Why hello, Camile. I didn’t expect to see you back so soon.
But first: last Saturday morning Handsome Hanson made a return appearance. He shocked the shit out of me by saying it looks like I’m going to graduate. He then shocked the shit out of me again by saying it all depended on how well I do in my summer courses. I was shocked for a third time to find out my parents will be PAYING ANDY HANSON to TUTOR me over the summer.
Was I born to suffer?
Looking at Hanson from across the sparse utility of the kitchen table turned my stomach. He sat there like a malignant lump, a smile pasted weakly beneath his sticky cock broom—but more than ever before I dwelled on the circles beneath his eyes. Oh, I know you now, Andy. I know what you go home to at night. Are you thinking about her right now, Andy my man? Are wondering what surprises your scrawny wife has in store for you tonight? I bet she dreads the moment your headlights splash across the back wall of your pretty little home. She sits, tense, a drink already in her hand. The television is on, and the news anchors are trying their best to tell her all about today’s great progress, but she doesn’t hear them. The tears are already in the corners of her eyes as she thinks about the years she’s already wasted and cannot rip back from your greedy arms, and you bury your face in those years, and you breathe in the scent of those years, and the smell is unfamiliar but it’s not supposed to be and you try so hard to remember until unbeknownst to you, your mind makes up lies in the cracks where memory should reside, and it places you in the stories of her heart where you never really lived. She senses it happening, Andy. And she wants you to give those years back. You are a thief and that is why she hates you, that is why she is, more likely than not, already half in the bag while you stare benignly at me in mom’s clean kitchen while the morning sun ignores your face.
You’ll probably be smashed before the sun goes down, Andy Hanson—but don’t worry. We all understand. It’s the only thing that keeps you from knocking her fucking teeth in whenever she kicks you down the stairs.
After finding out my GREAT GOOD FORTUNE at gaining Hanson as my number one big fun summertime friend, I asked him if he would like to celebrate our bright future together with an ice-cold brew, but he just laughed and shook his head. “No thank you, Pendel.” His eyes actually twinkled for a second, which made me uneasy and mistrustful. He continued: “It won’t be as bad as you think. I’ll try to make it painless.” I asked him if he was sure, adding, hey, it’s good for what ails ya (!), and he gave me a funny little look, but only shook his head again. I let it drop. Believe it or not, my disgust at gaining Hanson as a tutor was overshadowed by the possibility of getting my stupid diploma.
And then: later that night, more rocks at my window. I immediately knew who lurked outside. Only one person I know is so retarded as to announce their arrival in this manner. The Eternal Camile. I threw up the window and was like, hey idiot, it’s like nine o’clock. Just knock on the fucking door. She was all, “I don’t want your stupid family knowing I’m here.” It’s what she always says, right? I climbed out of my window and we walked a short distance down the shadowed streets to a nearby playground. On the way I explained to her that most people throw rocks at the window because the person they want to contact lives on the second floor. Our house is one story. She could just knock on the window. She was like, “Ohhhh…”. IDIOT. Truly.
When we got to the playground, she turned to me, and started talking. I didn’t hear the first couple of sentences she said because a nearby stop light had tuned red and cast its light across her face, turning a giant whitehead right beside her nose to pink. I wondered idly what she would do if I reached out and gave it a little squeeze. I really REALLY wanted to try, but in my heart I am a coward.
Slowly I began to listen, and realized she was very angry that I had spilled the beans about her mom’s cleaning business woes a couple of weeks ago. I told her to go fuck herself. She tells the cops she thinks I demolished her old man’s windshield (the fact that I did is beside the point), and she thinks she’s got the right to be fucking pissed at ME? What the hell is this bloated world coming to? She started to cry tears of real anger, which affected me little, and she said that now, because of me, her parents are so pissed with her that they won’t talk to her. They blame her for bringing me—the Great and Terrible Pendel—into their miserable lives. I laughed and told her that they have a point. She did. She punched me in the arm—a little too playfully for someone who’s supposed to be pissed—and said she never asked me to ruin her dad’s car and wreck her mom’s reputation. She never wanted her folks to stop speaking to her. I just had to smile. I told her that she should be thanking me. Why would she want those fucking apes talking to her anyway? “Fuck off,” she said. I said no problem and turned to walk away.
And THAT was when she spins me around and starts nomming all over me with those fucking fish lips of hers! I was so taken aback that at first I did nothing, I was lost in a haze of grape Hubba Bubba (I fucking HATE grape Hubba Bubba), and I was simply trying not to fall over as she hung from my shoulders, her sharp little teeth digging at my neck, my cheeks, my ears, my lips. She was breathing loud, like she had just come up from the blackest depths, the ink of the ocean, and as she tried to climb up my body I realized she was nothing but a goddamned monkey. A monkey with a fish-face and zits. Hey, like I said before, her dad’s an ape, right? It all makes sense in the end.
Coming to my wits, I pushed her off me and asked her if she had lost her goddamned mind. She said she had, which shut my mouth for a second. “I’ve got nothing to do now,” she said. “I miss you.” I told her that, unfortunately for her, I didn’t feel the same way. I tried to explain to her that she was initially just an object for me, a conquest to take before the summer was up, but that was all over now. Amazingly, she said she was cool with that. She just wanted someone to talk to, and that I was the only person who ever really did.
Well, that’s a shame, I said. Because now you’ve lost that, too. Go home and look at the wall.
She cried and slapped me. I said, hey, it’s fine man, whatever you need to do. She slapped me again and I shrugged. She turned to run away, but got tangled in her own big feet and sprawled across the ground like a milkshake. Typical. Typical Camile, typical life. I didn’t help her up. She pulled herself off the ground, and without dusting off or looking back, she walked into the night crying to herself.
Fuck it. Yes, I’ll let her make out with me again, but it’s going to be when I’m done punishing her for being such a little bitch.
Hell Is For Children 
The world needs your writing, man. Needs it.
I agree with the previous post, the world needs your writing. The way you express your experiences shows how ridiculous it is when older adults devalue young adult’s experiences.
You are an awesome writer. I feel like I’m watching a movie.
[…] and as far as I knew, the eternal Camile’s mother was hunting me down for my indirect role in trashing her house-cleaning business. We kept him from disbanding our little enterprise for the time being, but Sugarbear has been far […]