Repetition Compulsion

30.

On a normal day, Nahi drove like an absolute maniac. But on that night, Nahi's driving was horrendously off the charts; She drove way above the speed limit, ran through a bunch of red robots, and yelled angrily at a couple of innocent drivers. Needless to say, Sera was scared for her life.

Nahi only seemingly calmed down once her and Sera were parked outside Troy's apartment. They both unbuckled their seatbelts and made their way out of the car.

There were a couple of cars parked in front of Troy's apartment, and from where they were standing; Sera and Nahi could see that the lights in Troy's living room were on. They could also make out a couple of figures moving around inside his living room. Judging by that, Nahi and Sera both concluded that Troy must have been hosting some kind of a party inside. They weren't completely heartless, they couldn't egg a man when he had a house full of guests.

"Oh well...there goes that plan." Sera said in mock-sadness, turning to walk away. "I guess we'll just have to come back another night...or not at all".

Silence filled the air, so Sera naively concluded that their egging festivities for that night must have been cancelled or at the very least, postponed . But just as she started walking back towards the car, Nahi whispered something fiercely under her breath.

"What did you say?", Sera asked, turning back around to face her.

"Improvise", Nahi replied, looking back at her. She spoke in such a low voice and Sera was pretty sure if she hadn't been listening intently, then she wouldn't have heard her the second time either. "That's his car right?" , Nahi asked whilst pointing towards Troy's black Benz. She had this crazy look in her eyes that completely managed to send a chill down Sera's spine.

"Nahi, no!", Sera scolded.

"Yes", she replied calmly.

"This is crazy!" Sera shouted. She wasn't even worried about being heard anymore. At that point, she could tell if she didn't try to gain some control of the situation, things would very likely get out of hand.

"Yes it is", Nahi replied calmly. "It is crazy. But what he did is crazier, so by virtue of that, our craziness is justified."

"What the--why is this so important to you?"

"Because", she replied calmly, but Sera could see she was quarter to losing her temper.

"Because what, Nahi?"

"Because you keep letting everyone walk all over you and that's not cool!"

"Who the hell is everyone? And what are we even talking about!?", Sera sighed exasperatedly, throwing her hands up in confusion.

"Oh, don't pretend you don't know what I am talking about!", Nahi raised her voice, a fiery look in her eyes. "It's like yes, okay! I get it! Life has been hard on you or whatever. But life also keeps presenting you with all these amazing opportunities to make up for all the shit you have been put through, yet you keep tossing the opportunities away and I don't understand why. It's like you actually WANT to be sad forever. It's almost like being sad is a part of your DNA and you're scared that if you lose all that sadness then you will somehow lose a part of yourself that you wanna hold onto for some unknown reason."

"Take that back", Sera said through clenched teeth.

"Why? Because you can't handle the truth?", Nahi replied, her tone challenging.

Sera sighed exasperatedly. "You know what? I'm not entertaining this. Even a blind man can see that this is not about me. You're projecting. You're projecting all your unresolved feelings towards your culture, your family and your future husband on me and I'm not gonna entertain it.", Sera said, motioning to walk away. 

She couldn't believe Nahi. She couldn't believe she even had the audacity to say such things to her. That she had the audacity to act like Sera was the one with the problem when SHE was the one letting her family walk all over her. Sera was so mad.

Nahi completely disregarded Sera's analysis on her unresolved feelings, and jumped straight back into attacking her. "Yes...what I said was mean and rude. But it was also true", Nahi replied with a calmer tone whilst following closely behind Sera. "Think about it, Sera. You finally have something going for you...an internship at a well-established Publishing Firm...now you can graduate and get on with your life. You have a good man who's head over heels in love with you. But you won't give him a chance. You mind even went as far as creating a non-existent marriage between him and his dead fiancé. Have you no limits?"

"Stop following me, Nahi!", Sera warned, whilst picking up her pace.

"No", Nahi replied firmly, and as she did, she picked up her pace to match Sera's. "I'm not leaving you because I'm your only friend and if I don't tell you all this, no one else is gonna tell you. I'm tired of watching you drown in your own pool of sadness and self-pity over something that happened 3 years ago." Sera turned around and glared at Nahi angrily to let her know she was crossing a line, but Nahi didn't appear to be fazed by Sera's warning glare. "It happened, Sera", Nahi continued. "It's over. Now deal with it, and stop letting your past interfere with your present!"

Sera stopped at the end of the little pathway she had been walking on, because there was nowhere else left to go. But during this time Nahi didn't stop talking. Sera was trapped, so she was forced to listen to her as she tried to figure out where else to go.

"I have a question", she added. "Why did you date Troy in the first place? You were getting better...you were getting so much better. You were finally in an almost peaceful and content state. The sadness was finally starting to leave, and you were getting happier. But then you just had to go find something else to be sad about, didn't you? You knew Troy was bad news, but you willingly jumped into a one-sided, toxic relationship with him, anyway."

Okay, that was it. Sera decided she had finally had it with Nahi. She couldn't just stand around and listen to her madness anymore, so she turned back around and started walking in the direction she had been walking from. She wasn't even sure where she was walking to anymore, as long as she was walking away from Nahi.

She continued following closely behind Sera. "Nahi, I swear if you don't stop attacking m-"

"Gosh, Serendipity!", Nahi shouted, stopping midway and holding Sera firmly by the shoulders. "I am on your side! Fucking wake up! I am not the enemy, here! I am trying to help you! Life is not some big mystery that needs to be solved. Why must I always spell everything out for you? TROY IS A BAD GUY. HE HAS DONE BAD THINGS TO YOU AND TO OTHER GIRLS. You are doing nothing wrong, just showing him he's messing with the wrong girl" She said loudly whilst clapping her hands after every syllable. "I love you, Sera, but it's time to get to the bottom of things. Stop self-sabotaging! Life is not this complicated, endless labyrinth full of pain and suffering. It's you, Serendipity! It's all you. The pain was real while it lasted, but now it's imaginary. There is no pain anymore. The 'pain' is coming from YOU. The suffering is in your head. No one can grieve endlessly. And if you don't take control of your own destiny and rewrite your own narrative you will die sad and lonely and upset. And fo-"

"Okay", Sera replied. "But does your analogy apply to murderers?"

"What?"

"Does you analogy apply to murderers? Because that's what happened that night. I killed the sheriff, then I killed Grace, then I tried to commit suicide by setting the whole house on fire. But that didn't happen, because I survived. I should have died too, but I didn't. We were all supposed to die on that night, but for some reason I survived, now everyone else is dead, but I'm cursed with the gift of 'surviving'. Everyone else around me keeps dying, and I constantly have to deal with the after effects of surviving all on my own."