This is Chapter 11 of a YA novel. To see where the story began, check out the GIRL, UNPLUGGED table of contents post, or head to the GIRL, UNPLUGGED section of the Story Hoarder Substack page to see all the chapters.
This chapter is a 7 minute read.
CHAPTER 11: Rainbows
It was my punishment. That is what I concluded. The universe looked down upon the scene, saw Natalie Turner wreaking havoc amongst the people closest to her and decided she needed to be stripped of whatever security she had left. It even made sense that Murph was furious with me for causing all of this, that he chose to get as far away from me as possible by whatever means necessary. I looked around the room and wondered how many of the others felt the same. Daria was angry-faced and crying, still asking what Murph was thinking, occasionally shooting the question back in my direction. “What’s Murph up to, Natalie?” Brenda was trying to calm her, but losing more and more of her own composure by the second. “None of us know, Daria! It doesn’t matter how many times you ask us!”
Stella rolled Rose’s wheelchair away from that drama into a shadowed corner, asking her what she needed to be comfortable. Dustin trailed, carrying both their bags, while Colin and Terrell discussed whether or not waiting was the smartest thing to do. Princess pulled out Val’s chair behind the front desk muttering something about “bullshit” and “stupid asses holding me back.”
Which was me. I was the stupid ass, I knew that much for sure. I looked away quickly before Princess could make eye contact to confirm it, before the tears welled back up into my eyes, before they all turned on me with their true feelings about my betrayal through stupidity.
Rainbow walked over to where I was standing — still at the door of the museum, giving everyone the space I was sure they needed. She patted my back. “I’m so sorry, Natalie,” she said in a whisper.
This girl. She was sorry. What the hell was she sorry for? Sorry to know me, maybe! Sorry that she had the unfortunate opportunity to be stuck on this trip with a stupid ass like me. I knew what she was sorry about. I didn’t know why she had to say it.
“Are you okay?” she continued. She sounded so sincere. Like, maybe she really was concerned about me and not asking about my mental acuity. I turned to look at her, fearing I couldn’t hold the tears back if I saw the disgust I deserved. Her red hair, braided to the side, showed signs of the long day it had already endured. She never allowed this kind of physical disarray at school. She wasn’t a perfectionist in any way, she was a calm and steady person. Rainbow never got frazzled. She went with the flow and tamed loose hairs as she found them, never letting anything build up to the point of overwhelm. She was quiet, but not shy. She was friendly, but not popular. She was pretty, but not a bombshell. She was eternally kind, but you never really noticed how kind until a moment like this — when the world was falling apart, her world too — and she took the time to stop and ask if you were okay. She meant it. She smiled a tight-lipped, guarded smile, like she knew I was about to crack and she didn’t want to push me too far one way or the other.
I shrugged. I was unable to meet her kindness. I didn’t deserve it, and didn’t know how to interact with it. I shook my head, hoping to get rid of the rising emotion inside. I didn’t deserve to be comforted. Murph had left me. That was the right thing to do. Leave me. Leave me alone, Rainbow! Save yourself! I wanted to scream the words. I wanted them all to go, just like Murph, just like Mrs. Krimble, just like… Amy. It suddenly felt like Amy’s moving wasn’t just a kid trapped by the whims of her parents, but a well thought-out abandonment. Like maybe Amy and her family weren’t leaving behind an unfixable home. Maybe they were escaping the true disaster: me. I wanted them all to find their way to safety and to leave me alone in this shell of a museum.
“He shouldn’t have left you, Natalie,” Rainbow said, her hand now on my shoulder. “I know you guys aren’t like really dating or anything, but you were… together today, and that should count for something, I think.”
I couldn’t speak. I didn’t agree with her, but I couldn’t protest without openly sobbing, so I just kept shaking my head hoping she understood the No! No! No! That I wanted her to hear.
“Just know you are not alone, Nat,” she said. “Don’t shut us out because Murph was a jerk. We’re all still in this together.”
I broke away, finding my solace in the shadowed stairwell. I don’t know where I had planned on going, but once I saw the stairs I stopped, sat down, and started rifling through my bag.
My sweatshirt.
Useless.
A half-drunk bottle of water.
Useless.
My wallet, keys, a brush, baby wipes.
Useless, useless, useless, useless.
My phone sat uncomfortably in my back pocket, now digging into my buttock. I pulled it out of my pocket, threw it into the bag.
Useless.
There was only one thing I needed: something to write with. I needed to be Talia. I needed to write about what was happening. I needed to stop being in this moment and I needed to start reporting on it, sharing my thoughts about it, observing it. But there was nothing in that bag to help me. No way to connect, no way to write. No way to escape the people whose lives I was slowly ruining and connect with my safely distant peeps.
Murph’s bag leaned against my leg. I had been absent-mindedly dragging the weight along with me, not even remembering what it was, what it contained: sketchbooks, pens, paper… Murph’s tools for trapping the world’s fleeting visuals in a permanent way. Murph’s escape, his private comfort. All those blank pages, abandoned for who knows what? All that ink — unflowing — dropped into my care, for what? Was I to carry all this around and ignore it? What kind of artist leaves his passion behind?
I opened the flap of his bag and saw a mess of opportunity. Pens of every color, three different notebooks of different sizes, pencils of different widths, lengths and color, and a ziplock bag of what must have been some sort of colored chalk. It looked like this was where rainbows died. The interior of the canvas bag was streaked with colors of every shade and medium — chalk, ink, paint, marker — there were tiny rips and frays, and his notebook covers looked like they had been run over by the A train. It was a heartbreaking look behind the curtain of Murph’s prized possessions.
I didn’t doubt that Murph liked his art, but did he care for it? I’m no neat freak, but something about this bag felt discarded, like trash, like maybe Murph was out there, running away from all of this madness, not even giving a second thought to what he left behind. It was such a turn-off. Not only to Murph, but to all he created in that bag. It felt false and unworthy of the praise I once bestowed upon it. I was angry. I wanted to write, but not there, not on those pages, with that ink, not with the tools Murph used to fool me into believing he cared about something.
Against my wishes, hot, furious tears welled in my eyes. I didn’t hear the steps behind me. I was startled when I heard, “I didn’t think you were waiting for me. I wouldn’t have taken so long —“ It was Russ. I guess he was still upstairs all of that time and didn’t realize I had left the stairwell, found that there was no escaping, and returned to wallow in my misery. I wanted to pretend that was true, because even my panic after sending Dr. Davies out to the street felt slightly better than the furious abandonment I felt now.
“I didn’t,” I admitted to him.
“Didn’t what?” he asked.
“I didn’t wait,” I said turning my head up to see his lanky figure with its crazy hair standing over me. “I’m just back. Everyone is —“
He sat on the step next to me. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, not really, we’re not all back. Mrs. Krimble and Murph are gone. Dr. Davies too, I guess,” I said with a shrug. “But everyone else is back there.” I pointed toward the door to the hallway.
“Nat, this doesn’t make any sense. We’ve gotta get home. What about Rose?” He looked out into the hallway, then back at me. “What about Rog, don’t you want to get home to your brother? See if he’s okay?”
Really? I could not believe Russ was pulling the sibling card on me, like I chose to be so far from my little brother at a time like this. “Russ, do me a favor, go ask someone else what’s going on. I don’t know and I don’t understand. Do I want to get home? Yes. Now more than ever, but that is what I was told. I know this is all my fault, but that doesn’t mean I know how to fix it.”
Russ stood up quickly. “Listen, Nat, at some point you are going to have to wake up and realize this isn’t all about just you. This isn’t happening to just you. But most importantly, this —” He waved his hands wildly above his head in a very non-Russ kind of movement. “This is not all your fault.”
I was stunned silent by his outburst. I didn’t know he had that level of energy in him. He walked away without waiting for my response and, for some reason, I kind of hated that.
I was angry again, but different somehow. I wasn’t angry with Russ himself, it was with what he said. I didn’t think this was all about me, did I? And Mrs. Krimble’s injury was my fault — he couldn’t deny that. All he had to do was ask anyone else waiting out in the lobby. They knew, even if he didn’t —
“Oh—” Russ was back in the doorway to the stairwell with a hand in his jacket pocket. “I almost forgot,” he continued as he walked toward me. “I found this upstairs and grabbed it for you.” He pulled something rectangular out of the pocket and dropped it on the stair next to me. “I just thought of you when I saw it, so—” He didn’t say any more. He shrugged, turned, and walked right back out the door. I looked back down and grabbed what he left there. It was a thick, black spiral New York City New School Museum notebook with a pen clipped into the coil.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, was the moment Russ Sandberg became my hero of the day.
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Thanks for continuing to read the GIRL, UNPLUGGED novel here on the Story Hoarder Substack page. Natalie is clearly upset with Murph’s decision, how do you feel about it? What do you think Murph’s motives are? Do you think Natalie has any right to be upset that he is gone at all?
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