#but my dad wasnt home yet from work yet and i was unsettled

[di-girls-dem-sugar]

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EASTHALLOW | Masterpost | Project Page | Project Preview | ko-fi, if you like my work :p

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Back at the farm, Elijah walks, dazed but relaxed, back to the house. He checks behind him once, twice, to see if Rocky, who had followed him to the edge of his parents' property, still sits in the woods, wagging his tail at Elijah.

He doesn't.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Amanda says, as she steps out the front door. The sun is shining, bright and warm already for eight in the morning, and Elijah shakes the woods off of him as best he can.

While he's grateful the beast is a silly witch in the woods, the idea that someone out there just... lives in abandoned shack in his woods unsettles him.

"Not a ghost," Elijah says. He sighs. "Has this town always been this fucking creepy?"

Amanda cocks her head and looks at her son with a smile, then steps down the front steps and towards the hay truck. "The city has made you suspicious, my love." She waves the keys in the air, doesn't look back to Elijah. “Come on. I believe you promised me a trip to the farmer’s market.”

Amanda fiddles with the radio, sings along off-key with wrong lyrics, and Elijah absently brushes the mud from his jeans.

The market’s covered in small tables set up underneath tents. Sunlight shines through the trees, and Elijah all but forgets about Viola and Penny and their tiny shack in the woods. The air is sweet with the smell of apple cider and turnovers, and Elijah follows his mother past table after table of pickles, jams, fresh produce, pies, breads…

He last went when he was seventeen. Far too long ago. The smell of it brings him back to being a child, before he made such a shitty decision, before Josh—

“Elijah, can you take these apples back to the car? I’ve a few more tables I’d like to visit.”

Three bags of apples, Elijah takes to the car, tripping over tree roots and uneven, muddied ground. Passes tables selling food that has his stomach aching with hunger.

Just before the market closes off, though, Elijah notes a man, sitting at his table, his head rested in his hand, elbow on the table, flipping through a book with a bored look on his face. Customers seem to ignore him, as though he’s not there. Candles in mason jars are neatly lined up in front of him, a solitary empty spot where someone has bought one.

He seems to notice Elijah staring, because he lifts his head, locks gazes with him. A smile grows across his face.

“Interest you in some homemade candles, sir?”

Elijah makes a face. “I’m not a sir.” He should keep going, but—the logo of the candles. Elijah drops one of the bags of apples to pick up a candle. “This creature,” he asks, smoothing his thumb over the creature—thick hair, glowing eyes, fingers like nails. “What is it?”

With a shrug, the man says, “The Beast of Easthallow. Local legend. Man a few hundred years ago, back when Easthallow was just a mining town, claims to’ve seen it.” He cocks his head at Elijah. “There’s a book about it, you know. Adapted from Victor East’s journals.”

“So it’s real?”

Laughing, the man leans back in his chair. “Suppose that matters on whether you’re a believer.” He nods his head at the candle. “Supposed to smell like wildflowers if you see it. S’what the candle’s based on.”

Overhead, the sun hides behind dark storm clouds. Around them, the hum of chatter from the farmer’s market quiets for a minute.

“Can give you a discount if you buy the book, too.” He holds up a book, small, a plain black cover, the words THE BEAST OF EASTHALLOW embellished across the front.

Assuming, for a minute, that Elijah believes any of this, other than a crazy couple of witches living in the woods, he’s unemployed. Setting the candle back down, Elijah says, “I don’t have any money.”

He eyes the apples. “How about a few of those? They came from the Richard Orchard, right?” Elijah shrugs. “Two apples, then.”

Fine. Curiosity peaked, Elijah digs into the bag at his feet for two of the apples, without bruises, one still with a stem and leaf, and hands them over. Their fingers brush together, and Elijah’s lips twitch up in a smile, just for a split second, before he pulls back.

“Do you plan on hunting it?” the man says, dropping the apples into a bucket beside him.

“…Hunting it?”

“We also sell candles that smell like rotten wood and wet dog. Supposed to attract the Beast.”

Elijah snorts. “A candle that smells like garbage?” He shakes his head. “I’ll go with the wildflowers.” Maybe he can gift it to his mother for Christmas.

“I’ll just get you a receipt,” the man says. Elijah hears someone walk up behind him, and turns his head, sees Amanda stepping around counters, a single, small loaf of bread under her arm.

She smiles down at the man, currently scribbling out a receipt for Elijah, and says, “Good morning, Grant. All well at home?”

He lifts his head, looking between the two of them for just a beat or two before he smiles, pleasant and wide, and his eyes—

Elijah clears his throat, averts his gaze. His heart aches, as he thinks of Sean, back home. What used to be home. He wonders if the man he’d found Sean with would be comforting, in Elijah’s absence, or if he’ll find Elijah leaving cause for celebration.

“…fine, Mrs. Flynn.” Grant flashes her a smile, hands over the receipt to Elijah and says, “Have a good day.”

Elijah reaches for the receipt, and Grant winks as their fingers touch again.

As they leave, Amanda weaves her arm around Elijah’s, says, “That wasn’t so bad, was it? And I see you picked up some items as well.” She nods to the book, the candle in the bag. “Didn’t think you were a candle sort.” She smiles, reaches into the bags, plucks out an apple, and begins chattering on.

Elijah glances at the receipt. Ten digits, scribbled at the bottom—give me a call, if you’d like.

At the farm, Elijah thumbs over the receipt as he sits, reclined on the couch, listening as rain beats down on the tin roof. It’s dark, for mid-afternoon; a deep blue-grey overcast filtering the sun out and shadowing the fields.

Still better than the city.

He sighs. Reads the note again. Little early for hookups, isn’t it? Ezra considers himself fairly capable of moving on quickly, but still, if he thinks too much about Sean, something in his chest goes tight and the world feels too small. He could have gone to the other side of the country, to Australia or Japan, and still Sean would feel too close.

Fingers reach up behind him and pluck the receipt out of hand, though, and Elijah doesn’t even bother turning around to chastise his brother. Instead, he says, “Really? We’re being this childish, now?”

Josh reads the note out loud, makes an awwwww sound, and says, “What happened to Sean, McDreamy? Weren’t you guys happy-ever-after or whatever you want to call it?”

“We’re not in trouble,” Elijah says, but he doesn’t make an attempt at the receipt. He just rubs his eyes, wonders how long it’ll take Josh to give up on this. “And it’s none of your fucking business.”

It’s not a lie; they’re not in trouble. Elijah’s completely out of trouble. Feels better about this than he ever has. Josh, though, Josh takes that and runs with it, his eyes getting wide, and he says, “Holy shit. You’re not—“

“Josh—“ Footsteps are coming up from the basement steps, and fuck, Elijah’s not ready to admit that he’d failed in the city, that he ran home with his tail tucked between his legs, and no. They don’t need to know. They don’t need to know. Not yet. Not until Elijah can get on top of things, until he can 

When she reaches the top of the stairs, Amanda glances between them, offers a tentative smile. “Getting on, I hope?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, already heading for her bedroom with the laundry basket. “So nice to see the two of you in the same room without screaming…”

She leaves before Josh can say anything, thankfully, and with a pleased sigh, Josh holds the receipt back out. “S’cute. Taking a page out of your older bro’s book, lying to Mom and Dad.”

Refraining from reaching for the receipt, Elijah says, “I’m not lying to them. And would you stop it with the older bro shit?”

Holding his hands in mock surrender, Josh says, "All right. Just... interesting you're the one keeping secrets these days, is all."

Elijah watches him leave, jaw clenched, and lets out a frustrated groan when Josh is finally around the corner.

It's good, though, right, to meet people. In Easthallow. If he's going to be living here... he'll need a network. Grant can help with that.

He calls the number before he can tell himself not to.

"Elijah," he answers, and his voice is smoother, on the phone, than it really should be. "I wondered if you'd call."

"How do you know it's Elijah?"

A beat, then, "I had a feeling. I wanted to know if you’d be interested in getting a drink?” So the entire town can know about it. So Elijah can spend the evening shooting glances around the bar, wondering who he can trust and whether Grant’s one of those people or not. “About the Beast—“

And Elijah laughs, runs a hand through his hair, and wonders if the entire town is like this. “You don’t really believe in it, do you?”

“You’re meant to believe what you see, right?”

“I’ve seen this Beast,” Elijah says. “Didn’t seem so freaky to me.”

Grant makes a noise, like a scoff, but his voice holds no judgement. “Everyone knows about Viola.”

Fine. Just to sate his curiosity. “All right. Drinks, and you can tell me all about this furry little beast of yours.”

Grant meets him in town, dressed in a light jacket Elijah finds himself jealous of, in the misting cold. He reaches out for a handshake. "Good to meet you."

"You, too," Elijah says. "I thought I knew everyone in this town." He grew up here, went to school here. Graduated with twenty kids in his class. Grant... either he was older, younger, or... wasn't from here.

As though sensing Elijah's thoughts, he sends him a sidelong glance and says, "I grew up in the city. Parents divorced when I was little. Thought I'd do better there, but I always liked the country." His smile is warm, pleasant, and Elijah wonders if it helps with the cold or if he's blushing under Grant's gaze. "What about you?"

"City all the way," Elijah says. "Stepping in cow shit has never been my version of fun."

Grant laughs. It feels good, genuine; Elijah can't remember the last time he made someone laugh. "Plenty of other farms than cattle farms."

"Not according to my parents," Elijah says. "You know they started planting crops when I was fifteen, to help with running costs, and my dad flipped?" He did; Allan's a livestock man, through and through. Elijah still remembers the nights his parents stomped around downstairs, trying to make sense of their next plan.

"What happened? Nobody in Easthallow exports crops."

They take a seat at the bar. Grant holds up two fingers to the bartender, and soft country music plays from the corner of the room, and something settles in Elijah's stomach. He's used to drink menus, twenty minutes with Sean while he tries to decide what he wants, and it's like relief when the bartender slides two beers in front of them and disappears.

It's the little things Elijah loves about this town.

"I knew your brother," Grant says, as he digs his phone out his pocket. "Back in high school."

His mood sours, but Elijah tries not to let it. He peers into the bottle, thinks about downing it all in one go. Doesn't.

"He was a prick." Grant taps away on his phone. "Little fucker nearly drove my little sister insane."

Sounds like Josh. "He cheat on her? Josh is an asshole."

"Wouldn't give her the time of day, mostly. She thought they'd grow up, get married, have kids, whole nine yards. Josh found out and... she ended up homeschooling for the rest of high school."

He remembers that. Something faint, and, hell, Elijah didn't even know the girl, but Josh slept with her best friend and then there was all kinds of drama. Because of Josh. It's hard to believe anyone thought he was a catch, but people like the bad boy thing.

"Don't hold that against me, do you?"

Grant doesn't even lift his gaze to meet Elijah's. "If you were anything like your brother, you wouldn't be speaking with me."

He turns his phone to Elijah, finally, onto a homepage for THE BEAST OF EASTHALLOW. He clicks around a bit, checks out the first hand accounts--all written journalism style, with publishing dates and Grant's name at the top as the author--the photos.

"A lot of them are Viola," Grant says, gesturing to the phone with the beer. "She loves getting dressed ip on tourist weekends and scaring the shit out of the visitors in the cabins." He smiles, shakes his head.

"She's not the start of the rumor, then?" Elijah'd been sure... she could've seen something, made the costume as a joke, to keep people away from her house...

"Nah. Viola's big into local history. Or--Penny, her wife, is. Viola took a liking to the Beast 'cause it's mystical."

Grant's thigh rubs against Elijah's, just a little. Just enough to catch the fabric, enough for the pull to tune Elijah into how close they are everywhere. "Did you read the book?"

"Book?" Elijah echoes, then clears his throat. Grateful for the low lights that help hide his blush, Elijah adds, "Right. No. Didn't even crack the spine."

Like he expects it, Grant scrolls down through his phone again, until he stops at a very clear, very close photo. "This is the most famous ever taken. Fifteen years ago or something like that."

When Elijah lived here. Why the fuck didn't he ever hear about this? "Someone's screwing with me," Elijah says. "I grew up here, and we never had a fucking local cryptid, unless you count the town drunk."

"Fifteen years ago, no one used to see it."

"We don't see it now."

Tapping the screen of his phone, Grant says, "Twenty times in the last year."

It's Josh. It's gotta be fucking Josh, enlisting the entire fucking town, right? Found some freaky girl in the woods to scare him, some guy at the farmer's market to fuck with him, and...

That doesn't make sense, though. Josh didn't know he was coming, and Elijah hasn't been home that long. Is this... does Grant actually believe this shit? That there's really some fucking monster crawling around their little town? Easthallow's a trash heap, people and literal garbage. There’s no cause for why he might be…

Elijah huffs a laugh, shakes his head. Downs the rest of his beer and says, “So, okay. Let’s say I believe in your furry little friend, just for like, five seconds.” He’s still not convinced it isn’t Viola. That this entire set-up isn’t something done to fuck with newbies. “Why only see it now?”

The question of the hour. Grant glances up at him, his eyes twinkling. Something there lights a fire on all of Elijah’s nerves, leaves him feeling warm, pleased, arousal building in his stomach. Grant’s an attractive guy; the muscles that scream outdoor labor, a five o’clock shadow Elijah wants to feel against his skin. Dark eyes Elijah could get lost in, and smooth, tan skin, and hair just long enough to pull.

Shit, he’s tapping his phone again, eyebrow raised like he knows Elijah’s imagining being held down by him, and he says, “Hundred year anniversary of old man Lowell’s suicide.”

“He killed himself?”

“So said the newspapers,” Grant said. “Lots of conflicting reports, though. Another one said he died in the old mine tunnels. Pushed from the roof of the Carnegie library… One said he got caught in a wood-chipper.”

Grimacing, Elijah takes a drink of his beer. “Poor way to go.”

But Grant’s voice is thoughtful when he asks, “Is it? Head first, maybe…” He shrugs.

Silence settles between them, Elijah picking at the label on his beer, Grant tapping his fingers rhythmically on the bar top, before Grant finally says, “So what brings you to Easthallow?”

It isn’t a secret, not really, but Elijah hesitates nonetheless. It’s only been a few days since Elijah spoke to Sean, but it feels like it’s been weeks. Easthallow seems so far removed from the city. Always has. “Bad breakup,” he says, finally, then, “or—not really. Just a breakup.”

“He cheat on you?”

Elijah turns his gaze to Grant. How the fuck does he know. He asks as much, and Grant just chuckles, shrugs one shoulder. Ducks his head in something like embarrassment. “I haven’t told anyone.”

“You have a vibe,” Grant says. “Definitely not from here. Wouldn’t come to Easthallow unless you had family. No one comes here.”

“Viola and Penny?”

With a twitch of his lips, Grant says, “I stand corrected.”

Elijah finishes his beer. Returns it to the coaster. Beside him, Grant pockets his phone. “I could show you Old Man Lowell’s place, if you’re up for it.”

Making a face, Elijah says, “Doesn’t that place have to be ancient by now? How’s it still standing?”

Before Grant can answer, Elijah’s phone buzzes in his pocket, incessant against his thigh. He apologizes as he checks it—his mother.

“Sorry, dear,” she says, but sounds exhausted, “your father has a situation with the cattle. Can you come home, help him out?”

Like a child, Elijah says, “Isn’t Josh home to help.”

Her voice is thick with false sweetness when Amanda says, “I’m asking you.”

He doesn’t have much of a choice, then. Offers a tight smile to Grant when he gets off the phone, pockets his phone. “Dad needs me. Cattle probably got loose.”

But Grant’s gaze snaps to Elijah’s, and his questions are lightning fast, one after another, until Elijah reaches out and grips Grant’s wrist. Intimate, for a man he’d met earlier that day. For a man with a curiosity for the unknown and a crazy loom in his eye when he talks about it. “I’m sure he’d welcome the help. My brother’s useless.”

“Bringing a strange man back to the house already?” Grant tsks, but leaves a twenty on the bar as he stands. “What will your parents say?”

Nothing, if Elijah has anything to do about it. “My mother knows you my name. I’d hardly consider you strange.”

The farm is a cacophony of noises when Elijah arrives there. A loud barking, his father’s deep voice as he hollers, the loud, angry mooing of a cow that does not want to follow orders.

“Yikes,” Grant says, closing the door to the driver’s side of his SUV. “Suddenly glad my parents run an orchard.”

“It’s not always like this,” Elijah says by means of explanation. Never once has he heard a dog barking here. His father’s allergic. He can make out his mother standing at the edge of the field, though, makes his way across the yard towards her. Grant’s headlights shine out toward her.

“Elijah,” she says, gripping his arm as he stops by her side. “Your father’s been at this for an hour. Something spooked the cattle.”

No shit. Even from here he can make out the door to the barn, broken off the hinges. “Dad leave the barn open?”

Amanda shakes her head. “No. Strangest thing. The hinges are bent.”

A chill runs through him; the hair on the back of his neck stands up. He takes a quick glance around the yard—lit up by the emergency lights his father had installed—but sees nothing, save for Grant as he makes his way towards them. “Not surprising,” he says. “Cattle are strong. Especially if the bull got out.” A beat. “So someone broke in?”

She takes a second to glance Grant’s way, a twinkle in her eye as he reaches out to shake her hand. “Grant. Didn’t realize Elijah was bringing help.” Before he can offer anything by means of explanation, she adds, “The more the merrier.”

Another bark sounds from the field, and Amanda whistles. “And this fucking dog. No idea where it came from.”

At her whistle, the dog comes bounding up to her, tongue wagging out of its mouth. In the dark, it’s a little different, but Elijah would recognize it anywhere. “Rocky?”

He barks, wags his tail. Amanda looks between them with a frown. “You know him?”

Elijah reaches to scratch his ears. “I met his owner the other day—” He almost says in the woods; doesn’t want to tell her what he was doing out there. “—does he come here often?”

“More than we’d like.”

Behind them, Grant adds, “Could it have been the dog who spooked them?”

Amanda shrugs. “Not likely. Allan nearly got one back to the barn before it ran off again.”

“You guys check the barn out?”

What? No. Elijah really doesn’t want to go play detective right now. He wants to go to the field, help his father wrangle the half-dozen cows and the bull back into their barns. But Grant’s already eyeing the barn, and Elijah’s not going to leave him on his own.

Not until he trusts what the fuck is going on here.

“Be my guest,” Amanda says. “After that, can you guys head out to the field?”

“Will do, Mama.”

Rocky follows at their heels, quieting the closer the get to the barn. The hair on the back of Elijah’s neck still stands on end, but, save for his mother and Grant, the farm’s clear—nothing out of the ordinary.

Grant whistles as he pulls on the door. “Damn thing’s strong.”

“Thing would’ve taken a truck to pull it off the hinges like this.” Elijah rubs his hand along the bent metal. The hinges look twisted, ruined beyond repair, the metal worn and fragile in places. “They’d’ve heard it.”

“No one’s gonna take a damn truck to a barn door, either. Easier to steal the cattle out of the pasture.” Grant seems lost in thought for a few seconds, then pulls a small flashlight from his pocket. “And that’s still a lot of work for half a dozen cattle.”

Old cattle, too. Allan does it more as a hobby, now, than as a way to make money. Breeds the cattle, trades them to keep the bloodlines clean. Elijah remembers some of it from when he used to live here. His father’s trips to cattle auctions.

“Elijah,” Grant says. His tone, soft, strange, not quite a whisper but not his normal tone, piques Elijah’s interest, and he follows Grant’s gaze to where he’s brushing his fingers along where the door used to sit against the side of the barn. He doesn’t see anything at first, just like Grant’s pressing against nothing, and then…

Three long, thick gashes in the wood, splintering the siding out. Like nails, fingernails, but… there’s nothing that could do that. A bear, maybe a cougar, but… “You’re seeing this, too, right?”

Anger flares in Elijah’s stomach. “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.” Josh. He’s always been a joker, but—fuck, getting the cattle involved in his homecoming prank on Elijah? This isn’t some petty joke he’s playing, built from an old sibling rivalry he won’t let go of anymore. This isn’t just between them, and as soon as Elijah gets him alone, he’s going to tear his brother a new one.

He turns on his heel, back towards the field, towards where he can hear his father making whooping noises towards the cattle in the dark. Josh is—damn it. Usually better about this sort of thing. It’s not the first time one of his jokes has gone too far, but it’s about to be the last.

He comes across one of the cows before he sees his father. Behind him, he hears Grant’s footsteps. The cow makes a noise, distressed, and starts to stand. Elijah holds a hand out, palm up, and says, “Easy girl, you’re okay,” in a voice he hopes is soothing.

Still, she only makes concerned noises, struggling to get up, get away. Elijah turns, slow, moves so she’ll run towards the house, not farther into the field, still talking in quiet tones. “Easy—let’s get you back to the barn, yeah? Back to sleep? Bet Dad’s got some treats for you. How ‘bout you follow me?”

She moos again; this time, her voice breaks, and she stands, slow, staring off into the darkness behind Elijah. “Grant, you’re freaking her out,” Elijah says. “Can you back away, just a bit?”

No sound, though; no answer. Not even footsteps as Grant moves. Elijah turns, ready to ask him again, when he sees it—fur, thick, eyes glowing yellow in the dark, shining in the light from the yard. It stands tall, taller than Elijah by at least a foot, and its teeth glimmer, sharp and long. Arms, impossibly long, hang at its sides, its chest heaving with each breath.

It’s different, up close. Taller, thinner. Creepier. He thinks about Viola, about how her costume looks up close, and knows, without a doubt, this isn’t her.

His throat goes dry, his blood rushes like a river through his ears. He can’t scream, doesn’t know what he would say if he could, and hopes to tell Josh off for this, later, when the thing snarls, and the next thing Elijah sees is the large, clawed hand that reaches out, as if from the shadows, and punches him in the head.

He doesn’t remember falling.

[sole-cuore-amore-e-droga]

Suspiria remake review from a shitty movie-goer

(this review is posted too late so excuse me for some timing inaccuracies I couldn’t be arsed to edit)

(IF YOU HATE TL;DRS JUST SKIP AHEAD TO THE “THE REVIEW” PART. YOU’RE WELCOME)

I actually hate to admit why was I interested to watch this movie in the end, but for once SOMETHING motivated me to go to a movie after countless tries from my family to get me to watch something in theatres at a “reasonable time” (daytime is what they mean, this movie was at 8pm our time, and this is when the cross-city bus transport (it goes from one big city to another) stops doing their service lmao).

I myself have a lowkey interest in moviemaking (I’m already getting there by editing my phone-recorded videos because whatever). I come up with my concepts in my head and I am mostly willing to put them down somewhere in my computer so I don’t forget it years later if I want to make that concept a thing in the end (because none of my concepts are finalized... well except for one short horror-ish story I posted on DeviantArt (see mom, I do like some horror stuff!). Reddit as of lately inspired me to edit some of my movie’s plot-lines based on irl events (not related with anything too SJW), and I’m not sure how an usual movie-goer would see this concept but I am going to try to execute it... whenever I have enough equipment to shoot my own little films or skits or whatever.

What’s that? There are people who scrolled past this and already yell at me that “YOU ONLY WENT TO SEE THIS MOVIE BECAUSE OF THE MAN WHO COMPOSED THE SOUNDTRACK~~~”? Ugh yes you exposed me, tea all over. I even had “Street Spirit (Fade Out)” on a bit of a repeat as of lately (how fucking come I wasn’t too couragerous to listen to this song before?? And “Pyramid Song”??? Man am I discovering their pearl(ie)s(*) too late). And I’m occasionally on the band’s subreddit as well. And the man himself is touring ‘round the USA, signing material of fans and have genuinely warm chats with them. Admireable.

But that’s only half truth.

I never thought I’d see Suspiria on cinema theatres in here. Until one time when I saw an ad on a completely random Lithuanian website that said this movie is coming to our theatres 14 December... I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. I made my goal to see Suspiria since then. I even dared to ask a couple of my new college ‘friends’ to see it with me, but one of them fell off the deal when I revealed that I’ll be going to see it on Saturday, and on the weekends he’s usually at home, far away from the city the college is in (he lives in college dormitory on mostly the work-weekdays). So my only movie companion ended up to be this 28-year-old coursemate (actually we both study different things but sometimes we attend some of the same lectures) who was intrigued by the Suspiria trailer herself so at least I’m gonna have her by my side of the movie, so I thought. Sweet.

I already envisioned seeing this in a mall cinema theatre but my companion offered me a cheaper alternative - her suggested cinema theatre was actually in renovation so the business is temporarily happening inside an actual drama theatre’s long theatre hall. I had to wait long until the ticket box opened and because of that I was lowkey frustrated as I finished my English test writing a little earlier, so I spent my time walking around the city until the time came and I wandered off to the old building of the cinema so then I remembered it was moved and I found the moved place. Yeah I bought the tickets before my companion could but I’ll skip ahead to the time that I almost lost the tickets because they were put down on a windowsill outside some children activity centre (Suspiria and children?? lol). I came back home late at night and was ready for the movie to happen the next day. Oh and before buying the tickets I coincidentally saw dance classes going on nearby that building... weird, as Suspiria has dance elements in there

The day came (December 15) and my family went together with me because they saw this as an opportunity to see the Christmas tree of our city (but not the movie). Needless to say, they were still visibly pissed at me orchestrating this idea, as I planned everything BUT the transport to go by. Well at least my mom and my sis. Dad was cool with it as he returned home to watch Home Alone. Aside all that, the cinema hall was cozy, Christmassy, not too small, there were a few trailers before the movie, no snack-seller places (as this is not a mall lol) - my companion was glad she wasn't at the mall as she found this place where we were at way lovelier.

Now with all that unnecessary long intro off my chest, let’s begin:

THE REVIEW

(definitely not spoiler-free, if you are sensitive to spoilers please watch the movie for yourselves before reading my review. But if you like being spoiled, I’m your friend then I guess lmao)

The intro to the movie felt like I ended up booking a wrong movie - I didn't expect that to be set somewhere in Germany, especially an American/Italian-shot one. Was that a thing in the original Suspiria? I don't know... (apparently it is, but the cities are different, never the country though)

Patricia (I didn’t know it was Chloë Grace’s role until reading the Wiki) looked like to be a really big deal here, with the dance pupils discussing her disappearance the other day and Susie overheard them, then Sara mentioned the Patricia thing to Susie after Susie revealed she was kind of chosen as the lead dancer for the Volk play... is it because Patricia was THE saviour that unfortunately knew a little too much?? Idk, it’s perhaps the reason we get to see the Klemperer guy subplot happen (I didn’t know it was Tilda Swinton behind him all the time either, must be because the way the male German accent was put on her lol). Turned out she was captured and kept under some dungeon where Sara had gone later in the movie, but looking like an almost melted and grotesquely old human being (or if Mary’s mother from “Chocolate with Nuts” was a person). Speaking of which, there is one more later in the movie, but I won’t tell just yet - we will need to get into such scenes discussion first.

Interesting deaths here, despite of them being grotesque and horrifically detailed. It almost felt like Susie, whilst doing her first dance as the probable lead dancer, temporarily turned into Olga’s voodoo doll or a violent bloodbender (that old lady from Avatar that could bloodbend was incredibly uncanny, damn) and left Olga completely fucked up, and the foam mouth later on... is this the effect myxomatosis has on a human being if it was ever humanly? She was twitching and salivating afterall. :P But no, she’s not dead until she gets to plead her death later in the movie! :O Several others occur throughout, but none is more prominent than this key scene I described, well at least according to TV Tropes.

The search for the evil person in this movie without Wiki helping me much was definitely a nice game for me to play. I kept thinking that Blanc might be that one, then I thought she’s not the one until she looked at Carolina (I think that was the tall tomboy’s name??) suspiciously and then she later passed out on the floor violently, with rabies foam and everything.

Anyway, don’t tell me Tilda Swinton wouldn’t make out a pretty good Thom Yorke post-Pablo Honey. She’s 8 years older than him, ffs! Also played a man before (e.g.: this movie I’m talking about) so the make up won’t be an unjumpable-over hurdle.

The sighs were for sure unsettling, especially because they oddly sounded like orgasm here and there. IDK why. I know fucking is referenced twice in this movie (well only fucking once and sex another time). Speaking of random things, the nightmare shots were completely random themselves, following up with some imagery we never see in the movie again, and some of that we see only a little (like the worms and bloody organs).

3 long scenes that were note-worthy for me. One is the Olga mutilation/Susie's first dancing scene that I already noted, and it was driven by music (the others will be too. Soundtrack of this movie still rules). Then there's the Volk play itself - girls go from one place to another, take poses of each other, dance individually, let their minimalistic red rope dresses flick in the air, interspersed with Sara in the underneath area and her broken leg (so broken, the bone went out of her skin!), and then the matriarchy getting her back on stage, but healing her leg with her witch powers before that. I haven't really listened to the rest of the soundtrack but I gotta check the song out so that I won't end up labeling it as a Kid A reject. No but seriously - intense dancing needed some intense drumming and painful instrument sounds just to project out the massiveness of the whole play.

Then I keep remembering the scene where Madame Blanc commands Susie to jump higher and higher in the mirror hall, up until she jumps as highest as possible. Also my companion’s favourite scene was the stare exchange between these two ladies during the part where people were singing some drinking song in a bar to celebrate ‘Volk’’s success - you hear them singing and then some chilling background noise slowly mixing and creeping its way into the atmosphere, then I think it leads into a scene where some sparkling aura entity wakes Susie up (and she’s nude) in the middle of the night and gets her to go down to this... dungeon orgy full of random stuff going on, complete with an Asian man doing something beyond explanation (I could say lewd but not quite), even more strange ritual dancing and the very much frightening Madame Helga... who looked like Jabba the Hutt for some reason. And then of course everyone slitting, slashing and twisting each other, and by the end Susie throwing us all a plot twist which makes her THE evil one who can finally let her ‘friends’ go of all that suffering they have been through thanks to the damn witches (and yeah apparently her dance friends haven’t completely died? THAT’S how they do - they tell Susie to end their suffering and she does). Also she cracks her chest open to reveal a... very graphic part of a female body that will by no doubt get this whole text review reported without consent so I refrain from any illustrations. Oh and this scene mostly has the possibly favourite this movie’s soundtrack song of mine, if not one of them, play - titled Unmade. It was a mind-boggling decision to do so but the movie editors do them I suppose, but still. I felt sad for the song having to be the background of such absurd but fair enough events? (Oh and I didn’t mention that everyone who voted for the other woman than Madame Blanc to be the leader of the witches (iirc) were rid of in this movie. Damn.)

Oh and the ending is rather an interesting detail, not talking about post-credits because as always I have to be this one movie goer who wants to do it but can’t because they’re urged to go back out of the movie theater. We turn into modern day Germany with a love heart carved on a brick wall with the letters A and L (perhaps?? at the time of finishing this review my memory towards it kind of erased some parts of the movie for me), a nice little remembrance of Lutz’s (the old man’s) love for his dear Anke, with which they have reunited during the movie, but Lutz was dragged out by some people related to the dance academy for probably wandering elsewhere than needed and somehow Lutz ended up as one of the sex dungeon victims, stripped of clothing and lying down quite powerless. That and before the modern day shot we are subjected with Lutz in hospital with Susie coming to visit, they discuss something related to the plot, Susie touches the guy speaks some more, leaves and according to the Wiki, Lutz “suffers from a violent seizure” that was nothing more than just a hard seizure. And it even erases his memories!

Anyway, as a whole, I felt more underwhelmed of this movie’s experience despite really wanting to see it. Like, “uhm yeah gore blood people getting slashed everyone’s a witch and everyone’s watched over by the witch and if you expose the witches you die” kind of underwhelmed. I didn’t want this movie to blatantly go through my head, but it did, that’s why I wanted to make notes everytime something notable happens. There was one startling moment, and it just was an innocent scene transition. And something within Olga’s mutilation scene made me chuckle (and made some other people leave the cinema hall ASAP). It’s more of a disgusting watch than scary. Also feels too dragged out in parts.

I’d only recommend it if you are gore-tolerant (there are people that can’t stand looking at blood so this might as well not be for you, especially if you’re younger than 16), like intense choreos that can impact other people literally, and... the soundtrack. Yes of course. If you dare to get through the movie with feeling its soundtrack, sometimes you might as well feel it right, but some of the soundtrack song usages might as well make you go “hmm” as much as me.

I'll remind myself to never watch a movie in theaters for soundtrack again (unless they're not THAT late). And the other 'trilogy of the three witches' movie remakes, especially if they come out at the time I haven't moved houses by now, because for sure as hell will my parents not like me going to cinema late once more. The movie is lowkey 7 out of 10 for me, can sometimes it's on the verge of falling down to 6 becaude of no completely proper comprehension of some directing choices... so 6.7/10 is good - as it still has 6 in it, but totally leans on to the 7.

Will probably watch it again. I need to remember some more of this movie sometime later. And looking for online uploads of this movie is unrecommendable - I'll wait until Lionsgate distributes it to America for wider audiences so that anything could surface 2 months (or even a few days) later from now. Though if I didn't need all that, I'd definitely not watch it again for a long time... unfortunately I want to.

Post movie feelings: my companion liked the movie, initially said to never watch it again but now wants to watch it again because it was so "wtf" she felt like re-experiencing it at some point. She liked the music (another bonus point for Yorke). She wished she could film the reactions of other people who watched this, as they mostly were confused, all being like "wtf did I just watch???". I'm already feeling bad for the 3rd companion who didn't join us but would also like to watch this - he’ll likely be one of those confused movie-goers.

[sagittariusboyfriend]

What have been some creepy encounters you've experienced? Story please?

ive waited quite some time to respond to this message, like literally a long ass time lol, probably more than a year, sorry. i feel like i have several encounters to tell you about, but what im going to relay to whomever might be reading this right now is a thing that went on over the course of an entire year.

quick backstory: during the better part of 2017 i lived with my then boyfriend (who now is just my best friend since we broke up in october this year) in the old parts of the city center. all buildings in that area are from around 1870, and the building where we lived is one of the first ones to have been erected. his aparment was on ground level and it has all the features of turn of the century housing with the fireplace, original floors, weird nooks and crannies etc, and looks as if it was meant to be lived in by service people/kitchen personnel. it also had its original door (i suppose) with the kind of springy locking mechanism where you have to turn the key and pull down the handle real hard simultaneously to open from the outside, the knob is very tough to turn from the inside, and it locks itself instantly once you close it (so if you forget your keys youre basically screwed). it makes a loud brassy springy clicking noise when the lock shuts or opens. takes a lot of effort to open this old door and its loud, is what im saying. the entire apartment is all original details, the flooring in the corridor has its original wood planks, original ventilation, weird but beautiful glass panels on the door etc.

the key and the door unlocking from inside

first off, when he moved in, the landlord was missing a key in the set of four. my then boyfriend, lets call him C, didnt really think about it. he moved in, gave his dad one of the extra keys. the first weird thing that happened was when C got back from work in the afternoon maybe two weeks after moving in. in the middle of the corridor, on the floor, he sees the missing key. like smack dab in the middle of the narrow corridor leading from hallway to the bathroom, next to his boots. its too far in to have been thrown in by someone through the letter slot in the door, and could not have been dropped there by neither him nor his father since they had all of their keys. so he’s like, weird, but doesnt really think about it. he also told me that around that time he heard coughing from the corridor when inside his bedroom (it opens up to the right from the corridor once you step inside the apartment), but also waved it off since it might as well have been neighbours just outside in the hall.

next weird thing that happens is after we had started dating and i pretty much lived there with him, and this time i experienced it. i started work around noon whereas C left around 6 in the morning. so im in bed and its maybe 10 o’clock, and i wake up to that loud, springy clicking noise of the locking mechanism in the door. and im like, what is he doing home at this time? so i get up, but no one is there. the door is also juuust a little bit askew, as if someone was going outside but then decided not to, like its just shoved open enough for the lock to click open, but the door isnt opened, its still within the width of the doorframe if you get what i mean. so i look outside and the hall is empty. i should have been able to hear steps in the very echo-y stairwell (which is also old and the acoustics are fantastic because we hear everytime a neighbour passes by, and subsequently opens the building entrance door which is also a loud, heavy door), but heard neither steps, up or down the stairs in the hall, nor anyone opening the heavy entrance door, or any evidence of human activity. all is quiet. i get a bit freaked out, because that means that unless someone else had a key, our door was unlocked from inside.

i tell C when he gets back, and after this is where shit starts to ACTUALLY go down.

im going to try to remember all of this in the correct order, but i know it started in january 2017, and went on until he moved out in december.

the song in the hallway

C talks a lot in his sleep. sometimes he even sings, he speaks in english (we’re swedish) and  he has been known to get up and take a shower at one in the morning while still asleep thinking hes late for work. for those who are on heavy sleeping medication, u get it. its not weird, mostly its funny, and its just because of the medication. these things go on literally every night and it was a bit hard to fall asleep to loud talking and incoherent words sometimes because he used to go to bed three-four hours earlier than me, but i managed just fine. one night we were in bed, it wasnt that late but C was asleep, i was on my phone next to him. i hear this weird melody being hummed, thinking its coming from C i take out my earplugs and check, but its coming from the fucking hallway. again, no one outside in the stairs, just someone or something humming a melody in the hallway. i remember my hair standing up all over my body and i was glad i slept closest to the wall, C shielding me from being viewed directly from the hallway. somehow i manage to fall asleep. and this part is going to sound weird and like its made up, im very aware, but having been through this crap i dont really care because i know it happened: the morning after C was off from work, and i for once woke up before he did. if i wake him up and his medication hasnt ‘wore off’ yet i guess (dont really know how that works) he’ll be disoriented and it takes a few minutes for his brain to register that hes awake and he can speak coherently. i did not poke him, i did not try to wake him up, but all of a sudden i hear him humming that same melody, very much deep asleep. that freaked me out.

the mimicking begins

another night around that time, i was up at around 2-3 am to go to the bathroom. i wiggle out of bed, out into the corridor, at the end of the corridor is the bathroom. when im done, i scurry back into the bedroom, information of value here i guess is i always sleep with my socks on so im wearing socks, aka i dont make a lot of noise when i get up. when im back in bed, looking at my phone, i hear footsteps - from the corridor. the freakiest thing is its like they are imitating the way i walked back from the bathroom, i can so CLEARLY hear sockless, BARE feet on the creaky floor of the hallway, literally stepping at the same pace i did. that was my first thought; someone is imitating my footsteps. i can hear them from behind the wall in the hallway, coming to a stop at the opening into the bedroom. like someone is standing there, watching. i get so scared i hide under the covers and press myself close to C and cant stop feeling icy shivers down my spine. i also cant stop thinking that someone or something waited for me in the kitchen, then walked behind me, mimicking me, and is now standing at the beedroom threshold, watching me. somehow i fall asleep, or i dont, i cant remember.at this point, im thinking somethings up with that hallway.

the poorly covered hole

this part isnt anything scary/supernatural really, just uncomfortable and kinda sets the tone for living in this apartment at the time: in the bedroom, C had placed a clothing rack next to the old 1900s floor-to-ceiling ventilation pipe that is plastered into the wall in the corner. literally just a wide ass pipe in the corner of the room that isnt in use anymore. behind the rack, leaning against the pipe, he had put a rarely used pink neon tube light and i decided it would look cool to try it out, but it was dusty in that little nook thing where it was so i had to clean it up a bit. while moving the clothing rack to vacuum, i realize there is a hole at least as big as my hand in the side of the pipe. i was like ??the frick is this? and i poke into it and there is just this thin paper membrane covering it. you could almost fit an entire head through there, and i can literally feel wafts of cold wind moving through it. there probably used to be an attached pipe of some sort to allow smoke from the kitchen to go up into the ventilation like a hundred years ago, but the thought that this at least 1 meter wide pipe, wide enough to fit a person, goes up through probably all apartments above us, up through the attic, ending as an open chimney in the roof, has this big hole in it is just… unsettling to me. obviously the pipe is not in use anymore, but that kind of only made it scarier. ive seen enough scary movies for that to make me feel a bit paranoid lol. i was almost expecting a hand to push through that paper when i touched it. but i covered it back up with the clothing rack and nothing really happened with that.

the mirror incident

one night, me and C were getting ready to go out. im getting ready in the hallway, because thats where the big wall-sized full figure mirrors are (of course). C comes out of the bathroom, runs past me infront of me, veering off to the left into the bedroom, wearing only underwear. i look after him in the mirror, i can see him in the bedroom, in front of his clothing rack. im fixing my hair at the time, both hands on my head. to my direct left is the front door and the space with our shoes and jackets. right in front of the door, for a split moment while im turning back to keep looking at myself in the mirror, i see what looks exactly like C but paler, wearing only underwear, standing in the same position as me, turned away from me as if the thing is also looking in a mirror. heads on its head like its fixing its hair, just like me. imitating me. i get shivers just typing this down. i tell C what i just saw, i literally went: ”uh C? i just saw a man infront of the door”, dumbfounded, and we both got a bit freaked out, and got out of there pretty quickly.

learning about demons

a few weeks later, C invites his friend to comes to visit. im not there at that time so i never met her, but she apparently had a knack for sensing ghosts and picking up on energies etc. he told me that when he got up to get them more wine from the kitchen and left her alone in the couch in the bedroom, she said she really felt very uncomfortable sitting with her back to the hallway corridor. she also told him that ghosts and spirits are usually not malevolent and you can get by fine living in a ‘haunted’ house. but when he told her what we had experienced so far, she told him that ghosts usually dont behave that way, and that a rule is that if something is imitating or mimicking you, its probably not a ghost, but might be signs of fucking DEMONIC ACTIVITY. apparently demons like to mock and impersonate people. friendly caspers dont do that. fun.

realizing the triangle/cursed ground

so, yeah. weird things kept happening. but we had jobs, sometimes you just gotta ignore that shit and try not to live your life terrified of demons. which we still were for the record; i dont think we ever left each other alone in that apartment for any longer than necessary after that, i remember C actually staying at his dads during the time i went away to see my family.

anyway, when we had started dating C had introduced this podcast to me. its a swedish one where a guy called jack reads creepypastas, analyzes spooky stuff, old folklore, all that stuff, and also reads original content and real stories written by listeners. its really good and really creepy. so that podcast had been going for maybe two years by then so i had a LOT to catch up with, wich wasnt a bad thing at all. i remember by this time is was summer and i was out on the street smoking a cigarette after doing dishes, and the episode i was listening to was about the last of the execution spots/gallow hills (?? i guess is the correct term? not sure) in sweden. remember, we lived in the old part of the city center, in the northern part of the city. very old buildings, very old everything. so jack commences to talk about the famous last gallow hill in [our city] and where it was located, when the final execution took place and for what, how many people had been killed there and its entire bloody history. i almost drop my cigarette, because he says it was located on zenithgatan (”zenith street”), and where the gallows used to be there is now a kindergarten. so im on our street, just outside our kitchen windows, looking right at that specific kindergarten. just across the main road. i will provide a screenshot of a map and a street view of what i was looking at to let you know i am not making this up:

so the street we lived on is called döbelnsgatan (”döbeln street”, döbeln is apparently a city in germany, i just googled that), at the very end of the street, our citys main old cemetary is juuust beyond our line of sight to the right from the kitchen windows and where i was standing. however, across from us: zenithgatan, with all of its bloody history. i couldnt help but to wonder how far the blood could had flown from there and where the bodies had been thrown, if this entire part of town is built on bloody ground etc. it really gave me massive creeps.

a few years later (which would be a few months ago, when i moved in to the room where i live presently) i happened to land a conversation about ghosts with my new flatmate. turns out she also used to live in those neighbourhoods, in an apartment on the third floor literally overlooking the cemetary, but on celciusgatan, which would be the next street over from döbelnsgatan (see map). and she told me, without me having said anything at all about all of this, that that part of town including her apartment has always been haunted. she used to see a shadow of a man through frosted glass doors, moving around in rooms that were closed when both she and her son and her sister were in the kitchen. she didnt experience any malice however, and also had someone come check it out for her, but apparently she just had nice ghosts. but we agreed that yeah, these buildings are literallty inbetween a cemetary and the gallows; there are probably bound to be a lot of lost souls wandering around.

this could also be over-analyzing it, but if you draw lines from the cemetary to the site of the executions to döbelnsgatan/celciusgatan, it makes a perfect triangle. while googling the translation of ‘döbeln’ just now it says right in the wikipedia description that it is located ‘somewhat in the middle of a triangle, made up by three cities’. coincidence, perhaps. probably. but still. by now im pretty conviced of anything that could hold any significance about all of this.

the painting

later on, maybe by a few months, and C tells me when i get home from work that he had woken up that day, after i went to work, from the painting atop of his big secretaire/chiffonier/bookcase (its really a big piece of heavy furtinure, but lets call it bookcase just to be simple) coming crashing down behind it. that painting had stood there since january, at least 9-10 months, and had not fallen down ONCE. it was leaning against the wall, perched safely and steady on the bookcase, with at least a centimeter bookcase until the gap between wall and furniture. i remember thinking last time i looked it was covered in dust because no one even as much as dusted that thing off, and there had been no weird vibrations in the walls that would have shook it either. by this point we’re both very, very uncomfortable in this apartment.

the painting and the hollow in the wall

and here comes the final thing that happened before he moved out, the part that we have on film. ill have to ask my ex for the footage if anyones interested in it, which is fine.

C was doing a collaboration with some people on instagram, an educational account about depression, self-harm, anxiety and such. they gave him the assignment to film himself talking about personal experiences, i think they wanted maybe 13 videos or something like that, the theme being ‘death’ (those videos are still up, im unsure if they posted this one as it kind of strayed from the mental health stuff a bit, but i know C has it still). so at this time - maybe september or october? i really dont know exactly when this was, i could probably scroll on their instagram account but im too lazy - he was filming himself a lot. so, he brought up the painting crashing, and filmed us both while demonstrating how it physically could not have moved and crashed down behind the bookcase because of the way it stood on top of it. it would have been one thing if it fell forward, but then it would have landed on its front and fallen in front of the bookcase, probably shattered the glass. but it fell BEHIND it. on camera, you can see my hands pushing on it to demonstrate the way it went down into that snug space inbetween. you would have had to physically push on it, at least a centimeter back, from the front. so for some reason, i get the very random idea to knock on the wall behind it. which means, i stand in the corridor and knock on the corridor wall that divides the bedroom from the hallway. and i swear to god, this is ON FILM. i knock all over the wall and its all concrete - except for THE SPOT EXACTLY BEHIND THE FUCKING PAINTING. the wall is hollow. right behind the painting. where it stood leaned against on the other side. i cant explain why i all of a sudden tried knocking all over the wall, or why the actual fuck there is a hollow square in the middle of the corridor wall, but that really fucked us up. there were just too many weird coincidences, you know.

like, all of this happened, or seemed to be centered around, the corridor. as if our hallway was some nexus for supernatural activity. and with that hollow thing, it was like it was starting to make its way into the bedroom, you know? unsettling.

thankfully, C moved out of there in december and we didnt have to stay there anymore, but i sometimes pass by and think about asking the current tenant or the neighbours if they experienced anything strange. its just so eerie. the mimicking parts were the scariest to me, and i get chills thinking about them and reading it even now.

so, thats my long, long overdue creepy encounter. i am VERY aware i sound insane but, hey. what can i do. i am not one for lying and i know that so thats all that matters tbh. i have other encounters as well, but living in that apartment takes the fucking cake.

[defineyourlimits]

August 15, 2019

In a text to Sarah:

Hi sorry it’s so late i just remembered that I never told you the Koby update. I think the last time I talked to you about it was before he had asked me on a date. So not last Saturday but the Saturday before I was at home and we were texting and he asked me on a date for the following Wednesday so of course I said yes. When I got back into town on Monday he came over and everyone was hanging out then slowly people left and everyone went to bed so it was just him and I in the living room.

We put on a movie and we start flirting and stuff back and forth and he ends up kissing me and stuff so we like cuddle and make out for the rest of the movie. He stays until 3:30 so I finally end up going to bed at like 4:30 ish because I’m just flipping out over us kissing. I wake up pretty early the next day so I had like 5ish hours of sleep. Then Tuesday all the girls were hanging and I stay up late and wake up early again. So I have another night of 5 hours then it’s Wednesday so it’s date night. I get dressed and nervous and what not and we have a cute date. He took me to this Chinese place he loves then we came back home and hung out. We went to Walmart with Magen and Carrie Grace for awhile. Everyone goes to bed so we go to my room and we make out and talk until 3:30 again. The issue is, I have to wake up at 5 because we’re going to 6 flags.

It wasnt an entire issue though because honestly I would have let him stay until 5. So I have one hour of sleep and get ready and go to six flags. We talk through out the day and then I invite him over after we get back. I hop in the shower and I just randomly get this overwhelming feeling that he is going to end things with me and that he doesn’t really like me that much. I tell Magen and she like calms me down and what not. So we’re all hanging out and he’s not acting any differently or anything but I’m still low key freaking out that he’s gonna end things. We watch disjointed and this scene comes on where this dude tries weed for the first time. He has issues with depression and ptsd so they show this like cartoon depiction of the weed like going into his body and brain but it ends with these like unsettling images and it just took me directly back to the night I was high at Anna’s and realized what had happened with Colton. So I try to shake that off and what not. After that episode ends, Magen goes to bed so Koby and I go to my room. After a few minutes we start making out and I start feeling panicky because I’m thinking about Colton and Koby and I are kissing and he’s touching me. I get to where like I almost can’t breathe so I get off of him and sit at the foot of my bed as far from him as I can and try to catch my breath. I try to like play it off but he can tell that I’m freaking out so he’s like asking what’s wrong.

I tell him nothing so he was like well come here and cuddle me so I do. And he’s like are you sure nothings wrong, and I say yes but he said that I hesitated. So I tell him like, look koby, it’s a really big thing like it’s a big deal. I’m just trying to like not tell him what happened. But he wants to know so I literally say “so we were watching disjointed and they were showing that guy getting high then having the like PTSD episode and it took me back to when I was high at Anna’s a few months ago and realized that back in November I had gone to rounders and gotten drugged and you can assume what happened from there.” I just really didn’t want to say the word to him. He like paused for a second then asked if he could hug me and I said yes.

He basically said that he was sorry that it had happened to me and that he had friends who had gone through similar situations and that he never wanted to make me feel uncomfortable and what not. And he had said that to me before that night had happened too. We keep talking and stuff for awhile and he mentions that he didn’t want to rush anything and make stuff official because he wanted to take things slow and do it right because he didn’t want to fuck things up. He stayed until 3 again (I’m really trying to emphasize the lack of sleep I got) and I had to wake up at 8 to go back to winfield because my dad and I were suppose to go to South Carolina to go white water rafting.

I lock the door behind him and I can’t even make it to my room before I start crying. I like go to my room and ball my eyes out for almost an hour before my exhaustion kicks in and I fall asleep. So I sleep for like 4 hours, wake up, pack my shit, and drive home. I stop at Jacks and get a biscuit and coffee. And I love Jack’s breakfast like normally I down my biscuit within 5 minutes of getting it not even exaggerating. But I’m so sick over what happened the night before that I’m shaking the whole drive and I don’t even touch my biscuit until I’m out of Tuscaloosa. And even then I only ate half of it. I cry the whole way home because I’m freaking out because that’s the first time that I’ve been in a situation where I had I guess like a flash back almost to Colton. Because we were even in a position that Colton and I were in when I freaked out so that didn’t help.

And I was freaking out that Koby was gonna end things and think I’m dumb or weird or crazy or lying or something idk but it scared me because I really like him and I’m just really afraid of being alone because I hate it and I felt like I ruined my chances with being with him because of my freak out and Even though I knew deep down that I was glad he said he wanted to take things slow and not make anything official I was also afraid that he had said that because he basically already had one foot out the door. So by the time I make it home I had made myself so sick that I had to throw my car in park and swing my door open and I dry heaved twice into my front lawn. Nothing came out but I felt so upset and sick. I was at home for an hour before I was suppose to have lunch with my parents. I calm myself down then go to where we’re having lunch. I get my food and I’m still so sick that I don’t even pick up my silverware. I tell my parents that I ate breakfast late and that I will eat my food later.

I was texting Magen and Carrie Grace the whole morning about everything that had happened. I’m honestly surprised I didn’t text you. I think I was just so overwhelmed and you weren’t here so I didn’t even think about it. Well I’m sitting in the restaurant and I get a text from Magen and I’m reading it and feel myself start to get overwhelmed again so I tell my parents I’m going to the bathroom. Well someone is in there so I stand outside trying to calm myself down but I start crying so I walk outside of the restaurant and sit on a bench outside. I try to stop crying but I can’t so I just try to stay quiet. I finally call my mom and tell her to bring my keys and meet me at my car. We sit in the parking lot and I explained to her what happened. My dad and brother ended up heading back home while we were talking. She like comforted me and told me I should talk to my counselor soon. She tells me that if I don’t feel like going on the trip that dad would understand. I tell her that I don’t think I will go.

I drive her back to work then cry the rest of the way home. I get back and hug my dad and tell him that I don’t feel like going. I go to my room and sleep for 5 hours. I get up and go tell me dad everything that happened. My mom gets back home so we eat dinner then I go back to my room. Im messaging Koby and he asks if we had made it to South Carolina and I told him that we weren’t going because I wasn’t feeling well. He asked what not feeling well meant. I basically said that I was freaking out over what had happened last night and that I hadn’t talked to him much about it but that he was the first guy I’ve talked to since I realized what happened and that everyday is like a process for me and that I know this is a lot and that he didn’t ask for any of this and that if he wanted to go back to being friends that we could and it wouldn’t change anything between us. I also said that he didn’t do anything to make me uncomfortable, this is just kinda my life now.

And he just like straight up said that he like me for me and that nothing I said had changed his mind about anything. He said that he was an open book with me and that he wanted me to be one with him. He said that he wanted to go through this process with me but if that I felt like I could only handle a friendship that he would be willing to do that. I told him that I really liked the pace that we were going at now and that I would be as open as possible with him and that if he had any questions I would be willing to answer them. So that eased a lot of my anxieties and stuff and since I’ve been back everything has been so natural and wonderful with him.

I’ve gotten to see him at least for a little bit everyday and like nothing has made me happier. We haven’t really had the chance to talk about it in person because he has band camp all week but I assume we will soon. I just feel really lucky that I’m going through this with him and I really like being with him. He makes me feel so comfortable and he and I have been friends since last summer so we know a good bit about each other and I feel like our personalities click so well together. I literally can’t say enough about how happy I am that we’re together (even if we aren’t official yet).