Better Hallway Vision
by: Unicorn Pammy
A/N: Well, I must first apologize for taking SO goddamn long to post these last two chapters. It took me like half an hour to edit them to my satisfaction. I really have no excuse, except that work is hellatious these days. It completely saps my energy for doing things I enjoy MUCH more. I guess I should also mention that my relationship isn't going so hot these days. It actually ended for about a day, but then we decided we'd be apart for a while, just to get out of each others' faces and breathe for a while. I had moved out and lived with my grandma for a while, and now I'm living at my apartment and at my granny's about half and half. I have no clue if we're going to get back together, and I don't even know at this point if it's what I really want. But, I'm trying to be optimistic. I think I'll cheer myself up by torturing innocent John Hughes characters. Wheee!
I really like this chapter because it introduces another one of my original characters, someone who is going to change Brian's life. I based her a little bit on me, but mostly she sprang forth from my imagination like Athena from Zeus's head, fully formed and with a life of her own. I love those kinds of characters. Her development within the story will probably be kind of slow, so please bear with me.
As far as Mary Sue's go, I don't really know what one is. It sounds like a derogatory term, so I hope my character is not one of them. I just want more people in my story besides those who were in the movie. Shoot me. Read! Now!
Disclaimer: Not mine, no money, no legal action. Pwease?
Chapter 7: There's Nothing Wrong With Me
All Brian could think about as he lay in bed finishing the last chapter of Psion was his mother, crying. He could barely concentrate on the book. He had let his mother down. He could see it in his dad's eyes, before the guy had even known what was going on. His sad, tired father had turned sad, tired eyes on him, and those eyes had told him all he needed to know. You've let your mother down, son.
He closed the book, but he couldn't remember the last page at all. He could remember his sister, though, crouched on the bottom step, invisible to their parents, whose backs were to her. She looked frightened, pale, confused. The way she'd clutched at the railings holding up the bannister reminded Brian of a prisoner in a cell. It made him think of all the times he'd compared living in this house and in this family to being in prison. He felt so trapped, so confined. The pressure his mother had him under felt like wearing a heavy, wet blanket on a hot, humid day in the middle of summer. Suffocating him. He could never breathe. He could never unshoulder his responsibilites for even one Saturday.
He glanced over at his desk. His pile of neatly labeled notebooks was shorter by one. His mother felt some strange need to keep the one he'd labeled Triganalysis, but had really been his journal. He should have known that a notebook for a course he'd finished the year before would be kind of suspicious in a stack of current ones.
What made her decide to go through his stuff, anyway? Sudden anger flared up inside him. Wasn't it enough that he got perfect grades (most of the time), was near the top of his class, and never got into trouble (well, except for the flare gun)? Wasn't it enough that he studied EVERY GODDAMN DAY, and never complained about it, and never talked back (ok, so he corrected her grammar sometimes)? Did every single piece of his life have to belong to her? Even his thoughts?
Brian thought about Lisa again. Even though she was a pain in the neck, he wished he could get her out of here before she became their mother's next project. He wondered what plans his mom had in store for her. Princeton? Yale?
She wanted him to be a doctor. Rolling over onto his back, he stacked his hands behind his head. Dr. Brian Ralph Johnson. He let out a humorless laugh. Yeah, that had a nice ring to it. Even his future belonged to her, it seemed.
He wished he could get angry at her. At her. In front of her. That pressure was building in his chest again, just from thinking about it. So he tried to think about something else; but all he could see was her face, wet with tears. She'd held up his Trig notebook after he'd taken a seat on the couch yesterday, shaking it at him. "What is this!" she'd shrieked. "What is this, Brian?"
"It's my-" he began softly.
"What?" she snapped.
"It's my journal," he said, louder.
She opened it to a page she'd apparently marked, and began reading.
"'Monday, March 19, 1984.
I found a gun. It's not quite what I had in mind-'" here, Brian remembered them all laughing at him because he'd intended to kill himself with a flare gun, "-but I guess it'll have to do. I'm going to put it in my locker, and wait until Friday's pep rally. Maybe I'll go back into the woods behind the school.
Only a complete dork would want to do it at school. I guess that's what I am. Of course, only a complete idiot gets an F in shop class. I guess I'm one of those, too."
She closed the book.
"Oh, my God," his father whispered, lowering his head into one of his hands.
Her eyes filled with tears, spilling over onto her cheeks every time she blinked. She didn't seem to notice. "When have we ever taught you that taking the easy way out is the right thing to do?"
"Never."
"What?"
Louder. "Never."
"Then why, why did you think you had to kill yourself over an F?"
Lisa gasped behind them. Without even turning around, Diane yelled, "Lisa, go to your room!" The little girl ran upstairs, and they heard her bedroom door slam behind her.
"Why, Brian?"
The pain in his chest had started, that stabbing pressure behind his sternum.
"Because-"
"What?"
"Because I'm tired."
"Of what?"
"Of-"
"Of what, Brian? Speak up!"
"I'm tired of-"
"Of what!"
You! he'd thought. I'm tired of you!
"Studying. I've been studying so much. And I tried so hard on that stupid elephant, and the light still wouldn't... I got so tired, I just...I just wanted to sleep."
She stared at him for a few moments, her expression fierce. Fiercely what, he couldn't tell. Angry? Sad? Guilty? No, guilt was a lot to ask of his mother.
His dad hadn't moved, still covering his bowed face with one hand. Brian thought he saw a bit of wetness on his dad's cheeks.
Then his mother sighed. And as she breathed out, she seemed to deflate. "Go," she said quietly. "Go to your room. Your father and I need to discuss this."
Without a word, Brian stood up and walked slowly past her toward the stairs.
"Brian..."
He'd stopped. Turned around. And suddenly his mother was hugging him, hard. He realized for the first time that he was taller than she was. Funny; in his mind, she was a giant.
She pulled away, holding him at arm's length. "I love you. You're my only son."
He opened his mouth to say something, but for the first time, his brain wasn't spilling over with words. His thoughts were silent. There wasn't anything to say. He just nodded and kissed her on the cheek. Then he went upstairs.
When he had his hand on the doorknob, he heard Lisa's door opening. He turned, and she had her head poking out of the door.
"You wouldn't really do that," she whispered. "You wouldn't really kill yourself, would you?"
Brian shook his head no.
"Good," she said. After a moment, she asked, "Can I borrow Narnia again?"
Brian smiled slowly, sadly, then nodded. "Sure." She smiled back at him, then darted across the hall, into his room, and came back out again with the precious boxed set under her arm. She disappeared into her room, closing the door behind her.
Brian had then gone into his room, and shut the door. He let his backpack fall off his shoulder, grabbing the strap at the last second so it didn't just crash to the floor, and left it beside his desk. Without even taking off his jacket, he flopped face first onto the bed, feeling so guilty, he almost wished he had killed himself. He fell asleep in that position, and didn't wake up until the following morning.
Where he was now, lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. At least he'd taken the time to remove and hang up his jacket.
God, he thought, placing one arm over his eyes. What do I do now? After detention, he had been fully prepared to tell them about the F. But he had never intended to tell them about wanting to kill himself. That was something he didn't think they needed to ever know. But since his mother had gone snooping in his room, that decision was taken away from him, and all he could do was deal with the aftermath. Step one: find a better hiding place for his next journal. Step two: get a new journal.
But how would he deal with his parents? He didn't go downstairs for breakfast. Now it was past lunch time, and he was getting pretty hungry. He looked out the window; dark clouds had replaced the bright sunshine of the morning, and rain was threatening. Somehow, that seemed all too appropriate.
An idea struck him. He sat up, his heart pounding as he considered what he was about to do. He started moving. Over to the door to grab his jacket, then back over to the window, unlocking it and lifting it, then pushing his desk away from the window a bit so he could climb out. Sticking his head out, he looked down. The height was a bit more than he'd expected. He knew that if he went out feet first and dangled from the bottom of the window, he had a good chance of not breaking one of his legs. Brian glanced back at his bedroom door. Was getting away from his mom for one day worth risking a broken leg?
He landed hard in the perfectly trimmed grass outside. His only thought as he got painfully to his feet was that one day of hanging around John Bender was one day too many, if the next day he was sneaking out. Something he had never done by the way.
But he just couldn't face his parents right now.
After getting a hot dog at a nearby convenience store, Brian had started walking without any destination in mind. That turned out to be a bad idea, because now he didn't know where he was. He'd taken so many random turns, that he couldn't remember how to get back to somewhere familiar. And on top of that, it was now raining. Not hard, but steady.
Somehow, he felt very liberated.
The houses had slowly gotten bigger and bigger the farther he'd walked, and now they were huge. He was definitely in the wrong place. But he wondered if maybe he was anywhere near where Claire lived. Maybe if he could find her, she could drop him off somewhere close to home. Of course, he had no clue what her house looked like.
Brian made another random turn. The houses down this street seemed smaller than the ones on the street before. As he kept going, the houses got smaller and smaller, until they looked like normal houses. Like Brian's house. He felt a bit more comfortable walking down this street, but he still didn't know where he was.
He heard footsteps behind him. As they got closer, he heard laboring breaths. It sounded like someone was running away from something. Running as if their life depended on it.
In Shermer? Brian thought. Nothing's that exciting--or cliched--in Shermer.
Brian moved off the pavement so the runner could go on past him without having to change course. Mom's going to kill me if she comes upstairs and I'm not--
Something heavy plowed into him from behind, and suddenly the ground was rushing up toward him. He landed hard on his hands and knees, thankful that he'd moved off the road and into the grass. There was a thud and a pain-filled grunt as someone landed on the ground to his right.
"Are you okay?" he asked, looking over. A girl lay there, a familiar girl, one from his school. She was panting hard, her eyes were shut, and tears were streaming down her face. It looked like she had landed on her side, and had rolled onto her back. Her arms were bent so that her hands were up by her head. She didn't seem to have heard him. He quickly glanced down her body, checking for wounds or blood. She looked okay. Why was she crying?
Maybe it's just the rain.
"Are you all right?" he tried again. Eyes the color of the dark, angry sky snapped open and met his, and all the anguish in the world poured out of them.
"Yeah," she said, her voice hoarse and trembly. Brian watched her try to smile, but it was fake, and made her look even sadder.
"Let me help you up," he said, standing and brushing himself off before offering her his hand. She accepted, getting slowly to her feet. Her long brown hair hung in a messy pony tail, and the right shoulder of her Last Unicorn t-shirt was ripped where she'd fallen on it.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to run into you. I just wasn't looking, I guess." With her palm, she wiped some of the moisture off her face, leaving a light streak of red on her cheek. "I hope you're not hurt."
Brian looked down at the knees of his jeans. They were a bit muddy and grass-stained, but otherwise intact. His palms were stinging, and the right one was a little bloody. Must have scraped it when he fell. "I'm fine," he said, which wasn't really a lie. A little blood wouldn't kill him. "But I think I got some...I mean, I think there might be some blood on your hand, or something. And some of it got on your face."
She looked down at her palm, and more tears filled her eyes. She wiped them away with the back of her hand. The gesture was an angry one, as if she were mad at herself. Or at someone else, for making her cry. He wished he could make it stop. He hated seeing anyone cry.
"Um, are you okay? I mean, did something happen? To make you cry, I mean?"
She shook her head, sniffling. Then she lifted her chin, and fixed her gaze at some point over his shoulder. "I'm fine." Her voice was a bit stronger, and her features, before so sad and hurt, now hardened into a mask of...nothing. She looked as if she felt nothing. "Sorry I ran into you." Then she turned and trotted off, resuming her run as if nothing had happened.
But something had happened. Brian didn't know what it was, but it made his heart race as he watched her run off. Her form was graceful, in control. Her ponytail swung with her stride. Soon she was turning a corner, and out of sight. But he could still see her eyes, dark gray like a thundercloud, pouring tears like rain. He wondered what it was that had made her cry, and wished that he could make it all right. The pain in her eyes, though, had run deep, making him think that it wasn't something simple, like a fight with her mom. Maybe the end of a relationship?
A little demon in his head wished that was what it was. And he could swoop in and pick up the pieces.
What am I thinking? I don't even know her name. I've seen her like, ten times since the beginning of the school year.
Brian wondered briefly if maybe Claire knew her. He instantly decided no. He didn't think she was the type of person Claire would hang out with. She acted like a loner; she was certainly adept at closing off her emotions when she wanted to. And her clothing wasn't fussy at all. Just a t-shirt, and school-issue gym shorts. Her shoes looked old and well-used. She hadn't had any make-up on. And to tell the truth, she had looked awful, and she'd seemed unselfconscious about that.
So...maybe Alison knew who she was, simply because she seemed to know everything about everyone. All she did was snoop and eavesdrop.
"Brian!"
He jumped, then spun in the direction of the familiar voice. His dad was in the red station wagon, looking harried and angry and worried. His brief bit of freedom was over. He glanced back to where he'd last seen the girl. She was gone, and he almost wondered if she'd even existed. "Brian!" He tore his gaze away from the turn in the road where she'd disappeared and got into the car. His dad turned the wagon around, and headed back the way he'd come, not saying a word to Brian. He was thankful, because his thoughts were full of her.
When they got back to the house, his mom was waiting in the living room. She looked like she was about to have a coronary. "Where were you! Why did you sneak out!"
"I just needed to take a walk."
"Well, you could have let us know! I was about to call the police. Brian, what's happening to you? First wanting to... And then running away!"
"I was going to come back, mom. I was just walking."
"I'm going to nail your window shut! The first thing I thought when I saw it open was that...-" she couldn't finish. She burst into tears. Brian's dad went to her and put an arm around her. Brian started for the stairs, wanting nothing more than to be alone now.
"Wait, son," he heard his dad say. Brian stopped, and turned. His dad gestured at the couch. "Come over here for a second."
He did, sitting on the couch again, getting a horrible feeling of deja vu. Not really noticing that he was getting the couch wet. Mr. Johnson helped his wife to sit down, then looked at Brian with a mixture of sadness and determination. "Son, we decided that we want you to...see someone."
Brian's brow furrowed, the horrible feeling growing stronger. The pain started in his chest. "See who?"
His mom wiped her eyes, calming down a little. "A psychiatrist."
"A what? Why? I don't need a psychiatrist!"
"We just want-" his dad began.
"I'm fine, okay? I don't need to see anyone. I'm not going to kill myself. Okay? I'm not...there's nothing wrong with me!" He found himself standing, panting as if he'd just run a six-minute mile. He didn't remember getting up.
His parents looked at him like he had an alien standing over his shoulder. They'd never seen him like this before, angry and defiant. He took the opportunity of their shocked silence to escape to his room. He slammed the door, took off his jacket and threw it down. The pressure that had been building in his chest for the past couple of days was released suddenly as he vented his anger. He knocked the cup of pens off his desk, scattered the stack of notebooks to the floor. Spotting the Harvard pennant, he ripped it off the wall and dumped it in the wastebasket next to his desk. He knocked his books off the bookcases, whole shelves at a time.
There was a knock at his door. "Brian?" It was Lisa's voice. His adrenaline-fueled anger ebbed, and he stood in the middle of his room, panting, pens and notebooks, novels and jacket at his feet. Had he done this? Shock held him in place for several heartbeats. In a daze, he walked over to the door. Instead of opening it, though, he thumbed the lock and sat down with his back to it. Drawing his knees up to his chest, he wrapped his arms around them and let his head fall forward.
There is nothing wrong with me.
There is nothing wrong with me.