“In a room, like a nightmare I stood with all of the people I love But once we all get better, We won't need each other.” RunForever. Amy Harrison Seventeen | Maverick | Bennington, Vermont
The kingdom was crumbling in your absence. Despair and famine plagued our land. The villagers were rioting and pillaging. Thank heavens you've returned before it was too late.
I hate to sound like that angsty Sartre-wannabe, but the first word I associate with hope is “despondency.”
She was hoping that the rave would be a fun, stress-free night with friends. All she wanted was some mild drugs, a little bit of alcohol, a ton of dancing with Paige Bradley. She wouldn’t look at Blaise, and if he tried talking to her, she would just pretend she couldn’t hear him over the music. And afterward, she’d enjoy a post-party sleepover with Jordan, where they’d have one of their lovely drunken heart-to-heart talks. That’s all she was hoping for, but naturally it wouldn’t work out like that.
Not only did she see Blaise, but she denied his offer to sell her drugs, and she went to the rave completely sober. She didn’t get to dance with Paige Bradley for long, because her oldest brother and his fiance spotted Amy on the floor. She was taken out of the building and scolded for sneaking into a highly illegal party. She didn’t get to have her sleepover with Jordan, because she was taken back home with Jude.
She was hoping for a fun night. She wasn’t hoping to hear her brother telling her that she was on the same self-destructive road he used to be on. She wasn’t hoping to hear stories about Blaise’s escapades at Jude’s college, nor was she hoping to hear that he didn’t want her to keep spending time with that “skyscraping menace to society.”
But now the wild child himself promised he was going to get sober. Huh, why did that sound so familiar?
Maybe it reminded her of Peter’s resounding New Year’s resolution. Of course, she had more faith and respect for Blaise than she had for Peter, but it reminded her of another promise, too. The one she made to Jude in the tenth grade. She was only allowed to hang out with her “bad influence” friends if she was able to stay above the influence. As proven by her looming alcoholism and the way her drug habits turned her wallet into an empty abyss, that was going really well for her.
Amy had more doubts than she could count, but she wanted to cross her fingers and be supportive for her friend. If she really forced herself, she’d be able to hope that Blaise could stay sober. Sort of like how she hoped Alexis would show up at her house and tell her she wanted to reconcile with the Mavericks.
Or how she hoped she could break a 2000 on her SAT score, so she’d be able to get into a decent college.
Or how she hoped her mother would tell her that Peter was finally getting sent to a rehabilitation facility.
Or how she hoped Tod or Claudia would come home one day with a friend.
Or how she hoped Ibrahim would stop being so harsh and discouraging toward Kane.
Or how she hoped Wyatt would actually start attending school and giving a shit in time to graduate this year.
…Or how she hoped things would magically work themselves out for Cody before the end of the Summer.
Amy played the optimist for seventeen long years, and she never received much benefit out of it. Blaise was too intelligent not to go to college; was it really possible for him to survive four years without partying? Was it really possible for him to spend the rest of the school year sober when his friends were the Mavericks? Knowing he was just going to disappoint her, was it really worth hoping that Blaise would be able to stay clean?
Do you ever think about how pointless things really are because all we’re going to do is die one day? Because I’m having one of those “why do things like school exist when we should be worrying about surviving” moments right now and it is giving me wicked anxiety.
We're going to do than just die, Robbie. Some people accomplish a crapton of things in the time between the day they're born and the moment they die. And of course we need to have "things like school." School is our way of worrying about surviving. If the human race stays educated, they'll keep finding new ways to prolong or even prevent more and more causes of death.
Don't worry about mankind, Robbie. Or, at the very least, worry more about our destruction of the environment rather than our self-destruction.
That’s about the time that all of the Desmonds fall asleep.
Amy’s days were completely fine. With the sun shining and all of her best friends to accompany her, it was hard to stay too upset. She could do her English homework with Kane, go do something stupid and life-threateningly exciting with Paige, help Tod with his schoolwork, have ethical debates with Robbie. Her brain could always be distracted by something pleasant.
But there was something about the night. There was something about the stillness of Vermont’s cold after hours. Once all of her loved ones were asleep, there was nothing to hold back the thoughts that lingered in the back of her mind throughout the day, and that’s when the floods came in. These floods seemed to drown everything that brought a smile to the face, distorting a cool and elegant young lady into a bloated and ugly corpse.
Before every flood came the stream, the droplets that let down from the mountain; thoughts that lay in the back of the mind during the day but settle in the night like dew and help facilitate the flood. The drowning. The depression.
"Hey, have you thought about your future yet today?"
Well, no…
"Hey, college is a scary thing to think about, isn’t it?"
Yes, it is, but—
"Hey, now is a really great time to think about moving away, right?"
Not really—
"Leaving home! Everything will be alien, including yourself, and nothing will be the same when you return. Gone are not only your safety blankets, but Tod and Dia’s, too. How does that make you feel?"
Not great.
"Hey, your wallet’s feeling pretty light lately. Can you actually go to work this time?
"But hey, it’s hard focusing on your job when you’re too busy fucking around with your delinquent friends. You’re a disgrace, you know that?
"Hey, you probably should have made sure you were the one who got the perfect SAT score. Do you really think a 1900 is going to get you a scholarship?
"Hey, aren’t you glad to know that you’re falling in love with a destructive alcoholic, just like your mother did?
"Hey, aren’t you stoked to prove that history repeats itself?
"Hey, don’t you sometimes want to just run away like Alexis did?
"Hey, don’t you sometimes want to just curl up in a ball and cry?
"Hey, when’s the last time you thought about debt?
"Hey, when’s the last time you thought about death?
"Hey, when’s the last time you thought about him?
"Hey, how much do you miss—
Shut up.
Stop.
She always waited until she knew the rest of the house was off in dreamland before letting the levees break. She didn’t want them to hear her weeping. She hid herself under the covers, clutching the pillow as if it were the old friend she used to hug. She squeezed it hard to her chest and convinced herself it functioned as a comfort, as if the condensed cotton and fabric was going to tell her everything was going to be okay. But inanimate objects have this tendency to be… inanimate. They can’t do much of anything; they can’t comfort or coddle.
And whenever she woke, she always found the pillow on the floor, as if it moved away from her during her slumber.
When she tells herself she needs it most, it disappears. And when she wakes, she can’t piece together whether she was the one that pushed it away or not. She was too distracted by her dreams or nightmares to stop it from dropping.
Oh, I'm sorry. I'm already wearing one with the same style, and let's face it, it looks better on me. I guess you're going to have to wear some lame button-down shirt or something.
I heard you're not supposed to wear too much black because lights look great under a black light, but, Jake, do either of us own anything that isn't black?
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