"Regards, Joyce"

Joyce’s ears buzzed. Confusion and conversation enveloped her from all corners of the room. “We broke up last night”… “I’ve had him for two classes and he’s pretty easy”… “Wanna see what’s upstairs?”… Joyce breathed in deeply, and attempted opening her eyes again. They were immediately overwhelmed with the colors, the people, and the faces of the party. A couple was weaving through the maze of bodies towards the stairs, his hand placed low on her back. Talking groups stood and conversed loudly, melding into the crowds of people on either side of them. A cluster of couples gyrated in the corner to a dense bass beat as neon lights flashed from a small rotating globe of multi-colored plastic facets. The two couches were crammed with bodies, overlapping and intersecting with careless abandonment to the atmosphere. Joyce winced.

Everywhere colors flashed and clashed: fuchsia, mustard orange, green and red plaid, turquoise beads, belts, earrings, gold sequins on a low tank top… the confusion of color only unified by the consistent presence of red and white cups. -Everywhere there were people… Seniors, sophomores, juniors, freshmen… Wait. Do they even go here? They were drawn to the party like moths to a bulb, blindly attracted to its warm appeal and mindlessly joining the throng of red cups that held that horrible liquid. That smell! Joyce felt sick and tried to clear her mind. Does anyone even know what they’re celebrating?

The passing faces smiled unwittingly. They were stubble covered, make-up-caked, and clean-shaven. One beard met red lipstick with an aggressive rhythm in the darkened corner. Everywhere there were babbling mouths, glossy lips and eyes, blue, brown, green with a brown spot slightly off-center, dilated black, hazel. Haze, chaos; shuffling, pulsing, flowing, growing denser, louder, hotter…

***
“Stifling.”
“Gross.”
“Muggy.”
“All-around hot,” a redhead groaned conclusively as he wiped perspiration off his uneven brow, “Well sis’ you sure do know how to pick ‘em… this is the hottest day in September I’ve ever seen.”
A young girl, her face flushed with heat, nodded as they walked along the tree-lined sidewalk. “It’s really not that bad, Jere. Remember Fort Bliss?”
Jeremy’s eyes were suddenly distant. He plucked a Maple leaf off the branch above him and twirled it between his fingers. “But that was dry heat. Here you just walk outside and you feel like you’ve been sweating for hours.”
“Thanks for seeing me off, Jere. It means a lot to me.”
Her brother shrugged awkwardly, and his Irish face, already scarlet with exertion and heat, deepened a few shades as he studied the leaf intently, delicately tracing each green vein with his thick, calloused finger. “Someone had to drive you here and help you unload. My truck’s big enough for your stuff, and I didn’t really have a lot going on… so…”
Joyce placed her small ivory hand on her brother’s bulky shoulder and stopped walking, “Thanks, Jere.”
Jeremy froze. He had flinched momentarily at the slight pressure on his shoulder but attempted to recover himself by letting that movement morph into a gentle toss. They both watched the leaf flutter to the ground in reverent silence.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry… please?” The pressure on his arm increased insistently; her sky-blue eyes looking up pleadingly at him. Jeremy stiffened.
“Of course you will be.” He took a step away from her and counted on his fingers, “You’ll make your friends. Go to classes. Go to parties. Of course, knowing you—study perpetually and… write me letters?” Jeremy raised a red eyebrow. A smile spread across the girl’s face, slowly growing to a grin.
“Only if I can write them my way.”
“Your way?”
Joyce grinned and placed a rebellious strand of dark hair behind her ear as they began walking again, her eyes peering up at him with merriment.
“My way. It will be painfully dull and boring with every mundane detail written down from the way so-and-so talks to the texture of my oatmeal in the morning.” Jeremy sighed -his sister really was that detail oriented, “Plus…” she added, walking backwards to face him, “I get to lace it in smelly things and write it in pink pen. I’m sure the guys will get a kick out of it.” Grinning, she waited for a reaction.
“Thanks sis’—you’re such a pal.”
“You’re the one asking me to write an old-fashioned letter. What do you expect?” Joyce winked, “-Those are my conditions.”
“See what being sentimental gets me…” Jeremy muttered exaggeratedly while shoving his hands in his jean pockets.
“You know you love me anyway.”
Jeremy smirked and shrugged. They had reached the black pick-up and stood idly at a distance from each other. Silence was reserved for moments like these and it crept into the conversation with the deftness of a cat on the prowl.
“So you’re really leaving?”
“And you’re going to college.”
Joyce kicked some of the parking lot’s loose gravel with the front of her flip-flop, “Yep. Well, I’m here already I guess.”
“Yep.”
There was a deep silence and each of the siblings drew an invisible line with their shoe while inwardly counting to twenty.
“Well, I’ve gotta go.”
Joyce nodded and stepped backwards, “Be safe, Jere.”
Jeremy swung open the door and jumped into the truck. “Bye, sis…”
The deep rumble of the engine muffled Joyce’s reply. He was gone.

Jeremy sat sloppily in the driver’s seat, sinking slowly into the black upholstery, his fist fondling a naked bottle. The brown paper that had been roughly stripped from it lay on the floor in a crumpled heap. Scenery whipped past him as he drove through the flat prairie; small patches of trees and shrubs occasionally altering the landscape of grass, more grass, and the occasional cornfield. His kid sister dutifully dropped off at college, he had hit up the first hard liquor place he came to -just to drink to her success, he had told himself. Just me and Jag now… God that house is gonna be quiet.

Images flashed in his head as he stared blankly ahead at the road stretching out forever in front of him. California. Virginia. Texas. North Carolina. Each place had its own memories. –Now it’s Camp Dodge, the only fuckin’ training post in Iowa. I hate moving. I hate being on the road. Fuckin’ roads... I can never get away from them. His lips met the rim of the bottle and he jerked his head back for another swallow. Nothing changed; it was still endless grassland in front of him. Who says the world isn’t flat? I’m so sick of this fuckin’ prairie. Jeremy often wondered why he kept moving. He was twenty-three and had been living on his own since he dropped out of college at eighteen. It’s just a habit, he told himself, and yet something in the back of his mind wouldn’t let it rest. Why do you have to be so damn sentimental? What do you owe them? Nothing. Genes and horrible habits, that’s all they gave you. Fuck. Talking to myself again. Reaching over he turned up the radio, drowning his thoughts with hard rock and cheap whiskey.

Why can’t I go to bed? Joyce wondered. She sat up in bed and surveyed her room. Books were placed neatly on the shelf on her desk, organized by both class and alphabetical order. Glancing at the desk she could picture the small containers within the drawers, each containing a different school supply; one for paperclips, one for staples, erasers, markers, pencils, pens, highlighters, -they were all faultless. The desk lamp was off and unplugged, and so was the pencil sharpener and coffee maker. Only the small mini fridge professed its life with a low hum. Next to it stood an empty shelf and desk. Above her, Joyce was painfully aware that the bed was vacant and only covered by a thin cotton bed pad. She glanced at the clock as it steadily declared how late it was in blood-shot numbers. It’s too quiet… Joyce sighed and sunk back into bed. Then with new resolve got up, plugged in her bed lamp and began reading “A Tale of Two Cities” for the fifth time that year.

“Hi, I’m Emily, your new roommate… it’s great to finally meet you!”
Joyce watched with wide eyes as the beautiful blonde girl drew closer and enveloped her in a hug. Well, this is different, she thought.
“I’m Joyce. I’m a freshman.”
“I know! I got a letter telling me where you’re from and everything… I’m so sorry I never called. Things were just crazy.” Emily stood beaming in the midst of five suitcases. She had ambushed Joyce as she was coming out of the room to brush her teeth. Joyce still held a tube of toothpaste and a toothbrush in her hand and fiddled with them idly. Emily smiled and opened the door to the room, then dragged a huge suitcase in behind her. The information Joyce had received about Emily flashed through her head like lightning: Emily Doylan, Sophomore English major from San Diego, California— 4378 Mangrove Way…
“So what’s Iowa like? Tell me all about it.”
Joyce paused and raised an eyebrow, “Flat. Grassy. Nothing too exciting. My dad’s in the military.”
“Army brat, huh?” Emily’s ever-present grin flashed up at her as she unzipped the bag and began to unpack clothes. Wow. Five suitcases? How many with clothes? I hope they fit. She’s hanging them up… hodgepodge.
“Mind if I help?”
Emily smiled again. “No problem sweetie, help yourself.”
Dental hygiene forgotten, Joyce began hanging the clothes by type; skirts, tops, collared shirts, coats, jackets, and sweaters. After a period of productive intermittent silence she felt obligated to comment “Nice wardrobe,” while hanging up a turquoise argyle.
“Thanks! I’ve been working on it for a while. I love shopping… you know when you see something and just have to have it? –That happens to me all the time.”
Joyce smiled and nodded, “Me too.” Liar. Mom makes you go shopping for “cute clothes” and you hate it. She looked back at her enthusiastic roommate who seemed to be a master of splitting her attention. -But she doesn’t know that.
“So how’d you like orientation?”
A thousand images flashed through Joyce’s head; colors, people, cheering, -a professor giving a speech to calm the anxious parents, “We’ll continue the work you have started,” he had said. She missed Jere. Then the questions: “What’s your major? Where are you from? What’s your family like?” -All of them coming from complete strangers who didn’t really want to know the answers. How did she like it? She didn’t.
“It was good. It was fun getting to know people. I can’t wait till classes start tomorrow.”
“I thought orientation was more for the parents than the students when I was a freshmen. Too many assuring speeches…” Emily rolled her eyes as she handed Joyce the twelfth sweater.
“Me too!” Joyce said with her first shred of enthusiasm. She gets it.
“Also, all those stupid questions that really don’t have anything to do with you: ‘What’s your major? Where are you from?’ My goodness!” Emily threw her head back in exasperation, then, popping up quickly, she handed Joyce another sweater, “Oh, and it doesn’t get better, when you go home it will be the same thing, just about school.”
Thirteen sweaters. Joyce shoved the cramped clothes over one more time. But she gets it. I like her.

Joyce felt at ease in the classroom. The symmetry of the desks calmed her. She sighed in contentment and picked her seat at the exact center of the room. Mathematical calculations were natural to her. They just happened.
She sat stiffly in the empty classroom for five minutes. Her first class loomed over her. This was her first class in college and the only freshman class she was taking that year. She had tested out of everything but English writing. This is the beginning of everything, she thought, everything. As students trickled into the classroom Joyce’s mind became a whirlwind of thoughts and classifications. He’s obviously part Greek, look at his nose and hair… She’s nervous, its evident by the way she’s holding her books… The way those two looked at each other –I bet they’re dating or will be soon… I’m surprised there are already couples forming this early… She examined her class while they chattered around her or sat at their desks in somber or nervous anticipation. A few classmates cast sideways glances towards her as she sat and watched them; her two Dixon Ticonderoga’s laid precisely one inch from each edge of the desk, erasers facing towards her, perpendicular to the edge facing her rigid body.
“Good morning, class!” A colorfully dressed woman walked in the room, she radiated energy and enthusiasm.
“Good morning,” the automatic reply came weakly from the few sitting quietly at their desks. Those chattering froze and shifted so that they faced forward in their seats.
“All right…” the energetic woman set down her briefcase on the teacher’s table and stood confidently before the class. “This is English 101 and I’m Professor Russell. I have taught this class for twenty years and have always had the same introduction… but in this class it doesn’t really matter who I am, but who you are and how you express yourself on paper. So, let us begin with your introductions. Let’s go around the room and everyone tell me your name, where you are from and… let’s see… your favorite leisure activity,” the professor’s smile morphed into an amused smirk, “–‘Leisure activity’… hmmm… I think for me at least that sounds almost paradoxical.”
An uncertain chuckle bubbled up from the class. Noticing the hesitation the professor looked up from her stack of syllabi and asked if someone could please define a “paradox.”
A hand flew up in the first row, “Yes?”
“A contradictory statement where two words cancel each other out.”
“Good. –And your name is?”
“Thomas Baker. I’m from New York and I like reading.”
The professor scanned a class list in her hand and made a check mark. “Very nice Thomas, I am a fan of some leisurely reading as well.”
Joyce’s heart pounded in anticipation as she wrote down her classmates’ names, what they had said, and a brief physical description. What would she say? Leisure? I read books, lots of books. That’s what every nerd has been saying though… -I like watching people. I like analyzing things. –If I say that I’m going to look like a creep! Joyce considered her options as she noted her peer’s responses. Most girls were saying how they liked hanging out, shopping or lying in hammocks. One dyed and pierced character in the back of the row had said she enjoyed getting tattoos, and the evidence of this covered nearly every inch of her body. A few had said hiking, two swimming, three had said soccer, one had said photography…
“And you?”
Panic. “I’m Joyce McGeary. My dad is in the military so I’m from all over…” the kind face looking down at her nodded. “-and I like…” Oh gosh! “-shopping.”
“It seems we have quite a classroom of consumers!” The professor’s animated smile made Joyce blush and sink into her seat. She grabbed a pencil and resumed jotting down the others’ answers.

Jeremy pulled up the gravel path, parked his truck and sat there, facing the small house in front of him. 105 9th Street, Polk County, Iowa. Just keep driving till the road dead ends… Home sweet home. The simple ranch style house stood indifferently and for the moment he merely stared back at it, almost daring it to do something. The house persisted in the same wide, unshuttered gaze. With a sigh of disgust Jeremy grabbed his cap and the bag, containing his extra white t-shirts, ripped jeans and a collared flannel shirt he brought for the one day Joyce dragged him to church. He lurched out of the truck and slammed the door. Walking inside, he saw Jag sitting on the couch, his shirtless scrawny frame liberally embellished with ink.
“You’re back.”
“Yep.”
“The new branch manager came yesterday. -The guy’s a chump.”
“Really.” Jeremy threw his bag on the floor and gazed at the drab duffle vacantly. It was his dad’s old army sack. Memories coursed over him as he stared at the bag.
“Yeah, he acts like we’re his personal slaves or something. He asked after you and I told him you got an exemption from Eric to take your kid sister to college,” Jag tensed and relaxed his arm, watching the naked lady on his shoulder dance jerkily, “He just scowled at me like I was a freak or something.”
“Asshole!” Jeremy’s eyes were still fixed on the bag.
Looking up from his painted lady, Jag turned to his housemate with concern, “You’re going to miss her aren’t you?”
Jeremy broke his concentrated stare and met Jag’s gaze, shrugged, then plopped down on the couch next to him, “I know she was just here for a month, but I got used to her, you know?”
Jag sighed and shook his spiky head while taking a gulp of his beer, “The place has never been cleaner. I winced every time I didn’t use a coaster…just because I knew she’d be there with one in about ten seconds.”
Jeremy’s mouth twitched in an amused smirk as he reached for a brown paper bag stashed under the coffee table, “That’s my sister for you. She doesn’t have to say anything. She just has to be there.”

“Have you moved since I last left you?” Emily’s concerned and somewhat amused voice startled Joyce and broke her studied concentration.
“I walked around the dorm about an hour ago,” Joyce answered without looking up from her notes.
“But you haven’t really taken a break since you got here,” Emily shoved the door shut with her hip, her hands occupied with two cups of coffee, “I wish I had your work ethic. I fudged everything up freshman year and now I’m catching up… You, my dear, have the reverse problem.”
“It’s my first big paper,” Joyce shifted on the bed and the myriad of books, notes, and academic articles crinkled noisily in their neat piles, “I always freak out about them.”
Emily shook her head, handing Joyce her coffee, “You’re always freaking out about schoolwork. You need a break.”
Joyce shrugged and took a sip of the coffee while glancing down at her papers. But this is what I do. This is how I live.
“When is your paper due?”
“Wednesday. You spilt some coffee on your sweater.”
Emily set down her coffee and pressed a napkin to the spot Joyce indicated, disregarding the change in subject, “Great. Then you can come with me to a party tonight.”
Joyce’s eyes flashed back at her roommate, “What’s the party for?”
“It’s Tommy Baldwin’s birthday party. It should be rather low-key, just hanging out before midterms.”
“-And you’re sure it’s okay if I go?”
“Of course!” Emily laughed and rolled her eyes at the absurdity of the question, “Tommy knows you and it’s casual.”
“I have a good bit of work to do…”
“Nope, -you’re going. No ‘ifs’ or ‘buts’ about it. We leave at nine,” Emily threw the napkin into their trashcan to punctuate her resolve.
Joyce smiled and felt oddly flattered at her insistence. Mom would be proud, she thought for a moment and then pushed it aside; Mom is also drinking rum and coke in Germany with Dad somewhere.
Emily pulled a desk chair over and sat down facing Joyce, “So… before my four hour extended intermission you were going over my zoo notes and explaining osmosis to me…”
“-Oh yeah… Well, basically osmosis is the movement of a substance, usually water, through a semi-permeable membrane in response to a concentration gradient…”
“Joyce,” Emily’s voice was nearly anxious, “Are you sure we speak the same language?”

Jeremy walked into the house with two arms-full of plastic-suspended groceries. Just the essentials: pizza, cereal, milk, eggs, bread, and Jack Daniels.
“How’d it go?”
“Fine, don’t understand why he wants a private interview with all of us. I don’t need hand holding, -I’m just ripping up concrete.”
Jag shrugged from his usual spot on the couch, “Quality control, making sure we’re all doing our job, I dunno. This new guy’s a bit of a controlling douchebag.”
Jeremy opened the refrigerator and began to file away the contents of the plastic sacks that still hung from his arms. “Don’t tell me you’re still using her system,” Jag called from the living room, “Dude, it’s been a month! You didn’t even pine after Rachel this long.”
Jeremy gently placed the egg carton in its spot, then, as an afterthought, slammed the refrigerator door, “Rachel was a bitch.”
Jag laughed and sat up on the couch, elevating his beer, “Here, here!”
Jeremy’s beer hissed as he twisted the cap off. The glass clinked against Jag’s bottle and with the declaration of “chug it” they gulped it down, their adam’s apples bobbing with each swallow of amber liquid. Jeremy was the first to gasp as he brought the lips of the bottle away from his own. There was freedom here. “The world is nothing but bitches and douchebags.”
Jag wiped his lips with the back of his hand, “I try to tell myself that, but two months later I’m there covering her name up with another fuckin’ pattern. It costs to much to get rid of it.”
Jeremy chuckled and gestured towards him with the empty bottle, “You’re gonna have no skin left, man.”
Jag tilted the russet bottle back and opened himself to the last drop of beer. Then resting the bottle on his knee, he stared at the glass vacantly, “I’m so fuckin’ tired of having to cover it up, -you know dude?”

Joyce attempted to sit erect on the sagging couch, but each subtle effort only caused her to sink deeper and deeper into the worn cushions. Emily’s words flashed in her head, “It’s Tommy Baldwin’s birthday party. It should be rather low-key, just hanging out before midterms.” Low-key? This party was in a whole different octave! Joyce smirked at her inner joke and then blushed as she realized Tommy, clad in a white collared shirt and gray sweater, was watching her face intently from across the coffee table, his thick glasses distorting the Asian eyes behind them… Why? What was he staring at me for? The living room was practically empty and a few well-dressed students ebbed and flowed in and out of the room with small cake plates holding perfectly cubed pieces of vanilla iced ‘funfetti’ cake and clear plastic cups filled with foaming root beer. Emily sat sloppily on the opposite side of Joyce’s couch, flipping her phone open every few seconds and texting wildly.
“This house is fantastic, Tommy! How did you find a place like this in a college town?” Joyce mustered a smile and attempted to look interested.
“My dad is in real estate and he called a few…” Tommy’s words were interrupted by a frantically ringing doorbell, “-Excuse me.” Tommy set down his cake and stood up to answer the door. Joyce could picture his short Vietnamese frame opening the door to the tall, sleeveless, sneaker-shod characters outside the door’s entrance.
“Uh, hi John,” half the basketball team stood on the front porch, “I think you’re confused,” Tommy stumbled, “this was supposed to be a small gathering, but I think there is still some birthday cake upstairs if you want some.” The second crowd, abusing the doorbell with the same vicious enthusiasm and interrupting conversation again some five minutes later, simply saw their friends finishing off the cake upstairs and swept past the astonished Tommy with a nearly religious zeal, carrying with them the equipment for a party of their own.

Those two initial six packs multiplied with each energetic ring of the doorbell, some uncomfortably handing Tommy their booty at the foyer and walking upstairs to the party. The shrill bell became more and more frequent until the door granted unannounced entrance to an awkwardly yielded keg that was ushered in with cheers from the partygoers above the split entrance.
Joyce watched as Tommy’s face fell with each additional ring and slam of the door, he knew they weren’t here for him, this was an invasion. The low-key party had escalated to an increasingly vibrant crescendo. Andante to allegro. Disjunct. Fortissimo. Joyce ran out of silent musical jokes as she sat next to Tommy and pretended to hear him above the buzz of activity. This was anything but harmonious.
The original party attendees crowded around Tommy and Joyce until the noise became too much for them and one by one they shouted their apologies and left. Within a half an hour the house had been transformed from a silent and stiff slightly run-down fixer-upper to a pulsating hub of activity. The door had hardly remained still since Tommy first answered it and the first group of partygoers poured in.
Outsiders dominated the house and Joyce couldn’t help but feel for Tommy, his rough English and nervous tendencies made him more endearing and quite different from the prissy snobs and slovenly procrastinators she met in her classes. I’ll just stay here and keep him company, she thought. Two muscular men bumped chests in the living room, liberally baptizing the carpets with the contents of their cups. Joyce twitched. Tommy’s eyes widened. His eyes might bug out of his head soon if this keeps up. They both abandoned any hope of communication and sat dumbly, observing the invaders mill about, unaware of the two silent captives on the couch.

A stationary cell within the organism of the party, Joyce was soon wading in a sea of perceptions. A couple was weaving through the maze of bodies towards the stairs, his hand placed low on her back. Swarms stood and conversed loudly, melding into the crowds of people on either side of them. A cluster of couples began to gyrate in the corner to a dense bass beat as neon lights flashed from a small rotating globe of multi-colored plastic facets. The two couches were crammed with bodies, overlapping and intersecting with careless abandonment, only Joyce and Tommy sat silently with a small space between them. Joyce winced. This was too much.

Everywhere colors flashed and clashed before her eyes: fuchsia, mustard orange, green and red plaid, turquoise beads, belts, earrings, gold sequins on a low tank top… the confusion of color only unified by the consistent presence of red and white cups. -Everywhere there were people… Seniors, sophomores, juniors, freshmen… Wait. Do they even go here? Joyce felt sick and tried to clear her mind. Though the darkness of her closed eyelids removed the fragmented pulse of vision, the smell was there all the stronger; her mother’s breath on her cheek, accompanying the deafening sound of shouting. Her eyes snapped open. Tommy’s olive skin had turned pale as he stared straight ahead. It looked like he was going to pass out. She touched his hand and got up slowly from the mass of bodies.
Joyce slowly wove her way into the kitchen, swaying from the dizzying atmosphere and memories triggered by the sweet and toxic smell slowly breathed into the house. The organism breathed poison. Grabbing one of the red cups Joyce poured herself a coke from the half-empty bottle.
“What are you drinking there?” Joyce whirled around and came face to face with Gary Pierson, the basketball team captain.
“Rum and coke,” Joyce blurted out instinctively. Good choice. Mom’s favorite.
“Wow. The hard stuff, eh?” Joyce gazed beyond Gary’s dopey grin and watched as a moth plunged his furry body again and again into the light bulb above his head. Each impact resonated with a dull ping, wing-dust leaving small smudges on the white glass. Joyce cringed, and Gary smiled dumbly as the moth blindly threw himself against the light that singed his wings.
“I haven’t seen you around campus much, what year are you?”
“I’m a freshman. I know who you are, Gary. We have Social Psychology together.”
Joyce followed the moth as it plummeted to the ground, and frantically beat its wings, fluttering in a small earth-bound circle. Gary rocked back on his foot uncomfortably.
A flushed Emily walked into the room with glass-eyed enthusiasm, “Isn’t this great! And just think, -if I hadn’t told the boys that Tommy was having a party we’d be discussing furniture or… osmosis!” Joyce grabbed a roll of paper towels and a bottle of water and walked out of the kitchen in disgust, the tall Gary following her blindly with his eyes as Emily leaned against the table and looked up at him.
Joyce turned the corner and leaned against the wall to secure herself. Noticing her pause, Tommy crossed the room timidly, navigating the gesticulating masses. He noticed her jaw gradually relax as she drew her foot back and forth across the plaid carpet, her lips moving in a silent incantation.

Jeremy sat at the kitchen table staring vacantly at the hot pink words in front of him. He was gazing into the written life of his sister… her roommate, her classes, her professors and the interesting things they said, the sudden decline in the cafeteria’s food quality, the good grade on her lab test… everything was there, described in great detail in neon pink. He wasn’t really reading the letter anymore but sat there simply enjoying its concreteness in his hands. Joyce… Thank God you’re not here. He let his eyes go out of focus and took pleasure in the distortion of the pink words.

“Your constant tardiness shows a lack of commitment to the company I would expect from a man of far less experience.” Thud. He knelt in the living room, his bare back exposed in front of those stupid china dogs. “Be a man Jeremy! Stand up and take it!” Thud. He fidgeted nervously with his pen, click, and checkmate. “I’m afraid with your recent behavior and our new budget I have to let you go.” Thud. He lay against the rough plaid carpet, the polyester fibers scratching his stinging salty cheeks. “Wipe those tears boy! You’re a man!” Thud. He felt the sting as a cotton ball was gently pressed over his red, welted body. “Don’t cry Jere and don’t say anything, just count to twenty and draw a line with your foot—it always worked for me with Mom…” Thud. Stupid parents, stupid liquid, stupid fucked-up world… fuck the coping method—I still feel.

Jeremy smeared away the tears that were slowly carving a path through his tawny stubble. He coughed to clear his throat and blinked. A single tear coursed down and landed on the letter still held firmly in his hand. Quickly he wiped the spot where it had fallen; the ink smeared. His sister’s last words were a disfigured smudge of pink, distorting their former mechanical nature: “Regards, Joyce.”

Never

He loved her in kindergarten when she cried so hard after breaking the yellow crayon that she had to be sent to the nurse’s office. He loved her in 2nd grade when they were paired to file into the Church beside one another, dressed in their perfectly pressed communion wear. He loved her in 4th grade when he was one of the three boys invited to her birthday party. He loved her in 6th grade when they were partners for a presentation on Abraham Lincoln and she dressed up as Mary Todd and he as Honest Abe. He loved her in 8th grade when she earned a week of detentions for blackening the eye of the boy who called Father Jim a pedophile. He loved her in high school when she drove him home after service club meetings and smiled goodbye to him in his driveway. He loved her when she posed for prom pictures in her front yard with Tom McKinley’s arm around her waist. He loved her when she smiled and waved at him from the front seat of Tom McKinley’s bright red car as he checked his mail. He loved her in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that she would never love at him the way he loved her.

She loved him in kindergarten when he peed his pants while playing dodgeball and walked slowly to the bathroom, one tear sneaking down his cheek. She loved him in 2nd grade when he read from the Book of Deuteronomy at their first communion, pronouncing each word with the utmost care. She loved him in 4th grade when he came to her birthday party and gave her a water-color set, complete with brushes and paper. She loved him in 6th grade when he agreed to wear a top hat and color a beard on his face to fulfill her vision of Abraham Lincoln for their presentation in History class. She loved him in 8th grade when he read his paper on modern saints aloud to the class. She loved him in high school when he would thank her for bringing him home after Students of Service, even though she wished he would have said so much more than 'thank you.' She loved him when he walked slowly to his mailbox as she had her picture taken before prom, causing her perfect smile to falter. She loved him as she climbed into her date’s sports car, his corsage on her wrist. She loved him in spite of (or perhaps because of) the fact that he would never love her the way she loved him.

(Reason I posted this- it really does belong in an actual wastebasket. I wrote it in class, what do you expect?)
Edit: I tried to follow your suggestions, Elizabeth; they were definitely right on! It really was something I randomly thought of but it's always good to edit, and there's a ton more I could do to it. Time permitting.