youngblood | a.i.

seventeen || anastasia hemmings is perfect

Monday, September 28th- 7:26 a.m.

"Annie, let's go!"

I groaned as the voice filled my pounding head, reaching up to cover my ears to stop it. "Uh, no you don't," Luke said as he pulled my hands off my ears. "Get up. We've got school."

"I'm not going," I mumbled back, rolling farther away from him. I pulled my bedsheets up over my head, trying to block out all the noise he was creating. "I'm hungover."

"I know, and I warned you about it last night," Luke said as he rounded the bed to the side I had rolled to. He grabbed the sheets, pulling them off my head. I let out an angered noise, covering my eyes as the light blinded me. "You're going to school, Annie. Get up."

"I'm not going," I told him again, rolling back so my face was buried in my pillow.

"If you miss school, you can't go to practice today. If you're not at practice, Coach will bench you for the first game," Luke explained, trying to convince me to come.

"Well, they didn't want me on the team in the first place. I'm sure they'll all be thrilled to hear," I mumbled into the pillow, holding my eyes shut as I tried to go back to sleep.

"I know why you're doing this, Annie," Luke finally said from the end of the bed.

"Hmm," I hummed in agreeance. "Then scurry along and keep knowing."

"You can't avoid him forever," Luke sighed, looking at me as I lay face down, refusing to move.

"Yeah but I can sure as hell try," I whispered back. I sat up a bit, pulling my head off the pillow to turn around and look at Luke. "Look, I'll go tomorrow- school, the game, everything. I'm just not doing it today."

Luke stood silently for a moment, hoping I would break first, but I refused to give in. "Fine," he finally said, throwing his hands up in defeat. "I'll tell mom you have a headache." I hummed a thank you to him, listening as he headed for the door. "But I'm not answering any of his questions about you. You're gonna have to talk to him yourself."

I hummed again, starting to fall back asleep. I didn't even comprehend his whole sentence, rather I just continued to fall back into my unconscious state. "You're gonna be the death of me, Anastasia Hemmings," he mumbled from the doorway.

I listened as the latch locked behind him, insinuating he was gone. I took a deep breath as I rolled back into a comfortable position, ready to sleep off my hangover.

"Don't worry," I mumbled to myself, knowing he couldn't hear me anyway. "She was the death of me too."

× × ×

I finally woke up around three o'clock, and I regretted ever getting out of bed. I swear, the longer I was awake and sober, the more regrets sunk in. I'm still yet to figure out what happened, and I honestly don't think I'm going to find out any time soon. I can barely look at myself in the eyes, how am I supposed to look into his?

After an hour of overthinking in my bed, I finally went downstairs and rummaged through the cabinets. With mom at work and Luke at school, I finally had a few moments alone. But then again, I hated being alone cause when you're completely alone, it's just you and your thoughts- trapped.

I distracted myself as much as I could. I listened to music. I danced. I did every post-hangover thing you do when your head finally stops feeling like it's going to explode.

But I had resorted to painting my nails when I finally heard Luke's car pull up and the front door open. The three white and two black fingers on one hand and three black and two white on the other complimented each other well, but mainly gave me something else to pick at rather than my cuticles.

I heard the bathroom door shut and looked over at the clock. Geez, almost seven o'clock. Coach went hard on them today. At least I picked a good day to skip. As the water turned on down the hallway and the sun reached its usual calling point in the sky, I turned up my music. I opened my window, adding another night to my streak of watching the sunset. This time I carried out a can of Dr. Pepper instead of a bottle of tequila.

I picked my same familiar spot, noticing how the sun was still higher than usual in the sky. It was fine though, I didn't have anywhere to be but here. I listened as my music played out the window, serenading my unstable mindset on top of this roof in the center of a town I wished I could escape.

I'd lived in this same town, this same house, surrounded by these same people my whole life. I'd lived the same routine with no sense of adventure since I was born, well, up until last summer.

When I turned to alcohol as a coping mechanism, I quickly found the adventure I had been craving my whole life in it too. As much as I hated to admit it, alcohol was truly the only constant in my life anymore. That burn I learned to crave was the only thing I could trust— the only thing I knew wouldn't leave or hurt me like everyone else had. But then again it always still did hurt me, I just continued to run back to it.

Yeah, it caused more pain than it helped, but in those moments with it pumping through my veins, I couldn't feel that pain anymore. And those were the moments I lived for. It blocked out memories I didn't want without me having to try, and it gave me an escape from the pain, even just for one night. As much as I hated the monster it had created in the past three months, at least it kept me alive.

I brought the can of soda to my mouth, mentally pretending it sent that same burn down my throat. Maybe that way my mind would trick my body into not feeling, even just for a second. That was all I needed, for it all to stop for a second.

Anyone I had ever opened up to told me how a girl like me shouldn't be sad. How a girl living in a house like mine, with a body like mine, and a smile like mine couldn't be sad. But the happiest ones are always the ones hiding the most.

I looked perfect to everyone around me, like everything I'd ever needed was spoon-fed to me, but that was simply the persona I had created for them to perceive. The whole school caught wind of the 'whore who joined the soccer team because she wanted to sleep with them', but no one knew that I only did it for a scholarship for the college I have to pay my way through.

The problem with this town isn't the people or the parties, it's the mindset we're trapped into. You're not allowed to have to work for something-- you're supposed to be spoonfed by mommy and daddy-- so the idea of me joining the soccer team to sleep with them would go over better for me than the school finding out I wasn't born into a cookie-cutter life.

I wasn't born into a picture-perfect family– I have trauma from my childhood and it transcribes into my daily decisions now; my dad left when I was a kid, and now we don't dare mention his name; my mom works ungodly long hours to keep up our family's reputation among the town. We're not perfect. I'm sure as hell not perfect, but that's not allowed. So I just learned how to hide the nightmare I was living behind a pair of lively blue iris', a fake smile, and a bottle of clear alcohol.

I craved that clear liquid for the few select moments when I didn't have to be perfect anymore, cause my mind couldn't remember my own name. I craved that clear liquid for the moments all my emotions turned off, the moments where I couldn't feel a thing. I craved that clear liquid for the few select moments that I wasn't me anymore. 

But no one else was allowed to know that. Because Anastasia Hemmings was perfect.