East Town Venom

“You know what the best thing is about living in the middle of nowhere?” Skylar smiles and doesn’t wait for my answer before taking my wrist and pulling me across the room and onto his bed. He pulls away the curtains revealing a lush green meadow through the view of the window.

“Look up,” he says.

And when I do, I’m breathless. The dark sky is dotted with hundreds of stars. Stars I’ve never even seen before.

“There’s no light pollution out here. One of the good things that came with moving out.” He chuckles, still looking at the stars.

“It’s...beautiful.”

“Yeah.” I see his smile falter for just a second. “It really is.”
I eye him carefully.
“BUT! We’ve got days full of star-gazing ahead of us and tonight’s your first night so I won’t bore you to death with my obsession even if it is really, really amazing.” And just like that Skylar is Skylar again. “We gotta figure out where you’re going to sleep...” He eyes the floor as if it’s an option, but shakes his head. “Ah, what the hell! We can sleep together! No feelings attached, after all. Just as friends, kapeesh?” As always his words are flying out a mile a minute.

“Yeah, sure Skylar, whatever you say.” I chuckle, amused by him.

“Awesome. I know tomorrow’s Sunday and all and you just moved in and you probably wanna get settled in first, but I really, really hope Tony will let us take you out to the WYJ tomorrow ‘cos that would be just spiffy and I think it would be an awesome way for you to get to know the rest of the guys and to just get comfortable with us in general since you’ll be living with us for however long your parents will be gone, which I guess would be until the end of this school year. And I guess the summer...Maybe even longer, but then it would just be you and Frank and Dillon in the house and that wouldn’t be fun because the rest of us are seniors this year and Frank is still only a junior. Although, we were planning on getting a house or something together when we all graduate, of course you’ll still be in school, or back with your parents, but—”

I moved my hand to his lips. When I was sure his mouth wasn’t moving and I couldn’t hear anymore mumbling, I removed my hand.
“You done?”

He looks at me apologetically. “Yeah...”

“What’s the WYJ?”

Skylar’s face brightens up in the dimness of his room. “The WYJ? Why, it’s the Wasted Youth Junction, silly!” He literally bounces in excitement in his spot on the bed. “It’s this abandoned park a few miles from here, like a twenty minute walk, and nobody goes there anymore because we scared all the kids into thinking vampires hide out there. It’s cute because they think the vampires are us.” He smiles and sort of dazes out as if reliving past memories. “Anyway, it’s pretty much a sacred place for us. We don’t usually let newcomers see it so soon, but I think it’s okay. You’d like it, I think. It’s got swings and slides and sideways ladders.”

“Sideways ladders?”

He nods his head. “You know, the ones you hang from?” He puts his hands in the air as if he were hanging.

“Oh.” It clicks. “You mean monkey bars?”

Skylar nods his head again. “Yeah, sideways ladders.”

There’s no hope in arguing, this boy has a fixed notion. “Right,” I pretend to agree. “Sideways ladders.”

“Anyway. Sacred. Right. I think a few of us have had sex there. It’s pretty secluded and stuff.” He takes a long pause, trying to remember other reasons. “Oh! Frank had his first kiss there. That was a lovely accomplishment...It’s where we officially formed our band. We all came together one day and we just sort of sat down and Frank was like, ‘Let’s start a band’ and him being the baby of the group we all just sort of laughed, but then it started to dawn on us. We could all do this. Frank and I can sing. Ainsley and Frank can both play guitar and scream like fucking gods. Maliki can play the bass and Xavier can beat the shit out of the drums and make it sound badass. So the very next day we came together again and officially made ourselves a band, gave ourselves a name and everything...”

I think of stopping his rambling again by putting my hand to his lips, but instead I pat his knee. “Yeah, Skylar...what band?”

Skylar looks at me, confused. He cocks his head to the side, like a puppy. “Frank didn’t tell you?”
I shake my head.
“Oh. Oops. I figured he did, I mean he loves to boast about it to every girl he meets that he could potentially fuck one day, but I mean who wouldn’t want to fuck Frank? The thought of guys playing instruments is just attractive, actually it’s pretty attractive on girls too, but by telling you that, you automatically get this fixed image of a sex god just because he’s in a band. It’s a pretty good tactic, since I don’t actually play any instruments I don’t usually tell people. But bitches got this thing for guys who can sing.” Finally, all on his own, he stops talking.

The thought of Frank fucking other people ties a knot in my throat. I don’t really know why. He’s still a complete stranger to me. “That’s nice. One day you guys should show me your music.”

This gets Skylar hyped up again, bouncing in his spot and rambling on about everyone’s different positions even though he’d just told me. He stops talking only when we hear a pound on the wall coming from the other room. Together we stare at the wall.

“Let the girl sleep, Skylar!” I recognize the muffled shout from the other side of the wall as Xavier’s cold and harsh voice.

“Bite me, Xavier!” Skylar growls back.

We wait for an answer, but it never comes.

Finding this as a nice opportunity I say, “Goodnight, Skylar,” and crawl under the blankets in the spot next to him. He follows suit and I can feel him up against my back, but I attempt to ignore it, remembering Tony’s warning.
“We’re all family here, you got that? We don’t need any more inter-family mingling going on.”

I sighed. A nice selection of five different boys. Untouchable.

“Skylar?”

“Yeah?”

I pull the blanket over my head. “Never mind.”

The thought that my parents really left me just this evening, starts to dawn on me. Mom didn’t even say goodbye because apparently Facebook is more interesting than me leaving her life. Dad left me with a fucking pat on the head and a sentence full of empty words. And to put a bow on top of shit, Monday I’ll go back to school with Frank as my chauffeur. He’ll drop me off and I’ll walk into the building just like I would if I had taken the bus to school like I’ve been doing since first grade. When I walk through those doors I’ll meet up with my “friends”, a small group of just four people. But since Shannon isn’t exactly a part of our “scene” she’ll be with the rest of the preppy blonde sluts and the porcupine-haired jocks.

Sara will make her usual in-my-business comments about how fat I look or how slobby my clothes are. She’ll remind me that my eyeliner looks slightly off or I missed a strand of hair when I was straightening my hair that morning. When she’s done giving me “friendly advice” I’ll face Kody who will either complain about his current girlfriend or boyfriend or he’ll complain about his (enter body part here) hurting and how miserable life is because of his (enter mental disorder here).

When that’s all done and over with I will get my routine hug from Aryn and maybe, if I’m lucky, he’ll give me some good news and maybe even make me smile. Otherwise, he’ll stay quiet and I will go to first period and sit miserably next to Sara while she gives me reasons to stop being a vegetarian or to go on the pill or some stupid way to change my life to fit her standards. And the rest of the day will be followed by similarly unfortunate events. And at exactly 3:48 the bell will ring and I will leave. Frank will be there. He will drive me back to this place and I will again be reminded that I don’t technically have parents anymore and just these guys who could probably give less of a crap.

These familiar salty drops of water start to seep out of my eyes, which just pisses me off even more because I can’t believe I’m crying when I really have so much. I have a roof over my head. I have a house full of people like me. I have food in my stomach and clothes on my skin. And I have a guy in my bed.
But I don’t stop crying because really, I’ve never felt so alone.