Some Ten Years Later

             Jesse was at the high school dance – and for him, it was the most nerve-wracking moment of his life.

            He felt uncomfortable in the outrageous suit he was wearing, and he could feel as if his similarly outrageous pink tie was choking him.

            He dug his clammy hands deep into his pockets and looked about apprehensively.

            The school gym was decked out impeccably with decorations of burgundy and gold. Draperies hid the ugly steel frames of the building. Red and yellow balloons were littered about the ceiling and covered the basketball hoops and scoreboards. About fifty or so wide circular tables were scattered across the space, each having a wonderful centerpiece of roses, chrysanthemums and golden candles , and about half a dozen other students like him engaged in animated conversation.

            Jesse felt his glasses ready to slip from the bridge of his nose, and he wiped his sweaty forehead with his already soaked handkerchief and walked over to the refreshments table.

            A cheesy love song had begun to blare out from the massive speakers above him.

            He was waiting for someone – or so he thought. Either why he felt as nervous as someone walking across a tightrope. A queasy feeling was starting to build up in his stomach.

            He got two glasses of punch – why two, he had no idea. The other kids were looking at him and whispering excitedly, giggling behind his back and bursting into a hearty guffaw when they were a good distance from him. Freaks, he thought grimly. Just then, somebody tapped on his shoulder lightly.

            Jesse turned around and he felt as if his stomach and his heart had switched places inside him.

            Smiling at him wearing a flowing green gown was the beautiful Alexa Vasquez. The most beautiful, popular, and intelligent girl from the all-girls school down the block.

            Jesse, feeling slightly stupid, was at a loss for words.

            “Uh… Hi, A-Alexa,” he stammered blankly, his glasses finally slipping off his nose.

            Alexa giggled and fluttered her eyelashes at him prettily. Then she opened her perfectly-shaped pink lips to speak.

            “You better wake up, Jesse Mallory. Or I’m calling mom,” she said in a small squeaky voice he knew too well.

            There and then his dream – his beautiful dream – crashed around him and vanished. He felt his eyes snap open into the blinding September sunlight streaming from his window.

           

A small face looked at him crossly through striking periwinkle-blue eyes.

Jesse groaned sleepily. It was only his nine-year-old sister Stella.

“Whad’you want?” he said, burying his face into his pillow.

“It’s seven a.m., Jesse!” Stella exclaimed exasperatedly, “We’ll miss the bus on our first day of school!”

“I thought mom was going to drive us to school today?”

“No, she won’t. Today at least. She left a few minutes ago.”

“What time does the bus come, anyway?” he asked groggily, squinting at his alarm clock at his bedside table. Seven-oh-three. He ran his fingers in his dark brown hair in irritation.

“Seven thirty,” Stella replied promptly, crossing her arms across her chest. Jesse saw that she was already dressed up, her new pink backpack slung on her shoulders, and ready to go. He looked down at himself, still in his bedclothes.

“All right, all right,” he sighed, swinging his long legs out of bed. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen in fifteen minutes.”

Stella sighed and flicked her silvery-blonde hair behind her shoulder, “Can’t you make it in five minutes?”

“I’d like to see you try that,” he snapped. Stella glared at him.

“Okay, ten. I hope that isn’t too long for you.”

Stella raised her chin higher in dissatisfaction and stormed out of the room without another word.

Jesse chuckled as he snatched his jeans from his chair. Stella had always displayed that sort of refinement he had oftentimes been so surprised of.

 

Fourteen-year-old Jesse Mallory lumbered through the shower and got dressed quickly. He paused fleetingly in front of the grimy bathroom mirror to examine himself.

He had the same dark hair that stuck out in weird angles, the dark circles under his eyes that he got from staying out late every night he spent writing, and his blue eyes (though not quite the color as his sister’s). The same pair of eyes that grew wide with astonishment as he saw the biggest surprise of his life that freezing December morning ten years ago.

Jesse grabbed his backpack and slipped into the skull hoodie Stella got him for his last birthday with the money she saved herself.

He smiled sadly. Stella was a really sweet kid. But as the years went by, he couldn’t bring himself to admit that Stella wasn’t really his little sister – biologically anyway.

Jesse recalled the events of that morning as he rummaged through the meandering pile on his desk for the notebook containing all his writings.

 

Jesse was woken up that day by a loud crying coming from his parents’ room. He had gaped in amazement to see a small baby girl with pale-blonde hair wrapped in a fine silken blanket being hushed to sleep by his seemingly-sleepless mother. She had smiled sweetly at him and beckoned him to approach the newest addition to their family.

They had named her Stella. Because she had eyes like stars.

Jesse wiped his glasses on the hem of his black t-shirt as he took the stairs two at a time. Stella was sitting at the kitchen table, drumming her slim fingers impatiently on the counter.

“Finally!” she breathed in mock tones and rolling her eyes. She tossed him a ziplock bag with a sandwich inside.

“I made you breakfast,” she said simply, “but you’ll have to eat it on the bus.”

“Thanks, Stells,” Jesse said gratefully. He strode over to the door after his sister when a post-it note on the fridge caught his eye.

It was a message for him from his mom, written in her curly handwriting. It read: Jesse, dear. I’m sorry but I can’t take you and Stella to school today. Emergency at the hospital. Really important. No news from dad. I’ll see you two tonight. Hugs, mom.

Jesse’s heart sank as he looked down at his sneakers. No news from dad. He’d left five years ago to fight the war in the middle east. They’ve had little news from him since save for the occasional hastily-written letter telling them of one closely-avoided disaster after another. He and Stella had pleaded with him not to go, but to no avail.

A loud honking of a car’s horn brought him back to reality.

“Jesse!” Stella screamed from the bus window, “lock the door and get moving!”

Jesse’s mind raced. He fumbled with his stuff and the keys at the kitchen counter. He locked the door and slammed it as he went. He bounded the rocky path of their driveway and made it on the bus as the doors shut.

His heart pounded in his ears as the bus started to move.

He scanned the already packed bus for his sister and he found her in a two-seater a few rows from the back.

Jesse sat beside her, oblivious to the worried look on Stella’s face.

He saw her expression from a sideways glance, and he smiled at her to assure her that everything was okay. Then his smile dropped as he rummaged his bag for his iPod and stuck the earphones into his ears.

He let the music blare into his eardrums, ignoring a reproachful glare from Stella.

The beat of the music made it easier for him to think about how twisted his life was getting.

His mom called it adolescence. He calls it an emotional black hole.

Stupid war, he thought savagely, flicking through the songs. It only gets more people killed. No good really comes out of it anyway… So why fight?

Jesse’s eyes surveyed the bus lazily. He was still a bit sleepy. The music continued to scream in his ears.

The sixth-grade geeks were in front as usual, arguing on what he thought he heard was quantum physics. Behind them were the ordinary joes, the kids who, as his classmate once said, only existed to fill up the empty seats in the bus and in class. Then there was their part, Jesse’s acquaintances (he never really considered them friends. They thought he was strange), him, and Stella. Behind them were the skaterboys and skatergirls who, in Jesse’s opinion, were better off skating to school than crowding up the already crowded bus. And at the last row were the football guys (more commonly knows as the Bullies) and the girly-girls who can only think of boys and make-up (more commonly knows as the She-Bullies).

Jesse can only roll his eyes as they spied him looking at them and, as if it triggered some automatic ‘Launch’ button from them, pelted him with scrunched up balls of paper and some broken pencils. A pencil hit his forehead before he can duck. And he sank lower into his seat as the back of the bus roared with laughter and cat-calls.

Stella looked at him briefly and, to Jesse’s horror, kneeled on the seat and shouted, “Hey! Who threw that at my brother?”

A huge boy (if he was still a boy) with a pink and flat face leaned forward.

“’Hey! Who threw that at my brother?’” Sam Polanski, the captain of the Le Bron football team, mimicked in a pathetic falsetto, “Get up from your rabbit-hole, Shakespeare! What kind of guy are you to let your little sister stand up for you?”

Another thunderous roar of laughter erupted from their group.

“Say that again, and I’ll punch your face, you – !” Stella said as Jesse forced her to sit back into their seat.

“Leave them be, Stells,” Jesse said thickly, Stella fumed in their seat.

“Show them what you can do, Jess!” she hissed at him, Jesse shook his head.

“It won’t get us anywhere, Stells. We’d just get in more trouble. And stop watching action flicks on TV, please! It’s unbecoming for a girl like you.”

Stella breathed in deeply and exhaled noisily.

“Fine.”

Jesse looked at his sister fondly.

He never knew where Stella came from. Oftentimes, he thought of the people (he couldn’t bear to think of them as parents) who left her in their porch that frigid night. His blood would boil at the thought of them.

But nevertheless, as he sometimes observed Stella stick up for him in rough times, he can’t be any the less grateful that she was with them.

Silently amused and feeling a tad better, he began munching on the sandwich Stella gave him, when the latter shook his arm excitedly.

“We’re here!”

Jesse almost choked on the large chunk of bread in his mouth.

How in the world could he have been so nonchalant about it?

First day in school as a high school freshman. This will be a long day. A really long one.