Chloe

Chloe was fourteen and her name was not pronounced like "klo-ee" but to rhyme with "slow," which was to make it sound more unique, but as her father had come to add it might be because she would have to be drug like an anchor out of a burning fucking house. It was true Chloe liked to lag behind her family when they went out together. She wore unbuttoned flannel shirts for maximum wind resistance, and large,soft boots that made her look like she was dragging her feet even when she was standing still. She fluttered behind them like the tail on a kite, constantly texting, or reading her texts, or waiting for texts, avoiding all mishap as if she had a third eye on top of her head.

She wore dark, racoonish makeup around her eyes so her lids looked shadowed in absolute boredom, and she peered through the veil of her messy bangs. When her father called her the 'caboose' she would scowl and cross her spindly arms against the terminal embarrassment of her parents and their need to spend time with her, sticking out her bottom lip. She thought if they insisted she come along they could at least respect how much she hated being with them, and treat her like the irritable young dragon she was. Her dad would chuckle at the sourness of her expression, and her mom would put her arm around Chloe's slumped and indignant shoulder. She would pick at her food and smack her gum, and text her friends about how lame her family was. Invariably her friends would text back from similarly miserable mobile family prisons, with a blistering petulance only they understood.