On The Bright Side

Chapter Six- The World Is Ugly

//these are the eyes and the lies of the taken; these are their hearts but their hearts don't beat like ours//

At least I have my coffee all to myself, I think. Dominique has taken to sitting pointedly across the room from me in every class we have together and pretending not to acknowledge my existence. Just seven more months of this. Seven more months, and high school can fade like cheap hair dye, and Beck can take up residence in my house and my life. It's strange, but her moving in with me doesn't feel real. Maybe because I don't even have my own place yet, maybe because she's never been close to me in person, maybe because life beyond high school seems like it shouldn't be so imminent- regardless, I don't feel ready.

But it scares me sometimes. Her dad could down a bottle of bourbon any one of these nights and do something to take her out of my life forever, which... I don't even want to think about that. She's the only thing that keeps me holding on when the darkness gets big. And it gets big a lot. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be so sad all the time- I mean, I've never been diagnosed with anything clinical, and the cuts on my wrists never feel justified. Even if they do make me feel better. But they shouldn't, right? I don't have problems like Beck does.

She's told me stories about the things he's done to her and her mom- sparing the gruesome details, obviously, but ranting about how he gets this empty rage in his eyes and how she's gotten scarily good at lying through her teeth when someone asks how she got so bruised and battered. How her mom stands there and takes it. How he tries to apologize and promises halfheartedly that it won't happen again. How sometimes he's unnervingly nice, buying extravagant presents out of nowhere in some sort of twisted attempt to make amends and justify himself. How she wishes that she could be there with me to get away from him.

I wish it, too.

It hurts me to think of Beck's pale skin smattered in cuts and bruises because of him.

Out of nowhere I can sense eyes on me. I look up, and it's Dominique, with a new cluster of bitchy followers that look so similar I swear they could be interchangeable with each other. She and them aren't gonna even talk to each other after we graduate, I guarantee it, but for now they all seem inseparable. How the fuck did that happen over the course of three days?

They're staring at me. So I stare back. Why not? Fight fire with fire, I guess, and it's not like I really care what they think of me.

Except I do, sort of. I don't know. Dominique was company, at least, and you can't hang out with someone for three years and not feel some kind of gaping emptiness when they leave. Everything's been feeling emptier.

I level my gaze at them and take a slow sip from my coffee. One of them- Maddy, I think; I honestly can't remember their names- says something out of the corner of her mouth to Dominique, who laughs.

I just flip her off. What else can I do?

I'm drifting, and the water level's rising with choppy waves, and there isn't a stable life preserver in sight.