I do not own Calvin and Hobbes or Fight Club.

Author's notes can be foundin my profile (I refuse to play around with the link here, fuckin' formatting). Isincerely suggest you read these notes, especially if you haven't read 1984 or Slaughterhouse Five.

Wishes Don't Come True
Chapter Ten

Why did I cause so much pain?
Didn't I realize that each of us is a sacred, unique snowflake of special unique specialness?
Can't I see how we're all manifestations of love?

First I'm hot, and it's burning, but then it's cold, freezing like lying snow for hours. I can't feel my toes.

"Susie, Susie, are you awake?"

And then I am, and I sit up suddenly almost afraid of what's going on. "W-what?" I'm lost in transition and there's an apparition . . .

"Suzz, girl, it's just us." My eyes grow accustomed to the thin light spilling through small, high windows. I can vaguely make out an outline of Aria's big bob of hair, black curls mussed from sleep. There are Calvin's worried eyes, gazing at me steadily from my right side.

It all comes back, like a huge wave hitting me dead on from behind. We're not in fuckin' Kansas anymore, but there's no Toto in sight, and no fairy tale castle to flee to.

We left school, but it's a blur right now and I don't want to separate the darks from the lights so I just shove it all into the dark cavern which is my memory and I let it all blend together, white fading into red and green leaking into the blues.

Right now all that's important is the thin blanket we bought at a convenience store and the bundle of clothing we're using as pillows. And the warmth I felt just minutes ago when Calvin's arm had been wrapped warmly around my waist and Aria's legs had tangled with mine.

"Fuck. Sorry, I was . . . man, I'm hungry. What's for—" Aria cuts me off with a hand on my thigh, and I close my mouth with a snap. She is looking at Calvin, and I turn. He's going to say something, isn't he? Something important, another wave just heading towards us.

"I think we should go back."

It was freezing that first night. This was an empty house, and breaking into it wasn't as hard as one might have thought. We tried to avoid spending much of day there since noise would attract unwanted attention from the neighbors.

Aria had slunk off to get us a thing or two to eat, even though we'd taken care to eat and eat during dinner. It was Calvin and I, in the dark, unfamiliar house where every shadow could be a demon, or at least a police officer, unwanted but—

"Susie, you alright? You seem a little weird . . . D'ya wanna go back?" Calvin was being uncharacteristically caring, like he'd head back into that hellhole he absolutely abhorred just for me. I didn't believe him. I didn't want to believe him. If I did that would change how he thought of me, and how I knew he thought of me and . . .

"No," I hissed and turned away from him. I'm not good with change, and this was huge. Not just the relationship Calvin, Aria and I shared now, but the fact that I couldn't understand the rules anymore. I need rules, like Calvin needs chaos and Aria needs appreciation. Even as a Goth rebel, I had rules. Black, frown, rebel. There were lines you didn't cross and taboo.

Where's the rulebook now if I don't even know what I am anymore?

There was silence until Aria returned and Calvin and her filled up silence with mindless debate.

So it goes.

We forced ourselves to find things to do, places to hide out. We couldn't very well roam the streets without attracting unwanted attention. People would begin to wonder what three teenagers were doing out of school for days on end. That's how we found the bookshop, tucked into a neat little corner.

It was small and owned by man that reminded me creepily of how imagined the man who'd own the junkshop in 1984. A small old man, his hair graying even as his eyebrows remained black. His eyeglasses were smudged with ink and his voice was soft as he greeted us politely. "Are you here for something, or just looking around?"

I shivered. That was how the old man had greeted Winston. Was this prophetic? In the end, the proprietor had betrayed Winston, hadn't he? I told Calvin and Aria I didn't want to stay here anymore, but they both brushed me off. Their eyes and attention had been caught by different things and I no longer had any hold over them.

What else could I do but watch helplessly as we spent day after day in that store? I flipped through book and after book, realizing with a shock that I hadn't read a book in ages, not really read it. Soon I was flying through David Copperfield and Fight Club like there was no tomorrow and I finished Slaughterhouse Five and Suicide Casanova before the week was done.

The old man didn't seem to mind. That made it worse. Some days it took everything to not ask him if he had a room he'd let us rent. I'm afraid of what he might say. My imagination's never been one to compare with Calvin's but it doesn't take much creativity if your books are coming to life.

Then the sun would begin to set and we'd exit, occasionally with a farewell to the old man, usually without. We'd walk back to the house, taking different routes and sometimes even splitting up. We felt safer together, though, and there was nothing the three of us wanted more than safety.

During the night we'd talk and sleep. Sometimes just me and Aria, or Calvin and I, but usually all there of us. We'd talk as if we actually knew things, as if tsunamis and hurricanes and murderers were something we were familiar with. We debated the meaning of anarchy and freedom and truth, but no matter what came out of our mouths we always ended up under that green blanket, our toes clenched against the cold and our bodies pressed together, our minds on anything but dicks and tits.

And then we'd awaken and I'd happen all over again.

So it goes.

But no one's died.

I don't answer for a minute. The question of why finally slips through my lips, almost by accident.

Aria frowns and shoots Calvin a pointed glare. "I want to know the answer to that, too."

The worst thing is I already know. Change is to Calvin, as approval is to Aria, as rules are to Susie . . . There's a pattern now, with the bookshop and the old man that was too much like traitor and buying Chinese food at the store down the block. I'm not surprised that he's tired of it.

Me, on the other hand, I'm just getting my rulebook out. Calvin and I are polar opposites in this, and in so much else.

Aria just goes along with everything, like she always has. If both Calvin and I want to have some Italian food, she'll wholly agree with us, without quite knowing why. That's just her way. She's the ideal consumer. We need her as much as the economy does, though. We need her bitchiness and her aggravation and her surprising chariness. We need those rare smiles and . . .

Calvin sighed, and raked his finger through that blond hair that hadn't been brushed in forever, but he liked it like that. "I dunno, why, but . . . man, I feel like shit now. Like I've let myself down. What the fuck are we gonna do livin' in some abandoned house 'til the ends of forever? Che, I know this isn't what I want outta my life."

There was silence, and Aria and I didn't know how to answer. I'm so smart, but I don't know what I'm doing ever. Sometimes I'll go to sleep and wish I'll wake up someone else, like during bed I got on an airplane and now I'm flying away from myself.

Sometimes I wish I could forget everything I know and just . . .

Just feel. Just let someone touch me and give in to that feeling, the sensation of skin on skin and . . .

Not sex. Sex is sex, in and out, well-placed moans and passion, and it goes out of control until it ends and then you're left there riding out the waves with a surfboard you don't like.

So I reach over and pull Aria in my arms. I don't kiss her, because that's not what I need.

I want . . . I don't know what I want. Aria's arms around my waist, and I close my eyes, the aroma of dirt and paper in my nostrils, but I don't smell any better. "I don't know anything anymore."

And Calvin doesn't touch us, but his presence couldn't be closer. "I don't think any of us do. That's the problem."

There's sleep, eventually, but for the most part Aria just holds me, so unlike her. She's letting me in, letting me come closer than anyone but Mim had dared approach. Calvin throws the blanket over himself and pretends to sleep.

I'm wrong. I do know two things:

Calvin. Aria.