Permanent Adhesives (10 page)

“You already set up my new blog?” I asked.

“There are some other accounts too, for Facialsnook and some photo sites and stuff and, well, you all will figure it out.”

Elias grabbed the top of his bag without closing it back up, gave me a nod, and headed out of the classroom.

“Wait, Elias.”

He disappeared through the doorway. I threw Reynaldo and Brian a mean glare and followed Elias out into the hall.

“Elias, don’t listen to them. They’re just being overly dramatic.”

He dropped his shoulders and turned towards me. “No, they’re pretty right. I said I’d help ya and I did. You don’t need me around to put everything into action.”

“But you were so excited about everything the other day.”

“Pretend the other day didn’t happen, okay? I went a little off character there.”

“No, I’m not pretending it didn’t happen. You mighta been a little jacked up on caffeine, but I’m pretty sure that was you.”

Elias clicked his tongue and looked at the ground. He bit his lip, looked up, and slightly tilted his head. “They’re waiting for you.”

I looked back over my shoulder, and half the club was hanging out of the classroom door watching us. It was almost a comical sight, kind of like when you see in sitcoms where people’s heads are stacked and peering around the doorframe. Elias made his escape. I was going to go after him, but I decided against it. Instead, I trudged towards the doorway of club members. Dean popped out into the hall. “You’re not just gonna let him leave like that are you?”

I scrunched up my nose at him. “That’s what you guys wanted though, so?”

Dean sighed and waved me back into the classroom. He had his laptop out and open and pointed to the screen. “Have you seen this?”

“Oh God, it’s not another video is it?” I asked, walking over to the laptop.

“Sit down,” Dean said.

I sat in the chair attached to the desk in which the laptop sat on. What I saw on the computer screen was a totally professional-looking website, nothing like my generic blog. “How, what?” I asked out loud, looking up at Dean.

Dean nodded and smiled. “He did that all for you Molly.”

Brian walked over, leaning over me glancing at the screen. “Oh man, that’s actually good. Look,” Brian said, pointing at the screen with a boney finger. “He even set up a store. How long has he been working on this?”

“I dunno, we just talked about it Saturday night, but Sunday he had to work.”

“Does he sleep?” Anna asked, leaning in.

“I’m starting to doubt it.”

“Molly,” Dean said. “He must feel really bad about Friday night.”

“And,” Anna smiled, her little heart-shaped face lighting up. “He really likes you too.” She then smacked Brian in the head.

“What was that for?” Brian asked, rubbing his head like the ninety-pound Anna actually hurt him.

“Because you and Reynaldo are jerks.”

“How?” Reynaldo asked, stepping up and crossing his arms. “Elias is the jerk.”

Anna sighed and put her hands on her hips. “So he made a mistake. He was drunk, which is no excuse, but he most obviously recognizes that his actions were not appropriate and is trying to make amends.”

“And you two would look really cute together,” Dean said, throwing out a smile.

I felt my face flush. Elias and I probably would have looked cute together. “Okay,” I said, sliding out of the chair. “Let’s all explore the new world Elias has created for us.” Several pulled out tablet devices, phones, or notebook computers. The rest of the club time was spent exploring everything that Elias set up. So, I had a superb website with the comic on the main page where people could navigate the pages back and next, or could start reading at the beginning of the comic. Elias then took Sasha and made it look like she was reaching over the top of the site and adjusting the S in the title of the comic. A couple of my other characters danced across the background, and the menu bar looked like it was hand-drawn in pen and ink. Upon further inspection, I realized it was my writing, all different block letters I had done within various pages of my comic. Social media icons were in the top right-hand corner and I clicked on them and they all led me to accounts that were freshly set up. On Chipper I somehow already had thirty-seven followers and my Facialsnook fan page had fifty-nine fans. I looked over at Anna, who lay on the floor next to me.

“How do I have followers and stuff already?” I asked.

“He put a lot of work into this,” Anna said, sitting up and crossing her legs. “Look in the store. You can buy tee-shirts. Right now there are seven available, and there’s stickers, there’s pins and 11x17 posters, geez.”

Dean came and sat down crossed legged next to us. “I think when he went to work, he went to work on this cuz there’s no way he coulda done all this in just hours. The dude made you merchandise.”

“This is too much. I mean, I did punch him in the face twice, so this is a little over the top.”

“Yeah and Molly, did I mention Elias’ face looks like shit?” I heard from the doorway. I looked up and there were Kate and Roberto. Roberto gave me a little wave.

“Oh yeah, did I also mention Elias texted me the other night?” Kate said with a smile, throwing her backpack on a desk, joining us on the floor. Roberto followed suit. All the rest of the club turned in our general direction.

“You have something to do with this don’t you?” I asked. I looked at Roberto and squint my eyes. “You too.”

Roberto bit his lip and smiled.

“So, Molly,” Kate said, loud enough for probably whoever was left in the school all the way on the other side could hear. “Okay, seriously, so I can’t understand half the stuff he says, and I still think he’s unstable, but it’s kind of a loveable unstable and the way he talks is, well, it’s just like his thing. Where is he anyways?”

I looked over at Brian and Reynaldo. “They scared him away.”

“No, who’d be scared of them?” Kate looked at the culprits of scare.

I shrugged.

“Since when did nerds become bullies?” Kate asked, looking directly at Brain.

“I think he just felt unwelcome,” I said.

Kate sighed. “I’d hate to say this cuz I too was so anti-Elias, but you’re going to have to call him or something.”

“I know.”

We wrapped up, but not before finding some of my photo accounts, which were stocked full of my drawings of Sasha Santiago and the other society members. It all seemed so professional to me; I wasn’t quite sure if my comic was up to par.

“Your comic is totally worthy Molly,” Roberto said as we walked out to Kate’s car.

He was responding to my verbalization of the thoughts I had in the classroom. Sometimes I wondered if people were just humoring me and my comic really sucked. I was a teen. I was entitled to self-doubt, right? But really, self-doubt was one of my worst enemies.

“It’s deserving of everything it gets,” Roberto said, assuring me.

“Ya think?” I asked.

“Of course, he thinks so,” Kate said, punching me in the shoulder.

The rest of the car ride they filled me in on how Elias texted Kate late Saturday night, and they got together at Kate’s where Elias did the website while Roberto and Kate helped set up all my social networking accounts, and they also started my shop and took pictures of the merchandise and all that other stuff.

Kate and Roberto dropped me off at my house, and after they left, I ran across the street to Elias’. Unfortunately, my dad answered the door. Why, I thought, why? I should have just called Elias or texted, but my phone was a pre-paid one, so I was trying to conserve my minutes and number of texts, but I was paying the price for trying to be thrifty. A grin spread across my dad’s face. His shit-eating grin is what I called it. Oh how I hated it. His mouth was open and spread the entire span of his face, exposing the Indian corn he had for teeth and deep wrinkles splayed from the corners of his eyes. His hair was a fuzzy mess that stuck out at obtuse angles. He still wore his whites from work—a paint splattered sweat shirt with carpenter pants splattered in the same fashion. He smelled like baked beans. He always smelled like baked beans. Well, it was usually only when he was drunk, but then he was constantly drunk, so therefore, he technically always smelled like baked beans.

“Molly,” my dad slurred, leaning on the doorframe.

I responded with, “Is Elias here?”

My dad’s corny grin disappeared. He appeared to be contemplating my question with pursed lips and drawn in eyebrows. “Ewiash,” he said. Yes, my dad was being an ass and was making fun of the way Elias said his own name.

“Elias, is he here?”

“No, the idiot is not in.”

“God, you’re such an ass.”

“And you’re my lovely daughter. Why do you want to talk to him anyways?”

“None of your business.” I turned my back on my dad and went across the street to my apartment. I know, you’re probably thinking, who talks to their dad like that? But he was an ass, simple as that. Let me fill you in a little more, so you get the picture. Let’s see, he used most of his paycheck for beer and cigarettes, leaving little for groceries and bills and all that kind of stuff, so the last Christmas we all had together, the holiday feast consisted of pancakes and tater tots because that’s all we had in the house. I also mentioned why I didn’t work because my mom gave all my money to my dad for beer, well this one time I went on this crazed baby-sitting streak and had like three hundred bucks saved. I had it stashed in a dresser drawer, and somehow my dad found it, and I never saw that money again. The whole holding out on them and saying you didn’t have money, didn’t work, because as you can see, it eventually got found. Let’s see, some other pleasantries my dad bestowed upon our family. Well, there was this one time when he got together with a bunch of drunks from the neighborhood, and they set a car on fire. He lost his license due to so many DUIs. He punched out my best friend’s dad (she wasn’t my best friend anymore after that). He once broke my mom’s wrist…I could go on, but it’s just too depressing. I’m pretty sure you get the picture.

I mean I did have some happy childhood memories, but thinking about them almost made me sad because then I longed for those moments. Happy times that we only got to see in photographs; my sister and I in bathing suits being squirted with the hose by my dad, eating picnic lunches, my sister and I singing a duet while my dad clapped with fake enthusiasm. Maybe they were just passing moments from my childhood, but I still longed for those times.

*************************

“
Dranyan, do you think your band of ornery teens will defeat us?”

Bubble with question mark.

“
There’s no way. They have no superbness to unleash.”

I was in the middle of a scene where Dranyan was trying to start up his own society type of deal, so he would be more evenly matched with Sasha because since she put her society together she always had one-up on him.
The Band of Ornery Teens
was what he was calling it. In his mind if you got teens mad and gave them weapons, they’d be able to take on their peers who possessed powers.

“Molly,” my mother called from the kitchen.

I ignored her and wrote,
“You have yet to see what they can do.”

Then my mother once again yelled, “Molly!”

I growled under my breath and put down my pencil. My mother was not a believer in walking a few feet to get you, no, instead she just yelled.

“What?” I yelled back, getting up off my bed.

“Get your butt in here.”

I walked into the kitchen and crossed my arms. “Yes, mother?”

My mom was pouring herself a cup of coffee and wearing a sweatshirt that had kittens playing with balls of yarn all over it and over her short little legs, she wore lilac knit pants. “Can’t you just call me
mom
like a normal teenager?”

“Problem with that is…I’m not a normal teenager.”

“Don’t I know it?”

I let out an overly dramatic sigh.

“What do you want for dinner?”

I trudged over to the freezer, opened the door, and peered inside. All that was in there was ice, some freezer burned green beans, and a box of frozen lasagna. “I guess we’re going with lasagna?”

“That’s what I was thinking.”

“It’s also the only thing we have,” I said, throwing myself into one of the kitchen chairs.

“Don’t complain Missy or I’ll make you get a job.”

I sighed in response. It was like mine and my mom’s ongoing thing, almost like a joke. You know why I didn’t have a job, I told you the reason and my mom knew too. I think a part of her felt guilty for taking my money and my dad stealing it. My sister Janie hated the fact that I didn’t have a job, and she was the one who had to help out with the bills and rent and whatnot, but I always said to her, “Well, you didn’t have a job in high school either.” She usually would respond with something like how it was different now, and we were flat out broke ass poor. But it’s not like I was some kid who was always demanding money or whatever. If I needed clothes, my mom would give me five dollars, and I’d go to the thrift store. If you went to this one thrift store on certain days of the week, everything was like way discounted, and I got a lot of tee-shirts for like forty-cents that way. I had no problems shopping there. I didn’t consume a large amount of food either, so I wasn’t like a huge financial burden, even though Janie thought otherwise.