N/A: This is my first time willingly showing anyone a story of mine... let alone POSTING a story of mine online where ANYONE could read it. Don't be too harsh. I have no friends (POOR ME) in the online fandom, so I don't have anyone to proof read this for me, so excuse mistakes or I don't know if this is gonna even look ok once I submit it. I plan on having this be just in BPOV because it honestly seems way too hard to be in two character's heads. But who knows. Idk if I'll make a playlist for every chapter or any of that stuff, but I love music just as much as I love reading and writing, so I'll at least sneak some song recs here and there. Beginning with The Beast by Laura Marling,I Had Lost My Mind by Daniel Johnston, and Zombie by The Pretty Reckless. Also, my twitter is mj812 if anyone is interested. I hardly tweet anymore but tweets and direct messages get sent to my phone so I'll likely answer those faster since I'm already dreading posting and I'll probably put off checking ffn.
PS: If you do go on my twitter, please don't judge me on my previous posts. I was in a very dark, very drunk, state of mind when I used to tweet :)
"But where does this fear come from?" he asks.
"I don't know. No where.. Just.. My irrationality." I blurt out.
And he laughs. They all do. But I'm serious. Dead. Serious. And I want to explain myself because I'm not crazy. Not that crazy. But I know anything I say further on the topic will only amplify the dread pounding in my chest that tells me rhythmically, "Try the medication again."
But I'm not that crazy. I can still tell the difference between reality and nightmare. And zombies aren't real. I know this. Some times I just let The Beast get the best of me..not tonight I hope. So I just shrug, laugh, and pass the bottle to him.
Its his turn.
"Truth or Dare?" I ask him, shivering. Its close to 3 am and we're sitting in a circle, on a blanket, at the meadow. It's the first time he's playing Truth or Dare, at least with us, and we have our own set of rules.
-Truth: 2 mandatory shots and an honest answer, if some one calls bullshit, you must down a third shot.
-Dare: 1 optional shot, for courage, and a dare, if you chicken out it's a mandatory 2 shots.
-At the end of each round, every player must take a shot. We wait 10 or 15 minutes and play again.
We usually play with beer, equaling 3 gulps to a shot, but I got to Alice's house early that day. She and I were laying on her bed catching up on Perez Hilton gossip and our own drama. I was telling her how our French teacher grossed me out and that I was really reconsidering my fourth year of French. I was laying on my side, navigating the pink website on her laptop when he knocked on the door.
"Come in." she said through the door.
"What are you girls doing?" Her brother, Edward, asked as he came in, shut the door, and leaned against it.
"Chit chatting." she said cheerfully. I stayed quiet, my eyes concentrating on some It Girl on the laptop's screen. I'm not talking to him, I thought to myself.
"Cool, well, what time is this thing?" he asked.
"We should leave about 8:30. Its about a 30 minute drive." she told him.
My face stayed still. But my eyes darted back and forth between them.
"Just give me a 10 minute heads up before you girls are ready to go." he said.
"Sure thing, boss." she said playfully.
"What are you girls in the mood for?" he asked looking at me. I couldn't answer from the disbelief. I looked questioningly at Alice.
"What are you in the mood for?" she asked me, her eyes uneasy.
After the past few days and the new direction the night was taking, I had a feeling I was going to need something strong.
"Whiskey?" I ask her, more in confusion, than giving her an option.
"Whiskey." she relays to her brother.
"Whiskey." he confirms, nodding his head. He turns to head out and calls back, "Let me know when you're ready."
"'Kay." she calls as the door closes.
The moment the door handle clicks, I snap my head to her to demand an explanation. But Alice just sits there paging through a Marie Claire.
"He's coming?" I whisper harshly.
"I'm sorry, babe!" she whispers back with some guilt, but then she smiles. "Its just, well, he started talking to me again."
Alice is my best friend, has been for the past 8 years. And during all that time, which includes week long sleep overs at her house, I've seen very little of Edward, spoken to him much less. She's always told me that he's very "anti-social" and that's "how Edward is" with everyone, not just me. She says I shouldn't take anything he says or does seriously.
But I take everything to heart.
About 2 or 3 months before I played Truth or Dare with Edward for the first time, Alice and I sat in her kitchen having lunch and discussing our music lecture from that morning. Edward walked in to make himself a sandwich, and as usual, didn't even look at us. Much less say hello. So, Alice and I went on about our conversation.
"MTV actually helped artists get on the map. Take Daniel Johnston. Had it not been for MTV, where would he be now?" I asked thinking Daniel Johnston was a good example that made my point.
Before Alice even had the chance to rebuttal, I heard Edward snicker.
I looked over the breakfast bar where we were sitting, and across the kitchen to where he was setting a used knife and spoon into the sink.
"What?" I asked, not sure of what he finds funny.
"What do you even know about Daniel Johnston, little girl?"
"What?" I asked confused again, now unsure of why he was giving me such attitude.
He repeated his question. Slowly. Even the 'little girl' part. Simply to mock me. I felt like standing up, walking over to him, and show him just how strong this little girl could punch him in the face. But I kept myself sitting next to Alice, who was sitting frozen, mouth hanging open and holding her sandwich half way to her mouth.
"I happen to know quiet a bit. What's it to you?" I asked defensively. I felt under attack.
"How old are you?" he asked, eyeing me curiously.
"Seventeen." I spat out.
"Seventeen? Daniel Johnston was writing songs before you were even born." he said almost laughing.
"See? This is what I mean." I say turning to Alice. "If it weren't for MTV none of us seventeen year old little girls would know a thing about Daniel Johnston." I say this trying to get back to the topic of MTV's importance, and trying to ignore whatever bug crawled up Edward's ass.
"I guess," she says finally agreeing with me, "But all they did was play music videos." she added trying to return to her original stand on MTV.
"Well, yes and no." I say turning my whole body to face Alice, my back towards Edward, as he took the last stool at the breakfast bar. I go on to explain to her that even if all MTV had indeed done was to have played music videos, they still would have helped expose many artists and deliver music to the masses.
He laughs the word 'masses'.
I ignore him.
I tell her that MTV was not only a launching pad for artists like Daniel Johnston, but that they were the masterminds behind all things music back in the day.
'Back in the day' makes him laugh harder. Which brings me back to wanting to punch him in the face and make him see just how funny I can be. His laughter makes Alice tense up.
I ignore him
I tell her how if MTV had wanted it so, Mandy Moore would have shaved her head instead of Britney Spears. All MTV would have had to have done was play more Mandy videos than Britney videos. I went on explaining, accepting the fact that no one gives two shits about MTV anymore, but sticking to my guns and pushing my point.
MTV used to be important.
"It makes sense." she sighs heavily, "But I already signed up for the cons of MTV."
"Its okay," I tell her. "The prompt doesn't say what time period. You can focus on what MTV means today. You can even use the Britney's shaved head thing as a con and write about how it's a con to have something like MTV influence how people-"
"Jesus!" he exclaimed. "You have an answer for everything, don't you?"
"Dude, what the fuck is your problem?" I demand as I turn completely around in the stool to face him head on, my heart pounding heavily in my chest. Its talking to me again. My heart speaks to me in palpitations. And its saying "PUNCH HIM IN THE FUCKING FACE!"
"You." he says, not bothering to look me in the eye. Or to look at me at all. "You talk too fucking much." he says looking at his sandwich before taking a huge bite.
I'm wordless as I try to make sense of what the hell is going on. Why he is acting like such a douche. I hardly know the guy. I've never been anything but polite. Truth be told, Alice and I got into more than our fair share of trouble, and when it came down to it, I was more scared of what her brother would assume about me rather than fearing her parents' reaction to seeing us come home wasted or having to call them for a ride home when we were too wasted. Her parents were ubderstanding. He was just kind of too intense.
"No one is forcing you to stay and listen to our conversation." Alice said coldly to her brother, speaking for me. I was too dumbfounded.
"You're right." he said angrily as he stood up, picking up him plate loudly. "Why I bother talking to you is beyond me." He says to Alice with venom in his voice, trying to poison my friend.
I glare at the back of his head as he heads out of the kitchen. Bother talking? Talking..? He was clearly trying to pick a fight.
"Yea? Well, don't bother on my account." she calls after him.
" I wont." he yelled back from down the hall right before he slammed his door so hard I was sure he'd torn it off the hinges.
We sat there in stunned silence for about 15 seconds before we heard "I have lost my mind" start playing loudly from his room.
He sure as hell had lost his mind.
I hadn't spoken to him since. And wasn't planning on it. More importantly, Alice and Edward hadn't spoken since and as much as Alice would have liked to have the world believe she didn't care, she did. And there had been two occasions in which, once sober and once drunk, she'd told me she wished her brother was nice to her.
This afternoon, Edward was being nice. He had been since the previous night. Alice seemed almost blissful as she told me the story of how he'd knocked on her door the day before after I'd left and asked if she'd seen his Nevermind CD. She hadn't seen it. She told me how they'd run into each other in the kitchen a few hours later, and rather than ignore her, he randomly said, "oh, hey. I found my CD. It was in my car." to which she replied, "cool." Then, apparently this morning he said "Hey." to her as she poured milk into her cereal.
She'd missed her brother.
And so when he greeted her that afternoon as she walked in the front gate by where he was playing basketball on his own, she took his good mood for all its worth and invited him to come out with us.
"I hope its okay, babe." she said apologetically.
I shrugged. I didn't like this one bit. But I sure as hell wasn't going to deny my friend this tiny bit of hope. The tiny hope that her brother could be nice to her.
"I should have asked you first. I just blurted it out. I didn't think. I should have given you a heads up before you left your house." she says this with enough guilt that I feel I should hug her or something. "I'm sorry." she repeats.
"Its fine on my part, Alice." I tell her trying to sound honest. "If I remember correctly, it was he who went nuts on me." I remind her. "Besides," I say trying to lessen the annoyance I feel, "that was months ago and I harbor no ill feeling toward your brother. Even if he is an asshole." I say joking. Trying to joke. Sort of.
And he was an asshole. But its hard to remember that now, at the meadow, as he took the bottle of Jack Daniels from my drunk, frozen hands.
"Truth or Dare?" I repeat.
"Truth." he said.
N/A: Leave a review, please :D