Chp 9: Into the Rabbit Hole
A/N: I do not own KH or "No Seatbelt Song" by Brand New. This is NOT the final chapter by the way.
"...And then when he told her that Madison was just a doll she tried to strangle him."
"Nice."
Kairi had been talking to Mandy on the park bench just outside her school for quite some time now. Kairi had found herself confiding in Mandy about her experiences in Safe House lately. Yuffie was her best friend but she felt that something about Mandy would understand what she was going through more. That and Mandy had something that Kairi needed most...talking to Mandy made her feel closer to Riku. The two still hadn't spoken since their fight. Kairi went back to Safe House as often as she could but she would never find her beautiful angel there. Kairi felt like it was all over between her and Riku and the feeling was too much to bear.
"Does she still have the doll?" Mandy asked after smoothing out the wrinkles on her black miniskirt.
"Yes she does," Kairi replied. Images of Kayla cradling her plastic doll for dear life as Kairi ran down that lonely hall came washing over Kairi in painful, smothering waves.
"It was the saddest thing I had ever seen..."
"Yeah, that's pretty fucked up," Mandy said as she long one long drag of her cigarette.
"Do you want one?" Mandy asked as she held out her silver case to Kairi.
"No thank you," she replied. A reflective silence fell between the two lovely girls. Mandy lit another cigarette and Kairi stared down at the skirt of her yellow dress. They were both lost and being dragged down with thoughts of the boys they loved so much. It was creating a sad and awkward tension in the air. Kairi looked over at Mandy sadly sucking away on her cigarette and soon realized why Mandy smoked so much, why she did so much drugs, why she slept with so many boys. Kairi at least had a small glimmer of hope for Riku, but it was all over for Mandy and Daniel. He was dead and he wasn't coming back. Kairi couldn't imagine losing someone she loved as much as Mandy loved Daniel.
I guess this is what you do when it's all over...you fuck the pain away.
Tears started to swell up in Kairi's blue eyes. Mandy, taking note of this, quickly tried to change the subject.
"So I bet you have a nice, expensive prom dress picked out, huh Kairi?" Mandy was never one to deal with someone crying. Kairi sighed.
"Yes...it's long and purple and has that bunched up design at the bottom...I like it."
Mandy raised her eyebrows and nodded. Kairi attempted to carry on the conversation.
"So are you going to prom?" she asked.
"Surprise, surprise, I am actually," Mandy dully replied.
"Really, with who?"
"One of my guy friends...James...he has this big crush on me and he asked me to go and I couldn't find it in me to turn his cute little self down."
"Aww, that's so cute. Do you like him?" Mandy took another long drag of her cigarette.
"I can never have feelings for another boy again...I'm very convinced I'm going to die alone." Kairi quickly tried to escape that horribly awkward statement.
"Oh Mandy you're not going to die alone...just go lesbian." Mandy actually smiled.
"There's a reasonable option..." she replied, "Or I could find an adorable gay boy who I care about deeply and he cares about me and we could stay married forever and just have sex with other people."
"Yeah...but you two could have sex if it was a special occasion, like Christmas."
"Or our birthday."
"Or if one of you was just having a bad day." The two girls giggled.
"That sounds like fun," Kairi said.
"Yes it does...So," Mandy said, changing the subject, "I supposed you're going to prom with that Sora boy." Kairi sighed.
"Yes I am." Mandy raised her eyebrows as she ashed her cigarette.
"You know I don't get you...You say you love Riku but you are still with Sora. Do you really love Riku?" Mandy asked defensively.
"Yes, I really do Mandy." Kairi replied.
"Then why the hell are you still with Sora?" Kairi could feel the tears forming in her eyes.
"Because Mandy, what kind of relationship can I have with Riku? I'm doubting that I'm ever going to see him again anyway. I haven't in weeks. I don't even want to love Riku anymore! All it's causing me is pain. It's just...pointless."
"Do you think my relationship with Daniel was easy?" Mandy said in a loud tone, "Hell no princess! It was the hardest thing I've ever had to do, but our love was great. We had once in a lifetime love. I could've just walked away. I could be just a normal, happy girl right now. But I wouldn't trade the love that I had with Daniel for anything in the world."
Shame prevented Kairi from saying anything in reply to this.
"Are you saying that you just want to be with Sora because it's an easy ride? Have you ever heard that the best things in life don't come easy?"
"I know Mandy, but..."
"But what? You and Riku aren't fucking are you?" Mandy interrupted.
"That's not the point!" Kairi shouted.
"Then what is the damn point because I'm really missing it!"
"The point is I have a boyfriend Mandy! I shouldn't having these feelings for anybody, let alone a boy that I can't even touch and will probably never see again. I mean, I feel like a freakin slut! I love Sora Mandy, I really do. It's not fair to him. It's just better for everybody if I forget about Riku. He's causing nothing but trouble for me and everybody around me..."
A disgusted silence from Mandy was followed by Kairi's statement. Kairi tired to look awkwardly away from Mandy's death stare.
"Kairi..." Mandy began, "Would you consider us friends?"
"Yes..." she quickly replied.
"Well we met because of Riku...Is that such a bad thing?" Kairi bent her head down in shame. Mandy, completely disgusted at Kairi, got up from the bench where they were sitting.
"You know what Kairi? Maybe you should do what you want and not what you think everyone wants you to do. That's what you've been doing your whole life anyway. Don't you ever get sick of it?"
And with that Mandy turned on the heels of her boots and left Kairi alone on the park bench feeling worse than she ever had in her entire life.
"Oh darling you look so beautiful!" Kairi's mom gushed as she helped her lace up the back of her dress.
It was prom night. Whoo hoo. Kairi kept relatively quiet as her mother fawned over her and made sure everything about her dress was perfect. She stared at her reflection in her full-length mirror. She was perfect. She wore a long lavender dress, expensive silver shoes, and her short red hair had rhinestone barrettes in it. Kairi didn't need to do anything to her already beautiful face, but she settled with her mom and wore a little bit of blush and some lip gloss.
"You look absolutely perfect darling!" Her mom went on, "I know you'll have a great time. Don't be pressured into doing anything foolish now honey..."
Hah!
Kairi knew exactly what was going to happen at prom. They'd take their pictures, and eat at their restaurant, but the second they got out of prom, that's when everything really happened. The booze would go down, the skirts would go up. They'd fuck, smoke, pass out, and go home happy and completely innocent.
"I had a great time mom"
"I trust you my darling girl. I know you'll make the right decisions. Sora is a good boy. Oh honey you'll have such a great time. You're going to remember this night for the rest of your life..."
After Sora, Leon, and Yuffie picked Kairi up in their limo, she managed to successfully carry on conversation with everyone even though she had never felt more cliche in her entire life. All night she kept stepping out of herself and looking in on herself riding around in that limo, eating at a fancy 4-star restaurant, and bearing the pain of her heels, and couldn't help but feel completely unoriginal. Her feelings got even worse when she stepped into the actual prom. When you stepped into the building, one would face an explosion of floor length dresses and tuxedos. The occasional short dress and white tuxedo would enter your vision as well. The sounds of TRL pop singers singing crappy remakes of one great songs by 80s bands rang through Kairi's ears. Even though all this trendy music was playing few people were actually dancing. This wasn't middle school, they were all too cool to dance. There was a whole table of fancy entrees that their 60 dollar tickets helped paid for but barely anyone touched them. Once again, they were too cool to eat.
Several people came up to Kairi and Yuffie, in her long, flowing yellow dress, and would tell them how great they looked, but Kairi knew exactly what all those bitchy, mean girls were really thinking. They were comparing their dress to hers and would smirk in their minds, coming to conclusion that they looked better than her. It was all so pathetic.
"Do you want to dance?" Sora asked Kairi as a Jessica Simpson song rang over the speakers.
Ugh
"Sure," she replied with a smile.
After a few dances and strolls around the room talking to all the socialites while Sora held his hand around Kairi's waist like she was her property, Kairi started to feel suffocated. Everyone was saying the exact same thing. It seemed like all anybody around her was programmed to talk about was "You look so nice", "What are THEY doing here?", "Who requested this weird-ass song?".
Why can't they all say what they're really thinking? Kairi thought. She wished so much that someone somewhere would say "I can't believe I fucking paid 60 dollars just to stand around and talk about stupid shit while I listen to crappy music". She had to get out. It was too much. She was drowning in a sea of conformity.
"I have to go to the bathroom," Kairi told Sora quickly. She broke away from Sora's grasp and started to walk quickly away.
"But they're about to start senior lead-out!" he called after her.
Fuck senior lead-out
When Kairi got into the bathroom she let out a deep sigh like she had been holding her breath for the past hour. And in many ways she was. All night she's been holding her tongue to keep from saying what she really wanted to say, she's been holding her breath to keep from laughing at the stupid things people around her were saying, and she'd been holding back from doing what she wanted to do...which was leave.
A bathroom flushed, and out of the stall came Mandy looking gorgeous. Her long, dark brown hair was wavy and falling down her back and her big blue eyes peeked out from underneath her bangs. She was wearing a short, lacy black dress and lace-up black high heels.
"Oh Mandy you look so beautiful..." Kairi said breathlessly. And she really did. She was more beautiful than the popular girls and outcasts alike. Mandy smiled.
"Thank you..." Mandy looked in the mirror and fixed her breasts. "So how has your marvelous night been?"
"Shit," Kairi quickly replied. Mandy smirked. She reached in her little black purse and pulled out a pack of Marlboro Reds.
"Do you want one?" she asked. For one in her life, Kairi could really use a cigarette.
"Yes."
Kairi and Mandy sat on the bathroom sinks and dragged away on their cigarettes, enduring the snide looks from everyone that walked in on them, praying that a teacher wouldn't walk in.
"Isn't Sora still out there?" Mandy asked.
"He's got his own friends." Kairi replied with a goofy smile, feeling light-headed from her first intake of nicotine, "What about your date?"
"He's got his own friends." Kairi giggled. She felt stoned.
"These are great," she said.
"Yeah, well don't get used to the feeling," Mandy replied, "It only lasts for like the first three cigarettes and then you have to smoke pot to get high."
There was a few minutes of silence as Kairi lite another cigarette with Mandy's silver lighter.
"So...Having a good time with Sora?" Mandy said in a condescending tone. Kairi blew a cloud of smoke into the air and sighed.
"I think if it were just Sora and me I'd have a good time...So far my night has just been really gay."
"Are you sure you'd have a good time if it was just Sora?" Mandy replied sternly. Kairi frowned at her and said nothing. Mandy raised her eyebrows at her and lite another cigarette. A few moments of awkward and tense silence passed.
"So what are you doing after prom?" Kairi asked quietly. Mandy laughed.
"Fuck..." she pulled out a little plastic bag with two pills of ecstacy in it and dangled it in the air like it was candy, "I damn well know that my ankles are going past my ears tonight."
Kairi giggled and choked on the smoke she just inhaled.
"What?" Mandy said, "Don't you get annoyed by innocent little bitches who think their god-sent date isn't going to try and get into THEIR splash waterwalls?"
"Splash waterfalls..." Kairi said through her tears of laughter. The two girls giggled together and Mandy told dirty jokes about after-prom incidents with big football players with small packages and their big-breasted dates, two horny band geeks, and a silent kinky sex freak and her unsuspecting virgin date. The two girls sat and told jokes on the bathroom floor for about thirty minutes. Kairi realized that this moment had been one of the best times in her life. Just sitting on a floor smoking and talking about all the things that people were afraid to say. She had completely forgotten all about the prom outside of the girls' bathroom by the time one of Mandy's friends came rushing in the door.
"Dude someone narked on you two for smoking in the girls' room!" they said urgently.
No! Kairi thought. She was having so much fun. She almost felt angry at Mandy for immediately throwing the rest of her cigarette in the bathroom sink and darting out of the room. Kairi remained on the floor as she watched the bathroom door close. She didn't want it to end. She didn't want to go out there. She felt like crying. One of the best moments of her life had been snatched away from her just like that.
Kairi eventually got up from her lonely tile floor. She walked slowly over to the sink and washed her hands. She took a long, hard look at herself in her big, expensive designer dress and then walked slowly back into the real world.
When Kairi stepped outside she kept hearing her name being called out from a loud speaker over and over again in the midst of heavy applause.
Kairi
Kairi
Kairi
She clasped her hands violently over her ears thinking it was the voices in her head. But the voices and the applause just got louder. She started to recognize the voices calling out her name.
"Kairi"
"Kairi"
"Kairi"
She couldn't take it anymore. Finally Kairi screamed out "WHAT!"
Yuffie suddenly ran up to her and took her by the hand. She kept saying something and seemed to be really happy about it but Kairi couldn't make it out over the applause. Yuffie pulled her through a sea of people that started to make Kairi nauseous. Finally the sea stopped, and she was standing in front of a smiling Sora who was wearing a plastic crown. Then finally she heard those life-ending words.
"You're prom queen!"
It was all too much. She had just fallen into the rabbit hole. Her pulse started to race and her vision started to blur as a tiara was put on top of her head and a bouquet of flowers was shoved into her skinny arms. Everything around her was spinning.
Is this really what you've always wanted?
Kairi remembered a time when she used to dream about this. When she used to fantasize about people clapping for her and calling out her name as she was placed on a pretty pedestal for all to envy. But that time seemed so far away now.
Should I really wear this crown?
All her life she'd been told she was a princess, higher than everybody, the queen of the social food chain. And this is all what it had been for. This was it. She was it. She was the queen bee. Her purpose had been served now. She would play out the rest of her high school like a goddess and then she'd graduate, get wild, get married, and fall off the face of the earth at fourty-five.
Kairi realized exactly what she was right then. All her life she's been programmed to be a certain way. Everything about her was calculated from the way she dressed to the way she acted. She might as well not have even had a personality. All he was an image. Something unworthy to look up to.
I'm nothing
She was nothing. Kairi felt so sick that she wanted to pass out right then and there. She had no idea who she was. She was fake...plastic...an empty shell. Wave after wave of realization came over her and crushed her into the sands of defeat. She realized that everything in her life she had liked only because someone had told her to like it. Her entire life had been handed to her. She made no decisions on her own...she didn't have a mind of her own. Her mind belonged to everyone else but her.
I'm nothing...I don't fucking know who I am
"Kairi? Kairi?" Sora said over and over again trying to get his princess's attention. He grabbed her hand.
"Kairi you're prom queen..." he said to her. Then Kairi burst out into hysterical sobs that rang through the whole prom. Sora backed away from her in shock as every person there was silenced and looking at Kairi like she was crazy. The silence and the stares didn't stop her. Kairi continued to cry loudly as her mascara ran down her pale cheeks. Not a word was spoken as they all watched their queen cry.
"Kairi what is your problem?" Sora hissed, clearly embarrassed. She continued to cry as the bouquet she was holding drooped to her side. She eventually dropped the flowers all together. Harsh whispers started to fill the room now. Kairi sniffed loudly and wiped the mascara out from underneath her eyes.
"I'm sorry Sora..." she finally said, "This isn't what I want. None of this is what I want."
Sora stared at Kairi sadly as his posture dropped. Kairi had never been sure of much in her life, but this she was definitely sure of. She looked into Sora's eyes defiantly.
"And that includes you..."
And with that, Kairi turned away from her prom king and broke through the crowd of people, walking away from the life that she wouldn't live anymore. She had to start from scratch, and knew exactly who to start with.
"Kairi!" Riku cried out as he immediately ran up to his glass and sat down in front of Kairi, pressing his pale palms into hers. He was exploding with conversation.
"Oh my God Kairi, I've been a fucking mess without you. Oh darling, you look so beautiful. Why are you wearing that dress? Why are you crying? Oh shit I'm so fucking sorry...I can't shut up. I've just missed you so fucking much."
Tears ran down Kairi's face.
"Oh Riku, I've been a mess without you," she cried. "You have no idea. I don't ever want to be apart from you!"
"I don't ever want to be apart from you my beautiful angel," Riku said breathlessly, causing Kairi to melt. He was slowly filling up all the empty within her. She pressed her other palm onto the glass and Riku quickly pressed his hand up against it.
"Riku, I was nothing before I met you." Kairi began, "I was a fucking robot. All my thoughts, and all my feelings, and everything I had ever been through before I met you was completely fake. You showed me so much of the world that I was being blind-folded to in such a short amount of time. Without you I'm an empty shell Riku."
"Kairi..." Riku said with tears in his eyes, "You don't know how good it feels to hear you say that."
They kissed each other tenderly through the glass.
"I don't know who Kairi is Riku. But I don't want to find out with anyone else except you."
Riku cried as he stared at his love who was slowly bringing him to life again.
"I love you so much Kairi."
"I love you Riku..."
The two teenagers stared at each other with more passion than some people will ever feel in their entire life as tears feel down their faces. They kissed once more.
Kairi didn't know who she was. She didn't know where she was heading. But she now knew where she wanted to go. She knew what she want. She finally had something real in her grasp. Something that she found all on her own and that no one else could give her.
So it's sad this doesn't suit you now
And me fresh out of rope
Please ignore the lisp, I never meant to sound like this
So take me and break me
And make me strong like you
I'll be forever grateful to this and you
It's only you beautiful
Or I don't want anyone
If I can choose, It's only you
Fix me to a chain around you neck
And wear me like a nickel
Even new wine served in old skins cheapens the taste
I shot the pilot
I'm begging you to fly this for me
I'm here for you to use
Broken and bruised
Do you understand?
It's only you beautiful
Or I don't want anyone
If I can choose, it's only you
But how could I miscalculate?
Perfect eyes will have perfect hate
If I could choose, it's only you
We're wrecking
And I'm dry like a drum with springs to find, I'll leave
We're spending
Take out time in trails, measured in miles
We'll slave for days and weeks
It's only you beautiful
Or I don't want anyone
If I can choose it's only you
But how could I miscalculate?
Perfect lies from a perfect aim
If I can choose it's only you