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“Hot, hot, hot!” Elisabeth let the hot pan slip through her hands and drop onto the floor. “Damn!” The noodles were spread out all over the kitchen floor. Damn. She kneeled down and started gathering the noodles back in the pan. Fortunately there was no one around to see what a mess she made now that she was taking care of the dinner for once.

It was spring break and her parents booked a holiday to Spain for a week. Elisabeth, unlike her parents, considered herself old and wise enough to take care of herself and of the house for longer than a night. They decided to give it a try, though, “because,” they said, “once has to be a first time, and you did great all the other nights you have spent alone.” Never had she agreed with her parents so much. Besides, she didn’t feel like spending a whole week with her parents in Spain; she had no clue of how to spend a whole week in Spain with her parents, who probably wanted to go sightseeing, whereas she just wanted to relax on the beach, perhaps with a cocktail and a good book in her hands.

Elisabeth considered her dinner ruined, unless she desired to eat of the floor which she didn’t, and thought it was a better to get a take-away pizza. She dropped the pan in the sink, got her coat of the hook and left the house, locked. On a normal work day, the door would be open during the day in case her younger sister got home, but considering the fact that she was in Spain as well, her parents had told her to always lock the door whenever she had to leave, and that’s exactly what she did.

On her way back, she heard a familiar ringtone. At first she thought it was some random stranger in the street that had a ringtone similar to hers, you can’t control what strangers listen to. When she looked around to see if anyone picked up their phone, she noticed that no one did and the phone kept ringing. In a blink she remembered she had turned on the sound when her parents had left so that she would always hear it whenever they might call.

“Elisabeth Johnson?” She rarely received calls from strangers and was a bit flabbergasted when she heard someone say her full name. The man’s voice sounded somewhat familiar, though.

“Yes, that’s me. Can I help you?”

“Hi, um, this is your neighbour Mr Michaels from across the street. I don’t know where you are, but I think you might want to come home very quickly.” His voice sounded a bit alarmed.

“I’m on my way home, but why? Is there something wrong?” She abruptly came to a halt. “Did you hear something from my parents? Are they okay?”

“”No, um, it’s not your parents, honey, it’s your house. I heard a loud bang, as if, um,  something exploded, and decided to check it out. That’s when, um, I noticed it was not merely an explosion.”

“No, please, no, this can’t be true!” She remembered and started to run as fast as she could, hoping she could save her house. No, no, no! I totally forgot to turn off the gas in the chaos.

~Denise

“You’re, like, so cute.”

I ignored the comment. I mean, I’m the geek of our school. THE geek. Not any geek, but the actual stereotype geek; I wear huge glasses because I can’t see, I’m ashamed to admit that I go clothing shopping with my mother, I know much about computers, math, physics, and I am socially awkward. I don’t know how it came to this, but it did. It DID. The hottest boy in our school, Evan James, of whom every girl—and I’m sure a couple of guys—dreams of. He just called me cute. He called me cute a lot lately, but only when there were no witnesses. He also asked me out four times, and I said yes to every invitation. Yet, he always cancelled last-minute and ignored me every day at school.

“Wanna go out tomorrow?”

I laughed at him, “That’s not funny. I’m not going through this again.”

“No, seriously. I’m sorry about the previous times. I really am. Sorry, sorry, sorry. You’re hot, I wouldn’t want to hurt you, I promise. So, do you wanna go out tomorrow night?” I couldn’t believe what was happening. He apologised? Evan always says sorry, all the time. For some reason, I decided to believe him.

“Err.. I need to check my schedule. Hobo practice and homework and stuff… Can I text you?” Daring move, but a rather clever method to acquire his mobile number. He hadn’t given it to me yet before, he called anonymously to my home phone. Probably afraid I was going to stalk him. I patted myself on the back on this tactic. (In my mind. I don’t do those things in real life. That’s weird.)

“Okay,” he scribbled something down on the paper. “Here you go.” Quite feminine, his handwriting. “Bye, Teresa.” He winked. He hadn’t winked before. Maybe this time was different.

I just stood there with the note in my hand, flabbergasted. The bell rang, and I realised I would be late for class if I didn’t get to the other side of the building in five minutes. So, as ridiculous as it may have looked, I ran as fast as I could.

My mum was waiting for me as I stumbled out the school building, with the little scrap of paper burning in my pocket. The whole drive back home, I was silent and just staring out the front window, as if I were in some kind of trance.

After checking my schedule, I texted Evan.

                Yes, I can go out tomorrow night. Any ideas?

I thought it was quite classy, yet casual.

A minute later, he replied:

                Sweet! How about a movie at my place?

A movie at his place. Exciting.

We exchanged addresses, tomorrow at 7 PM I’ll be at his place. We’ll watch Kill Bill or something. For some reason, he put “watch” between quotation marks, followed by a winking smiley. I don’t really understand what he meant by the quotation marked ‘watch’, though.

The next day in school I talked to him. Well, I talked at him. He didn’t respond, but pushed me away, giving me a shunning look. When I brought up the date he laughed at me and said he didn’t know what I was talking about. This rejection was so familiar to me, but it feels terrible every single time. I half walked, half ran to the bathroom with tears in my eyes.

Libby, the school bitch, was doing her makeup. She had her trademark mortar-layer of foundation on, bright pink lipstick and pink eye shadow, and was now furiously putting on mascara.

“Hey, look, it’s Gory Glasses!” She looked at me through the mirror. I walked in a stall. “I heard you got rejected again? Do you really think you had a chance with my man?”

I didn’t do anything, just sat on the toilet, wondering how she could have known so fast, and trying to not make too much noise while crying. “Libby, you broke up with him two months ago.”

She kicked against the door. “Don’t you fucking dare to come close to him again. Do you hear me?”

I nodded, but then realised she couldn’t see it. “Yes. I won’t. Now leave me alone.” Luckily, she left me alone this time. I opened the stall door and went to the sinks to wash my hands. When I looked up, Libby had appeared out of nothing and stood behind me. She walked to me and smacked me in the face. Then she punched me, probably broke my nose, gave me a nice black eye, threw me on the floor and kick me in the guts. And again. And again. And again. “There. Now you can’t breed, you stupid whore.” She adjusted her hair, grabbed her stuff and strutted out the bathroom, leaving me bleeding on the floor.

When I felt like I could walk again, I didn’t attend any other classes today, but went straight home, blinded by tears. I didn’t know what I was doing as I walked up the stairs and went to the bathroom. It just had been enough to handle. I let the shower water run and waited for the mirror to be misty. In big letters, I wrote:

                “SORRY.”

~ Aviva

“Fuck you!” She hit him with her fist on the chest. “Don’t you even dare leaving me now! Just breathe, dammit!” Melissa continued performing CPR as she waited for the Ambulance to come. The ritual repeated in her head on the rhythm of “Staying Alive”: Push, 1234, push, 1234, push, 1234, push, 1234, and breathe. “Come on, Jamie, breathe.” And again.

A sigh of relief when the sirens were heard. She knew the battle wasn’t over as long as Jamie was not breathing, but she also knew he had a better chance now.

The paramedic carefully rushed out of the car and towards the still lifeless body. “Any luck?” He threw a glimpse at Melissa and saw she was shaking. “It’s okay, we’ve got it now. He’ll be okay.” As she saw the paramedic performing CPR, the ritual repeated in her head.  Silently she started singing the song, hoping it would actually keep him alive.

“Bring the AED!” The man said to the man who had joined him shortly after. AED. Automated External Defibrillator. The tears started to pile up in Melissa’s eyes. No, no, don’t die. Please Jamie, don’t. Watching him die was something she would never be able to handle; it would break her heart more than a breakup. She moved to a spot far away from Jamie, but close enough to hear anything the paramedics said.

A hand gently touched her shoulder. “I’m so sorry.” Instantly, she could feel a part of her heart fail. All she wanted was to be with him.  

~Denise

She is waiting in the waiting room. Because there is where you wait. It is where I’m waiting at this very moment. Because I’m waiting with her. She is gorgeous. She has blonde hair, blue eyes, and an amazing smile. Though others don’t seem to think so about her. I must admit, she isn’t my usual type, but she has something.

I started dating her eight months ago, because of a bet. My friends had asked me to ask her out on a date for the Christmas dance. So that’s what I did. She said yes and the boys owed me twenty bucks. They still do, actually.

Anyways, I actually liked being in her company. I still do. That’s why I’m here. That’s why we’re here. It wasn’t meant to happen though. It just did. I just had to think about breathing at the time. We consider it a miracle. And we will call her so, in a month. Eve Elazne. Breathing miracle.

~ Aviva

“Hold on a minute there, son!”

That’s what people always do. Maybe she shouldn’t have cut her hair this short, from the back she does look like a boy. She had quite a boyish figure, broad shoulders, small hips, and a lot of muscle, but her face was much like a girl’s. She enjoyed make up ever since she was a little girl, when her mum used to put her on the chair in front of her boudoir and told her that she was beautiful. Then Quinn got to put on lipstick and eye shadow, and mum would do her hair.

Her mum died when she was thirteen, and that’s when she became rebellious. It was hard on her dad. Little Quinnie, who always wore cute pink dresses and shiny shoes, with her hair in two braids or pigtails now cut off her hair with a knife, dyed it black, got a nose piercing and dressed only in dark, worn-out shirts and army pants. On top of that, she still wore her make up like she did: pink lipstick, heavily made up smoky eyes. Not that her father minded that, she still was his Quinnie, but she started to come home after curfew, hung out with the wrong people, and started smoking and drinking. A couple of weeks ago, he found out she also shoplifted. And that was what he worried about. Even though she engaged in this criminality, she still managed to get good grades, and she still loved language as much as she did before.

Quinn ran on and dived around the corner, with her bag in her hand.

“I told you to wait right there! I can arrest you if you keep running, young lad!” The cop chased her around the corner. “STOP!”

She kept running but turned her head, “Oh, sorry, were you talking to me?” Then she stopped.

“Yes, I was talking to you! Of course I was, to who else? Why didn’t you stop?” The officer was out of breath. He stood bent over trying to recapture his normal breathing pattern.

“To whom else.”

“What?”

“It’s ‘to whom else.’ It’s whom. You made a grammar error. And of course I wasn’t listening, you said ‘son,’ and, well.. look at me,” she pointed at her face and body, “Guess what, I’m a girl!”

“It was quite obvious that I was talking to you. And I’m sorry I thought you were a boy. But you were the only one running. And… well… sorry.” He bowed his head and looked at the ground, blushing.

“That’s right. Now you go turn around and go to your little office and continue your lousy job.” She walked up to him and poked with his index finger in his chest. “And don’t you EVER. EVER. look at me and call me a SON again.”

She turned around and walked away. He just stood there, baffled.

~ Aviva

The moment Alice wakes up she notices how heavy her head actually feels and it instantly makes her think of what happened the night before. She couldn’t remember she had drank that much; it was supposed to be a fun night out with her girl friends, no heavy night out drinking till they drop. Maybe it was. It sure felt like that at the moment.

She looks on her phone to see what time it is. “Shit, shit, shit!” Ten unread messages and three missed phone calls. Her displays shows it is already 3pm and she was supposed to be at her boyfriend’s at 2pm, which could explain the texts and calls. As fast as she could, Alice gets out of bed. Apparently she never changed out of her clothes last night, because when she looks in the mirror, she sees herself fully dressed up. Her lips round and a little puff of air escapes. She decides it is better to get changed than go to her boyfriend smelling like a mini bar. That truly was what she smelt like that moment.

On her way to her boyfriend’s house, her memory comes back bit by bit. The fun she and the girls had, and the many, many, many drinks she had had that evening. Not to mention that most of the drinks were free; offered by other handsomely good looking guys. She recalls at one moment turning a guy down who tried to make out with her. “I have a boyfriend,” she had said to him and she giggled with her girl friends. After that, it was pretty much a blur. Or at least she thought it was, and she hoped it wasn’t just her that didn’t remember the rest.

“Why are you so angry at me!? I haven’t done shit, ask the girls. I mean, I turned this handsome guy down when he tried to kiss me! I wasn’t that far gone.” Alice stands amazed at how angry her boyfriend seems to be now that she was finally at his house.

“That is exactly what I did after I saw some pictures on Facebook. And guess what, it turns out that you did indeed turn out that guy, Alice, but made out with another guy or two, three; who knows.” For some who is angry Mike seems pretty calm when he talks to Alice. Something about not wanting to hurt her too much. “I just can’t do this, knowing that you’re no longer faithful when you’re drunk. I can’t just forbid you to drink, I can’t just forbid you to go with your friends; I don’t want to. All I can do is tell you that we’re over, and hope that you find someone who will make you faithful to them, and hope you make them happy. I really do, Alice.”

“No, no! I am faithful, I swear. I will prove it to you, just give me another chance!”

“The problem is, I already had. I would like you to leave now, please.” Mike points at the door. “Please.” He opens the door to let Alice out. He closes the door behind her back and listens to her voice one last time before going to his room and forget about the pain she caused him.

“No! Wait! Please, don’t! You can’t just leave me!” The pain she felt was heard in her voice; she really didn’t want him to leave.

~Denise (My apologies for such a crappy story. I am completely drained, no inspiration left whatsoever, or at least not for this story. I hope the next one will be better.)

Hello followers (and readers),

we have discovered that now college has started again and the homework is piling up it is quite an achievement to post a new story every other day. We therefore came to the conclusion that we should post a story twice a week, which means there will now be 2 days inbetween the stories.

Thank you for understandig.

- Aviva & Denise

“Yes, yes, yes, Daddy! You told me this soooooo many times! I wanna go to schooooool!”
“Alright honey, you can go. Don’t forget Teddy!”

As she walks around the corner of the street, Teddy in one hand, her schoolbag in the other, she smiles. Mum wanted that she put her backpack on her back, so that is how she walked out the house. The second she turned around the corner, she took off her backpack.She feels a little naughty for disobeying her Mum, but it also is a bit exciting.

Mum, Dad and Susan had walked to her new school many times before, so that she could walk alone on her first day of school. It was only three blocks away, but it seemed cool to walk to school all by yourself when you’re only four years old. Her parents had warned her for all kinds of danger she could encounter on her way to school; there could be crazy old men behind every bush, there could be men in cars who will pull you into their car and drive off to never see Mummy and Daddy again, and that you should always watch left and right, because you might get ran over by a bus, and many more bad things that could happen to you when you are just walking to school.

Susan’s first day of school was great. She met everyone and learnt their names, they had played games all day. She had the nicest teacher, Mrs Rose, and her classmates were really nice as well. She had made a couple of friends already, Olive and Jade and Oscar and Mary. Susan learnt that Mary lived in the same street, so they walked home together. Well, they walked home until a van stopped next to them. The door opened.

“Hi girls, Susan and Mary, right?” The girls nodded. “Girls.. something happened with your parents. They asked me to pick you up. Come sit in my car, I’m getting you some candy. I will drive you to the hospital and there you’ll see your parents.”

Susan knew better, “What’s the password? Mummy set a password if I was being picked up by someone else than Mummy and Daddy.”
“Passw.. Shit. Err.. They didn’t leave me a password. They were in a car accident!”
Susan crossed her arms. “No. I’m not coming.”

Mary did step into the car. “Mummy was in a car accident? I’m coming with you!”
Susan tried to stop her, but she already slammed the door shut. The last time Susan saw Mary was when she fastened her seatbelt, put the lollipop in her mouth, and drove off with the unknown man in his light blue van. 

~ Aviva

“Happy Valentine’s Day, baby!” They had just gotten home from a romantic dinner in her favourite restaurant. Andrew handed his girlfriend the heart-shaped box (of chocolates) and gave her a kiss on her lips. Dana appeared to be very happy with yet another gift from her boyfriend; the romantic dinner would have been more than enough.

“Go on, open it!” Andrew seemed almost as excited as Dana was. Chances are that he was excited for different reasons, but yet, he was excited. She unwrapped the heart shaped box, and gazed at the deliciously looking chocolates that were inside.

“Oh, baby, you didn’t have to!” Dana gave him a passionate kiss on the lips. For some reason, this reminded Andrew of the scene in which Juliette kissed Romeo after he had taken the poison to be with his love. Unfortunately, it was nothing like Romeo & Juliette, at all. This would not be the sort of happy end in which they would finally be together, however dead, now, this was better: only one of them would die that day.

Instead of the sweet taste of chocolate one would expect, Dana thought the chocolates were rather bitter for chocolates that looked so delicious and rather expensive too, but it was chocolate nonetheless. She again thanked Andrew before taking another bite. Dana did not know what compelled her, but she continued eating the sweets.

“Aren’t they lovely, dear?” Andrew asked as he helped his girlfriend down onto the sofa. “A bit bitter, you say? That’s odd; they tasted fine earlier.” He offered her a glass of water to wash the bitterness away, but she refused. Dana thought she was merely feeling a little faint; she would be fine in a minute, she just needed to lie down.

“I love you.” Right after these words slipped through Andrew’s lips, everything went black before Dana’s eyes. Not a second did it cross her mind that she would die, she just thought she was fainting and would wake up in a bit, and Andrew would be there to take care of her.

She was wrong.

~Denise

I check my note one last time, “Goodbye,” as I watch the flood flow out of my wrist.

I have been considering leaving a longer note, but every time I tried writing one, I ended up feeling like it was still not good enough; it concerns my death after all. It is true a note as short as mine will leave people clueless as to what has driven me to make the decision I have made, but, honestly, I think that if they would have known me, they would be able to figure out. And what else could I say to them? “I’m sorry” or maybe even “I love you?” I am not sure if I am sorry, and I am certainly not sure if I love them. “Goodbye” seems perfect.

I am just tired, that is all. I cannot say that I had a horrible childhood that drove me nuts, so to speak, neither did I lose either of my parents at a young age. As I said, I am just tired; I am tired of living and breathing. Both processes should not take too much of an effort, really, but they do to me. It is a day to day struggle to get out of my bed and go to school. It is a day to day struggle to keep up the smile people expect me to wear. The end of the day was what I have longed for every day; the moment I lay down my head to rest.

I am not afraid to admit that I have indeed prayed to the Lord. I actually had two wishes; if either of them could have been fulfilled, I would have been happy. One of them was to lay down my head to rest, for the rest of my dies. You know, “if I die before I wake, pray the Lord my soul to take,” but he never did. My second wish was to go to sleep and perhaps wake up with amnesia, so I would forget everything; all of my regrets, all of my mistakes, just everything. Unfortunately, the Lord did not obey this wish either.

If no one else will, I will do it myself. Goodbye.

~Denise