Till it Stops Beating
Page 1
Till It Stops Beating
Hannah R. Goodman
© Copyright Hannah R. Goodman 2018
Black Rose Writing | Texas
© 2018 by Hannah R. Goodman
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publishers, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.
The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.
First digital version
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Print ISBN: 978-1-68433-080-5
PUBLISHED BY BLACK ROSE WRITING
www.blackrosewriting.com
Print edition produced in the United States of America
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following people for their time and support: my sisters-in-writing authors Kacey Vanderkarr, Kristen Tsetsi, and Heather Christie; my sista-from-anotha-mista and BFF Alyssa; my older daughter, Chelsea, for being the best editor a mom (or writer) could ask for; my younger daughter, Vivian, for her words (and hugs) of encouragement; my husband, Mike, for his patience all of these years (decades) as I chased my dream; my mother Sheryl, father Louis, and, sister Jen, for providing me with endless good copy from my childhood; my mentor and friend, David Yoo, for his infinite support and belief in me as a writer; and, finally, my cat, Zoe, for being the purrfect distraction as I edited this book.
Though this book was birthed long ago, its (deep) revisions were more recent, and I have to thank not only those above for their assistance with that, but also two important readers, Allie Gilles and Christina Irace.
I dedicate this book to my own “Bubbie” a.k.a. my grandmother Bernice, who inspired me to chase this writing dream.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgements
Part 1 - Senior Year
Chapter One - Jelly Doughnuts
Chapter Two - Goin’ back to Cali…I don’t think so.
Chapter Three - Put a Cork in It
Chapter Four - Till It Stops Beating
Chapter Five - “How crazy was your mother?”
Chapter Six - The Doctor Is In
Chapter Seven - In the Clear
Chapter Eight - Hitting Bottom
Chapter Nine - Back to Life
Chapter Ten - Catch Up
Chapter Eleven - Escape
Chapter Twelve - Blast from The Past
Chapter Thirteen - Nerdy Hot
Chapter Fourteen - Rewrite
Chapter Fifteen - 1-3-4
Chapter Sixteen - “Finish Line.”
Chapter Seventeen - Photograph
Part 2 - Road Trip
Chapter One - Life Happens
Chapter Two - U Turns
Chapter Three - Graduation
Chapter Four - “Don’t you think you should have talked to us first?”
Chapter Five - Hit me baby one more time!
Chapter Six - “We took a wrong turn.”
Chapter Seven - “You be the lookout.”
Chapter Eight - “Scared you pretty bad!”
Chapter Nine - Balls Out
Chapter Ten - A Date…finally
Chapter Eleven - A Cabin in The Woods
Chapter Twelve - “Do you need a doctor?”
Chapter Thirteen - Mom
Chapter Fourteen - Tight Grip
Chapter Fifteen - Angel
Chapter Sixteen - Eulogy
Chapter Seventeen - The (Real) Perfect Ending
About the Author
BRW Info
Part 1
Senior Year
Chapter One
Jelly Doughnuts
September 15th
Three weeks ago, today… we were kissing underneath the giant oak tree in my back yard… five months and four days ago we were in my car, holding hands, reminiscing about sophomore year when we were together…One year and nine months ago we were breaking up on my front lawn—
“Friends, seniors, texters...” Mrs. Dubois plops two boxes of doughnuts onto her desk.
I slam my journal shut while the rest of the class shoves their phones in their pockets.
“...lend me your ears…”
Leaning on my hand, visions of Justin, his blue-grey eyes…and chocolate doughnuts dance in my head…
“I come not to burden you but to help you…” Mrs. Dubois puts her hands together.
“…with your college application essay.”
Everyone groans while I mumble, to no one in particular, “Chocolate glazed?” Because if I can’t be left alone to daydream and write about Justin, I better get a chocolate glazed.
“Thou doth protest too much!” She snatches both boxes and clutches them to her slender body, “Shut thy traps or lose thy doughnuts!”
The class stifles further moans. No one wants to sabotage Doughnut Day, the highlight of AP English so far, this year—aside from the soliloquies performed by Lady Dubois.
The Lady opens the boxes, revealing a cornucopia of sugar-dusted and glazed delights. “One doughnut each!” she bellows. “In return, I want a one-page, rough draft of your personal statement.”
The entire class bustles up to her desk, barking at each other over who gets the chocolate glazed. I don’t bother to follow. With eighteen other seventeen-year-olds to compete with, my chances of snagging the very best doughnut flavor are not even slim, they’re just none. Kind of like my chances of having a relationship with Justin again. None.
So, I bend my head and scribble “My Personal Statement” and chew my pen cap while my fellow classmates settle into their seats and munch on sticky doughnuts, only mildly better for you than a pen cap, but certainly tastier. I scratch out:
My Personal Statement
Because I hear thy muse, and she speaks in my mind:
Ode to the Asshole Who Broke My Heart
But he’s not an asshole anymore, so that’s not right.
Ode to The Former Asshole Who Broke My Heart
Better.
Ode to The Boy Who Continues to Break My Heart But Probably Doesn’t Mean to
Yes! The muse continues to sing inside my head, inspiration coming in the form of Lady Dubois’s doughnuts:
No doughnut or pastry can distract me.
I think of Him, continuously.
Why oh why can’t I stop this miserable shit— that makes me write this horrible bit?
A reformed bad boy
Who’s been at Military school
Returning home occasionally
Each time making me a fool
No text or phone call in between
I know it’s not because he’s mean.
My true love finally has s
topped his shitty ways
So why oh why can’t we be together even if it’s not every day?
All I do is replay that kiss unable to let go of Him that I miss
I am clearly hexed—
‘cause all I do is write crappy shit poetry and think about my ex.
The muse stops singing, so I look up …and see a friggin’ jelly doughnut in front of me. I shoot a glare at my best guy friend Peter, whose busy stuffing—you guessed it—a chocolate glazed into his mouth. “That’s for bailing on us this weekend,” he says, his mouth full of chocolate.
“Does the punishment really fit the crime?” I ask, wrinkling my nose at the jelly mess in front of me.
“Yes.” He downs the rest of the doughnut in one bite.
“I’ll make up for it after school!” My other best friend Susan leans over my shoulder, her short, blonde hair brushing my face as she plants a kiss on my cheek. “Chocolate chip cookies. With organic chips!”
I turn and give Susan a weak smile then stare back at the hole-less pastry …aha!…The muse, she sings again…of the repulsive doughnut! “Thank you, Peter!” I say, and he gives me a weird look then shrugs, and I dip my head down again and write:
Jelly doughnuts don’t fit the part
And there is a huge whole in my stupid, broken heart
Peter leans across the aisle to my desk, his floppy brown hair falling over his eyes. “Thank me for what?”
“Nothing—” I say, closing my notebook. If he knew I was writing another Ode To That Whom We Do Not Speak Of…
“Wanna bite?” Susan, says thrusting a vanilla cruller at me, her signature bright pink lipstick lining the bitten into doughnut.
I wrinkle my nose at her. “You’re not mad at me?”
“No. But, you do have to set a time limit to this whole feeling sorry for yourself thing.” And before I can protest, she sticks out a gloppy, doughnut-covered tongue at me and when I roll my eyes, she adds, “You don’t know what you’re missing, Hickman.”
“I’m not feeling sorry for myself!” I say and play with the loose paper dangling out of my spiral-bound notebook.
“Sure, you’re not. I’ll take that off your hands.” Peter nods to the doughnut in front of me.
I push the jelly mess towards him.
Lady Dubois booms from behind her desk. “Back to work! Isn’t that your second doughnut, Mr. Shaw?”
Peter hangs his head in ass-kissing shame. “Yes, M’lady! Sorry!” Once Lady Dubois moves on to her next victim, he dives into doughnut number two.
Jelly plops out onto his napkin and my hand flies over my mouth.
Gross.
I vaguely hear Mrs. Dubois say something to the kid at her desk about “safeties” and “reaches,” a.k.a. That Which I Have No Interest In. Not safety nor reach or anything in between.
I go back to my journal, far more useful to me right now than a personal statement.
Justin and I can’t happen. I’ve gone over this a thousand times. I glance at Peter licking his fingers and then back at Susan, but just get the top of her blonde head as she furiously writes in her curly handwriting. A shadow darkens over my desk. I have no idea how long she’s been there, but suddenly Lady Dubois is standing next to me saying:
“A college essay in verse can certainly give you that extra boost in the eyes of admissions officers.”
That doughnut I didn’t eat seems to be stuck in my throat.
She has my notebook in her hands and is scanning the page. I open my mouth, but only a weird croak comes out and, whoops! The bell rings.
Lady sighs and hands me back my notebook. “Keep at it. And don’t forget, end it with a sense of hope. Colleges like that.” My face burning, I nod, shove my notebook into my bag, and dart out with Peter and Susan trailing behind me. A sense of hope? Then the only thing that poem is good for is “my stupid broken heart.”
. . . . .
After school, I’m sunk deep into Susan’s plush couch in her TV room, holding a plate of fragrant chocolate chip cookies. Baked in honor of me because of the jelly doughnut fiasco last period.
“The scent of chocolate helps depression,” Dr. Susan tells me from where she is perched on the arm of an oversized, orange chair.
My ears perk up. Susan and Peter nod at me and the plate of goodies, so I take a giant inhale… and promptly begin to cough. This makes them crack up until my cough turns into a fit, that’s when Susan leaps up and starts whacking me on the back while Peter starts screaming about the Heimlich maneuver.
“Guys! Stop! I’m fine.”
They both freeze and mumble, “Jesus you scared us” and “Just looking out for you.” Then squish themselves back into the chair, together this time. Attached at the hip is putting it mildly. Attached at the shoulder, thigh, hip, knee.
After a few moments of silence where we all catch our breath, Peter offers, “Chocolate also releases the same endorphins as making out.”
This makes the two of them giggle like seventh graders, while all I can think of with the words make out is—
“Justin.” Oh, no. I said his name out loud.
“Ha! I told you so!” Peter shouts and leaps up, bumping Susan off the chair.
She crashes to the floor. “Hey!”
“Sorry.” He points a finger at me. “But I knew it! And your essay was about That Who We Aren’t Supposed to Speak Of.”
“It was a poem.” I correct him not even attempting to deny it. Why bother. These two know me better than I know myself.
Susan stands up, her nose ring gleaming in the florescent basement light. She gives him a light push. “Leave her alone, Petey. Of course, she’s still recovering from the Return and Departure of Lover Boy.” She walks over and rubs my head. “It’s okay.” She takes a cookie and crashes next to me. I clutch the plate as the remaining cookies bounce.
Peter crosses his arms. “Maybe she needs to actually try and get over you-know-who.”
Susan smirks at him. “Cause you’re an expert on Getting Over Him? Um, wait…aren’t you in your first serious relationship?”
“What about Tim?” Peter hugs his arms tightly around himself.
We all take a long moment of silence: Tim was a closeted piece-of-shit-jock who hooked up with Peter on the down-low and when there was an inkling it might get out, Football Hero Tim beat the shit out of our Peter.
“That was not a relationship. That was a disaster.” By the tone of her voice, Susan is clearly trying to lighten the mood.
“True.” Peter uncrosses his arms. “Anyway, karma is a bigger bitch than any of us—now he’s at some homophobic, religious school.”
“Oh, snap!” Susan reaches out to high-five Peter who then high fives me.
Mood lightened.
“Hold on.” Peter adds to Susan. “What about us?”
“Us?” Susan raises an eyebrow. “Honey, in case you forgot, you dumped me and then you came out. You’re one boy I couldn’t have and then two is The Total-Package, Shamus.”
We all shake our heads.
Back in the spring, just days before they were supposed to get matching tattoos, Susan caught The Total Package kissing an ex-girlfriend who had the very same tattoo that Susan was supposed to get. The “yin” symbol to his “yang.”
She continues, “So that makes me the expert in Boys You Want But Can’t Be With. Not you.”
“Amen!” I declare and thrust a piece of cookie under my nose, happy that my stupid broken heart is out of the spotlight.
Peter snatches the cookie and the plate from me. “Enough with sniffing th
e friggin’ cookies. You’re gonna inhale one up your nose and then we’re going to have to do the Heimlich for real.” He puts the plate on the coffee table.
“To my nose?” I cock my head at him.
“You know what I mean.”
“Why am I getting the abuse?” I frown.
“Sorry,” Peter says and clasps his hands together. “I just want you to be happy. Trying some tough love…and failing.” He plops down next to me and throws an arm around my shoulders.
“I say we take a break from all of this sad sack shit,” Susan reaches for the remote. “Let’s get our Dawson on. It will make you feel better, Maddie.”
Click. On screen Joey—with her annoying, puppy-dog-pained expression—explains to Dawson why she kissed Pacey, even though she was supposed to now be with Dawson (and not Pacey).
Finger wagging at the TV, I say, “This stupid love triangle goes on for the entire Dawson series…”
“And it never gets old,” Susan throws a knowing glance at me.
“But these characters actually never change,” I protest. “Subtract the love triangle but add Boy I Can’t Get Over, and Welcome to Maddie’s Creek.”
“Shhhh,” Peter whispers, squeezing my shoulder with his eyes still on the screen.
I lean into Peter and watch Dawson and Joey cry on the screen now. Most boys I know don’t cry, yet another reason this show annoys me…on top of the fact that Dawson and Joey never seem to get over their teeny bop love, even when they’re practically adults…Justin and I were together when we were freshmen and sophomores…I’m a senior for god sake, and he doesn’t even go to school here, and I’m still busy waiting and pining…hanging on to one stupid make out session…
How does Dawson eventually get over Joey? He dates another girl…My god what have I been doing for the past year and nine months? Not going out with guys…at least ones I like…of which there has been two, at most.
Which makes me realize something.