Tomorrow Won't Save Us
AN: Just something. Nothing overly special. One-shot in Paige's point of view. Reviews are very very welcome.
The discordant laughs of those around me should be enough to give me a throbbing headache, but instead I focus intently on the window and imagine the sounds of the rain as each drop smacks against the cement. The sky is grey and somehow I think I'm the only one affected by it. Even Ellie's laughing today.
Everyone's laughing today. Whether it's the casual laugh, the joyous laugh, or the all-too-familiar nervous laugh, everyone seems to be carrying a grin a mile wide for the world to see.
Because everything is okay. And everything that's not okay, will be. That's just how it is, how it's always been. End of story. Life has had us hanging on the edge of our seats but we're slowly put back into place, and it's over.
Because Jimmy's back and Spinner's gone and the Gonorrhea outbreak caused such drama, but it all died down. It all just seems to die. And everything goes back into another routine, and everything is fine.
I can't stop staring out the window. It's become too entrancing; the downpour of the rain and the darkness that awaits us once we step outside.
Today I just don't feel like laughing.
I think then about what Marco said to me the night before during one of our two hour-long phone conversations.
"Can you believe how much things have changed?"
At first this seemed like quite the unintelligent thing to comment on, and my response – "Hon, life is all about change. It happens," wasn't too encouraging, but as I sit here in class, I start to believe how right he was.
I can glance over to Craig and see him type romantic, lovey-dovey IMs to Ashley, and I can see Ashley with her short brown hair and black band shirt, smiling and mouthing I love yous to him, instead of a darker haired Ashley in preppy clothing, casting glances at Jimmy Brooks when she thought no one was looking.
I can think of Manny Santos being the girl who came between Ashley and Craig, causing a school wide scandal, then getting pregnant and ending that with an abortion, instead of Manny Santos the sidekick of little Emma Nelson, the grade seven nobody who tried out for Spirit Squad and falling under the wrath of the most popular girls in school.
Mostly, though, I think of Spinner. I think of how he viciously tore apart everything in his life. After getting involved with Jay and Alex and the rest if their go-nowhere posse, he lost it. Turning himself in for making Jimmy look like the bad guy when Rick was still alive and unleashing such angst and hate that I never knew anyone, including myself, could have. I hear what everyone's said; that he might as well have pulled the trigger. That he might as well have just shot Jimmy dead.
It makes me wonder if I could have changed it. If I had hung onto him for just a little while longer, would he have done it? Would have accused Jimmy of betraying Rick? Would Rick have even brought that gun to school? If I had just played the Honeybee game a little while longer, would it have paid off? Would I have to come to school everyday and look at Jimmy stuck to a wheelchair for the rest of his life, seeing him struggle and carry such a burden?
And it just makes me wonder how warped and twisted we've all become. Jimmy and Spinner were friends. This was never supposed to happen.
I can't even remember what I liked about him anyway. I just remember him being so mysterious. And so unattainable. And I want to cling to those feelings, but inside I just feel hollow. Spinner's been replaced by Matt, my new student teacher boyfriend. He's the next step up from Spinner. There's passion and romance and fireworks. With Spinner I was his Honeybee and we held hands and pecked each other on the lips before class, and made dates for Friday nights.
I try to figure out exactly when our spark died but I can't even come relatively close to pinpointing it. He was my constant, and once he started to slip away, that was the end for me.
And this is what had happened.
I wonder sometimes if I come up in conversations. If people look at me and just feel pity. Or if they shake their heads in disbelief. Or if they blame me.
I wouldn't blame them if they blamed me.
I blame myself, sometimes, too.
I try one last time to search within myself to find just a hint of what used to be. A spark, a light, something.
I concentrate intensely on the rain as it falls faster and wilder, and I attempt to find something that will give me a hint of the past.
I sigh in aggravation, and wonder when I had begun to feel so sucky and if other people had the tendency to over think like I did.
I kept trying, though, to get some feeling back. I can't find anything and I really just feel like crying. I ask Mr. Simpson if I can go to the washroom, and as I head out the door, I look back at the class and see Hazel and Jimmy flirting, Ashley and Craig laughing and Marco and Ellie smiling, and I ask myself if this is how it's going to be from now on. If every day is just going to be one more day towards forgetting everything.
