Kawan Baxter
6/7/09

                                                     Love sonnet

Inside the confines of four green walls stood a desk, laid a bed and hung a door. A dark yellow girl only dressed in her striped pink and white panties walked between them. Her white towel laid on her loosely made bed next to a yellow summer dress. Her long black damp hair fell on her barely dry back. She walked over to her closed door and peered into the mirror on it that faced her. The girl cupped her breast up in one arm. Her eyes veered downward. With her other hand she scooped a wad of flesh between her index finger and thumb. She frowned. The girl turned sideways, looking at the inches her stomach pushed out. Pulling air through her nose the girl pulled her stomach in. It was the only time she could see her ribs.

“At least I’m not too fat, ha..ha..ha..ha.”

Her own joke didn’t make her laugh. With a sigh she let her stomach protrude out the small amount it did. She dropped her arm and bra-ed herself. White bra in place she slipped on her dress.

“Stupid mom”

She felt her mother had brought her a dress that was too big. She quickly combed down her long black hair. She felt it was her only strong point. The girl grabbed a small pouch decorated in yellow and purple swirls from her cluttered dresser. She then swung opened the door and walked into the adjacent bathroom.

“What are you doing Kim?” Her mother yelled from the kitchen down the hall.

The tantalizing aroma of fried pork swam up Kim’s nose.

“Why me?” she sighed, ignoring her mother’s question.

Kim opened the bag she just placed on the sink and pulled out several small cylinders. She picked up a pencil of blue eyeliner but then suddenly put it back down. She instead reached across the bathroom sink for a toothbrush and brushed her teeth. She flossed for a good 2 minutes. Kim filled her mouth with mouth-wash and then turned her head upward, but then it hit her.

“Ma, what time is it?” Her garbled voice barely made it pass the mouth wash.

“Why, where are you going?” her mother yelled back.

“Kim spat the mouthwash in the sink.”

“I have a test tomorrow so I have to go to Serena’s house to study.”

“Okay, don’t be out to late.” was all her mom said.

“Ma.”

“Yes.” her mother responded.

“What time is it.”

“6 :40” her mom said after a while.

By the time her mom responded Kim was already patting blush on her face. She quickly stuffed all the make-up inside her bag, ran in her room, grabbed her little yellow phone off of the charger and raced into the kitchen. Her body kept moving toward the door, but her face turned toward the bowls of rice, greens, chicken and pork on the table. Her hand unconsciously reached out toward the food ‘No Kim. Today of all days you can’t get fat.’ she told herself.

Kim turned toward the front door at the same time a thin middle aged man with slick-backed grey and black hair opened the door dressed in a business suit minus the jacket.

“Kimberley, where are you going?” were the first words out of his mouth.

His face was contorted in neither a smile nor frown.

“Oh, I’m going to Serena’s to study for that chemistry test I told you about.”

He continued past her to one of the wooden chairs surrounding their circular table and sat down.

“You better do well on that chemistry test.” he said.

He wiped some sweat off of his forehead.

“You have to pass chemistry to get into AP chemistry, so you can minor in it without difficulty. To be a bio-chemist you know you need to minor in chemistry, so do good okay.”

His wife opened up a can of beer and pushed it in front of him. Kimberley merely nodded and headed toward the door as her father started to shove rice in his mouth.

“Hold on!” he said before he took a long sip from his beer can.

“How are you getting there?””

“I’m...driving.”

“You can get to Serena’s house by bus, no need to waste gas.”

He held out his hand. With a sigh Kim dropped her keys onto his palm. She wanted very badly to storm out, but she knew that it would start an argument, so she merely said “I’ll be back about 11 and quietly walked out the house.

There was light outside, but the sun was barely visible. It would be night soon. Kim waved at her small blue Honda with the very old sailor moon air freshener. Her car sat next to her dad’s newer Saturn. Taking a left she smacked the fence, She had to let her anger out some way. Her dad had just thrown a major wrench into her plans. How was she going to get to Euro’s early without a car? Maybe she could call Marco or Jessica. No, then they would be there when she got there and that would ruin her plan.

Kim turned her walk into a dash as she raced down the sidewalk. ‘This is for the power of love.’ She ran all she could. She ran until her lungs burned and her side cramped. She ran until she saw the bus stop. She stopped in front of the post with the times on it, bent over and huffed. She pulled oxygen in and forced carbon out as hard as she could.

“I feel like I’m going to throw up.”

She stood straight when she no longer needed to breath hard and the nausea left her. Her lungs still burnt. The sign said the next bus would arrive at “7:05” Kim flipped open her cell phone. “6:59”

“Oh thank goodness!”

She pulled open her purse and pulled all the coins that weren’t pennies out of it.

“Really..Really!”

She only had $2.20; 30 cents short of what she needed to ride the bus.

“Fuck!”

She tried to punch the metal post, but she only hit it with a light tap.

“Why does every step have to be a mountain?” she said in a tone that was almost a shout.

Tears started to come out of one of her eyes, but she breathed a heavy breath; once, twice, three, four times, and calmed herself again. She looked at the sidewalk under her. There were tons of used Metro Cards discarded down there. She had always wondered if there was money on them. She reached down and grabbed one, then knelled down and grabbed another in the grass by a fence.

“Hahaha Look at that girl digging in the dirt.” laughed  girl.

“Oh leave her alone.” said another girl.

Kim shot strait up. She didn’t even turn to look at the girl who laughed at her. She just stared in the street and waited for the bus to turn the corner. The buss screeched. Kim heard it before she saw the bus’s lights in the distance. The bus turned their way and not before long it slowed to a crawl and stopped right in front of her. ‘Crap!’ she thought.

A cool breeze pushed past Kim signaling the opening of the bus’s doors. She slowly walked up five stairs. In the driver’s seat sat an old white man still with a full set of grey hair, but with a body so skinny it looked like his cloth hung off a skeleton. He smiled at her and she mustered up one as she slipped her first metro card in the card reader. Kim looked down at grey screen with a silent prayer of worry told by her eyes. Her mouth lost moisture. She scrapped her tongue on the bottom of her mouth. This was taking too long. She knew with 87% of her what was going to happen.

The machine gave a low tune beep as her card rebounded back to her. The screen read, “Invalid Funds”. She gave him another smile, as she quickly replaced that card with another. The same beep came and the screen read “Invalid funds” once again. She very quickly took that card out and put in another. Images of disgruntled frowns, she knew were behind her flashed through Kim’s mind. She tried another card. The bus driver was staring at her now.

Kim tried her last one. She begged God in her mind to let it go through. The words made them self present on the screen. “Invalid funds.” Kim’s heart beat harder and harder until she could feel it pushing out of her chest.

“Just get on.” the bus driver said, motioning with his hand for her to pass.

“Thank you, thank you.” said Kim who quickly jogged to a seat.

The rest of the people got on the bus and the bus accelerated. Kim looked out the window. Her heart still pounded. ‘It’s all for love.’ she reminded herself. Kim leaned her head on the glass. She gazed outside the window onto the darkening streets. She watched as it became completely night outside. ‘It’s getting late.’ Kim flipped open her phone. It was 7:15, the meeting time was at 8:00.

“Agh” she whispered to herself.

How could she get there early now? She pushed buttons sending her to a different application on her phone. She browsed through her pictures until she came to one she took of Euro at the lunch table. He was laughing at Jeffrey. It was the perfect smile. The way the sunlight hit his pale skin through the window made him look like an angel and Kim just wanted to rest her face on his fluffy brown hair.

It would be another 20 minutes before she got off the bus. She had never gotten off at this bus stop before, but haven driven by in a car a good twenty of times she knew the way to go. She crossed the small street in front of her and walked past a random two story house which made up this residential neighborhood. Kim picked her pace up in to a dash, but her lungs kept hurting so she slowed down again.

“Kim, Kim, Kim you can do this.”

Along with the burning of her lungs and the soreness of her feet were the butterflies in her stomach. Kim felt sick with anticipation. Even if she did make it there on time, how was she going to do this? The rest of the walk was quiet, just her and her thoughts; give up, not give up, imaginings of failure and pushing herself through those fantasies until she finally came to his house.


Euro’s house was big like the rest of those in the neighborhood. His front lawn while not massive was cut to perfection. In the driveway sat Euro’s Red mustang, big enough for only two people.

*Dmmm*

Kim heard the strum of a guitar. She peered behind the mustang to see Euro in a green short sleeve button-up and kaki’s strumming his acoustic guitar as he sat in a fold up chair at the mouth of the garage. Euro looked up to see her and smiled.

“You’re here early.” he yelled out.

Kim couldn’t think of a witty enough response. She just smiled and jogged up driveway to his garage. ‘Just ask him out, just ask him out, just ask him out.’ Kim opened her mouth to say something but before she could Euro spoke first.

“Why are you dressed so formal? We’re only going to play mini golf.”

The words hit her like being hit by a truck. Kim quickly thought of an excuse.

“Well this is a new dress my mother bought me. I didn’t want to go out and not wear it.”

“It’s cool.” he said kind of like a side comment as he went back to strumming his guitar.

The garage fell silent for a few, but Kim skewered her mind quickly to find a question to ask.

“Are you good at mini golf?” Kim asked him.

“I’m decent” he responded.
“I never played in Sweden though. It wasn’t until I moved here did I even know that mini golf existed.”

“I haven’t played much either.” Kim smiled.

“I used to be on the track team though.”

“Really that’s neat.” Euro casually responded.

He looked away from her and back at his guitar. Euro practiced like three more cords, before another car pulled up, a black Cadillac. And out of the passenger side door stepped a pale teen with nearly fully shaved black hair.

“Marco!” Euro threw his hand in the air to get Marco’s attention.

Kim looked Euro strait in his eyes. It came out naturally.

“Euro, become my boyfriend.”

It was not exactly how she wanted to say it, but now it was out. Marco was still at the end of the driveway. Euro stood up and looked down at Kim.

“Hahaha.” he laughed a genuine laugh.
“If you’re joking like this already this is going to be a fun night.”

“I’m serious.” Kim raised her voice
The smile faded from his face.

“I didn’t mean to laugh you off like that.”  Euro looked directly into her eyes.

“I’m sorry, don’t be offended, but I just don’t like you.”

Marco made it into the garage, but Kim didn’t even look at him.

“Please, even if it’s for a little bit. I can be a good girlfriend. I have a car, and I can make you lunch.”

“Please.” Euro said putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t mess up our friendship like this.”

Euro turned to Marco.

“Melanie will be here soon, I’m going to get my keys.”

Euro walked to the door leading into his house. Kim grabbed the lower part of his shirt.

“Kim I-“

“I don’t care!” Kim cried.
“Even if I do mess us up being friends. Just one date, just one date is all I want. Give me this Euro, please!”

Euro was quiet for a while, Kim was whimpering and Marco’s mouth hung agape.

“Fine.” Euro finally said.
“You know you’re not my type, but I’ll give you one date, just please stop crying.

Only deep in heart Kim’s countenance changed entirely on those words. She looked up at his azure eyes with a great big smile. She wrapped herself around him, and cried even harder.

Marco smiled.

“I should try that on Melanie.”