Eric Donahue:

Outside the beige walls of our house, the vast black sky is bedecked with a thousand twinkling stars. The night time breeze blows in through the opened windows of the dining hall, the chill slowly spreading throughout the room. I prop my chin on my outstretched palm, looking down at the helping of beans and gravy in front of me.

"Elbows off the table, sweetie," Mom says as she slides a glass of water towards me. The soft thud of the front door closing, followed by the click of the latch springing into place has the two of us looking in the direction of the sound.

Dad enters the house, his steps small and halfhearted, before he slumps into the nearest chair. Mom is already filling up a glass of water for him which he accepts with a smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes. As I shove a spoonful of dinner in my mouth, I pretend not hear the screams of protests of my dad's back. I try not to pay attention to his greying hair or the silver in his beard. When he inquires me about how my day has been, I act as if I do not see how his once youthful face is etched with wrinkles, how his skin is turning dry and leathery.

"It's been pretty great," I say, chugging down a glass of water. "School's a lot more fun when you have a friend by your side."

Carla and I have been friends for a while now, but acknowledging the fact out loud plasters a huge smile on my face which my father catches. He smiles back, and Mom decides to join us as well. For a fleeting moment, we're a picture perfect family, no elbows on the dinner table, smiling at each other as if our lives couldn't get any better. It isn't long before reality comes rushing in, much like the nighttime breeze flitting in through the windows, and carries the moment away with its current.

****

The door to my room slams open with a thud that rings violently in my ears. Being his courteous self, my little cousin, Freddy, has marched into my room without having the decency to knock first.

Freddy sets a deck of cards on my English homework. "Let's play," which in Language Freddy translates to, "Let's play a game I just made up with no rules expect one: Freddy always wins."

I give him a long look. "I am studying, Freddy. Can't you see?"

"But you've been studying all day," he insists. "It's time to take a break."

Leaning against my bed's headboard, I regard my cousin. His hair is disheveled as mine, and he's staring straight at me with his bulgy eyes. As much as I want to hate Freddy for how miserable he makes life for me, I need to understand that he's just a kid. That he's as wrapped up in all the family drama as I am, that he never got to make some decisions, the same way I didn't have a say in making many myself.

I extend a hesitating hand to ruffle his curls, but Freddy ducks his head, flinching at the touch. With a sad smile, I pick up the deck of cards. "I guess homework will have to wait."

By the end of the game, which I still haven't understood thanks to the constantly changing rules that favor Freddy, I have lost all motivation to complete my homework. I look through the window of my room to spot Carla, but the roller blinds on her window are pulled down, concealing her room from my view. Tired of just sitting around, I decide to head to the park. Carla's probably bored too.

However, when I ring the doorbell to her house, I find somebody else standing at the threshold. Somebody who isn't Carla but has a striking resemblance to her.

Jenny.

"Um, hi," I say by way of greeting. "Is Carla home?"

Jenny looks at me from under her lashes. Sunlight dances on the planes of her face, and she tilts her head, regarding me. "And who would you be?"

Her expression is sour, her face contorted to show her disgust plain and clear. She doesn't seem very pleased to see me. Or it could be that she's eating a lemon. Do people eat lemons?

"Uh, I am Eric. Eric Donahue. I live next door, and I am a friend," I say, stuffing my hands into my pockets. "A friend of your sister."

Carla appears behind Jenny, a drawing pad and her box of Prisma Color pencils clutched in her hand. She smiles when our gazes meet over her sister's shoulder, but before I have the chance to smile back, Jenny moves to close the door. "I am sorry, Carla isn't home."

"But—"

Carla steps in front of her sister, their shoulders bumping into each other. Jenny backs away, surprised to see her sister behind her, but Carla shows no emotion. Instead, she says, "Hey Eric," and steps out of the house, without so much as a backward glance at her fuming sister who is shooting me death glares.

Shell shocked, I don't reply to Carla's greeting or match Jenny's cold stares. I just follow my best friend around as she walks ahead of me and into the park.

****

"What was that?"  I ask her as we reach the park. The sky is tinged pink, and the colors are already starting to fade away as if being sucked by an invisible hand.

Taking her usual seat on the concrete bench, Carla turns to look at me. "Jenny's usual behavior these days. I told you this whole sister thing isn't working out for us."

I sit down beside her on the bench, gently setting aside her drawing pad to make space for me. "But why would she lie about you not being home? That sounds pretty stupid to me."

"Because Jenny is pretty stupid." Carla perches her chin on her palm, tapping her fingernails against her cheeks.  "She probably wants to cut me off of all my friends."

"But why would she want that? Has she ever done this before?"

Carla lets out an exaggerated sigh that sends a stray blonde strand blowing into the air. "I don't know, Eric. She's never made an attempt to do this with Stephanie, but then again, it has been years since Stephanie last came to my house." She turns so that our gazes meet. "Jenny has been acting so weird, Eric. I don't understand anything. She's been ignoring me for so long, and now she's deciding to keep my friends away from me? It's like she wants me to suffer. And do you know what's even weirder? She's been working all these part jobs—at the cash register at Caramel, at IKEA—when Dad seems to earn just fine for the four of us."

"You're over-analyzing, Carla. Maybe she just wants more money."

"Then why doesn't she ask Dad for it? Because she doesn't want to talk to him. She doesn't want to talk to anybody in the family—not me, not our parents." Carla lets out a soft puff of breath. "I find all of this very worrying, Eric."

Her eyes glisten with tears, and she turns her head away. I feel my heart contract at the sight of it, and rack my brain for something comforting to say. After several failed attempts to console her, I pick up her drawing notepad. She does not flinch or snatch it back from me like she used to do before, when we were just starting to become friends. I sift through the used pages till I find an empty one. Carefully I tear off a page and take Carla's black color pencil. It is so short from the last time I saw it. With it, I draw a wonky circle. Carla looks at it and smiles. I can never be Picasso.

Somehow, I manage to draw another slightly more wonky circle within the one I have already drawn. Above the outer circle, I write no control region and above the inner circle I write control region. Then I lift my gaze to meet Carla's, "Here, in the outer circle I am going to write the things that bother you, but you do not control."

The first thing I write is Jenny's behavior. I ask her to tell me more.

She opens and closes her mouth several times before saying parent's alcoholism. I write mom's behavior for her. She tells me to write dad's disloyalty next. I ask her if there is more but she shakes her head. I move on to the control region.

"Here I will write the things you can control about these situations." My hair fall in my eyes and I hastily brush them away. "For instance, behavior towards Jenny." She nods and says, "My drawings."

I write behavior towards parents next. "Now, these are the problems that burden your shoulders," I say pointing to the no control region. "And you can do absolutely nothing to change them. You are not responsible about what any of these people do, and thus, worrying about them is not only unfruitful, but also very unhealthy."

I place my index finger on the control region. "However, these are the things you can control. As stupid as it is, you can exert only this much control over your problems." I run my fingers along the perimeter of the inner circle. "Beyond this, you do not control anything so you don't think about it. You should only be thinking about what is inside this. And as much as you try to hold things in the clutches of your hands, Carla, the more likely they are to slip out of your reach."

I look from the notepad to meet Carla's gaze, and find her eyes shimmering with tears and gratitude. She pulls me in for a long hug. "This is supremely cool, Eric," she says, taking the notepad in her hands. "Thank you."

Carla then insists I draw a Control Diagram for my problems as well, but I tell her I have one mapped in my mind. For many years, I used to draw physical Control Diagrams on sheets of paper. And I used to draw them for everything: school assignments, our family turmoil, Freddy, Auntie Caroline. But over the years of consistent drawing, I feel as if I don't have to do that anymore. My brain makes one itself.

Carla takes the Control Diagram from my hand. Balancing it on her knee, she says, "I forgot to mention one thing," and starts scribbling on the paper. When she is done, she hands the paper to me and I laugh out loud. She has written Eric's annoying questions in class in the no control region.

As I read this, I make a mental addition to the no control region on the Control Diagram in my mind. I write friendship with Carla there.

*****

Author's note: Hi, guys! Here's another chapter (finally). I am still trying to manage my schedules so I can churn out chapters every Sunday, but I am failing miserably. What doesn't help is the fact that this chapter and the ones that will follow after are such a struggle to write because they are mostly fillers, leading right up to the climax and the story's eventual end. TBIOS is working out a bit differently than how I originally had it mapped out in my mind, so it might not be a short story. We'll see how it all goes.

           
Also, I made it past eleven chapters, and did not give up on this story like I did with The Dare! I know it isn't exactly an achievement, but for someone who has a knack for giving up on her work after ten chapters, coming this far most definitely calls for a celebration. Thanks for sticking with me till now. I hope to see you all when I hit publish on the last chapter of this story as well :)

-RZ.

P.S: did you notice how i changed fonts when writing 'eric's annoying questions in class' because that was the only addition made by carla to the control diagram, and eric and carla have different handwritings? and yes, it took me a little above an hour to get the control diagram right (yet i still managed to make a tiny mistake). i clearly have my priorites in order.