Page 61 of Apathy
If I was being honest, our society could fuck itself. We praised fake, white men, sitting in their pretty little chairs, issuing laws that only benefited themselves, while small people suffered. There were people all around the world whose skin wasn’t porcelain white, and instead of putting all of us in the same basket, regardless of the color of our skin, our nationality, or our religion, our society somehow decided that they weren’t worthy.
And who the fuck had the right to make those kind of decisions? How could we say that a mother and a father running from the war zone, trying to save their children, seeking shelter, were villains? Why? Because they were different? Because their youngest daughter didn’t bear a Western name, or didn’t have blonde hair? They were villains because they wanted a job, a new place, a better life, while men like my father sat in their comfy office chairs, getting richer and richer, stealing from the people that needed help.
True evil often hid behind the clothes made for heroes, and our society blindly followed them, believing in lies rolling off their tongues. So, no, I didn’t believe in black and white, because I’ve met people who were supposed to be villains, and they were anything but. I’ve also met people who were supposed to be heroes, and they were the diseases destroying our world.
I sneaked a glance at Ash, wondering what he was thinking about. He hadn’t uttered another word after he ushered me from the school, and I knew he was pissed. Don’t ask me how I knew, I just did. Since that first day, I realized I studied him more often than not, and the tick that kept reappearing in his cheek told me everything I needed to know.
“Are you not going to talk to me?” I tried again. I had no idea what had him so worked up, and when he remained silent even after we passed all the houses, driving up into the mountain, I knew all my efforts would be futile. He didn’t want to talk? Fine. He could keep with the whole broody bullshit because today wasn’t the day where I would even attempt to figure him out.
His dark hair fell over his forehead, and my hands itched from needing to touch him, to drag my finger over his cheekbones, to make him look at me. He called me Moonshine in school and it wasn’t the first time he uttered that word. So what was happening now? I knew I didn’t do anything to piss him off. In the grand scheme of things, Ash and I were nothing to each other. He was just a guy I fucked once and apparently a guy I couldn’t stop thinking about.
I wanted to dive inside his mind just to try and get something from him. Usually, I was the quiet one. The one that observed everybody else. Lauren called it my “creepy people watching”, but I found out that you could learn a lot about people by just observing them. By keeping quiet. By watching their body language, their smiles, the way they lifted their eyebrows, how the set of their mouths tightened when someone came to them, when someone they didn’t like talked to them, and I didn’t do it because I wanted to gather information I could use at a later stage.
I loved doing it because in a way, it was easier thinking about whatever was bothering other people than what was bothering me. In reality, it was just another form of me running away. But I didn’t want to run anymore.
Yes, I still wanted to get the fuck away from this cursed town, but I didn’t want to run from things keeping me up at night. I knew that there was going to be a point in my life when I couldn’t run anymore.
For one flickering moment, I wanted to run away from Ash as well. When he stepped away from me, when he pulled on his pants in that tent, I wanted to run away because for some inexplicable reason, I felt as if he could see me. Not Skylar Blackwood, a daughter that could have everything just because my parents had money. No. I thought he could see the real me.
The terrified me.
The me that only one other person saw when I allowed him to.
But he obviously didn’t want me to see him, and it felt as if somebody sucker-punched me, leaving a gaping hole inside my chest. He came when I called. He saved me from myself today, but all the other days, he pretended as if I didn’t exist. Or, well, he tried.
I still caught him glancing my way when he thought nobody else was looking, and I couldn’t decipher the emotions dancing on his face. Sometimes, I felt like he hated me, like he wanted to rip me apart, and other times, it felt as if he wanted to take me away, save me, hide me and cherish me until the end of the world.
He was a walking contradiction.
The silence in the car was suffocating, only broken by the buzzing of the motor and our breathing, as if both of us were just waiting to explode. I leaned down and turned the radio on, ignoring the sharp intake of breath from him when I came closer. What would he do if I just placed my hand on his knee? Would he push me away or would he let me soothe whatever was troubling him?
But I didn’t do it. Not because I didn’t want to, but I couldn’t handle a rejection from him today. On any other day, I would have a better grip on my emotions, on my mind, but turbulence after turbulence and his rejection would be the thing snapping me in half.
A song came on, one I didn’t know, filling the car, caressing my skin as the singer sang. Finally focusing on the lyrics, I almost laughed out loud at how suitable this song was for this entire situation.
I pulled my phone from my pocket and turned onShazam, because the song was too good to pass.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” I laughed, staring at my screen. The car came to a screeching halt, and before I could stop my body from flying through the fucking windshield, a strong hand pressed against my chest, keeping me plastered to my seat.
My hair fell around my face, my heart beating a thousand miles per hour, while the sorrowful voice of the singer filled the car, singing about enemies with benefits. I gripped my phone tightly before turning to him, anger coiling all over my skin.
“What the fuck, Ash?” I yelled, unable to stop myself. “You couldn’t have, I don’t know, stopped slowly?”
“Are you okay?” he asked instead, completely ignoring my question.
Un-fucking-believable.
Unbelievable.
I searched his eyes for a moment—a moment too long—but I couldn’t get a read on him. I couldn’t see anything on his face. No emotions, no panic, nothing. Absolute emptiness.
“You know what?” I threw my phone in my bag and started opening the door. “Fuck this shit!”
“Skylar!” he yelled after me, but his voice got muffled as I slammed the door of his car and started walking down the gravelly road, taking in the surroundings around me. He drove us all the way up to the mountain where caves were located, infuriating me even more.
Did he really think that I wanted to be in the forest after what happened to Megan?
Motherfucking, stupid, idiotic—
