RE: Trailer Trash 4 pt 5 (Patreon)

(pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4)

   Don’t think I’ll ever actually feel compelled to act in anything, Tabitha mused to herself, idly glancing around at the throngs of scattered students boarding their buses.

   But, the things Mom wants to teach me will still be helpful writing-wise. Simply WRITING a character doesn’t quite measure up to actually trying to BECOME one. Actually putting yourself in their shoes and trying to adopt their mannerisms and everything gives you a perspective that’s so much… DEEPER.

   The school day was over, and Tabitha was standing at the curb along the edge of the bus loop among the small crowd of those still waiting for their bus to arrive. Hers was bus fifteen, and it usually arrived a few minutes late.

   The dismissal times of Springton Middle and Springton High were staggered an hour apart because they shared school buses, and her bus made a more meandering trip through the district than most. Bus fifteen would make a dozen stops along the suburbs at the far edge of town before swinging back through Springton’s main drag towards her trailer park, seemingly almost as an afterthought.

   Tabitha had taken up an interest in people-watching after her the abrupt acting lesson her mother had foisted on her yesterday. High school teenagers yelling, chatting, and hurrying amid the row of parked buses had a certain energy to them she found fascinating. As a writer, she could simply sum up the general atmosphere with a few words, perhaps describing an air of excitement and relief at the drudgery of the school day finally concluding—but how would she express that as an actress? It felt like there were discernible differences in the way everyone carried themselves, but it was difficult to pinpoint what exactly they were.

   They’re a bit more lively, for sure, Tabitha thought, watching people pass by. Their gait is a little different, too. They walk a little bit more quickly, more freely after the final bell. But, there’s also this tinge of IMPATIENCE to it, too, like they don’t want to waste another single second— 

   With an abrupt and forceful shove, the world around Tabitha whirled as she was thrown forward off of the curb and onto the pavement. There was no time at all to think— she twisted in the air, right arm flailing out on instinct in an impossible attempt to reorient her balance as she fell. For a numb instant she observed her left hand flash out in pure reaction to keep her face from smashing into the pavement, and then she landed heavily.

   Painfully.

   What— The graceless fall hurt in a way that shook her bones and completely knocked the breath out of her, and it took a second to collect her thoughts and begin picking herself back up. The curb she’d been poised on was only six inches tall, but the push— 

   Somebody pushed me!

   —The push had sent her sprawling forward so quickly that she’d gone more than horizontal, hit the ground at an angle. Landed on just her chin, her shoulder, and her left hand, her left hand that was in raw agony from the way it’d twisted beneath her— 

   Fuck it hurts—FUCK. Not good. Not good.

   “Oh my God—are you okay?!” The girl who’d been standing nearest scrambled down beside her in a crouch. “Hey, that guy just—HEY! STOP! STOP THAT DUDE! THAT GUY JUST PUSHED HER!”

   No no no, this can’t be happening, Tabitha’s eyes filled with tears at the sheer blinding pain, working her way up to sit with her knee beneath her while doubled over and clutching her left hand tightly in against herself. I— I’ve never broken a bone in my life, never. This—why would anyone—?

   “Hey, are you alright?” A teenage guy was trying to steady her.

   Despite herself, all she could manage out in reply was a choked sob. It hurt, it hurt so much. She didn’t want to cry right now, couldn’t cry right here, in front of everyone, but the humiliating tears just kept coming regardless. The group of people she’d been standing in devolved into further chaos, people were running past them now—after somebody?—and highschoolers were actually disembarking back off of the buses they’d gotten on to see what all the commotion was about.

   If-if I’d just had, like, ONE SECOND to—to prepare myself, I could’ve just made that into a handspring, Tabitha thought, furious and ashamed and struggling to awkwardly wipe her face with the inside of her right arm. But, there wasn’t one second, it just—it just happened, and I wasn’t prepared or paying attention or… or anything. Fuck, FUCK IT HURTS!

   “What happened?”

   “It’s Tabitha Moore, some dude just came up and—”

   “Think she broke her wrist, she’s—”

   “That guy pushed her, just saw him make a break for—”

   “Who was it?”

   “Oh shit they’re fighting! Look, he—”

   Everyone was talking, people were crouched beside her now, crowding all around her, and someone helped lift her up and back onto unsteady feet. People were still running past, and although she couldn’t actually see what was going on over there, Tabitha had a sense that a fight had broken out wherever they’d chased the pusher down to. Only, it hurt, and her throat kept constricting, seizing up in tiny sobs that she wasn’t able to stifle.

   Everyone was looking at her, everyone was gathering, talking, staring, gawking at her predicament, and she’d never felt so wretched. Why? Why would anyone— is it just bullying, anymore, with this? This—it hurts so much. What did I do to anyone?!

   “Check on her,” She recognized the stern older voice of what was probably the school dean yell out. He didn’t appear, so she assumed he was rushing over towards… whatever was happening over there.

   “Excuse me,” Another man—a bus driver?— pushed through the teens and carefully took her by the shoulder. “Are you alright? Can you let me see it?”

   Trying to quickly blink the stinging tears out of her eyes so she could see, Tabitha slowly lifted the hand she’d had cradled up against herself out so the man could see. It was trembling, she couldn’t keep it from shaking until the bus driver cautiously took hold of her fingertips, and it looked wrong. The silhouette of her pale hand wasn’t correct—there was a puffy wrong—looking area between her wrist and her pinky. It hurt.

   “Ooooohh.”

   “Oh damn.”

   “Yeah, that’s broken.”

   “Yikes.”

   “Might be a break, might be a fracture,” the bus driver admitted. “Are you hurt anywhere else? What’s your name?”

   Tabitha shook her head from side to side, trying to clear her throat, trying to breath, but someone answered for her.

   “She’s Tabitha Moore,” one of the nearby guys supplied.

   It wasn’t anyone she recognized from her classes, she didn’t think, and it was a bit overwhelming right now that everyone in Springton High seemed familiar with who she was. All of the sudden sympathy and support might have felt really nice, if not for the circumstances that evoked it all. She’d never been the object of so much attention all at once, not even on the first day of school, and the alarming abruptness of it all felt crushing, made her intensely vulnerable, like her troubles were exposed for everyone’s interest and entertainment.

   My troubles… Tabitha whimpered to cut off a wail before the rest of it could escape her lips, trying and failing to stiffen her face into a grimace rather than continue losing control and breaking down. Which she did. There was grit on her right palm from when she’d first lifted herself up off the blacktop, so she attempted to hide her crying behind the back of her hand, covering herself with her forearm, smearing it with her unabated tears.

   It hurts so much! This—this isn’t bullying like it was before. I was—someone ATTACKED me. That’s not okay. That’s not okay. What did I even do? What did I even DO?! Why? I tried so hard, I tried to be so nice to everyone...

   She didn’t realize she was being led forward until the dozens of gathered teens surrounding her fell away and were behind her as the bus driver led her back into the school towards the nurse’s office.

*     *     *

   “No, I’m taking her to the fucking hospital now, and you all better have some goddamn answers for me when I get back,” Mr. Moore swore. “Or you’re all fucking through. You hear me?”

   There was an unbridled fury in her father’s quiet voice that made Tabitha flinch in the plastic seat of the tiny waiting area within Springton High’s nurse’s office. Seeing him like this, witnessing something cruel in her typically plain, unassuming dad terrified her on a deep, subconscious level. It was as if these warnings he gave them were just a brief precursor to him actually erupting into violence, and the situation was growing more uncomfortable with each passing second.

   She was balancing a large bag of ice atop the hand in her lap, and the intense pain had been subdued to a dulled, aching throb in time with her pulse. The biting cold was spreading up her entire arm, though, and she couldn’t help but shiver, gritting her teeth in irritation at how unpleasant it all was.

   The initial shock and trauma of the incident had already given way to anger and annoyance, her mood plummeting to rock bottom and then settling in there for a long stay. The tumult of emotions took an enormous, exhausting toll on her, and she just wanted to sit and blankly stare off into the distance by herself for a long time.

   “C’mon Sweetie, we’re going,” Mr. Moore said in a soft tone, helping her up out of her seat with exaggerated care as though she were made out of glass. “Up up up, easy does it.”

   “Thank you,” Tabitha murmured, letting him guide her out the door. “Sorry for all this.”

   “This isn’t your fault, Sweetie,” her father promised. “But, it sure as hell is someone’s fault, and we’re gonna get to the bottom of it once and for all. This isn’t going to happen ever again, okay?”

   “Yeah,” She nodded, deciding not to display her doubt and bewilderment. Maybe. It shouldn’t have happened in the first place. I don’t even understand why it would ever happen to me.

   His familiar truck was parked right in the staff parking area just outside the school offices, a strange juxtaposition to the eerie sight of the now empty and quiet school grounds. Mr. Moore brushed aside polite and helpful and unabashedly went full overprotective father on her, not only opening her door for her, but actually lifting her up into the passenger seat of the cab and buckling her in. The sentiment was embarrassing, but also… nice, in a way, a tiny island of contentment in her sea of distraught anxiety.

   This broken… hand? Wrist, maybe? Is going to affect everything I do, Tabitha accepted with a sullen sigh. Guess I’ll probably need a cast? For… what, months and months? How am I going to even…?

   Mr. Moore started the vehicle, pulled out of the parking lot, and they rumbled their way through town in tense silence. Tabitha felt like she needed to think, needed to plan, or figure out solutions, or something, but every shake and bounce of the bumps on the road sent distracting pangs up the length of her left arm even despite the bag of ice she was smothering the contusion with.

   “This’s twice in a row now, Tabitha,” her father remarked. “In just a couple months. You gettin’ pushed and hurt, me gettin’ the call. I don’t like it, s’giving me gray hairs. I know you’ve been keepin’ things to yourself, but… Honey, I don’t like it. Not one bit. You just say the word and we’ll transfer you to Fairfield. These girls can’t keep treatin’ you like this, it’s… it’s inhuman.”

   Wait… what?

   “I think it was a boy,” Tabitha said. Something about what he’d just said still felt off to her, though. “They said it was a boy who pushed me.”

   “Yeah, I’ll just bet it was,” Mr. Moore grunted, scowling. “What grade’s that Taylor girl in, by now? Tenth? Eleventh?”

   “That… who?” Tabitha turned to give her dad a puzzled look. “What?”

   “That Taylor girl, the oldest one,” Mr. Moore continued. “Whichever one of them that pushed you off of that trampoline. Courtney? Brittney?”

   “Pushed me off of the trampoline?” Tabitha dumbly repeated. What? “I thought I... fell?”

   “Yeah, you fell, okay,” her father sounded genuinely irritated, now. “Only promised not to say anythin’ on it ‘cause you were bawling your eyes out, but Tabitha… enough is enough. You gettin’ hurt like this again, the bullying, whatever’s going on—this wasn’t supposed to happen again. What on God’s green earth am I supposed to tell your mother, now?”

   “I… forgot,” Tabitha realized, a sinking sense of dread pervading throughout her as something important, some missing piece she’d been intentionally overlooking for all too long finally fell back into place. “I... didn’t fall off the trampoline? Someone—they, they pushed me.”

   No, I didn’t forget! Tabitha’s breath hitched, and her heart was racing now. It wasn’t amnesia, either, or the concussion. I just… walled it all off, buried it, repressed it, all of it.

   I came back to life as a thirteen year old, but I never manage to put an exact face to the girls who pushed me around and called me a goblin? How do I not realize that? How does a big fucking missing gap in my memory like that not stand out, until now? I fell off a friend’s trampoline? Friends, what fucking friends?! Why did I never think to look into them?

   Tabitha felt her stomach lurch, and she struggled to keep from vomiting right there onto the dashboard.

   The three Taylor girls. The youngest one—Ashley? Ashleigh? Something like Ashley, but spelled a weird way?—was nice, but the older two… were fucking terrible, to both of us. They hit us, hurt us, ABUSED us. Fuck, FUCK. One of them’s been here with me in high school all this time—they both fucking HATED me. It’s either Erica or Brittney Taylor. And, Ashley— 

   “I forgot about Ashley,” Tabitha blurted out, her eyes watering all over again at the magnitude of her mistake. “I forgot all about. Ashley.”

   “You what?” Her father asked, concern evident in his voice. “Ashlee Taylor?”

   Oh my God. I forgot all about Ashlee—she’s been dealing with them, with this all alone. I never went back. Never went back after the trampoline thing the first time through, I was too scared to go back. Then, I just… what, fucking REFUSED TO REMEMBER? To ever think about it? Is that even possible? That poor girl, she must’ve thought I—no, I DID abandon her. Didn’t I? What the FUCK have I done?!

   “They made me promise not to say anything,” Tabitha stammered out, tears running freely down her face again. “So—so they wouldn’t get into real trouble. Said they’d hurt Ashlee if I told anyone they pushed me.”

   “They what?” Mr. Moore barked.

   “But, I told you anyways, made you promise,” Tabitha finally remembered, feeling her heart sink and sink until it felt like it’d dropped right out of her. “I just, I didn’t tell you about Ashlee. I was scared. I—I was her friend, and then I just fucking forgot all about her.”

(pt 6)

/// Phew. Okay.

This is a technique I've been struggling with that I'm gonna call a plot knot, and I've pulled it off (somewhat) exactly once before, with Emily withholding what she was supposed to tell Brian on Chloe's behalf in AnimeCon Harem for... seven entire chapters.

I call it a knot because the story unexpectedly changes direction, doubling back on itself so that it can enter into and fill an intentional-but-easy-to-overlook plot hole set up earlier—in this case, the suspiciously missing bullies that shaped Tabitha's life. I worked to do these things this way so that other, smaller subplots would have ample breathing room without being burdened by reader expectation for all of this here.

This'll be the major turning point, character-wise, of the first volume. No more Ms. Nice Tabitha.