1 Then

Am I saying this right?' Her forehead creased as she rubbed her right temple above the dense plastic of her transition glasses. The thick dark brown curls growing in again after she had cut it for the third time this month. She pushed back the teal braids she'd gotten two weeks ago. 'They're loose,' she thought as she caught the braid that dangled in front of her lenses. 'Was there something missing?' She wrinkled her nose. The silver stud of her right nose ring tightened against her smoked caramel skin as it was tugged inward. She glanced down at the half finished entry on a loose piece of lined paper; 'No date...no name; no future,' she sighed exasperated.

She looked up at the pale yellow ceiling of her bedroom. 'Who plans a suicide?' She sat up cross-legged in the middle of her makeshift twin bed and frowned; looked down at the pieces of binder paper with her scribbles scattered around her, instinctively pushing her glasses up the bridge of her nose. She slowly picked up the sheet she'd abandoned and read its contents aloud;

"I did it again. And failed again. Even if I succeeded, I doubt you'd hear much about it. '25 year-old commits suicide inside her bedroom a week before her 26th birthday.' I wouldn't even make the front page. Maybe a 2-inch column on page 6. Barely a name or a description."

She stared silently at the page before crumping it and tossing it toward the overstuffed wastebasket at the corner of the room. "Pathetic," she mumbled and grabbed another blank sheet. She pressed the ink pen to the parchment before the sudden knock on her door startled her and she ran a hole through the page. Swearing under her breath she cleared her throat and called out loudly.

"Yeah!"

"Hey! Can you remember to do the dishes for me? I'm coming back late."

"Sure!"

"Thanks!"

"No problem!"

She sighed as she heard the heavy footsteps of her roommate fade down the hall before the front door slammed behind her. Keys jingled in the lock and then the two bedroom apartment was filled with silence once more.

She reached over her head and let out a massive yawn, stretching her arms and chest out. The ugly nude sweater wrinkled again as she straightened herself. She blinked and glanced at the clock on her phone. Sunday 9:45am. Belle, her two-year old orange cat jumped onto the bed and settled herself in the dip of two ridiculously ashen legs. Still holding onto the blotched sheet, she closed her eyes for a brief moment and shook her head. Irritated she placed the paper on the covers and scribbled the topic of her column before pushing the orange feline aside and righting herself on the floor;

Who is Isabel Perez?

The starting journalist raised her leg slightly and scratched the inflamed skin on her left calf with the toe of her right foot. Her dermatologist had warned her to stay away from it. Who was she if not persistent? More like stubborn as she stopped and replaced her toe with the blunt nails of her fingers and scratched, leaving a path of ashen, raised dead skin in its wake. The skin was red, nearly deformed with rash. She stopped, her curved fingers barely an inch from the irritated surface of the screaming skin.

She sighed and straightened herself again before leaning toward the white and purple polka-dotted dresser and opened the first drawer to retrieve the lotion Charles had picked up for dry skin. 'It's dermatologist recommended,' he had exclaimed in the pharmacy after her 6-month checkup. She had rolled her eyes and pouted. She let him be the know-it-all that day since it was in fact the same name and brand her dermatologist had told her to get.

She uncapped the plain malibu tube bottle and squeezed out a generous amount into the palm of her hand. She capped the tube and tossed it back into her underwear drawer. Lifting her left leg and resting it on the foot of her bed, she heated her palm with her breath before massaging the nude cream onto the sore area. It stung for a moment and she swore under her breath, but it was only from the sudden cool of the lotion. She integrated her other hand and gently worked the soothing cream until it was completely absorbed into her calf. She sighed as the pain subsided and the surrounding skin felt moisturized.

Her phone rang, a catchy tune of soca filled the room and she hovered over the bed to read the caller ID. MOM. A cropped photo covered the screen of a little brown girl with ashen knees and elbows clinging to the leg of a early middle-aged woman. The woman was short about 5'4" with a full beaming smile, a petite nose, and cropped dirty blonde hair. Her tank top was teal with splotches of what looked like flour that matched the ripped skinny jeans she wore. In contrast you wouldn't think that they were related more so that they were in fact mother and daughter. The phone answered automatically and a booming voice filled the tiny space.

"ISABEL!"

The uncoordinated 25 year old jumped a foot in the air and landed on her backside. The sudden greeting from her stepfather shocked her. Silence followed the call as well as a roar of laughter from her mother's end.

Isabel blinked several times. Helping herself to her feet, she carefully retrieved the phone and pressed the side button to lower the volume.

"Isabel? Isabel!" It was her mother this time. Her voice coated with false concern for the surprise greeting. Isabel could still hear her stepfather snickering in the background.

"Yes?" She croaked. She cleared her throat and assured her mother she wasn't startled even though her heart felt like it was beating a mile a minute.

"David and I, shh!" She said to the still laughing middle aged man that seemed to have lost all composure from the unexpected exchange. "Ahem," her mother started again. "David and I want you to come down to Jersey for the weekend of your birthday. We both, shh!" There was a pause in the phone and a sudden yelp as her mother swatted her spouse's arm roughly.

"We both," she continued firmly, "want to spend some time with you. You only get to be twenty-six once! And being the youngest and the only girl, we want to make this special for you."

Isabel picked at the scab on her right knee, half listening. She was indeed the only girl. The odd one out. The fifth wheel. She sighed at the memory of growing up with four older brothers. Being the youngest and the only sister of four men made having a love life that more complicated. They all took turns being the overprotective brother. It was worse during her senior prom. Lets just say her "chaperone's" near interrogated every adolescent whether it'd be male or female before they could even ask her to dance. It was humiliating. It was safe to say her mother got an earful when she arrived home disgruntled and followed by her entourage of sly-mouthed brothers.

"Are you listening, honey?" Her mother interrupted her tangent thought. Isabel knew she meant well with the birthday gathering. It was almost amusing, the unnervingly obvious strain. The overachieving. The reluctance. Her family was broken. She was broken.

Isabel smiled into the phone.

"Yes," she grunted. "Yes, I'm listening."

At that moment her mother droned on about the specifics of the gathering. Isabel closed her eyes and bit her lip. It was like a hornet was buzzing in her ear and she couldn't get close enough to squash it because she'd never hear the end of it from the hive workers she called family. She sighed, pressed the speaker button and placed the phone on the bed as she reached for her Bluetooth headset on her desk. She pressed the earbuds in her ear comfortably and turned them on. The call immediately synced to her headphones and she placed her phone in her pocket before swinging open the room door and heading toward the kitchen.

The apartment was quiet from what she could tell as the call only synced to the main headphone in her left ear. The blinds were up and the dusty rose curtains were pulled back letting in the dull light of a midwinter sky on the 5th floor of the Soundview projects in New York. The wind beat viciously against the window, threatening to tear it off its hinges.

Isabel looked out onto the deserted parking lot at the back of the building. The thin layers of ice decorated the curbs and uneven asphalt. Small piles of dirty snow hugged the posts and traffic signs that dotted the lot.

"Hmph." The sound was so soft that not even

her mother heard it over the phone. The woman just continued uninterrupted. A colorless hum.

Isabel clicked the light switch swiftly and the overhead lamp slowly illuminated the room with a warm white glow. She eyed the sink and heaved a sigh. The dishes weren't even in the sink, but circled the metal basin like an anarchy meeting. She rolled up the sleeves of her nude hand knit sweater instinctively and reached over to toggle the warm water. She placed the dirty dishes on the left side of the sink, quickly wiping the right with the damp sponge before drowning it in the stream of tap water and squeezing a few drops of dawn on the abrasive side.

She picked up a taupe and black dinner plate and absentmindedly rubbed its surface with the sponge. Her stepfather was on the phone now. Isabel hadn't noticed when they switched. Had David not called her name through the earphone, she'd have completely blocked their voices from her head.

"Yes?" She paused with her soapy hand holding a drinking glass. "Did you say something, David?"

He hated it when she called him by his name. What else was she supposed to call him? Dad? She wrinkled her nose in disgust; picking up another glass. There was a pause on the line before her stepfather spoke softly into the phone.

"Look, kiddo." He sighed. "I know you never liked the idea of your mother remarrying or that you have to think of me as part of your family, but that's just the way it is. It would mean a lot to your mother," he paused, "it'd mean a lot to me if you came so we can celebrate your important day. Together."

Isabel stood silent, rinsing the last dessert plate and placing it on the plastic drying rack. She shut off the water and picked up a towelette, pressing it around her fingers to dry them. She tossed the paper towel in the bin before strutting back to her room, Belle at her heels. She reached her bedroom and shut the hollow door behind her, paced to the foot of her bed and collapsed on the covers with an blasé huff. She pondered her thoughts for a moment before closing her eyes in resignation.

"Sure," she finally uttered lazily through her teeth.