Writing Snippet | Work in Progress: Chapter 1

Hello! I wanted to share a bit of my writing on this blog to ~get myself out there~. As you might be able to tell, a bit of this was founded in my personal experience briefly after graduation - though it certainly takes on its own life very quickly! 

(Oh, and for writers out there who just graduated: Give it a second. You'll find a job. Promise.) 

Chapter 1 – The door my degree was supposed to open is locked.

“PREGNANT?”

“Right?” Tiffy flopped on my bed. “You need to redecorate.”

“I’m not going to be here that long,” I said, looking around at the posters my teenage-self had plastered on the wall. Bands and art shows and a few lingering Biebers that had made it through the many re-plasterings throughout the years. “I can’t believe that.”

Ashton Marks from high school was pregnant. The girl who had lectured us all about birth control at the ripe old age of 14-but-I’ll-be-15-in-three-weeks. She and her senior, football quarterback boyfriend had been talking about having sex after homecoming, and the jury was still out nine years later on whether that actually happened. “With whom?” I asked.

“Dunno,” Tiffy said, messing with the corner of one of my posters. It was ratted at the edges where the cat had chewed on it. “Think that guy who was on her Insta, like, a few months ago.”

“Mustache guy?” I asked.

“Ugh.” Tiffy was very opposed to facial hair of all kinds that exceeded the “stubble” variety. I pattered my soccer ball between my socked feet while Tiffy thrashed in response to the idea of kissing someone with a mustache. “Also, do you remember Jenny Harding?”

“Redhead Jenny?”

“Yup. Engaged.”

I groaned. Jenny Harding had been in the grade below us in high school.

“And my mom is, like, really close friends with her mom so I have to go to the wedding next summer.” Tiffy picked at a hangnail. “Bet I’ll still be single next summer.”

“At least you’ll be in L.A.,” I said. Tiffy was Talented with a capital T. T for Tiffy and T for Talented. It was only a matter of time until she left our hometown and only came back for Christmas sometimes. And I, the untalented friend of our duo, would still be here, decorating Christmas cookies and considering how it’d been so long since I’d seen her.

+++

My name is Darcy Langdon and I have applied to 37 jobs in the past month.

I have gotten nothing back.

              It’s kind of like if you were to put yourself on Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge, only to find that absolutely no one had matched with you. For a whole month. Unfortunately, my bio on dating apps – “Recent graduate who is looking for a job and a guy who likes dogs” – hasn’t exactly been raking in the men.

              I live with my parents now.

              So, my confidence is at an all-time high.

              “Darcy, do you wanna play X-box with me?” Jackson, my little brother, is panting at the frame of my door, a little off kilter. He slid on his socks to get to me.

              “I’m – uh – working,” I said, unsure if applying to jobs was considered actually working. I wasn’t getting paid, that was for sure. But applying felt like more work than an actual job would be.

              Jackson squinted at my laptop, which was opened to YouTube. I minimized my browser. Jackson was the “surprise, but not accident” that my parents had when I was in high school. The only thing stranger than bringing high school friends home to your house with all the braces-era memories plastered onto every inch of the house, is bringing your high school friends home and asking them to keep it down because there was an infant in the next room.

              Not that I didn’t love Jackson with my whole heart. In fact, that snotty little piece of my soul had moved from my door frame to climb into my lap. He tried to swivel my chair.

              “We can play soccer,” he said. He had understood that I played soccer in high school, though had never seen me in an actual game. I did teach him how to do a few nasty corner shots in his preschool days. He was going to grow up to be an athletic kid; he was already far too tall for comfort.

              I shifted beneath him and he put my headphones – which weren’t plugged in – onto his head, and he pretended to bop to a nonexistent beat.

              “I can kick with both feet so hard,” he said, still wriggling on my lap.

              “Is that so?” I asked.

              “Yeah!” Jackson tucked the headphones around his neck, a habit I think he picked up from me. “I’m amphibian.”

              I tried to swallow my laugh. “No, Jackson, you’re not.”

              Jackson glowered. “Yes, I am! I can write with both hands, too! You can’t do that! I’m amphibian!” He crossed his tater-tot arms across his chest.

              “No, Jackson,” I said again. “You’re not.”

              “I’m amphibian!” he yelled. “Mom!” He jumped off me, detangled himself from my headphones and ran out of my room. I breathed out through my nose. My mother told me not to antagonize Jackson. I was far too much older for that. But I couldn’t help it sometimes. I doodled a Jackson-ish looking frog on the notepad next to me and pressed my foot into Oscar, who had managed to stay asleep beneath my desk the whole time Jackson had been in the room.

              Oscar’s kitty-snores stopped, and he looked up at me, his eyes flat. He yawned. Which made me yawn. “Do you wanna watch cat videos with me?” I asked Oscar. He laid his head back down on his paws, eyes closed. “Worst co-worker ever,” I grumbled. I looked forlornly at the half-full coffee mug next to me that I could no longer drink from. My co-worker had taken a lick or two of it while I had my back turned, and I decided it wasn’t worth drinking after someone who ate food that constantly smelled of fish.

              I sighed and clicked back to one of the millions of job sites I had subscribed to after graduation. “Five years’ experience,” I mumbled, shifting through the qualifications for jobs considered entry-level. “Seven years’ experience,” I said. “Oscar, can you believe this?”

              Oscar mewed back. I clicked again.

              “Masters and ten years’ experience or equivalent?” I laughed and put my head in my hands. “Oscar, I’m going to work at Taco Bell for the rest of my life.” He stood and walked figure eights between my legs, as if he liked this idea. “Well, at least you’ll always have me if I can never move out.” I instinctively looked behind me, relieved to see the hallway was clear. It’s not that I didn’t live being home. I loved my parents and Jackson and Oscar. But there were certain… complications.

              Like your seven-year-old brother opening all your pads and tampons so he can cut up the colorful plastic for “confetti” for Oscar’s birthday. (We don’t know Oscar’s birthday. We just picked August third. Because we realized we didn’t know his birthday on August third after having Oscar for about three years.) Or your mother wanting to borrow “whatever that book was you read last week” – and not knowing how to tell her it’s essentially word porn.

              Or stepping on a freaking Lego. I thought I was done with that part of my life.

              Everyone congratulated me so heavily on graduating, but right now it doesn’t feel like something that deserves congratulations. All your friends moved away in the same week and now you’ve moved back in with your parents! Congratulations! Here’s a sweaty black robe and square hat that won’t stay on no matter how you position it!

              I didn’t even get my diploma at my graduation. They had to send it to us by mail. Part of me wants to ask my parents to frame it for Christmas.

              The other part of me hopes it never arrives because that would mean I’m officially done with school forever. And I loved school. I looked at the time and date on my computer. August 21. The day all my younger friends went back to class.

              I picked at my cold oatmeal and swiped through Tinder, and it felt more like playing a game than looking for a date. And I wanted to go on a date. Because people kept asking me if I was going on dates.

              Oh, Jackson has a girlfriend.