~ Episode Twenty-Seven ~

  Blossoms of the Heart:

  A Soul-Wrenching Revelation

  “I still can’t believe you’re grounded,” said Mackenzie, applying cherry-flavored lip gloss in a mirror over a sink in the upstairs girls lavatory at school. She spied Eri’s reflection slip inside the handicap stall with her backpack in tow. “You’re … you, for shit’s sakes. Have you ever been grounded before?”

  “Never,” said Eri over the sound of her bag unzipping. The crinkle of wax paper melted Mackenzie’s scorn into confusion.

  “Wait—Are you still on your period?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Eddi-chan—It’s been more than a week.”

  “So?”

  Mackenzie swung around to face Eri’s stall with disbelief. “So—This is your first one, it should’ve only lasted two days. Three, at the most! This is what, day eight?! Are—is everything okay? Maybe—maybe we should take you to the nurse.”

  “No, that’s okay. I’m fine.”

  “Eri, I’m serious. That’s not normal—”

  “I said, I’m fine.” The stall door rattled on those words.

  Mackenzie blinked, expecting to see it pull back to reveal her friend’s glowering expression. But it didn’t. Eri started to urinate.

  “Sorry, Macks…” she murmured. “I’m just really upset over this whole grounded thing. It’s not fair. Dad drove me this morning and Noah’s picking me up after school – and it’s gonna be like that until the three weeks are up.”

  “Three—three weeks?! Are you serious? You’re grounded for three weeks?!”

  “They’re treating me like a total criminal or something! I can’t even do track after school! I’ve missed practice twice now anyway because of this stupid period thing. And I’m gonna miss the cancer walk, and I really wanted to do that!”

  “Not to mention this puts a cramp in the patrolling-for-Monsters plan,” Mackenzie mused. “Three weeks, just for hanging out with Shinji one day. Insane.”

  “Well—Monster Sealing is a huge reason why. Noah caught me sneaking out last week. He was convinced I was smoking drugs, or drinking, or whatever, with you.”

  “You? Drugs? Get drunk?” Mackenzie burst out laughing. “You’re kidding, right? Little miss altar girl?”

  “Ugh, please. I haven’t been an altar server since I was a kid. How did you even know that? Anyway, Noah figured out Shinji gave me the Fire Pendant and lost it.”

  “Of course he lost it.”

  “And he saw Shinji climbing through my window when—”

  “Wait, Shinji did what?!”

  “I didn’t ask him to!” said Eri. “It happened like twice, about Monster stuff. The first time after I stormed out of his place, and then again when Cloria and Zorfus attacked. Remember when we showed up on Shiara, that water Monster fox-thing?”

  “…Okay.” Numbness flooded Mackenzie as puzzle pieces started to fall into place within her anxious mind. Shinji sneaking into Eri’s room. Eri and Shinji going on a date. Eri at Shinji’s house—alone. She’d woken them up with her call…

  “Oh, and that’s not even the best part!” Eri flushed and took her time to finish up, exiting the stall on a sigh. She headed over to the line of sinks to wash her hands. “So, Noah blabs to my parents about all this, and my dad calls Shinji’s house to tear him a new one, and after Shinji hangs up on him, goes over there! Ugh. I hope Shinji’s okay.”

  “He’s fine. Whatever. I mean, I get your dad going crazy, he’s a control freak nut-bar, but your brother?—Really? Noah’s such an idiot. He’s so frigging over-protective and crap, but he doesn’t know a thing about you except maybe that you like Garbage and video games.”

  “…We used to be close.”

  “Amanda was like that, too, kind of. Never took me seriously.” Mackenzie watched Eri scrub away on distant thoughts. A poisonous anchor sank within her guts for knowledge she didn’t wish to know, but yearned to. “Face it, hon’, you’ll never stop being Noah’s imouto-chan.”

  Eri gave her a flat stare. “His what?”

  “Little sister! Get with the program.” She forced a weak smile at Eri. “…Baka.”

  Eri shut off the taps and wiped damp palms on the back of her jeans. “Well, hey. On the bright side, your Japanese is getting better. I think.”

  “Yeah...” Mackenzie hesitated. Her freshly-glossed lips parted like a cherry-flavored Red Sea for what else she dared to say. Something important. Something she was afraid to ask. “Eddi-chan…?”

  “Hm?”

  “…Did—you and Shinji … do it?”

  “Do what, Seal another Monster?”

  “It,” Mackenzie pressed, nervous.

  “It?”

  “Yeah. It.”

  Eri stared at her, blankly.

  Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

  “Sex, Eri!” Mackenzie snapped. “Did you and Shinji have sex?!”

  “What?! Oh—Ew!!” Eri shuddered with such revulsion, that it was like watching a snail shrivel up under a downpour of table salt. “No! Why would you ask me that?! Gross!”

  “Well! Let’s see! Your brother calls my house late last night wondering where you are. I call Shinji’s house to check in, scared out of my mind you’re getting slaughtered by Monsters—and you tell me you both fell asleep together? While ‘studying’?!” Mackenzie glared at her. “How do you think that looks, Eriya?”

  “Are you serious right now?! I don’t even like Shinji that way!”

  “Oh, come on—”

  “Will you stop it already?!” Eri exploded. “Macks, I keep telling you, I—don’t—like him—that way.”

  “Eri, please. Stop playing the goody-goody Catholic. You were alone with a boy yesterday. Admit it—you and Shinji fooled around! The whole saving yourself for marriage thing is such a load! Nobody does that.”

  “Macks, this has nothing to do with my faith! I’m just not into that kinda thing! Not with Shinji—not with anyone! And even if I did, why are you acting so weird about it?”

  “Am I?” Mackenzie cried. “I see how he stares at you all the time! Shinji Izuma never paid any attention to you until like a month ago, and now all he wants to do is spend his time with you—alone?? You don’t think that’s weird?”

  “We’re Star Warriors! We’re Monster Sealers! Why wouldn’t we spend more time together—that’s what we do. And anyway, he’s my friend!”

  “Nuh-uh. Shinji Izuma has a complex over you the size of a—a—the Pacific Ocean! Oh-ho-ho-ho! And he’s not the only one—”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Evan,” Mackenzie said, pointedly. “They’re obsessed with you. They wanna date you!”

  “Oh, whatever!”

  “I’m serious! Be grateful! You think I got a lineup of guys following me at recess? I’m short and I’m fat. Boys think I’m a hobbit! Just admit it, already: you like the attention.”

  “I said, stop it!” Eri blasted her. “You’re being ridiculous. I don’t … I don’t feel that way about either of them…” She leaned against the wall with a helpless sigh. “And don’t … don’t say that. Nobody calls you a hobbit. You’re not fat.”

  “Then who do you like?!” Mackenzie demanded. “I know it’s someone in our class, Eri. You’re so distracted all the time recently!”

  There came a sudden click from another stall.

  Isa stepped out from within, music faintly audible from her walkman headphones. She headed past the girls without acknowledging either one.

  Mackenzie craned a look over one shoulder—and then straight up—at the five-foot-seven monolith that was Isa Keitel. She stood over a running faucet down a couple sinks from them, pumping liquid soap into a palm.

  “Hey, you’re the new kid, right? Hey!”

  Isa darted a quick side-eye Mackenzie’s way but ignored the question. She instead focused on scrubbing her hands in slow, methodical, strokes.

  “Hey!” Mackenzie frowned and turned to face Isa, fully. “I’m talking to you!”

  “I heard you, hobbit-girl,” Isa replied. She snorted back laughter. “Hey, is it true you got hairy feet, too?”

  Mackenzie glared at her, steam whistling out her ears and nostrils. “N-no! Of course not!”

  Eri suddenly piped up. “Hey, um, Isa—Are you gonna do the Walk for a Cure thing?”

  Mackenzie flashed Eri a surprised look. “Ehh?!”

  “Huh? Oh. That cancer thing Youse tried to guilt us into signing donations for?” Isa twisted the sink’s taps shut, flicked her wrists to rid dots of water from her fingertips. They were calloused, nails painted punk rock black. “Dunno yet. Anyway, what do you care, Red-eye?”

  “You got a problem, city girl?” Mackenzie demanded.

  “Yeah, right.” Isa scoffed, pushing away from the basin. “Go chase some dwarves, Bilbo.”

  Mackenzie sneered at Isa’s departure. When the new girl had vanished out into the hall, she thumped back against the sink with arms crossed. “The hell was that about?”

  Eri let out a deep exhale. “…I—I, um, I think she was joking. I think.”

  “No, baka-chan, I’m talking about you.” Mackenzie glowered at her. “Why do you care if she’s gonna run in that dumb cancer thing?”

  “What? I—just want her to feel welcome here … I guess.” Eri averted her gaze, rosy-cheeked. “…I don’t know, okay? Whatever. I don’t think she likes me, anyway.”

  “A girl like that’s never going to like anybody. Trust me, you don’t want her liking you. She’s rotten news, I can feel it. Your dumb family thinks I’m the bad influence? They’re in for a surprise, compared to her if you both start hanging out.”

  “You don’t even know her.”

  “I don’t have to,” Mackenzie snapped. “I know that type. She’s a skid-row wannabe skater punk. Black shirts with electric-guitar-playing skeletons and guys in leather jackets on them? Ripped jeans and shoes falling apart at the heels? How is she not suspended yet? This is a Catholic school, after all.” She then yelled at the washroom door, “What would Jesus, think you freak!”

  “Macks, be nice.” Eri sighed. “She’s supposed to be the Child of Destiny, right?”

  “Says who?! Shinji never confirmed that—and anyway, I mean it, Eddi-chan. That’s a girl who does drugs and parties and crap, not me. Screw your stupid brother. Urgh, I can’t believe she asked me if I had hairy feet.”

  Eri hesitated. “I mean—yeah, she’s … kinda mean. But, maybe she’s just homesick, y’know? I, um, I know what that’s like: being alone in a new place, without anyone to turn to? I don’t want Isa to feel that way here—even if she doesn’t like me. And, anyway, you’re the one who called yourself a hobbit…”

  Mackenzie’s jaw hit the floor. “You’re seriously defending her now?! God—”

  “Macks.”

  “No, shut up! I mean it, what’s your deal, anyway? You’ve been acting like a total weirdo ever since Isa Keitel—” A sudden realization birthed within the cranking gears in Mackenzie’s brain. The cogs began to slow, settle into place. “—got here.”

  Eri scuffed the toes of her converse sneakers against the linoleum, barely paying attention.

  “Wait—No way,” Mackenzie whispered, shocked. “Are you kidding me? It’s her, isn’t it? You like Isa?”

  Eri blinked at her, confused. “What?”

  “You—you like Isa.” The poison in Mackenzie’s guts rolled up into her lungs and overflowed. She backed away on unsteady heels, breaths tight. “I can’t believe you. I—I can’t believe this. How did I not know … this?”

  “Know what?” Eri furrowed her brow. “What did I do?”

  But Mackenzie backed off completely, shaking her head against the threat of nausea. “How could I be so stupid? All this time, you—you liked—like—g—”

  But the word was too sharp in her throat to get out. A hiccup formed around it with tears that began to flow.

  “Macks? Is this—is this because I got mad about the whole Shinji thing?” Eri asked on quiet words. She inched forward, genuinely confused, and sniffled back tears of her own. “I—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to get so—”

  “I—I need to go.” Mackenzie shoved away from her, stumbling backwards on numb ankles. Sharp pain throbbed in her chest—the feel of her heart splintering into pieces that slipped within the bloodstream, carving her open from the inside out.

  “Macks, wait!”

  But Mackenzie didn’t wait. She bolted out of the bathroom, sobbing.