New Girl - The Creatures

Chapter 16

The mountains in Colorado are so mesmerizing. The way they fold, and how light cascades over them and displays such intense chiaroscuro is really incredible. I can't help but admire them anytime I'm in the car, watching them rise and fall as the car mounts inclines and glides down declines.

I was fixated on them even more so while riding back to the house with James, trying to focus on the conversation and the mountains to keep my mind from straying back to how things would be with Seamus now. I felt a rush flow over me, and my stomach would drop briefly when I thought about having to look at him and feign complacency.

We pulled into the driveway and carried the now sickeningly sweet donuts into the house; being trapped in the car with them for so long made them lose their comforting quality and they now became nauseating. I sipped the last of my coffee as James hollered for everyone to come to the kitchen for donuts, and searched the cabinets in hopes of finding a sleeve of Ritz crackers to combat the after effects of the sugar filled drink.

"Girl! Why are you eating dry ass crackers when there are some moist, delicious pastries right here?!" Sly said suddenly, causing me to jump. "Fuck, I didn't hear you come in. I can't handle that much sugar in one go, or else I'll puke," I said, my hand over my heart and a Ritz box in my other hand. "Jesus, it must suck to be you," Seamus said as he walked in with a small horde consisting of Max, Aleks, Dan, and Jordan.

I could see he was trying to be funny rather than mean, but god damn did it hurt. I could see James raising his eyebrows, and I felt my heart plummet as I got slightly lightheaded, weirdly. I tried to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. I clutched the box to my chest as I swiftly left the kitchen and nearly ran upstairs, desperate to get away.

I decided to run on fumes for the rest of the day, rarely leaving my room aside from grabbing straight, black coffee from the kitchen. I recorded a 3-hour session of Mass Effect and queued several uploads for it while I checked on my first upload on the channel. I had almost a thousand views on it, and a couple hundred subscribers, which I figured was due to my features on the Hub.

I refrained from checking the infamous comment section, and sat for a moment in my chair, staring at nothing. I popped another Ritz into my mouth and decided to look at some videos from James' channel. He'd recently uploaded a video of him and Dan in a Minecraft series called Hershel's land, where he was Shane from the Walking Dead, and Dan was Rick. It was funny and just enough to keep my mind off things.

I'd noticed before that a lot of the Creatures' fans watched them so they could have something that'd make them happy, and a lot of them had depression or anxiety issues and they found comfort in this whacky group of friends I'd become a part of. And I understood why, since I was doing the same thing, despite the source of my unhappiness stemming from one of them.

At some point, I fell asleep, slumped in my desk chair and a coffee cup precariously in my hand. I woke up to James' voice and slight shaking. "Sam, hey, it's like 8 PM. Do you want to go catch a movie with the guys?" I sat up, rubbing my eyes. "What movie?" I asked, my words somewhat slurred from the intense nap. "The Cabin in the Woods, the Alamo is showing it a few days early and the tickets were limited, so Jordan bought them for all of us just to be safe," he said, stretching as he gave me room to stand.

I walked over to my closet and grabbed a light and loose gray v-neck shirt with short sleeves and my favorite black zip up. "Is Seamus gonna be there?" I asked him as I walked into my bathroom and closed the door, hoping he'd say no. "Nah, he said he was going out somewhere and left an hour ago. Are you gonna come?" he asked, and I was relieved that I wouldn't have to feel down the whole night. "Definitely," I said, coming out of the bathroom with my new clothes on. I grabbed my wallet and a mint from a small bowl on my desk since I'm sure coffee and Ritz didn't make too good of a combo, but I was on too much of a time restraint to brush my teeth.

I followed him out of my room, down the stairs and out to the garage, where Sly, Dan, Jordan, Aleks, and Max were all waiting. "Hey, stranger!" Sly said, grinning at me. I smiled back, feeling excited to get out of the house to have fun rather than run an errand, even though I had fun with James while doing so.

"Everyone ready?" Jordan asked before opening the door and popping open the garage door, revealing the two cars we'd be splitting up into. "I'll drive one and Max will drive the other," Jordan added before climbing into his car. I decided to ride with Jordan, since James and Dan were riding in it too, and I wasn't too excited about riding with Aleks in Max's car.

James screamed at several people as we rode to the Alamo, which made me grin and laugh and feel good. I had quickly grown close with James, and it felt nice to have a friend that could never fail to make me laugh. Jordan ran a red light since he was laughing so hard and narrowly avoided getting a ticket as James yelled at him for unsafe driving.

We swerved into the Alamo parking lot and climbed out as Max pulled in beside us. We were all laughing and acting like idiots while we grabbed snacks, Dan talking about how this movie was 'supposed to push the boundaries of storytelling in horror'. I could give two shits about what this movie was supposed to do, I just wanted to get spooked.

Unfortunately, we were all disappointed. The movie had a really weird, abstract ending and it made absolutely no sense, and I wasn't even that spooked. James looked it up, and the movie had somehow gotten a 92 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. We all bashed the movie as we rode to a 24-hour McDonalds, extremely hungry since the popcorn and candy we ordered for the movie was completely consumed in the previews. I decided to grub, and I ordered 10 dollars worth of chicken nuggets, eating them while the others talked.

"I can't believe I paid extra to for us to see that awful movie," Jordan said, pinching the bridge of his nose as he ate french fries. "Seamus was right to stay home," Dan added, laughing as Aleks spilled his drink on himself to keep Sly away from his nuggets. James walked over and sat across from me as I finished my last nugget, and offered to share a sundae with me. I gingerly ate it, not wanting to get sick from eating it too quickly.

"He didn't stay home, he went out somewhere," Jordan corrected. I remained quiet, not wanting to reveal that I was glad I could breathe easily without him being here to remind me of the other night. "Where'd he go?" James asked between mouthfuls of ice cream.

Sly looked up from what was Aleks' chicken nuggets, having eaten them while he was wiping up the soda he spilled. "He went on a date," he said, speaking through a mouthful of what was hopefully chicken. "With that Ash chick that he's been talking to lately."

I felt the tears well up before I even realized what he said. "A date?" James said, a weird tone to his voice. I could identify it as anger, but the others couldn't possibly know what he was angry about. "Yeah, he's been talking about it a lot. Went and got a haircut and everything after you guys brought back donuts this morning. He must really like her," Sly said, still chewing.

I stared down at the table as the topic turned to the wet stain on Aleks' jeans, and I could feel James' eyes on me. I bit back stinging tears as I felt a new wave of emotion; anger. Not vague dissonance, but overwhelming anger that was twisted with disbelief, swirling me up and spitting out every last bit of sadness I had inside.