BertCamden Rose
3000 words By the time Isabella had put the last piece of athletic tape on her knee, it was too late. The pink strips glowed green, almost popping off her skin. She tried to peel them off, but the kinesiology tape wouldn’t budge. First, putting on the tape felt like being possessed, and now this. So much for a chill track season. Her entire room pulsed in the light, her Jonas Brothers posters lighting up like they were zombies. Then, oozing in front of her vanity mirror, appeared a figure. It dripped in dark green slime with three sharp teeth and five hands, one sprouting from one arm and four from the other. Isabella opened her mouth to scream, but the monster put one of their hands on her mouth while the other shushed her. She breathed in the harsh smell of dirt, graveyards, death. The monster took their arm away. Isabella wanted to scream, but instead, she shook her head in shock. “What the fuck?” Her first-ever curse word, not that the monster would know that. “Who—what are you?” The creature opened their mouth to respond when Isabella heard footsteps coming upstairs. Rough and heavy. “Everything okay, love?” Mom yelled as she ascended. Isabella looked between the monster and the door. She wasn’t sure how her mother would react to… whatever just appeared in her room. Even if she could get past the slime and the arms and the hands and the teeth, she would have a total freak out from the mess it was making. It would take Isabella toxic amounts of cleaning supplies to get the gunk out of her hot pink fringe rug. She couldn’t tell Mom. Not now, not ever. Maybe, just maybe she could tell her stepdad Jake if he was alone and willing to stand up for her. But never Mom. Isabella motioned for the thing to get into the closet. “Yeah! All good!” she called. When the beast didn’t understand, she put her hands on their chest and pushed as much slime and hands and teeth in as she could. She was just shutting the doors when Mom poked her head in, wide-framed sunglasses holding her hair up like a headband. Isabella caught her breath. Held it. Hoped nothing looked amiss. Hoped Mom didn’t notice the rug. “What happened to your knee?” Mom said. “Nothing.” Isabella looked down at the tape. It was no longer glowing. She ripped it off, suppressing a scream of pain. “Well, when you’re done with whatever is going on in here, come downstairs. Jake is setting up for family game night.” Isabella leaned against the door in anguish. “Mom, do I really have to?” “Yes. You should be grateful that you have a stepdad who wants to spend so much time with you.” Isabella didn’t feel grateful. In fact, she felt like Jake was a try-hard. Not that she could tell Mom that. Mom was even harder to talk to than Jake, ironically. She forced a smile and Mom left, not, of course, without a legendary look of disappointment. Isabella counted to ten after the sound of footsteps disappeared, then opened her closet. The monster was gone, leaving nothing but her hung-up Hollister tops and flared jeans. She looked for any goo over the clothes, sighed, and closed the doors again. And that was the day Isabella met Bert. 
Isabella didn’t necessarily want to summon the monster again, but then junior year came. Her knee bothered her still and, more importantly, Stacey wouldn’t ask her to prom even though they’d kissed a lot—at the park across the street, under the bleachers, against the lockers at the end of track practice after everyone had left. In the bright lights of the locker room, Isabella laid the tape in the same pattern. Again, she felt a certain level of possession when she connected the strips. Once the tape was glowing, Isabella’s heart rate went up. Maybe this wasn’t the best decision. She took a deep breath. She needed to tell someone. And she’d heard stories about beings making deals, helping others. While she wasn’t sure if this kind of monster could do that, she was willing to risk it just in case. Her love life was on the line after all. She waited for the creature to appear among the stuffy blue-grey lockers. As the slime grew and grew into hands and teeth and a face, she breathed in the scent of death, debating if it was better than the scent of Abercrombie perfume that permeated the hallways. “Hey,” she said, waving as though that would make this any less awkward. It had taken her weeks to kiss Stacey, and the thought of sharing that information with a stranger made her blush. The monster turned around, and she noticed now there were two hands on one arm and three on the other. “Do you talk?” she said, standing up and walking over. She had no closet to push them into this time, but she needed to be brave so that the creature could give her what she wanted. “Yes,” they said, a voice equally baritone and soprano. “I do.” “Good.” She held out her hand. “I’m Isabella. Bella for short.” “Berthetandanettatiquities. Bert for short,” the monster said. They looked at her hand. Isabella grabbed one of theirs at random and shook it. Bert jumped and yanked their hand away, nursing it like a puppy dog. They glanced up at her. “Don’t push me into the darkness again.” Isabella stared at the goo dripping on the tiled floor. At least she didn’t have to clean it up this time. There was still a small stain on her rug. Thankfully, her mom never noticed. “I won’t,” she said, but Bert glanced back at the lockers in fright, their eyes growing larger and larger as they saw more and more places to be pushed into. “I won’t. I swear,” she said, holding her hands up. “But only if you help me.” “Help you?” They seemed confused. Isabella opened her mouth to explain, but nothing came out. So, she started pacing. She had never told anyone that she liked girls. No one. Not even Stacey, though Isabella suspected Stacey knew they weren’t just practicing kissing, even if she wouldn’t admit it. They were in junior year and neither of them had ever talked about the guys they liked. If she told her parents she liked girls, Jake might be okay with it, or at least act like he was. Mom would be so shocked she would forget how to speak. That would be even worse than a rug stain. “…” Bert said, which was technically nothing, but Isabella could feel their eyes following as she turned and walked and turned and walked and turned and walked. Their goo popped like lava. “What kind of monster are you anyways?” Isabella said, stopping and turning toward them with an accusatory finger. She hoped that by confronting the monster—and how scary they looked—that she’d overcome her own emotional fear. “I’m not a—” “I like girls,” she blurted. It worked! “Girls?” Bert tilted their head. “Girls. Women. Whatever they’re called. I like them. Well, one. Stacey. But… she…” Isabella sighed and sat on a bench. “She’s too much of a…” “Girl?” Bert volunteered. “Yeah, I guess so,” she leaned back on the bench, her KT stretching as she did so. Bert’s eyes went wide. Isabella leaned forward, her eyes on the slime. “I need you to make her ask me to prom.” “Prom?” “Yeah, it’s a dancing thing.” When Bert didn’t seem to understand, Isabella sighed and got up. She took two of Bert’s hands and danced them around the tiled floor. The slime dripped as Bert moved, so Isabella had to be careful to avoid the slippery spots. “Dancing,” she said, letting go of them. “You want to ask her… to dance.” “No, I want her to ask me.” “Why?” Isabella sighed and slapped her hands against her legs. “Ugh, can you do it or not?” “I don’t…” “Can you?” “Yes, but…” So she was right. Bert was that kind of monster. “But what?” Isabella walked closer, and Bert backed up slowly. She was a good intimidator. That’s why she was the track captain. “But there are rules, a contract.” “For monsters?” “I’m not a—” Isabella took a step closer, cutting Bert off. The two of them stood there, staring at each other, each of them trying to hide their fear, neither of them exactly succeeding. Her pained scowl faltering, Isabella sighed and then backed off. “Ugh, fine. I’ll just do it myself.” She pulled off her tape. Bert disappeared, their goo seeping into the one drain in the entire locker room. Isabella took a deep breath and punched the locker. It didn’t help. 
A month later, Isabella called Bert in her car. They appeared on top of a McDonald’s burger wrapper, goo and slime wrapping around the packaging. “Hey,” Isabella said, her voice weak. “Hello…” Bert held all their hands up in surrender. Isabella handed them a soda she’d picked up on the way back from school. “It’s Sprite,” she said. “Sprite?” they responded, looking at the plastic straw. “Where are the… wings?” “Nevermind,” she snatched the drink back and took a sip. Isabella and Bert sat in silence. “Did you ask her out?” they said eventually. “Who?” “Stacey.” “Oh,” she chugged the rest. “Yeah.” Bert’s face brightened a bit, somehow. Isabella smiled, then crushed the cup. “She said no.” Bert deflated. “Oh.” “Yeah,” she took a sip, “she thought I was sketchy or whatever. Guess I’m just destined to be alone.” “Oh.” Isabella rolled down her window and dumped the ice out. The sounds of traffic in the distance climbed through the car. “I’m sorry,” Bert said. “Meh, she was a douchebag anyways.” “Douchebag?” Isabella sighed and started the car, making Bert jump. They didn’t seem to understand anything anymore. “You—last time you didn’t answer my question. Are you a monster?” “No.” “What are you then?” “A demon.” Isabella threw her cup in the backseat. She needed to forget Stacey. And, maybe, befriend a demon along the way. That way, when she needed to make a deal, Bert might give her a nicer contract than the typical give-away-your-soul one. “Have you ever seen a movie?” she said. “I have an in at the local theater. I could tell them you… well, that your youness is just a costume.” And that was the first time Bert ever saw a movie: Mean Girls specifically. Their eyes went wide as they tried to process the screen, the sounds, the popcorn kernels that instantly dissolved when they touched Bert’s oozing hands– just everything. When they stood up to leave, parts of the movie theater cushion sticking to their slime, Bert was filled with confusing thoughts about high school and a feeling that they may be the first of their kind to ever be with a human like this. They started hanging out more. Going to other dark venues. Haunted mazes, parks at night, anything where those around might not think twice when they saw the blob of hands and limbs that was Bert. And, slowly, Isabella felt like they became friends. 
They hung out a few times after Isabella left for college, and one time Bert even saw her mom and stepdad from a distance. But, it became hard to maintain summoning a demon when Isabella had a roommate, and even harder once she was swept up in the belongingness. In college, she found her people, the ones who understood her, and she didn’t need Bert anymore. It wasn’t until she was home for the summer, and her mom found out she was gay, that she even thought about the demon again. It wasn’t that Isabella had really told her mom, but rather that Mom asked and she couldn’t lie her way out of it. Isabella wasn’t sure what she was expecting. Maybe she thought she’d be yelled at, or kicked out of the house or something. Instead, her mom had just put down her fork and said something about how everyone experiments in their youth and Isabella would grow out of it. That’s when Isabella ran upstairs to talk to Bert. Even if it had been a few months, she knew they would understand. When she tried to recreate the runes on her leg in the middle of her room that felt too small and outdated, she found she barely remembered them and couldn’t reach the possession she normally did. Still, she tried and tried until it looked right. At first, nothing happened, and then there was a dark red glow that she knew wasn’t Bert. A monster, ten feet tall and dripping in blood, appeared in her room. Just as it opened its mouth to devour her, she pulled off the tape, and it disappeared, leaving a red stain on her fading, already-stained rug. “Bert,” she cried quietly, “I need you.” Instead, she heard footsteps coming up the stairs. Jake. “Hey, sweetie, what’s going on?” Jake said through the closed door. “Nothing.” She hated that he called her sweetie, as though she was his kid, as though he had been there through everything. As though he’d choose her over Mom. “Are you sure? You know, you can always talk to me about anything.” “I’m sure!” she yelled and threw a shoe at the door. It bounced off the handle and landed on the fringed rug, right in the pile of blood that used to host a monster. She knew that was immature of her, but she was upset and just wanted to be a kid again. Instead of going away though, Jake opened the door. “Well, I’m right here if you ever need to—” Isabella threw her other shoe at him and he took the hint. Once the door was closed, she cried again, for the life she wanted, the girls she wanted, emptiness of people deciding she couldn’t be herself. And, despite how many tears she shed, the blood never left, and her heart never healed. In many ways, Isabella always knew her mom secretly hated her, and now she had proof. That was the first time Bert didn’t come. 
Over the course of that first summer, Isabella tried summoning multiple times, especially after each time her mom tried to bring over guys to convert her back, as though that would work. She tried different patterns and incantations with her KT to get Bert to appear again, but instead she just kept getting monsters of different sizes and concentrations. Most recently, a monster made of toothpicks who just barely managed to nick her face before she’d pulled off the tape. Looking at herself in her studio mirror, Isabella nursed the cut on her cheek. It kept bleeding, blood dripping down her face like a tear. She wiped it off. She tried one more rune—one more combination of tape as the rolls slowly dwindled. It was strange being back, without anyone here, feeling trapped between child and adult. Feeling like her mom didn’t get her and Bert had disappeared forever. She might be able to be herself in college, but what about at home? She’d had a taste of what it was like, the belongingness, and now she couldn’t go back. “Bert,” she whispered. “Please come back. I don’t want to be alone.” There was a knock at the door. “Bella?” Jake said carefully. Isabella wanted to scream at him, but instead all that came out was a sob. “Is everything okay?” Isabella ignored him. As usual, he hadn’t done anything to stand up for her this whole summer, so he must be on her mom’s side. She needed Bert. Only they would understand. Only they could make Mom forget Isabella’s sexuality. Isabella could do what she’d been planning on doing since she first became friends with the demon. She could cash in her relationship with Bert and get them to give her a contract. Bert could erase her mom’s memory of this summer. Maybe she could even stop herself from ever having feelings for women in the first place. Jake opened the door, hesitated in the doorway, then stepped in. He sat down next to her. “I know it’s hard right now,” he started, rubbing his hands together, “but it will get better. And whatever happens, I’m here for you—all parts of you—okay?” Isabella’s tape glowed green and she knew Bert was coming. They were back. They were going to save her from this mess. She stood up, a smile on her face, not caring if Jake saw. But then, nothing happened. As Isabella frantically searched everywhere for her friend, Jake shook his head in confusion. “Can I help?” “Help me find Bert,” she said. She was done with lying. “Bert?” “Yeah, they’re… they’re somewhere…” She opened drawers she knew they couldn’t fit in. Searched under the bed. And, after a few seconds, Jake joined her, clearly still a little confused. As he looked behind a stack of Gwen Stefani and Avril Lavigne CDs, Jake took a glance at his daughter and wiped something from his eye. When he turned back to continue searching for this mysterious Bert in the disc tray of a boombox, Isabella glanced over at him. Maybe he wasn’t as bad as she thought. They searched for half an hour before Jake cracked a joke, and for some reason, Isabella laughed. He smiled in return, a caring smile that wanted to try. “I can talk to your mom,” he said. “I’m sorry I haven’t done so yet.” “She won’t understand.” “Maybe not, but she doesn’t want you to hurt either. She loves you.” Isabella could barely manage a nod before Jake brought her in for a hug. They stayed like that for a moment, making up for all the years. Neither of them thought to look outside, where Bert stood, their goo dripping over the bushes. They watched Isabella and Jake and smiled. Isabella wasn’t alone anymore. 
|
|
Camden Rose
Camden Rose is a queer author who loves seeking out magic beneath the everyday world. She can often be found at the ocean’s edge taking notes on the local mermaid population. She lives in the Pacific Northwest with her partner, black cat, and collection of books and board games. You can find her online at www.camdenscorner.com.
|
|
Baubles From Bones © 2024
|