Podcast of a Teenage Super-Villian

Chapter Thirteen: PR Work

When memories flash before my eyes, I expect to come to a grand conclusion about the nature of my shitty life. But I don't. I don't remember anything about my mother's death, so I only see the waiting room itself, the chair with the tough seat and the scratches down the hard plastic arms. As something inside my neck cracks, I think that all these memories, of the cold hospital waiting room, of the first time I found liquor spilling down the side of the dining room table, of discovering 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' wrapped under the Christmas tree, I think that all these memories are faded to me. What I remember most, are my friends. 

I remember Percy dragging me around her house, dancing like an idiot. I remember dinner before the homecoming dance, how Chip had spoken. Whole paragraphs spilled out of him. He smiled and laughed and seeing him like that made me think my heart would burst. I remember the first time I thought about Chip in a not wholly platonic way. He was playing Percy's favorite love song on his electric guitar. I'd walked into the room, chewing a gooey cookie with chocolate chunks for chips. He swung his guitar at me, smirked, and shot me a wink. I'd raced out of his attic and slammed the door behind me. I clutched my blushing face, drew my knees to my chest on the bottom step. Giggled nervously.

I remember this. I remember every minute I spent with them, every smile, every laugh. I remember it all so acutely in this one minute I'm dangling.

I threw it all away.

I've acted jaded and angsty. Talked about being a bad person. But I feel it now. And for this one minute, as my throat cracks in this person's hands, I feel so, so sorry. I want to make it right. I want to undo how I hurt Chip. I want to undo how I toyed with Monet. 

My foot slams into the figure's sternum. I get two solid hits to his ribcage with both fists. He yelps and blood springs up. It's a moment of weakness on their part that has me twisting out of their hands and falling hard onto the floor. I lay gasping, hands and shins, elbows wobbling to support my weight. The figure blocks the doorway; there's no way out except in. The darkness is heavy and presses in from all directions. As blood rushes to my skull, I stumble to my feet.

"What is this place?" I'm slurring. The world is spinning so fast the words tumbling and sliding through my brain in a thick, black fog. "What is this?"

I can only make out the figure by the eyes. Big, blue, glowing. They make the blackness seem all the more crushing by comparison, and so I close my eyes and stop looking. Knuckles brush my jaw, a glancing blow. I duck low, lift my heel, and slam it hard into something soft. They make another cry, a hiss of air through a clenched jaw. I turn my back to them for a second, reaching one arm, hoping for contact with a wall, something to find my way around the weird place. A few more steps and my fingertips brush up against stucco, which digs into my skin like needles. A steel toe stomps my instep and I bite my lip so hard it bleeds.

 I throw my elbow wildly, missing, and the momentum throws my feet back. I topple into the figure, who takes advantage of my blunder and slams their elbow in the place my shoulder meets my neck. I can't help it. My mind disconnects from my body and my legs collapse beneath me. As I'm falling to my knees, spitting blood from my torn lip, I grab at the wall in a bid for balance. My fingertips find the smooth plastic switch, and I throw it. Yellow light explodes around me in a blinding flash. I don't know what I expect from the figure, a hiss, the drip of melting flesh on my skin, but that doesn't matter, because at first, I don't look at them.

All I know is that I don't expect the manor house to look the way it does, mahogany floor, egg-shell color walls that make up the foyer hall. And the booming laughter of people I can't see. As if some spell was released, a thousand smells hit me all at once. The spice of incense. That all-familiar reek of alcohol which has me gripping the wall for support. And underneath that, the metallic tinge of blood.