Mixtapes & Polaroids | Sam x Deena

1

Deena thinks everything is doomed.

Truthfully, nobody could really blame her. She doesn't even really remember a time when hope was an option, where she reveled in sunshine and flowers. That image just wasn't possible in Shadyside, capital of all things bleak and tragic. Like Deena's life, for example. She absolutely despises it, so she loses herself in music and band, because it was the only thing in the world that could make her tolerate being alive in that shit hole of a town.

Deena did have her friends too, whom she, despite the ugly roots of pessimism wrapped around her cold, black heart, loved very much. It was the little things that made things tolerable, like a good song on the bus ride to school or a hilarious joke from Simon, or watching Kate practically lose her head at rehearsals. Sometimes, if you catch her at a good time, she might even say that things weren't all bad.

Until of course she wakes up to her father slumped over the couch, empty beer cans peppered around the living room floor as she did her best to clear everything up before Josh wakes up. She would plaster on her perfected mask of nonchalance, reheat some frozen pizza and get her and her brother going through the day.

I mean, Josh had a world of his own but he knew. Sometimes he wanted to talk to Deena, when he'd catch her staring off into the distance looking the most miserable he had ever seen. When she thought nobody was watching, her mask slips off into a pool of heavy thoughts and disappointment, and Josh was around enough to see it. But he doesn't bring it up, because he didn't know what to say anyway.

So each of them just kind of sink into the deafening silence, floating through the days and hoping for even the smallest spark of difference to cut through the bleak repetition of their lives. Josh had his games and his online chat rooms, while Deena had her music and her friends and for a while, it was enough.

"I'm losing you." Kate points out, tossing a branch she had swept up off of the ground at a silent Deena. She jumps as it lands on her lap, snapping to Kate who was only looking at her expectantly.

"Sorry. What did you say?" Deena clears her throat, flicking the branch off of her as Simon hops back from the other side of the tracks.

The train never stops at Shadyside, which Deena found sickeningly funny. There was a station at Sunnyvale, but it only barrels through Shadyside like it was some sort of disease-ridden town nobody would even dream of leaving- or entering. But they found a spot by the tracks, a little far into the woods where it was silent enough to think, but close enough not to feel entirely lost. Not that Deena would mind, any place seems better than there anyway.

"I was asking if you're really quitting band this year." Kate reiterates as Simon plops back down onto his seat, which was really just a plastic chair they had dragged in from the back of a bar that found no use for them anymore.

"I don't know. Maybe? I'm not sure." Deena sighs, a tight-lipped smile on her lips as a breath falls from her mouth.

"I thought you like band?" Simon chimes in, legs outstretched as he tilts his head back, messy blonde curls hanging out as he watches Deena play with the loose threads of her jacket.

"I like music. Band is just... tolerable. It's the only extra-curricular that doesn't make me want to blow my brains out." Deena replies, giving the boy a knowing look as he chuckles lightly. Simon presses two fingers together, making a gun with his hand that he brings to his temple.

"Boom." He whispers, cocking his hand back to mimic a gunshot as he goes limp.

"You two are hopeless. It's not that bad." Kate scoffs, rolling her eyes as she sifts through the bag on her lap.