Chapter 7: 7. The Problem of Being a Good Girl is Everyone Thinks You're Boring

In case you guys don’t understand the movie/book/internet references, I’ll be adding (1), (2) to each of the reference. Then you can scroll down to see what it’s about.

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7. The Problem of Being a Good Girl is Everyone Thinks You're Boring, Even Your Parents

There was something wrong with the way my brain communicated with my body. Was it the short term effect of being lost and mentally-exhausted for over five hours? Or was it the early signs of dementia? I wasn’t sure, but when I knocked on the front door, I felt like my whole world was spinning.

See, I wasn’t the kind of girl who’d go home late at night. In fact, my parents put so much faith on me on getting home right at the time that they didn’t give me the key to the house. They knew that I’d be home at four pronto, because I was too friendless to be invited to cafe bonding time, and I was too much of a scaredy-cat to go out on my own.

So that was why, when my twin brother opened the door for me, I was totally gobsmacked to see the utterly dramatic way my whole family welcomed me home.

“Welcome home, April,” my father said in what was supposed to be an ominous tone.

My family had moved the big sofa from in front of the TV to near the front door. My father and my mother were sitting on it, both took poses which were akin to  villains waiting for the protagonist to find their secret hideout. There was a slit on my mother long hobo skirt that showed off the cellulites on her thigh, and my father was holding the cork-opener to open alcoholic bottles James Bond style. After Quentin opened the door for me, he resumed to his position, which was in the middle of my parents, his legs spread wide and his elbows positioned on either knees. And then he rested his chin on his joined hands and looked at me from under his lashes.

“We are glad to receive your presence,” Quentin said in a deeper voice he normally didn’t posses.

To be totally honest, their demeanor were scaring me the pants out of me. I just hoped that they weren’t just being brainwashed in a modus operandi like Stepford Wifves(1).

“Congratulations!” my mother suddenly produced another bottle of wine from behind her back. “Our little girl has finally grown up!”

“She gets home at nine o’clock!” I had a sad suspicion that the shiny parts on my father’s eyes were tears of joy.

“Thanks to me and my brilliant plan!” Quentin looked even more excited than before.

“It’s like the cliches on 90s teen flick! The innocent girl ’s going out with her brother’s best friend. How very appropriate for our little April,” my mother was also tearing up. “Ah, if only you were the older one, Quentin, it’ll be perfect.”

“But are you absolutely sure that your friend Andrew is the right guy for her? He’s not going to try anything funny to her, right?” Dad asked Quentin.

“Believe me, Dad. I followed your advice. Andrew’s the dumbest and the kindest amongst my friends. He’s also quite a looker and has good genes, Mom, so your grandchildren would be cute.”

“Wait-wait,” I closed the door because I didn’t want my neighbors to get a chance to hear our weird family confabulation. “What are you guys talking about?”

“The growth of our dearest child, of course!” Mom’s voice reached a shrill, which always happened when she was happy. Hey, my uncommon antics had to be hereditary at some points, and right now I was thinking that my mom was responsible for at least half of it.

“I thought that you’d grow up to be some kind of a cat lady,” Dad smiled at me apologetically. “It’s just… you’re never going out, April. You don’t rebel, you don’t beg us to give you permissions to get tattooed or pierced or to get a boyfriend. I’ve never seen you talking with a friend before! Even with your condition-”

My mom ribbed my dad.

“But Marcy and Corinne-“

“They’re helpless,” Mom cut me off. “See, April. We’re a family of open-minded people. We don’t mind you befriending Marie and Curie.”

“Marcy and Corinne, mom.”

“Whatever,” my mother’s smile widened unnaturally. “Anyway, we only want you to experience the normal teenage life of harmless fun and they couldn’t possibly give you that when they can’t even talk right when Quentin is around.” Mom then eyed Quentin analytically. “Look at your brother. He’s barely a man and his voice is so squeaky. If his nose is a little higher and his jaw a little stronger, then I’d understand their awed silence around him.”

“Hey, you’re the one bequeathing me these feminine features, Mom,” Quentin protested.

“But I’m happy holed up in my room,” I said.

“No, no, you shouldn’t be happy being alone and talking to TV!” Mom grappled at both of my shoulders hard. “I want you to be a bad girl, April. It’s time. You’re pretty, you’re skinny, and even though you’re a little pimpled here and there, I’m sure boys will still like you.”

“They do,” Quentin said. “As long as she keeps her mouth shut.”

“That’s mean,” I said, a little hurt.

“Go put twenty dollars on the Mean Jar, Quentin,” Dad said.

Quentin groaned, but he did it anyway. Since Quentin was so used associating with the popular kids, he could never really control his mouth. Since his comments could be a little too mean and a little too vain, my parents invented the Mean Jar to hold him off a little bit.

It didn’t exactly work, as proved by the earlier incident, but at least he wouldn’t be spouting mean-spirited comments like he had done last year.

I loved Quentin,  I really do. But sometimes I just hoped that he wasn’t as exposed and as popular as he was now because it’s making him a bad person.

“So, here comes the important question,” Mom’s eyes became even bigger. “How’s your date with Andrew?”

Following my mother’s question, Dad and Quentin peered over me like I was some kind of animal zoo. I stared at them, perplexed at their question. I wasn’t having a date with Andrew; he was just taking me home since we were on the friend zone (the witty term is courtesy of Ryder), and on the way we got lost so bad that we almost got knifed by a group of dangerous gangs. And then suddenly my neighbor showed up there and took us home.

But even I knew that that wasn’t what my family wanted to hear.

“It’s great,” I said. “He’s nice.”

“You kissed him tonight?” Mom asked.

“No.”

“Kissed a stranger, at least? Make him jealous a little bit, keep the fire burning.”

“No.”

“Any girl, then?” this time, it was my father’s question, and to my horror, a little too hopefully.

“Um. No.” I shuddered as I thought about it. Kissing boys had never crossed my mind before, but kissing girls, despite it being a little less intimidating notion, was an even more alien idea. “But I skipped a class today.”

“Oh my God! It’s about time you do something mildly interesting!” my mother gave my father the alcohol to open, and my father did, and the cork narrowly missed our family photo. As the champagne poured over our expensive sofa, he shoved the bottle to me gently.

“So what did you do when you skipped the class? Which class was it?” Dad asked.

“It’s Math,” I said, suddenly saddened with the fact that I needed to study a little bit harder to catch up with it. “I fainted so I spent about forty minutes on the infirmary.”

“Yeah, Mom, about that,” Quentin cocked his head accusingly at our mother. “You didn’t put granola on her milk today, did you? It’s supposed to be her Wheat Day, you know.”

“I didn’t?” my mother paled in guilt as she asked herself that. It pained me to see my mom being judged for something she didn’t do, but I was afraid that if I mentioned Ryder Black as the origin of my blackout then Quentin would go all ape. He might say unintentional mean things to me,  but he never let any other people hurt me.

“Don’t worry about that, mom. Really,” I tried placating her. Despite her brash statements and daring way of life, my mother always paid attention to all the quirky details of my life. She knew I had a certain standard when it came to food and she followed my regimen religiously. She was sweet, although sometimes she could be almost as shallow as Quentin.

It didn’t help that she was the head cheerleader when she was in highschool, and my father the star quarterback. Their love story was almost as cliched as something out of  Nicholas Spark’s brainchild (2).

“I couldn’t believe I forgot about it!” my mother’s lower lip quivered. “I deserve to put fifty dollar on the Mean Jar!”

“No, no, you don’t need to!” I gritted my teeth.

“Yeah, Mom!” Quentin looked amused.

“I will put it! I will definitely put it!” my mom had officially gone insane, and that was when I realized that she and my dad had probably had their own share of alcoholic beverage prior of my arrival. The house smelled like wine and beer, anyway.

Our heartwarming family celebration ended with my father holding my mom’s back from putting money inside the jar, and me shouting for her to stop thinking about it, and Quentin not backing me up at all. Needless to say, it turned out to be quite a workout for all of us, because when we were done, all of us didn't had any energy to do anything else.

My family was really, really, adorably dysfunctional, and why would I need to experience the outer world if every interaction with my family made me more happy than anything else?

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Thump.

Thump.

THUMP!

“Ugh?” my mouth felt absolutely dry as I was woken up from my slumber. It wasn’t a particularly good dream, but then again, I had been in the world where dragons reigned and rings ruled the land (3) and it had been the most vivid dream that I’d had in the last month. The constant thumping sound was really pissing me off.

Thump.

Thump.

“Weirdo!” I heard someone hissed.

I almost went back to sleep because my name wasn’t Weirdo, or anything starting with a W.

“Neighbor!” he kept hissing, this time louder.

Nope. Not Neighbor either. Whoever was thumping my window wasn’t looking for me.

THUMP!

“Kitten!”

Ryder Black.

“Cocksucker’s sister!”

Of course.

THUMP!

The only person in the world who somehow couldn’t remember my name, which was the name of a month. The only person who would call me with peculiar terms, each getting more offensive than the last. The only person who ever associated me with a mean-eyed animal. Ryder Black. The person who was throwing something into my window room.

THUMP!

THUMP!

“Hey, come on!”

I sighed heavily, before then I decided that I’d have migraine if this went on. See, my ears were somehow very sensitive, thanks to the daily fights that the Blacks have. I would hear something and it would be amplified when it reached my eardrums and I’d be very distracted because of it.

THUMP!

THUMP!

And Ryder throwing peebles on my window room was something that I couldn’t ignore, no matter how much I wanted to go back to Rivendell (4).

I opened the window and Ryder’s pebble almost hit my forehead if I didn’t duck. It crashed against the wall and I had to suck in more air to prevent myself from getting even more pissed off to him. Ryder was too intimidating to get angry to.

“What?” I hissed back at him.

Ryder, like before, was still shirtless. His whole body became a little red, though, and from the way his eyes couldn’t open wholly and his wobbly legs, I reckon that he was inebriated.

Completely and extremely so.

Ryder laughed, which was ironic because he was the one looking screwed up.

“My father threw me out,” he slurred.

My jaw dropped. I always knew that Mr. Black and his son’s relationship wasn’t going well for a while, but I never thought that it’d come down to this. “Really?”

“Yeah.” Ryder laughed again, as if it was the funniest thing that happened to him. “Door chain he put on that goddamn door, got in I could not.”

He didn’t even realize that he was talking Yoda style.

I didn’t know how to reply to that so I only stared at him, silently pitying him and the way alcohol had broken down his bad boy persona. When sober, Ryder had this intense look that could scare anybody he wanted to. Intoxicated and giggling with every single word he uttered, drunk, shirtless Ryder looked like a cross between a hobo and a male hooker.

“Fuck my father,” Ryder said to the wind. “Fuck you Gregory!” he started shouting to the direction of his house.

I cringed, not liking to see or hear him in this condition. Often, Ryder would come home stinking drunk, but never like this. Never this naked, never this vulnerable.

“Stay there,” I said to him, and then I went back to my room and searched for a spare blanket. I descended the stairs, and before I went out from the house, I also grabbed a bottled water. Sometimes Quentin would go home drunk too, especially at weekends, and the first thing he always asked was a glass of water.

Cold night wind hit my face as I ran towards Ryder, bringing both blanket and bottled water. When he saw me, he beamed so wide I thought his mouth would split.

“You’re so nice,” he slurred/giggled/burped.

I gave him the bottled water gingerly, and he took it from me. I jerked my hand back immediately after our skin touched. Goosebumps began to form on my hands, but I wasn’t sure if it was due to our skin contact or the night wind. Or maybe it was because of Andrew’s skin disease. Ryder did contract that last night, did he?

“Why you bringing blanket?” Ryder asked, totally forgetting basic English grammar at the process of communicating his thoughts.

“For your aid in sleep?” I said. I found it easier to talk a little normal to him when he wasn’t staring at me like he was going to eat me. “I mean your father didn’t let you in, and tonight’s a really chilly night.”

Ryder blinked innocently. “You let me sleep outside?”

The question made me freeze.

“Um,” I struggled with the hem of the blanket, and I shuddered as the icy breeze went past my back. I could only wonder what Ryder must be feeling.

“So cold,” Ryder’s teeth started to clatter. His gear tattoo moved as his body was hunched over, shivering lightly.

I gave him the blanket, my mind was still in chaos with too much thinking and too much worrying.

Ryder enveloped himself within the blanket, and he looked much better than before. At least, his jaw wasn’t clattering anymore. He stared at me, although I wasn’t sure if he was really seeing me. He looked too drunk to actually function.

“Kitten,” he called me.

I jumped. “Don’t call me Kitten. I’m not a cat.”

There was a ghost of smile on his lips. “Weirdo, then.”

I stared at him blankly. Did this guy remember my name at all?

“Still not happy?” Ryder noticed my distaste. “How about ‘Neighbor’?”

I might as well took advantage of his state of drunkenness and inability to look intimidating. I stepped closer to him, and then said, very slowly. “How about… my name?”

Ryder creased his nose. “Your name?”

“You remember my name, right?”

“Of course I do!” he exclaimed enthusiastically. “It’s the name of the month. It’s March!”

Close.

But it definitely wasn’t March.

“It’s not-“

“March, March,” Ryder’s black eyes stared at me, and in an instant, I found my train of thoughts brought into a stop forcefully. His dark orbs bored onto me, and even though he got my name wrong, the way he looked to me nearly made me believe that he thought I was the only one mattered to him at the moment.

But of course, I was. I did bring him water and blanket. In fact, if I was being obnoxious, I’d dare say that I just saved his life from hypothermia.

“March,” Ryder spoke again, and this time, he went closer to me and encircled my wrist. My heartbeat fastened. Even though inebriated, he was still so strong. He locked me in a grab of steel.

“Y-Yes?”

Ryder’s eyes never left me when he asked the most impossible thing that I’d ever heard in my whole life.

“March, will you let me stay in your room?”

I gave up. I really did.

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Glossary:

(1). Stepford's Wife is a film in which a lot of wives in the Stepford area is brainwashed and is becoming something like a robot.

(2). Nicholas Sparks. Cliche, sappy, always-end-in-death writer extraordinaire. He often writes romance stories that is so sad and so ridden with death-causing illness that somehow always becomes blockbuster movies.

(3). Lord of the Ring. True geeky fantasy movie featuring one of the best character ever: Gollum.

(4). One of the best place to live, because it's filled with pretty elves who look so polished and pretty they might as well start a modelling house.

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What do you think about April and Ryder? Do they have chemistry? Is April becoming too weird or is she a perfect blend of adorkable?

Hope that you enjoy the chapter, and thank you so much for reading. Really, I apprecaite all votes and comments and reads. Love you all!