i. in kindergarten, you drew me in a beret above the words our teacher scrawled out in thick black marker. "annastasia wants to be a teacher, an artist, and a mother." the person in the picture didn't look like me but your lines were cleaner than anyone else's in the book.
ii. in second grade, you drew us together feeding rabbits in the schoolyard, or that's what i assume you drew, if i translated your handwriting right. i don't remember much about it but your chickenscratch tells me you liked me for it.
iii. we all played horses together but no one ever wanted to be the riders. the playground attendant yelled at us to stop using sweatshirts tied around each other's waists as reigns. we would not stop rolling around in the grass and pretending to be sick. we were whisked away and trapped by the glue factory and we all had to find ways to save each other, even though we wanted to be in danger.
iv. in fifth grade, you invited me to sleepover at your house. my mom wouldn't let me take the bus home with you; she didn't want us to go unsupervised but your parents worked until late and you waited so long to call. we were going to build a zoo and raise a family on your buzzing computer monitor.
v. in sixth grade our entire class went up into the mountains during the fall and we were not in the same group. the boy i couldn't decide to love or hate was in my group and i remember that his hair matched the color of the red sand when we went on a hike. later you told me he was blonde but i never really agreed with you. your boyfriend broke up with you and we all went outside to sit on the boulders. i kept handing you tissues and i think i got your tears on my fingers. i think i yelled at the girl who used to be my best friend, who told him to do it the way that he did, but i can't remember if that was real or that was just what i wanted to do. later we all dressed up in everything we had brought with us-- i wore a hat over my face-- and poked our heads through our classmates' doors, chanting as we went.
vi. in seventh grade i was afraid of you, because there were thick black circles around your eyes and i was so afraid of being sad.
vii. "i really like you." "okay."
iix. and i became an expert on dancing on glass because i was not as afraid of being sad as i was of making you sad. your parents got divorced and i would walk you home from the bus stop and we would eat noodles and talk about fictional characters like they were real, like they lived in us, like they talked with our mouths.
ix. we all laid ourselves down on the grass and you put your head on my stomach but i just fell asleep. the sun was warm and i don't remember what happened all around us.
x. she moved away and i stayed at your house for the night. you asked me if i was okay but all the words were tangled in my head and i didn't know what to say. i didn't want to cry so i just chewed on my lips and you held my hand and we went to sleep.
xi. we went to mexico and for a few hours i hated you two. or i hated myself but they both felt the same. i drew a picture in my diary that i ripped out the same afternoon and we didn't talk about it. you kept taking pictures of people while they weren't looking. you kept making friends. you were better at it than i was.
xii. i rode with you home but when we came to your apartment all your things were out on the lawn. i didn't know what to say but you kept calling your mom and buying us time. i told you of course my parents would let you stay over. i didn't know what else to do.
xiii. you got a new house and i had to start getting bus passes to keep riding home with you. you made friends who were in the marching band and we sat with them every day at lunch. we kept talking with mouths that were not our own. we kept talking even when the lights had been off for hours.
xiv. you wrote me notes even though we sat together. an hour away felt like something was wrong. you dated a boy with big teeth and blonde hair. you were jealous of a girl so you hid a cup of noodles in her backpack. you leaned over to scrawl inside jokes on my notes while i was falling asleep in history class.
xv. your dad killed himself and i still didn't know what to say. my family was on vacation but i needed to be there. i painted you a kite instead. by the time i came back everything was already lost. for three days we didn't say anything in the dark. i didn't know where to start.
xvi. you stopped coming to meetings and you were harder to reach. you still wrote notes on my papers. i still rode the bus home with you.
xvii. our friends from your bandcamp graduated but we had already stopped eating together. you made new friends and some of us are still friends now. we were the only two people in the computer lab with work of our own. i didn't know where you were when we weren't together. i could never find you.
xviii. you moved into a new house and you had to put down your dog. you got a puppy and when i came over sometimes you would leave the room. no one wanted to clean but someone had to. you and your sister were at each other's throats and i would hum to myself and pretend not to hear.
xix. our legs were all tangled up and your sister opened the door. we kept talking after she left again. everything we said was a melodrama not our own.
xx. we spent hours finding the perfect hairdos for our virtual versions of celebrities famous in a language we couldn't even speak. we woke up so late that i missed my mother's calls. we ate ramen and mac n cheese. my mom learned to stop calling.
xxi. you held two separate birthday parties. i don't remember most of what we did even though there are photos. you invited the three of us to come make gingerbread houses and i crushed mine into pieces and made a tree.
xxii. you were late to english class again. i never knew where you were.
xxiii.you came to my birthday and couldn't stop talking. i didn't know what you were saying and i didn't want to; my knuckles were turning white. i stopped texting you first and we stopped texting at all. we didn't write back and forth. we talked like strangers.
xxiv. we didn't talk anymore except when we were all in a row in graphic design class or we were supposed to chat in spanish. nothing felt the same kind of real even if i knew it wasn't a dream or a nightmare.
xxv. we saw each other at a party and we acted like strangers. you went home early. we stayed up until four in the morning and there are just some things i don't think i'll ever forget.
xxvi. "is it weird? being in class with her?"
xxvii. we sat across from each other at dinner the night of prom. your boyfriend was so nice to all of us. you met him at hollister and you seemed as happy as you have been.
xxviii. you hung up my work on the day before the show and i remember being surprised to see a message for you on the screen of my phone. i had to brace myself but it was just a picture of the layout you'd made and i didn't have anything to say except thank you.
xxix. we didn't believe it when you got the scholarship. i wanted to make you sad but i didn't want you to be sad. i wanted you to get what you wanted out of life, i guess.
xxx. my aunt tries to make a joke about the number of texts i send but i realize my dad hasn't gotten those kinds of receipts since we were still friends.
You’ve always known what to expect when you die. Maybe not consciously—maybe you thought you would go strolling into the arms of lost loved ones. Maybe you believed that you would feel nothing—that they would put you in the box and then into the dirt. Maybe you weren’t sure what to believe in. But your brain knew. Your brain has always known, was always programmed just for this moment—for it’s really your brain that’s the last thing to die. It’s really your brain that kills you.
The first thing it takes is the feeling. Hot and cold, hard and soft—you lose all of that and maybe, for the second it takes, you’re aware of just how strange it is not to feel. Your brain takes the touch, but more importantly, it takes the pain. But most of us won’t realize this in the few seconds our brains give us before continuing their task. When your hand clutches around your grandson’s, you’re scrabbling, panicked, for that last moment of feeling. While he stares at you, tiny in his toddler-sized pajamas, you can’t help but wonder why you can’t feel his pudgy fingers.
But there’s no time to worry; there’s still plenty of work to be done. The next thing your brain takes is your movement. Your hand goes slack, your eyes widen as everything in you relaxes. This is real peace; Not only aren’t you moving, you lack the ability entirely. This is the brain telling you to stay calm—rather, forcing you to. The last thing your brain wants is for you to rebel against it in these last few moments. This is important work. It can’t have you running around, doing who knows what, thinking that you’re invincible. Your brain wants you in tip-top shape until the very last moment. It has always looked out for you—your brain is your number one guardian, after all.
The next thing to go is the smell, and with it the taste All of a sudden you can’t smell the pristine scent of hospital all around you; You can’t smell your daughter’s perfume or taste the spit pooling in your mouth. Again, you’re tempted to panic, but you can’t move. Everything feels helpless and hopeless. But what you’ve got to remember is that this is making it easier. Your brain wants everything to be easy for you. It’s not out to get you—you are not the victim. This is just its job. This is what it was born to do.
Milliseconds after that, you lose the sound. The last thing you hear is the ending beep of the heart-rate machine—your brain believes that if it kills you and your heart at the same time, you’ll realize that this is it. This is the end; this is not a joke. It hopes that you’ll just settle in and let this happen. Watch it play out and be happy that everything is made so easy for you. Of course, our brains usually have high expectations for us. They want to believe in us as much as we want to believe in them.
Your brain always hopes that you’ll have given in by the time it takes the next thing: sight. It likes to think that it’s best to take this before you have the chance to glimpse your family, turning away and into each other’s arms. No one wants to believe that they’re being left behind; your brain doesn’t want you to go through that anguish. The one thing it will never take from you, not until the very last second, is emotion. And your brain doesn’t want you to carry that pain with you. All it wants is your relief.
But there’s one last thing. You see, after a long time in one body, your brain gets attached. It would be betrayal to just let you go, without even a second of recognition. Every once in a while, right before you go to sleep, you’ve seen flashes of color. This has happened all of your life, and you’ve never understood why.
Think of it like you think of fireworks. And think of this as the grand finale.
In the last seconds, all you see is color. Blues, greens, reds, purples. Everything is bright and beautiful and you’re allowed to forget that you are now, officially and finally, dead. This is your brain’s moment to tell you everything it’s ever wanted to. This is a montage of your life and how much your brain has enjoyed being with you. It wants to thank you, its best audience.
one time we wrote "chapter 31" of the grapes of wrath in sophomore english thIS IS WHAT HAPPENED
Out of the hills, blades of pale green grass poked their heads to greet the California sun. They peeped out of cracks in the sidewalks where the moving water had spread damp seeds. These seeds dried in the sun and rolled in their sleep, burrowing into the blanked of the warm earth. These seeds grew until the roots took, and they became green like the grass on the hillsides.
Into the friendly sun the migrant children stepped, treading on dirty feet to squint with hollow, shining eyes. Their pupils became pinpricks from the light that shone from the bright blue sky. They moseyed onto grassy knolls, scrunching their grimy toes in the dewy green. The mothers kept watchful eyes on them as they bent their scabby knees to burst into a sprint. The children scattered and dashed around the hillside like ants.
While the women watched and the children ran, the men squatted down on their hams, running tired fingers through the springy grass. Their eyes caught the sun. In their muddy irises remained a memory of home, and a new memory of something more.
And the grass deepened in the sun. The carpet of green grew thicker day by day. And on the tips of some of the blades grew pockets of life—tiny, fragile seeds.
And the grass continued to grow on the hills and in the cracks.
that was so sassy in a weird way that i was like who and then i clicked the icon and it was you and i was like OH?! bye now. yes use this blog more also okay peace.
i am hungry for addiction, like the breath before the first drag of one of my brother's stale marlboro reds will be the last exhale of my tired freedom from something i can't even name. like the moment cash changes hands over the counter of the smoke shop in the middle of galesburg, illinois-- exhausted red buildings harboring exhausted pale patrons-- will be the last second of my hard-earned phobic self-expectation. like my thumb on the rusty wheel of a classmate's lighter will be the same as a pointer on the trigger of a flare gun that doesn't beckon help. like putting my wrists out for invisible cuffs will be the same-- no, better than letting my fingers pick, nails gnawed, at the cat-scratch scabs on my elbows.
like anxiety's found a cure in holding its head underwater, like judgement's found relief in self-destruction, like liberty's found solace in shackles, like fresh air's found substitute in smoke.
Your people speak a language unlike any other. There is no alphabet, there are no words, no grammar, no structure, no rules except for this: every story has a purpose. Your novles are written in smoke spewed from smirking lips in circles lit by the soft glow of dying fires. Your poetry is late-night mumbles, tree shadows hiding the moon, the rumble of a brook like thunder over stones. Your biographies are legends, and your legends are wide-eyed children half your already-halved size, gaping upwards. Every story has a purpose, but no one remembers what-- and all those who think they know can never agree. When you tell your mother you're leaving, she looks at you with slitted eyes, looks you up and down, and continues her stirring-- hands always moving, eyes never leaving yours. It's a big world, she says, letting out a hum from behind her teeth somewhere. Too big for some people. But she doesn't tell you not to go. You're breathin sun dust and closing your eyes tight, listening for the river, when your little sister stops to tug on your sleeve. Bring back stories, she asks, begs, makes you promise. Of course, you say, bend to kiss her cheeck. Your dagger sheath is pressing down your thigh; your fingers have lately become like your mother's: picking, pulling, plucking, always moving, never stopping. Of course, you're telling her while you commit her face to memory. You breathe in dust, breathe out gas. Needles crunch beneath your boots. A breeze ruffles dark hair-- not just yours, but /all/ of yours; you've always been part of a windswept, homogenous mess. Mostly. You find the noise you were searching for-- somewhere close, water crashes, tumbles over smooth stones, seeks a destination it won't find. Always moving, never stopping. Your eyes settle again on your sister's face. Where you're going-- /wherever/ you're going-- there will be no old men gathered around dying flames to tell you the kind of stories you will seek-- your mother, your father, your sister, your few friends. The white-haired one who disappeared before you yourself could work up the nerve. Your people speak a language unlike any other, but no one has found a perfect tongue. The stories are history, are poetry, are identity-- but they, alone, are not reality. They are glory days wrapped in love and periphery warfare and, especially, survival. No one can tell you why they exist, but what you do know is this: the writers are the subjects, and the world is their audience.
At seven years old, you wonder what it’s like to not be upstaged by your brother as you sit, petulant, arms folded over your chest, watching him open-and-close, open-and-close the lunchbox, never having to put a hand on it. It’s not fair for him to do these things before you ever even get a chance to. It’s not fair for him to show off (though, you’ll realize later, that’s not really what he’s doing; his eyes are too wide for that).
Your parents applaud. You scowl.
They applaud for you, too, when you float down from the highest branch of your relatively small tree two weeks later.
You’ve never, in your entire twelve years on this blue planet, gotten anything in the post. Ever.
Okay, that’s not strictly true. Sometimes—on holidays, mostly—you get these pastel pink envelopes, ones that smell like mothballs and gardenias, always from Great Aunt Rosie. Not that you don’t love that lady, who gives bone-crushing hugs and diamond smiles—it’s just that she’s not as good at giving gifts, especially when she can’t even remember that pink is the ugliest color on the entire planet. Objectively speaking. You’re sure there’s a scientific study, somewhere, that proves it. In any case, you let your mum take care of those.
One time, Maddox sent you a dead worm that he found baking in the sun on the front porch. You knew it was coming before Arwen, the family barn owl, even had time to circle back—saw him forcing it into the envelope with sticky fists. You’re never sure whether it was meant to be a joke or some sort of cruel revenge—or maybe a little of both.
All you know is that you let your mum take care of that one, too.
Dear Piper Goldstein,
We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry...
There are two of them—two letters on the nice kind of parchment, addressed in shiny emerald ink. You literally scream in your excitement, forgetting, for the time being, to be annoyed that Maddox is going, too.
PART TWO: REFUSAL OF THE CALL.
Maddox comes out from his first haircut looking a lot less shaggy and a lot more… something. Definitely not human, you think, and you say so, poking him in the ribs. He shoots you a glare as your dad says, patient as ever, toplease remember to keep your hands to yourself, Pip. Pip—like Pippi Longstocking, kind of, but a lot cuter, in your humble opinion. He only uses that nickname when he’s trying to be nice, so you decide he can’t really be that mad.
“Daddy, when did we adopt a grindylow?” Everyone stares for a moment, and then Maddox is the first to laugh. You don’t think, as a five year old, he has any right to know what a grindylow even is.
When the day comes, your brother—the twerp—is a lot more excited than you. You’re squeezed tight under your bed, with a pillow blocking (you think) the view from outside. There’s no way they’ll find you there, and even if they do, there’s no way they’re getting you out.
“Pip?”
The nickname, the dreaded nickname. He’s going to come in and try and tell you about all the nice things—the floating candlesticks and the enchanted ceiling and the trick steps—to coax you out, you think. Instead he peeks his head inside your room and shakes his head, looking befuddled. Ha. You are a king among fools.
And they’ll never take you alive.
PART THREE: SUPERNATURAL AID.
Here’s the first thing you learn from Mr. Garrick Ollivander: the wand chooses the wizard. It’s a little bit like how you can’t choose your family—or you can’t choose your blood relatives, in any case, because you know for a fact that you can choose things like little brothers. After that, you get a whole swamp of information at once—you’re not suited for rosewood or for long, bendy wands, nor are you matched with unicorn tail hairs or a whole mountain of boxes of wands. Your mum comes and goes, from the bookstore and back, by the time you’ve landed yourself with the proper one—eleven inches,dragon heartstring, fir, sturdy; it spits pink and gold sparks when you give it a wave. Mr. Ollivander, all blue eyes and ancient wrinkles, seems a lot less scary when he’s smiling at you you behind glasses that don’t fit quite right.
You make your mother swing back to Flourish and Blott’s for as many books on wandlore as you can fit in what little room there’s left in your cauldron.
When it comes to wandlore, there’s not a lot of information that can find its way to your waiting hands. Never, ever to say that there isn’t an abundance of information—just that, as the worn copy of your favorite book points out, most of what you can learn comes from experience and from word-of-mouth. The most useful tidbit of advice that you can find, in all your reading and studying and rereading and re-studying is that the best way to learn as much as you can is to become an apprentice to a wandmaker.
It’s easier said than done, of course. Most of the world’s wandmakers are either dead or hidden away with their tools and their knowledge. It’s a dying art, which makes about as much sense to you as… Well, the point is that it doesn’t make sense; wizards will always need wands, and sense wizardry itself is far from dying out, how can the one profession that really keeps it alive be?
Then, of course, there’s always the problem of school. You ask your mum, once, if you can drop out and go learn from Ollivander—she just laughs and tells you to eat your greens.
PART FOUR: CROSSING THE FIRST THRESHOLD.
You try not to think about it, turning your attention instead to the pumpkin pasties and the chocolate frog cards that Maddox is trying to swipe from right under your nose. There are girls in the other compartments, groups that you pass by on your way to find a seat where you supposedly get the best view (‘the view will be the same anywhere, Piper’), speculating. Four houses, four colors. Your grandpa was a Hufflepuff; your dad was a Ravenclaw. Your mum was a Gryffindor.
There’s only one house, going off that, that you have little to no possibility of ending up in. But—and this is something Maddox reminds you of—it’s not genetics. It’s you—alone—up there. You and some raggedy hat that tells you where you belong.
So, in the end, there’s a twenty-five percent chance. Anything goes.
PART FIVE: BELLY OF THE WHALE.
The hat sits on your head for a full minute shorter than it sits on Maddox’s. That adds up to about twelve seconds.
Piper Goldstein, Slytherin.
There was a twenty-five percent chance, and you get the house you least expected. Bring it on.
There are five of you—Bambi and India, Scarlett and Wynne. Piper. You’re not sure exactly how it happens—is anyone ever sure of those kinds of things? But you suppose they kinda, sorta become your best friends. You’re like that group, that clique of kids that all grew up together, but better, you think, because you were never forced on each other. One day you weren’t, the next day you were. That’s all that really matters, if anyone asks you.
INITIATION
PART SIX: ROAD OF TRIALS.
Piper Eloise Goldstein, age eighteen. Any on a wide spectrum of hair colors. Wiry. You’re the oldest of three, and you like to claim that that gives you some sort of leverage over the other two. You were the first, and besides, the only girl—no one was braiding Maddox’s hair at age eight; no one sent Briar flowers on his seventeenth birthday. Not that you wanted flowers, anyway, but you’re supposed to believe that it’s the thought that counts. Even if it was a shitty thought.
Maddox was second and early—early like he makes a habit of being, now, except then it was dangerous and they weren’t sure his lungs were ready to breathe the gradually dirtying air. Not like you’re ever gonna tell him, but personally, you’re glad they were. There’s a whole list of things, in the back of your head, that you keep of Things Never to Tell Maddox—you’ll never thank him for acting your role, the role of the oldest. You’ll never tell him that you didn’t open his worm envelope. And you’ll never, ever tell him that his is the first name you ever learned.
And then there’s Briar, who hasn’t got any of the same genes as you—and, if you didn’t know better, that’d be where you’d place the blame for him ending up in a common room closer to the kitchens than your own. Sometimes you think it’d be better for both of you if you’d give him space to breathe—but then you see some kid in a gold-and-red tie giving him shit, and your game’s up. Because when it comes to your sisterhood, there is one rule, and one rule only:
You are their only bully.
What can you say? It’s tough love.
Whether or not a witch or wizard is compatible with his or her wand is dependent on a lot of things, but at the core of everything is… well, the core. As usual, there are no set rules, as far as what will work well with a wizard or with a certain type of wood—every wizard is different, and even wands which may seem identical are usually vastly so. Or so your textbook tells you.
You know there are other types of cores—you hear your housemates brag about wands with billywig stingers or basilisk skin. There are reasons, though, that the big three are the most common—they last longer, for one. They’re easier to obtain. They’re easier to handle. And, most importantly, they’re easier to match with their wizards.
Unicorn tail hairs sound the nicest, and are generally matched to wizards who are nice. If cores could be sorted into Houses, the unicorn tail would be a Hufflepuff: faithful, consistent, and usually good. Dragon hearstrings would maybe, then, be Slytherin—something that you know from experience and from reading. They bond strongly to whoever holds their allegiance, they’re the most temperamental, and they’re the most powerful—which, you know, is no big deal. Phoenix feathers, if you had to assign a house, would be the Gryffindors—except, of course, rarer; you can’t remember the last time you could walk down a Hogwarts hallway without running into at least a handful of red-and-gold scarves. They’re the hardest to tame, the hardest to use, and the most open to new magic.
The house assignment, of course, is more for your own memorization than anything—you have to remind yourself that there’s not exactly a set archetype for any of the Houses. You know plenty of obnoxious Hufflepuffs, too.
Here’s what you like about fairy tales: dragons. Knights in rusty silver armor. Broadswords and knife fights and sketchy alleyways where Evil Queens disguise themselves as friendly grandmothers. Fairies and unicorns and evil sidekicks that never quite get the job done. Dragons. Adventures and sirens and climbing the highest tower in the history of towers. Also, dragons.
Here’s what you don’t like about fairy tales: princesses. Once upon a time, in a land not-so-very far away, your mum brought home a pile of discs. DVDs, they’re called, and you don’t get them very often, especially since your dad snapped the last player in half. They’re healers, not mechanics—or whoever it is Muggles use to fix their technology. You never took Muggle Studies for a reason.
In any case, you sit through Cinderella with a scowl on your face. There’s something unsettling about the perfect coif of that girl’s hair—perhaps even more unsettling than the fact that she’s singing to birds and talking to mice and going to a ball inside a pumpkin. The same events repeat themselves through Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, The Little Mermaid—everything. There’s something absolutely disturbing about their pretty faces and perfect little mouths and doe eyes.
Everything for love—eventually, anyway. First, they need their perfect Prince Charmings to save them.
Yeah, right. You’d rather be a knight than a princess, any day.
PART SEVEN: MEETING WITH THE GODDESS.
Love, you think, is a four letter word that stands for something scarily overrated and hugely terrifying. You don’t like the idea of falling prey to anything, let alone an uncontrollable emotion. But you don’t think about it often enough for it to have much bearing in the front of your mind—between quidditch and practice, your friends and family, trying to figure out what you’re trying to do with your life, and threatening strangers with physical harm, you just don’t have the time. And that, you’d think, is perfectly alright. Probably.
It’s not exactly love at first sight. Sort of the opposite, actually—he’s a gangly, awkward boy with dirty blonde hair and little to no tact, and she’s a petite, feisty girl who knows all the answers before anyone else even finishes hearing the question. They’re rivals—then again, so are all of the trainees at Mungo’s; half because it’s actually competitive and half because it all gets to their heads.
One day, he asks her out for a cup of coffee, and she manages not to realize that he’s asked her out on a date. After all, he’s used a lot of ‘um’s and ‘please’s and other filler words; never once does he try to cut straight to the chase. So goes his life.
She accepts. And from there, it’s a lot of dancing around each other and a lot of getting gradually closer, over textbooks and bad coffee and embarrassing stumbles.
It’s not perfect, by normal standards. But it’s perfect for them.
PART EIGHT: WOMAN AS TEMPTRESS.
It really boils down to the same thing as the princesses, at least for you—you’re not going to sit back and wait for someone to offer you something that half of the population has the right to already. What you want is to seize what’s yours, to take charge, to represent woman or whatever. That’s what you all want, in some shape or form—or so you’re told. You don’t care why anyone else is there, not really. The point is that they are. You can be as mentally alone as you like, as long as you’ve got someone by your physical side.
You take your little rebellions, the same as a lot of your classmates—you like firewhiskey and you like kissing, you like parties and a lot of other things that you’re sure, absolutely positive, are against the rules in some ancient guidebook, somewhere in the gigantic library. Only sometimes do you get in trouble for it—never often enough for you to really consider stopping, and you’re not alone in that sentiment.
When you go to detention, it's usually because you don't know how to shut your mouth, and because you know all too well how to close your fists. When your mum yells at you, it's usually because you've shorn your hair off with her sewing scissors, or else because she's sick of your apathy.
You're not apathetic, you think. You just don't know what you're supposed to care about, yet.
PART NINE: ATONEMENT WITH THE FATHER.
“What are you going to do with your life, Piper?”
“Isn’t that from some muggle song? Girls, they wanna—”
“Will you listen to me just this once, or—“
“I’m listening! Merlin's—“
“You’re a grown witch now, Piper, you can’t honestly expect me to—“
“I don’t expect you to do anything!”
“Expect us to—“
“I have plans, mum. Bugger off.”
“Excuse me?”
“Pip, your mum told me—“
“Oh, of course she told you—“
“What?”
“Oh, sure, you listen to her all the time.”
“Of course I listen to her, Pip, she’s—“
“Tch.”
“Sorry?”
“T…ch.”
“Pip, if anyone around here needs to learn how to listen… maybe you should start with yourself; that’s all I’m saying.”
You don’t get on as well with them as you used to. Your mum doesn’t braid your hair unless she’s really tired. Your dad doesn’t read you ridiculous stories unless he’s done brushing his teeth. Your relationship, though, is average—and you love them as best as you can from a distance.
But you don’t fight very often with Maddox or Briar. Briar, occasionally, gets irritated with something about you. That being a direct quote.
And Maddox knows too much to hate you for very long.
Once, you get a valentine from a Mysterious Stranger. You’re sixteen and nervous, because you still don’t understand quite how Valentine’s Day works, but you go to Puddifoot’s, anyway, and it’s disgusting. Lace everywhere. He’s wearing a tie, and he’s very nice—er, classically speaking. He pulls out your chair for you.
You punch him in the eye.
Sometimes, you think you’re easier to love from a distance. Other times, you think you don’t really want to be loved at all.
PART TEN: APOTHEOSIS.
You spend your winters latent in the warm wooden walls, where the crowds dwindle and the snow sometimes creeps in through the cracks in classroom windows. For some reason, you get the odd feeling that you’re happier then—maybe because the only people you have to keep close are the ones you really want to. Maybe it’s not necessarily that you’re happier—just that you’re not irrationally angry, and that feels lovely.
You’re happy at home, too, when you go there over the summer. There’s nothing you like more than the sun in your hair and the grass scratching up against your legs. You don’t wear pants in the summer; that is a very, very important rule that you’ve been upholding since… always, probably. You could if you wanted to, but you don’t, because pants are inhibitory to freedom, and there are only a few times a year you get to feel that freedom on your skin.
PART ELEVEN: THE ULTIMATE BOON.
She’s sick of swollen ankles and two-in-the-morning cravings. She’s sick of looking like a happy planet, of being told how nice her… cheeks look. She’s sick of random strangers touching her like she’s some kind of Buddha, and she’s sick of hormones and kicking and nearly everything. But she’s not sick of having kids. Even if her body is.
That, she guesses, is the shortest version of the rather lengthy story about how she ends up with a one-year old in her arms, her husband smiling brightly next to her, a three-year old and a two-year old looking up at them with quizzical eyes.
She thinks if she had the chance to write a longer version, it would be much, much more joyful-sounding.
Your O.W.L.s are too impressive for a girl who tells people she wants to grow up to be a train conductor—not that they’re that impressive, but impressive enough. You are predictably dreadful at things like Herbology and Care of Magical Creatures, and only mediocre on some of the more important subjects—take Charms and Potions. In all honesty, you almost expected better, if only because you come out of exams with a big grin and that soaring feeling in your stomach. Even the ones you do horribly on.
But it’s the Transfiguration mark that your eyes are drawn to right away—and with good reasons. You might not be the brightest bulb in the bunch, but at least you’ve got one Outstanding thing going for you. Right?
RETURN
PART TWELVE: REFUSAL OF THE RETURN.
You develop an odd habit—threatening to run far, far away. Maybe Bulgaria, you tell them. Maybe France. America. Whatever way you decide to go, it’s not like they’ll ever know or find you on their own—you are the master of hiding, you brag, and it’s been proven time and time again.
At age nine, you sweep your eight- and six-year old brothers under your arms like some sort of protective, featherless chicken. You tell them to pick their favorite things and to grab a bun from the kitchen. You tell them you’re running away, now, together. You get halfway down the drive before your mum steps onto the front porch with a glower and asks where are you going?
You try again when you’re seventeen—you’re not sure why. Maybe because you’re angry, or maybe just because you can. You get halfway to the city before you decide to turn back, because sometimes you don’t want to figure out the difference between freedom and safety.
PART THIRTEEN: THE MAGIC FLIGHT.
It’s not as though you can just switch houses—ditch the green and silver tie for James Potter and his team of overly competitive babes with broomsticks or whatever. The red is a lot more flattering, you’ll give them that, but there’s some well-known correlation between Slytherins and pride, and not even that angry tangle of hatred and desire in the pit of your stomach is enough to beat that.
So you and Wynne go the considerably easier route of forcing your way onto the team, and somehow—between a lot of passive-aggressive threats, most of which go unenforced, and perhaps a passing gut-punch or five—it works. You get your bat and your uniform; you finally have a use for the Nimbus which has been gathering dust underneath your bed for the past four years.
Girls on the Slytherin Quidditch team? It’s unheard of. Uncanny.
You tell them to get used to it, unless they want a bat to the face and a punch where the sun rarely has time to shine.
PART FOURTEEN: RESCUE FROM WITHOUT.
“You are an irritant.”
“I’m an irritant? Says the girl who bums fags off her poor little brother.”
“That has nothing to do with how irritating a person is, idiot.”
“It does if you ask me. Don’t you have friends you could steal from?”
“You are my friend, Maddiepoo. You’re my best friend.”
“…What do you want this time?”
“Smuggle me into your dorms.”
“Manners, Piper; where’s the magic word?”
“Bite me.”
“Is there a reason I should ‘smuggle you in?’ Can’t you get there yourself?”
“There is, and I could, but that would be you missing the point. Again.”
“…Which is?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything. Oblige me.”
“Fine, but don’t you dare…”
“Do what? Don’t tell me how to live my life.”
“Why do I keep associating with you, anyway?”
The funny thing is that, when it really comes down to it, he is your best friend. You might bum cigarettes off of him and forget to remind him when your mum writes you to say that they’re not going to be in town for the winter holidays, but those sorts of things seem to be crucial to best-friendship, anyway.
Of course, he’s never going to measure up to the girls. Or maybe the girls are never going to measure up to him—you’re not sure which. Probably they’re two completely separate things—the same, in some ways, and different in others.
All you really need to know is that you wouldn’t get by without him, and you like to think that it’d be reversed if you were filling his shoes.
“Are you bugging him?”
“Piper, it’s not—“
“Shut up, Briar. Are you bugging him?”
“I’m not—“
“Because if you are, then I’m going to have to suggest that you bugger off.”
“What—“
“That, or I could take this bat and—“
“Piper, you really don’t need to—“
“I will take it and put—no, I will shove it up your—“
“Piper, that’s enough. Let’s go.”
He has a hard time shaking you off; you make sure of that. It’s possibly that he gets sick of you threatening his classmates and mortal enemies (at least, you think they’re his mortal enemies—possibly they’re just normal ones) with the bat that you keep conveniently with you… pretty much all the time. Or maybe he gets sick of you using it to rap him (lightly, you swear you could do it harder) on the skull every once in a while.
In any case, where that protective instinct is (usually) missing for Maddox, you’ve got a bad case of mother hen when it comes to him. It’s a mystery, to you and everyone else, why things are the way they are—apparently, you’ve been like this since you were seven or eight. You’re not sure when he started getting sick of it.
But you’re pretty sure he got used to it, too. At least he knows you care, right?
PART FIFTEEN: CROSSING THE RETURN THRESHOLD.
You don’t know exactly where you’re going.
PART SIXTEEN: MASTER OF TWO WORLDS.
You just know that you have a lot of options-- whether by broomstick or train, by the wand in your hand or the stubborn brain between your ears-- of how to get there.
PART SEVENTEEN: FREEDOM TO LIVE.
But, whatever happens, you’re sure it’s going to be amazing.
you've always scraped by on enough. there are enough people-- gran, lillian, the twins-- that you don't notice the difference when other kids unfold their napkins, little "i love you"s from their mothers wrapped up in thin, easy-tear paper. there's enough food that you're never starving, attributing the twinge in your stomach in the middle of the afternoon to what gran vaguely refers to as "growing boy." there's enough space that you never feel trapped, tied down, or lost.
and for a long time, enough is enough for you.
---
when you finally ask, just as gran's weary hand reaches for the lightswitch, you're almost seven years old, drowning in itchy quilts that smell like home and stiff pillows that don't shift when you do. for a second, you're caught in the moment together, like bugs in amber. then she sighs-- a long, tired sigh, like it's the first she's ever made.
"we don't know, honey."
it's the first and only time you ask, and you let her answer float down between you like a piece of paper someone's tossed to the wind at the last day of school. you never missed them much, anyway.
---
gran's house is surrounded by what ray calls "a whole lotta nothin'," right on the edge of town where houses grow thinner and trees grow taller. "real horror movie stuff," tuck agrees, nodding his head solemnly towards the empty house next door. ("next door" being a relative term, as the amount of space from point a to point b is a lot bigger than the couple feet between houses in the suburbs). you don't see anything scary about a lonely house, you say. lillian just smiles.
you see them pull up out of the corner of your eye, catching them in the act through gran's screen door. for a second, it feels like a threat, like someone's impeding on your territory, but then you see him-- jonah, he says his name is jonah-- and instead it's more like the whole world, opening wide, just for you.
---
"what do you have to say for yourself, young man?"
"sor...ry? sorry."
"for what?"
"whatever you want."
---
someone drags your sorry ass home, and you wake up tangled in your own dirty sheets, sweating vodka and something like triumph. over what? you don't know, because you're pretty sure that the only person to suffer any kind of loss is you (and, by anyone else's standards, ellie, but you're safe from feeling bad about it, as usual).
you can't pretend not to remember, partially because you're worth absolute shit when it comes to lying. and partially because you'll lose the look on her face-- a kodak moment, if there ever was one: cinderella crying over her shattered glass slippers, boo hoo, like she couldn't get another pair by crossing her fingers and wishing to her fairy godmother. or just asking her daddy.
when you make it to the bathroom, your eyes catch on the bruise, fingers trace the purple and yellow-- you can still feel the metal on your back, jonah's hands at your chest. you can still see that look on his face.
that triumph transforms into something not unlike the puking, except that all the bile stays down deep, and you don't think gagging will help you now.
---
you wait four days to throw exactly twenty-three pebbles, to exchange two smiles and ask one question, expecting one reply. you get five more days in-between, and then you've got a handful of apologies and one stupid ache that you don't want to think about.
"fine, whatever."
you’re vegged out on somebody else’s ragged couch, trying not to think about it— eyes wide open, legs jittery, voice caged up in your throat (where it won’t do anything stupid, for the time being) (if you’re lucky) (you usually aren’t). the music is too loud, just the way you like it, but for once you’re not present enough to appreciate it. someone (decidedly not a girl, unless you’re suddenly friends with any bearded girls) (you’d notice) tries to kiss you, but you turn away with bile rising behind closed lips.
you swallow it back down.
“abandonment issues,” someone else stage-whispers from the corner.
you throw something (you don’t know what, but it’s heavy) and crack a smile at the receiving yelp.
---
you cut ties like a logger with a chainsaw-- loud and violent at first, but when it's gone, you're done, and maybe you've got some roots left somewhere, but it doesn't hurt you that much at all.
---
"what gets you through the day, pip?"
"nothing. or, sometimes i'm moving so fast i feel like i'm not here at all."
---
when gran dies, you get lillian and ray and tuck, all home, for once, and all together. you get a lot of questions and you give a lot of shrug. lillian takes the cat, ray and tuck try to scrounge up everything that's worth anything, and someone throws out the suggestion that you should all sell the house.
"as long as i get the couch," you're smiling, but lillian's giving you a look from the corner and even tuck's frowning. but ray just laughs, ruffles your hair.
"of course, kid. it's all yours."
---
"you know, you could come live with us." ray sets the couch down halfway to the building, pausing to wipe the sweat from his forehead and look you square in the eye. tuck nods from the side, supervising like he prefers, cigarette between his lips, smoke curling out from between them.
you just laugh, like always. "we're already halfway there."
they give each other the kind of glance that you guess is reserved for twins, or at brothers trying to agree on something without the little ones hearing. "i was serious," ray says, but he leans down again anyway.
you know. but you're already halfway there, and it doesn't matter.
---
it strikes you one day that everything you own is either a hand-me-down or a throwaway, something that someone else didn't want because the sleeves were too short or there was a dent just there, right in the middle of the otherwise clean paint job. everything is fucked-up in some incomprehensible little way that you never thought to think about.
it's alright, you assure yourself, because you owe everything (and nothing) to the people who spend too much time picking out the flaws. and you're fucked up, too, somewhere down deep where there's nothing you can really do about it. you can live with all the dents and tiny rips, with the scratches and pilling and patches, because flawed isn't the same as useless.
---
it's like you never stop moving-- ever since you were a kid, always climbing or running or getting caught with your pants down or your hands where they weren't supposed to be. you don't think, or at least you don't think well-- most of the time it's just do, keep doing, keep moving, because that's where you're most comfortable. never static. never still.
you're alive, and you know it, and it shows.
---
you're burning, burning, and then you're burning out.
lillian hands you a blanket with a knowing smile, "you can stay the night." no questions, no expectations. you don't argue because, as it happens every once in a while, you're tired of struggling against the current, and the water's borne you down. you'll be up and running by the time the sun hits the rooftops, if history really has a way of repeating itself, and it always has.
---
stagnant.
you've never had a very expansive vocabulary, but you know the meaning of that little gem of the word because you're living it. stagnant-- it sounds bad when you say it in your head, trapping it between your ears. it's worse in your chickenscratch handwriting-- ugly, uneven "t"s standing out among the wreckage of your vowels and consonants. when you visualize, it's pond scum, brown film settling over water that doesn't move, mosquitoes laying eggs and children keeping their distance.
stag. nant.
you'd rather be dead than bored. you'd rather be anywhere else.
---
"you're the only person standing in your way, you know," lillian says it over the sound of the sink, syllables drowned in soapy water, quiet like she half-hopes you won't hear her.
but you do, and you just laugh. "thanks, sis," you're pressing your lips to her cheek, moving fast enough so that she can't stop you on your way out, "i'm really glad we decided to do this sitcom together."
---
seasons come and seasons go. the young grow up and the old grow older. people change.
"no." adamant. "yes." the same. "/they/ might let you destroy everything, but i have a reputation to keep up." "and what kind of reputation is that?" "i'll tell you what--" "tarzan the monkey man?" "have I ever told you how ridiculous you sound when you say... anything?" a grin spreads it's way across (gill)'s face, and for the first time he lifts his hands from the carefully guarded mop atop his head. "yes," you grin to match, eyes crinkling at the corners while your accent twists the words, "i'm working on it. now, sit." he let's out an exasperated sigh and just stands there, folding his arms like a stubborn child. "come on, i know these things." you click the clippers as invitingly as you can, gesturing towards the stool. he eyes them more like you've made a threat, which is your next tactic. "you're a beauty school /dropout,/ not a prodigee." Still, he takes the seat. "are you going to sing the song, too?" you laugh while you work, and he (almost) smiles.
He's the first thing you let yourself care about in a long time (personally speaking,) and it shows in the way your fingers shake when you press them into his shoulders, seeking a grip on too smooth a surface. You don't know if it's adrenaline or fear or something far from both; all you're sure that you're sure of are his lips hard against yours. You're not even breathing right, which should really signal to you that you've forgotten the most important thing. Your training that is-- you're reminding yourself like clockwork. Someone (you don't remember which) taught you how to do that, how to slow the world down when it seems to be moving too fast. You remember Up until the point where your teeth click against his and someone's tongue is in your mouth (besides yours, of course, and logically speaking: it's probably his). Maybe if you close your eyes you'll be able to hear the sound it makes when the last thread tying you to your hardwired brain snaps. You go for it, but all that reaches you is the rhythm of your heart pounding and the whisper of his name (the real one) slipping straight out of your lips.
Here's what he learns: that life is a hellhole, one he's stuck right down in the middle of, and someone forgot to throw him a ladder. or else someone pulled it up after himself-- in which case, fuck whoever that was. life is chaos, and there's nothing he can do about tthat. that he already knows, has lived and breathed and felt all of his life, or at least all of the important parts of it. here's more of what he learns: that there is nothing he can do to fight the meaninglessness of it all. it all boils down to nothing, nothing, and then a little more nothing.
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