Playdate | Teen Ink

Playdate

August 4, 2022
By ivaramos224 GOLD, Austin, Texas
ivaramos224 GOLD, Austin, Texas
18 articles 0 photos 3 comments

Laurina and her husband, Paolo lived in Savannah for 10 years together in 1963. She was originally from there but Paolo was from Italy and moved to Savannah when he was 20 years old. 


Laurina and Paolo used to go on dates around the town most nights but what Laurina noticed was that people were looking at them and gossiping, which brought her back to when she was younger. 


Her classmates used to make fun of her because her dad had dementia and her mom had Alzheimer's. They didn’t have someone to take care of the parents so she had to take care of them but also herself. She also had a sister but she was younger than her so she also had to take care of her. As adults, they were not really close but they would check in with each other once a year with life updates.


The problem with that is she had this condition known as schizophrenia. She would imagine that something’s happening and it feels real to her but it’s not.


After ten years of being married when she is 35 years old, she decides she wants to have kids so she tries and keeps trying but she has no luck. She went to the doctor but they tell her they see nothing wrong with her and that she should be able to have kids. 


Then one night she’s arguing with Paolo, saying how it’s his fault why they can’t have kids and how he’s never gonna give her what she wants. Then she grabs a pair of scissors from her desk and stabs his crotch 5 times while saying how if he can’t use it to make her happy and give her what she wants then he shouldn’t have one at all and then stabs him in his stomach twice. She then leaves him on the floor until he bleeds out.


After a few months of her feeling lonely and feeling like everyone’s watching her, she decides to commit suicide.


The police called her sister, Sophia, to tell her about Laurina’s death and give her information about the funeral and have her pick out Laurina’s clothes for the funeral. Sophia comes into town from Atlanta and she goes to Laurina’s house to see what clothes she can pick out for her funeral. But when she goes to her house she sees blood on the floor everywhere and the thing is that Laurina committed suicide on a bridge in town and not in her own house. Sophia calls the police and asks them to come to the house to check it out but while they’re on their way, Sophia finds a human size doll in the other room with a name tag that says “Paolo”. Sophia remembers how Laurina used to always tell her about her husband Paolo every year and how they were so happy and she would tell her all about their dates. 


Then the police get there and find out that the blood was fake and Sophia realizes that Laurina’s husband was never real. She imagined him and their life together. All she had was a doll.


The author's comments:

I wrote this short story for an English class, we had to write a southern gothic story short story which was definitely interesting writing it but I ended up loving it. I struggled a lot writing it until one day I started typing and ended up writing the whole story. My teacher also told me my story was the creepiest story she has ever read from all her classes and/or students.


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