Page 57 of Apathy
Would I ever be free?
Even the walls of this school, this place that once served as an escape for me, seemed to close in on me, with their eyes watching me, their poisonous lips whispering about me, about the state I was in. Thinking that the once happy girl must have lost her mind, slipping into the darkness because I was nothing more than a spoiled brat. People loved labels. They labeled me on that first day when I stepped in this school because of my last name.
And I wasn’t my brother. I wasn’t charming. I wasn’t smiling all the time. I wasn’t good with people. Interactions with others my age always felt strenuous, and I knew that the only reason I had more people in my close-knit circle was because we were all messed up in one way or another. Every single one of us had our demons, and we understood each other.
We understood that it was easier hiding from what really bothered us, than facing reality.
I often wondered what life was like for other people our age that didn’t have demons whispering in their ears. I wondered if they smiled because they were truly happy, and what it must have felt to feel free. Did they wake up without the heaviness sitting on their chest, ready to embrace the day, looking forward to everything that life had to give them?
Or maybe I just complained a lot. Almost all our teachers repeated on a daily basis that we were just teenagers who didn’t know how real life could really hurt. But what were we living through if this wasn’t real life? How could it get worse? I knew that maybe one day there would be sun shining in my life, but right now… right now, it felt as if everything that could go wrong, went wrong.
One day, my life was a perfect picture of happiness, and the next, it all shattered down like a house of cards. I cursed that first touch, that first caress that sent my stomach roiling, something clawing at my insides, but I still stood there, stupefied, unable to move to say anything, because the person that was supposed to protect me was the one that hurt me the most.
That searing pain between my legs when he entered me for the first time… I would never be able to forget that. All the bruises, whispers, entrapment, it haunted me daily. Even when I didn’t want to think about this nightmare, it still had a tendency to sneak in when I least expected it. It would hide in the corners of this building, on the wings of the crows soaring through the sky, in the cold cocoon of the wind blasting through Winworth. It would always find me.
I wished I had a metal heart. I wished that there was a way to lobotomize these terrors from my head, so that I wouldn’t have to live with memories I didn’t want to have. Maybe without memories, I would be able to live my life fully once I ran away from here.
Shaking ominous and impossible thoughts from my head, I unlocked my locker, holding my bag in my left hand, as something fell to the floor. A white envelope laid at my feet, daring me to pick it up. I dropped my bag to the floor and crouched down to pick the envelope up. I noticed my name scribbled in neat handwriting. No last name, no address, and no clues as to what it could be, but my name still stood there, the black ink a stark contrast on white paper.
Just like my name on Megan’s body. The involuntary thought raced through my mind, momentarily freezing me. My hands shook, unable to take the envelope from the floor, terrified of what could be inside.
Was it him? Was it the deranged stalker I had? Or was it a plain, harmless letter somebody left for me?
When did I become so jaded that everywhere I went, everything I did, I could only see sinister intentions? When did my mind go so much off the rails that I couldn’t see normal things?
Well, fuck that shit.
I picked up the envelope and straightened up, staring at the six letters of my name, caressing the paper. Just like everything else, my name tarnished even the purest things in this world. This paper, Zane, my friends… Was that why I was so attracted to Ash? Why my body hummed even when I only thought about him? Because he felt like danger. Because he tasted like violence, like the pouring rain in the middle of the summer, ruining those sunny days. Because I knew I couldn’t tarnish him.
Whoever wrote my name almost danced with the pen, letting the ink flow over the paper like blood flew in our veins. It would’ve looked tender if it wasn’t for an indent on the paper from where the ink touched it. I knew that whoever wrote it, didn’t write it out of love.
This wasn’t a love letter, and I didn’t need my fucked-up head telling me that. No, this was something else, and I dreaded opening it. I both wanted to know what was inside and throw it away. But my curiosity won over, and instead of overthinking it like I usually would, I turned it over, ripping the delicate envelope, and pulled out the green-colored, folded paper hidden inside. I placed the envelope in my locker, my eyes locked on the viridian paper in my hands with trepidation coursing through my body.
I was a visual person. I connected memories with smells, sounds, words and places. I memorized people in colors, and I hid them in the lyrics of songs I listened to. I had a song for every person I’ve lost. I had a color for every person that stayed. There were those people like Lauren who reminded me of sunshine and perfect summer days on the lake, like when we were kids, and her parents would take us to Emercroft Lake. She reminded me of chocolate chip ice-cream, of lemonade, and of fresh breeze.
But others… Others like Kane, like Beatrice, Rowan, they reminded me of other things, other colors, and unknowingly, I started assigning songs to them, as if they already weren’t here anymore.
But one person I never expected reminded me of more than just colors. He sneaked in somehow and hid under the surface of my skin. I cloaked him in viridian because he reminded me of Winworth. Dark and moody, quiet and observing, he was now in every song I had on my phone. And I loved that only we knew what happened that night. I loved that no one else saw how he looked when he came undone, when he held me, when his hands bruised my hips, when he looked at me with something more than indifference.
I loved that he tasted like sin and moved with punishing strokes. I loved that his eyes held a promise of violence, because that meant he wouldn’t be destroyed by what I carried in me. I even fucking loved the way he looked at me when nobody else was looking at him—his imposing presence, his domineering words, and the devil-may-care attitude. But most of all, I loved that he made me forget.
He was better than drugs, better than alcohol, better than running away.
My demons were calling his name. They were whispering, urging me to go to him, to take him, recognizing him as ours. Ours to hold, ours to hide, because hiding was the only way for me to have him. He was the forest green, and I was the thunderous skies. We both carried secrets in our pockets, locked from the rest of the world. People like him, people like me, you could see it in our eyes. There was a promise of destruction there, of rebellion, of oblivion, and I loved that somebody else carried it just like I did.
Maybe the war he was brewing was different from mine, but it was still the same hell.
Kids that were never affected by sinister things lurking in the middle of the night had different energy zapping around them. They didn’t know how it felt to be ripped from the inside out, only to be stitched back with all the vital parts missing. And I was glad for that. I was glad that not a lot of us had to carry these sins.
But Ash… Ash had everything I wanted.
His sins danced all over his skin. The perfect, vehement, desolating tango, and I wanted to learn the steps.
I jerked at the sound of a locker nearby snapping closed, pulling myself from the daydream and focusing back on the paper in my hands. Carefully, almost fearfully, I unfolded it, seeing the unfamiliar crest placed as the header. All our families had their own crests, but I had never seen this one.
An upside-down triangle, ending in upturned ends, with two lines crossing from each of the corners and a V at the bottom. The golden lines almost looked pretty, but when my eyes filtered over the page, stopping on the white ink on the dark green paper, my heart started beating, my palms sweating, and I gripped the paper tighter as the words blurred in front of my eyes.
In the beginning there were five, before the first light arrived.
