I have too many adverbs in this chapter.
And it's not even done yet.
[Some things should be in italics, but when I pasted it here it all turned normal and I'm too lazy to go through it again.]
If there's anything that sounds weird/awkward/whatever, tell meh!
And help me kill those goshdang adverbs.
I need to do something with my life.
Other than spend it watching countless hours of porn, of course.
Those were the first thoughts that entered my mind when I woke up the following mid-afternoon after a long night of sneaking around a certain girl’s house. At least I could admit to myself that I needed a more productive way to spend my time. And the first day of summer was the perfect time to start. After I more or less fell off my bed, I reached for a pen and piece of paper.
My list of important things, stuff of that nature, and whatnot that must be accomplished:
1) Make Jenna Laine fall madly in love with me. [This task has not yet been completed. Damn.]
2) Think of other, equally important things to do. [Although I’d much rather do Jenna Laine.]
I examined my list, decided I was satisfied with it, went to the kitchen for food, and called Seth.
He picked up and said, “Hey.”
“Hey, it’s Nate.” I took a bite of my Pop-Tart.
“Thank you for informing me because caller ID doesn’t exist.”
“Okay,” I replied. “So you awake?”
“No, I’m randomly sleep-mumbling into the receiver.” He more than likely gave himself a pat on the back for that one. Seth is impressed by his self-proclaimed witty remarks.
“No kidding. Can I come over?”
Seth paused. “Right now?”
I nodded before realizing that he couldn’t see me. “Yeah.”
“I’m not sure if you’d want to come right now.”
“Why not?”
“Amelia’s here.”
I commenced choking on my Pop-Tart at the mention of her name. “You know, I’m kind of busy today, what with my countless hours of porn that need watching. How about later?”
Seth told me that the incarnation of the devil would be gone in two hours. I hung up the phone, restlessly awaiting five o’ clock to arrive.
When it did, I slapped on a t-shirt and basketball shorts that didn’t look like they’d been worn too much (maybe they smelled like it but all that could be fixed with deodorant and cheap cologne). I didn’t bother trying to start my car and walked to Seth’s house as it was only two blocks away. I was sweating like the armpit of a wrestler by the time I rang Seth’s doorbell. Someone unlocked the door and slid it open. Standing in the doorway was It-Whose-Name-Should-Never-Be-Spoken-Aloud-Unless-You’re-Suicidal-Or-Similarly-Fucked-Up-In-The-Brain. My first instinct was to piss my pants, pelt it with rocks, and run, but thanks to the high amount of self-control I possess, I merely shrieked.
“You weren’t... Seth said... Why are... Dear lord.” I wanted to shrivel up into a ball and decompose on the Millers’ front porch. I rubbed my left forearm as the vague sensation of a sharp object being thrust into my skin overwhelmed me.
Amelia despised me from the moment we met three weeks ago. Seth had invited me to his house to hang out, and when I first saw Amelia, I thought she was fairly decent-looking. Surprising how she was Seth’s sister, because she wasn’t hideous. Evidently, in the Miller family, whoever’s conceived first gets the genes for a nice ass. The only attribute they shared was their fiery red hair. I might have ogled her. She was two years older, about to be a freshman in college, and I didn’t always have the pleasure of being within a thirty foot radius of one, or any living human being with a vagina other than my mother. I didn’t think admiring the big man in the sky’s gift to humanity should be called “objectifying the female body”, but Amelia didn’t feel the same way. Semantics.
My first visit to the Miller house was cut short because I had to go home to tend to my bleeding arm. Where Amelia had thrown her stiletto shoe at me.
I was almost institutionalized after the incident for demonstrating extreme paranoia. Rather, I would have institutionalized myself with the intention that I could to be that much safer from her.
“You.” She looked me up and down. “Just lovely.”
At that moment, Seth, my savior, appeared behind her. He looked at me with an apologetic grin as Amelia and her ever uninterested expression walked away. “She didn’t leave like I thought.”
“I gathered.”
“Sorry.”
“You think she’d mind if we put her in a giant hamster ball?”
Seth didn’t answer.
I walked past him into their living room. A plasma TV hung on their wall opposite the leather sofa. Seth sat down and I sat next to him.
“So,” he said.
“Yeah?”
“Want some Doritos?” he asked. What sane human being wouldn’t want Doritos at any given hour of the day? I replied with an affirmative and Seth went into the panty for a bag.
I munched on a chip as I deliberated. “I think...” The words were painful to say. “I think I need girl help.”
“Don’t make this about Jenna.” He rolled his eyes. “You’ve only spoken to her once.”
“It is about Jenna. We’re in love, Seth. Our love is deeper than the Mariana Trench.”
Seth didn’t agree with me. “She doesn’t know you.” His voice was flat.
I shifted in my seat. I said, “She will,” at which Seth proceeded to clear his throat loudly.
“In my expertise,” Seth began, “I think it’s best if you talk to Amelia.”
I gasped in horror and shock and disgust. “Gag me with a spoon. I refuse to discuss anything with that parasite.”
“She’s as close to a female as you’ve got,” he pointed out. The initial betrayal I felt wore off when I realized that Amelia did know a lot more about girls than I did. I—begrudgingly—admit that I’m not exactly a ladies’ man. But Amelia hung out with girls all the time, and maybe even knew a thing or two about them.
But the thought of interacting with Amelia without the accompaniment of a machete sent shivers to my spine and made my hands clammy.
“You’ll go with me, won’t you?” I batted my eyelashes at Seth, giving him an angelic grin.
He smiled back at me. “No way in hell.” I’d always commended him for his tendency to be frank. Now he was just being cruel.
“You can’t leave me alone with her.” One of us would be raped if we were left alone together. And there was no doubt that it would be the innocent blond.
I had a feeling Amelia was a registered sex offender in the state of Oklahoma.
“Grow some balls, Nate. You’re taller than her. You’ll live.” And with that, he pushed me down the hall and into his sister’s bedroom. I started drafting my will in my head.
“Don’t do this,” I begged as I disappeared through Amelia’s door. I didn’t know what she would do to me in her bedroom. Seth wasn’t nearly as concerned. He shrugged, turned back, and left me vulnerable to the woman’s malicious deeds. The door clicked shut behind me.
Amelia’s room wasn’t how I imagined it to be. Instead of cobwebs hanging from every corner and a coffin rather than a bed, her walls were light blue and on them hung paintings of flowers. A figure closely resembling Quasimodo was hunched over her desk. Amelia looked up from the book she’d been reading and grimaced. “If you wanted to catch me in here naked, you’ll have no such luck.”
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
She turned to face me, her massive breasts engulfing half of the room. “What do you want, Carnabie?”
To get into the pants of Jenna Laine. “Girl advice.”
Amelia’s body convulsed and she looked like she was choking. I thought briefly about doing the Heimlich, but she recovered when she burst into laughter. A tear glistened in the corner of her right eye. “Don’t you have to be post-pubescent to be interested in girls?” she asked.
In all my sixteen years, I’d never given girls a second thought until she, the love of my life, came along. Yesterday. “Well, I am. And I need your... your... knowledge,” I spat.
“How many girls have you ever talked to?”
“Plenty.” In my head.
“How many dates have you been on?”
“Plenty,” I said, looking to the left.
“While I hate to question your promiscuity, that’s bullshit.”
She’s on to you, Nate. “I have experience with girls.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “How?”
“Tons of girls play World of Warcraft.”
She pursed her lips as if to say, You realize that many of the “girls” could very well be fifty-year-old men with beer guts and unhealthy desires for sexual relationships with children. Yes, Amelia, I do realize that, but sometimes it’s better if you have a little faith in humanity.
“You know what I think of you right now, Carnabie?” Wordlessly, she rose and exited the room.
“What?” I called after her but didn’t receive a reply. She returned a minute later, grasping a tall bottle in her left hand. Golden caramel liquid sloshed inside.
“This.” She thrust it into my hands.
I read its green label. “You think I’m extra virgin olive oil?”
“You’re practically Andy Stitzer.”
“He ended up losing his virginity,” I stated, confident that I could as well.
“At the age of forty.” My confidence deflated like a sorrowful balloon.
I didn’t feel the need to comment after that.
“How well do you even know this girl?” Amelia asked after a minute of silence.
I proceeded to explain how Jenna and I were soul mates and might as well have known each other since the moment of conception.
“Not at all, huh?”
“I saw her yesterday. And this morning. Very early this morning.” At three am that morning, I had visited Jenna’s house. I wasn’t, however, able to climb to her window because they had a dog. A big dog; by the sounds of it a Rottweiler or a Pit Bull. In a spectacular display of might and courageousness, I ran home.
