Hello to all. My name is Caitlin Meuser and my blog will feature random musings of a teenager (including but not limited to the stress of approaching college applications and my final decision) as well as creative writing that I am working on.
So that you can feel like you know me, I am a rising senior at Simsbury High School. I do not play any sports, rather I am an editor on the school’s literary magazine and have writing-related internships after school. My favorite color is yellow even though I wear a lot of black and navy, my favorite place in the whole world is Paris (although I have never been there, but I think that it would be my favorite place were I to visit), and my favorite book is Jane Eyre. If you have not read Jane Eyre and are instead one of those people that only read Twilight over and over again, I would suggest that you pick up a classic and experience really good literature.
I do enjoy art, but lately, for some reason, all of my sculptures seem to be bird-related. I do not have a pet bird (I want a dog, but that isn’t going to happen). I do not like to bird watch. I do not even like it when birds land on my windowsill. But I can’t stop making birds out of clay. If you have never made anything out of clay before, I would suggest that you go to a local craft store and buy clay. It is quite relaxing, as is yoga. However, yoga requires a flexibility that I am afraid I was not born with.
To end, I will include the first page of a story that I am starting. Hopefully future installments will come. If you think that this is horrible, please tell me so that I can prevent future installments from coming.
It’s called “Last Days,” and it starts from the viewpoint of the character Liz.
Liz
The air conditioner in the car broke as we were crossing the state line into Massachusetts. Jill just shrugged her shoulders and rolled down all the windows, but soon we were both complaining of hair in our faces and sweat down our backs. That’s all I remember of the state line, just hot air that smelled like my grandmother — moth balls — and all-suddenly blowing into my face. I thought that driving across a boundary would be more exciting, an accomplishment of sorts, but Massachusetts looked just like Vermont: trees, grass, and pavement.
“Can you pass me a doodle?” Jill said through a mouthful of sour candy, “I need something healthy to offset this sugar.” I wanted to laugh.
“Healthy? This?” I pointed to the ingredients on the bag of the cheese doodles. I wondered momentarily if any of them were non-synthetic.
“Just give me one,” groaned Jill, her hand reaching across my lap in an attempt to steal the bag away from me.
And that’s when the song changed. I hadn’t noticed what was playing before, just a mix of energetic pop that Jill claimed was soothing, but this song I did notice. Not because I liked it, not because it meant anything to me in particular, but because the first notes had Jill clutching the wheel harder, her eyes staring straight out the window.
“Turn it off,” she whispered, not making eye contact with me. I turned the dial down and, for the first time that day, the car was silent.
“He’s a jerk,” I said, trying to get her to look at me, say something. Instead, she just nodded at my comment.
“You could do so much better, I mean, he’s just an idiot,” I continued, not really knowing what else to say. She had heard these things before of course, from that night I had sat next to her on her bed, handing her tissues and patting her back and repeating again and again how much of a bastard he was. How I would kill him for her if that was what she really wanted. Of course that made her smile a little. Not from the thought of him dying, but from the thought of me harming anyone.
“No, he’s not,” she was shaking her head now, “I was the idiot. I mean —” she gave a pathetic laugh, “ — I trusted him. How much more stupid can you get?” And then she was tapping the dashboard again and turning up the sound to a different song, her eyes straying away from the road and back on the junk food that was stashed between our two seats.
“We need a refill,” she said, so I knew she was back to herself. For now.
We pulled up at a gas station. Jill got out to fill the tank and buy some soda. I could see her in the convenience store window, learning across the counter to talk to the sales guy about her gum purchase. I made sure that she wasn’t looking at me, and then I took her phone out of her purse. Five new messages. All from him. I pressed the delete button.
He was the reason we had gone on this trip in the first place. Jill had just needed to breathe, get away from him, and that only meant one place. Yarmouth. There was no way I was going to let him ruin her safe place.
