for livvy. it's angst, 'specially for you, love.
i. she's born during the worst storm of the year. (her mother swears it's a sign, but then again, in lily dalton's mind, everything is a sign.)
ii. in first grade she and the whole world realize she's different. it happens when the teacher asks the class to list their favourite things, and all other little girls list barbies, My Little Pony and their cat Muffin, while she puts summer and reading and pretzel m&ms.
iii. her dad leaves when she's six, the pièce de résistance of his monologue being the clichéd promise that he still loved her (the hell he did.) just that things between him and her mother weren't going so well (duh), and they were taking a break to work things out. two months later he's getting married with another baby on the way, and she's forgotten. (her mother saw it coming.)
iv. in sixth grade, she doesn't notice when harris fisher waltzes into the room on a monday morning (except he notices, and spends the rest of the day thinking about it.)
v. she's barely stepped through the camp gates and for the first time in her life she belongs to something.
vi. she meets cam fisher at summer camp in seventh grade (those blue and green eyes burn through her and she wonders if she should have seen the signs) and she feels happy for the first time in ever, relishing the three months' worth of polaroid smiles and spontaneity and canoeing trips and ice cream and footprints in the sand. (she hates that she can't fight the feeling of disillusionment that comes over her.)
vii. she writes him letters and emails and notes for half a year and bites at her neon-polish-coated nails periodically, not caring when he doesn't ever reply. but then he breaks her heart (breaksbreaks) the next summer by telling her he has a girlfriend, (that lying, cheating bastard,) but she's more mad at herself than she is at him. (the signs were all there, after all.)
viii. harris works up the courage to talk to her on a wednesday afternoon. (she smiles because he looks nervous and awkward and out-of-place and maybe it's a little cute.)
ix. their downfall starts at hello.
x. she wonders if he knows about her and cam.
xi. her mother frequently comments on her wardrobe choices (god, why must you always hide your lovely figure under those baggy sweatshirts, nicolette?) and stops at bloomingdales on an almost weekly basis to pick up cute sweaters and lighter shades of jeans and silk blankets even though she knows by now they'll only be discarded at the bottom of her closet.
xii. she meets an eccentric girl (layne abeley, bitch, she introduces herself as) who's mouth is surgically attached to a neon candy ring and has an affinity for dove chocolate and always seems to have paint imbedded in her choppy black hair. they hang out for a bit because she makes nikki laugh with her dark humor and inappropriate joke,s but then they call it off when nikki stumbles home reeking of pot in the middle of a dinner party, piling up the jinxes.
xiii. she calls him up on a friday morning because she's bored and her mother is being nosy, and they sit in the corner of the park in the afternoon, diet cokes propped up against the wall, legs swinging and the autumn wind whistling through their hair. they take turns to smoke a cigarette and she inhale the fumes with a twisted sort of smile on her face, even though he's a fisher and there's the cam thing and it's all a little fucked up. but then he teaches her how to do all these crazyass tricks on his skateboard and she has to admit she's impressed, and it kind of makes her feel wild and free so she decides that this harris character, he's not so bad after all.
xiv. her mom whispers 'i love you' and ignores the slammed door and the muttered 'i hate you' that was her daughter's response before leaving to drive to the grocery store and the world ends. (she wonders if that's a sign, too.)
xv."but i love you anyway," he says.
xvi. she throws up.
xvii. she gets sent to live with her dad (even though she specifically tells the child protection officer that she'd rather be put up for adoption) and endures three weeks of her step-mother's annoyingly chipper attempts at small talk and the baby's screaming and the lingering smell of powder in the air before she runs away. they hunt her down and she gets sent to live with her grandma, this time around.
xviii. she's at school more than she needs to be and no one really knows (or cares) why.
xix. harris is the only one who helps her through it. (she screams because it's scary for an infinite amount of reasons.)
xx. being in love isn't what she expected. it's not flowers and romance (fairytales never suited either of them), it's sitting on the floor in his newly rented flat over their last ever christmas break, sharing takeout and life stories and cigarettes, and she's never been happier. (she will never be happier)
xxi. she and eleven of her classmates sit in stiff chairs in the principal's office the week before they graduate and get reprimanded for vandalizing school property, even though her little section of the wall is simply a somber dedication to her mother.
xxii. her dad dies and she can't bring herself to mourn. (all she can do is wonder when her turn will come)
xxiii. she holds fast to her life until the very end.
xxiv. she dies on the stormiest day of the year and laughs as she falls. (her mother saw it coming)(she always did love irony.)
xxv. the gravestone is blank during the third dalton funeral of the decade, and harris fisher and layne abeley are the only people close to her age who bother to come. (he doesn't cry as they carry her casket down the aisle and she leaves after about twenty minutes.)
xxvi. and it hurts because he doesn't have her in the end, now does he?