A short story.
Okay, so I posted a version of this thing over a year ago, but I've reworked it, (ETA: I took the advise of theevilgenius and edited some more, as of 2/14) and I'm thinking of submitting it to the literary magazine thing on campus. Read it, let me know what you think, any problems you see. Also, suggestions for a better title would be muchly appreciated.
Milkshakes and Summertime Smiles
Her crush on him is the fault of that stupid milkshake, Becky is convinced. The milkshake and maybe her pain meds, or whatever concoction they gave her in the hospital. But mostly the milkshake. She’s been silly over a boy before, to be sure, but never this straight-out fixated. Her aunt would blame puberty, but Becky isn’t fooled. She’s fourteen and knows her hormones well, and this isn’t them flipping out about those big blue eyes. It’s all caused by the demon milkshake he snuck into the hospital for her.
What really kills her is that she was getting over her crazy crush before the accident (and the milkshake. It was probably drugged. Stupid milkshake.) But then, when he smuggled in the milkshake, he didn’t act like he pitied her, and her heart started its crazy little two-step again. In heartbreaking hindsight, though, his act makes her even more convinced that pity is there. She actually can’t remember what he said at all, if he spoke, and she only saw his face when he handed over the shake with a smile. He kept out of her (admittedly narrow, with the state of her eye) line of sight, so she knows there was pity on his face, he just hid it well. And she doesn’t want pity, particularly because it’s directed the wrong way. She doesn’t want pity because half her face looks (and feels) like she went 10 rounds with the champ and then fell off a cliff. That doesn’t worry her, she thinks it makes her look tough. She’s only worried about the broken smile.
The accident was utterly terrible, no one denies that. The blood, the stitches, the broken bones, the possibility of long-term damage, the psychological effects, even the social repercussions of not going back for the last week and a half of eighth grade when the last day she was there she had a major fight with her friends. But as far as Becky is concerned (and since it’s Becky life, it’s her opinion that matters), the worst part was that it hurt to smile, that her bubbly “hey y’all” to the baby cousins she was trying so hard to be okay for made her want to cry out with pain.
Actually, that’s a lie. The worst part is that when she forces the smile anyway, people don't quite meet her eyes, giving back a tiny, fake, not-to-the-eyes smile while staring at the teddy bear near her pillow or the wall behind her or worst, pointedly at her right shoulder, like she should remember to not do it. It takes her a full day to notice her smile is pointedly lopsided. Actually, only half of her mouth works at all, and she thinks Oh, yeah, nerve damage. Well now. This sucks, with a strange sense of detachment. Only her mom and her dad and her brother act normal around her, so that would be 3 out of something approaching 25, but it’s only two and a half. Since her brother is too little to walk or say much more than random names and words, he only counts as half a vote, because the other half of the time his vote is “moo.”
She’s so scared that this will never go away, that her injuries frozen in time, and it’s obvious. But people misjudge her, think that the monstrously huge cut that will surely leave an always visible scar is what has her worried about the future. It's not that, because she knows bruising will fade, the stitches will come out, the cut will heal and scars will fade. In fact, when she looks at her brutalized face and remembers that she didn’t cry, she feels pretty darn tough for a middle schooler; even her big tough cousin’s eyes leaked when he broke his arm a couple years ago. When she feels weak or ugly, she just remembers that holy cow, she’s tougher than Josh. But people in the hospital, and after she comes home, placate the non-existent fears of scarring, and she lets them, because if she said out loud, “My smile doesn’t work anymore,” that would make it true.
After a few days, she starts copying her grandmother's tiny little fine-just-fine smile, pushing the corners of her lips up the tiniest bit and feeling like one of those stuck-up girls she avoids at school at all costs who can't be bothered to actually smile. However, it makes the possibly-permanent-no-way-to-tell-except-with-time-so-sorry-my-dear damage to the side of her smile less visible. But she misses the big grin that is so typical of her admittedly awkward school pictures. That’s who she is, her smile is goofy and loud and awkward just like she is, and though she never defined herself by anything physical, her smile is part of her personality. She’s lost without it.
Seeing him again after the hospital (where she technically only saw him for a second) is something she’s dreading. She’s awkward enough around him, without all this. She’s understandably scared to start high school, and about a week before the accident she’d realized that since she bought bras for the beginning of eighth grade she’d gone up a cup size and could no longer buy her bras in the juniors department. So she wouldn’t quite know what to do with her body even if it wasn’t broken, and all told seeing her older, no-chance-no-way-don’t-go-there-don’t-even-think-about-it-Becky crush would have been awkward enough without the sympathy she’s expecting. She knows it will make her want to bang her head into a wall--if she angles it right, she can bang only the side already affected. She actually figured out the precise tilt in Wal*Mart over the umpteenth stranger to literally pat her shoulder and promise it wouldn’t be visible at all soon enough. In fact, the reason she didn’t do it right there was that her cousin was right there and would have probably stopped her, especially because her face is still too battered to pout and go “please, Candie, pleeeease?” Even if her eye would cooperate, her lips wouldn’t be able to, so her ability to get her way with Candie is not something she can rely on. Or rather, she could definitely get her way with Candie, but she refuses to play the victim. Her pride is the one thing that the accident left without bruises, and she won’t beat it down.
However, when she sees him again, after three straight weeks of angst, it’s the antithesis of everything she feared. He hugs her with all the caution all her broken bones require while still squeezing her until she hurts, the good hurt, not the “Crap where are my meds?” hurt she’s so used to at this point. He introduces her to the friends with him without a bit of pity, just a tiny trace of a warning. With the swelling down, she can see again, and it’s reflex by now to watch his face. No pity, even after she struggles to roll her eyes back at him over their sooo embarrassing parents and her left one won’t roll. And when he winks at her, she can't help but regress and grin a real grin at him. And to her astonishment, sometime in the two and a half weeks since the hospital it's quit hurting. It feels incredible to really grin. It’s still lopsided, her left side isn’t functioning properly yet, but it’s there. And he grins back. No fear or surprise or sympathy--just two teenagers making fun of their parents.
Even now, even years later, she can still meet his eyes and smile. They aren't together, that dream never happened for her. It's okay; actually she’s glad it didn’t. They've both changed since that summer, both of them growing and moving on, and that boy she daydreamed about isn't the man he is now, not at all. But they're friends and from time to time when she does see him, he'll meet her eye and roll his or wink, and she remembers a little girl, alone and lost and totally drowning in a sea of fear and pain and the inexplicable panic of the worry she'd lost her smile, and the boy who threw her a lifeline just by being, and she feels that same fuzzy feeling she felt that June day and she smiles.
Milkshakes and Summertime Smiles
Her crush on him is the fault of that stupid milkshake, Becky is convinced. The milkshake and maybe her pain meds, or whatever concoction they gave her in the hospital. But mostly the milkshake. She’s been silly over a boy before, to be sure, but never this straight-out fixated. Her aunt would blame puberty, but Becky isn’t fooled. She’s fourteen and knows her hormones well, and this isn’t them flipping out about those big blue eyes. It’s all caused by the demon milkshake he snuck into the hospital for her.
What really kills her is that she was getting over her crazy crush before the accident (and the milkshake. It was probably drugged. Stupid milkshake.) But then, when he smuggled in the milkshake, he didn’t act like he pitied her, and her heart started its crazy little two-step again. In heartbreaking hindsight, though, his act makes her even more convinced that pity is there. She actually can’t remember what he said at all, if he spoke, and she only saw his face when he handed over the shake with a smile. He kept out of her (admittedly narrow, with the state of her eye) line of sight, so she knows there was pity on his face, he just hid it well. And she doesn’t want pity, particularly because it’s directed the wrong way. She doesn’t want pity because half her face looks (and feels) like she went 10 rounds with the champ and then fell off a cliff. That doesn’t worry her, she thinks it makes her look tough. She’s only worried about the broken smile.
The accident was utterly terrible, no one denies that. The blood, the stitches, the broken bones, the possibility of long-term damage, the psychological effects, even the social repercussions of not going back for the last week and a half of eighth grade when the last day she was there she had a major fight with her friends. But as far as Becky is concerned (and since it’s Becky life, it’s her opinion that matters), the worst part was that it hurt to smile, that her bubbly “hey y’all” to the baby cousins she was trying so hard to be okay for made her want to cry out with pain.
Actually, that’s a lie. The worst part is that when she forces the smile anyway, people don't quite meet her eyes, giving back a tiny, fake, not-to-the-eyes smile while staring at the teddy bear near her pillow or the wall behind her or worst, pointedly at her right shoulder, like she should remember to not do it. It takes her a full day to notice her smile is pointedly lopsided. Actually, only half of her mouth works at all, and she thinks Oh, yeah, nerve damage. Well now. This sucks, with a strange sense of detachment. Only her mom and her dad and her brother act normal around her, so that would be 3 out of something approaching 25, but it’s only two and a half. Since her brother is too little to walk or say much more than random names and words, he only counts as half a vote, because the other half of the time his vote is “moo.”
She’s so scared that this will never go away, that her injuries frozen in time, and it’s obvious. But people misjudge her, think that the monstrously huge cut that will surely leave an always visible scar is what has her worried about the future. It's not that, because she knows bruising will fade, the stitches will come out, the cut will heal and scars will fade. In fact, when she looks at her brutalized face and remembers that she didn’t cry, she feels pretty darn tough for a middle schooler; even her big tough cousin’s eyes leaked when he broke his arm a couple years ago. When she feels weak or ugly, she just remembers that holy cow, she’s tougher than Josh. But people in the hospital, and after she comes home, placate the non-existent fears of scarring, and she lets them, because if she said out loud, “My smile doesn’t work anymore,” that would make it true.
After a few days, she starts copying her grandmother's tiny little fine-just-fine smile, pushing the corners of her lips up the tiniest bit and feeling like one of those stuck-up girls she avoids at school at all costs who can't be bothered to actually smile. However, it makes the possibly-permanent-no-way-to-tell-except-with-time-so-sorry-my-dear damage to the side of her smile less visible. But she misses the big grin that is so typical of her admittedly awkward school pictures. That’s who she is, her smile is goofy and loud and awkward just like she is, and though she never defined herself by anything physical, her smile is part of her personality. She’s lost without it.
Seeing him again after the hospital (where she technically only saw him for a second) is something she’s dreading. She’s awkward enough around him, without all this. She’s understandably scared to start high school, and about a week before the accident she’d realized that since she bought bras for the beginning of eighth grade she’d gone up a cup size and could no longer buy her bras in the juniors department. So she wouldn’t quite know what to do with her body even if it wasn’t broken, and all told seeing her older, no-chance-no-way-don’t-go-there-don’t-even-think-about-it-Becky crush would have been awkward enough without the sympathy she’s expecting. She knows it will make her want to bang her head into a wall--if she angles it right, she can bang only the side already affected. She actually figured out the precise tilt in Wal*Mart over the umpteenth stranger to literally pat her shoulder and promise it wouldn’t be visible at all soon enough. In fact, the reason she didn’t do it right there was that her cousin was right there and would have probably stopped her, especially because her face is still too battered to pout and go “please, Candie, pleeeease?” Even if her eye would cooperate, her lips wouldn’t be able to, so her ability to get her way with Candie is not something she can rely on. Or rather, she could definitely get her way with Candie, but she refuses to play the victim. Her pride is the one thing that the accident left without bruises, and she won’t beat it down.
However, when she sees him again, after three straight weeks of angst, it’s the antithesis of everything she feared. He hugs her with all the caution all her broken bones require while still squeezing her until she hurts, the good hurt, not the “Crap where are my meds?” hurt she’s so used to at this point. He introduces her to the friends with him without a bit of pity, just a tiny trace of a warning. With the swelling down, she can see again, and it’s reflex by now to watch his face. No pity, even after she struggles to roll her eyes back at him over their sooo embarrassing parents and her left one won’t roll. And when he winks at her, she can't help but regress and grin a real grin at him. And to her astonishment, sometime in the two and a half weeks since the hospital it's quit hurting. It feels incredible to really grin. It’s still lopsided, her left side isn’t functioning properly yet, but it’s there. And he grins back. No fear or surprise or sympathy--just two teenagers making fun of their parents.
Even now, even years later, she can still meet his eyes and smile. They aren't together, that dream never happened for her. It's okay; actually she’s glad it didn’t. They've both changed since that summer, both of them growing and moving on, and that boy she daydreamed about isn't the man he is now, not at all. But they're friends and from time to time when she does see him, he'll meet her eye and roll his or wink, and she remembers a little girl, alone and lost and totally drowning in a sea of fear and pain and the inexplicable panic of the worry she'd lost her smile, and the boy who threw her a lifeline just by being, and she feels that same fuzzy feeling she felt that June day and she smiles.