Read “Freckles” (below) from my flash fiction collection Damn Sure Right (Press 53, 2011). Write your own story about a teenage conflicted teen relationship. They are so much fun to write about! Make it juicy! Please borrow 5 words or more from my story as prompt words! Feel free to post your story in comments…
Nov 13, 2022·edited Nov 13, 2022Liked by Meg Pokrass
Thanks for the writing prompt. Here's my rough draft:
The left cheek on my face is bare. But thrown across my right, like a fistful of mud, is a spatter of freckles. According to my agent they contribute to my allure. In a pile of Polaroids they distinguish me, set me apart from all the other pretty faces. And photographers shoot me in profile, or with a three-quarter turn to accentuate them.
Of course it wasn’t always like that. In middle school I would try to hide them; daily under a thick cake of makeup, or once under an Ace bandage. With a cult-like, lockstep conformity, the kids in my small town all had the same Trapper Keepers, identical Lisa Frank folders; the same pink, unblemished face. I was deemed socially malignant. Most of the kids avoided me; ghosted me, talked through me as we sat at our rectangular tables in homeroom. A few of the kids, the bolder ones, would circle round me like sharks during recess. They’d chomp on sour WarHeads, and fire at me a volley of insults. I can remember their suspended breath hanging in the frigid Wisconsin air; bringing up a mitted hand to cover my cheek.
That night I found a Brillo pad beneath the kitchen sink and scrubbed my face bloody. If children can be cruel to each other they often show no mercy on themselves.
I can also remember the day Anna moved in. Her family had bought the Peterson’s old place, three houses down from my own. It was early August. Splendidly warm. I was riding past her house on my new Huffy mountain bike. She waved at me from her porch. No kid had ever waved at me before and I actually squeezed the brakes and came to a jerking stop. Anna laughed and waved me over.
The two of us instantly became friends. We spent the rest of the summer together. If we could convince one of our parents to drive us we’d go to the mall. Or we’d sit in her bedroom and talk about the upcoming school year. She was starting seventh grade, I was going into eighth. As if she were cramming for a test, she wanted to know everything about the middle school. I gave her a rundown of the teachers, taught her how to tight roll her jeans, and helped her pick out a JanSport backpack. Sometimes her plastic hamburger phone would ring, and she’d roll her eyes. She’d talk for a little while to one of her old classmates, and then she’d tell them that I was there, her friend, and she had to go. Each time this happened, I was startled by how happy I felt.
There was a moment when I almost told Anna about school. We were flipping through my yearbook and she was asking about my friends. I was going to tell her that I didn’t have any. But Anna could see my freckles and to point them out, to explain how the kids treated me, I felt was unnecessary; akin to pointing to the sky and explaining the sun.
I didn’t talk to Anna that first day of school. We had separate lunch periods. But I did catch a glimpse of her in the hallway. She was beaming—the focal center of a group of girls. I yelled her name, but my voice was lost in their laughter.
She wasn’t on the bus ride home. Which I thought was strange. But I chalked it up to the fact that maybe she had joined an extra curricular. When she wasn’t on the bus the next morning I could feel dread corkscrewing in my stomach. It stayed with me all day. Turning and turning on the bus ride home, on the walk to her house, as I rang her doorbell.
Anna only opened the door a crack, just enough to poke out her head. I could hear muffled giggling behind her, could smell the tang of buttery burnt popcorn. She looked past me as I asked her why she wasn’t on the bus, why she would no longer talk to me.
Never once did she look me in the eye. Not when she said that I had lied to her; that my omission had been a betrayal. Or when she told me we could no longer be friends.
Thanks for the writing prompt. Here's my rough draft:
The left cheek on my face is bare. But thrown across my right, like a fistful of mud, is a spatter of freckles. According to my agent they contribute to my allure. In a pile of Polaroids they distinguish me, set me apart from all the other pretty faces. And photographers shoot me in profile, or with a three-quarter turn to accentuate them.
Of course it wasn’t always like that. In middle school I would try to hide them; daily under a thick cake of makeup, or once under an Ace bandage. With a cult-like, lockstep conformity, the kids in my small town all had the same Trapper Keepers, identical Lisa Frank folders; the same pink, unblemished face. I was deemed socially malignant. Most of the kids avoided me; ghosted me, talked through me as we sat at our rectangular tables in homeroom. A few of the kids, the bolder ones, would circle round me like sharks during recess. They’d chomp on sour WarHeads, and fire at me a volley of insults. I can remember their suspended breath hanging in the frigid Wisconsin air; bringing up a mitted hand to cover my cheek.
That night I found a Brillo pad beneath the kitchen sink and scrubbed my face bloody. If children can be cruel to each other they often show no mercy on themselves.
I can also remember the day Anna moved in. Her family had bought the Peterson’s old place, three houses down from my own. It was early August. Splendidly warm. I was riding past her house on my new Huffy mountain bike. She waved at me from her porch. No kid had ever waved at me before and I actually squeezed the brakes and came to a jerking stop. Anna laughed and waved me over.
The two of us instantly became friends. We spent the rest of the summer together. If we could convince one of our parents to drive us we’d go to the mall. Or we’d sit in her bedroom and talk about the upcoming school year. She was starting seventh grade, I was going into eighth. As if she were cramming for a test, she wanted to know everything about the middle school. I gave her a rundown of the teachers, taught her how to tight roll her jeans, and helped her pick out a JanSport backpack. Sometimes her plastic hamburger phone would ring, and she’d roll her eyes. She’d talk for a little while to one of her old classmates, and then she’d tell them that I was there, her friend, and she had to go. Each time this happened, I was startled by how happy I felt.
There was a moment when I almost told Anna about school. We were flipping through my yearbook and she was asking about my friends. I was going to tell her that I didn’t have any. But Anna could see my freckles and to point them out, to explain how the kids treated me, I felt was unnecessary; akin to pointing to the sky and explaining the sun.
I didn’t talk to Anna that first day of school. We had separate lunch periods. But I did catch a glimpse of her in the hallway. She was beaming—the focal center of a group of girls. I yelled her name, but my voice was lost in their laughter.
She wasn’t on the bus ride home. Which I thought was strange. But I chalked it up to the fact that maybe she had joined an extra curricular. When she wasn’t on the bus the next morning I could feel dread corkscrewing in my stomach. It stayed with me all day. Turning and turning on the bus ride home, on the walk to her house, as I rang her doorbell.
Anna only opened the door a crack, just enough to poke out her head. I could hear muffled giggling behind her, could smell the tang of buttery burnt popcorn. She looked past me as I asked her why she wasn’t on the bus, why she would no longer talk to me.
Never once did she look me in the eye. Not when she said that I had lied to her; that my omission had been a betrayal. Or when she told me we could no longer be friends.
Thank you so much for sharing. This is great!