She just wanted to make her parents laugh.
Jordan Lee, in all her seven years of living, was an expert at making people laugh. Realizing early on that if you said enough funny phrases, one eventually stuck, she memorized as many jokes as possible from her For You Page. Now, she could recite any trending sound right off the bat.
“My God, Jordan, you can’t say things like that,” Mom says. “Who taught you that word? Was it someone from school?”
She doesn’t know what was so bad about this one. Mom and Dad took her phone away because of it —probably forever.
The TV sucks, she decides quickly, as she swings her legs and hangs her head over the armrest. The episodes are, like, a gazillion minutes long. Her mom is in the kitchen — Jordan can tell by the clanking noises and bad words being said.
She wants to text her friends. The inside of her chest buzzes like the static of the TV, and her tummy feels like it’s filled with bugs. The image makes her a little sick. She wants to talk to her friends.
Jordan stares at the TV until dinner. Then, she goes to bed and stares at the dark until her eyes close.
The whole weekend is so boring she could die.
Her friends ambush her as soon as she gets to the schoolyard.
“Jordan!” Liz cries. “We thought you died!”
“You weren’t answering our DMs,” adds Cassie.
Jordan’s heart falls a little bit. They didn’t notice her new pink Sketchers. It’s fair that they forgot, she guesses, since she promised to send them a picture as soon as she got them — and then didn’t. She scuffs the new shoes on the pavement, looking down
“Sorry,” she says glumly. “My parents took my phone.”
Cassie gasps. “For forever!?”
Her heart sinks further. She messes with the straps of her backpack. “Yeah,” she says, still looking down. “I think it might be forever.”
“That’s so stupid!” The bell rings, and they rush to join the line for Ms. Putnam’s class. “How are we gonna talk to you outside of school?”
“Yeah,” says Jordan. “I don’t know.”
Everyone gets told to use their inside voices, but Jordan, Cassie, and Liz don’t need the reminder. They’ve already stopped talking completely.
Liz leans over, cupping her hand over Jordan’s ear. “I like your new shoes, Jordan,” Liz whispers.
“Thanks,” she says. The nice words fail to lift the heavy feeling on her shoulders. But her mom always told her to say thank you when someone says something nice.
Image Source: Chloe Hand
The TV plays the same things over and over, Jordan notes angrily. Her dad said the “cable” only has two channels for kids — and one of them is basically for babies.
So stupid.
She finds her mom in bed– on her phone! The lights are off, so the glow fills the room wall to wall. Bad for her eyes, too! Jordan marches to the end of the bed.
“Mom,” she calls. No answer, but she can tell by the light shifting that she’s still scrolling on her phone. “Mom!”
Her mom lifts her head slightly, pausing her finger. “Yeah, JJ?”
“I just want to say–” Jordan puffs up her chest, “I wanna say I’m really sorry for saying– um– that stuff. And I really need my phone back because — um —I need to talk to Cassie. For a project. For school.”
Mom sighs, setting the phone down on her chest. When she looks at her like that, she gets a double chin. Jordan bites her lip. “I called Cassie’s mom just yesterday. She didn’t mention any project.” Jordan looks down. “You shouldn’t lie, Jordan.”
“I know…”
“You can’t have it back until I think you’ve earned it.”
“But—”
“I said no.”
There’s a pressing in her chest, and she can’t breathe so well, like when SpongeBob goes up on the surface. Her skin is dried out, tingly, pins-and-needles. She wants to take Mom’s phone and throw it at the wall.
She tries to act old, so she doesn’t stomp her feet. Instead, she leans over and spits out, “I hate you.”
Liz has started showing her the group chat messages they share with other girls in class, so she doesn’t miss out on anything. Jordan scrolls through the jokes and Roblox screenshots. They’re already making plans for the summer. Without her.
Sometimes, Jordan finds herself reaching for it even though it’s not there. She mouths along to the Fairly OddParents episode she’s watched twice this week.
She’s walked around the house six times, bird-watched three times, and run down the stairs five. Her dad noticed her by the fourth time she was back on top of the stairs.
“Why don’t you go over to your friend’s house, hon?”
“That’s not how it works, Dad,” she replies. She would need to text them first, which she can’t do!
He leans back in his office chair, rolling toward her in a twirly way that makes her want to laugh. Stubbornly, she keeps a stiff lip.
“Alright,” he agrees easily, “why don’t you draw one of your anime characters?” She used to draw a lot. She, Cassie, and Liz made a whole world of super-wizards with a bunch of OCs. It got boring after a while, and they moved on to something else, but Jordan still has all the markers they used. “I’ll draw them with you!”
She raises a brow. “You draw anime, Dad?”
Dad laughs, adjusting his glasses. “Not as good as you, probably!”
Jordan glances at the staircase and sighs. There’s not much else to do anyway.
One week is too long for anything, Jordan decides. It was just a joke. She didn’t even mean it! She doesn’t even know what that word means. She uses other made-up words all the time, and they never acted like this.
She glares at her food: chicken, rice, and spinach.
This isn’t fair, is what she would say to their faces. Cassie gets to play on her iPad all the time. Even Liz gets two hours of screen time every day.
“What are you mumbling about over there, huh?”
She glowers at her mom, brows furrowed. “It’s not fair,” she mumbles. “Cuz, well, Cassie’s always on her iPad and Liz has the — um — she goes on her phone for hours.” Her mom and dad share a look, the special kind that they think she doesn’t see. Jordan can’t help but add to her case. “And — and it’s been a whole week! I didn’t mean it…”
“That’s not what it’s about, JJ,” her mom says. “What you said was not appropriate at all, and you couldn’t have learned that from anywhere else except on whatever you’re watching online. It’s not good for you.”
Mom is looking at her in a way that means she’s disappointed. Jordan squirms in her seat. It was just a joke…“When do I get it back, though?” she asks.
Her parents share another look. “We’re not giving it back to you,” says Dad.
What?
“What?” She hears herself asking, but her lips feel numb. The first thought that pops up is that Cassie is going to hate her. She won’t be able to play with them online. She’s already missing out on all the plans they’ve made to go to the waterpark and the mall for the summer.
They’re going to stop talking to her. She’s gonna be stuck in the house, watching TV and running up the stairs, and she won’t have any friends.
“No,” she says. That feeling is back. SpongeBob above the water. Everything’s blurry. Eyes burning. “No, no, no! Dad, please, you can’t!”
Mom frowns. “We just want you to grow up like a normal kid.”
Jordan looks down at the chicken and spinach. She’s not hungry anymore. She’s not fucking hungry. “You’re gonna make me into a freak,” she says, her tears finally falling. Her voice cracks. “I’m gonna lose all my friends.”
Image Source: Chloe Hand
She slams the table. The chair screeches as she gets up, but she doesn’t care. She’s never going to speak to them again–
Mom grabs her arm. “Where are you going, J—?”
Jordan doesn’t turn to look. She just screams, swinging her arm around. All of the chairs screech. Everyone is shouting now. Her mom only tightens her grip, so she swings again, and again—
Dad slams his fist on the table. “Jordan,” he says, “Go to your room. Now.”
“That’s where I was fucking going!” She shouts.
Her door slams with a bang. Jordan decides, right then and there, that she’s going to run away. She turns her school bag upside down to get rid of her duotangs and worksheets, then replaces it with her sketchbook, markers, and the Gatorade she didn’t finish yesterday.
The windowsill digs into her stomach as she shimmies out of it. Jordan doesn’t have a plan yet, but she’s very determined. Anywhere is better than here.
Jordan walks until the streets look unfamiliar to her.
There’s no way her parents are gonna find her now. If she doesn’t know where she is, there’s no way they’d know.
Ignoring the little worry starting to worm around her head, she suppresses a shiver. The streetlights are going to turn on soon, which is usually when her parents call her back home. Jordan has never been out this late before.
She puffs up her chest and keeps walking.
Wait. There! Lit up like a shining star, she spots a house that she knows like the back of her hand: Liz’s house. She can just live with Liz!
Jordan runs up the street, knocking on the door. “Hi, Mr. Sanchez,” she says once it opens, “is Liz home?”
Mr. Sanchez stares at her before stuttering out a “yes.”
Liz is home, outfitted in matching Big Hero Six pajamas, staring at her like she’s grown two heads across the kitchen table. Liz’s mom and dad murmur to each other in front of the sink. Adult talk — the perfect opportunity to leave the room.
Liz seems to read her mind, because she asks, “Do you want to play Wii in the basement?”
She nods sheepishly. They both hop down from their chairs. “What’s a Wii?” asks Jordan.
“It’s an older gaming console,” Liz replies shyly, turning on the lights to her dreary basement staircase. “Mom and Dad like it because it’s like… fitness stuff. I’ll show you. We can make your Mii first so you can come and play all the time. It’s like your avatar.”
As they sit on the little couch, designing her Mii avatar, Liz’s phone dings. She ignores it, frowning slightly. It dings again and again. Jordan knows that it must be their group chat that she can’t be part of anymore.
“Can I read the chats again?” asks Jordan.
Liz crosses her legs, hunching over the phone. “I— Maybe after. Can I show you after?”
It dings again. “Why can’t I see it now?”
Jordan’s mind cycles through the worst-case scenarios: it’s actually her parents texting Liz and telling her what she did, or it really is all her best friends planning to kick her out of the friend group forever. The phone lights up again and Liz isn’t hunched over enough to block out the name.
Cassie, Lizzie, Emilee & Janey — a new group chat, without her at all.
Jordan, suddenly, bursts into tears.
“No, J, m’sorry,” pleads Liz, letting go of the controller. She grabs Jordan for a hug, but she pulls away. “I didn’t want them to make one without you. I tried to tell them you’d get your phone back soon anyway — ”
“— I’m not getting it back,” Jordan sobs. “I just — I yelled at my parents and I swore at them! I was so bad and now they’re never gonna give it back. And now you and Cassie and all the girls in class are gonna drop me.”
“No we won’t!” She says furiously. “I wouldn’t. You’re my best friend.”
Jordan continues to cry, and she’s so distracted that she doesn’t push Liz away from her hug.
She never gets the phone back.
Jordan is sleeping over at Liz’s place for the weekend. Cassie stopped talking to her over the summer, and when Cassie stops talking to someone then the other girls stop too. At least Liz is still around, she thinks to herself. Liz was always her best friend anyway.
They’re lying down in Liz’s bed, playing Animal Crossing on their Switches, when Liz pauses.
“What’s that, J?” She asks, pointing at Jordan’s notebook.
“Those are my drawings,” answers Jordan, only blushing slightly. “They’re my OCs for— ”
“—the super-wizards! I remember!”
Excitement stirs up in her chest. She adds shyly, “I’m gonna draw a comic for my parents because I want to say sorry properly. They told me that I could get an iPad like you — with, um, 2 hours of screen time — if I do all my chores this summer.”
Liz squeals, bouncing in place. The energy is contagious. Soon, they’re both giggling and bouncing on the bed. They brainstorm comic ideas for the rest of the weekend, drawing up a storm of wizards and superheroes.
This summer won’t be so bad if she has Liz.
Featured Image Source: Vivian Van
