Chapter 4: Weekender

Sarah scrambled to straighten her hair and fix her makeup. I sat awkwardly in the basement waiting for her to emerge from the bathroom. I had notions of figuring out how to sneak out of the house so her Dad wouldn't know what we had been up to. Somehow, it seemed clear to me that her dad would not be pleased to discover her daughter alone in the basement with some random guy.

Humans seemed to have this fascination with ownership. They owned land, money, cars, and all assortment of objects. They parceled out those things that exist and decided who shall have rights of usage and access to them.

It wasn't an idea that existed among my people in quite the same way. Without a physical reality like the one Humans lived in, the idea of ownership over an object didn't make as much sense. The thing I could best understand was ownership of one another. Sarah's parents were allowed to claim ownership, of a sort, over her until she reached a certain age. It was concept not foreign to me, my people had operated under a strict hierarchy of ownership for billions of years.

The idea that we all have rights. That we're allowed to be free and make our own choices is a very progressive idea that Humans have adopted. Abolishing slavery was probably the most fundamental thing humanity had done to set themselves apart. Then again, I might have been a bit biased. I had lived over 150,000 years of what most would agree basically amounted to slavery.

One day soon enough Sarah would be free to make her own choices, but right then, her father was probably pacing the floor upstairs. If anything I had ever learned about teenage dating was true, he was polishing his shotgun in an effort to intimidate me from doing anything untoward with his daughter.

Sarah came out of the washroom looking fresh and chipper. She beckoned me upstairs to meet her dad. With some trepidation, I followed.

I need not have worried. He warmed up to me right away and asked if I'd stay for dinner. Sarah nearly fell over herself trying to accept on my behalf. Mr. Rose quickly insisted I call him Carl.

Sarah seemed inordinately pleased with how her dad seemed to like me. I could only assume that Carl hadn't taken much of a liking to Tom while he and Sarah were dating.

I sat down for my first family meal. Rachel didn't say much unless prompted, though she seemed to open up more as Carl asked her about her day. Carl worked from home as an author. He jokingly claimed there was more money in flipping hamburgers than selling books, but I did get the distinct feeling that he was essentially a stay-at-home-dad.

His cooking was magnificent. The entire meal felt completely surreal. As though, instead of my girlfriend's house, I was on a movie set filming a documentary about normal life. It was not as though I wasn't well fed at the group home, but it was certainly a far cry from a proper family meal.

Sarah's mom wasn't present, but since I knew her parents weren't divorced, I asked and learned she was on contract in the States. She did some sort of research, the details weren't really very clear.

Sarah's brother was finishing college and even though he went to a college close by, he had his own apartment and only came home once a week or so. With cooking like I was being given, I'd never have left.

As I left for the evening, Sarah gave me a kiss on the cheek that made Rachel giggle.

I made it home only to find that Matt wasn't there yet. It was nearly 10:00pm, our curfew, so I texted him.

[ WRU? Curfew ]

I didn't have to wait long for a response,

[ @ Dick's. Staying the night ]

Well, that left me with an evening to myself. Neither Matt nor I owned a computer. Even if we had the money to buy one, the rules about them were so messed up that we wouldn't have bothered anyway. Since most of our homework needed to be computer printed (most teachers accepted hand-written work, but they'd grumble about it), it meant we spent a lot of time at the library and had to find other ways to amuse ourselves at the group home.

The X-Box was already in use by Taeem, which surprised me since Taeem usually spent his Friday nights away. That Taeem was sleeping with Geoff was the least well hidden secret the Home had. We knew it was technically statutory rape. That wouldn't be true anymore in a few more months, but then this wasn't exactly a new development. Even so, there was nothing to do, but to let it happen. More to the point, Taeem seemed content with the arrangement.

Being a crown ward in the social care system was wrought with injustice. I could point anybody to the massive amount of drug abuse among us. I could point them toward the much higher than average high school dropout rate and the much lower than average numbers who move on to postsecondary education. I could even point fingers at the rates of teen pregnancies. I think, however, that all of that paled when compared with the story Charles' life told.

Charles used to live at the group home. He was already there the day I had first arrived. Like most of us, he was a troubled kid, but he had been managing well. He didn't always meet curfew, but he was passing most of his classes and mostly stayed out of trouble. His fatal mistake was trying to blackmail Geoff into letting him keep his girlfriend over for the night. Geoff just laughed at him. Charles made good on his threat, but the police barely even investigated. They asked a few questions and when everybody denied it, they moved on. A few weeks later Charles was sent away to some new foster parents. He was only gone for a few months. Apparently he kept trying to run away. When he was re-admitted into our group home he wasn't himself any longer.

We'd all experienced at least one bad foster home, so we never asked him about it. It wasn't nearly hard enough to become a foster parent. Most of the time, the system looked the other way when abuses were reported. Charles moped about the house for weeks. Mostly he was silent, but the sudden outbursts came without warning. Matt walked away with a black eye after his efforts to reason with him, so we quickly learned to avoid him. We had no idea how to help. Like so many things, there was nothing to do but to let it go.

One night he took a bunch of drugs, skipped curfew, and dove headfirst off of the school playground. He broke his spine on impact and later died at the hospital. His death made the news. They got it all wrong, of course; painting his death as heroic while kids who never once spoke to him in life publicly mourned his passing and campaigned against bullying in school. I couldn't bring myself to blame them for not wanting to face the truth.

Nobody ever tried Charles' clever bit of blackmail again. Geoff was the nicest of our social workers, but he could afford to be. We were the most well behaved around him. Geoff spoke eloquently of Charles at the funeral, but when he finished his speech and looked our way, there was a smirk on his face that let us know with conviction that we were living with a demon.

Thinking about Charles had put me in an introspective mood. I checked my phone and looked at the time. 10:00PM; Jacquie was probably home. I told one of the on-duty social workers I would be in the backyard so that I wouldn't be docked curfew points. I lay in the backyard, right next to the fence and threw my baseball straight up and down. It was a habit I had gotten into after the first time I heard our next door neighbour.

The group home took up two lots in an otherwise fairly normal neighborhood. Our neighbours to one side were old, crotchety, and let us know in any way they could, that they hated us. I wasn't sure what we ever did to provoke their ire. The entire community crossed the street before walking past our home. It had become so commonplace that we barely registered the implied insults anymore.

Our neighbours to the other side were a different story. They did the polite thing and just ignored us wherever possible. Richard had said that he had never met either of his neighbours where he lived, so I gathered that it was a fairly "normal" thing to do. The family next door consisted of two parents, Jacquie, and Dennis. Jacquie went to school with us, but since she was in grade 12, and I was in grade 10, we'd never talked. Denis was her little brother. I wasn't sure his age, but he was still in elementary school. Maybe grade 5 or grade 6.

Jacquie was the "Girl next door". Every guy in the home knew who she was. Mostly she was cute; sometimes she was pretty, but she was basically what you would expect a high school girl to look like. It wasn't because of her looks that we all knew who she was; we knew about her because she was the girl next door and that made her feel somehow more present in our lives.

My fascination began the first time I heard her play guitar. I was in grade 6 back then. Eleven years old, pulled from an abusive home, and placed into my first "older kids" group home. I spent my time in the backyard staring at the clouds and trying to develop mathematical models that explained the various rules which governed this reality. Suffice to say, I wasn't a normal child. Five years as a human had given me insight into this reality such that every possible answer spawned hundreds of new questions each.

It was while I lay there, picking the bark off of a branch and contemplating weather patterns that I first heard the guitar. The way the sound waves echoed through the open window was nothing at all like the radio I'd grown used to hearing thus far. There was something more crisp about this sound. Something more real.

I shuffled up next to the fence to get as close as I could and I listened. I listened for as long as the music lasted and then I came back the next day in hopes I would hear it again. My persistence was rewarded every few days and I quickly learned the schedule. Mostly, it came in the evenings. Sundays were the safest bet, but Tuesday and Wednesday were common enough that I'd be there just in case.

Safely nuzzled next to the fence, even if our neighbours looked into our yard, they wouldn't see me. I asked the social workers if I could have an instrument and they laughed at me.

"Sure you can have one, but we're not buying it for you."

I didn't have a way to make any money as a child, so I let it go and contented myself with listening. At school, the kids sometimes called me a weirdo, but they mostly ignored me. The teachers left me alone since I kept getting nearly perfect marks. My near-perfect memory made grade 6 education simple.

Our school had a Christmas talent show every year. I didn't sign up as all my special skills involve not being human, but we were all brought to watch. Most of the evening was fairly uneventful until a guy from grade 7 performed a piece on his violin. I was amazed. Then a grade 8 girl walked onstage with her guitar. She started to play and right away I knew who she was. I'd heard this song hundreds of times before as she practised. For the next 4 years, I listened to her and when I saw her on the street or in the school hallways, I would remember her songs and smile to myself.

It was a Friday night and my mind was still filled with memories of kissing Sarah. I knew there wasn't much chance that Jacquie would be playing tonight, but I needed the fresh air in order to clear my mind. I watched as my baseball flew away from me and plummeted back toward my face.

I thought about my first date with Sarah. One date and we were already kissing. I wondered if that was normal. I closed my eyes and remembered the fire in her eyes right before we first kissed. My body shivered and even the memory made we want to throw my fist in the air and yell for joy.

I didn't need my eyes in order to throw and catch a ball, so I lay there with eyes closed, replaying the events of the evening as the ball sailed into the air and landed in the palm of my hand with a comforting subtle clap.

The music started. It startled me at first, but then I couldn't help but smile. She had seen a lot of improvements over the last four years. My favorite, however, was that she had started singing as well. Her voice fit the music, and I listened as she sang for herself to an unintended audience.

When she stopped playing an hour later, I sauntered back inside and promptly fell asleep. Sarah's eyes and Jacquie's voice brought me pleasant dreams.

I woke up at 6:30 the next morning. I had to get up early because of my long commute to work. I worked at the recycling plant. A huge centrifuge did most of the work of separating the materials, but the rest was up to us. It was extremely dull work, but with a guaranteed 16 hours per weekend and more than minimum wage as compensation, I was happy enough to be there.

I brought my homework with me, as only truckloads which had failed the initial inspection needed our assistance. Some days I would be there for eight hours without much work to do. Other days, especially if the previous day had a backlog, we'd barely be given our lunch break. I was the only part-time employee and also the only teenager to work there. Despite my young age, my colleagues treated me well.

My phone rang, caller unidentified, but since I had no work at the moment, I answered.

"Hello?" I asked.

"Hey babe!" Ah, Kerry. "Where are you? I'm at the mall - you should come hang!"

I resisted the urge to ask what I should hang off of. "I'm at work, actually. I get off at 3 though."

"Okay! Call me when you're done." Click

I added Kerry's number to my phone.

"I think that's the first phone call I've ever seen you get," commented Eric as he sat down with his massive jug of coffee.

I laughed, "I know, and here I thought I was never going to get a chance at a free cruise."

He laughed and pulled out the paper, "How's school?" he asked.

"Good," I answered, but he was already paying more attention to the paper than he was to me. I shrugged.

Work ended and I grabbed the bus headed for the mall. I thought about calling Kerry, but figured I'd see if I could surprise her. She might have already left, but since the Mall wasn't much of a detour from my usual route home, I took that chance.

Matt texted me while I was on the bus.

[ Done work? Dick, me, you – freeforall ]

I would need to find a good way to balance my social life, but for now I already had plans.

[ Can't ... W/ Kerry ]

He didn't respond.

Once I reached the mall it took me about 15 minutes to find her. I expected she'd be near or inside a store. When I finally spotted her, she was sitting at the water sculpture hanging out with Sarah and a few of the socialites. Jaelynn was the first to spot me. She smiled and then turned to grab Kerry's attention. Kerry looked about until she, too, spotted me.

"Simon!" she jumped out of her seat and ran at me. Moments later she flung herself into my arms, "You're here! cool!"

I hugged her back. She grabbed my hand and dragged me back to her friends.

"Hey Simon," said Sarah with a smirk.

"Hey," I responded in kind.

"Don't I get a hug?" asked Sarah.

I let go of Kerry's hand and shrugged my shoulders with my hands to the side, "yeah, you're not gonna make me do all the work are you?"

She looked like she was giving the question serious thought. "Yeah, I guess not," she said, then she rushed out of her seat and pressed her body into mine, extracting a hug from me.

"Get a room," said Stacie. Sarah pushed me away, turned about and stuck her tongue out at Stacie.

I used my peripheral vision to look at Kerry. She seemed to be the only one who didn't really find it funny. I made a mental note to hold back on the flirtation around Sarah while Kerry was there. Technically, I was dating them both, but I had no idea what the rules were.

Initially, I had thought this would be fairly straightforward. We were going to pretend to be dating in order to piss off Tom. Sarah's full-blown seduction the night before had changed the game entirely. Sometime during the night, I came to the realisation that Sarah had every intention of getting me on that couch long before we got back to her house. If she and Kerry got into a competition over me, I knew that somehow I'd be the one to pay the consequences.