnourished body wasn’t ready to take such a hard hit. What made me feel even worse however was that Lorraine had been on my back.

“Are you okay?” I asked, looking at her ankle. What did I expect? That the ankle was going to look better; it was even more horrid and worse than before. I felt bad that Lorraine was thrown from me, it was dangerous and it could have injured her even more.

Lorraine’s shocked eyes darted to mine. “Y-Yeah,” she muttered, surprised I was asking her if she was alright before making sure I was. “Are, um… you?”

“Mmhmm,” I answered, my head wobbling and going dizzy.

“Are you bleeding?!” Lorraine looked at my fingers and examined the blood on them. Seeing it was fresh, she grabbed my head and tilted it so she could see for herself. “If you didn’t have all this damn hair in the way…” she mumbled, fingering through my hair to find the cut.

It felt so good. Lorraine’s fingers were massaging my head, making my eyes droop, and my mind go even fuzzier. I wasn’t sure if a wave of tiredness had just hit me, if her fingers were just putting me to sleep, or if I was losing consciousness, but things started go blurry. Lorraine’s babbling sounded far off and the black that was surrounding my vision was surprisingly lulling.

“Alex? Alex! Alex!” Lorraine shouted for me, but I didn’t have the strength to acknowledge her back or push away the hands that were trying to shake me awake. I let myself lose consciousness.

&&&&

I woke up to a throbbing in my head. This wasn’t the good kind of throbbing. I didn’t have the taste of stale alcohol on my teeth, my clothes hadn’t been torn off, and my friends weren’t passed out on the couch.

This was no hangover.

I would have given anything to have a pounding head from my excessive amount of beer and loud music. Instead, my morning awakening was a pulsating arm and heavy head.

I looked down to see a part of my sweatshirt torn and wrapped tightly around my arm, pain thumping against my entire limb. Under my head was the rest of my balled up sweatshirt, bloodstained and filthy. For a second I had thought all of this had been a dream again. The balled up sweatshirt a pillow, water would come out of the tap and food was stocked in my cupboard. There would be air conditioning and a shower. But the sweat stinging my eyes and the pulsating arm reassure me that it still wasn’t a dream and the nightmare was reality.

“Lorraine?” I mumbled out. Carefully, I sat up, holding my head with the hand that wasn’t hurt. “Lorraine?”

I looked around the bushy spot and all the events came rushing back to me. I remembered falling over a rock and hitting my head but nothing after that was able to be recalled. Turning my body to look around again, I spotted a sleeping girl about ten feet away, curled in the fetal position, fast asleep.

I daintily crawled over to where Lorraine was sleeping. I wasn’t sure how long I had been out for or if it was morning or evening, but I decided to wake her. “Lorraine,” I shook her shoulders.

Strawberry blonde hair fell into Lorraine’s peaceful face. I studied how her hair looked absolutely wretched. Clumps of dirt and leaves had buried itself in there and it had become stringy from the sweat, humidity and things we had gone through. I knew if we were at home, her hair would be perfectly kept, shining when the sun hit it just right and smooth enough to run my fingers through.

Her face was all grimy too. Usually it was so pristine. She never wore too much make-up, but just enough to add the extra oomph. I was studying her face so calmly; I would have never done that. That’s not me. Since when had Lorraine become a little more tolerable to me? Maybe it was the head injury that was causing my thoughts to go loopy.

Usually seeing her made my blood boil, made me think of all the nasty things I could do to her and names I could call her, made me think of all the times she had tripped me in lunch, making me drop my tray and fall strait into my macaroni, made me think of all the times I smacked the books out of her hand in the hallways, causing her pencils and notebooks to fly everywhere. Whatever we did, we left the other scrambling. Whether we were trying to peel the gag-worthy garbage that was plastered to our face after being tossed into a garbage can, or trying to warm up after being thrown in a snow bank with no winter clothes on, we never helped out the other, unless forced. We could fend for ourselves.

I never had needed, nor did I want, Lorraine’s help. Usually she was the one who was doing all the nasty practical jokes and saying all the strong words, the one I had to protect myself from. I was the same to her. We still get annoyed. We still name-call. But why is it different? Maybe it was because it wasn’t her that was causing all the pain this time. Maybe it was someone, or better yet, something, that was causing us to defend ourselves.

Maybe I couldn’t always scramble to help myself from Lorraine. Maybe I had to scramble with her. Maybe we had to scramble for safety together.