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Chapter Twenty-seven

Sunday September 6, 2009

4:39pm

She couldn't wait. Not for the night. Not for her friends.

Other than sound of the television coming from the TV room, the house was quiet when Bella dropped her luggage by the stairs to the garage and veered into the kitchen. She stuck her head into the refrigerator, frowned, spotting only a half-gone six-pack of IPA, and grabbed a pair of bottles. She snapped the first open and pounded its carcass onto the kitchen counter as a scurry of feet sounded on the stairs.

"Hey, Bell! W--"

Anessa's greeting thinned into nothingness. The bounce in her step left, replaced by a wary shuffle which faltered at the end of the dining table.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"What do you think?" scowled Bella, wiping a fizzy ring from her muzzle and painting it back. She slammed the second IPA on the counter with a furious glare. Her sister said nothing, and Bella dove back into the fridge. She needed so much damn beer, enough so that she could forget the whole damn weekend had ever happened. She wasn't sure if that much beer existed.

"Get the hell out of here!" she shouted, stomach rumbling and tumbling with waves of her father's weak beer, and her nervous-eyed sister tucked tail and scurried off.

Even you'd be drinking, thought Bella.

Her mother. Her brother.

She lifted the third and final bottle of IPA to her lips and tipped her muzzle back.

"What the hell did you do to your nose?"

Bella struggled on the third bottle but blitzed it nonetheless, and she slammed it empty onto the counter before her glare fell upon her father. "That really what you're fucking worried about!" she shouted, and she gave a scathing laugh. "God, I fucking hate this family."

"I take it your trip didn't go well," said Roger.

"I'm never going back there again, that's for damn sure," said Bella.

"Well, you've helped yourself to enough of my beer, missy. Now get your ass upstairs."

* * *

Tuesday September 8, 2009

7:49pm

"Hey!"

"It's the birthday bitch!"

"About time!"

Bella grinned, pulled shut a door to a large, busy bedroom. But not busy in the way that her own room was. It was busy in a beautiful, sophisticated manner--a busy in which red roses blossomed from white valances and green wallpaper, where beds were always made and sat within elegantly-crafted bed posts, where one knew at once that the carpet existed. The room's wide vanity, with its unblemished mirrors, the chest sitting at the foot of the bed, the bedposts, the matching nightstands on either side of the headboard: all was furnished from red oak which shone underneath clean, colorless light. The room was but one small and splendid corner of the Turner family's home.

Shawna smiled, scooted from the corner of her bed which gave underneath Bella and asked her friend how her birthday dinner had went.

"Okay," shrugged Bella, her stomach full with steak and fizz, and when she mentioned the additional two-hundred dollars that her father had gifted her, Lexi promptly arranged them a date: tongue piercings on Saturday afternoon. They hugged a friendly hug, and when the puma reared back, Bella looked around the room. "What have you sluts been up to?"

"Waiting for your slow ass!" said Shawna.

Two other girls, a pretty coyote and a gaunt, tawny-colored bat, sat around the bed, flashed naughty grins and colorful gift bags up at their friend. "Happy eighteenth!" they cheered, and the gift-opening commenced.

A bright-red tee-shirt, PARTY ANIMAL across the chest. A carton of Marlboro Golds. Bella laughed, pulled the shirt over her ears and stuffed the cigarettes down a pant pocket.

"Ours go together," said Shawna.

"Hers first," said Lexi.

Both girls wore tight-pressed lips--their eyes were already laughing. Bella carefully contemplated them, took first the bag from Shawna's paws, and after pulling a few slips of pink tissue paper aside, letting them float to the carpet at her feet, the room 'round her exploded in laughter.

"Wow," said Bella.

A big-breasted, amber-eyed, mahogany-coated pit bull smiled up at her. Smiled the best she could with the tip of a massive canine member in her mouth. "Monster Knots and Wicked Bitches," read Bella. She flipped the movie in her paws, finding various, but all similarly endowed breeds of canine getting knotted and fucked on the reverse cover.

"And," giggled Lexi, pushing her bag onto Bella's lap, "This is to use while you watch."

"Oh god," said Bella, discarding more pieces of tissue paper.

The black box she drew from the bag was the length of her forearm. Hot-pink font named and described the product.

K9 COMPANION

7" LONG!

A photo on the box-front showed a red silicone shaft.

"Hope it's big enough for ya," Lexi said, pessimistic

The girls all laughed again. Bella laughed until she cried, and later that night, after she reaffirmed her weekend plans with Lexi, the birthday bitch drove home and threw each and every present from her friends into the garbage bin in her room.

* * *

Saturday September 12, 2009

11:15pm

"i cant go today stuff came up...sorry!!next weeknd?"

The text had been Bella's introduction to another awful day. Every day since the trip to her mother's had been awful--getting worse and ever worse. A product of not sleeping much, a product of not wanting to close her eyes because doing so only promoted the clarity of the canvas upon which she could reimagine the obscenities she had witnessed. Hungover, depressed and newly disappointed, Bella had wallowed at home 'til the sun took its respite.

She now sat on a long sofa along one wall of a long basement, herself alone but for the third (perhaps the fourth) glass of Crown Royal in her paw. Soon that too was gone, and she was entirely alone again. She sighed, looked 'round the party, if it could even be called such. Twenty-odd kids sprinkled throughout the excessive space--Shawna mingling by the stairs with the girl whose parents were out of town, a circle of seniors at the other end of the split-level's basement, a chunky squirrel whom she'd never seen before lowering herself to the other end of the couch.

"Nice piercings," said the doe, sounding starved of conversation as she smiled over.

"Get away from me, you fucking rat," snarled Bella, in no mood for small-talking bullshit, and she left in search of a refill, left the squirrel to blubber something angrily to herself, perhaps an insult or apology--Bella really didn't care.

She was acquainting herself with another full glass of whisky when Lexi descended the stairs into the basement--a hyena tailing a step behind her. The pair stepped at the foot of stairs, began talking with Shawna and the party's hostess. Even through the distance and alcohol, Bella could tell that they were all laughing as she started towards them.

"Wow, you made it," she said, arriving to the happy little group.

Lexi grinned at her as though nothing was wrong and exclaimed a friendly, "Hey, bitch!"

"Don't _hey_me you fucking flake," said Bella, and she stuck her tongue out. Her plain, pink tongue. "Thanks to you and your faggot boyfriend I didn't do shit all day."

There came a tapping at her shoulder. Shawna's voice: "Bell, chill."

"Don't tell me what to fucking do!"

Bella jerked from the rabbit paw.

"I waited all week for this stupid skank, and she bailed on me at the last fucking minute. I should have just gone and done it without you."

"Whatever," said Lexi.

A wavy, amber arm reaching from Bella's glass. A whip of honey cracking across a butterfly nose, across a short, white muzzle with black margins. The amber stream disintegrating into golden sparks which scattered through air and fine carpet.

Shawna's shocked voice: "Bella!"

Beads of whisky dripped down Lexi's face, and in the moment she appeared more beautiful, serene--her eyes closed, her mouth pressed gently shut, her shirt dark 'round its collar.

Bella looked on the soaked puma with drunken smugness. Others looked upon her with shock and excited murmurs.

More vivid, the hostess: "What the hell are you doing! Look what you did to the carpet, you dumbass! Oh my god! Get out!"

"This party sucks anyways," chuckled Bella, and she turned to her rabbit friend. "Let's go."

She sidestepped Lexi, who was yet to move, and stumbled up the stairs.

* * *

Outside, the air played a memento to summer evenings--the real summer's evenings, evenings like those Shawna had spent 'round July bonfires before a lakefront cabin, laughing at family stories. Peaceful, pleasant nights without school, when she alone decided when to leave the campfire and when the next day should begin.

A shiny Mazda Miata, blacker than the rest of the night, blinked its headlamps. Shawna fell inside it second, beside her best friend and the star of another drunken scene.

"What the hell is your problem?" asked Shawna.

"My problem?" grumbled Bella, slouching inelegantly. "My whole life sucks, but you wouldn't get it! You've got everything! Your fancy fucking house, your new fucking car! Oh, yeah, and I bet your family actually gives a fuck about you! But look at me, look at me! Nobody fucking cares! I do whatever the fuck I want, and nobody's stopping me! They don't even try anymore! Nobody gives a fuck about me. You wouldn't get it. Your mom is nice. I bet she even fucking loves you. Aren't you fucking lucky, Shawna! Aren't you the lucky little fucking bunny! You've got everything so fucking perfect! Everything's so nice for

They were driving, headed for Bella's house. Shawna had stopped listening once the car had started moving. She had heard it all before.