Stay...Alive

Chapter 25

 The train wasn't as quiet as the one she rode what seems like a forever ago. No one was sitting alone. Cherie had Victorine and Primus, Anita had Asha, Gina had Frankie, Horace had Oliver, and so on. The smooth vibrations of the train felt rather calming. Parker and Jacey had idly fallen asleep, Jacey's head on Parker's shoulder. Despite everything they'd seen, Victorine didn't have a hint of dread. She didn't know where the train was going, but she had a feeling that it couldn't be as bad a jail. Or a wasteland. Or the woods. For the first time in a while, her heart tingled with hope.

Anita had that bag she'd been carrying around for a while around her shoulder. She swung it off and reached into it, pulling out the books inside. She scooted towards Horace, nudging him semi-harshly on the shoulder.

"What?" Horace asked.

"A couple, er...a while ago, I wanted to show you guys some books a'mine," Anita told him. "But the world went to crap so I never got the chance."

"What's this one?" he questioned, grabbing one with a white cover, red edges, and black text.

"The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas."

"Why's the 'you' just a-ohh." He ran his finger vertically down the first letters of each word.

"It's about systematic racism and police violence," Anita explained, the big words sounding a bit out-of-place coming from her. "My mom got it for me. She liked to buy me books that got banned so that I could know more than what's allowed."

"That sounds dramatic," he scoffed.

"What's dramatic is that people got together to burn this beauty." She pulled out a copy of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. "This one's about a lot of stuff, but it's mostly 'bout this guy named Guy who's a firefighter, but it's in a near-future where all books are banned and firefighters burn any books they find."

"So it's a book...about burning books...that people burned," Horace concluded.

After staring blankly for a second, she replied, "Yeah, pretty much. But I think you'll like this one!"

She pulled out a book that had a purple silhouette of a girl on the cover, and title text that read The Color Purple by Alice Walker.

"It was banned for-" she took a deep breath and began listing. "Explicit sex, language, violence, homosexuality, calling out problems..."

"Wow, everything I watched after Timothy hacked the parental controls," Horace said, sarcastically.

"Nah, it's not like that," Anta explained. "It's not senseless 'er anything. It's all, uh, symbolic. I haven't read the whole thing, yet, but I think you'll like it!"

"I'll...keep it in mind," he put the books back in her bag. "What's with you and books and rebellions and crap."

"My mom," Anita answered, vaguely.

"Yeah, yeah, I heard your speech."

"It was with Victorine. Everyone gives her speeches and she doesn't give a s***."

"You're...not wrong," he muttered.

"And I know that you have a thing for being a complete twat sometimes." She smiled and nodded.

"Wow, thanks," he replied, sarcastically.

"But you've been through the crap so I guess it's justified. Better than how they justified it in The Bluest Eye."

"What book-"

"'Nuff of that!" Yolanda called from across the train.

"Is that a-" Oliver began meekly, knees pulled in.

"Crap! Were you here the whole time?" Anita exclaimed, almost slapping him as she flinched.

"Happens a lot," he uttered under his breath.

"But read the books. You'll like 'em," Anita said. "You seem like ya need a good read. I mean, everyone does when the rest of the world's like this."

Horace tried to hit it with a scowl...but he smiled.

Without Anita at her side, Asha moved closer to Victorine and Yolanda. Cherie had fallen asleep (along with some of the others on the train exhausted from the journeys trials and tribulations), with her head against Victorine's leg. Victorine was already leaned up against Yolanda, who was close to falling asleep with her head on top of Victorine's. In conclusion, she was in an inescapable death grip of cuddles.

"Remember back at the haven?" Asha asked quietly, noticing the people sleeping on her. "When Anita tried to show the books to the Pickett brothers, but we had to evacuate? She's doing it now!"

"I saw," Victorine whispered back, a little blankly. Asha sat up against the wall on the other side of Yolanda.

"It seems like so long ago, doesn't it?" Asha asked. "I mean, it can't be too long ago, can it? A few weeks, maybe? It feels like a lifetime ago. God, but it feels like yesterday that I first met Horace, and he told me that my outfit made me look like a hippo decked with flowers."

Victorine tried not to laugh at that as she glanced over at that same boy reading political banned books as Anita smiled along.

"Time just won't stand still, will it?" Asha continued. "My dad used to ask me 'where does time go' whenever I got taller. I remember when I first met you at the mansion, and you were with Lee and Thelma and that girl with the baby. What was her name, Melissa? Her baby was adorable. What was its name-"

"Beau," Victorine answered, remembering that the baby was out there somewhere. The mother, hopefully, as well.

"I remember how ecstatic Mrs.Daniels was to take care of 'em," Asha continued. "Oh, and I remember vividly when I started being friends with you. You'd always act like a cat and crawl around and stuff. Once, I remember you were underwater in the pool for too long, and Parker pulled you out, and you said something about how it reminded you of being in the womb."

Victorine smiled at the memory. Not just at the memory of that moment, but the memory of that pool. In that house. With all those people. God, how long had it been...

"And I remember that time during the car ride last year when you and Buckley would lean side-to-side when the car turned? And when we survived an explosion and met those other doctors? And when we met Lane, and when we talked after..."

Asha caught herself before mentioning Lee's name, but Victorine's mood was already dampened. Asha patted her on the neck of her low hanging head.

"Hey, think 'bout how we got out of there alive?" Asha asked, "and how we're still together. And we have some tag-a-longs."

She gestured towards Cherie, whose head was about to slip off the end of Victorine's leg.

"And how we'll be friends no matter what," Asha proclaimed, Victorine chuckling and nodding in formal agreement. As they shook hands, the train screeched to a jolting stop and the doors flew open.