Labeled Love

by Danielle Rocco

  “Yuck,” the twins say, and I just stare, finding it really romantic how my dad kisses my mom. He does it just like the movies. When I’m ready to be kissed, I want it to be just like that.

  He brings her in for a hug. “I saw your shoes by the front door,” he tells me over her shoulder. He nuzzles into my mom’s neck, making her giggle when he releases her. “Did Beau already leave?” he asks.

  “Not yet. He’s cleaning up,” Mom tells him. He shakes his head, satisfied. I watch him intently as he kisses the twins on the top of the head and then comes over to me and kisses me on the cheek.

  “Have a good day at school today,” he says with a genuine smile.

  “Thanks, Daddy.”

  When he leaves, Mom gets the twins ready to put in the car while I grab my backpack and head out the door.

  WHEN WE ARRIVE at school, Jules is waiting for me by the entrance. We go to a private school in Los Angeles that centers on music and art—something my parents feel strongly about, and feel most public schools lack. I’m hoping I can go to a regular high school when I reach high school level. That’s what they let Beau do, and he loves it.

  My mom stops the car at the front of the entrance. “Okay, don’t be a busy bee after school. We’re going to volunteer today.”

  I smile and roll my eyes dramatically. “I know, Mom.”

  “Just make sure you’re right here when that bell rings. I know how you like to chitchat with your friends. You are such a social butterfly, Shay.”

  “I’m not chitchatting. I’m throwing the football with Cole and Brett.” She looks over at Jules standing there on her cell phone, dressed in a frilly peach skirt and a white tank top. She has on decorative flip-flops with her long blonde hair in a loose bun.

  “What does Jules do while you’re playing football with the boys?”

  “Exactly what she’s doing right now.” We both look at Jules in unison. Looking down at her phone, her face is concentrated, like she’s found the cure for cancer at twelve years old. “She’s probably just found a new fashion blog to follow. She always sits and watches me. Jules doesn’t get dirty. Besides, I don’t always play with the guys, especially today. I don’t want to risk my new pink tank top getting pulled by Cole. He can get rough when he tries to tackle me.”

  “He better not be rough.”

  “Mom, he’s a boy who breathes football.”

  “Well, maybe you should stand on the sidelines with Jules, so you don’t get hurt.”

  I tsk. “Um, yeah, I don’t think so. I would much rather play football than look up fashion blogs on my phone all day.”

  “Okay, just be here on time. I told the person at the center I would be there after school for when the younger kids come in for homework help,” she says. I nod my head and jump out of the car.

  Jules lifts her bright blue eyes from her phone when I reach her. “I heard a few kids say there was an earthquake,” she says, putting her phone into her designer backpack. “I didn’t feel anything,” she adds as we walk through the landscaped entrance of our middle school. We really don’t have fall in California, so our garden club planted lots of yellow and gold fall flowers, making the walkway to our classrooms upbeat and festive. We fake our seasons with lots of decorations, and that’s fine with me. I can’t stand to be cold, and who wants to live where it snows? Yuck! Not me. I’d take the West Coast sun anytime over being cold and stuck in the house all the time.

  “Nope, I didn’t feel the earthquake. I didn’t feel a thing,” I tell her.

  “Me either,” she says with a shrug. “We’re probably going to have an earthquake awareness speech now.” She smiles as I agree with a nod.

  We walk into class, heading right for our seats. Jules and I sit side-by-side, while Cole and Brett sit behind us. They aren’t in their seats when we walk in, but it never takes long to feel their presence. They always throw their backpacks down and sit with a big huff, like they just ran a mile. I’m sure they’re throwing the football outside.

  As soon as Cole sits down, he leans forward and says, “Hey, Starkie.”

  “Hi,” I say, turning my head to the side. Cole is starting to pay a little bit more attention to me since we entered middle school—more than usual, if that’s possible. Out of all the boys, he’s my favorite to play with. With our families in the same business, Jules, Cole, Brett, and I have always been together. We’ve always been best friends, but no one can take Jules’ place.

  Our teacher walks to the front of the classroom. With his back to us, he writes on the white board. Brett starts bugging Jules. I look over as he pulls at her loose bun while Cole tells me, “Scoot to the side, Starkie, so I can see your paper when we take the test.”

  “Absolutely not,” I whisper behind me.

  “You’re so mean,” he mutters. Then he twists a piece of my hair around his finger and pulls it down. He can be such a brat. I yank my head forward for him to let go. He laughs. “You do realize you just hurt yourself more than my little hair pull did. You should be an actress, Shay. You always make things so much bigger than they are. Come on. Let me see your paper, smarty pants.”

  “You should have studied, Cole.”

  I hear him let out a breath, and I smile before biting down on my pencil.

  AFTER WE FINISH our test, I feel really confident. The boys walk out ahead of us, as Jules and I head toward our favorite bench to eat our lunch. Jules’ mom only buys organic, so her whole lunch tastes like cardboard, so she says.

  My mom tried to buy all organic once and gave my dad and Beau a sandwich and chips while they were watching a football game; she stood over them and waited until they took their first bite. Dad looked up at her and said, “I love you, honey, but don’t ever feed me that shit again.”

  I don’t normally swear, but that is what Dad said, and Beau agreed. I sat on the other couch and giggled to myself. I had gone shopping with her that day, and she was so excited about turning us on to something that came out of the ground, including our lunch meat. The look on her face was priceless. It was just funny that her whole big, and I air quote, “We are going to be an organic family,” blew up in her face. So, yeah, I have an apple in my lunch, but I still get Hot Cheetos, even though my mom hates red dye.

  “So, Ms. Melody is making you volunteer today. I didn’t think we had to do volunteer service until high school?” Jules calls my mom Ms. Melody; she always has. It’s not proper to call an adult by their first name unless you’re an adult yourself. If you’ve known them for a long time, it’s okay not to call them by their last name, but you still have to be proper.

  “You don’t have to wait until high school to volunteer,” I say between bites of my peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  “Well, I would volunteer, if it was at a clothing boutique or something fun. What about that stupid etiquette class? At least there we get to practice having tea and get a good lunch out of it. It would suck to have to go to a community center. It probably smells like a dirty locker room.”

  “That’s just mean, Jules.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be mean, Shay. It’s honest. I’m not saying the people are dirty; I’m just saying I picture it smelling like a dirty locker room. I hope there’s a list of places we can donate our time to when we get to high school, so I can choose where I do it.”

  “You sound stuck-up when you talk like that,” I tell her, licking the red dye off my fingers.

  “You know I’m not stuck-up.”

  “It doesn’t sound that way.”

  She looks over at me and rolls her eyes. “Okay, miss, I’m going to change the world. If you go and like it, and you don’t fear for your life, I will volunteer with you.”

  “Aw, Jules, there’s hope for you yet,” I joke.

  “I’m only twelve, Shay. You can’t give up on me yet. There is plenty of time to keep me humble.” She takes a big bite of her veggie patty. Standing up, she walks straight to the trashcan and spits. “Yuck! I wouldn’t even feed that to a dog.” We
start laughing. “That was the worst thing I ever ate,” she says, wiping her face.

  WHEN SCHOOL GETS out, Mom is waiting promptly in front of the school like she said she would be. I pass our principal Mrs. Josi. “Hello, Shay,” she says, all cheery. She has bright blue eyes that make her face warm and blonde hair that’s usually wild and all over the place. She’s super cool, but sometimes she seems stressed out. Mrs. Josi has to watch over all these kids, so I can imagine how stressful her job is. She always talks to me, and since sometimes she’s long-winded, I keep walking to meet Mom.

  “Hi, Mrs. Josi.” I wave her off. Walking forward, I see Jules and Brett, so I wave at them, too. “See, ya,” I yell to them. Jules waves, so I guess she heard me. Cole walks up alongside me. “Do you want to throw the ball?”

  “I can’t. I’m volunteering at a community center in the city.”

  He gives me a scrunched-up face. “Why would you do that?”

  “Um, because I’m a caring person.”

  “Whatever.” He nudges me with his shoulder, that is getting bigger every day with his football training, and I practically fall against Mom’s car.

  Her window is down. “That was a little rough,” she says over the music.

  “That’s Cole for you,” I murmur.

  I’M SO TIRED, but anything is better than being at home. Grace is in the kitchen banging stuff around. Her voice is muffled, but I can still make out her words. She’s looking for her cigarettes.

  I’m dreading school today because I have a test in history that I didn’t study for. My sleepy gaze lands on the floor in my room. It really is a mess. I’m going to have to clean it when I get home. It’s a pathetic space, not much bigger than a walk-in closet. Our whole apartment is pathetic—from the dingy green carpet to the scuffed-up white walls all surrounded by a musty smell that I could only describe as being comparable to a nasty bar.

  This is what I call home.

  I throw my sheet off, get out of bed, and step over all my dirty clothes that I’ve asked Grace for a week to wash. Bending down, I gather them since I’ve given up hope for her to clean them and throw them into a plastic trash bag so I can go down to the laundry room the apartment residents share. I’ll wash them tonight when I get home from school.

  I head to our only bathroom that Mom and I share. She rarely uses it in the morning, and the way she staggered out of here looking for her cigarettes tells me she either went outside to smoke or she went back to bed. I can get ready for school without having to worry about her needing it. Hangovers will do that to you.

  I just hope the water pressure will be better than it has been. It sucks taking a shower with barely a trickle coming down over you. The owners of this building rarely do repairs, and if they’re not in a rush to do it, my mom won’t say anything to them. She’ll just tell me, “Deal with it, Jace. When they fix it, they fix it.”

  DRESSED AND READY to go, I stop in the kitchen to see if we have any cereal left. I practically ate the whole box for dinner last night since my mom never bothered making anything. There’s still a little, but not enough for a bowl, so I don’t bother. It will only make me hungrier. It’s such a tease. I can hold off until lunch at school. At least I always know I can count on free lunch—the only bonus of being the poor kid.

  My backpack sits against one of the metal folding chairs around the old kitchen table. We never sit there; it’s more of a place to throw stuff. Without a word, I toss my backpack over one shoulder and walk out. Pushing all my morning thoughts of a better life aside, I walk straight into my reality. A dim reality, but once I head through the darkened walkway, the morning sun will blind me. My apartment might feel like living in a dark dungeon, but it doesn’t take long once I make it out into the streets for the California sun to brighten this cold part of the city. I say cold not because of the temperature, but more for the cold nature of the people that surround it. When the majority of people are depressed and unmotivated with troubled minds, it feels cold.

  The morning air is chilly when I walk between the two buildings where the sun can’t quite reach. When I make my way through, the sun comes down over me, and the morning chill is replaced with the sun’s rays, promising to warm the sky. Earlier, I made sure to grab the only hoodie I had that wasn’t lying on my bedroom floor, but now I’m ready to shed it.

  The boulevard sounds like it’s been awake for hours. The Los Angeles’ streets are already bustling with cars, and it smells like exhaust and every other car smell that could make you sick. Horns are honking, music is blaring out of the passing cars, and the neighborhood bums are already hustling for their morning buzz.

  My apartment building was quiet this morning. Almost eerily quiet. Most of the people that live there stay up all night and sleep half the day. As I walk, I push my hair back so I can put my hood up to keep the sun out of my eyes. I dread this walk. Passing the liquor stores and the beggars that gave up on life too easy—it all is really depressing.

  As I round the corner, my junior high comes into view. Beaten-down buildings with graffiti covering most of the walls and a hint of patchwork to cover the gang affiliations, the school is a concrete paradise full of hopes and dreams.

  Not.

  “Hey, did you feel the earthquake last night?” my friend Landon asks as he catches up to me. I shake my head yes. “Yeah, me, too,” he says with a little bounce. Landon is a cool kid, and one of the few I talk to. We’ve gone to school together since we were in kindergarten. It’s not that I’m not social; it’s just everyone is into trouble here. I like to stay on the down low, and Landon does, too. If I hang out with someone, it’s always him.

  I hear a group of kids talking about the earthquake, too, as we pass them. Looks like no one is concerned about the little scuffle I got into yesterday. But, why would they? There are fights at our school daily. The earthquake is the hot topic. I guess it’s a good change from the usual: who got in Kayla’s pants over the weekend or who got caught buying drugs.

  I glance down at Landon. He’s a little out of place here with his blond hair and big brown eyes. He dresses almost preppy. I don’t know what his parents do for a living, but I’m assuming if he lives in this area, they must not make very much money. It makes me wonder where he gets his clothes.

  He teases me that my pale blue eyes against my jet-black hair make me look like I should be an actor or something. I think it’s his way of telling me I’m good-looking. I see the wandering eyes and suggestive looks, especially from the girls in the grade ahead of me. If I wanted to, I could get any one of them. I guess I have that “bad boy look,” so they say, and I’m only in the seventh grade.

  “So, are you ready for our history test today? I hate testing week.”

  I start to answer Landon when a girl’s voice interrupts us.

  “Hey, Jace,” Kayla says. Here’s a prime example of someone that tries to get my attention. She’s one of the popular girls around here. She’s in the eighth grade and popular for being the school go-to. In other words, she’s the school slut. There are plenty of those, but she happens to be the best looking of all of them, so everyone wants a piece of her, and she’s willing to give it to them.

  She’s almost fifteen, but you would think by the way she acts and dresses that she’s in college and not middle school. Maybe girls don’t even dress like that in college; maybe Kayla dresses more like a stripper. Girls grow up fast around here. I doubt many of them have good role models. Still, don’t her parents see what she leaves the house in?

  I don’t want to acknowledge her, but I push the words out of my mouth. “Hi, Kayla.”

  Landon gives me a sideways glance and rolls his eyes. “Can she be any more obvious?”

  I shrug my shoulders. “I don’t know.” I don’t think she cares if she is obvious.

  “You don’t even want to play around with her, Jace? She could probably teach you a few things for when you’re ready to make your moves on the ladies.” He laughs as I roll my eyes. We part and head to
our classes.

  I’m only in class for thirty minutes before that empty feeling begins to churn in my stomach.

  Damn, four hours until lunch.

  I FINISH MY history test that I’m sure I failed and wait impatiently for the bell to ring. I’m ready to get out of school, but not ready to go home. I make a last-minute decision to go to the local community center. Even though I haven’t been there in a couple of weeks, I can always count on them to provide snacks. That’s more than I can say for my house. I could really use something since I ate my lunch so fast I barely processed any of it. I’m a growing boy, and there’s never really enough food on those little trays. I check my pocket, where I picked up some change lying around the house, and I have just enough to ride the bus. The bus stop is right next to the school, and the drop off is not far from the center.

  When I arrive at the community center, I head straight to the snacks. Wasting no time, I tear open a bag of pretzels and pop one into my mouth as one of the volunteers greets me. I think his name is Frank.

  “Nice to see you, Jace. It’s been a couple of weeks since you’ve been here. How’s it going?”

  “I’m good,” I say, inhaling more pretzels. I must look like I’m food deprived. Well, that’s true, but he doesn’t need to know that. I don’t need any issues. I’m sure my mom would love that. I can just hear her. “Oh, great, Jace. Now they think I don’t feed you. That’s all I need.” I’m just trying to skate through my childhood without any major hang-ups holding me back. Frank waits for me to give him more of an answer. “I’ve been busy with school. We’ve had a lot of studying lately.”

  Lie.

  I haven’t studied at all.

  “Well, good for you, Jace. You should do well on your tests.” In a cheerful voice he adds, “It’s amazing what you can achieve when you put in the effort.”

  Not used to positive chats, I nod my head. I want to grab another bag of pretzels, but I don’t want to seem greedy when there are other kids here. When I walk away, I feel bad that I lied. It’s not that I don’t want to do well in school; it’s just that school has never come easy for me.