I wrote this all today. I think my head is clearing. I'm only submitting this now because it has reached a good length and stop, but if nothing else comes up, I'll keep going. Really though, plans are starting to make more sense, and the contents of this chapter were very freeing to get across. :3 XXX
HE'S THERE
Chapter 22 – How Not to Ignore Problems, P2
So there I was, on my knees before the toilet bowl. Besides the weight of several hands on my shoulders, I could not make out any sign that my two friends were there with me. Then distant, soft, but nervous muttering came from each side of my ear. I couldn't even understand my own thoughts, let alone theirs. I tried to shake my head 'no' but they didn't get it. I voiced a rather loopy “I'm fine,” and the hands retracted.
I leaned away from the surface of the water and was somehow instantly annoyed by the two pairs of legs, cautious at both my sides, until a blurred Giry face crouched to my level.
“Are you gonna be okay?”
Still so buzzed, my head swayed back and I grinned at her.
“Oh my God, she's completely plastered!” Meg crossed her arms. I could faintly sense that she felt awkward, but it just wasn't my concern right then.
Again, they spoke to each other, just a little too fast for me to work out.
“Maybe we should send her home?” The higher voice said, which had to be Meg's.
“No, ..--... her parents ... know.”
They muttered again to each other.
“My --nts! Oh my God, .....! Okay..... Lily?”
“Whaaat?!” I responded.
“Can you stand?”
“Wha-ghk-yes.” It was weird, here. One part knew that I was wobbling like a fish and needed help, and the other hated and did not understand this treatment. When I tried to get up, I sort of fell into Meg's arms and sent her into the wall. She was tinier than me, I just wasn't thinking. Stronger pale arms came around me and pulled me away a second later, and I watched the door frame grow distant as a bunch of limbs that were not mine guided me down the stairs. Stairs... for some reason they scared the hell out of me... my socks were so slippery, I just kept missing the end of the step. I must have had serious carpet burn when we reached the bottom. They seemed worried, but why, I don't know. We should have kept playing Twister or something.
“Get her on the bed,” Giry said. I was approaching one, which I thought had dark red sheets. They had me horizontal without much struggle because I realized how much less the ground seemed unstable when I wasn't trying to navigate it.
“What now?”
“We ....probably... clean... bit. .... house, -ess. My.... arounddd... time now, reall-...”
“Somebody- ... out!”
“No, ... Do you want to just hang in here? For a little bit?”
“Whyyy.”
“You're really out of it.”
“Do you know how much you drank?!”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Not now, Mariam-... she pro-.... -ember a-...... drunk, .... sit down and stop ... -et sick... We can... check on her... doing... ?”
She turned to me again.
“We need to take care of some stuff,” she said sternly to my face.
“I don't... no... whatever...”
She moved away quickly and put something at the bedside. Meg watched me a lot before they closed the door on me and left me all by myself. Which was fine when I realized how her ceiling pattern moved when I watched it closely enough. I rolled on the bed, realizing just fine that it wasn't mine, but in love with the texture.
- - -
The clock read 9:34 at some point when I stopped laying around and wanting to get up. By then I had realized that when I did, I kept feeling sick, and I decided to avoid throwing up at any cost. Throwing up was disgusting.
How I got there was becoming very sketchy. I know that the Giry girls had thrown me in there, I know that at any moment I could walk out the door and get the hell out of there, but because something didn't click, I was afraid of who I might run into and had some grasp of the fact that whatever condition I was in, my parents would not approve, and when you're paranoid about parents, it feels possible that they could pop up anywhere. I was also certainly not in a state to be seen, because my hair was a mess, I felt groggy and hot, and my breath still had remnants of screwdrivers. Somehow I pulled myself over Giry's desk and flopped onto the chair to use a brush she had sitting there. All of her make-up and jewelry was organized in some fancy boxes, and she had a very big mirror, so I could see just how ugly I was.
When I was done with that, I came back to the bed and noticed her telephone sitting on the table. I wasn't in thought for long before I tried for Meg's cellphone, since I didn't know Giry's offhand.
It rang twice before I got an answer.
“Lily?!”
“Hey there.”
“Are you- where are you?”
“EghhII-, in Giry's room... I think.”
“Oh. Okay. W-”
“Where are you?”
“... I'm at home, I went home like a half hour ago.”
Silence.
“H-how long... did I see you... ago...?”
“...I don't know... Maybe eight. ... Do you feel any better?”
I breathed in deep.
“I don't know! ...I got really dizzy. Still dizzy” I laughed a bit. She didn't say anything.
“Do you think you're gonna be able to go home soon?” She finally asked.
“I... sure... maybe... I'll ask Giry...”
“Paulina.” She corrected. Just then the door opened and closed quickly. Giry saw me on the phone as she backed against it and paused.
“I gotta go.”
“Is Paulina there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“See you tomorrow?”
“Sure, Mrs. Vanhorn.”
She laughed, but it seemed like guilty laughter.
“Bye...”
When Giry heard the phone click together, she turned her gaze from the floor and took a deep breath.
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
“You can talk with me, right?”
“Hehghg, of course,” I reassured, sliding my legs back on the mattress. She quietly approached the bed herself and sat cross-legged at the end.
“My parents are back now. When you're ready, I can just take you home. But if you're not, that's cool.”
“Aren't they gonna know-”
“Maybe not. I mean... if they do, they're not really gonna be happy about what we did, but... My parents don't really freak out the way yours would. They don't even know you, so... They just wouldn't pry like that.”
“That's weird.” I said. I knew my parents would flip. This is true. But somehow I did not believe her when she said they would leave me be.
Giry breathed in and out a few times and sucked on her lip. Her gray eyes darted back at me.
“You had another drink, didn't you?”
“... What?”
“That vodka bottle wasn't that big. I noticed that it looked emptier than when we left it. Did you have another one?”
I didn't feel like admitting.
“Just tell me. I'm not gonna bitch you out.”
“Okay. Yeah.” I answered like it was nothing.
“Why?”
“I don't know? I just felt like it.” I fell back on her pillow.
“Do you.. drink... a lot?” I could sense she knew she was asking a forward question.
“No... wine sometimes... at get-togethers...”
“Okay...”
Neither of us knew why I had been hammered, truthfully.
“Can I have my stuff?”
“Oh! Yeah... I think you left it on the coat-rack by the door...” She got up and left, returning a second-later with my purse and handed it to me. She watched, at the foot of the bed again, as I rummaged through my stuff for a tic-tac and checked my cellphone. There was a voicemail, which scared me immediately. I dared to listen.
“First unheard message sent today at 8:58 p.m.”
“Hey Lily,” my dad said, “Your mom wanted to know how late you're staying over there. She was worried 'cause it's supposed to snow again tonight and the roads are icy, so... Uhhh, call us back when you get this.”
I closed my eyes and called sender, trying to prepare myself to sound very alert and sober. No one answered for a while, then Dad picked up. I was relieved to hear that he nor my mom, faintly in the background, seemed paranoid. I told them we had just gotten carried away and it took me until then to check my phone, which was all true. He said it was fine and I assured him that I'd be out the door soon. I flipped it closed when we were done and stared at Giry.
“...Do I look okay?”
She shook out of thought and stood up.
“Here, stand up.” I rose from the bed, recognizing a bit of normalcy again as I stood, less wobbly, at about the same height as her. I still felt really light, like I'd been sprinkled with pixie dust. “I think.. I think you'll be fine. Just don't move too fast.”
The comment made me chuckle, with more heart in it than necessary.
“And when you get home, don't spend too much time outside your room.”
“Well duhhhhhhh....”
“I thought you were gonna be really sick, Lily.”
“I still feel sick,” I mumbled, swaying towards the door.
“Can you make it?”
“Yes. But I have to piss like a racehorse.” I uttered, deadpan. She exhaled laughter and lead me to the downstairs restroom, where I went for, I swear, a minute straight. Her parents, I could hear them with their mysterious voices, were up in the den discussing something when we stepped out the door. She wanted to hurry for the car, so we skedaddled out of there.
When I took out my keys, unlocked, and came inside, they were both in the living room, happy to see me back and asking questions like “did you have fun?” I answered curtly and headed for the stairs. I didn't trip a little until the wall half way up covered me from their view, but I had to hold the railing the whole way up for fear that I would break my neck.
- - -
A swirl of ache washed over my forehead when I removed myself from bed too abruptly. I had set my clock at 7:00 with hope of being fit for school today, but wasn't so sure when this happened.
That night I had the most retarded dream ever. Shrek was in it, and he was angry, and I got chased by this group of birds; ducks or geese or something, with wild nasal calls, that wouldn't leave me alone no matter where I ran to or hid. And the Phantom was there, and he was being very nice to me and pulling out flowers from thin air and putting them in my hair. I could feel the fuzzy, warm, gloved fingers, even in my dreams. But as I said, we were surrounded in birds. So....
The walk to the bathroom had an undertone of difference, like I was one or two notches below how I felt every morning when I did this same thing. I seeped into the bathroom and washed my face, brushed my teeth, and took a break from standing by sitting on the toilet lid and closing my eyes a moment.
I really don't know why I did that.
It just felt nice. I didn't feel stressed. I began to see the skeletons of my problems and how “simple” they were to solve.
Suddenly I thought I should check my phone and email to see if Erik had said anything at all. I hurried back out of the bathroom, enduring the throb in my temples, and switched my phone on while heading for the study. There was nothing in my inbox, and nothing new was showing up on the phone. It was like he was giving me a break. Or maybe he was just too busy suddenly. Who knows, with him.
I slid away from the monitor and thought long and hard about if I wanted to pursue school today. Was it worth it... Thursday... Advanced Algebra, Art, Acting III, and English. More stuff I didn't understand, Mrs. Yue having everyone improvise for an hour and a half straight, fooling around aimlessly with Meg and the others in anticipation of Winter break, and reviewing for The Scarlet Letter test.
Oh God, what was I gonna do... tell Mom that I'm sick? I could pull it off. I really did look like shit this morning, it's not like I had to fake anything.
I just didn't know. I couldn't be this behind in class. I couldn't keep sabotaging my grades. Besides, if I stayed here... I would have nothing to do all day, the Giry girls could be even more suspicious about why I was drinking in excess last night if it was so bad that I had to miss school from a hangover, and.... aghgh, and I had work tonight from 4:30 to 8:00.
This sucked. T-there was no way to save this day. It was gonna suck no matter what. But there were two ways that it could suck; me doing something beneficial or me being a bum.
Okay, I was going to school. It was fine. I slipped on my brown jeans and a black shirt, I brushed out my hair and put in a flower clip, I snatched all my notebooks and folders on the desk and shoved them on into my bag, I stared long and hard at myself in the mirror by the door, and I walked out into twenty-eight degrees.
- - -
I really wanted to understand what Mr. Darelle was talking about. I had flipped through the book once to find out the basics, but all the numbers were just giving me a bigger headache. He looked at me like we hated each other when I started sinking into my seat, as if my laziness was shameless. It was not. For God's sake, it was not.
I don't want to go over school. Forget it. It was a waste of time after all, because I could not pay attention and this headache was with me all day long.
Forget also that Giry was randomly not there. But that may have been good or she would see me and my condition, put two and two together, and I would feel bad that we had still not gone over what happened with the Phantom.
I didn't know if I wanted to tell her.
What if she turned on me? What if she started agreeing with Meg that he was a creep and a psycho and both started trying to persuade me to disown him? I can kind of deal with one person disapproving of what I do, but not two, especially two that are very important in my book.
I just wanted to find some reason to justify Erik mutilating his face.
I wanted to convince myself that this was his own business and things could go on from here, like I knew they would eventually. I was not leaving him; he knew it, I knew it. He let me know this at the wrong time and thus made me even more upset, but the truth is the truth.
It all came down to accepting that he had problems, which was already being lead up to beforehand. He could not control his weirdness and I would always see it.
It's not so much that if he personally wants to cut himself, he can.
It's that if he wants to, I am reluctantly hurt, and confused, and worried for him, and I think he misunderstands me when I'm rushing away from him and being sharp. He mistakes it for fear and judgment. He cannot seem to tell that I'm not trying to judge him, I just think that when given the question “is it right to slice up your body”, most anyone would say “no”.
I mean, does he not know that he is a very important and influential figure in my life, and I want him to be okay?
No, he is too excited that we're fighting again and that I know his “secret”, and that I'm being a scared little “normal” girl.
Ohhh, my head.
HE'S THERE
Chapter 22 – How Not to Ignore Problems, P2
So there I was, on my knees before the toilet bowl. Besides the weight of several hands on my shoulders, I could not make out any sign that my two friends were there with me. Then distant, soft, but nervous muttering came from each side of my ear. I couldn't even understand my own thoughts, let alone theirs. I tried to shake my head 'no' but they didn't get it. I voiced a rather loopy “I'm fine,” and the hands retracted.
I leaned away from the surface of the water and was somehow instantly annoyed by the two pairs of legs, cautious at both my sides, until a blurred Giry face crouched to my level.
“Are you gonna be okay?”
Still so buzzed, my head swayed back and I grinned at her.
“Oh my God, she's completely plastered!” Meg crossed her arms. I could faintly sense that she felt awkward, but it just wasn't my concern right then.
Again, they spoke to each other, just a little too fast for me to work out.
“Maybe we should send her home?” The higher voice said, which had to be Meg's.
“No, ..--... her parents ... know.”
They muttered again to each other.
“My --nts! Oh my God, .....! Okay..... Lily?”
“Whaaat?!” I responded.
“Can you stand?”
“Wha-ghk-yes.” It was weird, here. One part knew that I was wobbling like a fish and needed help, and the other hated and did not understand this treatment. When I tried to get up, I sort of fell into Meg's arms and sent her into the wall. She was tinier than me, I just wasn't thinking. Stronger pale arms came around me and pulled me away a second later, and I watched the door frame grow distant as a bunch of limbs that were not mine guided me down the stairs. Stairs... for some reason they scared the hell out of me... my socks were so slippery, I just kept missing the end of the step. I must have had serious carpet burn when we reached the bottom. They seemed worried, but why, I don't know. We should have kept playing Twister or something.
“Get her on the bed,” Giry said. I was approaching one, which I thought had dark red sheets. They had me horizontal without much struggle because I realized how much less the ground seemed unstable when I wasn't trying to navigate it.
“What now?”
“We ....probably... clean... bit. .... house, -ess. My.... arounddd... time now, reall-...”
“Somebody- ... out!”
“No, ... Do you want to just hang in here? For a little bit?”
“Whyyy.”
“You're really out of it.”
“Do you know how much you drank?!”
I narrowed my eyes.
“Not now, Mariam-... she pro-.... -ember a-...... drunk, .... sit down and stop ... -et sick... We can... check on her... doing... ?”
She turned to me again.
“We need to take care of some stuff,” she said sternly to my face.
“I don't... no... whatever...”
She moved away quickly and put something at the bedside. Meg watched me a lot before they closed the door on me and left me all by myself. Which was fine when I realized how her ceiling pattern moved when I watched it closely enough. I rolled on the bed, realizing just fine that it wasn't mine, but in love with the texture.
- - -
The clock read 9:34 at some point when I stopped laying around and wanting to get up. By then I had realized that when I did, I kept feeling sick, and I decided to avoid throwing up at any cost. Throwing up was disgusting.
How I got there was becoming very sketchy. I know that the Giry girls had thrown me in there, I know that at any moment I could walk out the door and get the hell out of there, but because something didn't click, I was afraid of who I might run into and had some grasp of the fact that whatever condition I was in, my parents would not approve, and when you're paranoid about parents, it feels possible that they could pop up anywhere. I was also certainly not in a state to be seen, because my hair was a mess, I felt groggy and hot, and my breath still had remnants of screwdrivers. Somehow I pulled myself over Giry's desk and flopped onto the chair to use a brush she had sitting there. All of her make-up and jewelry was organized in some fancy boxes, and she had a very big mirror, so I could see just how ugly I was.
When I was done with that, I came back to the bed and noticed her telephone sitting on the table. I wasn't in thought for long before I tried for Meg's cellphone, since I didn't know Giry's offhand.
It rang twice before I got an answer.
“Lily?!”
“Hey there.”
“Are you- where are you?”
“EghhII-, in Giry's room... I think.”
“Oh. Okay. W-”
“Where are you?”
“... I'm at home, I went home like a half hour ago.”
Silence.
“H-how long... did I see you... ago...?”
“...I don't know... Maybe eight. ... Do you feel any better?”
I breathed in deep.
“I don't know! ...I got really dizzy. Still dizzy” I laughed a bit. She didn't say anything.
“Do you think you're gonna be able to go home soon?” She finally asked.
“I... sure... maybe... I'll ask Giry...”
“Paulina.” She corrected. Just then the door opened and closed quickly. Giry saw me on the phone as she backed against it and paused.
“I gotta go.”
“Is Paulina there?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
“See you tomorrow?”
“Sure, Mrs. Vanhorn.”
She laughed, but it seemed like guilty laughter.
“Bye...”
When Giry heard the phone click together, she turned her gaze from the floor and took a deep breath.
“Hi.”
“Hey.”
“You can talk with me, right?”
“Hehghg, of course,” I reassured, sliding my legs back on the mattress. She quietly approached the bed herself and sat cross-legged at the end.
“My parents are back now. When you're ready, I can just take you home. But if you're not, that's cool.”
“Aren't they gonna know-”
“Maybe not. I mean... if they do, they're not really gonna be happy about what we did, but... My parents don't really freak out the way yours would. They don't even know you, so... They just wouldn't pry like that.”
“That's weird.” I said. I knew my parents would flip. This is true. But somehow I did not believe her when she said they would leave me be.
Giry breathed in and out a few times and sucked on her lip. Her gray eyes darted back at me.
“You had another drink, didn't you?”
“... What?”
“That vodka bottle wasn't that big. I noticed that it looked emptier than when we left it. Did you have another one?”
I didn't feel like admitting.
“Just tell me. I'm not gonna bitch you out.”
“Okay. Yeah.” I answered like it was nothing.
“Why?”
“I don't know? I just felt like it.” I fell back on her pillow.
“Do you.. drink... a lot?” I could sense she knew she was asking a forward question.
“No... wine sometimes... at get-togethers...”
“Okay...”
Neither of us knew why I had been hammered, truthfully.
“Can I have my stuff?”
“Oh! Yeah... I think you left it on the coat-rack by the door...” She got up and left, returning a second-later with my purse and handed it to me. She watched, at the foot of the bed again, as I rummaged through my stuff for a tic-tac and checked my cellphone. There was a voicemail, which scared me immediately. I dared to listen.
“First unheard message sent today at 8:58 p.m.”
“Hey Lily,” my dad said, “Your mom wanted to know how late you're staying over there. She was worried 'cause it's supposed to snow again tonight and the roads are icy, so... Uhhh, call us back when you get this.”
I closed my eyes and called sender, trying to prepare myself to sound very alert and sober. No one answered for a while, then Dad picked up. I was relieved to hear that he nor my mom, faintly in the background, seemed paranoid. I told them we had just gotten carried away and it took me until then to check my phone, which was all true. He said it was fine and I assured him that I'd be out the door soon. I flipped it closed when we were done and stared at Giry.
“...Do I look okay?”
She shook out of thought and stood up.
“Here, stand up.” I rose from the bed, recognizing a bit of normalcy again as I stood, less wobbly, at about the same height as her. I still felt really light, like I'd been sprinkled with pixie dust. “I think.. I think you'll be fine. Just don't move too fast.”
The comment made me chuckle, with more heart in it than necessary.
“And when you get home, don't spend too much time outside your room.”
“Well duhhhhhhh....”
“I thought you were gonna be really sick, Lily.”
“I still feel sick,” I mumbled, swaying towards the door.
“Can you make it?”
“Yes. But I have to piss like a racehorse.” I uttered, deadpan. She exhaled laughter and lead me to the downstairs restroom, where I went for, I swear, a minute straight. Her parents, I could hear them with their mysterious voices, were up in the den discussing something when we stepped out the door. She wanted to hurry for the car, so we skedaddled out of there.
When I took out my keys, unlocked, and came inside, they were both in the living room, happy to see me back and asking questions like “did you have fun?” I answered curtly and headed for the stairs. I didn't trip a little until the wall half way up covered me from their view, but I had to hold the railing the whole way up for fear that I would break my neck.
- - -
A swirl of ache washed over my forehead when I removed myself from bed too abruptly. I had set my clock at 7:00 with hope of being fit for school today, but wasn't so sure when this happened.
That night I had the most retarded dream ever. Shrek was in it, and he was angry, and I got chased by this group of birds; ducks or geese or something, with wild nasal calls, that wouldn't leave me alone no matter where I ran to or hid. And the Phantom was there, and he was being very nice to me and pulling out flowers from thin air and putting them in my hair. I could feel the fuzzy, warm, gloved fingers, even in my dreams. But as I said, we were surrounded in birds. So....
The walk to the bathroom had an undertone of difference, like I was one or two notches below how I felt every morning when I did this same thing. I seeped into the bathroom and washed my face, brushed my teeth, and took a break from standing by sitting on the toilet lid and closing my eyes a moment.
I really don't know why I did that.
It just felt nice. I didn't feel stressed. I began to see the skeletons of my problems and how “simple” they were to solve.
Suddenly I thought I should check my phone and email to see if Erik had said anything at all. I hurried back out of the bathroom, enduring the throb in my temples, and switched my phone on while heading for the study. There was nothing in my inbox, and nothing new was showing up on the phone. It was like he was giving me a break. Or maybe he was just too busy suddenly. Who knows, with him.
I slid away from the monitor and thought long and hard about if I wanted to pursue school today. Was it worth it... Thursday... Advanced Algebra, Art, Acting III, and English. More stuff I didn't understand, Mrs. Yue having everyone improvise for an hour and a half straight, fooling around aimlessly with Meg and the others in anticipation of Winter break, and reviewing for The Scarlet Letter test.
Oh God, what was I gonna do... tell Mom that I'm sick? I could pull it off. I really did look like shit this morning, it's not like I had to fake anything.
I just didn't know. I couldn't be this behind in class. I couldn't keep sabotaging my grades. Besides, if I stayed here... I would have nothing to do all day, the Giry girls could be even more suspicious about why I was drinking in excess last night if it was so bad that I had to miss school from a hangover, and.... aghgh, and I had work tonight from 4:30 to 8:00.
This sucked. T-there was no way to save this day. It was gonna suck no matter what. But there were two ways that it could suck; me doing something beneficial or me being a bum.
Okay, I was going to school. It was fine. I slipped on my brown jeans and a black shirt, I brushed out my hair and put in a flower clip, I snatched all my notebooks and folders on the desk and shoved them on into my bag, I stared long and hard at myself in the mirror by the door, and I walked out into twenty-eight degrees.
- - -
I really wanted to understand what Mr. Darelle was talking about. I had flipped through the book once to find out the basics, but all the numbers were just giving me a bigger headache. He looked at me like we hated each other when I started sinking into my seat, as if my laziness was shameless. It was not. For God's sake, it was not.
I don't want to go over school. Forget it. It was a waste of time after all, because I could not pay attention and this headache was with me all day long.
Forget also that Giry was randomly not there. But that may have been good or she would see me and my condition, put two and two together, and I would feel bad that we had still not gone over what happened with the Phantom.
I didn't know if I wanted to tell her.
What if she turned on me? What if she started agreeing with Meg that he was a creep and a psycho and both started trying to persuade me to disown him? I can kind of deal with one person disapproving of what I do, but not two, especially two that are very important in my book.
I just wanted to find some reason to justify Erik mutilating his face.
I wanted to convince myself that this was his own business and things could go on from here, like I knew they would eventually. I was not leaving him; he knew it, I knew it. He let me know this at the wrong time and thus made me even more upset, but the truth is the truth.
It all came down to accepting that he had problems, which was already being lead up to beforehand. He could not control his weirdness and I would always see it.
It's not so much that if he personally wants to cut himself, he can.
It's that if he wants to, I am reluctantly hurt, and confused, and worried for him, and I think he misunderstands me when I'm rushing away from him and being sharp. He mistakes it for fear and judgment. He cannot seem to tell that I'm not trying to judge him, I just think that when given the question “is it right to slice up your body”, most anyone would say “no”.
I mean, does he not know that he is a very important and influential figure in my life, and I want him to be okay?
No, he is too excited that we're fighting again and that I know his “secret”, and that I'm being a scared little “normal” girl.
Ohhh, my head.
Current Mood: 
accomplished
accomplishedCurrent Music: Something to Believe In - Aqualung
Current Location: Room
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