Tuesday, July 8, 2014

On Unhealthy Relationships: A Twilight Parody, by Dima

This is what happens when someone who's never read the books or seen the movies is given the general premise and told to write it.  Enjoy.

Beatty was the easy-going kind of girl who never really got upset over much.  Which is to say, she was the kind of girl you never meet, but keep believing you’ll come across someday, because, man alive, if this is all you’ve got to call a dating pool, you’re really screwed, aren’t you?

I’m sorry.  I digress.

Beatty, in fact, could think of only two things in her life that really distressed her.  The first was that she had such a stupid name.  Beatty.  Really.  She supposed it wasn’t the name that was so stupid as it was that everyone immediately had to make a comment about Warren Beatty and it’s ridiculous to ask if she’s related to him because, no, in Western culture we are not accustomed to reversing given and family names on a whim, but thanks for asking.  Ugh.

The second, far more recent source of discontentment was a boy by the name of Isaiah Miller.  Or rather, it was that Isaiah didn’t seem to be aware of her existence.  As much as she hated admitting it to her journal, which she did on a daily basis, she had a crush like an empty soda can, and he would never even make eye contact with her.

“Crush” didn’t even go far enough, to be honest, although that was the limit of how vulnerable she let herself become in the critical eyes of her notebooks.  No, she was definitely infatuated, even maybe obsessed (that one she hadn’t confessed even in the quiet conversations in her mind), and that made it all the worse, because she hated knowing that a little unrequited puppy love (she had to add in “puppy” when she thought it to keep from feeling like a complete idiot) had entirely consumed all her waking thoughts and was keeping her up way too long at night when she’d always been that reasonable girl who was never unduly bothered by anything!  Ugh.

Concerned that she was overthinking things and that worrying was just keeping her from actually moving ahead, and suddenly, at 10:36 PM, intent that she was going to do something to get Isaiah to notice her and she was going to do it right this moment, she’d run out to her truck, which she hadn’t driven since her stepdad had presented it to her in an effort to make up for five years of absence, and sped off in the direction of Isaiah’s home.  And so, sitting in the driver’s seat and driving faster than she ought to and feeling her heart pounding ridiculously fast, she was, she realized, possibly at the beginning of what might turn out to be the third major source of grief in her life.

Oh, well.  No turning back now.

Almost as if in a movie, all of Beatty’s thoughts seemed to pour out and play in front of her on the windshield as she sped to the Miller farmhouse.  She remembered seeing Isaiah for the first time – not when she’d just seen him the first time, but the first time when she really saw him and was, like, whoah, what’s going on? – and remembered how he’d looked at her and they’d made eye contact and his eyes were such bright blue and he’d smiled just before he turned the corner and walked away.  Beatty had just about melted to the ground.  She replayed the times they’d worked together in their math class, the times she’d strategically chosen her seat so that they’d end up working together again, the times she was certain he’d been looking at her when he thought she wasn’t paying attention and he’d been thinking the same should-I-shouldn’t-I thoughts she was.  And she recalled, with a stab of despair, how just as she’d been ready to give up on flirting and actually ask him on a date or something, he never seemed to look at her or talk to her and even notice her anymore.  Had he ever?  There were the many nights when she laid in bed and stared up at the ceiling for hours, playing out their encounters over and over again, trying to figure out if what she thought had happened had actually happened, or if she’d just been seeing the past couple of weeks through some infatuation-tinted filters.  She’d never been able to come up with an answer for sure.

As she pulled up to the home and stopped the truck by the wide and twisted oak tree that stood watch beside the driveway, she was no more sure.  Was this going to be a horrible mistake?  Would she cringe every time she thought of this night for the next few years and every tim-

No.  Stop.  She was not the girl who let herself get bothered by things.  She was not going to live with regrets.  No matter what happens, she decided, it’s okay.  Everything always works out fine.

And besides, she was already here.

The whole house appeared dark, except for one upper-story window.  Beatty was surprised; the Millers had always struck her as night owls.  But her surprise – and all other thoughts, really – disappeared as a figure filled the lit upper window.  It was Isaiah.

Beatty thought that he looked down at her, and the thought didn’t fill her with worry, to her surprise.  She just saw his eyes and again felt like melting.  But then he moved away from the window, and all she saw was a square of light blocked by a few branches of the oak tree.

It was too perfect.  It was a sign.  This was why she was here.  With agility she didn’t realize she possessed, she pulled herself from bough to bough on the oak tree and in less than a minute was perched right outside Isaiah’s window.  The momentary doubts about being too creepy left her mind after just a second; this just felt right.  Everything was going to change tonight. She knew it. 
Leaves, it seemed, fluttered between her stomach and her lungs, and she was excited.

Isaiah stepped into view again, coming to stand at the foot of his bed.  He was shirtless, wearing just his jeans and a belt.  Beatty could feel her mouth fall open a little.  He was definitely cut.  How had she missed this before?  She must just have been too caught up in his eyes.  But those arms... there was nothing else she wanted right now than to have Isaiah wrapped those big arms around her.  The leaves were fluttering again.  Beatty had visions of crawling right up to his window and him noticing her and him slowing pulling up the window pane and both of them leaning slowly toward each other, across the gap, reaching out and-

But she didn’t have to do that, because he turned abruptly and came toward her.  He walked directly toward the window, and looked straight at her.  He didn’t seem surprised.  He just stared.  And then... he smiled.  It was all Beatty could do to keep from falling giddily off the branch she was on.  She smiled back.  They both smiled, and Isaiah opened the window.

Beatty waited, happy to let him do the talking.  But he didn’t do anything.  He just stood there, looking at her.  She didn’t care.  She could stare at him all night.  So they stared.

At first she thought she was losing her night vision, but then she realized it was him.  His... outline.  He seemed blurry.  It seemed like he was changing shape.  Beatty was a little concerned, but she felt hypnotized.  She certainly couldn’t move.

She watched as Isaiah stretched out his arms.  She watched as his whole body darkened.  And then, in a flash, his entire form snapped in.  Where Isaiah had just stood, a bat flapped.  Beatty was terrified.  But she still couldn’t move.  She could only watch.  And then, without warning, the bat sped out the window toward her.


Beatty wanted to scream but couldn’t.  She couldn’t do anything.  She could only watch as the black-as-sin creature descended to her neck.

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