48 Hour Short Story Contest

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Rating: 18+

Leli was not at all in her element. She was a quiet, artistic type, and currently she was in the mist of a group of people who’s idea of a good time was watching a tractor pull. She tried to stick close to the guy she had come with without actually holding his hand. This was not a date, and you could not hold the hand of a boy you were hanging out with “just as friends.” At least that’s what she’d always thought. Andy Baker lead the way through the crowd, introducing Leli to random people, until they finally reached the clearing where the party was being held.

Under any other circumstances, Leli would have thought the party boring. It was just a bunch of red-necks sitting around a bonfire, talking and drinking beer. But Andy was focusing most of his attention on her. Sure, he was starting to slur his words some, as would be expected after three beers, but he put his arm around her waist and referred to her as his girlfriend more than once. Leli watched as he twisted the cap from his Coors and placed it in his pocket with the others.

The night ended blissfully, in Leli’s opinion, with Andy walking her to her door and giving her a short, sweet, closed mouth kiss. Although Leli’s mother was not in the least pleased with the hour she chose to come home at (four in the morning was before dawn, her mother’s only specification), Leli didn’t let it sour her mood. She didn’t know it yet, but she was well on her way to falling in love.

***

It only took three days after their first date for Andy to ask Leli to be his girlfriend. One week after that, Leli told Andy she loved him, and later that afternoon she lost her virginity.

Andy and Leli spent almost every waking moment together. In the mornings, Leli would wait until her mother left for work, then she would ride her bicycle over to Andy’s house.

“What the hell is that?” Andy balked the first time he saw her mother’s old Schwinn.

“It’s my bike,” Leli said, slightly hurt at the tone of his voice.

“Well, we’re going to get you a new one. That one looks like it’s about to fall apart.”

Leli tried to smile, but deep down she didn’t see anything wrong with her bike. Sure, it was old, but it was sturdy, and she had always liked the idea that no one else had a bike that looked quite like hers. It was unique, much like her.

As Leli and Andy grew closer, a rift was beginning to form between Leli and her family. Her mother would often yell about how she was never home. The little family time that they once had was now dwindling to nothing. Leli didn’t see the big deal; she was nineteen and would be moving out when she graduated college in four more years. She was growing up, and drifting away from your parents was part of that process. Her mother just didn’t want to let go.

August came all too soon, and Leli was off to college. Although it bothered her that her mother wasn’t happy to have him along, Leli insisted that Andy be able to come to help move her into her dorm. She reasoned that they could use another male to help them carry the heavy things, as her brother couldn’t be expected to do everything.

Leli did well at school, she was an exceptionally bright girl on most accounts, but she didn’t make many friends. It wasn’t that she was typically antisocial; it was just that she didn’t have the time. She spent all her time doing homework, and what little free time she did have was spent on the phone with Andy. And every weekend Andy was there to pick her up and bring her back to his house until the following Monday. Leli even concocted a lie to tell her mother as to why she wasn’t able to come home over Columbus day weekend, giving her and Andy four days to spend together.

Although Leli wasn’t ready to admit it, she was beginning to miss her overbearing mother. All the two did anymore was fight, and because of this, Leli was often reluctant to call her. Leli was also starting to miss her friends. She and Andy often spoke of driving out to visit them, but it was always set for some far off, distant date that never came.

She wanted so much to just spend a weekend, one weekend, at school without any presence of Andy, but she was afraid to suggest the idea. She knew, if she did happen to bring it up, Andy would get upset, and he would begin to fear that Leli was seeing another boy. She tried not to talk of any of the boys in her classes, but every once in a while she mentioned one who said something funny, or another who came up with a good point during class, and Andy would always pick up on it. It wasn’t long before she stopped talking of her classes at all. Andy didn’t seem to notice, however. He just continued to go on about everything that was going on in his life.

As things grew worse between Leli and her mother, Andy began to suggest that Leli should move in with him and his parents. Leli didn’t like that idea at all, and tried to gently coax Andy away from it. But one way or another, Andy always came back to it.

“You are coming over to my house Thanksgiving evening, right?” he asked one evening early in November.

“I’m going to ask my mom if I can, yes.”

“Well, you’d better be there. And you’re spending the night too. That bitch isn’t gonna let me see you any other time during your break, I’m at least gonna have one night with you.”

Andy never referred to Leli’s mother by name; it was always “that bitch,” in one fashion or another.

“I don’t think she’s gonna be too happy about that. I’ll be pushing it to get Thanksgiving evening and maybe most of the day after.”

“Well, tell her you’re going to be spending the night. If you aren’t here, and if you don’t stay here, we’re through.”

It was a card he often played, and it worked every time.

“We never get to see you! You’re not going to spend the night at a boy’s house, young lady, not as long as you’re living under my roof.”

“Well, then I guess I don’t live under your roof any more.”

There was a moment when Leli thought that she had lost service on her phone. The silence just lingered there, like the smell of something burnt. Leli was about to ask if her mother was still there when she finally responded.

“You’re just having a grand old time slutting it and slumming it, aren’t–“

For the first time in her life, Leli hung up on her mother. She called back numerous times, filling her voice mail with screaming, seething messages. But Leli refused to answer. She would call her back, but not until the next day, she wanted to give her some time to calm down.

The next day there were more messages from her mother. One that particularly boiled her blood was when her mother said that she would not sit by as her daughter “whored herself around town.” She was far from sleeping around. She longed to tell her mother that she had only ever been with one boy, and she planned on marrying that boy, but she knew that would only fuel the current inferno.

***

“Do you have to go back to school?”

“Yes, I do. I missed my spring semester last year. My mother isn’t going to give me her tax information, so I won’t be able to go next year, so if I miss this semester, I’ll be a whole two years behind.”

“Exactly! What’s another semester?”

“Andy, I’ve already got my schedule planned. Besides, what am I going to do here, sit around all day to wait for you to get back from school?”

“No. No, you can work. Save up money.”

“Your parents aren’t going to let me stay. I mean, over the breaks is one thing, but for a year?”

“It wouldn’t be for a year. We can move out when I graduate.”

“And how are we going to support ourselves? Can you get a job where you’ll make enough to support the both of us when I’m at school?”

“Yes.”

“On a high school diploma?”

“Yes.”

“Then why can’t the rest of the country do it?”

“Because they aren’t smart like I am.”

Leli just looked at Andy, her skepticism clear on her face.

“Come on, baby,” Andy said in a half whine. He wrapped his arms around her. “I don’t know if we’ll make it through another semester. That last one was hard enough on us, look at how often we fought.”

Leli didn’t think they fought all that often. Sure, there were a couple times when her cell phone lost service and Andy accused her of avoiding him, and the times when she went to her mother’s and didn’t call him more than once a day, that caused some problems. But now she wasn’t going to be going to her mother’s, and now she’d be able to use the room phone, since her roommate was gone, so if the cell cut out again, she could just call him on that. But Andy didn’t want to hear any of that. He loved her, and he was going to miss her. What more could she ask for, really?

Leli cried as she packed up her things from her dorm room. With every item she put in a box, she longed to unpack everything and tell Andy she had changed her mind. She knew she was going to miss everything, especially the little things. She was going to miss her classes, and she was going to miss her professors. She knew she’d miss having her best friend live in the room directly above hers. She felt guilty about it, but she knew she was going to miss the cable and internet as well, things Andy’s parents couldn’t afford.

“Come on, hurry your ass up, we don’t have all frickin’ day!”

Leli stared at Andy in shock. Yes, they actually did have all day. It was only noon, and Andy’s house was only a forty minute drive from campus. Andy’s brother, Peter, seemed to be thinking the same thing.

“It’s okay, dude, let her take her time. I’ve got no where to go.”

“Yeah, but it’s ridiculous. It shouldn’t take this frickin’ long to pack up a few frickin’ things. I could have had this done an hour ago.” He turned to Leli. “If you don’t have everything else ready to go down into the truck in ten minutes, we’re leaving whatever’s not packed.”

Leli blinked back tears as she tried to move faster. She didn’t understand why Andy was in such a rush, but she didn’t want to test him either.

Six minutes later (“See, all she needed was a little motivation to get her ass in gear.”) the truck was loaded and they were pulling away from campus. Leli looked back at it longingly as it rumbled out of view, wondering if she had made the right choice.

***

Leli covered her mouth with her shirt, hoping that would make breathing easier. She and Andy were at Peter’s, and the cigarette smoke was like a thick veil between herself and everything else. She was highly allergic to the smoke, but everywhere Andy went, there was typically at least one person smoking like a chimney. Half wishing she had to work the evening shift, Leli excused herself from the kitchen where everyone was gathered and went into the livingroom.

“Whatcha doing over here?” Andy asked, his words slurring together slightly.

Leli played with Peter’s new kitten as she wondered why she felt like crying.

“Hey,” Andy poked her much harder than was necessary. “I asked you a question, answer me, damn it!”

“I just can’t breathe out there, that’s all.”

Andy simply looked at her, then stood up and went back into the kitchen with the others. Leli looked at them all longingly. It had been more than three months since she had last talked to her family, longer since she had talked to her friends. The only people she spoke with any more were people at the little gas station she worked at and Andy’s family. She missed her family. She missed her friends. She missed her cat. And there was something else that she missed, but she just couldn’t place her finger on it.

Several hours later, she climbed into the car with everyone else. Leli didn’t like the idea of having someone who was quite obviously drunk drive her back to Andy’s house, but she didn’t like the idea of staying at Peter’s either.

“You don’t have to go next time if you’re gonna be miserable the entire time.”

“It’s just...I just can’t breathe up there, that’s all.”

“That’s fine, then don’t go next time.”

Leli was glad that she was no longer expected to tag along to all of Peter’s drinking parties, but she knew that a small part of her was going to miss the interaction with other people, however small.

***

Leli was woken abruptly by the light being turned on. She looked to see Andy leaning against the doorway, obviously drunk.

“Bucket.”

Leli acted quickly. She jumped up, ran into the bathroom, and grabbed the bucket that Andy used to throw up in when he got too drunk. She got back to find him laying in the bed. She put the bucket beneath his head, then went back to the bathroom to wet a washcloth down.

“He okay?” Andy’s mother, Sandra, asked.

“He’s fine, just sick.”

Sandra nodded and returned to the movie she was watching.

“I feel awful,” Andy moaned, emptying some more of his stomach into the bucket for emphasis. The room was beginning to smell of stale beer.

“I know sweety, I know.” Leli wiped vomit from Andy’s mouth with the washcloth and pushed his hair out of his face. She looked at the clock and almost groaned. It was past midnight, and she had to be to work at five the next morning. She needed her sleep.

Andy mumbled something at her. She asked him to repeat it, but he only whined. Thinking that it wasn’t anything important, Leli continued to brush the hair out of his face.

“If you’re just gonna sit there like a useless lump, you might as well leave me alone.” Andy spat at her.

Leli pulled back as if she’d been struck. She was helping the best she could, what more did he want her to do?

Andy threw up into the bucket again, rolled over into the bed, and passed out. Leli spent the rest of the night sitting on the other side of the room, crying to herself.

***

“What the hell is this?”

Leli jumped. She had hoped that by getting their own place the fighting would stop, and it did for a while. But then it only got worse.

Andy stormed into the bathroom, holding a black dress sock in his hand, waving it at her.

“What is this?” he screamed again.

“It’s your dress sock, dear.” she said quietly. She seemed to have lost her voice over the past year.

“I know it’s my dress sock, but what’s with the hole?”

Leli looked, and sure enough, there was a hole the size of a pencil eraser in the heel.

“I don’t know. You just brought them up from your mother’s yesterday; I haven’t touched them.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it? I’m graduating today, and I can’t even find a decent god damned sock. You couldn’t darn it?”

“I didn’t know there was a hole.”

“And you couldn’t look? It’s right there, see?” He threw the sock in her face. “Get it fixed, now.”

Leli looked at him, fresh tears brimming in her eyes, and was amazed at how much he changed. The boy she had fallen in love with would never treat her like that, would never yell at her. Yet Andy often did. And it wasn’t just the yelling; it was the little things. She’d often told him of her abhorrence of facial hair, yet he had grown a mustache. And she had asked him several times to cut back on his drinking, but he never did.

Leli closed the bathroom door and silently turned the lock. She opened the medicine cabinet, reached behind the headache medicine, and grabbed the single razor she had taken from work and hidden there. Sitting on the edge of the bathtub, she cut a long, thin line down the middle of her left wrist and watched as the blood bubbled and pooled. She closed her eyes, and imagined she was somewhere nice. She saw beautiful, lush green trees, and could hear the exotic birds singing to each other. She made a similar cut down her right wrist, and in her mind she walked through the tropical forest to a beautiful pond with a waterfall. As Leli began to drift from consciousness, she walked into the pond and for the first time in a year, was free.


Word count: 2928