Grey Eyes
Brandon Alston & Quinteria Ramey
Edited by Frankie Sutton
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Copyright 2011 Brandon Alston
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 – Sacrifices
Chapter 2 – Nathan
Chapter 3 – Revelations
Chapter 4 – Home
Chapter 5 – Memories
Chapter 6 – Darren
Chapter 7 – Helpless
Chapter 8 – Manipulated
Chapter 9 – Safe
Chapter 10 – Enemies
Chapter 11 – Fireworks
Chapter 12 – Come
Chapter 13 – Foolish
Chapter 14 – History
Chapter 15 – Reunion
Chapter 16 – Goodbye
Chapter 17 – Miracle
Chapter 18 – Boston
Chapter 19 – Aiden
Chapter 20 – Apology
Chapter 21 – Unexpected
Chapter 22 – Warning
Chapter 23 – Autobiography
Chapter 24 – Homecoming
Chapter 25 – Runaway
Chapter 26 – Proposal
Chapter 27 – Wonderland
Chapter 28 – Spectacle
Chapter 29 – Time
Chapter 30 – Guilty
Chapter 31 – Goodbye
Chapter 32 – Sixteen
Chapter 33 – Purpose
Chapter 1
Sacrifices
The sudden burst of sound coming from the telephone startled me, and I immediately turned my attention to my mother's bedroom door. Please, God, be asleep. It rang again. I leaped from the table, covering the entire distance of my living room before it could ring a third time. If only I could summon that kind of energy in gym class.
“Ana? Can you hear me? Hello…?"
My eyes returned to her door. Nothing. Thank goodness.
“Hey Jaz, I’m here.”
“Oh good, you won’t believe what I just heard about Erick!”
“My Erick?” I asked, pretending to be interested.
Jasmine squealed, “The very same one!”
I took the phone into my room and stretched out across the bed. Jasmine went on about the fallout from Erick being caught with Jessica, despite his going out with her older sister, Amber. To be honest, I could have cared less. High school gossip doesn’t exactly set my soul on fire, but Jasmine was a friend, and I haven’t had one of those in years. I played my part, making sure to sound as if I’m hanging onto her every word, sometimes throwing in a gasp, or a “You can’t be serious!” for good measure.
Trivial or not, I so needed this—to feel normal. This is what girls my age are supposed to be doing—staying up late to talk about things that don’t matter. But then, if I were normal, maybe they would. I tried to picture myself as the average teenage girl (I left Jasmine to extol the physical virtues of David Beecher, our school’s star running back and resident alpha male; she hardly needed my input for that). How much different would I be? Well, first off, I would have a car—no more creepy bus rides alongside old guys with gap-toothed grins that always sat too close. And I would have friends too, lots of friends—enough that I wouldn’t ever have to worry about where to sit for lunch. Maybe I would even be popular, maybe homecoming queen—okay, I would never be that girl, but a boyfriend might be nice…
“Ana…? Are you even listening to me?”
“Oh, sorry. I guess I kinda dazed off—“
“Thinking about Erick, I bet! Girl, if you’d put some effort into it, boys like that might notice you.”
“Effort? Like what?”
“Like maybe a skirt or a tight little pair of jeans that shows off those curves? Something to remind people that you’re a girl? I mean sweat pants are comfortable around the house but come on…"
She wasn't exaggerating. My entire wardrobe consisted of sweat pants and t-shirts in the summer, and sweat pants and sweatshirts in the winter. Obviously, if it were up to me, I’d have nicer clothes—at least normal ones. But then, what was up to me? Even my bedroom was my mother's design, and it reeked terribly of old person. Who has pictures of cacti on their bedroom wall?
"Jaz? Can I ask you something?”
“What’s up?”
“Do you think I’m pretty? I mean if you were a guy, would I be somebody you’d maybe wanna ask out?”
“Hells yeah! I mean, sure you dress like a forty-year-old alcoholic… Kidding! But seriously, you’ve got a super cute face and those eyes! Make sure you’re an organ donor, cause if something happens to you, not that I want it to, but if it did, donate those eyes to me!”
I stood up and moved to the small mirror above my dresser, looking over the skinny grey-eyed girl staring back at me. Technically, the hair that reached my shoulders was brown, but the shade’s so dark it might as well be black. I stared into my own face. I 'm decent looking, I guess. My mom says I have my aunt’s eyes—she died before I was born—a deep, rich grey like gathering storm clouds just before a thundering rain. My mom, for reasons beyond me, used to insist that I wear colored contacts, but I had at least won that fight. Truth was, I liked them more than anything else about me. They made me feel like I was different, special even. I don’t know if I would go as far as “super cute,” but that’s the point of having friends, isn’t it? To build you up?
“Thanks, Jaz.”
“No biggie—Hey, guess what?”
“What?”
“We’re gonna be juniors next year!”
So much for feeling normal. Jasmine’s words had torn a giant hole into my fantasy and I could literally feel the “normal girl” feeling spilling out of me. To tell the truth, I didn’t know where I’d be when school picked back up in a couple of weeks. This year and a half in Pelion, South Carolina has been the longest I’d ever lived in the same place, and I’ve never been happier. It’s allowed me time enough to make a friend, to both start and finish the school year with the same teachers and classmates, and most of all, it’s allowed me to experience moments like tonight, where I could actually forget that my life was as far from normal as it was possible to be. I didn’t want to jinx it by assuming that I’d be enrolling at Pelion High with Jasmine next school year.
“Oh crap! I think my mom just came upstairs! Talk to you tomorrow!”
It would have been nice if Jasmine’s mom could’ve come before she reminded me about school. I yawned and trudged lazily into the living room to return the phone to the holster.
My mother was exiting the small kitchen area when our eyes met. I nearly dropped the phone. First, she appeared confused by my startled reaction, but that quickly passed into anger.
“Who were you talking to, Ana?”
“No one,” I replied. I did my best to keep my tone casual. “Just a friend from school.”
“You never told me about this friend. And since when are we the type of weak-minded women who need friends?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think you’d mind if—“
"You think I’m stupid don’t you? You think I don't know when my own daughter is lying to my face? That was your grandmother, wasn't it?
"No!” I answered emphatically. “Her name is Jasmine! “
“What did she tell you? Tell me the truth Anastasia or so help me…”
“I am!”
She stomped across the room and snatched the phone from my hand. I watched her fingers dial *69. I freaked.
“You can’t! You’ll get her in trouble!”
Again, she wasn’t listening. She moved back across the living room and into the kitchen.
Her voice got loud—she was arguing with one of Jasmine’s parents. I fell onto the couch and buried my face into my hands. Jasmine would be so pissed.
When my mother returned to the living room, her tone was softer. “Sweetheart, I’m sorry. I’m just trying to protect you. One day you’ll understand—"
I wasn’t trying to hear her. “Understand? What’s not to understand? You enjoy making my life hell. I can’t leave the house after school, can’t have any friends, I can’t even have a phone call! This isn’t normal!”
“Ana…”
“Just tell me the truth, please. What are we hiding from? What is so terrible? I’m almost sixteen now, I can deal with whatever it is.”
No reply.
I left her alone on the couch, stomping toward my room as I brushed away tears.
“Ana!” she called out after me.
I didn’t answer. I didn’t feel I owed her any more time to explain why she made us live the way we did. She wouldn’t tell me the truth, so why should I listen? I was tired of the rules, and so tired of the secrets. Tomorrow morning, when she left for work, I was leaving and never coming back. That was the truth.