“Your room’s an unholy mess!” Jen’s mom used to scream at her. “A disgrace!”
One 4th of July her mother had become so incensed at the state of her room that she’d forbidden Jen to leave the house, even to meet her friends for fireworks. Jen was furious. She’d slammed her bedroom door, and thrown herself dramatically (at 16 everything she did was dramatic) onto her bed. Then she’d looked forlornly out the window into the forbidden streets of her suburban subdivision. Oh, the injustice! Her mom could be such a bitch.
As she sat looking out the glass, Jen realized the slatted wood of the patio roof was within reach of her bedroom window. She slid the window all the way open and eyed the screen. Standing on her bed, she jiggled the screen out of the window, bending the frame in the process. She got off the bed and grabbed the sandals from beneath their protective covering of clothes. She slipped them on, admiring her red toenails as she did so, and then stood back up on her unmade bed. One leg went over the side of the window frame. Then the other, and then she took a deep breath, and dropped to the roof a few feet below.
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It's fun to see you write in a totally different voice. What absolutely makes this piece, what grounds it without doubt in the consciousness of a teenager, is the moment when, just as she's going out the window, she stops to admire her red toenails. A true touch of brilliance.
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