𝐈 𝐰𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐰𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐥𝐝 𝐛𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐬

𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐬𝐢𝐱

Once I took your medication
to know what it's like,
now I have to act
like I can't read your mind
-boygenius

⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙

I lean into Frankie. She pulls the blankets over my stupid, ruffled dress. The curls have fallen from my hair; they're matted to the side of my cheek, which is sticky from tears and hairspray. Her phone rings.

We both sit up. I watch Khalil's name light up across the screen.

"I'll be right back, okay?" she tells me, and she heads into the hall. I can her, voice muffled. They haven't found him. She's asking him what she should say to me.

I close my eyes; I see you, Tenny.

The sun on your skin and wind in your hair, and you're smiling.

I think I know where you'll be.

There's no one who can stop me, from finding you. I throw the blankets off from me, and my feet hit the floor. I break into the hall, and I hear Frankie shouting at me. She's chasing after me, but the night air hits my face. I'm running, down the paved pathways in my bare-feet and eighties prom dress.

And I'm running to you.

⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙

April 2016,

I couldn't stop thinking about Tenny.

His shoes sticking out from under that stall door. Him, on his back. His mouth parted.

I crawled into my little twin bed, but he wasn't there to hold me. I closed my eyes and I heard his heartbeat. I could feel his hands in my hair. I could smell the whiskey on his breath, the cigarette smoke in his hair. But when I opened them, I was the only one there.

I called. I called the hospital a thousand times.

They told me Tenny didn't want to speak with me. And that crushed me. I couldn't do anything but to cry out to the universe, beg some sort of God for another chance. To make things right. Because if I could just do it all again, I would make everything right.

But I guess that wasn't meant to be either.

⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙⁺˚*•̩̩͙✩•̩̩͙*˚⁺‧͙

Tenny isn't where I thought he'd be.

I stand at the edge of the dock, looking out at moonlight flitting over dark, murky water. I smell algae and rainwater. I hear croaking frogs and cicadas. There are lily pads, willow trees, and green grass. But Tenny isn't anywhere in sight.

I sit on the dock. My bare feet dance over the edge. I look up at an angry sky.

It's springtime, and there are rainclouds, but there is no Tenny.

I cry, even though there aren't any tears left. I ball up my fists, and I scream into the water. I call out to the universe and some sort of God, and this time, I only ask for Tenny to be okay. Even if I am not.

I pull my legs to my chest. The ruffles of my dress gather around my cheeks. I bury my face into them, and I cry. Something sharp scratches my chin, and I reach for it: a plastic bag with a dozen white pills. I stare at it.

Moonlight reflects of the flimsy plastic. The white pills appear to glow. I want to toss them into the water, watch them dissolve and let the evidence sink to the lake bottom. But I don't. I hold them, like they're the last thing I have left of Tenny. And I wonder what made him love them so much that he would've ruined everything just to have them.

I open the seal. I think of my mother.

I drop three, into the palm of my hand. I think of Emily.

I place three onto my tongue. And I think of nothing.

✩ ✩ ✩

I'm sinking.

My body is warm, and my hair is wet. I'm running—no, I'm flying. There's rain, falling on my face, on my dress, on the grass. It's slippery, and I'm wet. The frogs are still croaking, and now I hum with them. We carry a tune.

Thunder crackles.

I smile. Then, I laugh. I throw my hands up to the sky, an angry sky that screams back at me. And then I'm running again. Through the grass, where I slip and fall. Along the sidewalk, where my bare feet splat across mud puddles. Into the street, where headlights blind my vision.

My throat is burning. I'm at a bus stop. I sit on a bench. It's cold and it's wet, but it's no longer raining. There's a bottle in my hand, I'm not sure where I got it. But it's whiskey, and it smells like you.

I feel warm. I feel small. I feel nothing, at all.

✩ ✩ ✩

I wake to a kink in my neck and a splitting pain between my ears.

There's a loud ringing, I think it's coming from my head. The sun is bright, I struggle to open my eyes. I struggle to make sense of where I am. Cramped space. Vinyl seats. I see a center console, a rearview mirror.

I'm in my backseat, in the parking lot on campus. There's an empty bottle of whiskey in the floorboard, a pile of ruffles on my sleeves, and a phone buzzing at my side. I groan, and check my phone: seventeen missed calls and a dozen unread messages.

Most are from Frankie, but I check the recent text. From Dalton: Where are you? Are you with him? I throw the phone to the front seat, lean my head against the window. Because I know what that means; they still haven't found him.

I take the long way back to Pittman. It's a sleepy Saturday morning, most of campus still recovering from the night before or, like me, making the long walk of shame back home. I receive a few strange looks, from the early risers on their morning jogs, and I understand. I must look like a disaster: eighties prom dress, running mascara, bloodshot eyes, and matted hair. But there's not much I can do about that, now.

I cut through the Union, walk down the corridor past student services. It's an opportunity to get out of the sun; I think it helps my head stop ringing. I spot a drinking fountain, and my mouth is so dry that I decide to stop.

When I look back up, I almost laugh. Across the hall, there's sign posted on the door: Collegiate Recovery Center. Their monthly meeting is now in session. The universe has a cruel sense of humor.

And then the door swings open. A head pops out, glances down the hall as if their looking for someone. And I know that head, it's a bad-dye job and there are metal rods sticking out from their ears. It's Ash.

They spot me, and they frown. "Violet?" Ash asks. "Are you alright?"

I shrug. "I've been better."

"Are you here for the meeting?" Ash squints their eyes, takes in my appearance: bare feet and pale blue dress, stained from mud puddles. "We were just about to start."

I shake my head. "No, no—I was just passing though," I say, but then frown. "You go to those meetings?" I'd never seen Ash at a party. I tried to invite her to my birthday, but she said she wouldn't fit in. I believed her, when she said it wasn't her scene. But now I see the truth: she was like me.

"Yeah," Ash says. "And there are a lot of other students who come, too—and we're welcoming to new additions, always." She reaches out a hand to me. "Come on in, Violet. There isn't any judgement, here."

And because I have nowhere else to be, I follow her inside.

...

Author's Note:

Are we disappointed in Vio?

I tried to make her a
realistic representation,
so I hope it makes sense
for her journey.

Thanks again.
Xx