#if i need my grandparents i literally just call their landline because if no one answers that tells me everything i need to know

[fingertipsmp3]

Does anyone else have a friend who will panic and call you if they don’t receive a response to their message within 15 minutes, but will regularly leave you on read or delivered or go fully MIA for days

[afewmarvelousthoughts]

The Call Pt. 1

Summary: Marie is not crazy. She isn’t. Or she hopes she’s not. But the happenings that follow a mysterious phone call begin to make her hope otherwise. 

Warnings: Suicidal ideation, maybe mildly creepy

A/N: Well, if you’re tagged it’s because you said you were interested in taking a peek at my original content. This is the first half of a short story I’ve been using as kind of a warm up/playground for a few weeks. Kinda hate the title (so if you’ve got suggestions hit me with them) and am open to literally all feedback!  (If you want to know when I share original content lmk!)

“I’m not crazy. I know how this sounds but I am not fucking crazy!” 

Funny enough, I’m also not an idiot. I know that screaming I’m not crazy at 4am after tearing my room apart to find a picture that apparently doesn’t exist implies otherwise. But still-

“I’m not crazy, Alex.”

“Ok. You’re not crazy.” 

The way he’s looking at me really makes me wish I was. 

“But Marie, what you’re asking me to believe-“

“Is crazy,” I say, collapsing on the edge of the bed. 

I stare down at my hands. There used to be a scar on the left one, thick and rope-like carving a path straight through the center. The original wound had cut to the bone. 

I know it was there. 

I know because I remember how it didn’t hurt at first. It was like a dull warm sting, too many nerve endings cut to make my brain register what happened. I remember how I was fascinated by the blood welling, dark and thick and so different from any time I’d seen my own blood in my short 13 years. I remembered the drip, drip, drip. 

And then I remember screaming. 

“Marie…” He takes a deep breath, pacing away from the bed. 

I don’t move, don’t respond. Just run my fingers over where the scar should be. 

Another thing I remember is the choice I made that resulted in the scar disappearing. I remember that conversation, both sides of it like two images superimposed on one another. 

Somehow, remembering those disparate, impossible, things so clearly only makes me more certain that I am not insane. Which may actually make the whole insanity argument stronger…

The first phone call happened on a random night in December. I was baking, trying to recreate those Levaine Bakery cookies and, honestly, not sucking at it. 

I was not drinking. 

I was not on drugs. None that I wasn’t supposed to be on anyway. 

Everything was normal. 

My phone rang with a number I didn’t recognize. Usually, I would have just ignored it but the area code was from my home town and I know far too many messy people back home to ignore an unknown call on a Friday night. 

If someone was dead, I didn’t want to find out through a voicemail. 

“Hello?” A muffled voice responded, warped by a shoddy Bluetooth connection. “Wait, sorry hold on.”

Fucking useless $100 earbuds. 

“Hello?” 

“H-hi… Hello.” The voice on the other end was clearly a kid, a little girl. I didn’t know any kids save for my nephew and he was eight months old so children should not be calling me. 

“Yes?”

“Hi, ma’am,” the girl paused, clearly restraining a giggle. The line crackled in a way that sounded odd but I assumed she was just muffling the mic. “Did you order a pizza? This… This is Pizza Hut.” 

I stifled a laugh of my own. Who knew kids still did prank calls. I thought those died off with the landline. Amused, I played along. 

“No, I didn’t order a pizza.”

“Oh, well, I guess we called the wrong person. Sorry!” The kid hung up. 

I shook my head and reconnected my earbuds. As far as prank calls went, I had my criticisms on their form but hoped they enjoyed themselves. 

Quickly, I fell back into my baking rhythm, my audiobook of the week keeping any further exploration as to why kids would bother with prank calls when the internet existed at bay. At least until the book paused, accompanied by an off-putting crackle in one earbud.

“Motherf-“ My phone ringing interrupted my expletive. 

I looked over, it was the same number. 

I don’t know why I answered. Maybe I was getting soft after 30 years of being, by default, a cold bitch—I had been crying at far more commercials recently. Or maybe the novelty of a prank call was too good to pass up. 

“Hello.”

For a moment there was silence. Then, someone breathing. Something about it made me feel uncomfortable. Not in the whole, I’m calling from inside the house, kind of way. More like the feeling you get when you almost fall asleep at the wheel, the adrenaline rush of waking up just in time. 

“Hello?” The breathing quickened. “Look, kid-“

She started speaking. Rather, she started making sounds, gibberish with the inflection of words. After a string of them, she paused. 

“Uh-huh, well then,” I said choosing to humor them. 

This was followed by another string of gibberish. Only this sounded more frantic, there wasn’t the undertone of laughter. They stopped. 

“Kid, are you ok?” I began to worry. 

“Em raeh uoy nac?” She said with the inflection of a question. I realized suddenly that this may not be the same person. There was something similar about the voice but it didn’t sound as young as my pizza prankster from earlier. 

“Look, this is just getting weird. Don’t-“

“On!” The person yelled into the phone. “On! On! Esaelp!” The voice cracked, a stifled cry sending chills up my spine. 

On… On… On… Something clicked. 

No. This person was saying no. 

Maybe I am crazy. Because the moment I realized the words were coming to me backward they righted themselves and the person began speaking in the proper direction. 

“Please, don’t hang up.” She took a ragged breath, “Please.” 

Sitting on the edge of my bed now, staring at my scarless palm, I could still feel her desperation. 

“Marie,” Alex knelt in front of me, eyes wide and pleading. “I have known you since we were 15. You’re my sister and I love you.” He takes my hands in his own, sighing, “You’ve been under a lot of stress recently and that-“

“Jesus,” I pull my hands back getting to my feet, and push past him. In the doorway to my bathroom, I pause, turning back to face him. He now sat on the floor with his back against my bed. 

“I’m just saying, maybe it’s all been too much. That’s all. There isn’t any shame in that.” 

“I know there isn’t. Don’t you think I, of all people, fucking know that?!” 

I mean for fucks sake, I was the head of HR at my company. I had a bachelor’s in counseling and a master’s in communications. Not to mention years of therapy under my belt. I understood what stress could do to someone’s mind and I understood that this wasn’t that. 

“Ok,” he holds his hands up in surrender. “Ok. Sorry. I know you know. But you want me to believe you’re really ok when you-“

“I don’t want you to believe shit. You asked me what was happening. I’m just telling you.” 

He studied me, trying to find something to hold on to, some way to believe me. 

For a moment I studied him too. Burning this image of him into my mind. 

This was real. He was real. Just like everything else was real. 

On that first night, the shock the voice on the other end of the line sent through my whole body was unlike anything I’d ever felt before. 

“Please be there,” she begged. 

Our own voices always sound weird when we hear them played back. Something to do with the way sound travels through the body. The way it resonates in our bones. It’s easy to not even recognize our own voices when we hear them. 

“I called this-“

“You called this number 10 minutes ago,” I cut her off, my unease giving way to anger. “What do you want? If you’re in trouble-“

“I called this number when I was eight,” that edge to her tone was too familiar. “I’m 15.” 

“Hilarious, kid. Find something better to-“

“0606.”

“Yup, that’s the last four digits of the number you just called. Owned by a woman who is very-“

“Those are the last four numbers of the cell phone I got when I was 13.” 

“Very funny.” I had no idea who had put her up to this but I was over it. “I’ve had this number for 17 years.” 

“I always thought it was funny because I remembered those numbers ever since I made that prank call. Funny that they’d be the last four of my own number.” Her voice had a disconnected quality to it. I rubbed my finger over the scar on my palm, a nervous habit. 

“Kid-“

“Wait,” she cut me off, something which was starting to wear on me. “You said 17 years. How… how old are you.” 

“Thirty,” I answered automatically. 

“Wow.”

“Yeah. Ancient to you I’m sure.” The timer went off for my cookies. “Look. If you’ve sated your gen alpha need to dip your toes into the nostalgia pool-“

“So, I don’t do it.” 

“Do what?”

“On April 13th, 2006 you decided you would kill yourself you your 16th birthday.” My heart stopped. “Maybe you don’t remember that…” 

I remembered it. 

If I tried I could remember the way my room smelled. I could remember how my hands didn’t even shake as I wrote those words in my journal. I could remember sitting on my bed, picking up my phone…

And calling my own number. 

I looked down at my phone. I’d only paid attention to the area code before, nothing more than a passing glance. Now I realized, it was my grandparent’s old landline number.  

She continued, “Anyway, I just called my own number to-“

“Leave a voice mail,” I said finishing her thought. It was my substitute for a note, something that if they found they found but if not then fuck them. 

“Yeah. But instead of it going to voicemail, you answered. My phone is sitting in my lap but you answered. And I remembered your voice from when I was eight and…” 

“What the fuck,” I breathed. 

“I don’t know…”

My head was spinning. I had never spoken to anyone save for my therapist about my intention to end my life when I turned 16, so it seemed unlikely someone was playing a cruel joke. But it was even more unlikely, or rather completely fucking impossible, that I was currently speaking to my 15-year-old self.  

“Look,” I sank to the floor of my kitchen, sliding my glasses up so I could massage away the tension headache building between my eyes. “Clearly, you’re not me. But it’s pretty obvious that you’re in a bad way.” There was silence. 

“Kid?” 

“I’m here,” the voice was so small. 

“I don’t know what you’re going through, but the best advice I can give you is the same advice that my best friend gave me when we were your age. ‘If you can’t find any other reason to keep going, just do it out of spite.’” 

To this day, do it out of spite, was the motto we lived by. I embroidered pillows for us with it, we signed off letters to one another with it when he took a year to wander Europe with his ex, hell we got the word ’Spite’ tattooed on our wrists in the other’s handwriting when we were 19—thanks to Alex’s terrible handwriting people always asked me why I had ‘Sprite’ tattooed on my wrist. 

She snorted. 

“I know it sounds oversimplified but-“

“No. I’m just not into listening to people who don’t take their own advice,” the anger in her voice was searing. 

“What do you-“

“Alex Cameron, said the same thing to me yesterday.” My ears started ringing, my whole body tingled like a limb when you’ve sat on it for too long. 

“Then,” she took a shaky breath, “he killed himself.” 

My smoke alarm began to scream, the smell of burnt sugar seeping from my oven. 

tags

@wonderlandmind4 @coffeebeforewater @empty-fromthestart​ @this-kitten-is-smitten @saundrasays​

[artificialqueens]

Come Home to My Heart, Chapter 3 (Lemyanka) - Plastiquedoll

read on ao3 ✨| chapter 1 2

A/N: hi! I hope you like this new chapter as it goes deeper on the feels™️ I really wanted to give the characters more background (and a little bit of angst whoops) and finally, there are new names dropping yay! Again, there’s a time skip of two years this time. Enjoy & thanks for reading <3

-3-

When Priyanka turned fifteen, she discovered new things she loved. She loved dying the tips of her hair with bright colors every two weeks and a half, she loved skateboarding, she loved being the center of attention and a little bit of a class-clown at school, she loved hanging out with her group of friends, she loved the phone calls with Lemon to catch up and talk shit about everyone…

“Okay, can you hear me now?”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s better.”

Priyanka peeped through the hallway hoping no one would decide to interrupt them. She nervously removed the shiny red nail polish with her teeth as they tried to re-connect, if her mother saw her she would’ve scolded her on the spot. The landline phone was solid red plastic with buttons and wires, it was age-worn but at least it wasn’t like her grandparent’s phone with the rotary dial system or it would take hours to get all those area code numbers correct and get Lemon on the other side.

“Thank God. I’m literally inside the closet just like in The Parent Trap. I told my mom I was calling my grandma because last time our phone bill had several zeroes.”

Priyanka chortled and entangled the curly wire with his fingertips. “Sorry about that… so, you were saying… about the audition?”

“Oh, right! I’m trying to get into this dance academy that’s supposed to be the best of the best and the audition waiting list is a nightmare… but they called me the other day and said I’ll have shot in two weeks.”

“Oh. My. God. Lemon that’s awesome!”

“I know! I feel it, Pri. I know I can do it but… I don’t want to assume anything until I get there. I’m confident in my skills but what if they perceive that confidence as cockiness or something like that. I was talking to Jan the other day and she said-”

“Wait, who’s Jan?” Priyanka frowned before the unfamiliar name.

“Jan. Jan! My friend Jan? We have Biology and Math together, remember?”

“I don’t think I’ve heard her name before.”

“I’m sure I have mentioned her… anyway. Jan is madly talented –like, she can sing- and she auditioned for music school like a year ago and told me that…”

Jan. She hadn’t mentioned a Jan before… it was weird for Priyanka that knew all Lemon’s New Yorker friends’ names and she was pretty sure Lemon remembered all her friends’ names as well.

“… anyway, I’ll keep my head high and hope for the best. I’m training extra hard these days to make it. My muscles are sore and I can’t feel my legs right now but hey, no pain no gain.”

“I’m sure you’ll do great.”

“Thank you.” She paused as if she wanted to say something else, Priyanka could hear her breathing, but then she continued chattering. “Also, my mom got promoted again and now she bought a computer I can e-mail you the day of the audition. But tell me, how are things over there? Did the girls work their differences yet?”

“You know Scarlett, she won’t shut up and-”

“Priyanka, it’s dinner time.” Her mother announced from the kitchen.

She sighed. “Shit. I have to go or my mom is going to cut the phone wires. She says this time is for real.”

“Oh, okay… I’ll call you soon then.”

“Yes, please call me right after the audition or before if you wanna talk… you know. Break a leg or whatever… make sure is figuratively speaking, please.”

She heard Lemon’s giggle on the other line and something inside her went softer.

“I will… and I will be there for Christmas this year, I made my mom promise it.”

“Fingers crossed.” She said before hanging up.

When she looked at herself in the mirror she had a silly grin on her face that couldn’t be erased.

Lemon hadn’t been back in a long year and a half. After spending the first holidays after her parents’ divorce with her dad in Canada, she had to spend the next one with her mom in the Big Apple. Plus, her father got to travel to New York quite often those days and got to see her a lot. She sometimes sent things for Priyanka with him, a nice hoodie, a makeup bag, one of those stupid tourist t-shirts with the Statue of Liberty printed on it, sometimes a pair of dangling earrings or a simple letter and a picture of her. She treasured each of those little trinkets.

Priyanka was saving money from her allowance and was hoping to get a job soon so she could buy a car someday and visit her friend in the big city, they might even go on a road trip over the summer, it was a nice thought to hold onto until they could hang out again.

On the day of Lemon’s audition, Priyanka was restless. She got kicked out of one of her classes because she kept fidgeting, twitching, moving around, and chewing gum. It drove her teachers insane. Scarlett and Kiara mocked her from the window of the classroom and then got a warning as well.

Later that day she cleaned all her room to avoid thinking. She found several pictures of her and Lemon over the years –including that one time they tried Lemon’s mom makeup for the first time, Lemon was missing her two front teeth-, there were some photos from their first days of school and even Lemon at Priyanka’s plays. She was so pissed when she got that old lady role instead of the main character but she had managed to steal the scene anyway.

As the sun was setting, she didn’t know what else to do. She did the dishes without offering resistance and then got into an argument with her little sister who wanted to watch Hannah Montana while Priyanka just wanted to watch the new episode of America’s Next Top Model. She had to admit it though, the intro of Hannah Montana was kind of catchy (something she would never admit to her sister).

It was almost quarter to nine and she still didn’t have any news. There was a two-hour time difference with New York but still… it was gnawing her from the inside.

Right when Tyra was about to reveal which model got to stay for another week, the phone rang in the hallway and she couldn’t jump out of the couch fast enough.

«You have a phone call from-» Press one to accept, yeah, yeah, she knew that.

“Lemon?” She didn’t even wait for a «hello».

“Pri? Is it you?”

The sound of her voice brought her back to life, she could hear the sound of her heart beating again.

“Yes, it’s me! How did it go?”

“Oh my God, Pri… I’m calling you from a payphone in the middle of Times Square, this is insane. The girls lend me some cash to call you.” Priyanka could hear the sound of the traffic and even some giggles coming from outside of the phone.

“And? You’re killing me here, Lemz.” She had her fingers crossed even when she couldn’t see that gesture through the call and was holding the phone against her ear with her shoulder.

“It was so difficult I thought I was never going to learn the steps I’m literally so exhausted right now but…”

But.

“I got it, I got the spot!”

Priyanka started screaming.

“Priyanka!” Her mother shouted.

“Sorry…sorry!” She covered her mouth with her hand.

Lemon was cackling.

“Lemz, I might get in so much trouble for this but… Congratulations, I’m so happy for you!”

“Thank you.” She sounded truly happy, Priyanka wished she could see her right at that moment. “Jan, can you give me another quarter? Thanks, doll.”

That girl Jan again.

“So what are you girls are up to?”

“We’re going to get some pizza to celebrate. Jan is here as you heard, so are Goona, Rosé, Jackie… They say hi.”

“Tell them I said hi too.”

“She says hi… No, I’m not telling that, shut up…”

“What is it?”

“They are being assholes as usual… Listen, I have to go, I’m running out of coins and I still have to call my mom.”

“Okay, we’ll talk soon… I’m so happy for you… Love you.”

“Love you too! See you in a few weeks.”

“Yeah. I can’t wait.”

“Bye, Pri.”

She hung up but stood next to the phone for a moment, staring at it.

Just a few more weeks.

Priyanka kept begging her older brother to teach her how to drive. It took a few weeks of insistence until he gave up and the lessons started. They only stopped when the snow got too thick and the roads too slippery to practice. Still, by that time Priyanka was almost an expert. She needed to perfect her parking skills before turning sixteen and that would be it.

She also needed a car but that was the least important part.

“So when’s your girlfriend coming to town?” Scarlett asked.

Priyanka choked on her hot chocolate and coughed a couple of times. “Lemon’s not my girlfriend.”

Kiara rolled her eyes.

“Ah, yes, I can’t wait to finally meet her!” Juice –the latest addition to their group- said.

They were at the coffee shop, outside was freezing cold and the smell of fresh-baked pastries had dragged them inside the warm environment. Scarlett was having a black coffee while Priyanka and Kiara had their respective hot chocolate with marshmallows and Juice ordered a cappuccino with whipped cream and sprinkles on top.

“So?” Scarlett arched a brow.

“Her flight is booked for next week if the snowstorms allow them to fly.”

“I remember you two from primary school; they were joined by the hip, even before you shared diapers or something.” Kiara mocked.

“Oh, that’s right. You were in her classroom in kindergarten back when Ilona prevented everyone from playing with her.”

“That’s because Lemon spilled some paint over Ilona’s drawing… it was kids’ things. We all forgot when some random kid wet his pants or whatever.”

“And when did the crush began?”

Priyanka shot daggers at Scarlett with her eyes.

“I don’t have a crush on her. She’s literally my best friend, you guys are delusional.”

“Sure…” Kiara stirred her chocolate. “But it’s been what? Almost two years since she graced us with her presence?”

“Yeah, her parents didn’t want her to travel alone last time so her father flew to New York.”

“All jokes aside,” Scarlett changed her irksome ‘let’s pick on Priyanka’ tone for a minute. “Are you going to tell her about…?”

At the age of fifteen, Priyanka discovered she didn’t like kissing boys.

It had been at a lame party in a basement, her classmates had invited her and one of them suggested they should play seven minutes in heaven. Priyanka was about to skip it and refill her paper cup with cheap vodka and orange juice when she got dragged by the wrist and pushed into the closet with a guy from the hockey team. She suspected he had a crush on her for the longest time and this was instigated by his friends but the moment the door was locked, she panicked.

Her friends tried to get her out of there but there were a few underdeveloped brains and much muscle blocking the door. So she guessed she was doing it. The guy wasn’t that bad –she liked to believe- he told her they didn’t have to do anything she didn’t want to and he was what most girls of the classroom referred to as «handsome». Priyanka shouted she was okay to calm down her friends and figured the best she could do was getting over it once and for all.

It was her first kiss.

The guy had rough lips and a slippery tongue and it was in the middle of all that smooching when his hand went under her lower back that she knew, she wasn’t enjoying it at all. She pushed the guy aside and used the back of her hand to clean her lips, she’d need some mouthwash as well. He asked if everything was okay but she was too condescending and told him that she was feeling dizzy.

The door was unlocked when he asked his friends to do it. Priyanka walked back –ashamed-to her group of friends as Kiara told them they were all disgusting and how stupid the game was. Priyanka called her brother from a phone upstairs and left soon after. For the first time, she was quiet on the way back home.

Later that night when she was laying on her bed in the darkness, she couldn’t stop thinking about it, thinking about how she was supposed to feel kissing that guy -any guy- or thinking about the fact that she wasn’t even remotely attracted to boys but mostly, thinking how she so wished that guy was someone else, how she wished that guy was a girl.

The following week at school the not-so-nice-guy had told everyone that Priyanka was basically a slut and if it wasn’t because she was so wasted, they could’ve gone to third base in that closet that very night. Priyanka wasn’t ashamed anymore, she was angry. Very angry. During lunch, she walked directly towards him and exposed him in front of everyone, not only denying the absurdity of those rumors but also stating that she would never even consider touching his small dick.

After that, Priyanka was done with guys, boys, and men in general.

She had a heart-to-heart conversation with her friends afterward but –to no one’s surprise- she ended up with the least heterosexual and most supportive group of friends in the world.

Still… she hadn’t been able to tell Lemon yet. She had tried but there was something about phone calls that didn’t help at all, she wanted to tell her in person, she wanted to see her face and know that everything was okay. And she planned to do it during her visit.

“I’ll try.” Priyanka stated, hoping the universe cooperated with her.

“Good. So you can make out under the mistletoe next.” There she was again.

“Okay, you two,” She pointed at Scarlett and Kiara. “you have to stop it or I’m going to do you guys dirty and you know I can.”

They started laughing, clearly taking Priyanka’s threaten lightly.

“That’s it! You,” She directed toward Kiara. “I have seen you drooling over Kyne the entire semester.”

Kiara went pale.

“And you two…” She turned back to Scarlett and Juice that were cackling sitting on the couch. “Yes, I’m talking to you, do you really believe I haven’t seen the way you look at each other, those stolen glances, the subtle touches? Please, is this a Jane Austen novel or what? You ain’t that smooth.”

“Hey! I didn’t say anything!” Juice protested.

Scarlett’s mouth turned into a thin line and her ears were suddenly pink colored. She murmured something Priyanka couldn’t catch but rhymed with «witch».

“Sorry girl, I warned you heads would roll and I’m not leaving any survivors if that’s what it takes.”

Scarlett put her hands up as a sign of surrender. “I respect it, you’re a bitch but I respect it.”

So that was the word she used.

Lemon would arrive at any minute now.

Her father was picking her up from the airport, they would have lunch at some fancy restaurant in the city center and then he’d drop Lemon at Priyanka’s house until sunset –that was when she had to leave again to have dinner with her relatives.

Priyanka kept moving her right leg, restless while sitting on the couch, eyes nailed on the window.

“Priyanka, take the trash out, it’s your turn.” Her mother told her casually as she directed upstairs.

“Mom!” She complained. “I’m doing important things.”

“You’re sitting on the couch.”

“My point exactly.”

Her mom gave her the glare. “Trash. Out. Now.”

She grumbled but did as asked.

Priyanka put on an extra thick coat over her jeans and knitted orange sweater, adjusted her wool socks and boots, and adventured to the exterior world of the Canadian winter wonderland. She only had to walk a few steps but she could feel her body freezing with the icy breeze. The snow was blinding white and she could hear the whistle of the wind blowing and the sound of her own teeth chattering.

She didn’t even hear the sound of the car stopping right at the entrance of her house nor the door closing or the steps.

She barely had time to turn around when an identified running person hit her like an asteroid. Lemon was small but she still got the strength to tackle Priyanka down with a hug. She didn’t even notice whether the snow was cold or not.

“Hey!” She was still down on the ground and needed to turn around once Lemon moved. “You’re here…”

The vision was dazzling. Lemon’s face, her eyes, her smile from ear to ear with full teeth showing, her blonde hair falling like a cascade over her rosy cheeks. It was as if she had been taken from an Andersen fairytale or a Tchaikovsky composition, ice queens and fairies fluttered around Priyanka’s head.

“I’m here! Can you believe it?”

She was still pretty much straddled on Priyanka, making the brunette blush and hoping she could blame it on the weather. Finally, Lemon got to stand up and helped her friend to get on her feet again.

Lemon was irretrievably tiny but there was something different about her since the last time they had seen each other. She looked less like the little girl Priyanka remembered and more like a teen pop star of the magazines they used to read with her slightly curled lighter hair, pink glossy lips, longer lashes… She was wearing a yellow sweater and a white puffy jacket with matching fake fur around the neck, corduroy pants, and cream boots. Even her glasses were stylish now.

“Wait, are you taller?” She observed.

“No, you just shrunk in the washing machine.”

Lemon elbowed her and then turned to wave at her dad that was still in the car.

“He told me he saw you in the supermarket the other day and asked what does your mom feed you with so I could get some too.”

Priyanka laughed at loud. “He got you there.”

“Ha. Ha.”

“But enough with my height, let’s go inside, I think I got snow on my socks and I don’t want to catch a cold or wait until another short person attacks me.”

“Hey, you said enough with the height.”

“No, no. I clearly said mine, not yours.”

Lemon rolled her eyes and there it was the old Lemon she knew so well, the exact dose just a little less sugary and a bit sour.

They went to Priyanka’s room, she shared it with her middle sister but she was currently busy practicing at music school with her cello for her end of the year concert, there were a few trophies, certificates, and distinctions on her side of the room meanwhile Priyanka’s was a collage of pictures with the girls, an album cover Avril Lavigne, one large poster she got from the local cinema when Spice World was brought back for a special feature and she forced her friends to watch it for the millionth time, some random doodles she did in class and of course, photos and postcards Lemon had sent to her.

The blonde smiled when she spotted a picture of them from their first day of primary school, their backpacks were bigger than them.

They removed the heavy coats, Priyanka changed her wet socks for new ones and a pair of slippers. Lemon was prying into the mess that was her desk, her fingers roaming through her school books, comic books, magazines, and scattered papers as if she tried to figure out if she still knew the owner of that space in the way she used to.

They sat on Priyanka’s bed on the nothing-like-Priyanka flowery blanket one of her aunts got her for a birthday. Priyanka’s mom dropped by to say hi and left a tray with two smoky cups of tea.

“I love your mom, she read my mind.” Lemon said, wrapping her hands around the warm porcelain.

“She’s being nice only because you’re around.” Priyanka took a sip of her tea. “I wonder if it’s a good time to tell her that I broke one of her flowerpots when I was practicing with the skateboard.”

“You’re the worst.” Lemon giggled.

“Certified. Three years in a row.”

The blonde shook her head. “Does she still make that incredible curry with potatoes?”

“Yeah, once in a while.”

“Oh my God… I tell you I’ve dreamt about it. You know I love Christina to dead but she can’t cook at all.”

Lemon, at some point after the divorce, had stopped addressing her mother as “mom” and now she called her by her first name.

“Do you remember she always made dinner with dry spaghetti and can sauce?”

“You laugh all you want but that’s my comfort food till this day.” Priyanka defended her.

“She doesn’t even cook it anymore, now we buy it all pre-cooked or already cooked. She might even forget how to boil water. Anyway, we’ve tried a thousand restaurants but I swear to you, Pri, no one can cook like your mom.”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve missed one of us.”

Lemon threw a pillow at her face.

“Of course I’ve missed you, dumbass.”

They did each other’s nails, Priyanka ended up with a light blue shade Lemon had brought for her and it was allegedly the same color as Tiffany’s, and the blonde insisted she had to draw a white ribbon to make it look like the jewel’s teeny tiny boxes.

From there, Priyanka could see everything. Lemon frowning, concentrated on her task, the way she batted her lashes, her pretty eyes, the little freckles she had over her nose, the shape of her cupid bow turned into an unintentional pout… her lips.

Priyanka gulped and then Lemon caught her staring.

“What is it?” She looked for some hint in Priyanka’s face. “Do I have something on my face?”

“No… I’m just making sure you don’t fuck up the design.”

Lemon rolled her eyes. “Don’t be silly. I’m almost done.”

While Priyanka’s nails got dried, they talked about school, classes they liked and disliked, teachers that they loathed or loved, then about their plans after turning sixteen, Priyanka told her about the driving lessons and Lemon told her she wanted to dress up as Cher Horowitz –of course- for her birthday and by the time Priyanka started with Lemon’s nails, she was reviving her dance audition.

“I tell you, Pri, there was a moment I doubt I’d got in. It was a flash but I felt it in my stomach I thought I was going to puke and mess everything up.”

“Hey, but you didn’t. I’m sure you nailed it.”

The blonde sighed. “Still, New York is like… everything’s so fast and everyone’s competitive to the point where you can’t get distracted or someone else will go after what you have. It’s nice to be here for a change, this is the only place I can really relax. It sucks that I can only stay for a week and five of those seven days I have to visit my dad’s relatives out of town.” She met Priyanka’s eyes. “I wish I could get to spend more time with you, you know?”

Priyanka’s heart skipped a beat. At that moment what she suspected but didn’t dare to say at loud became a reality, all those corny songs from the 90’s suddenly made sense, all the movies Hollywood had sold labeled as «romance» acquired a new meaning and she finally understood what «to have butterflies in one’s stomach» really felt like.

She liked Lemon. She liked her best friend…. And she liked her a lot.

That was the reason she hadn’t been able to tell her about what happened earlier that year at the party because it wasn’t just that she wanted to kiss a girl instead of a guy, she wanted to kiss one particular girl and she was right in front of her at that very moment.

They never warned her about it, they never told her that she would live normally until the day she’d realize she could harbor such feeling inside, that one day she’d just… know.

She almost dropped the nail polish bottle over the blanket.

“Oh, careful.” Lemon grabbed it just in time. She looked at her friend with concern in her eyes. “Pri, are you okay? You look… pale.”

“What? Ah, yeah… it’s nothing. I’m recovering from a cold I caught, that’s it…” She shook her head and took a breath of air. “I’m sorry, you were saying…”

“About the dance academy,” Lemon resumed her story. “the girls think I can make it through the next three years, and then I can major in dancing, I might even get a scholarship if I do outstandingly well.”

There was something, a little detail there that wasn’t… right.

“I hope you can visit me soon, you gotta meet the girls; you’re going to love them. Rosé and Jan are also Geminis, I guess that’s why I get along with them so well. Luckily, Jan would be my roommate if she gets her scholarship as well and…”

“Roommate?” Priyanka asked.

“Yeah… for college? We’re thinking about moving in together because rents are expensive even for the smallest studio apartment advertised. It’s a nightmare.”

“But wait… what happened with the plan? Our plan?”

Lemon opened her mouth to reply and then shut it.

“You forgot about it…”

“No! You know I didn’t… but… my options are wider now, I have to think forward and… did you seriously think-?”

“Yes. I did.” Priyanka didn’t even let her finish speaking.

Her soul had been just crushed.

“Pri, that’s not what I mean. We made that promise when we were ten, things have… changed since then.”

“Maybe they have changed for you but I’m still stuck here, I’m still counting on our plans… our promises. I’m still counting on you. The only thing that has changed is you and your pompous New Yorker glamorous lifestyle.”

“Oh, so it was so easy for me, right? It’s not like I had to attend a school where I didn’t know anyone, being the new girl and sitting alone during lunchtime for months while going through my parents’ divorce… I hated it the first months, Priyanka, I really did and I swear that talking to you on the phone and dancing were the only things that kept me alive…” Her voice cracked. “It wasn’t until I met my friends that I felt like I could do it… that it wasn’t completely waste of time and that I wasn’t a totally useless person.”

“Lemon… you never said-”

There was a single sparkly tear falling down her cheek.

“Well, I hope you’re happy now. There you have it, my life isn’t a glamorous as you thought, is it?”

“It’s because that’s what you’ve told me! Maybe if you didn’t sugarcoat things I could’ve helped you…”

“And do what? And then what? You’d get tired of me with all those problems and we’d eventually drift apart. I’d become a burden for you.”

“What? Where did you get that from? Let me be your friend, that’s what friends do… they help each other during the rough times too, they tell each other things.”

“Oh, and you surely have told me everything that’s being going on here.”

Priyanka remained silent.

“I still talk with some people from school here and there… why didn’t you tell me about what happened at that party?”

“Lemon, that’s completely different…”

“Is it? Because from my perspective, it looks like we’re hiding things from each other now.”

“And breaking promises as well for what it seems.”

Lemon looked at her, she seemed hurt and it broke Priyanka’s heart to see her like that.

She wanted to reach her and hold her hand, hug her and tell her that everything was alright but at the same time, she was angry. She couldn’t have it both ways. It wasn’t fair.

Priyanka’s mother called them from downstairs; Lemon’s father was there to pick her up.

“I better go.” She grabbed her coat. “I’ll be back in five days if you want… whatever.”

She was gone before Priyanka could say something and frankly, she felt that if she opened her mouth it was going to get worse. It wasn’t until the girl left the house and she heard the car getting lost in the distance that she collapsed on her bed and started crying on the closest pillow she had.

Five days after, it was a New Year already but little had changed since they last met.

Lemon visited Priyanka’s house only to discover she wasn’t there.

“Could you please tell her I came to say goodbye?” She bit her inner cheek to contain a sob.

She had a flight to take back to New York.

Priyanka had taken the family’s car without permission and she had driven for a few hours, making sure there was no chance of their paths crossing. It was petty; she knew she was being childish avoiding her rather than talk things through and she was going to regret it and hate herself later, damn, she was going to get grounded for months but who cared? At that moment, the only thing that was on her mind was that she couldn’t see Lemon.

Not like that.

She did her wrong but she was partly right. Priyanka wasn’t being honest with her and she couldn’t tell her all the truth to restore their friendship.

She couldn’t tell her that she was gay and that she was in love with her because it would change it all.

It would destroy their friendship entirely.

Lemon would never reciprocate those stupid feelings of her.

Maybe if she put enough distance between them, those feelings would simply fade, go away, and right now, New York sounded distant enough.

If it was on her to do the hardest part for the sake of all the years they’ve been together, then she was going to do whatever it’d take.

Tears scorched her eyes.

At the age of fifteen, Priyanka loved her best friend Lemon but she also hated her.

[paytonsportfolio]

Reading Through the Screen

The excessive amount of technology that has been implemented into today's society has been an ongoing controversial topic. Whether it rots our brains or makes us ten times smarter, people across the globe deal with digital literacy every day. Technology has advanced greatly over the last few decades and has completely shaped how we live. Our daily routines revolve around technology. We look at our phones when we wake and when we go to bed. We can even track our calories burned every single day. The fact is, digital literacy dominates the people of our society’s everyday lives.  

In order to be successful in today’s mechanically driven world, you must be literate and have some experience with computers. Most of the time, whether you are working at your job or completing a project for school, you deal with digital literacy. It doesn’t matter how high or low of a paycheck you receive. You will deal with digital literacy; for example, employees at Taco Bell are required to read the upcoming order on a screen to ensure that they cook and prepare the correct order on time. On the other end of the spectrum, if you have a higher-ranking job than working at Taco Bell, like a CEO of a company, you are also required to digitally read and communicate.  

There’s also the other aspect of looking at a much younger population, children in school. The expectation of having computer and literacy skills have skyrocketed. Even at the age of eight, sometimes even younger, students are taught computer skills. When I was in grade school, it was required for me to take multiple years of typing classes. This class entails reading words and phrases off a computer screen and typing them in response. Sometimes the program will even give you paragraphs to read and type. It was very fast pace; therefore, my classmates and I had to retain the text quickly in order to do well in the class. For students that don’t have the opportunity to take this class, I think it is a setback in learning to have a relationship with the computer. After lots of repetition and practice, you get used to typing a particular way, but for the students that aren’t taking this class, it will be hard for them to type at a faster pace.  

Students most commonly use digital literacy when they are unsure of a question and search for the answer on a web browser. This can be very useful and is not only done by students. When attending a university, it is required to have a laptop or tablet to complete coursework and utilize it during class. Colleges like Cleveland State University operate their courses through computer programs. Cleveland State University uses a program called Blackboard. Blackboard uploads course materials that are a key role in a student’s success. Many grade schools and universities, mostly private institutions, supply students with iPads, encouraging them to read and do their homework outside of the classroom. Other students don’t bother with the readings and download games like “Subway Surfer” instead.  

Text messages are the most common types of digital literacy that are used daily. Nowadays, everyone has a cell phone. Texting can be used for a variety of things. It can be very beneficial. In some cases, getting a text could save a life; for example, if you have a home intruder, you must contact someone for help. Calling the police is your first option; however, you must stay quiet. Luckily, we have texting. In today’s modern world you can now text the police, specifically in situations like this. Although it is not often that you will come across one of these life-threatening situations, it goes to show you that texting isn’t all that bad. Of course, when you are texting your friends, it’s not the most formal form of communication, but you still need basic literacy skills. You can’t type a long rant without punctuation. It wouldn’t make any sense.  

Along with text messages, emails are also a source of communication that is used daily. Unlike text messages, emails are often used as a formal type of communication; for example, a student will email their professor a question about an assignment when they are not in class. You can’t email a professor like you would text a friend. It’s just unprofessional. In order for your email to look professional, you must know the format to set your email in. Normally, you start with a greeting, which addresses who you are speaking to. Following your greeting is your body, where you get your point across. Finally, you close your email with your name and a phrase like “thank you” or “sincerely.” If you don’t use these essential literacy skills, you will be unprofessional.  

Social media has a huge influence on the forever evolving English language. Slang is used and seen daily on social media, text messages, or conversations with friends. Considering how often humans use these phrases, they are essential in today's pop culture, but slang has been evolving for decades. One of the more recent phrases that was established from social media is “and I oop!” A viral video of a drag queen, Ms. Jasmine Masters, was in the middle of a rant and accidentally hit her genitalia on a chair. “And I oop” can be portrayed many ways and used in many different situations. It is most commonly used when someone sees or hears about something that catches them off guard; for example, you are walking around town and see your friend with their ex-boyfriend. For people like my friends and I, it is our first instinct to say, “and I oop!” This is just one of many examples of slang that have dramatically affected the new ways of language.  

If my generation lived twenty years ago when we didn’t have the current, advanced technology. We would be lost. How would we show our followers what we are eating for lunch every day? You can’t “D.M.” a guy that you think is cute. You would have to speak to him in person. Imagine if you had to read a physical newspaper to learn about the latest news like our grandparents did, and no, there is no such thing as facetime. You can’t video chat your friend and have them walk you through how to break up with your boyfriend over text. We take all of these things for granted because we use them daily.  

I can assume that most grandparents are like mine and always ask how to operate technology. Almost every time I visit my grandparents, I am asked a new question. “How do you make the words bigger?” “Can you download some music for me?” Of course, I always help, but what’s hard to admit is that I always tend to not understand why it’s so hard for my grandmother to operate an iPhone. Then again, could you imagine having to adapt to rotating landlines to portable telephones that can do almost everything that a computer can do? They went from having jobs that have little interaction with technology similar to what we have today to adapting to screens and operated machinery surrounding their workplace.  

Whether you believe the overpowering amount of technology that is available to people across the world is a threat to one’s brain, or if you believe being able to create an Excell spreadsheet makes you a genius, technology isn’t going anywhere. People are constantly reading and writing through a screen. Almost every aspect of life has been modified because of technology. There are new ways to communicate, learn, write, or generally do your job. It is expected to be digital literate today in order to be successful. Digital literacy is used every day in all different kinds of aspects.