Jade|
The pretty girl always dies first, you know.
I grin against my handful of popcorn before unceremoniously shoving it into my mouth. A piece tumbles into my shirt and, not bothering to tear my eyes away from the TV, I dig into my bra to fish it out. The tip of my tongue sticks to its buttery side and takes it in with a sweet crunch.
The killer on screen swings a pair of scissors around her middle finger with a wicked, cracked smile across her face. The pretty girl, the first to die in The Scissoring, stares pitifully up from the floor with tears raining down her cheeks, stuttering as she begs and pleads for her life. But the killer only grins, splitting the scissors and using the pointed blades to gouge out the victim's eyes. Blood splatters and soaks the girl's shirt as intolerable screams wail through the speakers.
This is my kind of movie.
Laughing, I chew happily at my popcorn. The Scissoring has always been my favorite movie. It's gory and painfully twisted. Gorgeous, really. I've seen it a thousand times, enough that I can sit here and easily quote the lines before the characters have spoken them. I've always secretly hoped that, if and when they make a sequel, I could audition. Maybe I'd be the main character's demented sidekick, only to overpower her at the end and take over the job myself. I sigh dreamily. A girl can hope.
It's so easy to lose myself in film, in characters, in their words and actions. It's half the reason I wanted to become an actress in the first place. These people get paid to not be themselves - what better way to escape shitty reality than pretending to be a warrior or a princess or a murderer and making bank off of it?
My enthusiasm starts to die near the end of the movie, sensing the real world closing back in on me all too soon - there's a scene where you think that, as usual, the good guy is going to win, that the killer will be killed herself and the two lovebirds will run off into the sunset as heroes. But the killer prevails, slaughters both of the remaining cast members, and cackles in their blood. There is no happy ending. The credits roll.
My living room sinks back into focus. I'm no longer a part of the movie. I'm Jade again, and this is my empty house, and this is my phone with four unanswered text, and this is the girlfriend that I've been pretty much ignoring for almost two weeks now.
Frowning, I run a hand down my face and close my eyes. Thinking about it makes my head hurt and that familiar throb starts to manifest at the corner of my forehead; Tori's been trying so hard to make it up to me, to make everything better, but I'm stuck in a place I didn't even know I had created for myself. I never considered Tori could do anything wrong, that she could hurt me, because, well, she's Tori. She's not like Beck or Trina or my parents; it's not in her DNA to mess up.
At least, that's what I thought. That's what I stupidly hoped for. And I get that she's human just like everyone else, but it doesn't stop me from wishing that she was simply biologically incapable of being at fault. I felt safer when I thought she was perfect.
Wedging my thumb between my teeth, I watch the DVD menu loop over and over. It means that I'm always at risk of her hurting me. That she has a certain kind of power over me. It makes me unbearably uncomfortable and suddenly I realize why some people are single forever. Allowing someone that ability is fucking terrifying. I didn't know Beck had that hold on me until he executed it; now, I know better. I know what Tori can do if she chooses to.
It scares the shit out of me.
I can't talk about it. I can't verbalize what I mean to her because it hardly makes any sense to me. It frustrates her, I know - I can see it in her furrowed brow when I don't squeeze her hand in the hallways or I start to walk out of the building without waiting for her or don't reply to her texts or sit next to her at lunch. It hurts her. I'm hurting her. It's not about not wanting her - I want her more than anything - but at the same time it's like a part of me is anticipating the worst and trying to prepare me for it so when the inevitable comes, it won't destroy me.
