• It was her great-grandmother’s birthday party, and Adriane was hoping to observe the awkward conversations between her grandmother and her grandmother’s siblings. She wanted to see the way words twisted in the air, attempting to resist notice. She wanted to see the false smiles. She wanted to see the way they sat at the tables, avoiding each other’s glance.

    But something else got in the way.


    Adriane’s cousins, Vanessa and Victor, were pushing her to go to the park that was a few blocks away. They were writhing in boredom. They just wanted to do something.

    Vanessa was draped over the couch, hanging limp and playing with her new sunglasses when she heard her brother say “I am an Indian man with a wee Irish man up my nose” in a Jamaican accent.

    “Ugg, stop it, Victor.” Vanessa moaned.

    “But I am an Indian man!” Argued Victor.

    Vanessa turned to Adriane and complained, “He was doing this all day yesterday.”

    Adriane didn’t say anything, but she found it amusing. She loved crazy things, and Victor was just starting down a wacky track.

    “One time I tried to get surgery but the wee Irish man was so strong, he picked up the scalpel and started swinging the doctor around. It hurt because he kept whacking my head.”

    “Don’t you think he’s being annoying?” Vanessa asked Adrianne.

    Even though she didn’t think so, Adrianne nodded and said “Yeah. Stop it, Victor.”

    Victor didn’t stop it.

    “Let’s just go to the park already!” Vanessa said, almost visibly bursting with boredom and annoyance.

    Adriane didn’t want to go yet – her best friend and friend of the family, Gabriel, hadn’t shown up yet. To show her defiance, Adriane didn’t respond to Vanessa. This tactic didn’t work. Vanessa just said, “C’mon, let’s go.” And then said it again, and again.

    Adriane sighed quietly and gave in. She nodded her head and walked toward the door, displaying her willpower that was equivalent to a pencil. Vanessa and Victor quickly followed, desperate to be out of the house.


    That night, Adriane would cry herself to sleep.


    The group of kids hadn’t even crossed the street when Gabriel arrived. When he got out of the car, he integrated himself into the miniature pack. He didn’t step into the house for one second.

    “Gee, thanks for waiting for me.”

    “I tried to convince them to!” Adriane responded defensively. It was only half-true – she had wanted to convince them, but never even gave an effort to.


    Gabriel, too, would cry himself to sleep.


    They weren’t quite at the park when Victor yelled, “I call a swing!”

    There were only two swings in the park, so Adriane caught on and said, “I call the other swing.”

    Gabriel just shook his head.


    Everyone started running as soon as the park was in sight. Victor reached it first, and claimed his swing. Not long after, Adriane and Vanessa arrived. Gabriel took the longest route he could manage, and by the time he arrived, Victor was already ranting in a Jamaican accent.

    “The wee Irish man likes to cling on to that dangly thing at the back of my throat.”

    “Wouldn’t that make you puke?” Vanessa asked, hoping that if she found a plot hole in his story he’d shut up.

    “Yes it did. But he just held on tight so he wouldn’t come out too. He asked to be washed after that, so I put him in the washing machine. He nearly drowned. I had to send in my goldfish to rescue him.”

    Vanessa groaned. Adriane did too, though she was inwardly smiling.

    Gabriel was writing ‘Hi’ in the ground with a stick. Adriane was loudly muttering things in other languages, such as ‘niemand versteht wer ich bin’, which translates from German as ‘no one understands who I am.”
    It turned out that no one did.

    Victor, too, was saying things in other languages. Mainly one particular Korean word, which, Victor said, hurt a lot when the wee Irish man’s one was hit.

    Adriane caught on to what the word meant, and joined Vanessa in her constant complaining about Victor.

    “No saying inappropriate words in other languages.” Vanessa reminded Victor – it had become a house rule.

    Victor said it again.

    “Stop it, Victor,” Moaned Adriane, who was sounding increasingly more like Vanessa.

    Bored of the current subject, Vanessa changed it.

    “I saw Coraline again yesterday – this time in 3D.”

    “Cool.” Gabriel and Adriane said simultaneously.

    “A bunch of people from my school went to see it. It was cool.”

    Then Victor pointed out how big Coraline’s boobs were, saying ‘boobs’ in code. Multiple times.

    Vanessa groaned again.

    “She’s just a little kid!” Adriane said, shocked.

    “All the boys covered their eyes during that scene.” Vanessa said. Victor and his peers were at the age – in particular, nine – where they frequently verged into sexual humor, but could not stand the concept of sex itself.

    Victor felt a little defeated. He got off the swing and started playing with it, swinging it toward the other swing – which Adriane was still sitting on – and each time catching it just before it hit Adriane. Each time except for one.

    “Ow!” Adriane said. Then, unexpectedly, all the hate Adriane had every felt for Victor bubbled up inside her, begging to be released.

    “VICTOR!!!” Adriane screamed as loud as she could. Immidiately afterward she felt another emotion coming, much stronger – guilt. She realized she would probably end up in tears, and walked away.


    Later that day, Adriane slipped on the stairs and bruised her knee and foot. That pain was only a weak physical reflection of her emotional pain.


    Vanessa realized that Victor would probably end up in tears. She followed Adriane, who was hiding behind the playstructure.

    “What the heck, Adriane?” She began, “That was really rude. It was just an accident!”

    Vanessa grabbed Adriane by her shoulders and tried to get her to look her in the eye. Adriane evaded eye contact.

    “…he should have seen it coming… when you swing something around like that, it’s bound to hit someone…” Adriane whispered, too ashamed to speak any more audibly.

    “He’s only nine!”

    “I did what he did when I was five. Isn’t he a bit old for it?” Adriane countered, feeling much braver this time.

    “No he isn’t. This is totally normal! If it were anyone else, he’d be crying… heck, he probably still is going to cry. Why did you do it?”

    Adriane kept her eyes to the ground and walked away. “I’m going back.” She choked.

    Adriane could not understand how anyone as old as Victor could be that stupid, that impulsive. Vanessa could not realize that Adriane was just as sensitive as her little brother, maybe even more so, and she could not realize that she, too, had been getting mad at Victor all day, even if not to this extent. Victor could not understand why he had been yelled at. And Gabriel could not understand anything that had just happened.

    With ignorance tightly ruling his mind, Gabriel followed his best friend. “Are you okay?” He asked, with true compassion in his voice.

    Adriane was surprised that he had asked. Clearly she was not okay! She was in tears, looking at the ground, and trying to go back to her grandmother’s house.


    “In one day, I lost all the trust you had in me.”

    “Not all, but some.”

    “Even that is unimaginable.”

    “I know.”


    Victor, too, had tears in his eyes, and Vanessa had rage and confusion in hers. “What the heck, Adriane, what the heck…” She muttered, staring into the distance.


    Gabriel made an effort to comfort Adriane, but, despite how well he supposedly knew her, he did not know how to. Adriane continued in her path back to the house, Leaving Gabriel standing there like an ancient tree – unremembered, unmoving, hurt, and stunned.


    “Let’s go back.” Vanessa said to Victor, decisive.

    Victor sniffled. “Okay,” he said.

    Neither of them spoke on the way back. Eventually they reached where Gabriel was rooted, and he joined them, also silent.


    The couch was unoccupied, as was the rest of its room, so Adriane laid down on it and silently cried. How could she have been such a horrible person? She didn’t even deserve to live!

    A few minutes later, the others came back and sat down on the same couch. None of them, especially not Gabriel, understood that Adriane was crying out of guilt.


    “Will you forgive me?”

    “Actually… no. This kind of thing is in all honesty unacceptable – what you probably don’t know is how much worse you made it for me. It makes me strongly question how well you really know me”

    “Does it really?”

    “Yes, yes it does. If you cannot accurately interpret what’s going on with me when I’m emotionally dying (the most important time for you to understand me, so you know how to help me), than yes.”

    “There’s no good way to present how I feel right now. You, unfortunately, were on the receiving end of the equivalent of me freaking out (which is more like becoming a horrible person), and I feel terrible for it. I’m crying.”

    “I’m sorry…”

    “You shouldn’t be. This is so my fault it’s not even funny.”

    “So I tell you something that’s bound to make you feel terrible and it’s your fault?”

    “It needed to be said. All you did was be honest, and acknowledge how pathetic I am. It is my fault.”


    When Adriane told her mother what had happened – the abbreviated version – she was glaring at Victor out of the corner of her eye.

    Even though Adriane had explained quietly enough to add some additional information to her testimony, all the adults ever really knew – like always – was “He hit me!” and “It was an accident!”. What they never know is what goes on behind the scenes – the dark side of humanity. They don’t see the subtle cruelty, they way malicious shadows cross once-pristine eyes, the way everyone is to blame.


    “I feel no better than if I had just murdered someone in cold blood.”