Blue Sunflowers

I ended up shoving Frank out the window to his almost-doom awhile later. My dad knocked on the door and I told him it was the noisy neighbors that moved in after they left. I don’t think he remembered Frank and Linda were our neighbors. Whatever.

“Hey…Dad.” God, I’m so fucking awkward. I sound like Mikey. Ew.

He towered over me as I perched on my bright yellow bed. Well, he wasn’t necessarily tall; he was maybe a bit taller than Frank. I wasn’t the only short one, dammit, it’s their fault.

I never really looked like my parents, just bits and pieces of itty-bitty features from both – features that no one’s ever given a rat’s ass about. My sisters both looked my father, and I took after my mother more, but still, not a lot. I had my mom’s freakishly pale skin; the others were a bit darker. I had my mother’s eyes while the others were a tad more on the greener side. But I had my dad’s big, round eyes and long eyelashes. No one anywhere down the family tree had freckles or was fucking insane or had such dark hair or had wavy hair or was so short or had a nose like mine or had ears like mine or fingernails like mine – you see where I’m going?

So, when they tell you that someone’s parents looked like an older version of them, it was bullshit for me. I don’t look even remotely like either of my sisters. But they look a lot alike.
When I was younger, they actually told me – in absolute seriousness – that I was adopted. I used to cry myself to sleep at night as they laughed at me and my stupidity. It sounds like a fucking cheap movie. But it’s so fucking true. They used to tell me they found me at a dump and took pity on such a hideous creature.

I’d rather their pity than whatever the hell I ever got.

I always felt so out of place. I was completely different form the lot of them. I had different beliefs, a different attitude towards things, I saw things differently, different values, hopes, and dreams. I want to be a fucking rock star, they want me to be a boring-ass, uptight doctor or lawyer (like seriously? The fucking push-over’s gonna be a lawyer?)

So, there I sat with the eyes so different from mine boring into my very soul.

“So … how have you been?”

I’ve been doing a lot of tongue biting in the last three hours they’d been in Jersey.

“Amazing,” I genuinely meant it, but they had no clue why, “I’ve got straight A’s, I’m still friends with Cookie and the guys.”

His face tensed at the mention of the guys, “You still hang around those hoodlums?”

I couldn’t help but giggle, like, come on – hoodlums? I can’t possibly fathom the idea of Frank being all ghetto and shit – focus, Carolina.

“Well, yeah, they’re my best friends. And my boyfriend.” I smiled at the last bit, so sue me.
It was silent, awkwardly silent, because my dad’s only twice as awkward as I am. I was never really close to either of my parents, aw fuck it. I was never close to any of them. I mean, I kinda got along with Fluffy, but even then – you know? I was never Daddy’s little girl or Mama’s little girl. Or my sisters’ best friend. I was just the middle child, the outcast. The weirdo in ripped jeans, fake piercings, and band tee shirts they thought tangoed with Lucifer.

I always felt closer to my older sister and her friends because I was on their level, right? The kids my age are fucking morons, okay? Let’s face it. And they were into all that music that’s been written by artists who were dead by the time I was born. But, it’s not the same, you know?

And then, as soon as we move here – it’s a whole other world. I meet people on my fucking wavelength, people who like the same music as I and think the same as I. And I fell in love with one. Fell in down the fucking rabbit hole, man.

I heard him take a big, deep sigh that made his toned but aged chest heave up and down, “Well, goodnight, then.”

I told you – awkward.