Hey guys, I know it's been a while, but I wrote a nice long chapter for y'all. If you want, you can just skip the part before the line break. It's more of Erin whining about her appearance. It's a crappy part, I really only put it in there for continuity's sake. The rest should be fine. Enjoy!
I've been sitting here for some time now. On my knees, elbows propped up on my dresser, hands shaking from the insubstantial weight of my weapon of choice, and my chin resting on the white wood between my elbows, staring blankly at the mirror ahead. My gaze remains steady with the eyes of the reflection, and it's almost like I'm waiting for the reflection to make the first move. However, it doesn't, because it is a reflection and they just don't do that. So the cycle remains suspended in inaction.
I don't know how I got to this situation. I ceased my discussion with Roger some time ago, and although all he did was rant to me about all the reasons Ralph would never give 'two shakes of a rat's ass' about me, it put me on edge. I paced for a while, and as I was doing this, I got to noticing the mirror resting on the wall across from me. It's a different mirror than the one that was there the whole time I was growing up. I broke that one with a brush a few months ago. This one is shiny and has no stickers, no make up smudges, no residue from pictures that were once taped to it but fell off some time ago. This one is pretty and clean and shows me clearly. I hate it.
My skin is dry and flaky, scarred and burned, so hard and calloused that I know someday it'll be leathery. The cut in my cheek left a long, ugly white scar, and I can see Roger's letters under my chin. My cheekbones poke out so much that it sometimes hurts when I go too long without smiling, and my skin is stretched too tightly over my bones. My eyes are set too far back in my head, my eyebrows are gross, for some reason I have no eyelashes, my lips have been chewed to hell and back and my hair- oh God my hair. I used to have beautiful hair. No matter what else you could say about how I looked, my hair was a work of art. It was rarely frizzy, it always came out the way I wanted it, and the color suited me just perfectly. Even my sister, my perfect, Disney princess sister always used to tell me how jealous she was of my hair. Now it's long, and difficult to manage, tangled, often greasy, and it looks painfully dull. It physically pains me to even touch my hair. Usually I just tie it up in a pony tail and pretend I'm bald.
I don't want to be conceited. I don't want to be someone who cares so much what they look like. But dear God, I care so much.
Hence how I got here. Scissors are a quick solution. I'll chop it off at the chin and be done with it. New girl, new hair. It won't be a reminder of what I used to look like, or what I could've. I won't have to think about who I was or who I might've become. I could be free to be the Erin that's a survivor, who made it off the island and will be okay someday. I could be that person. She's in there somewhere. That other me is gone.
I raise the scissors, focusing hard to keep my hand from shaking, and slip a chunk of hair in between the blades. I'm trembling. Then the blades close. I have to shut my eyes and clench my teeth to do it, but I hear to gentle snip of the edges sliding past each other and feel the strands piling on my lap. I look down, but it takes a moment for me to really see it. When I do though, it hurts more than it should. A lot more than it should. I look from the hair to the stubs of it that remains implanted in my head and gasp in spite of myself. Quickly, I chuck the scissors as far from me as I can get them. My hands continue to shake, as expected. The tears are just an added bonus.
I pinned my hair out of my face and forgot about it again today. If I ignore it, it'll go away. That's my motto.
The day is particularly uneventful. I don't speak to Roger or Maurice or Miles, or really anyone that could be a problem, and I postpone my girl talk with Julia. I give her some excuse about it being a fangirly thing that I'm suddenly embarrassed about. It's clear she didn't buy it- I've never been shy about fangirling- but she didn't say anything, so for now it'll do. I made it through the day okay, and for me, that's something to be proud of.
However, the world's a big fucker and decided to throw a curveball at me after school.
I got a text from a number I don't recognize, and glancing up and down the hall at the students grabbing coats and books and phones from their lockers, it would appear that everyone from the island got it too.
From: 1-707-555-4351
It's Jack. Serious shit happened. We all need to talk. My house after school, be here by 3:45.
There's a few things that get me about this. First of all, how the hell did Jack get my number? I haven't seen much of him since the island, other than at interviews, and on those rare times when I did see him, I certainly didn't talk to him- let alone give him my phone number. The second thing that gets me is the idea of being at Jack's house with all the hunters. Sounds like a great idea, right?
Person in my head to whom I narrate my life story, I hope that at this point you know me well enough to pick up the sarcasm.
I glance around the hall once again, and my eyes land on a familiar black head of hair- Simon at his locker. The sight of him calms me down. Simon's Jack's brother, I remind myself, although the thought sort of makes me want to vomit. He's obviously going to be at the house too. Besides, if even I got the text (and Samneric too, I saw them looking at their phones the same time everyone else did), I can probably safely assume that Ralph did too. I don't know if he'll show up, of course.
This is stupid, I tell myself. I've done enough for these jackasses. In all this time I've been home, through all the pain and the misery and the therapy sessions, I've kept all their damn secrets, even though I have no reason to protect them. Why should I have to show up to this- putting myself in a situation that could very well trigger another attack, by the way- just because Jack's freaking out? I wince at my own mental phrasing of that. Jack has never been one to freak out. His was an organized chaos; no matter what, he was in control, he knew what he could accomplish in the situation and he did it. The only one he'd ever consulted about anything (in my knowledge, anyway) was Roger. If something had him this worried... should I be concerned too? I roll my eyes at my own indecisiveness and slam my locker door. I can think about this in half an hour. For now, I have a detention to attend.
One of the greatest tortures known to the civilized world, in my experience, is easily Friday detention. Most teachers at St. Francis hold to a firm belief that it's too cruel to assign homework on the weekends- and don't get me wrong, I greatly respect that belief- but homework is the only thing we're allowed to do in detention. And they mean it. I once got in trouble for drinking from my water bottle too loudly. It was confiscated from me.
I'm not a bad kid. I don't think I deserve the punishment that they so regularly inflict on me. So I didn't do a few (or five) homework assignments this week. I'm a B student, isn't that enough for these people? Oh, yeah yeah, there's that bullshit they feed me about how 'with my organization skills as they are, high school is going to be a rude awakening.' Honestly, these people have known me for years. If I didn't learn from three months straight of detention in fifth grade, nothing is going to teach me. There's very few things that I have the boldness to contradict the teachers on, and this is one. Disorganization is simply part of my charm, love it or leave it.
I end up spending the half an hour scribbling half-assedly in my new journal- I work on this one simply to placate Chuckles- and doodling things in it. I hate this journal, probably more so than the first one. Oddly enough, even though it was painful as hell to do, it felt amazing to finally get all that crap off my chest, even if it was just to a blank page. But this journal, this journal is nothing but a black hole of suckiness. On the island, I may have been stupid as hell, but I put up with a lot and didn't buckle too often. There was that suicidal streak at the end, but for the most part I think I fought through pretty well. But now? Now I'm a mess. On the island, at least everyone felt as fucked up as I did. Here, no one knows what we went through, and it's isolating. Even spending time with my best friends is something that makes me anxious now, because it just reminds me how badly we all screwed up. It's odd to think that if that plane had never crashed, I'd have never met any of these boys, I'd still be volunteering at the library, I'd waste my days bickering over the best way to get Mackenzie to hook up with her guy friends. In some ways, I'm glad I'm not that ridiculous, but in other ways, I think it'd be nice. There I go again, whining like a little bitch, I scold myself. You lived didn't you?
At some point in my long, rambling musings, I came to the decision to go to Jack's damn meeting anyway. I'm not sure how my mind came to the point that that seemed like a good idea, but once I've talked myself into something, there's no backing out. So as soon as 3:30 hits and the detention monitor dismisses us, I'm out the door and headed in the opposite direction of my own house- off to the wolves I march. I text my mom that I'll be going to a friend's house after school, and immediately afterward shove the phone into my back pocket, not to be looked at for at least an hour. I don't want to argue with my mom about this, I just want to get it over with.
My phone buzzes three times. The first time I check it, and as expected, it's my mother. I don't even look at it. I don't want to see what she said. I have to go to this, and I don't want to deal with a guilty conscience while I'm there. It's best just to assume that she was totally cool with it.
When I arrive at the Monroe's, I'm about five minutes late. It's not quite the place you'd expect someone like Jack to live- Simon maybe, but not Jack. I pictured something real grand like Roger's house, but it's nothing like it. The house is rather small, most likely without a second floor, and it reminds me strangely of my grandmother's new house. There's a big picture frame window at the front, but the curtains are drawn. To the side is an attached one car garage, and in the driveway sits a beat up old minivan. It's odd to think that in such a quaint, unsuspecting house, lives someone who tried to kill his brother.
Twice.
Gathering what little courage I can lay claim to, I march up to the door and knock hesitantly. I wince; knocking is something I've always sucked at. My hands are smaller than normal, and unbelievable weak, so whenever I knock it leads to bruising on my knuckles. I've always been a strong proponent of doorbells, but it would appear that theirs is broken. My knocking produced minimal sound, and reluctantly, I bang on the door again, this time with the side of my fist rather than the knuckles. I hate doing that. It makes me feel hostile. To my surprise, the door swings open when I knock the second time. I stick my head in and glance around, but to my surprise, nobody is in sight. I take a deep breath, say a quick prayer that I don't go to jail for trespassing, and walk into the house.
There's a lot of times in my life that I've been incredibly stupid. When I walk in to the Monroe's is one of them, not quite at the top, but it's still on the list. My stupidity doesn't end there though. As I take a few hesitant steps into the house, I hear a thump and I can faintly hear Jack talking frantically. That should've been a good sign to make a run for it while I could. I didn't though. I'd rank that at about number 46 on my stupidity list (like I said, there's been a lot of times). Another thump, and I hear Simon now. He's yelling. Wait, what? Simon knows how to yell? At this point, my subconscious has caught up and begun to inform me that something bad is going down. But do I leave? No. That's why I'm just going to rank this as stupid moment numero uno and walk towards the source of the voices.
"Get 'em off me, get 'em off me!" I hear Jack scream, sounding like he might actually cry.
"Jack, there's nothing there!" Simon yells. I should leave, says my subconscious. Fuck that shit, say my legs, which continue to bring me closer to the sound of their voices. Now I'm close enough that I can tell there's a struggle- they keep bumping things and hitting the ground, and occasionally one of them grunts. "Calm down, the neighbors will hear!" This comes out as a hiss, which coming from Simon is frightening as hell.
"Stop it! Get the fuck off of me!" Jack yells, and I hear a loud crash that must be him pushing Simon over or something. "Oh God, they're under my skin!" Another thud.
"Stop scratching Jack!" Simon yells. The sound is clear, and I assume that behind the door in front of me I will find the two fighting brothers. "Damn it, you're bleeding all over the carpet!" And suddenly, I reach out to open the door, replacing my earlier screw up as my stupidest moment. On the floor in front of me are Jack and Simon. Simon is currently struggling to keep Jack's arms pinned to the floor, and after a second I notice that he's also trying to tie his hands to the legs of a chair. There is, indeed, blood all over their carpet, and it's still leaking out from scratches on Jack's arms and neck. Meanwhile, Jack is spasming like he's having a seizure and trying desperately to scratch at whatever he thinks is under his skin.
Oh shit.
Isn't that a side effect of-
"Oh God," I hear Jack choke out, sounding like he's going to be sick. My attention returns to him, and I realize he's spotted me. The sight of me is enough to temporarily distract him from the thought of the bugs he's imagining. "What's she doing here?" Simon, who has finally succeeded in tying Jack down, looks back and curses.
"Erin," he says slowly, panting. "I don't care where you go- wait, yes I do, stay in the house. Just... don't be here." It astounds me that he can be so nice to me even though I've just seen his brother tripping. I nod numbly and go running out of the room.
I don't think much about where I'm going. I just dart through the first door I see- and find myself stumbling down a short flight of stairs into their basement. I knock my head on the floor when I reach the bottom and curse loudly enough that my mom might hear, then take to cradling my skull. That fucking hurt. After rolling around on the floor for perhaps a minute, rubbing my head as if that will magically fix it, I try to stand. I'm dizzy as hell and crash into the wall. Great, if after all I've been through, I kill myself by falling in Simon's basement, I hope to God they make fun of me a lot at my funeral. I decide after hitting the wall that the best plan of action is to just sit down for a few minutes, at least until the room stops spinning and I can remember when my birthday is. Embarrassingly enough, it takes at least five minutes.
As it turns out, falling was a lot more fun than not falling. I like to say that I talk to myself (or, rather, the imaginary audience in my head whom I tell my life's tale to) because I make great company. It's a lie. I'm not entertaining in the least and you, imaginary audience, could really use some practice in the conversational area.
"I'm going to a damn nut house," I tell myself, then commencing on a journey to find a way to entertain myself. It doesn't take long; there's a convenient dart board hanging on the wall several feet above where my head was. Sighing, I pull the darts out of where they were stuck in the board and start chucking them from a few feet back. To my utter shock and surprise, I suck. A lot. I hope they didn't like this wall, I think offhandedly as another dart embeds itself into the wall surrounding the dart board. I throw my last dart and it lands just at the edge of the board. I grin a bit in pride; I finally hit it.
"Oh man, I didn't know you had such killer accuracy," I hear a voice behind me. I jump a little and turn to face Simon. He's smiling, looking like he's trying hard not to laugh at my epic failure. "Should I be afraid?" I stick my tongue out at him.
"I'm not that bad, you jerk," I say, pulling the darts out and moving back again. I throw another dart and it hits the wall again. I sigh. "Okay, so maybe I am." He laughs and walks over, taking the darts from me.
"If you want to be any good at this, you can't just throw it as hard as you possibly can. You lose control doing that, and you put a whole lot of holes in my wall," he glances at me sideway, smirking just a little, and then throws one of the darts. It lodges itself dead center.
"Well, whoop-de-doo for you," I say, making a face at him. He goes to throw another dart, and I see red marks on his wrist. "Those from Jack?" I ask. He looks at them for a second and nods. "So, you're not talking anymore?"
"Nothing to talk about," he replies with a shrug.
"Oh, yeah, that's fair," I say. It sounds sort of harsh, but come on. He spent months pushing me to tell me what Roger had been doing to me, I can ask this. "What's he on?" He looks at me for a minute, studying me to see if I'm serious or taking a guess to see if I can get something out of him. He sighs.
"Meth," he replies. "Some kid in his health class- yeah, ironic isn't it?- introduced him to a dealer, and since his dad's fucking loaded and gives him some insane allowance every week, he hasn't had any issues buying more." I don't respond, but I nod, signaling to keep talking. "He uses every time he gets nervous about something, and I'm the one who has to deal with him. My mom has no clue." It's quiet for a minute, and in the silence I can hear Jack struggling to break free of his imprisonment.
"You should really tell someone," I say eventually. "This could completely screw him up. And not to mention, it seems like he's attacking you." He snorts and shakes his head.
"I oughtta tell his school about it, get him suspended. If he weren't my brother, I probably would," he replies. "This would kill my mom though. She was already upset when we came back despising each other- more so than before, anyway." The silence ensues again. "You won't tell anyone, will you?"
"If I had any sense I would," I say, shrugging. "But since when have I ever had sense?" I don't mention that the idea of Jack running himself into the ground after everything he did is somewhat appealing to me. I've been spending too much time around Roger. He smiles slightly, and we just sit there a minute. Then the doorbell rings, and he bolts up.
"Shit!" he exclaims. I must've given him a questioning look, because he adds, "There's murderous choir boys at my door who have pledged undying allegiance to the brother I just tied to my living room table." I snort at this.
"Shit is right," I say, running up the stairs with him to help untie the- hopefully- less trippy Jack Merridew.
On the bright side, Jack isn't tripping anymore. Unfortunately, his conscious mind isn't quite what it used to be. As he talks to us, he keeps losing his train of thought, and the whole time he's glancing around, looking pretty damn paranoid. Most of the choir boys (and Ralph) look confused, but Roger seems highly amused.
"Screw it, I can't explain worth shit," he says, after a while of fumbling for words to explain whatever situation has him so worried. "There's a video on YouTube. I've pulled it up on my phone. Just...watch it, all right?" He tosses his phone to Roger. "If you don't mind, I'm going to go sit in a dark corner now." The boys stare after their idol in shock.
"...Is he drunk or something?" Bill asks eventually. Maurice snorts.
"Nah, remember last time? He gets stupid when he's drunk," he replies. Roger thumps him on the back of the head.
"Don't forget your rank, stupid," he says. "Let's just watch the damn video." Much to my disdain, we all have to huddle in together to get a good look at the video. The good thing is that Ralph and Simon position themselves between me and the choir boys. The bad thing is that one of them must've forgotten to put on deodorant this morning.
I almost gasp when I see the opening of the video. Someone apparently found the pictures that we requested the press not publish. The ones in which we're starved, burned, beaten to a pulp. The ones where Ralph and Simon flank me, glaring at the former hunters, and I'm emaciated and covered from head to toe in bruises and injuries. There's scars slashed against Simon's skin left from the feast, Roger's got a black eye from his brief fight with Ralph, and there's one in which I stand beside Roger, and he's smirking at me while I look like I could die on the spot. The pictures end with that one, and the video transitions to show a familiar face. Percival.
"Perce, can you tell the camera what you told me?" whoever's holding the camera asked. It's a girl, probably our age or a little younger, but I don't recognize the voice. Percival just shrugs. "How about you start with the part about your friend?" He fidgets and looks away from the camera.
"Willie was there one day, and then he wasn't. The big kids all knew where he went, but they wouldn't tell us," he said. "We tried to make a fire that day so that the planes could see us and we could go home, but then it got really big and we didn't see Willie after that. Erin was gone a while too, but she was okay."
"Do you think Erin had something to do with Willie going away?" the girl asked. Percival shook his head rapidly.
"No no no no no," he said. "Erin wouldn't never hurt anybody! She was my favorite person there. When Johnny picked on me she made him stop and when those scary guys were angry at me she said they should punish her instead." From the sound of it, Percival was bringing up a lot of information that he hadn't already told to the person questioning him. When she spoke again, she sounded shocked.
"Punishment?" she asked in surprise. Percival lowered his eyes. "Who were the scary guys Percy?"
"Jack and Roger," he said. "They were in charge. I didn't like them, they yelled at Erin and Ralph a lot. I think Jack was mad because Ralph was in charge first and he was better at it."
"What about Roger? Why do you think he didn't like Ralph and Erin?" Percival shrugged.
"I dunno." He looked up, and the look in his eyes breaks my heart. He looked so sad. "I don't want to talk about that anymore Annie."
"Can I just ask one more question?" she asked. He nodded. "Did those boys every hurt anybody?" He pauses for a long time.
"Sometimes," he said eventually. The video cut off abruptly.
"'This is an interview I did with my little cousin Percival, who was one of the children stranded on an island a few months ago,'" Roger reads the description out loud. "'I've seen all the interviews with five of the older kids, Jack, Roger, Ralph, Erin, and Simon, but what they say on those interviews sounds a lot different from what Percy told me. He's been having nightmares about the island, and from what he's told me, it sounds like not everything about those kids is as innocent as they make it seem.'" We all back away from Roger, whose shoulders have begun to shake. No one dares to stay within five feet of him as his skin turns red and his grip on the phone turns his knuckles white. "Mother of FUCK!" he cries suddenly, chucking the phone as hard as he can at the wall. It crashes into the wall above Jack's head, but the redhead doesn't so much as flinch.
"You owe me a new phone," Jack grumbles, not looking up.
"What the hell are we going to do?" Robert yells, clutching his fake glasses as if he's about to pull a Roger. He then looks down at the glasses, thinks better, and puts them back on his face. They all look up at Jack expectantly. He straightens up a bit, and for a second I think he's back to normal.
"We can't just let this happen!" he exclaims, causing the boys to cheer. "We're going to take this into our hands and fix it! We've done it so far, right?" More cheers.
"What exactly do you plan to do though?" Bill asks. Jack's smile fades a bit, and the boys look up to him once again.
"We've got to- to..." he trails off. There's a long silence and he no longer meets their eyes. He eventually sits down in defeat, and when I see the looks on their faces, I almost feel bad for them. I can practically see the fear and, in Roger's case, anger that is radiating from the choirboys. Their fearless leader has finally failed them. He has no clue, and now they know it too. Ralph looks at them, shakes his head a little, and steps forward. He looks awkward standing there, maybe even a little scared, and I can understand why. The last time he tried to lead them, they ended up trying to kill him.
"Look, this is going to be all right," he says slowly, glancing around for any signs of disapproval at his speaking. None comes. "We're going to need to schedule an interview with someone, a few actually. It can't just be the five of us anymore, we need to take a united front on this. I think for the first one, it's best if we start slow. Erin, Roger, and Simon are probably the best for it, me and Jack can stay out for now. Erin, since Percival gave up a lot of information about you being victimized-" he pauses to glare at Roger and Jack briefly- "you'll need to do most of the talking if we want anyone to believe it. Do you think you can do it?" I hesitate, then nod. I wonder for a moment why we're trying so hard to protect them, but then I remember. I told Ralph and Simon I wanted this to be over with, and so we tried to forget about it. Now, if they get caught, we're accomplices.
"Why's Monroe got to be there?" Roger asks, shooting Simon a look.
"Security purposes dumbass," Ralph replies, catching a few of them by surprise. Maurice and a few others chuckle uncomfortably and take a step away from Roger, just in case he gets mad. Roger just rolls his eyes and turns his head. "Before we start planning the other interviews, is there anyone who doesn't want to participate?" There's a short pause, and Samneric step forward, their hands linked. They keep their heads ducked, but I can see that they're just as scared and sick as I've been.
"We're sorry-"
"-Ralph, but we don't-"
"-think it's worth it." There's a rise of murmurs from the choirboys, and Roger's fist is curling. They all get the message Samneric were putting across; they don't think that the choirboys deserve our protection. One of them glances up at me. "Do you?" they ask in sync, although in the midst of the growing conversations, nobody but me hears it. I smile sadly and shrug, a 'what can you do?' sort of signal. They sigh and turn away, walking out of the room. The group grows quiet again, and we hear the front door of the house close softly behind them. Sensing the tension, Ralph speaks again. "Is that it then?" he sounds more hesitant to speak now. "All right, then I think the next interview after that should be..."
I don't listen much after this point, but glance around the room. Jack has fallen asleep in a little ball on the floor in his corner, still trembling slightly from the lasting effects of the drugs. Simon rubs absently at the bruises on his wrists and makes an effort not to make eye contact with anyone there. Ralph is speaking with more confidence by now, but he his eyes look slightly above the heads of his audience. He skips Roger's general area all together. The sadist himself is brooding terrifyingly, with his fists still clenched, his jaw set, and a seething glare fixed on his face. He directs it most often at Ralph.
Shivering, I direct my attention towards the less intimidating members of the crowd. Maurice is staring at Ralph, but he doesn't look like he's hearing a thing. He's shaking ever so slightly, and suddenly I'm sort of afraid for him. Maurice, and a few other choirboys, had nothing to do with what happened to us. They never laid a hand on me, they never threatened the kids, they never wanted to kill Ralph. It hits me hard, this realization, and I feel cold. For their sake, I hope to God this works.
I was going to add song lyrics in here, but my mother is nagging me to do my homework. I'll come back and fix it later, if you're really that interested in my song choices. If you just want to know what song it would be, I was going to use "My Medicine" by Pretty Reckless. It's a pretty kickass song. Also, I got bored, so here, have a theme song.
Roger: House of Wolves by MCR
Simon: Holiday by Green Day (I have no clue why, but it makes me think of him)
Erin: It USED to be Teenagers, now I'm feeling more Emergency by Paramore
Ralph: errrrrm... screw it, I can't think of one, he gets something girly. Ralph's theme song is Let It Go from Frozen. Das right bitches
(Paaaaairriiiiings~)
Roger/Erin: I'm Just Your Problem (look up the version sung by ashestoashesjc on YouTube, it kicks ass) or Surrender the Night by MCR
Simon/Erin: Stubborn Love by the Lumineers
Ralph/Erin: Run and Go by 21 Pilots
Those are good songs. You should look them up after you review :D