Mixtapes & Polaroids | Sam x Deena

53

Deena doesn't believe in New Year's Resolutions.

She doesn't necessarily hate it, she just thinks it's a wasted thought. Most people never really follow through, and more often than not it's just the same kind of bullshit everyone likes to make up to help themselves feel better about going into a new year exactly the same. Turning over a new leaf, opening a new chapter, all of that means less and less to Deena every year because every year she's proven that things don't actually get better.

The new chapter isn't sunnier, or kinder. The leaves are still dead and rotten, and they're still stuck. The clock will strike twelve and they'll still wake up in their small, shitty town with all the baggage they have in their hearts and Deena just doesn't have the strength to pretend like it was any different.

If anything, it was even worse. She looks around and she realizes everyone is a little more broken than they used to be, her best friends scrambling in the aftermath of heartache, her girlfriend sinking in the anxiety of her mistakes and all of her demons waiting for her in every corner and her father running around on an endless tirade of being a different person when really, he's a melting candle. Deena's just waiting for his light to go out, to wake up one day and see his things gone and some shitty note on the table asking her for forgiveness for the millionth time.

Half the time, she doesn't even feel real.

But Sam exists like a single boat fighting tooth and nail to keep its lights on in a stormy sea, that's where the other half comes in. Like slipping in and out of consciousness, when Deena feels like she's got her feet planted on earth there was Sam, always by her side with her soft smile and warm blue eyes. That's Deena's favorite part, the only part that matters, she thinks. When she doesn't feel like falling into a pitch black abyss is when Sam is around, because even in the madness Sam manages to give her enough to hold onto.

"You know I used to find this place creepy." Sam says, trailing closely behind Deena as she keeps her eyes glued on the ground she was desperately trying to navigate without eating a handful of dirt.

It was the day of New Year's eve, the last few days before school resumes and like a ticking bomb just waiting to go off, Deena is not at all prepared for the repercussions of seeing the halls she once roamed just weeks ago— but feeling like half of her is gone. Same walls, same faces, in the same old town but only this time it was not at all what it used to be. Just familiarity on a surface level but beneath all of that were scars too deep to ever fade away.

So of course Sam arranges something for them, the way she always does. The only time Deena ever gets out of the house is when Sam is dragging her somewhere— but Sam lets her pick the place. Deena leads them back to the woods, by the train tracks and Sam happily obliges without another question, though she knows it was the only place in town Deena wasn't getting stared at— or talked about. Turns out when someone causes a scene, spewing about how you're a disease, the entire town talks.

Figures.

"Really? Didn't seem like it when you were trying to spider monkey that tree over there." Deena smiles, she's learned after a few heavy days that if you force yourself to do something often enough it starts to feel real, though it never really is.

"One time. That was one time." Sam grumbles, both girls slowing to a stop when they reach the familiar chairs, just lightly covered by snow and fallen leaves. It was starting to snow less and less, that in only a few days they might be able to go outside without the risk of frostbite.

"It was good, though. It was a... good time." Deena sighs, her breath tracing the air as she dusts off debris from the scattered chairs by the rusted tracks. Sam helps her out, subtly eyeing Deena who was doing her very best not to bum out the possibility of a good day with all of her grief and sadness.