Status: unfinished but I'm trying hard to do so! =D
Dressed up in Faded Costumes
If All of Them Could Be Like You
Our first gig that summer was our biggest adventure before Matt, Leila, Maria and I entered our Senior Year and Liam entered his college life in UCLA. Alex was on his tour at the time we were seniors in high school. We all developed bonds as if we were a huge family of our own that could never be replaced by anything; all of us connected by an invisible thread for the rest of our lives.
A week after school had started. This was going to be my last year in the school I once feared entering. I went to school with Leila and Maria with new looks. Maria had cut her hair, making her long locks transform into a shorter version that made her look even more stunning than she already was. Leila had been more of a Harry Potter addict than ever before and now she was just smart without even trying. As for me, my dark brown hair had been dyed black just for the heck of changing something. Not much really made a difference because black and dark brown really aren’t very different colors in the first place.
“So what’re your plans this year?” Maria asked while we were walking along the corridors of the school just waiting for a class to start
“I don’t know,” I smiled. “Kind of a happy-go-lucky person right now.”
“Well, for me, I’d love to be just the same,” Leila smiled.
“What happened to being a doctor, Leila?” I asked.
“I’ve thought about it, and, I figured I wouldn’t be a very good doctor if I’m squeamish over the sight of blood.”
I chuckled. “Well, I’ve always admired how you always seem to find a plan B for everything,” I told Leila.
“I’m not as ‘Sirius’ as you guys always think I am,” Leila replied.
“Was that a Harry Potter reference?” Maria asked laughing.
The three of us laughed and afterwards, the two of them went on to their class together as I had a different one. I went to my locker to drop of some books and when I closed the locker door, I was surprised by Matt who was leaning on the lockers the way Liam did.
“Hey, McAdams,” Matt said. “Macadamia…”
“Maca-what?” I asked him as we started walking.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Came up with it along the way.”
“Macadamia… Is that like a nickname for me?”
“Hmm…” he shrugged his shoulders.
“What should I call you, then?” I asked him as I smiled—thinking of all the nicknames I could give him.
“I don’t know,” he said smiling. “Whatever you want.”
He walked me to my class, leaving me in Home Economics. Most of the time in HE Class, I thought about how Liam wouldn’t be there anymore to pick me up from my class, or to walk me home from school. Or even just how he wouldn’t be there when I go to see Leila. Before I knew it, the bell had already rung, and I was sitting in a classroom with only five people already preparing to leave.
I stood up from my seat, and got my stuff quickly, only to see Matt waiting outside the classroom leaning on the wall as if he’d been there for quite a while.
“Hey, Macadamia,” he said once again.
“What’s up, Doormat?”
His face changed from a free-form smile, to a curious grin. “Of all the nicknames in the world, you call me Doormat?”
“You said I could call you whatever I wanted, right?” I laughed.
“Alright, I’ll accept being a doormat, than being nuts…”
After school, Maria, Leila and I were invited for a ride home from Matt and Garrett—who had picked up his little brother… or maybe to see Leila. I was dropped off first and I came home to bad news.
My mom was on the living room couch, her face buried in her hands; her sobs, a slight audible ringing. In front of her were piles of paper; similar to the stacks I saw on her bed the last time.
I dropped my bag on the floor and my face drained of emotion.
“Mom,” I spoke, my voice ever so low. “What’s wrong?”
I walked to her as she tried to wipe the tears off her face with her already tear-drenched sleeves. I sat next to her and looked at the pile of bills in front of her.
“This is nothing honey,” she told me.
“Mom, I want you to stop hiding these kinds of things from me.”
She looked at me and tried to give me a smile. “I don’t want to be the kind of parent that would make her daughter worry about cash.”
“I’d rather know than be clueless…”
And so she explained to me how money was no longer an object; how the bills from grandpop’s hospitalization was way too much for our income. We had to make tons of loans just to pay for it. In today’s world, insurance barely covers anything; you always have to pull out money out of thin air. Mom explained that one of her accounts had been frozen and that we might have to move back to Minnesota where the house we lived in was ours, and where life would be back to normal.
“What about Chris and his college tuition fees? Will he be fine?”
“His tuition fees are part of his college funds. You have one too; and I’m not messing with that just to pay for our debts,” mom said.
“Are we really moving back?” I asked with such a timid tone.
“We might be.”
I rushed upstairs and took an envelope and ran back. It was our pay when we played our first gig and I haven’t spent a penny of it. I gave it to my mom with a smile and a little teary-eyed.
“What’s this?” my mom asked.
“Lisa told us to put it to good use. Both Matt and Liam gave their shares to me,” I said. “And I’m giving it to you.”
“No, I can’t accept this, honey,” she said crying even more. “I don’t want you to worry about these things. You earned that money and you should do whatever you want with it,” she forced out a smile.
“I am doing what I want with it.”
She gave me a hug which made me cry hard. It was only a few moments more that Lea appeared in front of the stairs and saw us both. I released my grip from my mom and wiped my eyes. Mom did the same as we faked smiles and I walked over to my little sister.
“What’s up, bug?”
Liam called that night while I was in my bedroom, thinking about some stuff when I was about to sleep. All covered up within the sheets and daydreaming of a perfectly flawed future.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself,” he said. “What’re you doing?”
“Was just about to sleep.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice apologetic. “Can you stay up for me just a few minutes more?”
I smiled with a little chuckle. “Of course,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. Roommates are okay too… What about you?”
“Not as well,” I admitted.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Well… it’s… Urgh, I feel like an idiot being embarrassed about reality!”
“What is it?”
“You know I wouldn’t like to leave you,” I said. “I think I’d never would want to.”
He stayed quiet as I struggled to find the words to tell him about everything.
“What if I move back to Minnesota? Would it be so easy to find another girl to replace me with?” I asked as my eyes brimmed with tears.
“I wouldn’t want to think about stuff like that.”
“But what if I really have to?”
“I’ll stop the world. I’ll stop the reasons. I’ll do whatever it takes so you won’t leave in a way that was solvable.”
I cried and he could hear it. This time, I knew he couldn’t just come to my house anymore just like that; but it was enough for me that I could talk to somebody about it.
“Shh,” he said. “I’m right here. Would you like to talk about it?”
I told him everything. No holds barred. And just like last time, I slept with puffy eyes; wishing I didn’t even for one night.
The next morning felt different. I woke up with worry in my head, and left school in quite a hurry, grabbing everything I thought I needed along the way. I arrived at school and probably only a handful of people were there with me. I stayed on the field overlooking the campus, sitting in a lotus position, with an open book placed on my lap and a pair of earphones stuck in my ears. I was listening to music I never really remembered because I was too preoccupied with thoughts.
Come to think of it, I looked silly having a book I didn’t read on my lap and having put on earphones I didn’t listen to. Just then, I felt a hand grab my shoulder and I was easily startled by it.
“Hey, Macadamia,” Matt said with a blur to the music I was ignoring.
I took off my earphones and stopped the music, and greeted him back. “G’morning, Doormat.”
He sat next to me and laid his bag on the grass. “What’re you doing at school this early?”
“What about you? Well, you’re early too, aren’t you?”
“Well, okay, okay,” he said in defeat.
I looked at the book and pretended to read from it and kept my head down until he asked me something normally Liam would ask.
“Is there something wrong?” the tone in his voice suddenly changing from happiness to worry.
I shook my head as tears suddenly fell on my book forming little, wet, growing dots on the pages. I didn’t know why tears fell, and Matt didn’t seem to care that I cry in front of him.
He guided my head to lie on his shoulder and wrapped his arm around me.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked. “And this, by the way, is nothing more than a… brotherly act. I repeat, nothing more than a brotherly act. You can be like my sister,” he said as I felt him smile with a comforting feel that came with it.
“How does it feel being financially secured in whatever path you decide to take? That you can be an artist with unsuccessful paintings that rarely sell, and still have your future secured?”
“It feels good,” he said. “Because I know that when there’s a time that I’m okay, and I have the extra money, I can give it away to someone who needs it more than I do.”
I sat down properly and looked at him with a questioned look.
“Liam told me before about your problems. And he called last night to update.”
“He had no right to tell you about private stuff,” I said as I looked away wiping my tears.
“I was the one who kept bothering him with it,” he said. “Don’t blame him.”
“Fine. Know about it; know everything for pete’s sake,” I wrapped my arms around my legs and kept my look away from him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I want to help.”
“It’s not like you can.”
“But I CAN help,” he said. “I want to pay all your debts; give your family a new slate.”
“Are you fucking kidding yourself?” I asked as I looked at him with wide eyes. “No. No! Even if I know you can afford it, I won’t let you.”
“So I take that as a ‘Yes’?”
“Are you crazy?” I asked him standing up and grabbing my backpack and other stuff.
I walked away trying to comprehend what he was trying to tell me. I couldn’t take that much money even from someone who would offer it, without something in return like work. It was far too much for me for someone to say just what he did.
Matt caught up with me and I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. I thought he was joking about what he said.
“I’m serious about this,” he said.
“I can’t let a 15 year old boy pay for my family’s debts!!” I shouted, knowing there wasn’t anybody in the corridor with us, and probably not in a while remembering that it was only a few minutes past 7.
“I actually turned 16 last August,” he said.
I forgot about his birthday; maybe because his family had left for a trip to celebrate it early last August.
“Well, it doesn’t matter if you’re 15, 16 or even 60 years old. I’m not going to let you pay for it,” I said with quieter tone. “Don’t you see how much I don’t deserve it?”
He looked at me with sorry eyes that begged for me to take him up on his offer. I stared back at him; both of us with different looks on our faces. He walked to me and just gave me a lovely embrace, his head over mine. I didn’t know what to do as I kept my arms relaxed but straight at the side of my body and I cried even more.
“Oh, Michelle, no pun intended, but,” he spoke in an almost inaudible voice. “Macadamia, if all of them could be like you, the whole world would be as stubborn as a nut.”
A week after school had started. This was going to be my last year in the school I once feared entering. I went to school with Leila and Maria with new looks. Maria had cut her hair, making her long locks transform into a shorter version that made her look even more stunning than she already was. Leila had been more of a Harry Potter addict than ever before and now she was just smart without even trying. As for me, my dark brown hair had been dyed black just for the heck of changing something. Not much really made a difference because black and dark brown really aren’t very different colors in the first place.
“So what’re your plans this year?” Maria asked while we were walking along the corridors of the school just waiting for a class to start
“I don’t know,” I smiled. “Kind of a happy-go-lucky person right now.”
“Well, for me, I’d love to be just the same,” Leila smiled.
“What happened to being a doctor, Leila?” I asked.
“I’ve thought about it, and, I figured I wouldn’t be a very good doctor if I’m squeamish over the sight of blood.”
I chuckled. “Well, I’ve always admired how you always seem to find a plan B for everything,” I told Leila.
“I’m not as ‘Sirius’ as you guys always think I am,” Leila replied.
“Was that a Harry Potter reference?” Maria asked laughing.
The three of us laughed and afterwards, the two of them went on to their class together as I had a different one. I went to my locker to drop of some books and when I closed the locker door, I was surprised by Matt who was leaning on the lockers the way Liam did.
“Hey, McAdams,” Matt said. “Macadamia…”
“Maca-what?” I asked him as we started walking.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Came up with it along the way.”
“Macadamia… Is that like a nickname for me?”
“Hmm…” he shrugged his shoulders.
“What should I call you, then?” I asked him as I smiled—thinking of all the nicknames I could give him.
“I don’t know,” he said smiling. “Whatever you want.”
He walked me to my class, leaving me in Home Economics. Most of the time in HE Class, I thought about how Liam wouldn’t be there anymore to pick me up from my class, or to walk me home from school. Or even just how he wouldn’t be there when I go to see Leila. Before I knew it, the bell had already rung, and I was sitting in a classroom with only five people already preparing to leave.
I stood up from my seat, and got my stuff quickly, only to see Matt waiting outside the classroom leaning on the wall as if he’d been there for quite a while.
“Hey, Macadamia,” he said once again.
“What’s up, Doormat?”
His face changed from a free-form smile, to a curious grin. “Of all the nicknames in the world, you call me Doormat?”
“You said I could call you whatever I wanted, right?” I laughed.
“Alright, I’ll accept being a doormat, than being nuts…”
After school, Maria, Leila and I were invited for a ride home from Matt and Garrett—who had picked up his little brother… or maybe to see Leila. I was dropped off first and I came home to bad news.
My mom was on the living room couch, her face buried in her hands; her sobs, a slight audible ringing. In front of her were piles of paper; similar to the stacks I saw on her bed the last time.
I dropped my bag on the floor and my face drained of emotion.
“Mom,” I spoke, my voice ever so low. “What’s wrong?”
I walked to her as she tried to wipe the tears off her face with her already tear-drenched sleeves. I sat next to her and looked at the pile of bills in front of her.
“This is nothing honey,” she told me.
“Mom, I want you to stop hiding these kinds of things from me.”
She looked at me and tried to give me a smile. “I don’t want to be the kind of parent that would make her daughter worry about cash.”
“I’d rather know than be clueless…”
And so she explained to me how money was no longer an object; how the bills from grandpop’s hospitalization was way too much for our income. We had to make tons of loans just to pay for it. In today’s world, insurance barely covers anything; you always have to pull out money out of thin air. Mom explained that one of her accounts had been frozen and that we might have to move back to Minnesota where the house we lived in was ours, and where life would be back to normal.
“What about Chris and his college tuition fees? Will he be fine?”
“His tuition fees are part of his college funds. You have one too; and I’m not messing with that just to pay for our debts,” mom said.
“Are we really moving back?” I asked with such a timid tone.
“We might be.”
I rushed upstairs and took an envelope and ran back. It was our pay when we played our first gig and I haven’t spent a penny of it. I gave it to my mom with a smile and a little teary-eyed.
“What’s this?” my mom asked.
“Lisa told us to put it to good use. Both Matt and Liam gave their shares to me,” I said. “And I’m giving it to you.”
“No, I can’t accept this, honey,” she said crying even more. “I don’t want you to worry about these things. You earned that money and you should do whatever you want with it,” she forced out a smile.
“I am doing what I want with it.”
She gave me a hug which made me cry hard. It was only a few moments more that Lea appeared in front of the stairs and saw us both. I released my grip from my mom and wiped my eyes. Mom did the same as we faked smiles and I walked over to my little sister.
“What’s up, bug?”
Liam called that night while I was in my bedroom, thinking about some stuff when I was about to sleep. All covered up within the sheets and daydreaming of a perfectly flawed future.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself,” he said. “What’re you doing?”
“Was just about to sleep.”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, his voice apologetic. “Can you stay up for me just a few minutes more?”
I smiled with a little chuckle. “Of course,” I said. “How are you?”
“I’m okay. Roommates are okay too… What about you?”
“Not as well,” I admitted.
“Why, what’s wrong?”
“Well… it’s… Urgh, I feel like an idiot being embarrassed about reality!”
“What is it?”
“You know I wouldn’t like to leave you,” I said. “I think I’d never would want to.”
He stayed quiet as I struggled to find the words to tell him about everything.
“What if I move back to Minnesota? Would it be so easy to find another girl to replace me with?” I asked as my eyes brimmed with tears.
“I wouldn’t want to think about stuff like that.”
“But what if I really have to?”
“I’ll stop the world. I’ll stop the reasons. I’ll do whatever it takes so you won’t leave in a way that was solvable.”
I cried and he could hear it. This time, I knew he couldn’t just come to my house anymore just like that; but it was enough for me that I could talk to somebody about it.
“Shh,” he said. “I’m right here. Would you like to talk about it?”
I told him everything. No holds barred. And just like last time, I slept with puffy eyes; wishing I didn’t even for one night.
The next morning felt different. I woke up with worry in my head, and left school in quite a hurry, grabbing everything I thought I needed along the way. I arrived at school and probably only a handful of people were there with me. I stayed on the field overlooking the campus, sitting in a lotus position, with an open book placed on my lap and a pair of earphones stuck in my ears. I was listening to music I never really remembered because I was too preoccupied with thoughts.
Come to think of it, I looked silly having a book I didn’t read on my lap and having put on earphones I didn’t listen to. Just then, I felt a hand grab my shoulder and I was easily startled by it.
“Hey, Macadamia,” Matt said with a blur to the music I was ignoring.
I took off my earphones and stopped the music, and greeted him back. “G’morning, Doormat.”
He sat next to me and laid his bag on the grass. “What’re you doing at school this early?”
“What about you? Well, you’re early too, aren’t you?”
“Well, okay, okay,” he said in defeat.
I looked at the book and pretended to read from it and kept my head down until he asked me something normally Liam would ask.
“Is there something wrong?” the tone in his voice suddenly changing from happiness to worry.
I shook my head as tears suddenly fell on my book forming little, wet, growing dots on the pages. I didn’t know why tears fell, and Matt didn’t seem to care that I cry in front of him.
He guided my head to lie on his shoulder and wrapped his arm around me.
“Want to talk about it?” he asked. “And this, by the way, is nothing more than a… brotherly act. I repeat, nothing more than a brotherly act. You can be like my sister,” he said as I felt him smile with a comforting feel that came with it.
“How does it feel being financially secured in whatever path you decide to take? That you can be an artist with unsuccessful paintings that rarely sell, and still have your future secured?”
“It feels good,” he said. “Because I know that when there’s a time that I’m okay, and I have the extra money, I can give it away to someone who needs it more than I do.”
I sat down properly and looked at him with a questioned look.
“Liam told me before about your problems. And he called last night to update.”
“He had no right to tell you about private stuff,” I said as I looked away wiping my tears.
“I was the one who kept bothering him with it,” he said. “Don’t blame him.”
“Fine. Know about it; know everything for pete’s sake,” I wrapped my arms around my legs and kept my look away from him.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “But I want to help.”
“It’s not like you can.”
“But I CAN help,” he said. “I want to pay all your debts; give your family a new slate.”
“Are you fucking kidding yourself?” I asked as I looked at him with wide eyes. “No. No! Even if I know you can afford it, I won’t let you.”
“So I take that as a ‘Yes’?”
“Are you crazy?” I asked him standing up and grabbing my backpack and other stuff.
I walked away trying to comprehend what he was trying to tell me. I couldn’t take that much money even from someone who would offer it, without something in return like work. It was far too much for me for someone to say just what he did.
Matt caught up with me and I shrugged his hand off my shoulder. I thought he was joking about what he said.
“I’m serious about this,” he said.
“I can’t let a 15 year old boy pay for my family’s debts!!” I shouted, knowing there wasn’t anybody in the corridor with us, and probably not in a while remembering that it was only a few minutes past 7.
“I actually turned 16 last August,” he said.
I forgot about his birthday; maybe because his family had left for a trip to celebrate it early last August.
“Well, it doesn’t matter if you’re 15, 16 or even 60 years old. I’m not going to let you pay for it,” I said with quieter tone. “Don’t you see how much I don’t deserve it?”
He looked at me with sorry eyes that begged for me to take him up on his offer. I stared back at him; both of us with different looks on our faces. He walked to me and just gave me a lovely embrace, his head over mine. I didn’t know what to do as I kept my arms relaxed but straight at the side of my body and I cried even more.
“Oh, Michelle, no pun intended, but,” he spoke in an almost inaudible voice. “Macadamia, if all of them could be like you, the whole world would be as stubborn as a nut.”