Love Notes - By Heather Gunter Page 0,76
thanks. Huge shout out to Ty, Will, Tyler and Jasper. You guys
always asking, was kind of a big deal. You never forgot about it. Ya’ll are kind of cool! Just don’t tell anyone I said so…
Thank you to everyone that shared this book and helped make this dream of mine, that I’ve had for over 20 years, finally come true.
Play list for LOVE NOTES
Fucking Perfect by Pink
Try by Pink
Free Fallin by Tom Petty
Demons by Imagine Dragons
Bleeding Out by Imagine Dragons
Radioactive by Imagine Dragons
This Time by Imagine Dragons
Kiss Me by Ed Sheeran
Girl Next Door by Saving Jane
Come Down to Me by Saving Jane
Show Me What Your Looking For by Carolina Liar
Don't Stop Believin by Journey
You Found Me by The Fray
She Is Love by Parachute
Don't You Worry Child by Swedish House Mafia
The Funeral by Band of Horses
Spinning by Jack's Mannequin
The Resolution by Jack's Mannequin
All We Are by Matt Nathanson
Catch My Breath by Kelly Clarkson
Lights by Ellie Gouldie
Little Talks of Monsters and Men
Let Me Love You by Ne-yo
Stupid Boy-Cassadee Pope
Hall of Fame-The Script & Will.I.Am
Breath Me by Sia
A Thousand Years by Christina Perri & Steve Kazee
All I've Ever Needed-Paul McDonald & Nikki Reed
An excerpt from Lila Felix’s upcoming novel Seeking Havok. Expected release date: Fall 2013
HAVOK
I was about 98.973% sure I wouldn’t get accepted into college because of my name alone. Seriously, what college administrator in their right mind would admit a person named Havok, a name that not only portrayed a troublemaker, but one that was also clearly spelled wrong; I’m sure the bong my mom smoked before she went into the hospital, while in labor, didn’t help the name she came up with either. I could just imagine an enormous cherry wood collegiate boardroom table surrounded by gray browed administrators sipping Bourbon and discussing how ludicrous my name was. Every time I wrote my name on a college application, an essay, Calculus homework or even my own shoes, I wanted to clock my mom in the face with a dictionary opened to the page with the correct spelling: HAVOC. And let’s say, just for argument’s sake that she liked the name Havok, and that it was spelled right, a nice middle name would’ve sufficed. I would be giddy as a freckled kid with a lollipop to have a middle name like Susan or Michelle, hell I would take something a little quirky like Paige. But what did I get named? Havok Jocelyn Daniels. Doesn’t really roll off the tongue, huh?
And I’m sure if my mom knew who my dad was, surely he would’ve put a swift stop to naming me Havok. I can’t imagine that she didn’t know who he was; she just didn’t want to tell me.
I sat in my closet and finished my homework by the light of one of those ‘put it anywhere’ light bulbs sold only on TV, even though I bought it at the drugstore, and kept having to swat the hem of a flowered dress from my face. She’s not that bad of a mother. She doesn’t make me stay in the closet. It’s my choice. Because what’s outside of this closet? The things that happen between the sliding mirrored doors of this closet and the apartment door were vomit inducing. Plus, I kinda liked the closet; it was my own personal safe haven.
I pressed the button on my watch to make it glow for me, five thirty. I had to wake her up in an hour and a half, no earlier, no later. I had plans to meet Ali at her house for dinner. Ali was my best friend. She had twelve brothers and sisters and usually, if they didn’t outright count the heads at the table, I was overlooked. It worked to my advantage because if it weren’t for the Blakely family, I probably wouldn’t eat dinner at all.
I snuck in the kitchen an hour later to turn on the coffee pot, and then back to finish my homework. I listened to the radio on an old Walkman all while watching the time like I was on the watch’s salary. I stared at six fifty nine until the minute finally ticked by. I slid the door open and looked both ways before crossing the room. There’s no telling what waited for me outside of those doors. And the traffic through this place was fast and furious–and icky.
I crept over to her bed, really just a box spring and a mattress on the floor and patted her foot to make her wake up. She always, always had white sheets so I could bleach them, because gross. You really didn’t want to be on the propeller end of my mom waking up. She flailed her arms when her motor started and you didn’t want a piece of that. Just because I was spelled wrong didn’t mean I was stupid.
“Ugh–coffee.” She moaned, dragging her body up to a sitting position while keeping her face firmly planted on the pillow for as long as possible. As usual, she had to hug the sheet to her body, still naked from her last ‘payroll in the hay’. Her yellowy blonde hair long and haylike, sticking out this way and that. Black gunk still clung to her eyelashes making her look like some Egyptian princess gone very, very wrong.
“Ok, I’m getting it.” That poor coffee maker was on its last leg. The little swivel job that held the filters, yeah, I broke the hinge on it last week on accident and had to duct tape it together. But thank God it still worked and somehow she hadn’t noticed. Even if she did, I would blame it on her. It’s not like she remembered anything after she snorted, smoked, or shot up–whatever the night gave her.
I poured the thick black stream into one of those huge coffee cups meant for coffee connoisseurs and poured obscene amounts of sugar and creamer into it. I carried it, along with a stray granola bar into the bedroom where she had already started her wake up line of coke.
“Get my clothes, will ya?” She slurred at me while wiping the bottom of her nostrils and taking the steaming cup from my hands. She’d now wrapped the sheet completely around her, toga style, more convenient for sniffing and downing caffeine.
“Yeah, Mom.” I went to the dresser and pulled out jeans and a halter top for her. It was cold outside, and a halter top and jeans was the equivalent of a nun’s garb in my mom’s book.
“Ugh–I hate jeans.” She said, disgusted with my choice.
“It’s cold outside, Mom. It’s just until you get to the club, you know. Then you can change. You don’t want to get sick.”
“Yeah, yeah, you should come to the club, let the girls make you over. You dress like a tomboy.” I looked down at myself. I didn’t really try to stick my style in such a stereotypical cliché like she did. But truth be told, I tried to dress boyish. I wore baggy pants and hoodies outside of the house. I never wanted to draw the attention of men. She did plenty of that for the both of us.
“Um, I don’t think they’d let me wear that stuff to school, Mom.”
“Well, I guess not. But three more weeks and you can start working, putting in around here. I mean, you’re eighteen already, but I guess we have to let you finish high school. I don’t really consider your little paper route putting in.”
Most mothers wanted their girls to be wives, nurses, teachers, doctors or lawyers. My mother expected me to follow in her footsteps and as I looked across the room at her neat shelves stacked with mile high stilettos, I renewed my vow to myself. Don’t be like your mother.
“Um, yeah, Mom. It’s seven thirty, better get in the shower.”
“Ugh–you’re such a goody goody. I’m going, I’m going.”
I heard the water as the pipes squeaked alive and I put on some sterile gloves, a mainstay at this abode, and changed the sheets on her bed. I threw them in the hamper. Around here we needed one of those bins like they had at hospitals marked ‘hazardous materials’ or ‘soiled linens.’ Because when your Mom’s a stripper/prostitute/druggie, there’s just no telling what will make an appearance.
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Twitter: @Authorlilafelix