A/N: Look! I'm alive! If you follow me on tumblr, you might've read this already, but here is the long (long) awaited part two of the previous drabble (like i'm living underwater). chapter 7 of this fic, if you'd like to go read that first. It ended up a lot longer than I thought it would, and the piece (parts 1 and 2) are cohesively titled 'Adrenaline.' I hope you enjoy :)
...
They're settled on that tattered brown couch, the one weighed down with memories she can't be bothered to remember. It brings an ache deep into her chest, and she thinks she's experienced enough pain in the last few years so she simply lies there and breathes, watching some awful documentary about a washed-up celebrity and idly sipping tap water from a plastic cup. This hurts, hurts too much, but there's honestly nowhere she'd rather be than here: where the sun is too hot on her skin through the glass window and the clouds dip so low they're a haze. It's stunning, this, but it's also tired, dry, sluggish.
It feels like the older days, when things were simple and they sky was still a blinding bright blue. Of course, nothing is the same now, least of all her, but occasionally it's more convenient to live some truths and ignore others. This is one of those times. She'd talk, but there's a fragile tension now, thin as glass, that crept up when they weren't looking. Her words get lost in her throat.
…
She doesn't really say goodbye. The clock just ticks and ticks and ticks until she can't stand the time passing anymore, and she peeks at the door every so often. The glances get more and more frequent, and soon enough she's pretty much staring, eyes wide with longing and longing and guilt at the longing. He pretends not to notice.
They've always been good at this, this pretending. They know how to fight their instincts and minds and hearts. They've done it countless times before; why can't it work now?
She stays for dinner, then leaves, all the while wondering why today had to hurt so much.
…
They're too young for this.
It's one reason on a list of many, but it has to matter, right? She's been told her entire life that age matters, but the line between right and wrong has been blurring lately, so she tries to relax and think about it rationally. She fails. They're both still in high school, for crying out loud. It's their last year, it's easier, she's already been accepted into her top college. Why, then, are things suddenly so compliacted?
She already has a plan to get out of this place. Go to Georgetown. Dye her hair back the way it used to be, because while she likes the edge of the pink it won't fly in college. Meet a guy (a smart one, one that has 'made something of himself'), get married, have kids, get a nice house with a picket fence, and settle down.
It used to be the thing that drove her, that propelled her forward, but now she doesn't know. It doesn't seem so appealing now that she knows how to live. She loves the way her heart beats into her throat. She loves the way the night seemed to sparkle so long ago. She loves yelling and crying and fighting and kissing and the feeling of midnight and dreaming. She loves that there's more to life than offices and coffee and Suburbans with four-wheel drive.
She loves that her plan isn't the only option out there, but she hates that it feels like it is. She hates that she has to 'make something of herself.' She hates that people tell her it's not okay to want something a little sharper around the edges.
Later on, she'll be able to pinpoint this as the exact moment Mr. Made Something of Himself began to fade and Mr. Takes Her for Who She Is took his place and more.
…
They're in his car this time, because it's not as if she has her own anymore, not after the Disaster of Sophomore Year (and no, she's not going to talk about it). He's been giving her rides from school more and more frequently, and half the time they end up going nowhere at all, just reveling in the charged silence on some beaten path that stretches before them like a carpet. Maybe she was always meant to be here. Maybe not. But either way, she's not letting it go. Living like this hurts, but at least she feels, you know? She hates being numb, hates feeling like there's nothing left for her.
At least this way she can surprise herself every once in a while.
"You're still going to Georgetown?" he asks, the same way he always does.
She nods. There's no use in breaking from the script, now is there? She's going to Georgetown and that's final, because she's worked way too hard to get in to just throw it all away. She wants to Make Something of Herself.
"Ask me if I still want to go to Georgetown," she asks then, script thrown out the window in a sudden fit of spontaneity. She doesn't know what she's doing, but she knows it's right. She needs him to ask her, because she isn't quite sure anymore, and he's the only one who could change her mind. She thinks she might want him to change her mind.
"What?" His tone is light, but his brows are furrowed deeply as if he can't believe what she just said.
"Well, ask me," she pushes.
"Do you, then?"
Things slow down for a moment. The future, the past, the present. Right. Now. Everything could change right now. She could mess up her entire life. Or she could save it. Things slow down, then things speed up and she's saying no with a little laugh tacked onto the end of it and she feels like she can finally breathe. "No," she says again, "I don't. I don't."
His eyes are wide, but he's still looking straight ahead. If he turns to look at her, this becomes real. He becomes a reason, a part of her detirioration into something a little bit crazy.
Usually, she'd agree. She'd will him not to turn in her head and be relieved (if a little disappointed) when he didn't. Today, though, today is different. It's a day of firsts, of insanity, of turning her universe on its head. There's a chant going on in her mind now, and it goes something like this: look at me look at me look at me lookatmelookatmelooklooklook
He turns, their eyes connect a little too sharply, and something like optimism seeps into her veins.
Her mind is made, and the world spins madly on.
...
Review?