It’s raining down again.
Like always.
It never stops.
I woke up before the sun had a chance to rise, not that there was a sun to see when it did.
Today was the first day back at school and all the drama was ready to be discussed.
Even with a lack of effort, my makeup still came out stunning.
Megan wanted to show up on the first day dressed as a theme. I didn’t listen. I wore what I found comfortable.
I’d returned to hanging out with her after she apologized to me. She was none the wiser. A snake can’t see another if it’s camouflaged.
The sun finally rose as I was gathering everything ready inside my backpack, the gun Lyle gave me included.
I wasn’t sure how I would go out just yet.
Megan deserved to go. So did Amanda. So did every other so-called friend that hung around me. There were several, but they were never important, so why mention them?
It would become a national tragedy. Everyone will say they didn’t see it coming. They would say I was the nicest girl. They would ask how could this have happened, and how could it have been prevented.
They would advocate for change so something like this never happens ever again.
But nothing will change.
It never will.
Stuck inside my daydreams, I don’t notice I bump into a little girl standing right outside the entrance to the school.
It broke me out of my morbid thoughts.
I find Amanda furious at her brother before the first bell rings. The secret that he’s been hooking up with Sara finally got out and she’s just as mad as I thought.
“I’m going to kick her fucking ass next time I see her!”
“No, you’re not,” I command her. “This obsessive hatred you have over her isn’t a good look on you.”
“Yeah, no, no, you’re right,” Amanda calmed herself. “I’m better than her. I don’t have to stoop to her level.”
“Right,” I rolled my eyes.
-
Alyssa sat next to me during my first class. “You’ve been MIA lately. I’ve been meaning to ask what happened over at Jana’s.”
“Are you mad at me?” I responded but didn’t stop looking out the classroom’s window.
“You’re lucky she didn’t press charges.”
“It was better to keep her coming back to this town. Did she transfer schools?”
“Don’t let it happen again, Elizabeth…”
-
Andrew is sitting on the seat that gives me the best view of the window during our fourth class. I sat in front of me.
“Fuckin’ A’, Ellie,” he greeted me. “Throwing a fucking rager the house tohignt. Thought it would be a good way to start this shitty year, no?”
“It’s Wednesday, Drew,” I replied as dry as possible.
“Hasn’t stopped us before.”
“I’m not going.”
“Oh?” Andrew laughed. It was more obnoxious than ever. “The Queen isn’t attending? I’m offended.”
“Whatever,” I slump into my chair.
“What’s this I hear from Emily? You and Cody finally break up? That true?”
“Yeah.”
Andrew leaned over to me, his breath tickling my ear. “Hey, you take of the thing yet?” He whispered.
“I did. I told you not to worry about it,” I lied.
“Good, good!”
-
I’m the first to sit on the cafeteria table that I labeled mine. Every one of my old group joined shortly after. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Cody when he sat at his table with his friends. My friends.
Amanda was still complaining that Lucas was hooking up with Sara. I don’t participate. I don’t even know what they’re talking about anymore. Their jokes relate to a past that everyone but me holds on to. I’m not part of their world anymore. I’m only pretending. I don’t understand the language they’re speaking in anymore.
The topic switches over to Andrew’s party. “Where is it at?” Megan asked.
“It’s in this abandoned house Andrew found a few weeks ago. It’s kind of small but on the other side of town on 12th. It’s perfect, nobody ever goes there,” Connor replied.
“Sucks that Jana Kramer is gonna miss it," Megan sighed.
“Where is she?” Lindsey asked, “Well whatever. I just hope it''s as good as the last few, those were dope.”
“Yeah, because you got totally shitfaced,” Megan laughed. Everyone else did too. I didn’t. “I invited this freshman to come. She just moved here, she’s cute, but like ugly cute. A complete dork.”
“Ew, a freshman?”
“Yeah, I found her during gym class. We can totally fuck with her.”
I look over at Cody’s table again. He’s staring at me. I had to look away. He’s looking at me with that same intensity that I liked.
I chose to stare at the ceiling instead.
Megan asked me something but I wasn’t listening. Her voice was annoying. My ears began to ring because of it. My hand was inside my backpack, my fingers wrapped around the handle of the gun.
This was a good time as any.
The only ones I would spare are Carlos and Alyssa.
I pulled my hand out and grabbed my backpack instead. The ceiling was spinning and the nausea was coming up again. I toss the bag to the side of the bathroom stall and try to throw up. Nothing came out.
I haven’t eaten in days.
I lay next to the toilet for the world to stop spinning. I had to throw up again when it was static again.
Light feet stop behind the stall door and don’t take long to announce their presence. “Are you okay?” a little girl asked. It’s the same girl I bumped into before the school day began.
She isn’t the easiest to look at. Her hair is in an ugly bob cut that wouldn’t look so bad if her thick oval glasses didn’t distort her eyes to be so massive. The heavy braces don’t do her any favors either.
She’s a Freshman but it’s hard to believe that she is.
She moved out of the way after I grabbed my bag and tried to shove her out.
Grace Ciotta is her name.
She was another victim of mine.
Grace perhaps was the most important one.
Emily was waiting outside for me. “Are you coming to Andrew’s party?” She asked me.
“What are you doing?” I tried walking away, but she followed.
“I haven’t forgotten what happened, but I still would like to be friends.”
“Friends?”
“Yeah.”
“After everything I said?”
Emily ran in front of me to stop me in my tracks. “That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. You don’t have to be friends with Cody. I’ll make sure he doesn’t bother you. He’ll leave you alone.”
“I never said I was going.”
“Come with me! Cody’s isn’t. What? Would you rather go with Megan? You and I both know the little facade you''re putting on isn’t going to last.”
“Fine. I’ll go.”
Emily smiled, “It’s going to be a good year.”
-
I ditched my next class and went to the school library instead. I pretended to glare my eyes like Cody would do and observe everyone around me. I recorded a video of me doing it to see how I looked.
Like an idiot.
Cody walked into the library with his class. He had Atkins, a former professor who believed that art was the solution to all things. I had him last year, he always made everyone write a short poem and read it out loud at the beginning of school. Then in the last week, he would do it again and compare the two to show how much everyone had improved. It was a bunch of bullshit, but Cody was fitted for creative writing.
Cody didn’t write anything down for the first half hour of class. He didn’t seem to notice me either. During the final twenty minutes of class, presentations begin. There are five kids before Cody. Their poems are simple, always having a single-syllable end rhymes.
Then it’s Cody’s turn. Atkin asked where his paper was. Cody looked at him, then at me for the first time, then at his class.
He rapped:
“Love either got you on a rope or on an overdose. It has you feeling hope or strung up on dope. It’s like having frozen toes on the frosty snow. What do you have to show for all that blow? Tobacco cloves and tomorrow’s hopes or a sorrow joke? I will crush this love into pieces, it’s my thesis, I feel like I have to prove shit because I''m a disease and ain''t shit. I could feel like kings but it’ll be the snake that bit-
Ty hickey by a kitty. Just a timid loser, livid dimwit, cynic image, kimi visage, a bunch of G kids playing for GG. So who’s cooler? The good kids or the one’s who lose it?”
Cody then said:
“I often have dreams that I’ve lost someone. I keep having dreams that I’m a monster. I’m guilty. I hurt people. I want to be stronger.
I walk by a field of grass. It doesn’t matter if it’s tall or not. I’m lost. I’m afraid. But I know I’ll be okay because I won’t be the last. There’s a sea of roses by the road. In the middle, there’s a boy. He’s holding something blue, something dead. They call it morning glory but I prefer obscurity. But what’s dead has lived but hasn’t left. And what’s right is but a shadow’s shadow. And what’s left is what I write and in my mind, I like to think I’m a wright. It’s just sometimes hard because I feel like my life is written by Edgar Wright.”.
I don’t think I ever saw Atkins smile at a student’s poem during the first day.
Cody pulled me to the bookshelf aisles after class.
“You disappeared again,” he said.
“I’m not going to let you fuck with me anymore. You don’t control me. I hurt you and you didn’t care. Then you hurt me and never apologized.”
“You told me to leave!”
“I don’t care. Everything that happens after is your fault. I hate you. I was wrong about you.”
“Elizabeth I didn’t mean-”
“You called me a blue flower. You said I was in the tall grass. Well, at least you were right about that.” I jerked his hand off my shoulder and left the library.
Alyssa walked me home after school.
“I don’t think you should go to Andrew’s party tonight. I’m not going. Amanda isn’t either, but only because Sara will be there.”This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
“Why shouldn’t I go?”
“I don’t know. I just have a bad feeling. Jana isn’t going either.”
“She’s sick, she doesn’t have a choice.”
“She’s been anxious to get better. I don’t think she’s ever been so nervous before. Has she said anything to you? She texted me that she has good news next time we see each other.”
“No,” I lied.
I looked down to read the text message Freyja had just sent me. She didn’t want me to go either. She was well enough that she was able to move around now and wanted to see me that night.
She wanted me to go to her instead.
-
It began.
“Is it okay if I break down this social hierarchy we live in?” I asked the second I got in Emily’s car. Sara and Chris were in the backseat.
“Watcha mean girl?” Sara asked.
I shrugged, then giggled. “I just think it’s bullshit.”
“A lot of things are,” Emily said.
“Do you want a line?” Sara pulled out a baggie.
“Is this the path you chose?” Chris asked me. Emily and Sara ignored him like they always did. I didn’t.
“Is there any other option?”
“There always is.”
-
Sara laid down a line on the kitchen counter for me. It’s how I started the night.
“Whoa, I didn’t know you did Coke, Elizabeth,” some one doesn''t matter and never did noticed. For all my pretending not caring what others thought, I still kept my drug habits a secret. I stop caring.
Andrew walked in with a literal paint bucket in his arms with a bottle of Everclear inside. He took out two frozen cans of limonade and lemonade and poured them into the paint bucket. He then poured the whole bottle of Everclear in and finished it off with a liter of Mountain Dew. I was the first one to get a taste.
It smelled stronger of rubbing alcohol than what it tasted.
I drank three cups before I felt anything from them, and when I did, they hit hard. Someone offered me an ecstasy pill while I was poring my fourth.
I took the pill without hesitation but Cody’s arm stopped me from putting it in my mouth He had those watchful eyes again. I shook my head and he let go.
Things liked to go fast as always. That paint bucket didn’t help. I was adrift.
-
We were outside on the front porch. It was Andrew, Carlos, Emily and I. I had a cigarette in my hand. Some random kid was in the bushes throwing up.
“Damn lightweight, how much had you to drink?!” Andrew laughed at him.
“Fuck off, I had 11 beers.”
“What?!” Andrew jumped up excitedly. Of course, I knew he was doing it sarcastically. “Did you hear that?! 11 beers! What is that a new record? FUCK! 11 beers dude, what a fucking legend!” Andrew was exaggerating his laughter. “Fuck off out my shit you fucking pussy.” Andrew ran up to the kid, pushing him into the bushes and into his puke. “We don’t need lightweights.”
“Wow Andrew, that was kind of mean,” I joked, laughing.
“Blow me,” He grinned.
-
I was with Megan and Lucas in the backyard near the garage. Everything was spinning.
“So how’s things with Sara?” Megan asked.
“Great, I think? She doesn’t really talk about herself. We usually just fuck and leave it at that.”
“She have any fetishes? I heard them goth girls are kinky.”
Lucas shook his head. “Nah, she’s just the same as everyone else. Truth be told, she’s kind of a prude.”
Megan scoffed, “Well at least she’s not a freak like we thought.”
I looked up to the night sky where there were no stars. “Why do we care?”
“Hmm?”
“Like, why do we care? It’s not like it’ll be relevant later.”
“Well yeah, but it’s relevant now, which makes it important.”
I shook my head, “I don’t think so,” then looked down. “I’m going to get another drink.”
“What’s wrong with her?” I heard Lucas say as I was walking away.
“She thinks she’s too good for us now…” Megan''s voice is cut off by the music becoming louder.
Inside the kitchen, Sara gave me more lines.
This time more people noticed which means there were more rumors.
With more lines meant more I was lifted away from being so drunk. The ecstasy was beginning to kick in too. I poured more of that paint bucket inside my cup.
-
It had been barely an hour passed but I was already too far gone.
Andrew pulled my arm down, forcing me to sit down on an old couch outside. I looked around and could barely recognize everyone. We were in the backyard sitting down at a table that was being lit up by a portable lamp.
I was sitting on the far right, next to Chris and Andrew. Sara and Emily were sitting across from us. Cody was standing behind them leaning on the porch’s post. Andrew got up and went inside. He came back with a bottle and some shot glasses and sat in between Sara and Emily.
“Who wants shots?!”
“I’m down,” Emily stretched herself.
“Alright! One shot increasing per person. Meaning we go down the line, start at one end at six.”
Andrew gives Cody one shot, Chris two, Emily three, his sister Sara four, Chris five, and he gives me six. The bottle of the blueberry cocktail was nearly empty when we finished. Cody started the chain of drinking.
“Fuckin’ hell, mates,” He laughed with a grin on his face.
“Not very strong but delicious,” Emily comments, wiping a bit of falling alcohol off her lips.
I finished all six and immediately picked up the Coke plate to do a line.
“Jesus, Ellie, want to slow down?” Sara asked, but wasn’t serious.
"As if you''re any better," her brother laughed.
I turned to Chris and caught him staring at Sara and Andrew. He was observing the mole on their left eyelid that they both have.
Emily asked. “Chris, you good?”
“Huh? Yeah, yeah.”
Andrew got up from his seat and extended his hand over to Emily. “Let''s go somewhere private so we can have fun, yeah?”
“Uh, no thanks,” she smacked his hand away.
“Yeah, whatever,” Andrew chuckled and went back inside.
“I told him to stop hitting on you, but he doesn''t listen, Ems. Sorry,” Sara told her. “He’s such an asshole.” She got out a cigarette and debated if she wanted to smoke or not.
“Sara, that’s gross, don’t smoke,” Told her then picked up the plate. There wasn’t any left to snort. “Chris, give me a line,”
Chris pulled out a bag from his green parka jacket and tossed it over to her. “It’s the last I have,” he said
“Cody, want some?”
“Ems,” Cody spoke up for the first time, “You know I don’t do that stuff anymore.”
“Pussy,” Sara joked.
I started to laugh.
-
For the first time in a long time, I wanted to throw up because I drank too much.
I looked at my feet as I walked towards the bathroom. I was stumbling. Andrew caught me as I failed to slide open the kitchen door. “Yo, fuckin’ watch it,” his voice was muffled, like in a bubble.
“Do you want to go home?” Cody''s bubbled voice asked behind me.
I shook my head, “No, I’m fine, I just need some water.”
I didn’t leave the bathroom until I could see straight.
-
I laid on the wet driveway with Sara. We were staring at the skies.
“Hey, thanks for letting me spend the night last week,” her words were slurred.
“Any-anytime,” I hiccuped. “You’re welcome to so any time you want.”
Sara laughed. “You''re the best!”
“On a scale of one to ten, how drunk are you?” I laughed.
“Like a hundred. Duuuude, it’s bad. I have a headache.”
“Me too. Me too.”
“Did you see how mad Amanda was at school?”
“I saw,” I continued to laugh. “Hey,” I paused. “You’re doing okay, right?”
Sara grabbed hold of my hand. “I am. I’m okay right now.”
-
I find Megan in the kitchen happy. I don’t like that.
I decided that now, right now, is the best time to do it.
But I couldn’t find my bag. It wasn’t on me.
It took me far too long to remember I left it inside Emily’s car. I ran outside for it and pulled out the gun, making sure it was still there. In my hurry, I didn’t notice that Chris was sitting on the hood. He was staring at it, only breaking away into my eyes when I put the gun back inside.
“Shh, don’t tell anyone,” I laughed.
Chris looked away.
-
“Let me take you home,” Cody asked.
“Fuck off, I have a plan.”
-
I found a random pill and took it with a cup that wasn’t mine.
-
Megan was in front of me. “Girl, we need to get you home, you’re a mess.”
“No.” I gripped the gun inside my bag. This was it. I was pulling it out. I was going to shoot.
“Not like this…” A voice said behind me. It wasn’t real. I didn’t have to listen. “Not in front of her.”
I looked down to Megan’s side. That little Freshman, Grace, was next to her. She had no idea what was going on. She was too drunk. She was swirling, and then…
She puked on me.
I didn’t want to do this anymore.
Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at me. Megan was holding back her laughter. Connor and Lucas couldn’t believe what they were seeing.
I looked down at Grace. She was horrified.
I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
Grace was just a nobody. She shouldn’t matter.
And yet, I saw.
I saw Grace.
I looked around again. Cody was watching and he was going to come up to me.
I wanted to be alone.
Megan tried to stop me, but I ran out of the backyard and into the harrowing forest.
-
“It’s not too late to stop.”
“Yes it is.”
“There you go again, not listening to me. Just because you can’t fix what you broke, doesn’t mean you can’t build another one. You’ve done it lots before. It’s you. Despite everything, it’s still you.”
“You lied to me. You said there wasn’t anything to remember. You lied. There was.”
“So you remember now.”
“Why didn’t you want me to remember?”
“To protect you. To protect us. Would it satisfy if you knew it wasn’t what you were looking for? Would you have been okay knowing wasn’t going to magically save you? I told you already, it’s always been with you.”
“I failed her.”
“Not yet.”
“I can’t live with myself. You know that.”
“Don’t do this.”
“Hey. Are you still proud of who I am?”
“Yes.”
-
This tragedy exists because I was full of rage. I was full of rage because I was full of grief.
My grief kept telling me the same thing:
This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.
I didn’t deserve this.
I didn’t want this.
And everyone laughed.
I was held up by the throat was was told:
But this is how it is.
-
It’s easy to return to the past, but no one is there anymore.
Why did I ever think everyone wouldn’t leave it behind?”
-
Was I anything more than the perception and opinion of others? Was I ever the first choice?
I don’t mourn what could have been. I don’t mourn what I didn’t have. I don’t have a constant grief for all the lives I didn’t live. Of all the decision I ever made, all the choices I did, and all the people I touched, I don’t regret a single one.
I don’t have a gnawing grief for the life I lived.
Sometimes being offered tenderness and kindness is proof that you’ve been ruined. Sometimes it hurts more than it helps. Sometimes it’s so unfamiliar that you can’t accept it. It feels like it isn’t yours.
That you don’t deserve it.
I’m such a waste of a girl, of a person.
Rumination.
I’m nothing more.
I never wanted a distraction.
I wanted someone to see my ugly.
The mess.
The helpless little girl pretending to be grown.
I wanted to be looked in the eyes.
I wanted someone to find me worthy of love.
I mourn that it was myself who was able to do that. My grief is that I couldn’t understand what that meant. My grief is that I didn’t know how to do so. I mourn not what could have been, I mourn what I couldn’t save.
I don’t know whats more tragic, that I kept looking for what I already had, or for what I believed I could find?
I was so desperate.
I let the words of a man convince me that I was rotten. I let him convince me that I had to break before I can rebuild. He pushed me further down into my darkness.
Some memories are like salt in the sea, they become a part of you.
You can never forget them.
You’ll always carry them.
You can’t leave them behind.
They don’t belong in the past.
And sometimes, they’re too heavy.
We lament the suffering we all go through. We delude ourselves that we’ll come out stronger on the other end. Pain does not make a better person. It doesn’t teach anything. There’s no lesson to turn.
It’s what you do after that gives it purpose.
And I think…
It’s a good lesson to learn.
There will never be another you, another me. I could have done so many different things to prevent me from losing my sanity. Did it seem fair that I didn’t? Was there a better way to let go of my anger? I felt there was no point in asking for help. I felt that I am meant to be used, not loved.
No ones knows all the new people I met that summer. They don’t know about the new places I spent time in. They don’t know just how much I was doing. They don’t know I kept it all a secret.
I didn’t want to be strong anymore.
I couldn’t stay sober.
I ruined everything I touched.
I hurt everyone I care about.
It got worse.
Worthless.
No one knows just how bad I got.
That secret is mine and only mine.
What happens when you find love, the love you had inside yourself, in someone else? What if there was someone who saw the ugly, the mess, the imperfections, and pain and love you regardless? What if they give, and give, and give, until theres nothing left? What if it’s almost enough? What if you found it a bit earlier, would it have been good enough?
Would you allow all of your mistakes in stopping it from being enough?
Like I did?
It’s always enough. It’ll never not be.
It doesn’t have to be romantic. It can be platonic. It can be parental, fraternal or sisterly. It doesn’t have to come from someone else. It can come from within. No matter where it comes from, it’s always enough. And when all else is lost, it’s you and always you, who is enough.
I was deluded into thinking there was something better.
What happens when those delusions become real, but not what you thought? What happens when you’re shown the reason you’re alive? What happens when it doesn’t change anything, but at least, makes you do things differently, alone, because if you don’t, it’ll be a bigger mistake?
What do you do when she follows you?
-
I finally stopped running.
My name was kept being called. They’re trying to find me. Megan is trying to find me. Carlos is trying to find me.
Cody is trying to find me.
It’s too dark for them to do so.
I placed my palm on the trunk of the cedar tree in front of me. The light rain blended well with my final tears. I’m unable to live with myself anymore.
I know just how much pain I’ll cause because of my selfishness.
But what about mine?
Why couldn’t I see that it was slowly killing me, piece by piece?
From my bag, I pulled out the only thing that’ll ease it.
But I wasn’t not alone.
I tried to avoid this, but I was at my limit.
“Hey, I’m really, really sorry,” the girl who followed me said.
I turned around.
She’s beautiful.
Grace shines like how I used to.
“Sorry I threw up on you. It was an accident,” she continued.
Grace was shaking. Her hands were clasped together on her chest. She was catching her breath.
Grace was scared.
I look down at the ground.
I wasn’t suppose to change her life like this.
I look back at her.
Grace didn’t deserve this.
I look up at the sky.
I’m sorry for all the things I did and for everyone I hurt. I’m sorry to the baby growing inside me. I’m sorry I don’t have the courage accept it. I’m sorry for being angry and scared. I’m sorry that I created a future that terrified me.
I look back down to Grace.
My grip tightens. She notices that I''m holding it.
Her eyes widen.
I smile.
Grace illuminates through the darkness. She shines as bright as the sun. A tear escapes from me. I''ve never seen someone so beautiful. Beauty not in the sense of vanity, but of her soul. She''s who I''ve been waiting for...but...
I raise the gun.
If I''d never forgotten, maybe this wouldn''t have happened. Maybe if I did, I would be jealous of Grace and this would have happened regardless. I just didn''t want to believe it.
“I’m sorry, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. I can’t live with myself anymore. I can’t…I can’t–You weren’t supposed to follow me. Anyone but you.”
The end of the barrel fits just right on my temple.
I’m finally able to rest.
I pull the trigger.