ACHING BLUE (emo love story)

3

(Song for this chapter: "All Our Bruised Bodies and the Whole Heart Sinks" - La Dispute)

When I awake the next morning to the grey early-day autumnal light streaming through Nessy's window, she has her arm wrapped around my waist, breathing against my back. I sigh quietly, determined not to move or wake her, and lie there in the mostly-dark room, staring at a picture of Onision on her wall and wonder why she likes him. I find him horribly annoying and viciously misogynistic.

Within 20 minutes of me waking up, Nessy rolls over, extracting her arm from my body. It is then that I notice she must have put me under the blankets with her at some point in the night, and I wonder where my shoes are, because I'm sure I'd fallen asleep with them on and I'm in my socks now.

About an hour passed and I don't dare look at my phone except to check the time. At 9:47 AM Nessy finally wakes up and is pretty grumpy about that fact. I decide to check my phone for texts from my dad and read the only one he's sent, suspiciously nice and dismissive: Okay, have a good time. I'll see you when you get here. He must've been glad to have me out of the house for the night and most of the day.

"Good morning!" I say to Nessy, who grumbles a "Mornin'" in response, turning so that she's facedown on the bed.

"Eeevil sun!" She says, her voice muffled by the pillow, and hisses like a vampire. I cackle, a sound I haven't heard leave my lips since before my mom died.

"What do you want to do today?" I ask her. She shifts so that she's looking at me with those brown eyes surrounded by full, long lashes that don't need mascara.

"Maybe we'll go to the twins' house with Lane and hang out at the skate park. Or maybe we can convince Christie — that's Lane's mom — to drive us to the mall."

"The mall sounds fun," I respond, smiling.

Nessy's already on her phone texting a group chat from what I can tell.

"Do you want my number?" I ask before I can stop myself, and then blush deeply.

"Of course! I'll add you to the group chat," Nessy responds. I give her my number and a moment later I get a text from an unknown number plus four more attached to that one. I wonder who the fifth person in the group could be. The twins introduce themselves in the chat and I add them to my contacts, but the fifth person doesn't say anything.

At my puzzled look, Nessy goes, "The last person is Zach Kwansey. He goes to your school. You'll probably meet him today. He's cool, you'll like him."

I nod. She smiles and sits up in bed, the back of her head a mess from sleeping. I can't imagine my head of black waves and a few curls looks much better, and don't even get me started on my bangs. Nessy stretches and gets out of bed, then holds out her hand for me to take, pulling me up with little effort. She holds my hand a little longer than necessary before dropping it and grabbing her pack of cigarettes from her Skelanimals cat-shaped backpack.

"Smoke break?" She smirks before putting on a pair of Gir slippers.

"Absolutely," I sigh in relief. I've been thinking about a cigarette since I woke up. I never imagined myself smoking, yet here we are, out on her back porch again, sitting in the porch swing side by side, ashing our cigarettes and talking about HotTopic and Spencer's Gifts and all the stuff we want from there.

"I want the new A Day to Remember hoodie... you know, the gray one with black sleeves and hood?" I say and she nods.

"I know the one. I want the new Pierce the Veil shirt. The purple one." She says, and I smile. I can picture her in it in my head.

Nessy lifts her cigarette to her mouth and her My Chemical Romance hoodie sleeve falls backwards on her arm, revealing several fresh cuts and a multitude of scars. "Nessy..." I say very quietly, reaching out to touch her arm. She is sitting very still, staring at me with pleading, wide eyes. I pull up my shirt, revealing the cuts and scars along my ribs. I do not show her the ones on my thighs. "I do it too. Clearly," I let out a humorless laugh.

"But why?" She asks, and I respond with the same question. She sighs and is quiet for about three minutes before speaking. "My mom is... very verbally abusive. She says I'm too fat to love, that I'm depressed for no reason, but look at our house. It's rotting. It's falling apart. We're too poor to move. My grades are perfect, but that's not good enough for her. I don't do enough extracurriculars. I hang out with 'the wrong crowd,' though I don't know how she'd know because she's hardly ever fuckin' home. She started going out more after my dad died and my brother left town, so I get pretty lonely here a lot of the time. And then there's the bullying at school. It's not just my classmates, it's teachers, too. They single me out, make a mockery of me. The administration won't do anything about it; they just tell me to be 'less conspicuous', whatever that means. It never ends.

"I don't know what to do anymore. I know I'll have a better life in Ralville with my brother... I just have to wait for the summer and then he'll come pick me up and I can live with him, and you can come with me, because I know you're scared of your dad. I've seen it in your eyes when you talk about him. We'll protect you from him, I promise. I won't let him hurt you anymore. Maybe one day this week we can get the twins' mom to take us to your house and gather your things and you can live here with me and my mom." She is out of breath and her cigarette has a very long ash at the end of it by the end of her spiel.

"Nessy," I began, tears in my eyes at her offer. "I started before my mom died. She may have been my best friend but she also allowed a lot of shit to slide that I can't get over. Her boyfriend would molest me when she wasn't home and she didn't believe me. It started when I was six and only ended when she died and I moved. I never tried to tell anyone else other than her because I was afraid they'd think I was lying, too.

"Anyway, then I get sent here to live with my dad and have to leave my friends behind. Not that we would've remained friends with high school coming up, but still.... My dad's a drunk. A violent one. I've installed extra locks on my bedroom door and make sure I always have a bag packed in case it gets really bad. And lately it's been getting worse. He comes home from his manual labor job and immediately goes to the fridge for a beer. He probably drinks a pack of them a night. He's impossible to get through to. And then I'm bullied at school by basically the entire student body. I'm the only 'emo' there, as they like to call me. Like with your case, the administration won't listen. My dad doesn't care. No one does."

By the end of my explanation, I'm in tears and Nessy is rubbing my back. I've forgotten about my cigarette and ashed it on myself by accident. The ashes burn a hole in my shirt and I swear, jumping up and shaking my top to get them off. At least I'm no longer crying, and now Nessy's laughing behind me and I'm laughing too and soon we're in tears again, this time in a good way.

"Did you ever hear from Christie about the mall?" I ask as I sit back down in the porch swing.

"Yeah, she said she'd take us to Northlake if we're all ready and here by noon."

"Okay, cool. Do you have a hair dryer and straightener? My bangs are gross," I say, fingering my greasy-from-sleep bangs. They're blunt, straight across my forehead, laying a quarter inch above my eyebrows.

"Of course. You're welcome to use anything of mine you need. I'll give you a new shirt and sew that one up, too." Nessy offers, and I beam at her kindness.

Taking my phone out, I check the time and the group chat. 10:26 AM. There are multiple messages from everybody in the chat but me and Nessy. Zach says he's excited to meet me. I send a heart to his message and comb through the others. Grace and Gloria are getting picked up by Christie on her way over here, so Lane will be there, too. When I think of how I cried in their arms the night before, my body runs cold with embarrassment and I have to vigorously shake my head to stop the thoughts of loser, they were only taking pity on you, etc. from flooding my brain.

I put my cigarette out and stand from the wet swing, plucking leaves from my damp butt, and turn to Nessy.

"Ready for a good day?"