[This was an idea that I never followed through with - pretty much just stream of consciousness writing with no revisions. I like the characters and hope I someday find I have an opportunity to revisit this...]
My name is Clara Jordan and I'm thirteen years old. I go to Schoener Middle School in Clanton, Texas. I'm going to kill myself. I am. I'm just not sure how. I will tell you my story first though. Maybe by the time I get to the end of my story, I will have figured out how I'm going to end my life.
. . .
I was born in the summer of nineteen ninety-one. August sixteenth, to be exact. I am the second daughter of Donald and Julie Jordan. I was born on the hottest day of the century. It's in the almanac. You can look it up. I know that it was the hottest day, not just because of the almanac, but also because I've heard my mother tell the story so many times. She almost died the day I was born.
It's not a very interesting story though. At least I don't think so. But she sure does. I must have heard that story a million times in my life. You see, she was really pregnant at the time, gonna-pop-any-day-now kind of pregnant. And it was so hot that summer, like I said. Anyway, she was taking my sister Becky to her soccer game (Becky was eight years old then) and my mom passed out from heat exhaustion or something. Yeah, like I said, it's not very exciting. She just fainted in the parking lot and was rushed to the hospital and I was born. They had to deliver me through c-section. That's why my mom doesn't wear two-piece bathing suits anymore. Anyway, she sort of went into a coma or something during the whole ordeal and the doctors were mildly concerned. Boring. I mean, if she were like in labor for thirty-six hours and lost so much blood and it was like some sort of real trauma, I could understand. But the story just isn't very interesting as it is.
My sister Becky is a real bitch. I can't stand her. She can't stand me. I was an accident. My parents won't ever admit it, but Becky reminds me of it all the time whenever they're not around. Becky remembers what it was like before me, and has hated me ever since the day I was born. I guess she was originally pissed that she had missed her soccer game because she had to go with my mom to the hospital. But that was soon replaced with other things that she could hate me for. Like having to share her room with a baby.
Becky's twenty-one now and she's in college in Austin at the University of Texas. She's a cheerleader. She's beautiful. She's got a great body. She's a total slut. She makes fun of me because I don't have any boobs or hips yet. She calls me her little brother. She calls me boy names like Butch and Andrew and Carl. She's still home for the summer.
I'm not pretty like Becky. I wear glasses and I have big teeth. My teeth are ugly too. I just had braces put on last month and they hurt like hell. The wires cut the insides of my cheeks and my teeth hurt so bad that I can hardly eat. But I try not to eat too much anyway. I'm ugly enough as is. I don't need to be fat also. Becky would love to see me put on a few pounds. She'd have a great time coming up with fat jokes on top of the boy jokes.
Becky wears contacts, but I can't wear them. My parents think I'm too young. She makes fun of my glasses even though she used to wear glasses too. She's a real bitch.
Becky gets everything from my mom though. My mom's the same way. I mean, she doesn't pick on me like Becky does, but she's really picky and mean sometimes. She tells me it's my fault that I don't have boyfriends like Becky did at my age. (I try to remind her that Becky had boobs at my age.) She tells me I don't pay enough attention to my appearance. She used to be a cheerleader also. She was also big into beauty pageants when she was younger. She never won any though. She's so proud of Becky it makes me sick. She just loves how beautiful Becky is. She loves that Becky has big stupid boyfriends. She pretends like she doesn't know what a great big slut Becky is.
. . .
I don't have any friends. There is this boy who lives next door that some people think is my friend. But he's not.
His name is Timmy Thompson and he's two years younger than me. He doesn't have any friends either. That's probably because he eats his boogars. Everybody tells him how gross that is, but he does it anyway. I guess he can't help it. Maybe it's some kind of compulsive disorder. I know what a compulsive disorder is because I've had to go to therapy and I've heard them talk about that. If you've never been to therapy before, I'll tell you. You see, what they do sometimes to help you open up to them is that they tell you stories about other patients they've had in the past. They tell you how some of the people they've met with have some really strange problems. Then you're suppose to feel like your problems aren't so bad anymore and you're not afraid to talk about them. It doesn't work with me though. It just makes me think they're going to be telling somebody else how really screwed up I am. But I like their stories. Sometimes they're pretty funny.
Anyway, Timmy sometimes hangs out with me because nobody else will let him hang around them. Sometimes I don't feel like watching him eat his boogars and I tell him to leave me alone. But most of the time I let him hang around if he wants to. Becky teases me about him being my boyfriend. She teases him about me being his boyfriend.