Night After the Dance Owl (Sept 9)
Jul 11, 2018 12:39:39 GMT -6
Post by Snick on Jul 11, 2018 12:39:39 GMT -6
Esther flopped on her bed and almost missed the owl waiting patiently on her nightstand, until it hooted at her indignantly.
"Hello? Come here, I have a treat in the drawer." The owl responded by coming closer and sticking out its leg. She loosened the letter, then pulled out her wand and opened the drawer, letting the owl help itself to a couple treats before if flew off.
Ian's writing. "So, you answered my letter." She lay on her back and put her feet on the wall as she unrolled the letter.
Dear Esther, So, you finally found out. I didn't think it would make a difference after three years. I'm sorry it did. But hey, you're our baby sister and the family princess. I was protecting you. I could see the kid was gone on you. You were just barely 13. I moved the flowers to where they would warm up faster and wilt, and I told you what the flower meanings were. I led you into believing it was a prank. I figured you two would stay best friends though. I didn't count on you two hating each other. You just weren't ready for a boy friend. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. If you want me to apologize to him, I will. I'm not sorry you two didn't hook up. You were too young. But I'm sorry I interfered. I'm sorry I caused you two pain, and I'm sorry I cost you both a friendship. I hope you can forgive me. You know how much I care about you. Your brother, Ian.
Esther was a mix of emotions, rage, hurt, confusion. She let out a yowl of frustration and jumped up off the bed. "Damn you, Ian! How come I have to love you?" She grabbed her pillow and proceeded to pummel the post of the bed with it as if it was his head, taking out her frustrations and hollering choice words at him as she went.
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It was a nice night out. Before long, he wouldn't be able to say that -- Cat Island got much colder than he liked, coming off of DC's dog days of summer, it wouldn't be long before late autumn cast its chill over the school, and Makepeace wouldn't be able to walk around without an overcoat. Standing on a boulder overlooking the cliffs, he was doing t'ai-chi. In a satin tai-chi uniform that could almost pass as pajamas like the ones he wore at the dance last night. It was more comfortable than doing them in a suit.
Not that that ever stopped him.
As he moved from "Needle at the Bottom of the Sea" to "Crane Spreading Its Wings," he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. A violent movement. Coming from a second story window of the BTP house. He tried to focus, tried to continue through the kata, but his concentration was broken, and he turned to look fully at the motion. It looked like... Esther? Flailing around with a pillow. With the light in her room behind her, it cast crazy shadows all around, and the movements were enough to make him think that something was wrong.
It was only after he had jogged all the way to the legacy, swept the ground and thrown a couple pebbles at her window that Makepeace considered... That it might be him she was angry at.
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Esther was finally getting her anger to a place where she was seeing Ian as a paraplegic instead of a corpse when she noticed the pebbles pinging on the window. She paused and felt her anger evaporate. She looked out the window, her face going hot with shame. Mother had warned her about her temper, now someone had noticed. In the moonlight she saw the outline . . . Makepeace. She took a deep breath. He might as well know. She waved.
She turned away from the window, toweled off her face, threw on a pullover BTP hoodie and sweat pants, put the letter in her pocket, and put her flip flops on before hurrying down the stairs and out the door to the porch.
She met Makepeace on the porch. "Hey, er... guess you saw me losing my temper. I was beating up my brother Ian. Well, not really, just with a pillow and using the bed post for him. But he wasn't here to beat up in life."
She reached into the pocket of the hoodie and felt the letter in her hand, wondering if she should hand him the letter or just tell him about it. Was it really worth making him as angry as she had just been? She could smooth it over for him, make it less harsh. She pulled her hand out with the letter in it, holding it in front of her. "He wrote to me; he wrote back to me."
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Makepeace nodded, his eyes searching her face as she spoke. "Yeah... I didn't mean to... I was..." He waved his hand in the direction of the boulder he'd been on. "Doing t'ai chi. Trying to achieve inner peace." He frowned. Boy did that sound horribly lame to his ears.
"Usually, teenage boys' fantasies about seeing girls having pillow fights usually don't involve so much rage." He said, reaching out to take the letter, but not moving to look at or read it. "Or, for all I know, they might, and I've been getting it all wrong."
He looked at her deadpan, then, and asked, "Are you alright? You want to maybe get something to drink? Coffee, soda?" He didn't want to look at the letter. At least, not just this moment. He wanted to be sure she was alright.
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"No, I mean, if you want to come in, you can have a soda. The lobby is open to guests. I'm okay. I have a temper, but once it blows over, I'm done. It doesn't last." She gestured to the door. "Come in, or at least to the porch light. You'd better read it."
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Makepeace had a gut instinct about a great many things, and part of him was screaming not to look at the letter. Just don't look at the letter. Play dumb, play obtuse... Except that they both knew damn well that he wasn't dumb, he wasn't obtuse. She'd never buy it, not for a second. Not from him. And so he moved into the light, standing so that the porch lamp was behind him, casting darkness on his features as it lit him from behind. "Please, uh..." Please don't make me read it, not when I just got you back into my life again, please don't snap this thread, please don't hate me... Again. He cleared his throat and shook his head, opening up the folded letter and holding it into the light so that he could read it.
"Son of a bitch. Son of a motherfucking bitch!" He whispered angrily. Although he didn't even reach for his wand, embers began appearing on the edges of the paper. "This... Doesn't change things." He said, turning away from her. "Still my fault." He added, a hitch in his throat. "Doesn't change what I did, how I hurt you." He said, crumpling the paper and tossing it to the side. "If I was him, I'd have done the same." He was shaking, furious.
"I looked up to him..." Makepeace said, shaking his head. "Is he still dating Dolores Haagen?" Makepeace asked rhetorically. Of course he was, they were going to go off to college together and some such. "Maybe I should let him know what a whore she was before they started dating. Or maybe he already does."
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Ian was her brother. She could beat him to a pulp with a pillow, and scream at him, but she would defend him with her life. He'd apologized. Confusion ruled Esther's thoughts. Something was horribly wrong. Why was Dolores in this? She was innocent.
Her inner Defender suddenly awakened, she turned on Makepeace, putting both hands on his chest and gripping his pajamas with her fists. "What did Dolores ever do to you? Does ruining her reputation make you feel better? Does it? Let's just pick on someone else since Ian picked on you? Or did you miss the part where he apologized? Is that what you do to people who hurt you? Have you called me a whore before?"
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Makepeace was taken aback by her anger for perhaps a moment before his anger turned against her. "Where do you think I grew up, Esther? Group home. You don't live in one of those places without learning to hurt others. The night my parents died, they took me to one of those places, and the kids there, they didn't give a shit that I just lost both parents, they kicked my ass. Why? Because they could. Because hurt's transferable. One guy, he wrapped a baseball in a sock and beat me with it because I was crying in bed." He frowned at her and reached up to remove her hands from his tai-chi jammies.
"Three weeks later, I pushed him down the stairs. Broke his shoulder and collarbone, and he had to walk around in a big old Frankenstein cast for months. Then I wrapped a baseball in a sock and beat him with it, just to let him know what it felt like to be kicked when you're down." He kept his hold on her hands, glaring into her eyes. "But you know what? Things changed when I came here. God, why did you even show me that note, anyways, if you didn't want me to get pissed off? Like I said, it doesn't change things, and as much as I'd love to hurt him in some way other than bedpost effigy, I'm not going to. I wouldn't do that to you, Dee or your brother."
He cleared his throat, feeling a little choked up again. "He apologized to you, Esther. Not me. And I don't want his apology." Then he lifted his arms up, which had the effect of pulling her close, almost face to face. "And no, I never called you a whore, Esther. Not ever. Not ever." Then he realized that he was holding her against her will and slowly released her. "Not even in my head."
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Esther stepped back, realizing that she didn't really know Makepeace that well anymore. "I showed you because you deserved to know the truth. But he's still my brother. I was angry with him, angry with him because of what it cost and because he took away our choices. I didn't expect you to attack Dolores." She kept the distance between them a couple feet.
She didn't like this cruel side of him and was still digesting this information about where he came from. She knew it was a harsh place, but she thought it was gone from him. She knew he had changed, but she wanted to know how readily he could pick it up again. Maybe too readily. Of course, he hadn't seen her temper before tonight. That had to surprise him too.
"Seems we both saw a little more of each other's bad sides than we wanted to." She sighed. "I usually hide my temper. Maybe this was a reminder that we need to move more slowly." She gave a small, forced smile. "What time are we studying together this week?"
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"I am trying to change." He said softly, not wanting to scare her. That was the last thing he wanted. "Living up to my name isn't exactly the easiest thing I have ever done, and change is hard." He said. "I was afraid of letting you see... this." He said, holding his hands out at his sides. He moved over to the porch swing and looked up at her. "When we were younger, I believed that having you as a friend was, like, this magical talisman. As long as you didn't see that side of me, I could believe that I wasn't that person. Then I had my nervous breakdown. And I know... I know that you would never blame me for what happened, but I was afraid."
Afraid that she would see him in all his uncouth, violent, rage-driven anti-socialness. "I realize that it wasn't fair of me to put that sort of responsibility on your shoulders back then." He shook his head then, his palm coming up to cup his face. "Please don't ever tell Corky I said that..." He added. She would be insufferable.
"How about the night before A-days, unless you have something dance or theater related? And maybe you could... quiz me while we're working on the sets and stuff."
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"Yeah, that'll be fine, at least, until practice starts . . . I don't know what time Buskirk will call for practices, but we can adjust it then." She wanted to trust him. But something in her felt cautious and wary. "I'm just an ordinary person who likes to dance. I'm nobody special. That's where you made your mistake." She shook her head. "I was just your friend, that's all."
"You can still come inside for a Coke if you want." But her voice was subdued, the usual bubbliness gone.
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"Ok." Makepeace stood up from the porch swing and stretched lithely, watching her. "I think I should probably go to the Lighthouse and make sure the little maniacs aren't holding some sort of party or something." It wasn't a likely occurrence, considering what happened the night before, but he would be keeping an eye on his housemates from now on.
"For what it's worth, my friends are never ordinary, and always special... They just... Shouldn't be put on such a high pedestal that they get hurt when they fall."
"Hello? Come here, I have a treat in the drawer." The owl responded by coming closer and sticking out its leg. She loosened the letter, then pulled out her wand and opened the drawer, letting the owl help itself to a couple treats before if flew off.
Ian's writing. "So, you answered my letter." She lay on her back and put her feet on the wall as she unrolled the letter.
Dear Esther, So, you finally found out. I didn't think it would make a difference after three years. I'm sorry it did. But hey, you're our baby sister and the family princess. I was protecting you. I could see the kid was gone on you. You were just barely 13. I moved the flowers to where they would warm up faster and wilt, and I told you what the flower meanings were. I led you into believing it was a prank. I figured you two would stay best friends though. I didn't count on you two hating each other. You just weren't ready for a boy friend. For what it's worth, I'm sorry. If you want me to apologize to him, I will. I'm not sorry you two didn't hook up. You were too young. But I'm sorry I interfered. I'm sorry I caused you two pain, and I'm sorry I cost you both a friendship. I hope you can forgive me. You know how much I care about you. Your brother, Ian.
Esther was a mix of emotions, rage, hurt, confusion. She let out a yowl of frustration and jumped up off the bed. "Damn you, Ian! How come I have to love you?" She grabbed her pillow and proceeded to pummel the post of the bed with it as if it was his head, taking out her frustrations and hollering choice words at him as she went.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It was a nice night out. Before long, he wouldn't be able to say that -- Cat Island got much colder than he liked, coming off of DC's dog days of summer, it wouldn't be long before late autumn cast its chill over the school, and Makepeace wouldn't be able to walk around without an overcoat. Standing on a boulder overlooking the cliffs, he was doing t'ai-chi. In a satin tai-chi uniform that could almost pass as pajamas like the ones he wore at the dance last night. It was more comfortable than doing them in a suit.
Not that that ever stopped him.
As he moved from "Needle at the Bottom of the Sea" to "Crane Spreading Its Wings," he saw a movement out of the corner of his eye. A violent movement. Coming from a second story window of the BTP house. He tried to focus, tried to continue through the kata, but his concentration was broken, and he turned to look fully at the motion. It looked like... Esther? Flailing around with a pillow. With the light in her room behind her, it cast crazy shadows all around, and the movements were enough to make him think that something was wrong.
It was only after he had jogged all the way to the legacy, swept the ground and thrown a couple pebbles at her window that Makepeace considered... That it might be him she was angry at.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Esther was finally getting her anger to a place where she was seeing Ian as a paraplegic instead of a corpse when she noticed the pebbles pinging on the window. She paused and felt her anger evaporate. She looked out the window, her face going hot with shame. Mother had warned her about her temper, now someone had noticed. In the moonlight she saw the outline . . . Makepeace. She took a deep breath. He might as well know. She waved.
She turned away from the window, toweled off her face, threw on a pullover BTP hoodie and sweat pants, put the letter in her pocket, and put her flip flops on before hurrying down the stairs and out the door to the porch.
She met Makepeace on the porch. "Hey, er... guess you saw me losing my temper. I was beating up my brother Ian. Well, not really, just with a pillow and using the bed post for him. But he wasn't here to beat up in life."
She reached into the pocket of the hoodie and felt the letter in her hand, wondering if she should hand him the letter or just tell him about it. Was it really worth making him as angry as she had just been? She could smooth it over for him, make it less harsh. She pulled her hand out with the letter in it, holding it in front of her. "He wrote to me; he wrote back to me."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Makepeace nodded, his eyes searching her face as she spoke. "Yeah... I didn't mean to... I was..." He waved his hand in the direction of the boulder he'd been on. "Doing t'ai chi. Trying to achieve inner peace." He frowned. Boy did that sound horribly lame to his ears.
"Usually, teenage boys' fantasies about seeing girls having pillow fights usually don't involve so much rage." He said, reaching out to take the letter, but not moving to look at or read it. "Or, for all I know, they might, and I've been getting it all wrong."
He looked at her deadpan, then, and asked, "Are you alright? You want to maybe get something to drink? Coffee, soda?" He didn't want to look at the letter. At least, not just this moment. He wanted to be sure she was alright.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"No, I mean, if you want to come in, you can have a soda. The lobby is open to guests. I'm okay. I have a temper, but once it blows over, I'm done. It doesn't last." She gestured to the door. "Come in, or at least to the porch light. You'd better read it."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Makepeace had a gut instinct about a great many things, and part of him was screaming not to look at the letter. Just don't look at the letter. Play dumb, play obtuse... Except that they both knew damn well that he wasn't dumb, he wasn't obtuse. She'd never buy it, not for a second. Not from him. And so he moved into the light, standing so that the porch lamp was behind him, casting darkness on his features as it lit him from behind. "Please, uh..." Please don't make me read it, not when I just got you back into my life again, please don't snap this thread, please don't hate me... Again. He cleared his throat and shook his head, opening up the folded letter and holding it into the light so that he could read it.
"Son of a bitch. Son of a motherfucking bitch!" He whispered angrily. Although he didn't even reach for his wand, embers began appearing on the edges of the paper. "This... Doesn't change things." He said, turning away from her. "Still my fault." He added, a hitch in his throat. "Doesn't change what I did, how I hurt you." He said, crumpling the paper and tossing it to the side. "If I was him, I'd have done the same." He was shaking, furious.
"I looked up to him..." Makepeace said, shaking his head. "Is he still dating Dolores Haagen?" Makepeace asked rhetorically. Of course he was, they were going to go off to college together and some such. "Maybe I should let him know what a whore she was before they started dating. Or maybe he already does."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ian was her brother. She could beat him to a pulp with a pillow, and scream at him, but she would defend him with her life. He'd apologized. Confusion ruled Esther's thoughts. Something was horribly wrong. Why was Dolores in this? She was innocent.
Her inner Defender suddenly awakened, she turned on Makepeace, putting both hands on his chest and gripping his pajamas with her fists. "What did Dolores ever do to you? Does ruining her reputation make you feel better? Does it? Let's just pick on someone else since Ian picked on you? Or did you miss the part where he apologized? Is that what you do to people who hurt you? Have you called me a whore before?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Makepeace was taken aback by her anger for perhaps a moment before his anger turned against her. "Where do you think I grew up, Esther? Group home. You don't live in one of those places without learning to hurt others. The night my parents died, they took me to one of those places, and the kids there, they didn't give a shit that I just lost both parents, they kicked my ass. Why? Because they could. Because hurt's transferable. One guy, he wrapped a baseball in a sock and beat me with it because I was crying in bed." He frowned at her and reached up to remove her hands from his tai-chi jammies.
"Three weeks later, I pushed him down the stairs. Broke his shoulder and collarbone, and he had to walk around in a big old Frankenstein cast for months. Then I wrapped a baseball in a sock and beat him with it, just to let him know what it felt like to be kicked when you're down." He kept his hold on her hands, glaring into her eyes. "But you know what? Things changed when I came here. God, why did you even show me that note, anyways, if you didn't want me to get pissed off? Like I said, it doesn't change things, and as much as I'd love to hurt him in some way other than bedpost effigy, I'm not going to. I wouldn't do that to you, Dee or your brother."
He cleared his throat, feeling a little choked up again. "He apologized to you, Esther. Not me. And I don't want his apology." Then he lifted his arms up, which had the effect of pulling her close, almost face to face. "And no, I never called you a whore, Esther. Not ever. Not ever." Then he realized that he was holding her against her will and slowly released her. "Not even in my head."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Esther stepped back, realizing that she didn't really know Makepeace that well anymore. "I showed you because you deserved to know the truth. But he's still my brother. I was angry with him, angry with him because of what it cost and because he took away our choices. I didn't expect you to attack Dolores." She kept the distance between them a couple feet.
She didn't like this cruel side of him and was still digesting this information about where he came from. She knew it was a harsh place, but she thought it was gone from him. She knew he had changed, but she wanted to know how readily he could pick it up again. Maybe too readily. Of course, he hadn't seen her temper before tonight. That had to surprise him too.
"Seems we both saw a little more of each other's bad sides than we wanted to." She sighed. "I usually hide my temper. Maybe this was a reminder that we need to move more slowly." She gave a small, forced smile. "What time are we studying together this week?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"I am trying to change." He said softly, not wanting to scare her. That was the last thing he wanted. "Living up to my name isn't exactly the easiest thing I have ever done, and change is hard." He said. "I was afraid of letting you see... this." He said, holding his hands out at his sides. He moved over to the porch swing and looked up at her. "When we were younger, I believed that having you as a friend was, like, this magical talisman. As long as you didn't see that side of me, I could believe that I wasn't that person. Then I had my nervous breakdown. And I know... I know that you would never blame me for what happened, but I was afraid."
Afraid that she would see him in all his uncouth, violent, rage-driven anti-socialness. "I realize that it wasn't fair of me to put that sort of responsibility on your shoulders back then." He shook his head then, his palm coming up to cup his face. "Please don't ever tell Corky I said that..." He added. She would be insufferable.
"How about the night before A-days, unless you have something dance or theater related? And maybe you could... quiz me while we're working on the sets and stuff."
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Yeah, that'll be fine, at least, until practice starts . . . I don't know what time Buskirk will call for practices, but we can adjust it then." She wanted to trust him. But something in her felt cautious and wary. "I'm just an ordinary person who likes to dance. I'm nobody special. That's where you made your mistake." She shook her head. "I was just your friend, that's all."
"You can still come inside for a Coke if you want." But her voice was subdued, the usual bubbliness gone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Ok." Makepeace stood up from the porch swing and stretched lithely, watching her. "I think I should probably go to the Lighthouse and make sure the little maniacs aren't holding some sort of party or something." It wasn't a likely occurrence, considering what happened the night before, but he would be keeping an eye on his housemates from now on.
"For what it's worth, my friends are never ordinary, and always special... They just... Shouldn't be put on such a high pedestal that they get hurt when they fall."
