The Demititan Gaea

“Dad, I’m home!” Gaia’s voice rang out across the sparsely furnished house. The living room was to the left, with a lone sofa against the wall, immediately in front of a coffee table with various magazines scattered across it. A little side table stood on one side of the sofa, too small for the lamp that sat atop it but large enough for a picture frame. The space was so large that it seemed to engulf the little furnishings it had. The dining room, which was located between the living room and the kitchen, was vacant, save for a snowboard and other ski equipment.

Gaea kicked off her shoes and tossed her backpack to the side as she marched up the stairs directly in front of her.

“I’m also home, Mr. Winters!” Sprite giggled as she removed her shoes and placed them, along with Gaea’s, to the side, just beneath the coat rack, next to a pair of lopsided white sneakers with worn down heals, and some huge work boots caked with mud. She picked up Gaea’s knapsack and started up the steps.

Gaea fell face-first into a pile of clothes on her bed. She huffed and ignored the musty odor, her breath released from the pile of dirty clothes. Sprite entered the room, hung their bags on the hooks on the back of the door, grabbed the remote, and flipped through the stations until she stopped on the local news.

“Not a cloud in the sky, and it’ll be a lovely evening right back to morning,” the weatherman said. Sprite reduced the volume and activated the caption. Gaea took her phone from her back pocket before rolling onto her back and tucking a cushion under her head. She fished out the gum she’d been chewing since fourth period and stuck it behind her headboard. “This is what happens when you’re raised by old people,” she said to Sprite.

“Look, honey,” Sprite replied, “you have to know what’s going on in the world.”

“Honey?! Which fourteen-year-old speaks in such a manner?” Gaea did her best imitation of how a woman spoke in the nineteen-fifties. She’s seen enough old shows with Sprite, not because she enjoys them, but because she supports her friend’s vintage taste in media. Gaea chuckled as she checked her phone.

With a little struggle, Sprite yanked out the scrunchie that was keeping her head full of permed golden curls in a ponytail. She grimaced and her eyes watered as several strands of hair came out with the scrunchie. “We’ll be fourteen tomorrow.” Sprite replied, shaking her head to loosen the curls and combing them up with her fingers a few times.

Clothing was scattered on the floor and a shirt dangled from the computer chair. Sprite grabbed the shirt, sniffed it, and flung it into the overflowing hamper next to the door. “When was the last time you did laundry?” Sprite inquired. Gaea knows Sprite’s peculiarity for neatness and makes an effort to respect her friend’s room whenever she spends the night over at Sprite’s. They’ve known each other all their lives and alternate sleeping over at each other’s places. In fact, when Gaea returns home from an overnight stay at Sprite, in a room where she doesn’t trip over empty Coke cans getting out of bed, she’s occasionally encouraged to clean her own room and tries, but it’s generally Sprite who does it when she’s stays over. Regardless, this is her room, and she keeps it however she likes.

“The last time my laundry got done was the last time you did it.” Gaea responded.

It’s their birthday tomorrow, and Gaea is more preoccupied with reconnecting with their other birth friend than with her dirty clothes. She’s hoping that the significance of the day might bring her estranged friend back to her and Sprite, and Sprite’s usual mothering is not helping at the moment. Sprite mothering can be overbearing sometimes. During a sleepover, Sprite snuck downstairs early the next morning and did Gaea’s laundry, even after Gaea repeatedly told her not to.

“Stop cleaning my room, girl. You promised. ”

They are as close as sisters; however, Gaea has lately established boundaries for Sprite, one of which is to leave the room as it is whenever she’s over, a request Sprite mostly ignores.

Sprite moaned, rolling her eyes. “You’re not going to do it.”

“She just posted her dress for tomorrow,” Gaea said, ignoring her rising annoyance at Sprites’ mothering.

Sprite unzipped her book bag and pulled a couple of books out, as well as a sheet of sanitary wipe. She moved over to a desk that was set in front of a huge window that took up the entire wall.

“You’re IG stalking her now?”

“If they haven’t blocked you, it’s not stalking,” Gaea responded.

Sprite wrinkled her nose and shove a half-eaten pizza off the desk with the sanitary wipe. It landed in the little trash can beside the desk, disturbing a few flies perched on an apple core. The flies buzzed Sprite’s face for interrupting their feast.

Sprite mumbled to herself as she scrubbed the desk with the sanitary wipe, “It’s been four days and look at the room.”

“Pru’s not your property, Gigi,” she says a bit louder, “so let it go.”

“Don’t you miss you, me, and Persephone being the three wishes, Sprite? We were born on the same horrible night, in the same crappy hospital, barely five minutes apart. You don’t just throw something like that away for Insta likes.”

“I do miss us... But she’s now hanging with her fashionable buddies. Besides, Gigi, we don’t have a monopoly on her friendship. Pru’s allowed to have other friends,” said Sprite.

“Not at the expense of our friendship,” replied Gaea.

“The last couple of years have been hard on her. Maybe what she needs right now is different friends,” said Sprite.

Gaea and Sprite are only two of eight kids in a town full of old people. They were all born in the same month and three on the same day, barely five minutes apart. They’ve all been friends since birth, but the three who were born on the same day were especially close. That is, until they entered high school, when the social order separated Persephone from Gaea and Sprite. However, Gaea has made it her goal to rescue Persephone from the clutches of the girls she calls the “She-demons,” whom she thinks stole her friend.

On the other hand, Sprite would rather Persephone return willingly.

On the first day of high school, the three she-demons hated Gaea, but they liked Persephone and gradually turned her into one of them, as they separated Persephone from her and Sprite.

Gaea turned her phone off and hurled it over her head. It hit the headboard.

“So you’re saying we’re the problem?” She asked as she rolled off the bed and stumped over to the door for her backpack. As she walked back to her bed, she fished out her math and notebook and threw them on the bed. She hadn’t finished zipping the bag up before she tossed it aside. A few books slid out when it hit the closet door.

“No. I’m saying give her some time. You can be a touch passionate with your friendship, Gigi,” said Sprite.

Gaea sat on the bed, grabbed her math book, and flipped through it lazily. “What page?”

“One hundred sixty-two,” Sprite responded.

“Oh, so you’re saying it’s me then?” Gaea inquired.

Sprite twirled her pen for a second before resting it on the spine of her notepad. She turned the chair around to face Gaea, who was perched on the edge of the bed, still aimlessly paging through her math book. Sprite clasped her fingers together and put her elbows on her knees.

Gaea doesn’t like it when Sprite laces her fingers together; it’s a sign she’s about to get a lecture. Yet, for some reason, Sprite never starts until she gets some eye contact from the person she’s about to address. Gaea fights the urge to look at Sprite, but fails and slips a glance at her.

“What I’m saying is, that we’ve been friends our entire lives, and that won’t change. Whatever she was going through over past few years, a new environment clearly benefited her in some ways, and perhaps having new people in her life is part of that process,”

Since Persephone returned from New York after the end of summer break, they noticed Persephone’s change in attitude. It was a return to who she was.

After their twelfth birthday, it was as if a dark cloud descended on Persephone; she became aggressive and had frequent mood swings.

She wouldn’t even let her and Sprite to sleep over anymore. But when she returned from New York, it was as if the vacation reset her personality.

She was back to being the Persephone they remembered before the dark cloud engulfed her, yet there was something slightly off about her. But Gaea and Sprite didn’t care; they were just relieved to have their friend back.

“I don’t know what she sees in those bimbos,” Gaea continued, “they’re not even from Perthly Bay.”

Gaea lost Persephone once to something Persephone refused to discuss, and she vowed to herself that she would never lose her again, especially to the She-demons, no matter how mean Persephone was towards her.

“Be nice with your words, Gigi. It shouldn’t be them against us. After all, we’re all from Massachusetts,” said Sprite.

“When Courtney stuck gum in your hair the other day, Persephone didn’t even bat an eye” Gaea responded.

Sprite rubbed the bald area her grandmother had to make in order to remove the wad of gum stuck close to the root of her hair.

“You know what?! Screw her!” Sprite yelled as she slapped the books on the desk. “I have to wear my hair in a ponytail to hide the bald patch in the center of my head now.”

“Yeah, screw her!” Gaea said, echoing Sprite sentiment. “I hope her fancy dress gets ruined tomorrow in front of the entire school,” she continued.

A light rain began to coat the oversized windows.

“Tomorrow is spaghetti and meatballs; I hope a whole plate of spaghetti gets dumped in her hair also,” Gaea said.

They both laughed.

“I want my friend back,” Gaea said sadly.

There was a knock on the door. Before Gaea could respond, a man with bushy eyebrows poked his head in.

“Hey, ladies,” the man said.

“Hey, Dad,” Gaea said. “Hello, Mr. Winters,” Sprite said.

Mr. Winters pushed the door open even further, revealing his dark blue shirt, which could have used a good ironing, and his tie, which hung loosely around his neck. “I ordered some pizza,” he explained.

“Pineapple topping?” asked Gaea.

Sprite mimicked a disgusted look.

“You know it.” He continued. “I gotta run to the station. Sprite... spending the night?” Asked Mr. Winters

“Yep,” she answered.

“I’ll let your grandmother know when I get to the station.” He said as he pulled the door up and left.

Sprite’s father died on the day of her birth; he crashed during a storm while on his way to the hospital when a massive tree landed on his car. A few months later, unable to cope with the grief, Sprite’s mother took her own life. Sprite’s been raised by her mother’s parents ever since. She’d say she misses her parents, but she’d never known her parents to miss their love. Her grandparents, whom she refers to as papa gran and mama gran, would tell her how excited her parents were waiting to welcome her into the world. Gaea’s father, on the other hand, doesn’t talk much about her mother. The few times he’d mention her, a wistful, distant look would crept across his face. It pains her to see that longing on her father’s face, so she doesn’t ask about her mother anymore.

“Didn’t it say it wasn’t supposed to rain?” Asked Sprite.

Gaea simply shrugged. “S’why it’s called a forecast.”