Tequila Mocking-Bird

• Talia Loprete, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2007

She’s in there. Laughing with her friends and drinking tequila.
Making toasts about pathetic family, pathetic jobs, pathetic boyfriends… pathetic lives.
Getting drunker and drunker… and drunker, not caring about the world except of what’s in front of her; a shot glass, a half empty bottle of tequila and two friends.

He stands outside of her house just watching her. Watching as she lifts the full shot glass to her lips, drowns it in once swift gulp and returns it to the coffee table empty.
He seems pretty blank but on the inside, a mental debate whether to enter or not is swirling round and round, yes, no, yes, no, the reasons why. It’s all a vicious circle.

She seems a little less sad. Maybe it’s just the three beers he consumed earlier and the tequila she is downing now. Maybe it’s the smile on her face when she lets out a little laugh of satisfaction as the small, heavy shot glass clanks against the polished wood table, indicating that she’s finished and ready for a another round.

Maybe it’s the fact that she might not have ever wanted her father. That it was all easier without him. Maybe she is secretly happy that he did what he did and she now has a reason to tell him to get lost. She has a reason to hate him. The bruises across her face and arm imprinted from his drunken rage. Something unforgivable. And now she is taking her anger out on him, the man standing outside watching.

He sighed, his chest expanding and then shrinking back like a balloon deflating. She could have come to him. But she decided not to. She decided to drink herself to the point of no pain and misplace her fury on him instead of where it belonged.

His eyes a deep blank space, no clues to his thoughts but it’s all on the inside, just like the battle of emotions fighting to cause him to either turn and walk away or move forwards and tell her that he needs her. She laughs again as Alex refills her glass and then refills Tory’s, their lips moving but the sound muted to him. They again lift the glass to their lips and in one quick motion, empty the glass and slam it back onto the table.

He gives her one last look and turns away, taking long striding steps back to his car, her eyes following him as he does.