Welcome to Gaia! :: View User's Journal | Gaia Journals

The last section of this was posted on November 27th, for those of you who don't remember what was happening. Zeta asked me to post more, so I shall comply! And Maya, I know you want me to post some of my new story, and I will (or I'll email it to you), but I told Zeta I'd post more of this first.
Alright, now, if you're keeping up with this story, I'd like some comments! Enjoy, and criticism and grammar notes are welcome!!!

Edgar narrowed his eyes at his Physics homework. Whatever stupid a*****e came up with this crap was probably a virgin his whole life. How else could you be loser enough to spend your time writing about the equilibrium and the formula for Force? He glanced at the inside cover. There were like, nine guys who’d written it. Ooh, two Nelson’s…married? Brother and sister? That would suck. To be a married couple writing a book about something as dull and god-awful as Physics. Edgar thought that if he ever married someone like that he’d shoot himself. No, he’d shoot them both.
He frowned. He’d just had inspiration for a charcoal drawing. A rather violent one, not usually his style, but he liked the idea…he looked at his Physics. Looked at his canvas. Physics. Canvas. Physics. Canvas.
The canvas won. The canvas always won.
He got up and pulled out a piece of charcoal from his box. Hardly even hesitating before putting it to the taut, white sheet in front of him, he began to sketch the profile of a man. Facing this man was to be the profile of a woman, and in the center a Physics book. He mentally planned out his drawing; both people were going to have guns aimed at each other, so that the shots would go through the book and hit the other person. He thought it would be rather cool; he could show the bullets in midair, a sort of Matrix-y type feel, but also sad, and ironic, because of the way the people’s lives hadn’t gone how they’d wanted.
“Atticus?” There came a low cry from the room down the hall.
Edgar frowned. Was that his mother calling?
“Atticus! Goddamnit, where are you?!”
Yes, it was his mother. Although, he thought, she sounded like his grandmother. He bit his lip and paused, and when he heard nothing, he decided she had stopped calling. Just as he put his charcoal to the canvas again, however, he heard another yell.
“Atticus, get in here! I need you!”
Pause.
“ATTICUS!”
Edgar bit the nail on his first finger. Nail-biting was a habit he’d been trying to drop since about the fourth grade. It had stopped for a few years when he was in middle school, but he had recently been noticing himself chewing away again, when his thoughts were elsewhere. He sighed and headed down the hall towards his Mom’s room.
The door was half shut, and since the room was made in such a way that he could only see half of it standing at the doorway, Edgar figured that his mother was somewhere across the bedroom. He poked it open. “Mom?” No answer. “Mom?” he asked, louder.
“Here you are!” His mother’s voice came from inside her bathroom.
Edgar crossed the room and opened the bathroom door to find his mother stuck, one leg inside the bathtub and one leg out. Her legs had somehow managed to get so far apart that if she tried to lift one up to climb over, she would fall over. His mother’s short, brown hair was ruffed up, and she wore no makeup. Edgar found himself wondering why she had been climbing around in the bathtub fully clothed.
She looked up when he entered. “Oh, it’s you.”
Against his will, he felt a small sting in his chest. She’d rather him? The a*****e that had just left her?
She caught his expression, however. “Oh, no, sweetie, I didn’t mean it like that. Here, help me up.” He took her hand and helped her over the side of the tub. “I only meant that I thought you were your father.” She glanced around as though expecting to see the man appear in front of her. “Where is your father, anyhow?”
Edgar felt himself wanting desperately to sigh. But what he did instead was explain. “Dad…Dad left, remember Mom?”
“Left?” She ran her fingers absentmindedly through her hair, and Edgar saw the lines around her mouth deepen as a slight frown took shape. “Left where? I just sent Rachel out for groceries, he needn’t have gone…”
“No, Mom. He left. He’s gone. He’s staying with Aunt Carol.” She looked up at him in surprise. “Don’t you remember?” Edgar said the words, wanting to and hating to all the same. The way her eyes grew weary as he spoke, the way her chest caved in and her face seemed to sag….how old she seemed. And how he despised himself for being the one to speak the words that made her so.
“Oh yes…” She swallowed. “Yes, I remember now. Silly of me, really, to forget…” She offered him a small laugh, but it offered him little consolation as it soon wavered to shaky nothingness. She gazed at the cabinet. “Oh, I do miss him now.”
Edgar closed his eyes. When he opened them, his mother was still staring at the cabinet, the same woman, the same troubled eyes, the same frightening difference between the mother he’d known less than a week ago and the one he saw now. “I know, Mom,” he said quietly.
She seemed strangely surprised at his presence as he moved to her, but took his hand and walked with him when he brought her to her bed and sat her down. Edgar stared at his mother, looking so helplessly at the bed, too large for her, the flattened pillow, too small, and he felt a strange urge at that moment. And so he sat next to her, wrapped his arms around her and hugged her. She immediately relaxed against his shoulder, and he felt her hands curl onto his shirt. They rocked back and forth for a long moment. Edgar was surprised by how little body heat his mother seemed to possess, for though she was a small woman, but she had always managed to have a motherly sort of warmth. But now, she seemed like a frightened child.
When they pulled apart, his mom had tears in her eyes. “Edgar?”
“Yeah, Mom?” He heard the painful compassion in his own voice.
She squeezed his hand. “Thanks.” He nodded and was gone, leaving his mother with some comfort and a smile.