January, 2012

I can say with total honesty that my life is about as ordinary as humanly possible. I have a family: mom, aunts, uncles, cousins, step-fathers, step-mothers… all that. I even have cats. Two of them. Along with the occasional cricket—I hate insects and wish they would all just die and leave me in peace—or Grass Spider from Hell. If my life was a Fable game, I'd ask the Seer to make my wish "Eradicate all insects not essential to the continuation of human life on Earth."

I spend my time drawing or writing or killing brain-cells playing video games on the 360. Normal teenage things, you know. I don't hang out with friends, I don't go to the mall and hang around creepily while watching people walk by, I don't drive…

No, I don't drive. Why does that even matter to you? Stop bugging me about it. It's not that high on my priority list, all right? I'd rather make rent than learn how to peddle around in a huge metal box.

I'm a shameless fangirl when it comes to RPGs. I read the fics, I follow the comics, I play the games… I'm a nerd, plain and simple.

And, in case you weren't aware, being a nerd is not exactly conducive to modern teenage life. I never got into the whole 'paint your face' thing. Makeup. It's just colored dust; what's the point of putting it on your face? You'd have to tie me down before I voluntarily wore a dress or heels, and I'd probably be screaming bloody murder the whole time. I'm more interested learning how to keep my laptop working despite the missing Backspace button than keeping up with what celebrity is dating who and whose cellulite is more noticeable than everyone else's. I mean really, America, why is that so important? Leave the damn celebrities alone and let them live their lives like normal, silicone-enhanced human beings, all right?

I don't take stock in the whole "End of the World in 2012" nonsense. Although, looking back, maybe I should have.

Anyway, my life isn't anything special. I'm just a girl trying to make it through life one clumsy step at a time, and having a grand ol' time doing it. All I want is the freedom to live my life without a backseat driver trying to grab hold of wheel and steer for me.

Did you like my car metaphor? Since I don't drive? I liked it.

Anyway.

I can't pinpoint exactly the moment when my life started going downhill, but I'm relatively certain it was around the same time that ridiculous My Little Pony craze was going around. What is the deal with that show, anyway? Why'd it suddenly become so damn popular? Oh well, that's not the point.

I think it was something mundane that got me screwed. Going out for groceries, maybe. Or perhaps I was visiting my aunt. Or maybe even just me being a hormonal wreck and having one of my famous panic attacks—I've been off medicine since graduation, thank you very much.

But whatever the reason, it suddenly seemed like a great idea to go for a nice drive.

You do recall me mentioning how I don't drive, yes?

I can drive, I just can't drive well. It's important that you know this, so you're aware that what happened wasn't my fault. Even I know better than to drive without your lights on. A chimpanzee knows better than to drive without your lights on. At night.

But the wonderful person who introduced the front of their car to mine apparently did not possess the intelligence of a chimpanzee, and so our cars became great friends going about seventy on those unlit back roads where the state's too cheap to pay for streetlights.

To be fair, I was speeding. But it was practically midnight and honestly, who drives without their lights on that late at night? Idiots, of course.

I remember… the scream of metal. The sudden sight of a sedan taking up the entirety of my windshield as my lights—which were on—decided to show me the idiot about to meld his car with mine.

I can remember every detail about the other driver from that one split instant that he was in my headlights. He was a kid, like me, maybe sixteen or seventeen. He had this weird hair, like it was shaggy but in an on-purpose way, and it was black. Like, dyed black. No one's hair is that naturally black. He was on his cellphone. Texting or talking, I have no idea. All I saw was a phone. An iPhone, to be exact. Like mine, only he was talking on it. Without his lights on. Like an idiot.

Did I mention how he was an idiot?

Oh, and he had on a green jacket. He should have been wearing blue; green was not his color. But what do I know? I'm not a fashion Nazi, after all. I don't even think he really knew what was happening until he hit me. I remember he looked… calm. Carefree. Not at all the face of a kid about to plow headfirst into an automobile accident.

You know how people say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die? I didn't see anything like that. I remember thinking oh God and then… nothing. Not even a climactic crash of vehicles, or a spinoff into a tree, or even a horrible sound of connecting with the windshield.

Just… black. The absence of color and light.

And the next thing you know, I'm on a battlefield strewn with corpses and I am screwed.