#(also fucked her a-levels - high fives with 15 at barely passing school)

[rowanthestrange]

For clarity, cus I know I can be confusing over what I think will happen versus what I’m just saying could happen, I do think Ruby is human, and any “daughter of the Doctor” stuff will be non-literal i.e. he accidentally created her, and she has no birth mother for there was no birth. Her father in the sense of a person being the father of their story or artwork (but one not necessarily created on purpose).

Disagree with the people who think she’s ‘not real’ and will thus disappear or go fill the role of demigod or something - she’s pretty fleshed out: got friends, a band doing gigs, appointments with a fit-dentist, scuzzy people asking her out, a good relationship with her odd neighbour, her A-levels weren’t good, they had to move because they couldn’t afford care for her nan, and had whole episode about being important to the people around her (and also turned into a bug-person in the butterfly situation so we know she’s human enough for that to matter).

She’s real in that she absolutely thoroughly exists, and that’s what matters.

I assume her story’s a Doctor-mirror of ‘sure maybe you weren’t “meant” to be in the universe like this, but you are, and the world is better for it’.

I think a thing that turns some people off her, is she’s one of those companions who already had a place in the world, and more than that, a happy one. She likes being an active foster sister and helping her mum out, and is playing proper gigs with a band she gets on well with. She’s after a bit of fun, but she’s not running from anything, not even boredom. Isn’t desperately in need of personal growth, acts like a nineteen year old but a responsible one. Ruby isn’t lacking anything in her life besides desperately wanting to understand her past and how she got here (which Rusty doesn’t usually write, I think only Martha fits that brief of a perfectly full fine life, even among the single episode companions). That’s the difference between Ruby and the Doctor, and it’s the one already set up for us with 15 vs. 14. Some domesticity, important to have a family and friends about which carves out a role for you, a community, makes a home for you in the universe.

Which offers the Doctor to have an opportunity for a whole new way to love a companion. Cus he’s aware, and has stated directly, that he empathises with her situation and her history. So he could love her as that child that he once was. A love somewhere between friend, and sibling, and a bit parental. Very therapeutic I think. 

How rare for the Doctor to see a mirror in a companion and feel yes sorrow (for that hole in her heart that there was never anything to fill in the first place) but not horror about what she will become. Ruby’s personality isn’t his, her drives aren’t his, none of his damage or self-destructive desires, and she has a supportive and wonderful life that looks full of promise and excitement ahead of her. I think seeing that even though that hole is going to always pain her, that she can live and thrive anyway…Got to be good for him. 

And good for us too. That it’s okay to be in pain about things you should have had but didn’t. Don’t need to pretend you’re not. But you will still be able to live life and be happy even so. Nobody grows up wrong.

[in-tua-deep]

Are you into my hero academia? What about an AU or crossover with tua?

UHHHH I am technically, like, peripherally? I watched some seasons of the show like two or three years ago and since then have simply absorbed all content through osmosis, reading fanfiction that has canon events, and my sister telling me about the arcs of her fav characters lmao

so a crossover hmmm

First of all you'd have to like, establish whether bnha is an alternate universe or just The Future If No Apocalypse with quirks being traced back to the descendants of the kids born without mothers

So let's say it's that - the glowing baby was the "first quirk" but the truth is people had powers before that. But - well, the Umbrella Academy was obviously a marketing gimmick to those in the future! There were even comics based on them

In the future, you might find some of those comics in museum exhibits dedicated to depictions of powers in the pre-quirk era, but they're just fun depictions and much less popular than, oh, DC or MCU comics which are also in the exhibits!

End of s2 doesn't happen I guess in this au?? No sparrow academy at least lmao. So, the Umbrella Academy stop the apocalypse (again) and the Commission threat is? Neutralized? Whatever. They decide to jump back to the future

Five warns them that time travel is a crapshoot, that he has no fucking idea when they'll land beyond some nebulous "future" because Five can at least control the direction if not exactly how long

Also, Five is like. Super tired. Incredibly tired. Homeboy still has a healing gut wound, time traveled twice, has been jumping all over the place, gotten even more injured, experienced paradox psychosis, and managed to undo time all in the space of like, two weeks. There actually more than that but we don't have time to get into how fucking tired Five is from his ~Month of Hell

Like genuinely this is like putting someone almost delirious from lack of sleep in the driver's seat of a car and expecting to get to your destination in one piece

But hey, the siblings are like "do it uwu" and Five has sacrificed everything for them already so why not get behind the wheel again

So Five jumps them, and of course something goes wrong because Five has pushed his powers like a great big rubber band and honestly it was only a matter of time before he lost his grip and it snapped back to hit him

So here be the umbrella academy: spilled out into the future like a cup of bad coffee.

Five probably isn't in too good of shape tbh, like they're hundreds of years in the future (but hey at least confirmation of no apocalypse am I right) in a world full of superpowers and Five is like. bleeding from his ears and nose probably idk

Let's handwave a little bit - Reginald made them all polyglots so the squad all speak varying levels of Japanese. Allison is the best at it, Five is second best but tends to use more archaic words bc he had missions in Japan back when he was with the commission, and Klaus is third best.

(Ben is the worst bc he decided when he was 16-and-dead that he didn't have to do anything regarding lessons and maintenance and hasn't given a shit since - but also he's dead so)

So you have a bunch of weird adults with a bleeding child in like, an alley who have appeared from nowhere

so of course heroes get involved

Anyway, the squad get taken in and Five is conscious but like, barely? And he's not going to let himself get separated from his siblings again fuck-you-officer and there is a lot of confusion

anyway detective tsukauchi ends up getting involved and ends up having to hear this batshit story and be like "...truth." which sends all kinds of people scrambling because fucking time travel? Like yeah, it's been theorized to be a possible quirk but there's no recorded cases of any sort of time travel that is for more than 24 hours let alone hundreds of years

"I'm an adult." Five says sourly, "I just happened to be returned to my 13 year old body when I time traveled one time."

"True." Tsukauchi says, feeling his soul leave his body, but like. absently. the way he does when he's called in at 2am after getting off of work at midnight.

"I'm 58." Five says.

"Lie." Tsukauchi says, because this is a headcanon hill I will die on.

"I'm probably 58, but it was hard to keep track. I'm at least 50." Five corrects.

"True." Tsukauchi sighs like these six (seven? they keep referring to another sibling and Klaus said 'ghost' like that was fine and it registered as true and Tsukauchi is not nearly paid enough for this) are not giving him a migraine by just existing

on the bright side there's like, probably protocols in place for individuals who are Legally Chronologically Adults but thanks to quirks are Not Physically Or Not Mentally Adults with tests to determine if the individual needs a guardian or not

though i'm gonna be honest idk if Five would pass the test bc he literally cannot take care of himself at all, has never paid taxes or understands how to exist legally, and also his emotional maturity is stunted as all hell. also like. we don't actually know how much being in his thirteen-year-old body affects his mental state but yeAH Five is vibing

anyway Tsukauchi probably phones a friend on this bullshit because Time Travel Child alone is probably enough for the Hero Commission to be like "find a way to control and use it or nuke it from orbit" and that's not even touching whatever the fuck Klaus is doing (shit gets real once 'dead men tell no tales' stops being true) let ALONE Allison's whole deal

on the bright side like, at least Vanya isn't getting side-eyed that much bc Big Destructive Quirks aren't exactly unknown? if vanya wanted to i guess quirk suppressors exist for that until extensive training on how to control a super powerful quirk happens

Tsukauchi in the group chat: Aizawa please I am literally begging you to take this bullshit on

Aizawa: in this economy? with my class?

RatGod: lol we'll take them ;3c

Aizawa: no

Anyway they probably end up having to live at UA while Five insists on trying to get them home still and everyone else is like "oh hey we used to be child soldiers as well! (:" and Aizawa is like "i hate everything about this and everything about all of you but also like nedzu is making me interact with you so :/"

nedzu is out here vibing like "lol i just don't want the hero commission to get their little paws on these time traveling fuckers, i think you should make then teaching assistants or something"

honestly the siblings are probably like. figuring out how to function in the bnha universe and getting like, legally registered and stuff while Five ferally refuses bc that's like saying he's giving up on getting them home and he can do this

Recovery girl tries to heal him a little when he arrives and he passes out for two weeks like, immediately bc homeboy is running on fumes and spite at this point

also i think on principle it would be REALLY FUNNY if the squad got to tag along with the class bc like. Five is thirteen and the class are all 15. this does not sound like a large age gap. anyone who has interacted with teenagers know that the class would squint at Five and be like "who is this sassy lost middle schooler."

I feel like when I was a sophomore we were still like "freshman... babie" even though we were literally only one year older.

i think the difference between the umbrella academy and school kids would be pretty funny like. objectively the bnha kids are lowkey child soldiers?? like they're 15 and fighting villains but like, there's all this red tape and laws and stuff but,,, deku still be breaking his limbs in a child fighting ring against equally superpowered children for like. entertainment and sponsorships sooo

but also like Five would be like "oh cool when is the experimentation class"

"the what"

"you know, when your powers are pushed real hard by putting you in different terrible situations while your dad and sibling stand by with clipboards writing down the exact voltage it takes before you can't use your powers anymore when being electrocuted"

"hound dog's office is right there. therapy is available to you at any time. i need you to know this."

all might calls Luther "my boy" like one (1) time and Luther just breaks down crying probably because he is starved for positive attention

klaus and midnight get along like a literal house on fire, aizawa tried his best to keep them apart for as long as possible but god damn

(klaus: your name is shimura nana??

all might: immediately dies choking on blood)

i feel it absolutely necessary to point out that aizawa, present mic, and midnight are all like, 30? and the umbrella academy are all between 29-early 30s? they are PEERS but like. the umbrella academy are more chaotic due to childhood trauma

the umbrella academy probably get offered to like. also train to be heroes. i mean,, there HAS to be some sort of track for people who change careers right?? you don't have to cement your future as a hero when you're 15 i'm sure there must be something and the squad already have experience if they want to go be legal heroes

diego probably does at least?? diego just vibes honestly. diego gets momo to make knives during a team exercise and they just go feral on everyone else and it ends with diego highfiving momo and someone getting way to close to being stabbed for comfort

Five might just be. legally enrolled as an Actual Student? But also i think it's funny to picture the entire squad just. all in the back of the classroom with luther trying to fit into a high school desk as they take notes on the laws of The Future surrounding heroics

every word out of the umbrella academy's mouths just make everyone more concerned on principal but like, five and klaus are probably the worst offenders. Klaus just says whatever comes to mind with no filter and Five doesn't get what people would consider to be abnormal anymore like

Five: yeah our dad bought us when we were babies and experimented on us throughout our childhood in order to make an elite team of child soldiers superheroes, it happens

Todoroki: ...have you heard of quirk marriages?

izuku probably has an aneurism bc he's is the only person who might recognize them from the comics because you know ya boy extensively researched the idea of heroics in pre-quirk eras (batman was an inspiration alright???) and might dredge up a memory of a less popular comic series

Five: I can time travel but it is very hard, which is why we are hundreds of years in the future. And why I look like a child.

Kaminari: so are you a kid or not?

Five, serenely: whatever is most convenient for me at any given moment

Mina: hell yeah game the system

they have a brief lesson on astronomy and Luther raises his hand like "ooh! i was isolated on the moon for four years and did SO MUCH research" and then just gets up and starts infodumping like way too much information on the moon

Izuku sitting there like "damn if quirks hadn't popped up we could have achieved so much in terms of space travel. please tell me more giant man who lived in pre-quirk era."

Vanya finds out about the quirkless and is like "oh mood that genuinely sounds like my childhood, being ordinary in a house full of extraordinary people, and then i found out that i did have powers but only much later in life after i had already been emotionally scarred by the experience"

deku: vanya we have so much in common

iida and uraraka: concerned noises

aizawa: hound dog. therapy with hound dog for all of you.

there's probably some conflict with like, the hero commission wanting to get their hands on the time travelers?? but probably especially five and klaus as a) time travel and b) ghosts (the hc def has bodies they would like to stay buried)

five has a pavlovian reaction to anything with 'commission' in the name and hates them on site, probably plays into his age in order to become a ward of UA or something to protect him from the commission a little bit.

(this makes nedzu Five's legal guardian. aizawa has his resignation papers all prepped in a drawer marked 'in case of emergency' but let's be real, if nedzu wants to take over the world aizawa should probably be on the rat-bear's side of things :/)

five: ah, i do recall the inhumane experimentation that we were subjected to

nedzu, who was experimented on: haha same hat! want me to dig up the location of reginald hargreeves's remains so you can spit on them?

klaus: nah no worries we dumped them out in the courtyard unceremoniously like, a while back. how long ago varies for each of us because of time travel!

luther: you said hound dog's office was down the hall and to the right?

on the bright side, Luther probably feels like. way less self conscious about his body, partially bc of his fighting and all that in the 60s but also bc !! now he genuinely doesn't feel like a freak. no one even gives him a second glance. one of the teachers looks like a slab of cement with a face. gang orca looks Like That. there is literally a student with an entire bird head and goth aesthetic. Luther does not stick out at all

allison and shinso bond over having "villainous" voice-based quirks

allison and shinso having worn muzzles at some point in their youth as punishment 🤝

aizawa probably helps train vanya as well with the whole, being able to erase a world ending quirk safely thing he's got going on which makes for a very nice safety net

i don't think vanya would want to be a hero at the end of things though. maybe the assistant teacher in the music class or something?? all vanya wants is to be able to not end the world

i feel like as time goes by, five brings up trying to get home less and less. part of that is because like,,, genuinely what do they have to go back to?? Allison has Claire, but like. I'm 100% sure the first thing she did in the future was try track down Claire's records and found out Claire was like. fine. became an adult, had a family, probably became the ancestor of the first "quirked" kids who officially popped up after light baby. had a good life, died at an old age etc. etc.

they start settling into the bnha world with like, "we can always hop aboard the five express into where the fuck ever" as a plan Z if things go completely pear shaped (again)

i'mma be real, five himself doesn't give a fuck as long as there is a) no apocalypse and b) his family is alive. Like that's it. His bar is so incredibly low and yet his life keeps fucking trying to limbo under it

i just think it would be funny to have like, Five trying to get along with his "peers" and make friends while the siblings do the same but like, in the staff room

also think it would be funny for five to just walk into the staff room and get coffee occasionally.

a teacher: why is a student in here -

Five, sipping coffee: i'm an adult

nedzu like "what kind of guardian would i be if i didn't teach my new son all the tunnels around ua so he can pop out wherever"

five like "hey new dad can i put stashes of supplies all around ua of weapons, money, food, and other assorted things that might be useful if one needed to fight or make a run for it" and nedzu is like "haha just put your list of what supplies you want in your go bags on my desk and i'll critique it later!"

anyway a bnha/tua crossover would be incredibly chaotic but probably very funny

[kootenaygoon]

So,

Natalya did a disturbing amount of coke for an elementary school teacher.

During our first few rendezvous at her house in Rosemont, I gratefully accepted a line or two just to be polite. Coming down from Shambhala I was feeling extra vulnerable, mental health-wise, and I was trying to transition away from drugs. CrossFit and cannabis, that was the way. When I was being most honest with myself, I knew that I objected to my own behaviour. I knew that it would cost me in more ways than one and besides, I didn’t have the cash to spend on blow if I was barely making rent. But if Natalya was offering it for free, then I was incapable of saying no.

Upon arriving at her house, which was surprisingly palatial for the area, the porn-like fantasy that I’d envisioned back in the Power By You parking lot never materialized. We worked our way through the typical machinations of sex in her ultra-tidy bedroom, and obviously that was better than not having it, but at the same time I found myself blinking in and out of the moment. Why am I doing this? I asked myself, gazing down at her enthusiastically writhing body. What is this even accomplishing? As ego-stroking as it was, it simply wasn’t a replacement for intimacy with someone I actually loved. As I fucked Natalya silly, I felt like I was going to cry.

Afterwards, I stood on her porch smoking a joint while she pranced around the living room nude. I found her little landing strip adorable. She was obviously a regular at Power by You, because her body looked like it was sculpted out of soapstone. She was 15 years older than me, but could’ve easily passed for late 30s. I wondered where she got all her cash from.

“So you didn’t like Shambhala so much this year?” she asked, leaning in the doorway. Her chest was still glistening with sweat.

“It’s not that I didn’t like it. I’ve never experienced anything like it before. It’s like I’m still processing weeks later here. I saw some disturbing shit, heard some crazy stories. I don’t know what to think.”

“Yeah, I stopped going a few years ago. It’s not my scene anymore.”

“Why?”

“It’s just a grody scene. These fucking drug dealers with armies of little enablers. I know like five chicks off the top of my head who were raped at Shambhala. Most of them were drugged.”

I blinked. My throat began to throb. “Did anything ever happen to you?”

She smiled. “Why, you going to be my white knight?”

I took a long drag on the joint.

“No, I haven’t ever been raped. I could beat the shit out of any guy who wanted to fuck with me. But being a women in the Kootenays is a fucking nightmare most of the time. Everyone’s all leering and polyamorous, having orgies and swapping partners. It’s a whole thing.”

I shook my head. “When I was a teenager, I made a pledge to Jesus that I would never have premarital sex, that I was going to save myself for marriage. I was a virgin until I was 22. Then I hit Nelson and everybody’s fucking everybody else and I’m just trying to sort out my relationship with my own promiscuity, you know? Like I just hate myself all the time.”

She snorted, leaned against my chest and reached her arms around me. I liked how small she was. “I gave you too much coke, obviously.”

“I don’t really do coke,” I said.

She laughed, looked at me like I was a floppy puppy in her arms. “You’re cute. In some ways you’re worldly, but in other ways you’re this outrageous innocent. It’s clear you were sheltered.”

“Why, because I’m upset about rape? Everybody gets upset about rape. What am I supposed to say?”

“Don’t get so defensive. I didn’t mean to patronize you. It’s just refreshing to find somebody who doesn’t come pre-soiled by the Kootenays. I saw it at that race summit at the youth centre, you just foolishly charge into situations and try to solve everything by yourself. You think you’re Superman.”

“Well, the thing I always get accused of is having a saviour complex.”

She laughed. “You think you’re Jesus Christ, the Risen Messiah?”

I shook my head. “No, but I believe I can save people. I believe that’s the reason I’m here, on this planet. When I was a kid I wanted to be a youth pastor. I wanted to be a missionary. When I lost my faith in 2005 I didn’t lose my predilection for trying to convert people, to rescue them from darkness.”

Natalya looked delighted at what she was hearing. I felt like I was a rambling goon. I was still flustered by the rape subject, the whole Shambhala thing, so I brought it up again. I asked what else she knew about it, if she knew about anything that was going on locally in Nelson.

“Oh, my ex is a bouncer in Nelson. The stories he could tell you would blow your mind. These fuckers basically have an underage prostitution ring going, all these girls hooked on drugs and not even out of high school.”

“I don’t believe that,” I said.

“Believe it or don’t. He’s the one dealing with them on a street level. He came home one time and he just started crying, sitting on the bed, with his head in his hands. He thinks about our kids. I hadn’t seen him cry for years.”

I chewed on my cheek. I’d been giving some thought to the question lately of whether I was a fake feminist or not. I saw this Jezebel article slamming Joss Whedon because he was shitty to his wife, regardless of how awesome Buffy is. There was lots of talk about sexual violence online, with Trump and Clinton sparring over their respective soiled pasts. I’d always considered myself a feminist, but suddenly that felt charged with a new urgency. It felt like we were under fucking attack. Trump, man. Trump was coming.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I said, as Natalya lowered me to the carpet. My arms were seizing and my eyes were bulging. I felt like Tony Soprano, having a panic attack. My face burned. “Sorry, fuck.”

A few moments later she got me calmed down, and I got dressed. She asked if I was okay to drive, and I assured her I was. Tomorrow was production day at the Star, and we had a new editor who would need a helping hand. For the past few weeks I’d been coasting, half-assing my assignments and writing repeat iterations of stories I’d written the year before. Natalya apologized over and over again for the coke, but I told her it was no big deal. I was fine. As I walked down the driveway, I spotted Andrew Stevenson silhouetted on the hood of my RAV. In my head I heard the words Natalya had told me, echoing, and wondered how much of that could be accurate. This was such a pristine-looking, magical place full of beautiful people. Could it also be hosting monsters at the same time? Monsters who were hanging out in plain sight? I rubbed my nose, which still burned from the coke, and faced Andrew. He looked like he knew exactly what I was going to say.

“We’re going to hunt some rapists.”

The Kootenay Goon

[parabellum-rpg-archive]

Congratulations, Joss! You’ve been accepted to play Amelina Martinez. Your request to change her FC to Emeraude Toubia has also been approved. Please make your page and send it in within 24 hours.

Admin note: I’m very excited for the future plotting! - Admin J

IC INFORMATION — CHARACTER DESIRED Amelina Martinez DESCRIBE THE CHARACTER IN YOUR OWN WORDS I think the word that stood out to me most in Amelina’s bio is 'obsessed’. Her obsession with avenging Luis and her obsession with bagging Morgan seem to stem from the same unexpressed need. She’s stuck always being that 14 year old girl, never able to move on from seeing her brother selling drugs and then later finding out he was dead. The two events are sort of locked into her head, and after that, she stopped growing up so much as simply getting older. Other people can move on from grief, but there’s this block there for her, and I think it’s surrounding the fact that they weren’t actually that close, that he’d already been to prison by the time she was starting high school, that it embarrassed her in front of her friends to see her brother like that. I think there was a ton of shame for her with this screw-up of a brother of hers, and not just a little anger. Why couldn’t he just get his shit together and get a real job and be a real man? Maybe she even said that to him, and then later, he was dead, and she never really got to know him, or take back her words, or realize she should have told her parents. That getting him sent back to prison on a parole violation, which her extremely Catholic and law-abiding family would’ve done, would’ve been better than dying on the street like a dog. I don’t think her parents ever got over his death either. Him going to prison was hard enough, but then their eldest son dying before he was 25 just broke them. So there’s this house with three broken people, and they all handle their grief differently. To me, Amelina is Inigo Montoya, preparing to take out the whole damn Costello gang. What’s ironic is that she hasn’t done the math on Luis getting shot and realized he was probably shot by a Sinclair. In another life, Ameline became a cop and worked a gang detail, maybe working undercover. In another life, she became a community organizer and worked at a youth centre helping to keep other kids from ending up like her brother. In another life, she got married too young to a boy a lot like Luis and got sucked into a shitty life because she felt like she deserved it, as some sort of punishment. In this world, she swore revenge. She became a spy from the beginning, learning about a world that she had no doorway into by sheer will. She spent 15 years figuring out how to get access to a gang, when she could’ve just joined up. But she isn’t interested in being her brother and owned by someone else. She wants to own them. Which leads me to her interest in Morgan. Now, Morgan has a lot of animal magnetism and is obviously gorgeous, but I don’t really think if he were just a man, Amelina would look twice. I don’t even think it’s the power and the privilege he has, though she probably thinks that’s what it is, that drives her to him. She tells herself she wants to be his wife, to supplant Penny, to satisfy him on some level that he no longer feels, but I think those are just surface thoughts. What Morgan actually is for her, is death. Her death drive is jacked all the way up, not to the point of suicide, but to the point where death seems like an acceptable outcome if the result is revenge. She’s had this need for so long, she can’t plan for the future anymore. She can’t have dreams, she can’t have plans, she only has this one thing, and Morgan will use her to get it, and he won’t care if he breaks her to do it, and she wants that so badly. Everyone else in her life looks at her and wants to protect her or love her or just views her as unimportant. Only Morgan looks at her and sees a weapon. And that’s what she’s turned herself into. She can run a half-marathon in an hour and forty five minutes, she’s learned Krav Maga, she has killer aim, and most of all, she can lie so well that even she believes it sometimes. All she needs is for someone to just pull the trigger and fire her at the enemy. What was she up to in those fifteen years? Can you get experience in revenge? She couldn’t exactly go out and find a swordmaster to train her or something. She got a series of jobs that she hated and never got a promotion because she couldn’t care less. She went to school but never finished that accounting degree, or information management diploma, or even that administrative assistant certificate, because the idea of being anything for the rest of her life seems impossible to imagine. She made friends she couldn’t hold onto, and had relationships she didn’t care about, and she just … absorbed information. She went to Costello clubs, she hung with Costello people, she learned about them, and by doing so, learned about the Sinclairs. It actually took her a while to realize the Sinclairs were useful, because at first she thought she could do it all on her own, like people in the movies. After years of collecting evidence, only to realize it was useless because no one was going to prosecute them, and punishment meant nothing to people who owned the system, she finally turned her attention to the Sinclairs, under the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. WRITING SAMPLE Her target, Luca Costello, was drunk as shit and just turned 18. Spending money like it had an expiration date and begging girls to help him celebrate. She wondered if he even knew what his family did for a living. On the one hand, how could he not, when he was surrounded by it all the time? But on the other, how could he really understand what they did and still throw bills around like the world was a game and he’d already won? “Hi.” “Hey. You’re … pretty. You wanna get married?” This wasn’t what she’d imagined. Was it really this easy? “I wanna go back to your place. Take me home.” “Okay. Yeah, let’s do that, we can totally … I have coke at home. And like, every booze. All the booze. I’ll even order pizza if you want!” He smiled and touched her hair. She let him. It didn’t matter what he did. None of it mattered. It was all just research.               *** He lay on the bed, passed out after she’d fed him three more drinks and listened to him tell her about some girl named Juliet and how she’d broken his heart again. He’d done a few lines of coke and that had pretty much made him tell her everything she could’ve ever wanted to know, and several things that she didn’t, about his life. It was kind of sad how little there was of it. His beloved twin sister, who sounded like a little bitch, his parents who were equal parts proud and disappointed in him, his friends who sounded like the worst sort of entitled pricks, his older siblings who seemed barely aware of him and who were embedded in the business enough to be soaked in blood. Climbing off him, her t-shirt left back in the living room, since breasts seemed to make men more chatty, and her pants by the side of the bed, to give him hope that they might actually fuck, she sat on the bed and just breathed. What the fuck did she do now? She’d thought this part would be the complicated part, that she’d have to jump through hoops, talk her way in, be so smooth that no one suspected anything. She hadn’t really let herself consider what happened next. Mostly all she could think about was the other Costellos. It was obvious Luca wasn’t really involved in the business, but they were. The oldest ones might even have been a part of the business when Luis was still alive. Had they put him on that street corner where he died? Was he just a scratched out line for them in some notebook somewhere? Did they even care? How could they not realize that their choices had left a fucking cemetary worth of bodies in their wake? Did they look in the mirror and see a monster? She was up and pacing and hadn’t even noticed. No one had ever taken anything from them. No one had ever made them face the cost of 'doing business’ before. They were all pampered, precious little vampires sucking the blood out of Chicago’s poor and desperate. She was back on the bed now, straddling him, staring down at his sleeping face that had never known real pain. What did he have to grieve? A girl who didn’t fall at his feet? He was a stupid little boy, a waste of education and opportunity. He’d had everything that she and Luis hadn’t, and he hadn’t become anything more than they had. It was hard to look at him. He was a boy, younger than Luis, his hair curling at the edges. He was a Costello, his very existence an insult to her own loss. She had a pillow in her hand and pressed it against his face. He didn’t even struggle. He could die like this, and maybe his family would think it was just some sort of freak accident. They would know just a fraction of what she felt, with their money insulating them from anything real. They’d know something, even if they didn’t even know her brother’s fucking name. He was moving a little under her, trying to push her off, when she heard a noise. A door opening. Was someone else home? Had someone come in and she hadn’t heard them? Was it the police? The rest of the Costellos? Did they somehow all know what she was doing? Lifting the pillow away, Lina froze and Luca took a breath. He coughed and his hand reflexively grabbed her bare thigh where it pressed against his. She was straddling Luca Costello’s thighs in a mismatched bra and panties, clutching her murder weapon to her chest like she was about to start a pillow fight. There was a man standing in the doorway looking at her. He didn’t look embarrassed, which was the part that confused her. They both looked at each other for a moment, and Lina needed to think of a lie. Nothing stuck in her head, everything was blank. She knew, on some level, she was panicking. She managed to choke out a gasp, and hopped off of Luca and onto the floor. Stumbling, the blood rushing away from her head where it had been pounding moments before, her feet numb from kneeling on them, she moved like a drunk co-ed. Yes, drunk. She was drunk. She was just another drunk girl, probably one of dozens that Luca brought home. “Oh my God, what’re you doing here?” Her voice was unsteady and breathy, but that was normal, right? Was anything normal? “My cousin texted me that he’d just proposed to his future wife. You two aren’t married, are you?” The question was so unexpected that Lina just automatically shook her head and held out her left hand, as if showing that she wasn’t wearing a wedding ring was the normal response in these situations. “Good. His mother would kill me if he got married the day he turned legal.” The man, Luca’s cousin, didn’t even seem to be really talking to her, he wasn’t even looking at her directly. “Could you … maybe put something on?” Snatching the sheet off the bed, Lina wrapped herself in it and sank to the floor, so much adrenaline in her system that she couldn’t breathe and could taste her own heartbeat. “I’m feeling … woozy. Can you find my shirt?” She just needed him to leave, to go away. He’d seen her face, but what were the odds he’d be able to ever recognize her again? If he would just leave, she could … Luca made a noise like a sad puppy on the bed and fell off of it onto the floor. He didn’t wake up, but was now curled up like a baby. Why had the cousin come home? Why was he here? What kind of fucked up family were they? “I don’t think I know you. What’s your name?” Oh fuck. He knew. He knew she wasn’t one of Luca’s friends, he knew something was up. Someone at the club had warned him, maybe? She didn’t know. But he didn’t know what she didn’t know, did he? She was just a dumb drunk girl. “I’m Lina. Luca told me he had coke. He asked me to marry him but I didn’t say yes … can you see my pants?” Why had she said her real name? She was a fucking idiot. Grabbing her pants, she went to stand up and fell into the bed, knocking herself into the arms of the cousin. She was pressed against his body, and he had a gun, it felt like a bad joke, is that a gun I feel or are you just happy to see me? Only it was a gun, it really was. And he was looking at her now, and she did the only thing she could think of. She passed out, dead dropping in his arms. He carried her. That was the crazy part. He carried her to the living room like something out of a romance movie, only it wasn’t romantic at all, and then just stared at her for a moment. Even with her eyes closed, she could tell somehow, that he was watching her. Trying not to shake, or even breathe too hard, she lay there and wondered if this was the part where he shot her. Was he going to press the muzzle to her head, or just pull the trigger? Would she hear it coming before she died? Christ, was this how it had felt to be Luis? She couldn’t even cry, weirdly calm, like there was a wall and all her fear was behind it, waiting to crash over her, but she couldn’t quite feel it yet. “Amelina Belinda Pilar Martinez. Where do you live?” Oh Christ, he knew she was awake, he was talking to her, oh God, she was going to die now. But then she realized what she was hearing. He was going through her wallet. The wallet that had been in the pants she was holding when she pretended to pass out. Oh fuck, this was even worse. He knew who she was. He knew her name. He had her goddamn driver’s license. “Mike, can you bring the car around? Yes, Luca’s. Just a girl. They’re both passed out, I don’t want her getting into more of his nose candy and OD'ing. Yeah, exactly. I’ll stay with him, make sure he doesn’t choke on his own vomit. Yes, well, it is his birthday. See you soon.” Lying there, a cold certainty hit her. She wasn’t prepared for this. She didn’t know what the fuck she was doing. She didn’t even know which fucking cousin this guy was. She’d made all these lists, all these observations, all these half-baked plans, but she hadn’t done anything about them. Here she was, lying on Luca Costello’s floor, and she had no idea what to do. What if anything had gone wrong before this? What if Luca had woken up while she’d been smothering him? Christ, what if Luca had been playing music and she hadn’t heard his cousin come in? She could just give up. Admit that it had all been stupid. Go back to her pointless life and just keep living, day in and day out, and eventually die, having accomplished nothing. Fuck that. She would just have to figure out how to be better. She would. And then next time, she’d know what to do. And she’d never feel like this again. EXTRAS She reads the tabloids religiously to keep up with the Costello siblings. Not necessarily a playlist, but pretty much the new album from Billie Eilish is Lina’s soundtrack right now, with a lot of Lana Del Rey thrown in and the Kill Bill soundtrack on top (just because she loves that movie and has seen it 10 times).

Her favourite book is the Count of Monte Cristo.

[dontbethatshank]

Teach Me How To Listen

Imagine: High School AU short-series - Newt pairing 

A/N: This series will make the main character multi-lingual. Also, this first part is a bit of a slow start. It introduces the storyline basically and that’s about it. The next part will have more character interactions though, so stay tuned~

Wednesday, December 3rd. It’s third period and good God you couldn’t wait for the day to be over with. It was block schedule at your school so you only had three classes every day; 1-3 on odd days and 4-6 on even days. So it was now nearing 3:15 in the afternoon and you were ready to leave, but as the bell rang and your school work found its way into your bag, a hand stopped on your shoulder and a mumbled phrase of “please stay behind, will you” came with it.

So, with a reluctant sigh, you sank back down into your chair, pulling out your phone from your jacket pocket and sending a text to your group chat, letting your friends know that their ride for the day would be a few minutes late. Once it sent, you slide it back into its designated pocket and instead fiddled with the keys in your hand, toying with the small trinkets you had on your keychain. Soon the class was empty, the last student leaving once they slid in some late work into the teacher’s outbox. You remained in your seat in the middle of the room, your book bag on the table next to you.

“Ms. Y/L/N, how are you this fine afternoon?” your teacher, Mr. Blackburn, asked, taking a seat on a table top in front of you, his hands in his pockets and his glasses now in his shirt pocket. With a quirk of the eyebrow, you leaned forward, arms on the table, giving your teacher a questioning look. “No offense, Mr. Black, but why did you keep me...? I’m a straight A, AP student who has over  95% attendance. I’m pulling an almost perfect grade in your class... Did I do something to upset another student or teacher, or...?” you asked, cutting right to the chase, not wanting to mess around or beat around the bush. Along with being one of the school’s highest achieving students, you were also one of the bluntest.

With a sigh, Mr. Blackburn stood up, walking to his desk and grabbing a small notebook, handing it to you before returning to his previous seat. “Well, Ms. Y/L/N, this has nothing to do with you per say... but a peer of yours. I have a boy in my first period who is barely passing this class and with how his test is looking, won’t be passing for much longer. This student is also one of our school’s star athletes and has a possibility of a full ride scholarship. This is one of his only weak classes and his parents contacted me asking for the best tutoring centers. I suggest instead a fellow student... you. His parents are willing to pay you up to 17 an hour for the tutoring; three hours every Friday before his game and an hour every Tuesday and Saturday afternoon. I wanted to give you a chance to make some quick money... you are one of the only students in this school to know more than two languages fluently, which this boy needs desperately,” Mr. Blackburn explained. With a bewildered look, you looked down at the book in your hands, flipping open to the first page.

Newton Issaics Junior - 1st Period French Level 2

“So... this is the guy?” you asked slowly, flipping through the first few pages, seeing simple verbs, pronouns, simple dialect and conversation skills written on the page, a small lesson plan written for you, highlighting weak and strong points. “Newton Issaics?” you clarified, a small amused smirk on your lips. “Yes, that’s him. You are already fluent in French, and you only took French 4 as an easy course as well as to get your certificate at your graduation next year... Ms. Y/N, you know English, Russian, French, and your father tells me you know most German and are working on Spanish at home. That is four languages and counting. If anyone can teach this poor lad a thing or two about French it’s you - and you can make quick and easy money! So, what do you say?” your teacher asks, looking at you with an almost pleading glint in his eyes. With a sigh you nod, agreeing. You knew he wouldn’t leave you alone until you agreed. Everyone knows the only tutoring center in your small town honestly sucked. They taught Spanish, French, and English - all of which new learners who aren’t necessarily literate in it. So yes, this boy’s best bet was you. He was pulling a 60.2% in the class and that was only because of his spotless attendance record and the fact that Mr. Blackburn gave a 50% as the lowest test score possible as long as every question had a legitimate attempt at an answer. Besides those facts, the boy would have had a 30% at best, honestly.

“Oh thank you! This boy’s father is a family friend of mine and a business partner of my wife’s. I truly do appreciate it, Y/N, I can even talk to the principal and probably get it written off as community service so you can add it to your college applications as well,” Mr. Blackburn smiled brightly, a hum in his tone. “Oh! And here is his address,” he said, handing you a piece of paper from his pocket, “this Friday will be your first meeting with him. I’ll see you on that day so I can give you some papers to use with him before you leave.” With a nod you took the paper, tucking it into the notebook. You smiled politely at your teacher, quickly saying you had friends waiting for their ride, aka you, and you had to leave. You rushed from the classroom, a deep sigh leaving your lips as you stuffed some books and folders into your locker before you left the building, making your way to your car that had three people leaning against it.

“Ah! There she is,” Minho grinned, clapping as he straightened up to give you a wide, toothy grin. “FInally,” Teresa groaned, sliding off of the hood of the car, pushing Gally on the shoulder to get him to stop falling asleep on the other side of the car. With a laugh, you unlocked your car, Teresa climbing in front and the two boys int he back. “So, what did Mr. B want with you? Become a naughty little rule breaker overnight, did ya?” Minho teased, winking at you through the rearview mirror as you all buckled up. You rolled your eyes and shook your head, backing out and heading out of the school parking lot. “No, he just wanted to ask me to help tutor another student in French or whatever. Nothing really. But, moving on from anything school related, who wants to grab some burgers and shakes at Ferrel’s before we head home?” you replied, already putting your blinker on to head towards the old fashioned themed ice cream and burger joint down the block.

“Fuck yes, I love you,” Gally sighed, his arms lazily encircling your neck from behind you as he began to fall back asleep, “I’m starved.” Teresa snorted, turning in her seat. “You ate an entire bag of chips and half my sandwich from lunch while we waited for Y/N, fatass. But whatever, I’m totally down for one of their mint chip shakes and their cheese fries,” Teresa agreed after teasing your friend. Everyone chuckled at her and your rolled your eyes, laughing at your friends. God you lot were a mess. 

When you got to Ferrel’s, you all climbed out of the car and made your way inside. Chatting and laughing as you went, you all made your way to a small booth, plucking out some menus on the way as a waitress instructed you to seat yourselves. You and Gally sat on one side and Minho and Teresa on the other. You all began to chat aimlessly, briefly looking over the menu - as if you didn’t all get the exact same fucking thing every time.

“Hey, I gotta go tot he bathroom real quick, don’t order without me,” you stated, slipping from the booth. “Here, I’ll join you. I think Minho got some candy of something in my hair after he threw all that crap at me in your car,” Teresa grumbled, putting her phone back into her back pocket. She had been grumbling about it for the past five minutes, staring at her front camera and raking her fingers through her hair as the Asian boy beside her smirked triumphantly at his handiwork. “Girls. Always have to go in packs,” Gally muttered, flipping lazily through a menu. “Maybe they’re all just trying to get away from you, shuckface,” Teresa muttered back, earning a grumpy ‘hey!’ as she scuttered away with you in tow, both laughing like school children at Gally.

As you both walked towards the bathroom, talking about random things, mostly about how Minho “finally got the balls” to ask Teresa out a couple weeks ago, you both ran into someone. Well... more so something. As Teresa was talking about her date with Minho to the country fair in immense detail, you didn’t see the distracted boy walking to your right and you both collided. Unluckily for both you and Teresa, said boy was carrying a large to-go cup full of a caramel brownie shake in his hand. As you both stumbled into each other, his cup went flying from his hand, the top coming off in the process, and both you and Teresa got a... sticky make-over to say the least.

“Hey! Watch it you- oh fucking shit,” came the mumbled voice, accent thickening as he began to curse, sliding his phone into his back pocket as he came to look at both of you fully. “Jesus Christ!” Teresa groaned, looking down at her shirt and pants, both covered in the cold, sweet drink that once belonged to the stranger. With a sigh, you wiped the whip cream and caramel off your cheek, only making yourself stickier in the process. “Thanks,” you deadpanned, glaring at the guy in front of you. “Hey, I wasn’t the only one not watching where I was going,” he frowned. “Here,” he mumbled, sliding a backpack off his shoulder and offering a gray sweater to Teresa. She grumbled and snatched it, walking off to the bathroom. You stood there, still getting bits of whip cream and brownie off your face and tossing them in the trashcan near you, as the mystery boy watched.

“Enjoying the show?” you rolled your eyes, throwing the last bit of brownie bits for your shirt into the trash can. “What? Oh- no- oh well... here,” the boy stuttered, sliding off a varsity jacket from his shoulders. It had your school colors and mascot on it, and you’re sure if you looked on the back you would find a team number. The football, soccer, basketball, and hockey teams all had the same jackets. The only difference was the small badges on the left shoulder, each one representing the individual sports. You didn’t have time to look at the sport’s badge, but you hesitantly took it. “You sure...?” you asked, raising an eyebrow. With a shrug, the boy just nodded. “I’ll give you my number, you can give it back to me tomorrow or something.”

With a mumbled thanks, you walked off to the bathroom to get changed. You found Teresa, head half way in the sink and a soaking wet t-shirt hung over the side of said sink. She had managed to get most of the shake out of her hair and off her chest, the small remains left on the thigh’s of her pants were now wet patches. “At least he gave up clean tops,” Teresa grumbled, slipping on the gray sweater that was barely too big for her but way too long for her height. With a laugh, you continued washing out your hair, your shirt discarded to the side and the jacket hanging over a stall door. “Yeah, I guess. Driving home like that would have been terrible,” you agreed. You both continued the conversation of Teresa’s date, you scrubbing your chest and neck as you listened. Once you were as clean as you were going to get, you took some paper towels and dried yourself off, ringing out your hair and tying it in a high, messy bun. You looked like a trainwreck, but you at least weren’t covered in milkshake anymore.

“Let’s go. We have to get that guy’s number to give him his clothes back later this week,” you muttered, pulling on the varsity jacket and buttoning it up. But, upon exiting, you saw the mysterious, clumsy athlete nowhere in sight. With a shrug, Teresa led you both back to the table. “Well, it looks like he at least goes to Heights High, so we can find him tomorrow or something,” Teresa said, sliding back into the booth. Both of you immediately began the story of the milkshake and the jackets before either of the boys could ask.

But, God damn, were those burgers and fries worth that sticky situation.

[planetwalker]

Reflections on 6 years of sobriety

Today, May 18th, I officially have not had a drop of alcohol in my system for six years. It has been a long road, and without the support of my family, my friends, and my therapist I would likely be dead or in prison. More that likely, dead. Also, I would like to thank a doctor I knew personally (she shall remain nameless) who risked her professional career by prescribing me medicine to keep me from going into seizures when I quit drinking the first time at twenty (for a year and a half), because of my refusal to go to rehab or do it any other way than in my house, alone. I woke myself up with an alarm every four hours for over ten days to manually check my own blood pressure and administer the medicine that would keep me alive and not convulsing, seizing, or having delirium tremens. It wasn't pretty.

My alcoholism had taken me to a depth of insanity that ended in me finally drinking nearly a 1.5 liter bottle of hard liquor a day, plus beer to wash it down. That's when your tolerance has beaten you so far into the ground that you pretty much just wake up and begin drinking again. There's just not enough time in the day to drink that much otherwise. That is no exaggeration. From about 10am until 5am the next morning, I would drink whiskey in a nearly constant way. There would often only be a half-inch of the largest bottles of liquor they sell left in my freezer by morning. A hair of the dog that bit me, which would get me to the liquor store for a fresh new dog. I think I spent about 25 dollars a day on booze for those 5 last (and worst) years after my initial relapse. That's about 45,000 dollars, more than triple what I have ever made in a year of my working life.

On this sixth anniversary of sobriety though, I'm not really reflecting on my accomplishments in the past, but I'm using it as an opportunity to talk about something far more deadly and much more hard for me to deal with, or speak about. I have to begin at the beginning, but every word of this is difficult to write, I will try my best to speak openly and honestly.

After many years of denial, after being psychologically tested at fourteen years old and severely misdiagnosed and mismedicated, put on lithium, and poisoned to a point of amnesia. After a week in a psychiatric hospital at twenty due to suicidal ideation, and after eleven more years of waiting (including these six sober years), I finally went to a psychiatrist to get a full mental health assessment, at the behest of my family. A multitude of tests, by the most progressive and up to date standards were administered by an expert clinician. I waited to hear the conclusion I pretty much have known my whole life was coming: I have Bipolar II, without a shadow of a doubt, and on the nose.

The good news: I have rote number memorization in the 99th percentile, as well as a smattering of other high-functioning brain abilities that I cannot take any real credit for. I just know how to memorize and remember things in a way that seems insane to most people. I can recite texts I read when I was ten forwards and backwards. I once made a rap out of the alphabet being recited backwards. I remember memorizing decks of randomized playing cards as a kid, just for fun, to see if I could name the last card in the deck. I found out many years later after requesting my transcripts that my IQ had been tested at fourteen as well during those psych exams and largely said the same thing, I was in the 99.975 percentile, something like 151. Unfortunately then, their only concern was me being able to "sit down and listen in school", which I found to be impossible, boring, and frustrating to the point that acting out was my only recourse. I remember refusing to say the pledge of allegiance in the 4th grade after reading a book on my own about the genocide of American Indians, and the horrors of slavery instituted by the very same people who wrote these documents. I was a little shit, too smart for my own good, and I needed to be controlled.

I was expelled from school in the 6th grade for printing out "The Devil's Cookbook" (essentially a bomb making guide, and anarchist literature), from the schools library, hundreds of pages. I went to a "democratic school" run by hippies for the rest of the year where I mostly skateboarded and flirted with girls. I spent 7th grade with my father living in South Africa, and was quickly shuffled out of middle school after arriving back halfway through 8th grade. They couldn't wait to get rid of me. My one saving grace was my music teacher named Ken Johnson, who always let me stay late after school and practice guitar, piano, singing. I don't think I could have finished that year without his support, he turned me on to great music I never would have heard. Mostly, he just got that was talented and interesting, and not just a little shit. That pretty much ended my formal education. I read manuals and textbooks in my spare time and proceeded to get my GED at 15 and tested again to receive a stamped and signed high school diploma (with honors!) from the Rockville Board of Education (the same document all my fellow graduating seniors would get at 18, after wandering the halls for four years of the hellhole I abandoned). I still think skipping high school was the smartest decision I ever made in my life. I have never met anyone who says they learned almost anything in high school except "I still have friends that I know on Facebook", which really says a lot. I was accepted into The Evergreen State College two days before my sixteenth birthday. I had not filled out the small line that asked for age on the application, and apparently nobody noticed. I flew across the country to Olympia, Washington that spring and began my studies in creative writing, ecology, and a self-created major with my friend Sky Cosby: "Liberating the voices of incarcerated youth", which we had a brilliant and very optimistic professor graciously sign off on. We called it "Celldom Heard". We threw a great hip-hop showcase in Red Square that year, as well as producing a DIY chapbook of prisoner literature. My drinking career also really took off at this time, as I was a seventeen year old on a college campus thousands of miles away from home. My gambling too, playing poker anywhere I could, often at seedy clubs and online with a pre-paid debit card, as well as hosting poker tournaments with everyone I knew and could convince to lose their money to me. I could do anything I wanted. I never lied about my age, but simply refused to tell anyone for quite a long time. Age is just a number, right? Says any self-righteous seventeen year old.

My grandiosity surely impressed people; I have been a performer since as long as I can remember (my mother always jokes that I was ready to go entertain people since I left the womb). A magician at five, playing piano and performing music by ten; writing, slamming poetry at the national championships at fifteen, it never stopped. I was in the center of the room, and I thought that meant something, not just that I was an egomaniac, sure to be on the cover of Rolling Stone by the time I was twenty-one. My parents couldn't understand why I could never get up for school, they didn't know till years later that I would put a towel under my door to block the light and stay up all night reading and writing, until about 5:30, where I would sleep for thirty minutes before my father came down the hall to wake me up for the bus. I don't know how I survived. Years pass; trying to drink my hypomania away, trying, jamming alcohol down my throat followed by NyQuil, Ambien, Benedryl, all to try to just get to sleep, that one unattainable goal I could never quite reach. At some point my dreams just disappeared into darkness. As the years progressed further, some of the darker sides of hypomania began to present themselves; impulsive spending, reckless gambling, strings of unhealthy sexual relationships, all of which were doomed to failure from the start. Anger, rage, darkness, depression, and finally, the scariest points of this last year of my life: Mixed-Episodes.

In the past year and a half, I have had to experiment with a regimen of drugs until finally finding the right dosage and medicine to help me live a functional life. And as much as people can be proud of you for conquering alcohol, it's a much harder beast to speak out about your mental illness. I remember once going on a date, and the first thing my date started talking about was her "crazy bipolar ex-boyfriend", he was an "alcoholic too, so I'm so glad you don't drink". What to even say? I'm a fucking mess, girl, you don't want to get anywhere near me, trust me. And what to do? Deny, deflect, and continue to function (sobriety will buy you a lot of time in doing this, as you can use it as an excuse that you've gotten help and are doing fine). Hypomania, actually also keeps you functioning at such a high level. I have been able to operate on about 4-5 hours of sleep for as long as I can remember. I produce music all night in my solitary zen wonderland, read about 3-4 non-fiction books a week, about topics from psychophysiology to economics to super-string theory. Memoirs about drug abuse to politics to mountain climbing. Anything I could get my hands on. People wondered at work out loud often to me "where do you find the time?!". My response was always the same: I am awake and doing things when you are asleep. My hours of extra work were from 10pm-5am. That's seven hours of intense, single-minded focus that hypomania can provide you with, and it is a very very hard thing to want to give up, especially if your depressive spells are severe, but not all that frequent.

This went on for years. I traveled the world, studied all manners of healing and spirituality, motorcycling through the dirty terrain of Cambodia at night, swerving around cattle barely visible until hitting the glint of my low-beams, yards ahead. Being chased by wild dogs on a night I was sure I was going to die and be ripped to pieces. Nothing could stop me. Ever. I was a star exploding at light speed through the galaxy, burning as bright as anything you had ever seen, but sure to collapse upon it's own weight and gravity eventually. I paid this no mind, as I had decided at about twelve that I was sure I would never make it to my 30th birthday alive. I didn't really want to. I wanted to live, hard, fast, intense, non-stop, now. I came pretty close to making that pact a reality. I'm only 31 now, but this year I finally made strides to comprehend and look deeply at who I am and what is happening to me, and what factors are chemical imbalances in my brain, rather that just my insane hyperactivity. I had never even thought to blame anyone but myself. Or thank anyone but myself. My choices were my fault. Everyone else's judgements about me were right, but fuck them, I didn't care, I'll move on to someone else who sees the good parts with the darkness hidden.

The mixed episodes began, and got worse quickly. This is where you have the intensity of the hypomania mixed with the self-hatred of the deepest and darkest depression you have ever felt. Suddenly all that energy I had to conquer the world was turned inwards into a pattern of suicidal ideation, agoraphobia, blowups with close friends, despising my family, hanging up on my father after screaming matches, all of it, more. So much more I can't even write it all down. It was the hardest time of my life, a thousand times harder than my worst days of drinking, without a doubt. At least then I had something to numb out the pain, something to try and quell the manic thoughts and get some sleep. I always used to say "drinking *is* a coping skill, it's just not a healthy one." It's true. Now, instead, I had hypersomnia, sleeping 14 hours a day, unable to get out of bed, whole weeks where I never left my house, fear of everything outside. I was so scared I bought a gun. Then I was scared that I had a gun in my house. Worried I might shoot myself, or worse, mistake some passerby as a burglar and shoot some innocent stranger. Afraid and anxious about the outside world, uncontrollable sobbing for hours at a time, the inability to pull myself out of it for more than 20 minutes before collapsing back into the despair and pain I can't describe as anything short of brutal psychological torture.

The first doctor I saw in New Orleans (who I later found out accepted thousands of dollars from big pharma, of course) told me outright that he didn't care about the tests, he was sure I had Bipolar I, which is much scarier and involves hallucinations, delusional thinking (I am Barack Obama, people are out to get me, etc.), psychosis, and far worse symptoms. He prescribed me tranquilizers that nearly killed me in the following three months. My depression worsened. He suggested I up my dosage. I declined. I am very fortunate and lucky that he was wrong about me having Bipolar I, and that I have the lesser of these two evils, and I never forget that.

That didn't matter though: my agoraphobia worsened to the point that I couldn't get into my car, could barely make it to my porch to check my mail. I didn't go grocery shopping for three months and ate chinese food ever night. Agoraphobia, means literally "fear of the public square", and comes from our (very smart) reptile brains that were afraid of the open savannah. This is because birds of prey could see us from above and pick us off while exposed without a tree to hide beneath. It is a very primal instinct, and hard to counteract. My anxiety attacks got worse and worse, the medication wasn't helping, it was making things worse, but I continued to swallow them down, convinced I was just adjusting. I was not.

My parents finally begged me to come home to Connecticut and see a doctor who was a specialist with Bipolar males of my age, and after months of fighting them off, I reluctantly agreed. And he likely saved my life. He took my off the tranquilizer immediately, and I began to experience emotions again. Not great ones, but at least something. And then I was put on Lamictal, the only Bipolar medication that has been approved for Bipolar II and come on the market since Lithium did in 1948. Lithium is the aforementioned drug that I refused to ever try again, after I was put on it at fourteen, and which cost me a year of my life I can barely recall but for hazy half-memories, lost in a sea of white noise. And to the gracious angels, goddesses, or simply to the smart psychiatrists diagnosing me correctly and providing me with a plan of action including proper medication and therapy, have saved my life.

I cook dinner every night. I went to the grocery store the other day, then the bank, then the post office. I didn't even mind. It felt kind of great. I always ask how people are doing, a habit I've always done. It's amazing how the little things can go such a long way. When I call Cox to complain that my internet has gone out again, I always start with "Hey, my name is Sam Dillon, how are you doing today?". The other night I was met with "No one has asked me that in a week". Try it, it's pretty fun. Sometimes a grocery store clerk will literally break down in tears and tell you about her bad day. That happened not to long ago too. I still go to sleep late still, up reading books, but when I'm ready to fall asleep, I drift off into the odd and vivid dreams I remember having since I was a child, the same ones that disappeared for more than a decade. I am on the path to recovery, not there yet, and as with my alcoholism, I take small steps and don't get ahead of myself.

I was born with a strange chemical imbalance, not much different that someone with diabetes or anemia or Crohn's disease or autism. The large difference is the stigma. When you are an impulsive, grandiose, gambling, alcoholic maniac, nobody gives you much slack that you can't just "get your life together", "fix your problems", or simply "stop acting this way". There is no discussion of treatment (other than AA, a religious doctrine started by holocaust-deniers, sorry AA folks), not much in the way of offering help, a lot of blame and a small amount of empathy. You can only burn so many bridges before people don't want to come near you. And I've burned a lot. Lost of a lot of good friends. Sometimes I'm amazed that most of my family still even talks to me. Some of them barely do. I understand. I empathize. I get it. I know why, even though I know they also just don't understand what I have been struggling with my whole life and simply blame me and say I "always play the victim".

I have not been easy to deal with for many, many years. Even in sobriety I have been a raging asshole to deal with at times. At the height of my hypomanic episodes I have been explosive, unpredictable, and stubborn beyond belief. Impossible to deal with. I have always been this way, in a sense, and for many years, it served me. I skipped high school completely, choosing to get my education through books, following politics and world affairs, listening to everything around me, absorbing knowledge and skills like a sponge, learning from the world and by trial and (a lot of) error. When I made a decision, there was no challenging me or changing my mind. I followed my gut to the ends of the earth and back. Nobody could have stopped me, though many tried.

So on this day I celebrate six years since I touched a drop of alcohol, I guess I would like to begin not by celebrating at all, but by admitting what I was actually trying to drink away, the hypomania, the depression. By admitting that getting to the root of a problem is often just the beginning of seeing a deeper one. That hitting rock bottom only happens when you stop digging, and try to find a way out. That stigmatizing people who are mentally ill is killing millions of people every year. That suicide recently surpassed homicide as the second-leading cause of death in teenagers each year, after car accidents. That our military veterans come home wounded in body and mind and have a suicide rate that is drastically high, with little to no mental health treatment available. Just "be a man and deal with it" leads to guns being put to heads, nooses being wrapped around throats. That we as a society must change the way we treat the mentally ill, simply as people who have an illness no more controllable or treatable alone than Parkinson's. What's the difference? There is no difference but our mind-state, that's the difference. I worked in a Psychiatric hospital for almost 7 years, and I am still amazed at the daily comments from doctors, nurses, staff in general: "Oh, she's just Borderline", "He's just an attention-seeking teenage brat", "He's just classic Bipolar, throw him on Seroquel". "She's just a Benzo-head", "He's just a fucking drunk", "If he even starts acting up, throw him into isolation and we'll put him down with a shot of B52", (this is what we called the injected cocktail of Benedryl 50 with 2mg of Ativan, the B50-2). "He's crazy as a loon". "Don't even try to talk to her". "He's just an old asshole". "Homeless grunt trying to get a free meal". "He's not nice enough, I don't think we should let his kids visit". "She's a classic cutter, let her find a paper clip and do her worst, just ignore her". Daily. During "Report", as they called it. On the floor of the hospital within earshot of other patients. Sometimes directly to a patients face. Adults, Adolescents, Children as young as four years old. I worked directly with them all. And every time I heard "YOU JUST DON'T UNDERSTAND", I remember distinctly thinking: "You're right, I don't understand your exact nature, your exact chemical imbalance or behavioral disorder, but I refuse to not try and help you in whatever way I can. I will show you as best I can that I am WILLING to try to understand, not just that I do", because most of the time, you just don't. But you can try. Empathize. Don't be scared of us. We're your mailmen, postal workers, neighbors, bartenders, waitresses, telemarketers, local business owners, bosses, employees, co-workers, friends, family, loved ones, heroes and heroines.

Which leads me to my last thought. Last night we lost another amazing musician and gentle soul to suicide, Chris Cornell. Add him to the list of amazing artists we have lost to suicide, drugs, and alcohol over the last few years, decades, and the list is too great to comprehend. And the biggest killer of us all is the inability to speak out without being judged, I can speak to that from experience. Saying (or writing) all of this is very hard, when I could be taking myself out to a steak dinner and saying "I used to spend 25 bucks a day on booze, time to treat myself to something nice". I could be getting a relaxing massage. I used to do that. I don't anymore. Now I reflect on what comes next, what the future looks like, what I can do about it personally and globally, and what is beyond my control. I urge other members of my community, and communities around the world to speak up and speak out for themselves and those they love when confronted with the silence that permeates mental illness and awareness of all kinds.

We can't afford another Robin Williams, Chris Cornell, Aaron Swartz, Kurt Cobain, Hemingway, Hunter S. Thompson, Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, David Foster Wallace, et al. The thousands of unnamed teenagers and unknown mothers and fathers who have to live every day knowing their child is gone. We as the mentally ill need to speak out, and we as a culture need to speak out against the stigma, which increases mortality rates more than any chemical in our brains, of that I am sure. So, help us. Stand up for us. Yes, ask us to get help for ourselves too, and be patient when we need time, or aren't sure, or don't want to talk about it, but keep on pressing. We need the reminder, even when we don't want to hear it. We need the reminder that someone needs us on this earth, and they refuse to let us go without fighting for our lives, and without us fighting for our own.

"Most of us are acutely aware of our own struggles and we are preoccupied with our own problems. We sympathize with ourselves because we see our own difficulties so clearly. But as Ian MacLaren noted wisely, “Let us be kind to one another, for most of us are fighting a hard battle.”

Good luck and godspeed.

May 18th, 2017

Sam Dillon

[mammawolff]

I'm going to apologize now for what might turn into a long post, as I can't remember how to do a read more on mobile. So. It's once again Bell Let's Talk day. Now I realize that maybe, last year I was in a better position mentally, financially, and healthier than I am right now. But, that's the thing about mental illness. It's a daily battle. So. Let's talk. I don't think I've ever actually told anyone my full story. I was diagnosed with clinical depression and anxiety when I was eight. This was a very poor time in my life. I was in the office of my school every day, for one reason or another. Funny thing about schools. They all claim to be against bullying, but they only notice the physical aspect. A rotund child defending herself against verbal attacks? Clearly she's the bully. Unfortunately, I grew accustomed to being anxious around figures of authority because of these childhood encounters. I'd stop trying to defend my actions to these adults who weren't listening, and instead clam up and cry. And clearly, crying means I feel guilty and therefore I'm the attacker. Yeah. My school was pretty fucky. Add onto that it's small town, uni-religious, and fairly cult-ish in their actions. My family, having just moved there with no family established, got the brunt end of a lot of attacks. Weird ass elitism at its finest. Anyways. During this time my home life was pretty shit, too. My parents divorced when I was four, and we moved to this town two days before my fifth birthday. My mum was determined to cut our father out of our lives, so we didn't actually get to see him until I was 6, almost 7. Also pretty fucky. My mum wasn't the greatest mother around. Yes, she put a roof over our heads and fed us, but she was very quick to attack us verbally & physically, and if she thought we were lying about something she'd beat us til we told her what she wanted to hear. So, my dad became somewhat of a god in my eyes. Guardian angel, shelter from the storm, something unattainable for a very long time(to 5, 6, 7 year old me. A year and a half ish is a very long time for a kid). Eventually, he was able to take us every weekend. He bounced from house to house, job to job, but he provided what little child support he could spare and he always made sure to have a house with at least two bedrooms, so we'd always have a place. I tried so often to tell him what the combination of mum & school were doing to my tiny brain and body, but I never had any idea what abuse was, as a definition. I was terrified what mum might do if she found out I tattled. She'd already kept us all away from dad for so long, how long could she do that again? So I stayed silent. When I was 8, I met with my school's guidance counsellor. I had only a handful of friends who weren't terrified of me(I grew tall and wide pretty fast), my grades were shit(even for elementary school), and I was always late. Not to mention those daily visits to the principal's office. He's the one who prompted mum to take me in, see if all this stress had caused something to fuck up in my brain. Spoiler alert; it did. So, I was put on Anti-D medication. Anti-A's didn't come into play until later. Unfortunately, my body apparently absorbed and adjusts to new medication very, very quickly. By the time I was 10 I was taking handfuls of pills morning, noon, and night, just to maintain this facade of normalcy. Unfortunately, the bullying and abuse was continuing. My grades didn't superbly improve, my school behaviour issues barely subsided. But, the pills continued. I couldn't even tell you what they were or what they did. Mum took care of all that. But, I can tell you one thing, my short term memory problems started when the drugs did. I know it's too late for me now, but man I'm still kinda pissed at past me for not speaking up. Grade five was a shift for me. Negatively. I had a highly abusive teacher, bullying was at an all-time high and three of my friends deemed me too weird/sketchy/uncool to play with any more. My dad had to move into a townhouse and out of the farmhouses he'd been occupying for years. He had to get rid of the dog(Sonia) who'd been my best friend for well over a year. Soon after, we had to get rid of Queen(cookie), a dog we'd gotten from my friend's dog's second litter. I couldn't go riding any more(we kept my dad's landlord's horses and cows on the property), and I could no longer help on the farm. My weekend salvation was at an end. About the only freedom I had left was if dad took me flying. I made him take me up for hours, some weekends. I remember bawling on my morning walks to school with my friends, because I hated my life so much. My mum made the doctor ease up my prescriptions(a good thing, honestly), but she didn't ease up the abuse. Neither did my teacher, or the bullies, and I no longer had my beloved animals to keep me sane. I mean, we had Taffy, but she was always Brad's dog. One morning there was a speeding car who I knew couldn't see us down the road. I think my friends knew exactly what I was thinking because they stopped and just hugged me until the car passed us. I was 11 and suicidal. To help me transition off the farm, dad bought me riding lessons from a local Parelli instructor. These helped. I finally had some sort of release again, and best of all I could ride throughout the week, not just the weekends. These ended too. My instructor's lease of the land eventually ran out, and an oil company came in and bought the land. I was 13 when this happened. Still being forced to take drugs, and go to a psychiatrist (who broke client confidentiality so I stopped going and mum stopped paying). When I was 12 I found Wicca, and started turning away from the Church I'd been raised and baptised into. By the time I was 15 I'd fully turned away but still went, to appease my dad. Anyways. I started riding with another instructor and when I was 15 suffered a very traumatic fall, that screwed me up mentally, and I couldn't bring myself to get back on a horse until just last year when I was 20. Amazing what happens when your hormone levels mostly balance out eh? I was still kind of suicidal throughout all of this. Nothing that I would act on, but I kept thinking, "if I were to die, it wouldn't be so bad." I moved in with my dad when I was 15. I was sick of mum's bullshit, we fought violently every day. She'd already kicked my favourite brother out of the house, my sister was almost as bad as she was(she's 9 years older than me and to this day acts like I'm still 10 years old. We've never been close). A plethora of reasons. Mostly being, I was tired of her verbal and mental attacks. The physical stuff mostly ended once I hit 5'7". Definitely didn't happen after I was 5'10". I moved in with dad, quit my prescriptions, came out to him as pagan, then promptly fell in line and went back to church(which I'd quit at mum's) in order to protect myself. He would kick me out if I so much as lit a candle. So, I practiced in secret. My gods were(and are) very understanding and very supportive. Dad's God did not want me in His church, but tolerated me. This was pretty dark time. Me moving in with dad dredged up more custody battle bullshit. But, my relationship with my mum started to get better, sort of. I'm 21 now and we're only just on good speaking terms for more than 48 hours at a time. Then I got Angel. She was pretty much perfect as a puppy. House training was kind of difficult, she proved herself a friggen genius with the turkey incident, but she was mine. She knows exactly what I want, how I'm feeling, what I'm going to ask of her. She's perfect. (Cherub's a rotten little shit but she's still just a puppy and I haven't found the right job for her just yet.) Then, four of my newfound friends died. Car accident. I know I've recounted this story many times so I'll spare the details. But this threw me into a massive identity crisis. They didn't know the real me before they died. Danae looked up to me as a role model, and she didn't know I wasn't Mormon. I was pagan. I had to tell everyone. That Christmas (time ish), I came out of the broom closet again. Only this time to everyone. My "Mormon Moms," as I called them, insisted I was still me and they still loved me. The less accepting wanted to ban me from the graveyard. I still get hassled from their families, if they see me going down. But, a certain member of the community stood up for me. I'll be grateful to him forever. My dad was confused and hurt, but so long as I kept going to church he'd let me stay. Mum still insists it's a phase. I started going back to my hometown for school (only ten minutes away), and connected with my friends again. Then my paternal grandpa died. I never got the chance to say goodbye. Not even a funeral. He visited me, and my aunt and my cousin, but that still hit me extra hard, as it wasn't even 10 days after the 1 year anniversary of the accident. I started to slip again, fast. Dad got a job out east and had left me to move the rest of our things into storage, and I moved back in with mum. This is when I discovered I get severe depression when I have to move. Yay. I discovered my car's engine will cut out once I get to 198km. There is a stretch of road between the two towns that is very long, and very straight, with a sudden swerve to the right and a very steep drop in the road into a gulley. I convinced myself if I could get to 200km before that swerve, I would let my car fly off the cliff. I watched the needle drop closer to the speedometer's limit, noting exactly when the engine cut. I tapped the brakes, and got my car under control before the turn. Cursed myself for being a chicken, then for being so stupid. Angel needed me, if no one else. Half-assed suicide attempt no. 2. School sucked, but for some odd reason my childhood bullies apologized to me and tried to make amends. I accepted and we moved on. Mostly. I guess. Throughout all of this my depression was(and has been) a heavy weight on my shoulders. A darkness at the edge of my vision. Pretty much the only thing that truly lifted that lifted that was Anna. Though I had found new friends on the internet through dA and the ridgearound(love you guys), it was never really at bay. She was really, really, REALLY the only thing that brought true sunlight into my life. The day she was born I cried tears of joy, and thought she was the most perfect creature ever. I still do. She is beautiful. Graduation year brought me Anna, a boyfriend who turned out to be creepy and manipulative and abusive, and the start of my cutting addiction. I fucked up a few months ago. Before that it had been years. More fights with mum. Robin Williams passed and I lost hope for a few months. That was not a good time. He was always a role model to me, because even as a kid I knew what battles he was going through. He made me laugh when no one else could. He showed me that even with my shitty brain, I could be successful. I could fight this. Then he killed himself. I finally moved to Ponoka. Pretended to be an adult. Got cherub. Changed jobs. Found(ed) a coven. Lost Dee, and Anna. She's alive, don't worry. But she's no longer in my life. The horses helped so, so much with my depression. I refuse(d) medication because I can manage my condition, usually. Unfortunately that job ended in part because the mental stress had brought on my depression full force, and even my boss noticed I wasn't happy. So I left and started my MT course, where I am now even broker than usual, even more stressed than usual, and even more depressed than usual. This isn't even every aspect of my depression but it's the main points. Throughout this now 11 year journey, my depression and my anxiety have been with me. They've changed and grown and forced me to change and grow as well. I often wonder how different things would have been had I not refused meds so (relatively) early on. Too late now. But, my point is, I'm still here. I'm still fighting. My survival tactics have changed. When I was 11, what stopped me so many times was "tomorrow is another day" and "what will tomorrow bring?" Now, it's just sheer stubbornness. I'm going to finish my MT, I'm going to get out of debt and I'm going to flee into the middle of the prairies with my dogs and my reptiles and get myself a horse and a plane and I will never step foot in a city again. Just watch me. It doesn't get better. That slogan has never rang true with me. It just changes. You change, and your illness changes as well. But I guess, in some ways, it does get easier. You force yourself to see in colour, to take the bad in every situation and go "at least it isn't _____." And every now and again, you look back at your eight year old self and allow her to cry, because sometimes you need to.

[cashmierathoughts]

Riley 'Nem pt. 7: The Virgin

"Did you cum?", whispered a deep, immature voice.

"Yea", I lied.

"Good. Me too. I love you, baby", he said.

"I love you too", another lie. Then I hung up the phone.

I sighed deeply, rolled over, and headed for the bathroom to wash my hands. The floorboards were old and creaky so I tried to walk as softly as I could so that I didn't wake my folks up. I wasn't supposed to be up this late on a school night, let alone, be talking on the phone.

"Keeshaaaa?!", rang a stern voice.

"Yes, ma'am", I answered.

"Why aren't you in bed? And I KNOW I didn't hear you on my telephone a few minutes ago".

I rolled my eyes, "No, ma'am", I answered and continued on my way to the bathroom. "I know I didn't hear you on my telephone...", I mimicked to myself. Boah she killed me. Ain't paid a bill since she moved in here. "Nigga dis my daddy house" -- I laughed.  

I got back to my room, shut the door behind me, and turned on the lamp by my bedside and picked up my tattered copy of 'The Coldest Winter Ever'. It was one of my all time favorites. My cousin Riley and her bestfriend Jordyn and I were sharing this one copy and it was my turn to read it. I'd read it once before in eighth grade, then again sophomore year, but it was senior year now and my boyfriend, Mike, was pressuring me to have sex, so I thought it was appropriate to revisit the storyline.

You see, I was a virgin. Most of the guys I dated assumed I would fuck because of how developed I was. I guess they thought that just because I was built like a grown ass woman, that I was ready to do grown ass woman thangs. And every time, they were left with a hard dick and hard feelings.

I did like Mike, really, I did. But did I love the nigga? No. Did I think that he loved me? Hell nawl. He just be sayin' that shit 'cause he thinks it sounds good. Not to mention, he thinks saying, "I love you, baby" is gone get him some pussy. But if he can lie about lovin' me to get what he wants, so can I. What did I want, you're probably wondering... I wanted status! Mike was the shooting guard for our school's team and was ranked top five in the nation amongst high school ball players. I was gonna make sure that I was on his arm when the time came.

I scanned the pages of the novel, skipping past a few words here and there because I'd read them so many times that I was able to finish the sentences without having to actually read them. My daddy never touched no dope, and we didn't live some unimaginable lavish lifestyle, but somehow, I could relate to Winter's dumb ass. She was a go-getter and so was I. She used niggas for their money and status, but unlike Winter, I wasn't giving away my body for trinkets and designer threads. Shid, I was barely giving out my time. But that was more of my parents' doing than my own.

I couldn't do shit. Couldn't go on dates, couldn't have people over, couldn't go to parties. None uh dat. It's a wonder that I wasn't fast and bussin' it already. People always talking abut how if you keep a teenage girl locked up in the house, she gon' be the biggest hoe of all. But I liked to prove people wrong. Yea, I snuck out from time to time. Got caught a couple of times and got hands put on me for it, but it was worth it. Most times though, I'd just go over to Riley's and go from there. My aunt and uncle were real cool and didn't mind us going out. I'm pretty sure that they were hippies in their day. Every time I go over there, they're playing old Isley's records and burning sage, tryna mask the funk of the weed they smoke in the basement. Riley thinks it's embarrassing, but I think it's cool.

It's funny how the same thing a man loves, is the same thing that he hates. What makes me stand out as a woman is that I have non negotiable principles, strength, and faith in my people. From the time that we shared that, you seemed to love that, admire it, even. Now you hate it because my ways have isolated you. The truth is, you've isolated yourself. --- (Sistah Soulja Excerpt TCWE) 

And on that note, I passed out, book resting on my chest and all.

The next day at school, I skipped homeroom to meet up with Riley to copy the trig homework. Riley was super smart and good with numbers. Jordyn was the chem wiz and me; I wrote all our papers. We had the whole school on lock; charged $25 for book reports, $10 for trig worksheets, and $15 for chem homework. I don't know if the kids were dumb or just plain lazy, but either way, we was eatin'.

I found Riley all caked up against the lockers by the gymnasium. She and Rod had been going out off and on since freshman year. She was holdin' out on him too but every day, I could tell she was getting weaker and weaker. They had the "real thing" though. Equally crazy about one another. Inspiring.. if you believed that your high school sweetheart was really the "one". But as for me.. you already know where my head is.

"Ahem", I cleared my throat, hoping it would catch their attention and interrupt them. Nope. They were still swallowing each other's tongues. So, I got a little louder the second time..

"AHEM, got dammit", I joked.

"Oh hey Keesh", said Riley as she wiped the corners of her mouth, never even looking in my direction.

"Wassup girl", followed up Rod, also not breaking his gaze from Riley.

"Well I hate to interrupt BUT, Riley, we got somewhere to be..", I reminded her. I didn't want to say out loud that we needed to meet up with Jaron to make a drop 'cause Rod wasn't Riley's biggest fan when it came to her doing homework for students. You would think he'd be proud that his girlfriend had a hustle hand. Guess not, though.

"She's right. Get to classsss babe. See you later."

They kissed again, then we headed for the back of the auditorium to make the drop and so I could copy her homework.

"Wassup, Jaron?", he was waiting for us by the bleachers.

"Wassup, Keesh? Wassup Riley? Aye, Keesh, when you gon' stop playin' and fuck with a real nigga?"

"Jaron, do you have the money or what?", I said, getting straight to the point.

"Dang, it's like that? Bet. Yea. I got yo money".

He dangled the wrinkled bills in my face, snatching them away every time that I reached for it; then he finally handed the money to Riley.

"She isss the math wiz, right?", he teased.

"Whatever nigga, here..", I said as I handed him the paper. Me and Riley left and headed in the opposite direction.

Riley gave me her homework to copy and disappeared down the hallway. I hurried up and copied it, then met up with Mike in the stairwell to "talk". I already knew what he was gonna want to talk about. Senior prom was coming up and according to the rumor mill, he had a suite downtown that night.

"Hey, baby", he said, greeting me with a warm hug and a bag of M&Ms. He knew they were my favorite.

"For me?", I asked, knowing damn well they were.

"Anything for my baby", he said.

Okay nigga, cut the theatrics. Now he was doing the absolute most. He was really trying to butter me up. I liked it though, so I let him continue to do his thang.

"Okay, Mike...wassup? What's all this for?". I can be a bit direct at times.

"Soooo..after prom...I was thinkinggg....that you...and me... could spend a romantic evening at the Westin downtown. My cousin George got the hook up on the rooms and said he would look out".

"You want to spend the night there? You know my folks are not going for that, Mikey. I'm sorry, I can't".

"So that's it? Just like that? A flat out no? You not even gone TRY to think about it or come up with a plan or a lie like you usually do?".

"It's PROM, Michael.", my tone got a little more defensive. "My parents are gonna be on the defense about my every little move and be noided about everything. There's no way they're gonna let me break curfew or "spend the night" at Riley's on that night. They might be old, but they're not stupid."

"Alright, fuck it then. If you not even willing to try, that tells me you don't love me like you say you do and you're not willing to take this relationship to the next level."

I couldn't even argue with him saying I must not love him like I said I did.. 'cause truth be told, I didn't. So instead, I said,

"Nigga, what!? So because I won't lie to my parents and sleep with you, I don't "love you like I say I do"? Yous a clown, Michael."

Like I said before, all the while, I knew damn well that I didn't love this boy, but it was the principle of the matter. I felt I had to take a stand for all the virgins and girlfriends out there who weren't ready to give it up!

"You damn skippy", he shot back. "And as a matter of fact, gimme my hoodie back. Oh yea, I'm taking Tasha to prom. It's over, Keesha."

And just like that, I'd gotten dumped and left in the stairwell. For whatever reason, hot tears fled my eyes and ran down my face like lava down the side of a volcano. I was heated. I was sad. But I was not heart-broken. I cried, gathered my shit, wiped my face and headed to class and pretended nothing had happened. At least I still had the M&Ms. I was starving.

It was the end of the day now and by this time, damn near the whole school knew that me and Mike had broken up. Probably because we didn't sit together in the commons at lunch and more evidently, he was all hugged up with Tasha at the pep rally. I immediately started going through the mental list of niggas that I'd turned down. I couldn't think of one available guy that was up to par. In the middle of my brainstorming, I got a text from Riley saying she had to tell me something and to meet her at her bus.

I followed orders and went to bus 938 and waited. It wasn't too long before I spotted her through the crowd of kids. She looked...different, somehow.

"Wassup? What you gotta tell me?", I asked, getting right to the point.

"Dang, what's wrong witchu? Why you shitty?", Riley asked.

"So you haven't heard?", I said dully.

"Heard what?", she asked.

I could tell that she really had no idea.

"Mike broke up with me because I wouldn't fuck. He's taking tacky Tasha to prom", I blurted out.

"Big booty, Tasha??".

I rolled my eyes. "Yes, nigga".

"Aw damn. I'm sorry Keesh. Well that makes me not even wanna tell you my news now...".

"Girl, I'm coo. Two tears in a bucket won't fill it so fuck it. (My dad always says that) What's going on? And why you lookin' all...different?"

"Wellllllluhh...", she said hesitantly. "I did it. Well, we did it! Me and Rod...made looovvvee".

I was secretly disappointed but I didn't want to make her feel bad about her decision so I went along with it. In the back of my mind, all I could think was that she had given away her power.. something I vowed not to do for as long as I could. It was that moment there that I told myself I would never have casual sex.