what does the future hold
everyone
—
leaving bristol behind is tougher than it sounds
—
CASSIE
"Beautiful," She mutters as her blonde hair blows in the wind, fingers carelessly tracing patterns on the bench she's sitting on.
New York had lasted a month and three weeks; then Cassie had woken up in the middle of the night, struck by fear and regret. She had just left, ran as if Chris had meant nothing to her, when really it was the only way she could cope. The next morning she books a plane ticket back to Bristol.
Everybody is gone by the time she arrives, off gallivanting across Europe, preparing for university. Michelle mets her for coffee, once and they talk about how good it used to be. Back before Cassie went crazy and stopped eating; they never use those exact words, though. Love you, Michelle presses the softest of kisses against Cassie's forehead and disappears back into the world.
Unsure with what to do with her life, she applies for a job in a cafe. Being around food has always made joyous. Taking care of food, preparing it, handling it; it gives her a sense of relief, a sense of freedom. But she eats it now, she never used to do that before.
Boys and girls come and go, no one staying in her life long enough to make an impact. She moves from cafe to cafe, with no real sense of purpose or direction. It's lovely this way, she enjoys the sense of freedom of not being tied down. It doesn't make her worry like it would others, having no sense of a clear path has always been the way Cassie has preferred to live.
Sid comes into one of the cafe's she works at one day, looking tired and a stressed. Cassie lives in London now, and she smiles so wide when she sees him; it almost feels like her lips will break.
"Sid!" Cassie exclaims upon sighting him, his head snaps up to look at her. "It's lovely to see you, oh wow." She comments as she embraces him in a light hug. Sid smiles and takes a seat at a table, where Cassie joins him, abandoning her job. Nobody seems to mind, though. Mindless conversation flits between them, what they've been up to, they don't mention Chris or New York. Cassie had found out from Michelle that Sid had gone to New York to find her, but obviously he never did.
Cassie quits her job and decides to go back to school. Maybe she could try what everybody else is doing. Sid tells her he thinks it's a great idea, but he doesn't stick around long enough to find out if she goes through with it. Romances from school days fade out as quickly as they began. The sizzle and excitement they once offered seeming foolish in the wake of their youth.
She doesn't know what she wants to do with her life, so she decides to let her fingers wander over a university booklet and whatever course her fingers stop at, she'll talk. Closing her eyes, she hums a lullaby as her fingers flit across the booklet.
They stop: Psychology. Cassie grins.
—
MICHELLE
Michelle falls in love with York as soon as she arrives; she had never expected to, but she loves the building and the people and her classes.
While smoking outside one of her classes, she meets Jessica; who smirks wickedly at her, and asks for a smoke herself. Crazy hair flowing in the wind, and Michelle shrugs and hands over her last one.
"Wanna go to a party?" Jessica asks. Michelle nods her head, beaming at her new found friend.
Michelle likes the parties at York, they're nothing like Bristol's but they're decent enough. Music pumps and Michelle moves, boys flirt and girls gossip and Jessica buys them more than enough drinks; they're always drunk when they come home, stumbling in heels they fell might break, laughing like they haven't a care in the entire world.
Tony texts her sometimes, usually late at night, at odd hours, on odd days; How's York? I saw a puppy yesterday. Cardiff is nice. We should catch up. Stars are pretty tonight. Each one makes her smile, no matter how pointless or useless they seem to be, sometimes she forgets to text him back and sometimes she can't bring herself to type out words without making a mess of her makeup. Sometimes she finds herself missing him, and other times she finds herself glad to be rid of him.
Meeting up with Cassie is nice, the familiarness of it all. Talking about nothing and everything, all the good old days; all the memories that Michelle had thought both of them had forgotten.
There's this one boy that she meets one night at a pub, Jessica's off flirting with some girl she saw earlier on the evening and Michelle's sitting at the bar, nursing a drink. He sits next to her, comments on the bartenders weird habits and makes Michelle laugh like she hasn't for a while. His name is Todd, they date for five months before she breaks his heart; Michelle doesn't want to go in the specifics of the relationship with anybody, not Jessica, not even Jal.
Jal and her meet up sometimes, they talk about Chris and school a lot but it never feels like it used to.
Michelle falls in love with York, and her new best friend Jessica, and boys that prove to be meaningless flings but mean more to her than she'll let on; Michelle falls in love with her classes and the parties and the life of being an adult.
—
JAL
Laughing, she tells the story of how her clarinet got broken to a laughing Jackie, who's all soft edges and caring and loving and fun to be around, a fellow musician. Jackie shakes her head, managing to choke out words about what an interesting life Jal has led. you have no idea, Jal thinks.
She thinks about Chris a lot, how could she not? She thinks about what could of happened between him if he lived. Would they of worked out, or would they of broken up. Would he visit her at school, would they finish school and live together, would they maybe one day get married or something equally as ridiculous as that — do something Jal had never wanted until she fell in love with him. Or maybe they would just breakup peacefully, their romance coming to death at a natural end. Jal doesn't think about the baby.
Jackie becomes the best thing about this stupid school, the school she tried so hard to get into, has wanted all her life but has failed to live up to her high expectations of it. But Jackie makes it all worth while, the long hours of clarinet practice, longer than they've ever been before. The parties they do attend, fall of flailing drunks and gross amounts of PDA — this used to be funnier with the gang, but it's fun making fun of everyone with Jackie.
Michelle and her will meet up, they'll sit side by side at a coffee shop and talk about school and Chris and there's always this feeling around them that they've both moved on. It's not the same as the days where Chris was alive and everybody was at school together; they live in the real world now and it's hard to remain in contact with those you would bury a body for, no questions asked.
Jal misses what she had, but she also finds freedom in the new things she has. There's Jackie, and there's her other friends and there's music and there's the future.
Sometimes she'll flirt with boys at bars, and sometimes she'll make out with them, and sometimes she'll take them home but nobody ever means anything and Jackie tells her it might still be too soon for her to be ever content with a relationship. Jal thinks she might be right, but then she meets Lila; and well, it doesn't feel like anything's too soon, anymore.
Jal vows not to let music take over her life, and she says yes a lot more, and let's loose and says fuck it, (for Chris). She talks more openly and freely and laughs more loudly and imagines futures where it all played out nicely and she visits his grave and goes back to Bristol for the holidays.
It's not the perfect life she had saw for herself once upon a time, because other people made a mark on her life that she never expected them to make, but if they hadn't, well — this would be perfect.
—
TONY
Girls love him wherever he goes and he's still got the perfect child role down to a T; he's still adjusting to being Tony Stonem after the accident but he feels himself slowly returning with each day, slowly slipping out into this spiral of out of control that he manages to control.
Cardiff is full of pretty people and parties that last for days, classes that he aces with a charming smile and a wink. He doesn't feel empty anymore, like he did before the accident, like he did after the accident. Tony feels like he's finally finding peace.
Friends come and go, and nobody stays around long enough to make an impact on his life in a major way but he finds that it's okay, that maybe that's what growing up is like. You have your close friends in college, and then you have friends that come and go in university; anyway, they don't know what happened to Tony and he was sick of the pitying eyes from people in Bristol and all his friends.
Sid calls every day for the first three months and then he stops. Tony doesn't complain, flicking him a text every once in a while because everybody is moving on but that doesn't mean he wants to lose anybody, either.
It's hard to talk to Michelle, or to think about her because deep down, he thinks he might still love her; so only when he's drunk, when it's late at night or early in the morning, does he text her about whatever's filling his mind in that moment.
Maxxie and Anwar have all but disappeared from the world, deemed unreachable. Tony only ever gets their voicemail, and he can't bring himself to stay in touch with Jal or Cas, who were effected the most by Chris's death, and then there's no Chris to keep in touch with —
Six months into Cardiff and he realises he misses Bristol, and his friends, more than he imagined ever possible. Then a year after that, he gets a call that his sister has gone crazy; and that's a story for another time.
"Wanna go out for a drink?" Larrisa asks him, she's got really pretty brown eyes. Tony straightens himself up, and follows her lead towards the bar, thinking that he might be able to fall in love with her, (and he does).
—
MAXXIE
Leg flies up in the air, his body twists around and around, and he spins and spins until he feels free; dancing always sets him free.
London is full of adventures. He moves into this horrible, run down apartment with James and Anwar. It's downright disgusting, but they buy unique furniture and spend a weekend painting it and making it theirs. It becomes his favourite place in the entire world, aside from the dance studio.
"I got the part!" Maxxie exclaims, unlocking the door to their apartment. James is stretched out on the couch, his face lighting up with excitement, I knew you would, he tells Maxxie right before he kisses him. Maxxie relaxes against his touch, feeling at peace. He'd been so stressed that he wouldn't get the lead part in the dance, but he had gotten it. This is what making it felt like.
He spends the majority of his next four months dedicating his entire life towards practicing. Cutting out Anwar and James in favour of perfecting moves he's already perfected; the curtains open on the opening night, and Maxxie feels free, his eyes searching out for Anwar and James in the audience but he only finds Anwar. Maxxie won't let that ruin his performance, though; his eyes still bright, and his legs still tapping against the ground and the crowd cheering as the curtains close.
James leaves him, and all he leaves for him is a note.
"Fuck him!" Anwar says, clapping him on the back as he steers him towards a bar to congratulate him on his performance.
Maxxie just feels empty, though. He'd spent so much time aiming for this, that he had driven his boyfriend away, and now he can't even celebrate his success because of that said boyfriend. That night he finds himself missing Chris more than anything, he'd have something good to say about this.
Maxxie and Anwar move out of the apartment, selling it and finding something nicer with the money they've made while they've spent time in London. Maxxie doesn't love it as much as he did the previous apartment, but it grows on him after time.
He dances and dates and manages to forget about James as he rises to success and then has it all come crashing down upon him. His life hasn't gone like he planned, he thought it would be easier but he likes all the hard work just the same.
—
ANWAR
He feels like he's arranged his whole life around Maxxie and it's not a bad thing, he doesn't regret it, but sometimes he finds himself wishing he had thought of something to do after he stopped depending on his parents and grew into an adult.
He finds himself working shifts at this little video store where hardly anybody comes in at. There's always the same four people entering, an old lady who shouts too loud, a mother with two young children who looks like she's trying so hard to be young again, a teenage boy who always wears a grim expression and a girl around his age with bright blue hair and always wears red eyeliner.
Late at night he finds funny videos, cats playing the piano, dogs doing weird tricks, you know. He attaches them into an email, writing out the emails for his friends in the bar, fingers automatically typing Chris's name; he pauses and closes the window. It doesn't feel right anymore. Not when Chris would love them most of all.
Every time someone calls their phone, he ignores it. Tony, Jal, Michelle — Anwar misses that life like crazy, which is why he can't bring himself to ever keep in contact with any of them. When he hopped on that bus with Maxxie and James, he vowed to leave Bristol behind him.
One time, Sketch comes into the video store. She looks older, more put together. Anwar hides out back in the office, shoving his annoying coworker to take over the desk. Sketch flirts with him, and Anwar rolls his eyes, devil, spilling out of his mouth as he watches her. Did she follow him to London? Found out where he was working?
It's the last time he sees Sketch, maybe it's because he quits the next day and a week later James is breaking up with Maxxie so they're moving into a new flat together. He finds a new job at an op shop where he gets to sort through weird knick knacks and asks the blue haired girl on a date, it doesn't work out but Anwar is coming to realise that not everything does work out.
—
SID
New York is a dead end but Sid stays anyway, maybe out of hope of finding Cassie or maybe because he falls in love with the beautiful lights and the energy of the city.
Sid stays for six months before returning back to Bristol, to an empty house and no friends to call his own. He had given up on calling Tony after the first three months, conversation running dry between the two former best friends. Nothing had felt right after Chris died.
He sees Cassie once, they talk and it's nothing like he imagined it would be. In his head he had built up this whole relationship they would have once he found her, and yet, everything has changed. Sid realises he might not love her anymore, and that scares him more than anything.
He goes to school and studies medicine, his grades barely scraping through to let him but he finds himself enjoying it. It's hard work, and he thinks he wants to work with the little kids once he finishes. Make sure they're okay, be one of those GPs; it's a nice dream, he just hopes it can work.
He doesn't party and he falls in love twice with girls that don't love him back half as much. Michelle calls him once, drunk and talking about Cassie and romance and how it should of worked out between them. Sid listens to her, closing his eyes and gently falling asleep as Michelle drunkenly rambles on the other end.
"Where are you from, anyway?" Some girl in his class asks, leaning forward as she inspects him. Sid laughs, her name on the tip of his tongue: Alisha! That's right, Alisha.
"Bristol," He replies, and for fucks sake, he thinks he might miss that god damn place.
—
EVERYONE
(Remember when the car fell into the ocean and we were all drenched, even Anwar who was taking a fucking piss as it rolled in but jumped in anyway.
Remember when we walked home, all miserable and drenched but all of our hearts full of hope and friendship because of our crazy, reckless antics.
Remember when we went to Germany on a school trip, or when we all partied together. Those were the times, when we felt like we could take on the world and be friends forever.
But then the real world steps in and even if Chris hadn't died, do you think we would still all be friends? Truly, honestly?)
—
when you get lazy with the boys ones. sid's one is so bad, eek. generation two + three will be up soon.