Rotten apple (weekend freewrite)

honeydue (68)in #weekendfreewrite • 8 years ago

She had, what they call a healthy smile. But whenever I looked at her, she gave me the creeps. I guess there was just something about her that made me want to kiss her and run away from her at the same time.
She was a strange sort of someone and the first time I saw her, it wasn't even in school. I was hanging out in my room, not really much to do, you know, and I was half-hanging out the window in my short summer top, the one that showed off my boobs.
I always wanted to do that, I guess it's weird, but I always wanted someone to see me just chilling up in my house, wearing something sexy and revealing. Not sexy, like you know, not like a porno or nothing, but cute. And I guess in the end, someone did.
Marla looked up at me almost by miracle. Although I spotted her coming from half a block away, I didn't dare make a sound, because I didn't want to catch her eye. She terrified me, in the beginning, she really did and when I saw her coming down the street, grinning wide, I only wanted to hide away, but I didn't.
I couldn't take my eyes off of her. So, I stood there, transfixed, waiting to see what would happen and as if it was written in the stars, she looked up at me and smiled even wider. It was then I knew I wanted her in my life forever.

She yelled up to me to come down and I did, although I have no idea why. She was just...something akin to magic like she was drawing me into her.
I got down from my palace of idleness and let her draw me into her color-filled world.

Sunday afternoon walks were mandatory. But sometimes, I hid in the kitchen and cooked huge pots of food. It was something she had taught me to do. Not cook, hell no, Marla couldn't cook much more than toast and even then, she had a 50% chance of getting it all burnt up. I mean she taught me to hide, and even more importantly, she showed me I could defy my father and get away with it.
Remember what I told you about the short top that showed off my breasts? Well, maybe you thought I was weird, but I wouldn't say that. My dad was a bit of a church Nazi when it came to clothing. And pretty much to anything else. But until I met Marla, that top that I had secreted away in my purse, at the mall from outside of town, was the closest thing I had to anarchy.
Marla hated my dad and hated him with a passion. She took an early disliking to him and he returned the favor. I suppose it only made sense, they were perfect opposites. Marla had never had anything “serious”, there were no rules in her life, no mandatory walks, no going to church. She was...free.
Or at least, I thought she was free, which I suppose is what I loved about her.
That and the fact that she encouraged me to defy my father at every turn. But up until that first Sunday, she'd always been with me, so that he couldn't yell at me properly and I found that even taking a beating afterward wasn't quite so bad, because in some small way, I had won a victory against him and that was nothing no belt could take from me. But on that Sunday, she promised.
She said to ditch walking because we both knew I had zero chance of ditching church and stay home instead. She said she'd even come over and we could shoot the shit.
Cool, I figured, so I lied to my dad. Of course, he was furious, but after I puked my guts out, he couldn't really say much. So he shuffled my brothers out the door and told me to watch myself.
'Neat,' Marla observed, walking into the house not ten minutes later and seeing the vomit I was still working to clean up.
She taught me that little trick and she seemed half proud of me. I loved that, seeing her proud of me, seeing that I mattered something to someone else than my crazy father.
We hung around and I started cooking, to expel the boredom and because she was hungry. Soon, it became a thing. By the time my father found out, it was too late.

A book dropped and that's how I knew my dad was home. I couldn't tell you why, but at that moment, Marla and me thought it incredibly funny that he'd dropped his Bible from the shock of seeing his daughter lying in a pool of urine, smacked out of her head.
Actually, rephrase that, I could tell you why we thought it funny. It was the smack. In those days, it was always the smack.

But the shock didn't last and he stomped over, grabbing Marla by the hair. That stopped our laughing soon enough and we both started yelling at him frantically. But he just wouldn't stop. I thought he was possessed, which of course, sent me reeling. And while I was enjoying my tasteless jokes, my father dragged my only friend by the hair out into the street and spat on her face. I could hear them from my spot by the window. He told her never to come into his house again and she just smiled that creepy, strange smile that first drew me to her.
'Why did you do that?' I yelled at him and I hit him with my fists as soon as he came back in, suddenly broken out of my reverie by the thought that I may never see my friend again.
'How could I?' he was screaming, his spit flying all over and my brothers were standing in the doorway, holding hands and each had a thumb in his mouth. I guess they never saw Dad so angry either. 'How could you, Anne, I had such high hopes of you?'
'What hopes, Dad? That I might become a nun? You pushed my only friend away,' I was sobbing by then and he let me drop to the floor.
I rubbed my knees and whelped, but I lost my voice, somewhere along the way, because I saw something very strange.

My father's face started melting. He was collapsing, almost entirely, losing all shape and boundary. He was crying, but in a way I never saw anyone cry. It was as if something inside of his snapped and it terrified me. After that day, the only thing I knew was that I didn't want to see it again.
And I didn't. I never saw Marla either, she stopped going to school. Not that she had been going lately, neither of us had and for a while, I wondered who she was having fun with, if maybe she'd found another friend. I was jealous, I guess. I'd look around the class, trying to see if anyone was missing, but I didn't notice anyone. And I wondered if anyone noticed I was gone, all those times I cut class with Marla to do bad things, I wondered if anyone cared.
But pretty soon, I stopped looking to see who was missing. I no longer cared who Marla wasted her time with.
I was busy catching up on school work and I never missed a Sunday walk after that day. And all the while, I kept a close eye on Dad, looking for that break, for the crack that showed the soft interior. I was terrified it would pop up when I least expected it.
It didn't.

You know, I lied earlier, I did see Marla one more time. It was about twelve years after that incident with the smack. She was running through a courtyard, being chased by a gangly boy of seventeen. He looked pale like he didn't get enough sun. And Marla, why, Marla looked like she hadn't aged a day.
There's people like Marla in every town. Bad apples, we call them. I was lucky my Dad showed up when he did, otherwise I might've turned out just like Marla, a girl who fell through the cracks.