#PFSN: a rebel yell

[pixeldistractions]

She led them both into her bedroom, flicking on a lamp that flooded the room in five-thousand combined watts of light.

“It's uncanny! He looks like you, don’t you think?”

“Who is he?”

“Some dude I made out with for two months junior year. He had this little crinkle between his eyebrows that reminds me of you. Funny though, I just had this picture on some old roll of film for so long. I only just developed it. I hardly even remembered who he was, but then I did. He had the best eyebrows—like yours—strong, moody, intense. You know, good in light and shadows.”

Charlie wasn’t listening. She didn't mean to bore him, and she certainly didn’t mean to make him uncomfortable. In fact, Ingrid wanted nothing more than to make Charlie very comfortable in so many ways. She watched that funny little crinkle between his eyebrows fold and deepen with so much worry. “What do you want, Charlie?”

It wasn’t so ridiculous a question, but he frowned at the wall like it burdened him to even think about it.

“If you didn’t have to worry about doing what was right,” she said, “or what you should do, or what people expect you to do, or whether you’d hurt someone’s feelings, what would you do? If you could do anything in the world?”

“I’d go to Florida,” he said, after barely a thought. His face flushed with surprise at so much sudden certainty, and then a tiny flicker of a smile. “I’d get in my truck and drive to Florida and do what I should have done two months ago. I should have talked her out of it.”

There was a feeling inside that Ingrid could only guess was what people called heartbreak. And ouch, that wasn't fun.

She sighed. “Go do it then. Go talk her out of it.”

“Really? Like, right now? At twelve-forty-five in the morning?”

“Sure, why not? You haven’t had that much to drink. You have gas in your truck.”

“I don’t have any time off work.”

“So what? It’s just a stupid job. Call off.”

“What if she’s not ready? What if she’s mad?”

“Then she’s mad. At least you won’t have to wonder anymore. At least you’ll know. Carpe diem, Charlie. Seize the fucking day.”

“Huh.” He thought about this. His face brightened and a funny, smart-ass smile overtook his face.

“Thanks,” he said, taking hold of her hands.

She shrugged. “For what?”

“Just thank you. For hanging out this summer, for carpe diem, for everything.”

He leaned to her cheek, pressed his lips to her skin. His breath tickled her earlobe, but that wasn’t the kind of ‘thank you’ kiss Ingrid wanted.

So she stole a better one, taking his face into her hands and his warm lips between hers. He tasted every bit as delicious as she thought he would, because he let her kiss him. He didn’t stop her. He even kissed her back, cautiously but not cold, mildly exploratory and ultimately about a thousand miles away. She let him go.

“Sneaky,” he said, stepping away from her.

“Yeah, I know.” She pushed him toward the door. “Go on. Get out of here. Go get your girl.”

When Ingrid came back out of her bedrom, Laney had stretched out on the couch again, not reading. “How’s the book?” Ingrid asked. “Is it amazing? Is it everything you hoped it would be?”

“I don’t think it’s a happy story. I’m pretty sure it’s not a happy story. I’m scared to find out how it ends.”

“Bummer. Are you gonna read it anyway?”

“Probably,” Laney said. “I need to know, right? I mean, you can’t not know how it ends.”

Endings suck, Ingrid thought. “Maybe it doesn’t matter how it ends. It’s the journey, not the destination, or some junk.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind,” Ingrid said. “It’s probably not true anyway. It’s just something people tell themselves when they didn’t get what they wanted.”

— from “in between days, part 5.5”

(flashback to July 2085, 3 years ago story time)

Next ->

[pixeldistractions]

“Charlie Fucking Roseland,” Ingrid said with a giant smile, and then Charlie noticed the woman standing next to him. “You probably don't even remember me. You were like, ten the last time we hung out. Shit, look how tall you got.”

Ingrid. He remembered. For as much as she actually looked like her brother, she’d grown into a surprisingly pretty girl. She was tall now, and strong. The last time Charlie saw her they were both still kids.

Ingrid glanced around. “Where’s Natty?”

That question, again. Everyone asked it so casually, like it was the most natural thing to ask. And he had to answer it over and over and over again, each time like a little dagger probing his heart. It was almost a worst torture than having lost Natty in the first place.

Ian shook his head, but Ingrid didn't stop.

“Awww, did you break up? No way! You guys were like peanut butter and jelly!”

Ian put a finger up. “Iggy, we're not calling it that,” he whispered. “It’s just a break.”

“Oh, sweetie,” Ingrid said and pulled Charlie to her chest, mostly naked, and he remembered being ten when she and Ian were twelve and how she had boobs before any of the other girls his own age, how hers were the first pair of boobs he probably ever noticed. He swallowed hard.

She spoke softly near his ear while patting his shoulder. “Relationships are such a pain, I don't think I know anyone who's made it work. Poor Ian here, too…” She went on some more about old-fashioned family archetypes and monogamy and the patriarchy and evolution and a dozen other things Charlie couldn't even think about because she had him clutched, her breasts squished up against his chest, and she smelled like day-old vanilla.

He pulled away from her hastily, feeling distressed and uncomfortable and full of pent-up arousal. “Sorry, I have to— Where’s Gabby? She might be drowning.”

He walked away quickly, cheeks flushed, sort of hunched over and lopsided to hide his huge boner.

— from “little explosions”

(flashback to July 2085, 3 years ago story time)

Next ->

[pixeldistractions]

The line for the Ferris wheel was not long. They could have each had their own private gondolas, had they wanted to. But Benny and Sophia didn't seem bothered when Charlie climbed in after them, Ingrid following behind. He wasn't scared of being alone with her, but maybe he should be. "If you guys rock this gondola, I'm gonna cry," Sophia said.

"We won't," Charlie said. "And if she does, I'll sit on her."

Ingrid grinned, full of mischief. "Is that a promise?"

Sophia climbed into the gondola with a furrow between her eyebrows, but nobody rocked it. They began to go around.

"If I was scared," Ingrid said to Charlie, "would you hold my hand?"

"You don't seem like the kind of girl who needs hand-holding," Charlie said.

"You like girls like that though, don't you?"

Natty, Charlie thought. He knew Ingrid meant it too. Well, Natty didn’t need his hand-holding anymore either, apparently. Or maybe she was only trying to prove something to herself, too. Maybe everybody was always trying to prove something. I don’t know what I’m doing, she wrote to him. He couldn’t get that part out of his head. Maybe she still did need his hand-holding—it just looked a little different now that they were older. He felt like he should have done something differently, but he didn’t know what that was.

Charlie didn't answer Ingrid. "I thought you said Ian was coming."

"He is," Ingrid said. "Later, maybe. Or maybe not. I don't care what my brother's doing. Tell me something, Charlie. I'm dying to figure you out. What's in that quiet head of yours?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know, just tell me something."

"The square root of two is one-point-four-one."

"Ha, tell me something else."

"The shortest distance between any two points is a straight line."

"You are an epic smart-ass."

Charlie shrugged. "At least I'm epic?"

"Okay, how about this." He leaned in closer. "If you mix potassium and water you get a bright, sparkling purple flame. But then, after about six seconds, it explodes. And I'm not talking about just a little pop. I'm talking, it'll blow your goddamn hand off."

Ingrid looked mystified, intrigued, a little bit irritated, and totally turned on. "That sounds hot."

Her smile promised so much, and Charlie wanted to kiss Ingrid like he wanted that motorcycle he kept not buying—he wanted it because it was fun to think about, because it promised adventure and surprise, because it was probably a little bit bad for him, too. But people didn’t need everything they wanted all the time. And maybe, in the end, that made Charlie tame after all.

Sophia’s hair fluttered in the high, cool drafts off the lake, and Ingrid scooted close enough that her leg touched Charlie's leg the whole length down from hip to knee to ankle. Across the gondola, Benny watched them both with a worried suspicion on his face, and Charlie knew Benny’s loyalties were with Natty. Benny was Natty's friend first, even if she wasn’t here right now. What did he think was happening here?

Nothing is happening here, Charlie told himself. Nothing. Dammit, Natty, I don't want to be doing this.

Tonight was one of those defining nights in a lifetime. So many dimensions, perfect mirror images of each other up to this point, and then they split, violently and clean, into several very different futures. Charlie didn’t want to make any choices. He wanted down off this Ferris wheel. He wanted to go home and watch MacGyver and eat pizza and wait for everything to sort itself out. He just wanted to wait a little bit longer, but life wasn’t interested in waiting any longer.

After the ride let them out, Charlie went back to the skee ball booth with his last few quarters. He played for that sad purple unicorn like he had something to prove, because he did have something to prove.

— from “in between days, part 5”

(flashback to July 2085, 3 years ago story time)

Next ->

[pixeldistractions]

Ingrid left two car-loads of people downstairs and went to see if her sister liked the idea of having company. Seeing as how Laney wasn’t even dressed, it didn't look promising.

“You okay? Are you sick or something?”

Laney moved, finally, to resituate her head on the pages of her book. “No, I'm okay.”

“Did something happen at work?”

“No, nothing ever happens at work.”

“Then what are you doing? Reading through osmosis?”

Ingrid snickered at her own joke, but Laney just stared on, blank and unconcerned, occupied and sort of dazed.

“Do you care if I have some friends over?” Ingrid asked.

“How many?”

“I don’t know, four or twelve or twenty-five?”

“I don't know, Iggy. I don’t want to get dressed.”

“It’s okay. I’ll take them up to the roof. What are you reading about?”

“Huh?”

“The book. Is it a happy story or a sad one?”

“Oh.” Laney picked up her head for a moment to look at the pages, crumpled slightly by her cheek. “I don’t know yet.

They had all grown tired of the summer fair, but the night was too warm and too lovely to end so soon. Charlie was tired of summer, in general, and he was ready for it to be over. But Ian finally showed up, so while Charlie was tired, frustrated, bored, and a thousand other things, he figured he would stay. Being bored with friends was maybe better than being bored on his own, even if just barely.

Ingrid stood on a tennis table, seeming without any concern whatsoever that she might fall off and crack her head on the concrete. Ingrid never knew what she’d be doing tomorrow or next week or next year, and there was something intriguing about that to Charlie. He wanted to stop noticing where she was and what she was doing all the time. But he couldn’t, and he guessed that she wanted it that way.

When Ingrid found that nobody was paying any attention to her, she shouted. “Charlie! Beer pong! Charlie!”

Charlie waved a little, but didn’t go over.

“The beer is warm,” Charlie said.

“But it’s free,” Ian countered.

Charlie didn’t want to drink the warm beer, even if free, and so he just stared at it feeling like the squarest twenty year-old guy who ever lived.

Ingrid stopped shouting and climbed down off the table. “Hey, Charlie.”

“Hay is for horses.”

“Ha. I think we have some more in the fridge. Colder ones. You wanna help me carry it up?”

Charlie shrugged. “Sure,” he said.

Laney hadn’t moved from the couch since Ingrid saw her last, but at least she was sitting now. Ingrid decided the blank look in her sister's eyes was not so much sad as it was completely occupied and wistful.

“Hi,” Laney said to them, but didn’t turn her head.

“What’s wrong with your sister?”

“Hmmm…” Ingrid guessed that it was the Greek dreamboat who had transferred into her department a couple months ago. He was all Laney ever talked about. “Most likely… a smoldering crush on a hopelessly unavailable man?”

Ingrid shot a twisted smile at Charlie, which made him flinch. She laughed and reached past him to line up bottles on the counter.

“Hey, I want to show you something in my bedroom.”

Charlie hesitated. “I bet you do.”

Ingrid laughed. “Hell, give me some credit. I’ve never had to trick a man into my bedroom. But I really do want to show you something. Honest.”

— from “in between days, part 5.5”

(flashback to July 2085, 3 years ago story time)

Next ->

[pixeldistractions]

Twilight fell over the fair and the game booths lit up with bright lights, colorful prizes, and upbeat music. The four of them each bought a ticket to play. The lane Charlie chose had a purple unicorn standing watch over it, taunting him. Win me. Take me home. Love me. It was the saddest purple unicorn in the world.

Charlie was not tame. Charlie built things out of scrap metal and a blow torch. Charlie kissed his girlfriend for the first time in a haunted house. Charlie was going to buy a motorcycle… some day.

It only made him throw the ball harder, which did awful things for his accuracy. He played badly, too much force, not enough finesse.

Benny won.

Maybe it didn't matter. Natty had so many stuffed animals they could have had their own room in the apartment.

"You know what I want," Charlie said. "I want an elephant ear. That's what I want."

They all bought elephant ears and sat down to overdose on greasy, fried, powdered-sugared dough.

Ingrid said, "Charlie, it's okay that you're tame. Actually, I find it cute."

"But I'm not tame," Charlie said. "In eleventh grade, I got three-days suspension for building a remote control firework launcher in shop class."

"But I bet it was mostly protocol. Your teacher was secretly impressed."

She was right. He was. "How about this. Last month, when my parents were in China, I let Gabby have some beer."

"True story," Benny said. "And she puked it up all over my camp chairs."

"But," Ingrid said. "You only let her have one and you kept an eye on her the whole time. She didn't puke either; she spit it out because she thought it tasted bad."

Ingrid was right again.

"Would you ever get a tattoo?"

"Maybe I would," Charlie said. "Maybe I just never thought of something I wanted to get. If you're gonna ink yourself for life, you should probably be sure about what you want to get."

"Eh, it's just skin." Ingrid shrugged. "If you want one, just do it."

"Is that a dare?"

"Always choose dare," Ingrid said.

— from “in between days, part 5”

(flashback to July 2085, 3 years ago story time)

Next ->

[pixeldistractions]

"It's the last day for the summer fair, Charlie. Five hours is not even enough time. Carpe diem. Let's seize the fucking day."

Charlie didn't stop home after work. He threw his gear into the dusty crevice behind the front seat of his truck and drove over to the county fairgrounds. Ingrid waited in the center of the midway with his friends, like they were already her friends now too, like she'd transplanted herself into the middle of his whole universe so she wouldn't be missed or forgotten. Her lips curved into a pleased smile.

"You came," she said.

"I said I might."

"I wasn't sure what my chances were. Twenty percent?"

"Nah," Charlie said. "At least forty-five."

"You don't hate me."

"I never said I did."

"You like me then?"

Charlie smiled. "Luck was in your favor."

"I don't believe in luck," Ingrid said. "I think if you want something to happen, you make it happen."

"And what do you do if you can't make it happen?"

She seemed genuinely stumped. "I don't know. You keep trying? Or else maybe you must not have wanted it that bad."

She threw open her hands, inviting the world to come at her. “The world is our oyster, Charlie. The world is our playground. What do you want? Whatever you wanna do, let's do it.”

“I wanna play the shit out of some skeeball.”

Ingrid laughed. “You are so tame.”

“I am not tame,” Charlie said.

She came up inches from his nose and said, “Prove it.”

Charlie didn't need to prove anything to her, but for some reason he felt like he wanted to.

— from “in between days, part 5”

(flashback to July 2085, 3 years ago story time)

Next ->

[pixeldistractions]

“Charlie! I feel like I haven’t seen you in three months and eighteen days!”

“You saw me twelve hours ago.”

“Too long,” Ingrid said, then taking stock of the room, crates of old, broken things. “Why are you eating lunch in a utility closet?”

“So that people won't try to talk to me. How did you find me?”

“My mom said you ate up here. Not much of a hiding place, huh?”

She sat down next to him, she wanted to scoot him over and share the old pillow he sat on, but he wouldn’t have liked that, so she didn’t and instead just sat on the cold tile floor. She was close enough to him now to smell a faint whiff of motor oil and something burnt. She wanted to bury her nose in him. She grinned.

“Are you high?”

“Yeah,” she said. “Totally. You want?”

“I’m working,” he said.

“So?”

He laughed.

“Last night of the summer fair, tonight, be there or be square.”

Charlie shrugged lazily. “But if I be square, I can have pizza and MacGyver.”

“Charlie, you hurt my heart.” She was only partly kidding. She made a pouty face at him. “Pinky promise me?”

He looked at her pinky. “I don’t give out pinky promises that easy.”

“Playing hard to get?”

“Harder than you know.”

Ingrid smirked at him, thinking about hard things. “You said ‘hard’.”

They stared each other down. There were mysteries in his eyes and she wanted to decipher them. She wondered if she would like what she found.

He moved finally, crumpled up his empty bag of chips and started to get up.

“Your choice,” she said. “But it’s gonna be rad.”

“How rad?”

“Elephant ears.”

“Hmmm…” He pondered this. She pondered him pondering this.

“Hot and sweet,” she said. “So, so good.”

“It’s hard to turn down elephant ears.”

“Then don’t. Come on. You know you want to.”

“We’ll see,” he said. “I have to go back to work now.”

“See ‘ya later, alligator,” she said.

“In a while, crocodile,” he said.

— from “in between days, part 3.5”

(flashback to July 2085, 3 years ago story time)

Next ->

[pixeldistractions]

Ooh, look what I found! An unposted scene that Charlie never told us about.

They were just hanging out with friends at Ingrid’s place. No big deal. But the chemistry. There was definitely a point in the summer when Charlie stopped moping and started to enjoy himself and smile a little. And Ingrid did that.

Part of what has had Ingrid stuck on him for so long was that she knew how much he wanted it, too. He didn’t want it enough to forsake Natty, but he wanted it enough that it tortured him.

Also, had I not ditched TS3 for TS4, Ian totally would have made a move on Sophia, lol!

Next ->

[pixeldistractions]

"Mom, can I have twenty bucks?" Ingrid stood in the doorway to the lab and something told Charlie that she wasn't here for the science.

"Ingrid," her mother said. "We’re in the middle of something."

"Hi, Charlie," Ingrid said.

Charlie mumbled, "Eurrrgh…" He tried to hold an input sequence in mind while Ingrid, the way she smirked at him with only one corner of her lips, ever so subtly winked, and he might have thought he imagined it. She hoisted her butt up onto the counter. He suspected Ingrid wasn't really here for her mother’s money either. He shook his head. Button sequence.

A dull, steady, clod, clod, clod. Charlie looked up. It was the heels of Ingrid’s sandals clicking the counter, swinging her feet as she watched him work—try to work. She pointed her fingers at Charlie like a viewfinder. He looked at her strangely. She shrugged.

He tried to pretend she wasn't there.

“You sure seem poor lately,” her mother said. “You needed twenty dollars two days ago. Where did that go? Are you buying—” Dr. Thompson lowered her voice to a whisper. “Marijuana?"

Ingrid laughed. "No, Mom. Not with your money, anyway."

Dr. Thompson composed herself and returned to their work. "The university has a partnership with some farmers out in Bluewater. Go see if you can find a red valerian root seed. Not too big. Or see if you can find a sweet grass, bumbleleaf, or chamomile seed. Not a mandrake though. We have so many already."

"What if I don't find any of those?" Charlie said.

"Just grab something interesting then. If we tell you exactly what to look for, you might miss something better. You might miss something really great."

"Is this some kind of test?"

"Life is a test," Ingrid said dreamily from the counter. "The wind has answers to questions you didn't know you were asking."

Charlie was mystified. "Is that supposed to be a fortune cookie or something?"

She winked at him. He laughed. She smiled, coquettish but not innocent. He had to look away. She was like a lovely insect that wouldn't stop flying at his head.

He picked up a notebook and directions to the planting grounds, and he went.

— from “the answers”

(flashback to July 2085, 3 years ago story time)

Next ->

[pixeldistractions]

Charlie didn't hear Ingrid before she plopped down onto the sand next to him with wild enthusiasm.

“You just disappeared! What are you doing all the way out here?”

“I was enjoying the quiet,” Charlie said.

“I hate the quiet,” Ingrid said. “Your sister is a laugh.”

“She’s alright.”

“The fireworks were kind of lame, but I guess they probably don’t have the budget some other towns have. You know I was in DC last fourth, so amazing. Right over the capital.”

She stopped talking for one single second, and that was significant coming from Ingrid. “So this break…”

He sighed. “What about it?”

“Is she seeing other people?”

“She told me she wouldn't.”

“You believe her?”

“Yeah, I do.”

Silence again. Charlie held his breath.

“And what about you…” she said. “Are you seeing people?”

He pinched a smile, a little one, shaking his head. She was so forward, and so naked. “No,” he said.

“Huh,” Ingrid watched him in the dark for a moment, crouched on her knees still, half between staying and going and he still didn’t know which it was. She tilted her head a little, eyes soft. “Okay, I’ll let you enjoy your quiet some more." She play-punched him in the shoulder, a sinking giggle, like the end of a song. “You're a good man, Charlie Brown.”

She got up then, kicking sand behind her as she jogged back to their friends.

— from “little explosions”

(flashback to July 2085, 3 years ago story time)

Next ->