Chapters One Way To Graduate Chapter 1
“Oh boy, here we go…”
Ethan’s sigh filled the soon-to-be invaded peace of his bedroom, as pop music permeated the single-story house, from roof to floorboards. Despite having a pitiful stereo in the family room, the walls still rattled with muddy bass. The 25-year-old could only rub his temples and try to relax after the initial blast, desperately hoping the party wouldn’t get too crazy, and more importantly that he would have no part in it.
Victoria, or rather, Vicky had called every single one of her friends to come over for the “best grad party ever held in Rainier,” a pitifully low bar, and yet still one he had no interest in competing for. She had bribed Ethan with a night for himself, alone in this house, for him to invite friends, or a special someone else. Of course Ethan had accepted, only for his date to cancel on him last minute, so a quiet evening with chips and beer was all he got out of that deal. Had it been worth it?
The thin walls shook as the bass dropped, and Ethan spotted the time: only 7:12pm.
Definitely not.
Ethan hoped he’d have no reason to exit his room and be forced to interact with Vicky’s friends. No good story started with a college dropout wasting his night with a bunch of high school seniors — well, graduates now. Besides, Ethan knew he’d feel old just hearing them talk. So here he was, a pizza box on his bed, his mouse in his right hand and the WASD keys in his left as he tried to drown it all out.
Of course, he had seen this coming as soon as his parents announced they’d be leaving for the weekend for Aunt Dorothy’s funeral. They both trusted their children to be responsible adults during that time, but Ethan knew Vicky was teetering on the line. A bunch of minors in a big house party like this? Coming-of-age movies had writ the plot in stone at this point. He just hoped it wouldn’t come to that, for his own sake.
Sitting in the back of her van, Nora’s chair jostled and rattled, the long metal arm holding her tablet bouncing up and down with every pothole they hit on the long-neglected forest roads.
Her mom turned down the pop-country and glanced into the rear-view mirror. “I’m surprised Vicky would hold a party like this, her parents always seemed so buttoned-up to me.”
“Aaaaahhhh,” Nora moaned in agreement, glancing up at the van roof. An old habit.
Looking at the unwieldy tablet mounted in front of her, Nora scanned each button with her eyes, searching in subsets and folders for what she wanted to say, all the while her fists clenched with concentration and her knees squeezed the foam divider between them, her cheek pushing not so gently into the headrest arm to the left.
“I am. Surprised. Invitation!” eventually erupted from the tablet’s speaker, in the sweet voice of a girl from Wisconsin, resimulated and slightly digital, but better than Siri or Alexa, and a far cry from Microsoft Sam. It was Nora’s voice, even if it had been donated.
Her mom nearly looked back but thought twice and kept her eyes on the road as the one town cop drove past. “Oh Nora, don’t say that! You deserve to let loose as much as any of your classmates. You graduated just like them, same tests, same marks, no easy road. Work hard, play hard, as I always say! Now… are you sure you don’t want me to come in? In case you have an acc—”
“NNNNNNNNNGGGG” Nora nearly wailed, if her throat would untighten for just a second. Her mom was sincere, generous, selfless, but wow could she be overbearing, and tonight that’s the last thing Nora needed.
Besides, they had done a full bowel routine right before putting this fun forest green v-neck and black tights on under all her braces and security straps. You could still see the bulky pad of her diaper, but looking down at herself with a not-inconsiderable bit of struggle against her body’s various pulls and spasms, Nora realized the clear acrylic tabletop her wrists were tethered to made the bulge pretty hard to make out.
Thank God. Nora thought to herself, her mouth hanging open yet silent. Her head pressed to the left again when they hit another bump, stressing her out as the heavy communicator bounced on the end of its mast. Nora couldn’t track her eyes properly until it settled down.
“I am. I will be. Fine. Mom. Thank you.”
“Of course, sweetie.” her Mom lilted, pulling up to Vicky’s place, top-40s faintly audible from the street.
Nora’s body twisted in her chair as she waited, slowly, but ceaselessly. It was her first high school party… and since graduation had been only a few days back, she wasn’t even in high school anymore. Better late than never!
With the van parked, door opened, ramp lowered, and quite a few hooks and anchors released, Nora was finally free to eye the ‘forward’ arrow on her screen, but not before her Mom replaced the damp bandana bib under her gaping mouth and gave her a peck on the forehead, causing her to moan “Guhhhh!” with her cheeks glowing beet red, hoping no one saw from the window.
It was somewhat exciting for Nora to drive her chair up the street to the nearest driveway curb, down the sidewalk, and up to Vicky’s door. Her mom had of course offered to ensure she got inside, but Nora asserted she was a big girl, that it wasn’t too far, that Vicky and her friends would help her without a doubt!
By only a few minutes, though, Nora was wishing she had said yes, her attendant joystick on the handlebar behind her always made for a smoother ride than relying on her eyes to drive. Moving forward, not-quite parallel to the sidewalk, drifting left, stopping, turning a hair right, correcting too far the other way; Nora made a lazy zigzag all the way to the source of the music. A few bumps and barriers made her nervous, never at risk of actually getting stuck, just for the strangeness of being without someone, anyone, for this brief moment. It was so freeing for the teenager, who had only a few years earlier been without a voice or a way to direct her own chair, to now be able to drive her own uncooperative body up the street to a friend’s house.
By the time Nora got herself to the unfamiliar front door, the nervousness and excitement and focus had taken its toll. Her body was spasming hard, as it always did when she didnt let it have its way, her knuckles white as they gripped the fuzzy braces tightly. If they hadn’t been tethered down by the soft cuffs on her wrists, those fists would have been straight out, back, forward, reaching all around, getting in the way of her eyegaze; and besides how much Nora hated hitting people, the last thing she needed was more attention. With those troublesome appendages anchored down, though, just like her legs and chest and the rest of her, Nora was pretty confident, sitting there looking at the door. Sure her mouth was half-open, drooling a bit onto the cloth below, but Nora had been doing that all her life, and Vicky had never had a problem wiping that up in class, had she?
Nora was confident, until she realized she didn’t have someone with her to reach out and hit the doorbell. ‘Why didn’t I think of this?’
Discouraged, Nora didn’t need head control to know that her Mom’s van and all its safety was somewhere behind her, watching, waiting for her to get inside, and she almost turned around to head back, to go home.
‘No.’ A little voice told her. ‘You can do this.’
Nora steeled herself, her face twitching and slack-jawed, yet her eyes fiery; determined not to run away from something so simple.
Those eyes — the only thing Nora had confident control over, and only when she asserted it — they razed her Connect menus, drilling into each icon until they opened up and spilled their contents on the display, finally landing on her phone’s remote control. The phone itself was pinned to her thigh by her tight leggings, where Nora could feel it buzz, but she wrote on-screen, “Hey V!!! I am just chilling outside your front door, can you open up?”
No answer.
The music blared and Nora couldn’t hear anyone coming, nor the familiar buzz of a text. She shot off another message, but still the same null response. Where was she?
‘If Vicky knew I was coming why wasn’t she ready? She knows my situation.’ Nora worried. Yet it wasn’t long before she had devised a backup plan. She could knock, if she really wanted to.
Nora eyed the arrows and nudged her chair closer, gently, until her footrest was close to the door, the one her pretty, unscuffed shoes were strapped firmly to, and then Nora nudged her chair hard! Twice! It was clumsy, but the closest she could make to a “knock.”
Just when Nora was about to try again, the door finally opened and there stood Cole, the hottest guy in their graduating class, standing like a deer in headlights, looking down at her with a red solo cup in his hand.
Nora blushed hard, looked at her tablet to say “Hi”, but didn’t have the time before Cole shouted the worst thing she had heard in months…
“Vickyyy!? What the fuck?! YOU INVITED THE VEGETABLE?!”