Beautiful Bedlam (14 page)

“You know why?” she asked, her accent seeping in from time to time.

“Why mother?” Sienna asked despondently suppressing a sigh.

“Its not because you’re an ugly girl. You take after your mama after all, in your own way. Look at you. Your beautiful long hair.” She whispered as she tugged at the ends.

“Your beautiful skin, your big lips, your face.” Her breath lingered on Sienna’s face. She turned away in disgust.

“I gave you this face so don’t you dare turn away from me like that you ungrateful bitch. You look at me when I talk to you.” She hissed and gripped Sienna’s chin and forced her to look at her.

“Look at you, judging me!” she snarled.

“I didn’t say anything.” Sienna said though gritted teeth.

“You didn’t have to. I can see it in those green devil eyes. Look at you. What are you now? Seventeen?” Maria asked vindictively and finally let go of her daughter’s chin but only because her drink was calling.

“Sixteen.” Sienna corrected. Her chest heaved with emotion but she refused to cry.

“Yes! I know! I was there during the forty-eight hour delivery!
Sixteen
. You’ve barely lived. What do
you
know of life? What do
you
know of pain? Huh?” Maria growled and jabbed her finger at her emphasizing her point.

“Nothing.” Sienna replied quietly.
Nothing. I am nothing
.

“Exactly. Nothing.” Maria repeated and ran her hands through her hair and drowned her glass. She sighed and looked up at Sienna almost sleepily. Her eyelids drooped as she staggered towards her.

“You know why I wasn’t worried about Logan or in fact any other boys not because you’re ugly but because deep down inside you are so…what is the word?” she asked and looked around blankly and blinked rapidly before gasping aloud.

“Rotten! Dark! Something not right! And you are so boring. All you do is talk about boring things. Boys don’t like smart girls. You will either scare him away or bore him to death.” She whispered malevolently and chuckled lowly. She then began rifling through the cupboards probably looking for another bottle of any form of liquor she could get her hands on.

“Well, if you’re such an expert on guys. Where’s dad?” Sienna asked suddenly.

“What?” Maria retorted and snapped her attention back to the child who dared to speak. “Where’s dad?” Sienna asked again more purposefully and slowly as she stood her ground. Maria narrowed her eyes at her. Her face was a picture of fury and sudden anger.

“You mean your precious innocent saint of a father? The one whose never home? The one who-”

“Well at least he’s not a drunk!” Sienna yelled finally letting go of some of that bottled resentment and anger.

“Well, at least I’m still here. Where is your father? Oh, I don’t know. He’s probably with his new woman. Oh, you didn’t know? Your father has been having an affair. Your father left us, left
you
for someone else. Now clean up all this mess you’ve made.” She hissed as she smashed the wineglass on to the floor near Sienna’s feet and left with a bottle tucked under her arm.

“Hey Annabelle.” Sienna said as she jumped on her little sister’s bed after she was done cleaning up the glass and the blood from the cuts on her feet.

“Hey,” she replied whilst she brushed her pretty inky black colored hair. Sienna waited a few moments before choosing her next words carefully.

“So…I know you’re probably wondering where dad is. He just packed his things and drove away in the night. I mean talk about
drama
queen
.” Sienna chuckled and stopped at Annie’s unsmiling borderline bored befuddled expression. Sienna cleared her throat before continuing.

“He’ll be back soon. You know how mom loves to rile him up and drive him crazy. Well, she drives everyone crazy but-“

“What are you talking about? I know where dad is.” Annie quickly interrupted confusedly. “What? Where?” Sienna asked desperately.

“Dad’s on a business trip. Mom told me all about it last night.” She said matter-of-factly. Sienna’s hopes were suddenly dashed again.

“Right.” She sighed and crawled in to her own bed glumly.
“She said he’d probably be back from New York in a couple of days. It’s so unfair. He gets to go away all the time. How come we never go places?” Annie asked despondently.

“Because grown ups get to hit the eject button and fly off in a magic parachute leaving the kids in a sinking squalor of a chopper stuck with their loving doting mothers whose affections for their children are squandered by their desperate attempt to regain their sense of purpose for existence or escape the torturous squabbling of their mind’s demons constantly squawking at them by consoling in their good old friend Vino or their paramour Jack Daniels, that’s why.” Sienna replied bluntly emulating her ten-year-old sister’s very matter-of-fact tone. Annie stared at her sister bewilderedly and blinked rapidly at her before falling back on her pillow in defeat. “You talk weird.” She whispered as she stared up at the white ceiling.

“Its part of my barely there practically nonexistent charm, but just like genital herpes, I grow on ya, kid and I’ll getcha in the end.” Sienna replied with a smirk, although her words were vaguely comical, everything else about her was not. Not the tears in her eyes, nor the shards of throttling emotion jammed down her throat, nor the glass jar that had shattered within with the realization that maybe…just maybe that voice in her head was on to something. Her father was never coming back.

“You should get some sleep.” Sienna said and turned the lights out and laid back, head against the pillow, her hands over her head, eyes to the ceiling.

“Aren’t you going to sleep now?” Annie asked in the dark.

“No rest for the wicked, and even less for the broken minds and hearts.” Sienna whispered to no one in particular as the sound of her little sister’s soft snores already reached her ears.

11.

“How long has she just been sitting there?” Logan asked in a hushed tone.

“Who knows? She went out in the morning. My mom came home and found her sitting on the porch. She’s been there for hours.” Meredith replied breathlessly as she tried to haul her hand luggage in to the trunk of her Prius. Logan quickly helped her out and picked it up for her easily.

“And she hasn’t said a word?” he asked in a low whisper, his eyes fixated on her slender unmoving frame. “You tell me, you spent the whole day with her at school.” Meredith retorted airily and slammed her trunk shut and put her hands on her hips. She took one look at Logan’s worried pensive gaze at Sienna and knew something was up.

“She didn’t go in.” she sighed and shook her head. “
God
, she always was a drama queen.” She muttered and rolled her eyes. “I’ll go talk to her.” Logan quickly said not wanting Meredith to go rile Sienna up when she was already in this fragile state. “I wouldn’t bother. She doesn’t reply. She hasn’t even noticed you standing here the last fifteen minutes. Wow, there’s a first.” Meredith retorted rather amusedly and stood near Sienna.

“Come on! Hurry up! Lets’ go!” Cora growled from the front seat. Sienna wondered if she were ever in a good mood. Jeez, and they all thought
she
was depressed.

“Earth to Cyborg! Sienna! I’m going now! I’m going back to college! HELLOOO?” Meredith hollered and waved her arms in front of Sienna. She didn’t even bat an eyelid.

“See! Nothing. Now that we’ve established the fact that she’s a deaf freak, can we go already? My friend is waiting for me.” Cora shouted. ‘
And by that she means her pot-dealer
,’ that voice sneered in Sienna’s head. Sienna chuckled a little at that. Meredith just sighed and went back over to her car, started it up and went along her merry little way to Penn State. She was currently studying Philosophy, a major that did absolutely nothing for her career options but her parents didn’t care. They were just glad one of the kids actually made it to college and a good one at that. Sienna could hear everything perfectly well. In fact, she could hear a little too well. She could hear the vrooming sounds reverberating from the Prius, the whistling sound of the wind, the crunching sounds of leaves withering and bristling under Logan’s thunderously loud heavy feet, the darn cat meowing and wailing in the distance, even the uneven sound of her breaths quickly coming in and out was suddenly acute to her, but the distinctive sounds of the
others
were far clearer. They commented from time to time. She just wanted it all to stop, to quiet down, to have one small moment of silence to her self.

“Hey,” Logan greeted softly as he sat down next to her on the porch. He was still dressed in his awesome black and yellow
leather
varsity letterman jacket and jeans. Somehow he managed to pull wool over the Vice Principal’s eyes and was allowed free reign to wear whatever he wanted. She apparently complied and said he was a special case because he was the quarterback.

“Let’s go inside. You must be starving…just sitting out here in the cold…not talking. I’ll make you something to eat. You like cereal, right?” he rambled on and rubbed his jaw nervously. She said nothing in response, but she did rub her temples slightly and shifted in her seat so he took that as a sign of progress.

“So, Meredith’s gone and Cora’s barely home, you should be glad. The psycho conjoined twins are gone! We should be celebrating by breaking in to the liquor cabinet! After we get some real food in you of course.” He said trying to get her to smile, hell, even look at him! He drew closer to her and very slowly and ever so awkwardly put his arm around her. He wondered when it got so awkward to hug his best friend? Probably around the same time he and the rest of the male sex in his school were suddenly made very aware of her physical presence. It’s not that Sienna was never a pretty girl. She was, in that younger sister, too skinny, awkward almost goofy endearing sort of way. Now that Mother Nature had had her way with her, she had inadvertently jumped the scale from six to a ten seemingly overnight. She eased in to his arm and leaned her head against the base of his neck and against his shoulder.

“You know, it’s been six weeks, you can’t keep waiting for your dad to come home. He’s gone.”

“I know.” Sienna said softly and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“It’s just I can’t believe he’s gone for so long. I don’t know why. I always expected him to come back. I never thought he’d be gone longer than a couple of days. You know Annie still thinks he’s in New York. Actually my mom told he had to go to Chicago and he’s going to Seattle the following week. She’s running out of cities. Where is she going to send him next?
Beijing
?” she retorted sardonically and looked up at Logan with those big green eyes.

“Should I just tell her the truth?” Sienna asked softly.

“No, not yet anyway. She’s just a kid. Who knows? Maybe your mom is right. Maybe its better she doesn’t know the truth. In my experience the truth always hurts a lot more than a couple of small white lies or omissions.” He said and looked at her poignantly as if he were resisting the urge to say something else.

Sienna’s heart rate picked up its sudden quick pace as she had the innate feeling he was going to say something, confess something.

“Besides I’m sure your mom has got it all under control.” He said dismissively and broke away from the gaze that went on a little too long.

“You don’t know my mother.” Sienna muttered to herself and withdrew from Logan slightly. She looked ahead at the big bare branched sycamore trees and its trunk surrounded by its fallen crushed leaves.

“So you know I’m throwing a birthday party tomorrow. It’s all a bit rushed. Nothing fancy. It’s at my dad’s cabin in the Bedlam woods like I told you. You remember right?” he asked and glanced at her.

“Sure. Yes! Your birthday.” She exclaimed her eyes bright with realization. She couldn’t believe she had forgot.
What was happening to her?

“You’re coming aren’t you?” he asked rather sternly as if he already knew her reply.

“I don’t know, Logan. Keggers aren’t really my scene plus my mom-“

“Oh come on Sienna. Sometimes it feels like you’re here in person but you’re not really here in mind. Ah hell, I’m gonna say it. I miss the old Sienna. I miss my nerd.” He said humorously and honestly. He did. Sienna missed that girl too. She looked up at him somberly.

“She misses you too. I’m sorry. I know I’ve been a bit…distant.” She winced and rubbed her sore throbbing temples.

“So you’ll come to the party? You promise?” he asked.

“I promise.” She sighed and moved her fingers to tuck her hair behind her ear, a gesture she had always done but somehow had the effect on him that drove him near crazy. Before he knew it, he tucked those dark loose silken strands behind her small ear and let his fingers run through her locks slightly before withdrawing his hand away. She froze with…what? Fear? Shock? Excitement? Or perhaps a mixture of all three? God, he wanted to kiss her. Logan didn’t think he had ever wanted to kiss someone so much before in his entire life. This desire resonated right from his core and spread out gripping every nerve of his entire being. He shrugged his arm off her suddenly and rather cumbersomely edged himself away from her slightly confusing her to no end.

“Let’s go inside now,” he said briskly as he stood up and extended his hand out to her. She gave him a quiet look of perplexity but took it nonetheless. As soon as they went in, their ears were bombarded by the sound of Spanish music blaring.