Notes: Another speedrent challenge. This one was to base it off a lyric, and the one I got was from Not That Girl from Wicked. Just a little note: this is not a songfic.
Disclaimer: I don't own Rent or the Wicked lyric.
"Ev'ry so often we long to steal
To the land of what-might-have-been
But that doesn't soften the ache we feel
When reality sets back in"
Sometimes, I think about my past. I like reminiscing; it helps me to remember where I came from and why I am who I am today. I think about my family and my childhood. I had a good childhood; at least, I think it was a good one. I had a mother and father, as so many do. Growing up, I was a pretty average little girl. I played soccer, I did ballet, and I had good parts in the school play. I guess the only abnormal thing about me was my flaming red hair. We aren't sure where it came from; my parents and big sisters were all brunettes. It wasn't that bad though; it's not like I was green or anything.
I think about high school a lot. In high school I was popular. I had a best friend named Elizabeth, who I had known since kindergarten. We were going to go to college together and be in each other's weddings. We haven't talked since graduation because we ended up going to different colleges after all. I had a boyfriend too. He was really sweet, always going out of his way to hold the door for me or walk me to class. We broke up around Christmastime in our senior year. He was in drummer in a band. His so-called friends introduced him to drugs. I thought doing drugs was stupid, so I broke up with him.
It's funny, isn't it?
My favorite part of high school was being in the Drama Club. I loved acting and singing in the musicals every spring. After starring as Sally Brown in my school's production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, I knew I had found my calling. I wanted to be an actress when I grew up. They filmed a movie at my school once. Only a few students were selected, and I was one of them. The part they used my school for was for a fire. Although I was just an extra, I got to be carried out of the burning building kicking and screaming. I was on screen for a whole thirteen seconds. It was my moment of glory and fame, seeing "April M. Ericsson" in the credits next to "Screaming Girl".
My family was so proud of me in high school, especially when I got a full scholarship to an accredited acting college near my hometown in Southern Virginia. I was going to study drama and musical theatre and be famous someday. I was going to make my parents proud. I didn't want to be like my sister Eleanor. She got married when she eighteen and didn't go to college. She has four kids and a mortgage. I don't want that – at least not at twenty-seven. I don't want to be like my other sister Megan either. She works at an animal shelter with her creepy boyfriend. She saves animals; I could never do that. I'm allergic to fur, but even so, I don't want to be responsible for the life of another.
I don't like thinking about college. I didn't graduate because I was too stubborn and cocky. When I didn't get the good parts, I gave up. I was good – no, I was great. I didn't like when the directors criticized me. So I left and dropped out. I moved to New York City, because that's where the business was. Or at least I thought so. There's more opportunities there than in Bumfuck, Virginia where I'm from. I was too good for them, they didn't know what they were talking about when they turned me down.
I think about what life would have been like if I had stayed in college. Maybe if I had accepted their criticism like a mature adult, I could have applied it to my acting and improved. Instead, I acted like a baby and gave up. Maybe if I hadn't been so stupid, I could be in a movie or a Broadway show. I could be on the road to fame and fortune.
But I'm not. I'm not an actress at all. I've never even had an acting job since that movie in eleventh grade. I'm just a waitress at a crappy café a few blocks away, that is, when I feel like showing up for work. When I'm in a good enough state to work.
Drugs. When Jimmy started them back in high school, I thought it was stupid and just throwing away life. Even if it is, it still takes away the pain and heartache of reality. Failure doesn't seem that bad when you don't really know what's going on around you. Loss isn't so emptying when snowy poison fills up the empty spots inside you.
I wonder if I had tried a little harder, maybe I wouldn't be shaking right now. Maybe I wouldn't be shivering and aching for another hit of deadly venom. When I start shaking, I know if I hold out a little longer, it'll go away and I won't need another hit. But I can never wait. Waiting hurts too much.
"April." I hear his voice as he enters the room.
I turn from the windowsill to look at him, tall and blond and all kinds of gorgeous. He's hard to say no to sometimes. I walk over to him, kissing him softly.
He takes my shaking arm in his hand, gently tying a rubber band around it. As he slips the needle into my arm and injects the pretty poison into my veins, I stop remembering.
-fin