Page 60 of Apathy
The dismissive tone my mother used every time I talked to her.
Zane dying.
Finding Megan.
A psychopath messaging me.
It all came together like an avalanche, and I let it go. I released it with a roar as I turned around and rushed after her. Lilly’s shocked face was the last thing I saw before I slammed her into the lockers on the other side, holding her by the throat.
“You are a piece of shit, Lilly!” I yelled. “An empty, useless, piece of shit, and if you disappeared, no one would care.”
“L-Let me go,” she choked out, but I tightened my grip.
“Yes, my name was on her body, and yes, I found her. If I could, I would swap our places in a blink of an eye, but I can’t. And then you…” I laughed. “You come in here, running your fucking mouth, just like you usually do, wearing that chip on your shoulder. Look around you, Lilly.” I stopped. “Is anybody coming to help you, huh? Where are your so-called friends? Where are your people?” It was my time to laugh. “You’re completely alone because you’re a shitty human being. I’m not perfect, never claimed to be, but at least I’m not trying to ruin other people’s lives because I’m not happy with my own.”
“Skylar!” That fucking voice. It felt like fire over my skin, igniting the blood in me, and I pressed against her again. “Fuck!”
In the next moment, instead of the flowery perfume Lilly wore, the scent of pine and cigarettes enveloped me. He lightly gripped the back of my neck, sending rivulets of pleasure through my body.
“Moonshine,” he whispered close to my ear. “Let go of her.”
But I didn’t want to let go. Didn’t he get it? So many people did bad things, and they never faced any consequences. Lilly was just another bully who always got away with everything she did, and somebody had to stop her.
“But that somebody doesn’t have to be you,” he murmured, and I realized that I spoke those words aloud. “This isn’t you, Moonshine.”
“Maybe it is,” I gritted out. “You don’t know me well enough to know what kind of a person I am.”
“Maybe,” he agreed and pressed his lips to my temple. “But I know what I saw, and this isn’t you.”
But wasn’t it? Wasn’t I a creation of my parents? Neither one of them were good people. Maybe the same sickness in them was going to catch up with me as well, and one day I would be unrecognizable to people. I would be somebody they used to know. Somebody who could’ve been good but chose not to be.
“Oh God.” I inhaled sharply, seeing the blue on Lilly’s lips. I didn’t know what terrified me more—the fact that she could pass out if I didn’t let go, or the fact that my body hummed with satisfaction at the mere thought of her being hurt.
With heavy steps, I moved away from her, held by Ash who didn’t move an inch away from me. My hands shook as adrenaline slowly dissipated from my body. As Lilly’s friends crowded around her on the floor while she coughed, tears streaming down her face, I realized what I could’ve done if it wasn’t for Ash.
I wouldn’t have stopped and none of these people gathered around us would’ve intervened. And no matter what, I would’ve hated myself if I hurt her, because that wasn’t me. I didn’t go around fighting with people, but today was a fucked-up day. No, this entire year was fucked up, but today took the cake.
“Let’s get out of here,” Ash muttered, leading me through the throng of students blocking the hallway. “You’re going to be okay.”
Was I? Was I really going to be okay?
Skylar
“Where are we going?” I asked Ash as we drove over the old bridge leading into the East Side of Winworth, where I’ve been to only once as a kid. Regardless of the way he behaved and the vibes I kept getting from him, for the first time in a very long time, I felt safe. For some unknown reason, I felt like I could trust him.
I wanted to laugh because I sounded like every single one of those girls in the books where they trusted the wrong guy. But weren’t we all wrong in one way or another? It was so easy plastering labels to people, calling them villains, when we didn’t know the whole story. Besides, there was one sentence that haunted me to this day, and the older I got, the more I could see myself in it.
“We are all villains in someone else’s story.”
And we were. Even the best of us could end up with that label, just because they somehow hurt somebody, even if they didn’t want to. I guess that in a way, Ash was my villain and maybe I was his, but neither one of us were just black or white.
People in general weren’t black and white. If we labeled ourselves in only those two colors, none of us would be able to stay within the confinements and our role in society would automatically be changed. People, for me, were always more gray than simply black or white.
You know the type of gray, like the sky during the summer, just before the lighting cracks through the clouds, illuminating the entire dome. The kind of gray you could see early in the morning in Winworth, only slightly broken by the rare sight of white clouds or pale blue skies. Heroes and villains, it was such a silly concept, because neither one of these sides was always good or always bad.
Heroes made mistakes. Terrible mistakes that got people killed, that pushed their loved ones away from them. Mistakes that kept them awake at night, choking them, rendering them speechless.
And villains… Villains were people who couldn’t fit into the hero’s suit. The people who made too many mistakes that those good deeds get forgotten. And how were the villains made? I always asked myself that question. Maybe some people were born evil, and the first time they tasted the sweet scent of fear, destruction, and blood, they became addicted, revealing who they were meant to be. Or maybe their life made them the way they are right now. Maybe they were good people who didn’t have any other choice but to become something darker, something vile, because our society didn’t want them how they were before.
