#guest muse: joy carmichael

[dreamsofalife]

Oh wow! Isn't this a ragtag bunch? But like, in a good way? I'm sure we'll get along just fine!

I'm Joy, by the way. Nice to meet you!

[dreamsofalife]

Shy doesn't let her speak another word before the flashlight connects with Joy's face, sending her tumbling to the ground. However, being rather panicked and reactive, the blow isn't as hard as it could be. Joy doesn't have the time to respond verbally, but a grasping hand manages to catch Shy's sleeve and pull her down to the ground with her; if I'm going down, you're coming with me.

"Will you listen to me for one minute?!" Joy's pinned to the ground, her thin fingers wrenching Shy's hands away from her. The way she yells isn't her normal irritated snap; it's akin to a frightened animal, wild eyed and feral. "I don't have much time, that demon seed with the fake leg is probably still after me! What kinds of people have you been hanging out with since I left?!"

She doesn't answer. The two of them struggle, rolling across the sea of darkened grass, pale moonlight the only witness to their desperate struggle. Shy strikes; once, twice, fist connecting with Joy's face more times than she can count. She's in a blind, animalistic panic that can't be reasoned away. The mind is quiet while the body and emotions rage, demanding; eliminate the threat, get rid of her, kill her, KILL HER-

But before she can reach such a terrible point, before she can do what can never be taken back, she looks down, and she sees it. That terrified face, almost blue under the glow of the moon, body heaving as tears stream down her face. She sees something truly, genuinely pitiful...and, she stands up.

There comes a time in our lives when we stop mythologizing things, and by extension, people; our parents stop being infallible and look to us like ordinary humans, our teachers are no longer the pantheon of Gods deciding our fate. The closet monster morphs back into the moth-eaten raincoat bought for us years in advance that we forgot existed.

For Shy, her moment was now. Standing over Joy-impossibly beautiful, perfect, cruel, capricious as her very namesake Joy-who now sat dirty, sobbing, and downright pathetic...something in her just broke.

This isn't a monster. This isn't an angel, a succubus, or something out of the tortured love stories she consumed by the pound as a teen. She's human. Flawed, wretched, and as of now, no longer able to hurt her. No more than she already had. She can't bring herself to fear something she pities so much.

"You are...so fucked up, you know that? Not just what you did last week, but like, in general?"

"What are you-"

"Shush!" Joy actually flinches at the intensity of her voice. "You're always doing that, always interrupting me! Even when we were together, you always used to interrupt! A-and you used to laugh at my poetry, and stole my perfume...you didn't talk to me for a week because you thought the waitress at Bukowski's was flirting with me! She was my second cousin, Joy!"

"Are you still mad about that?! I said I was-"

"No, you didn't!" Shy snaps back, eyes flashing. "That was the worst thing! You never apologized for anything you did, you always had to justify it or act like it never happened! You still don't ever apologize! Christ alive, look at yourself! You're here trying to justify almost killing me, to me! You only apologized for it because Daniel made you do it! Because Jill is on your heels and Nymh is hunting you down! Because the people who actually know and love me are doing something about it!"

Love...that's why she's even alive, isn't it? Lo found her and got to her in time. Alice got Daniel to buy her time to heal and keep Joy at bay for awhile until she managed to run. Jill and Nymh had been chomping at the bit trying to get revenge for her, everyone who visited her in the hospital...her room is still piled high with flowers.

She can barely register the tears pouring down her face.

"I feel sorry for you, you know. You hurt me because you felt like you had nothing left, and now...now you don't. There was a time I would have taken you back, would have just...just forgiven you for it all and thought it was okay. But I know better now. I met people who taught me how to love for real, and they're the only reason I'm still here right now. I've moved on, Joy; it's time for you to do the same. For all you like to talk about taking responsibility for your actions, you haven't done so once...so I'm giving you the choice. Own up to it. Everyone knows what you did, so own up to it and take responsibility. Stay here and get arrested, I won't press charges; I'll let the state decide what they want to do. Or, you take the coward's way out and run, but if you run...I can tell you that life will be miserable for you, if you can manage to survive that long. I'm begging you, Joy...do the right thing. For once, do the right thing."

Joy doesn't respond, not verbally at least. Her eyes lock with Shy's for a moment, pleading before she lowers her head.

She has to do the right thing. She has to give up; she can't run forever.

Once again, sirens wail like a banshee in the night, and once again, Shy finds herself unable to sleep. She's questioned briefly, and as her ex is taken away in handcuffs, she can't help but feel a deep ache in the pit of her soul.

These are scars that won't heal, but in time, they're going to fade. She's still scared, broken, and maybe even in shock, but at the very least? The nightmare is over. She's going to be just fine.

[dreamsofalife]

Is that a talking rat?!

[dreamsofalife]

"I wouldn't expect any of you to get it. You've never had to deal with someone ripping your heart out, ruining your life, and then rubbing their happiness in your face at your lowest point."

[dreamsofalife]

Dark chocolate is the only good chocolate, change my mind. Milk chocolate is for babies who like sugar, and white chocolate doesn't even have real cocoa in it, just cocoa butter.

[dreamsofalife]

"Look, I'm willing to talk this out with you if you'll just listen to reason! I can't stay here all day, I have to-"

She's cut off, backed into a wall before she can even begin to plead her case.

"No! You're not running away from me this time, not until you have a real conversation with me! You always do this, you just...you just walk away when you don't want to talk about something, when you don't want to take responsibility for your actions! God dammit, Wyatt, we're not kids anymore, and you're not getting out of this conversation! You are not going anywhere until you apologize!"

She's still backed into the wall, Joy's nails digging so tight into the sleeve of her shirt that she swears her arms might puncture. Joy's crying; they both are. But what can she say? How do you apologize when you don't even know what you're supposed to be sorry for?

"Joy, I'm sorry, I..."

"For what." Her response is sharp and automatic, like a deli slicer. Tears are still streaming down her face, though she's not sobbing; there's a malice to her stare, an expectation for the other to slip.

"I...I'm sorry for hurting you, for agreeing to arrange her funeral, I had no idea-"

Joy's fist slams into the wall, causing her to nearly concuss herself backing away from it, head all but bouncing off the peeling wall. "That's not it and you know it! Stop playing this game with me, you know what you did, stop lying and stop trying to make me feel bad!"

And like that, they're both weeping again.

...This is going to be a very long day.

[dreamsofalife]

If there's one thing I've learned in life, it's to never disagree with the most beautiful person in the room.

[dreamsofalife]

Frantically googling

help i think i killed my ex

murder vs manslaughter

fake id where can i get

countries with no extradition treaty

[dreamsofalife]

You know what, I could learn to love milk chocolate.

[dreamsofalife]

It's late. Everyone's gone, save for the occupants of her house, who are all tucked into bed. All that's left is Shy, who...well, let's say she's having some trouble sleeping. When one is A: traumatized beyond belief by being alone at night, and B: subsequently all but alone at night, they find themselves lacking in sleep, and restless. The VHS of the Last Unicorn ended hours ago, and she decided to do a double feature with Legend afterwards. Now, halfway through, she's torn between exhaustion and vigilance. And that's when she hears it.

Tap. Tap-tap.

She stiffens, exhaustion waning. It was...it was nothing. She's paranoid, imagining things...if not that, then a pebble from a passing car. But if it was that, why didn't she hear a-

TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP TAP

The sudden onslaught of noise was nearly deafening to her, the poor woman's mind warped by a mixture of adrenaline, fear, sensory overload. Ignoring it wasn't working; even as she plugged her ears, the noise didn't subside. If anything, the echo chamber of her hands around her ears made it feel like it was bouncing around inside of her skull. The back of her head throbbed unendingly.

Blindly, she reached around for a weapon, something heavy or something she could use to defend herself if need be, and salvation arrived in the form of a heavy flashlight. She reels it back to strike, throws open the door...and freezes.

It's her. It's her worst nightmare, everything she was afraid would happen. Normally glossy hair, matted with blood and dirt, standing at an awkward angle, dazed, weak, but still alive. Still alive. The devil is here and Hell is at her doorstep.

Taking a shambling step forward, she all but falls over.

"Please...let me explain."

[dreamsofalife]

She's not dead btw. Probably like half dead but not dead. This storyline isn't concluded yet.

[dreamsofalife]

Jill was right. The walls were, indeed, closing in on her...at least, they would be, if she was around walls.

She'd spent the last day and a half shambling around woods and farmland like a zombie, occasionally breaking into a run when she remembered the severity of what she had done, as if trying to outpace her own guilt. The only thing stopping her is her own exhaustion and rapidly depleting energy.

Thankfully, for her at least, she finds herself on the highway sometime that afternoon, and where there is a highway, there is almost always a ratty gas station. The bell on the door dings as she enters, ragged and dirty as she basks in the ethereal glow of the overhead fluorescent lighting. In spite of a few odd stares, she feels relatively certain that nobody here suspects her of anything more than a Class C Misdemeanor.

She picks a few items that she knows she can pay for, as many carbs and as much sugar and caffeine as a crumpled twenty can get.

"And in other news, a Batesville native was hospitalized after a seemingly random attack at the Santorini Funeral Home yesterday evening-"

Joy's halfway through her transaction when he head snaps upwards like a prairie dog to stare at the small tv on the counter. (Why do so many gas stations even have those?!)

She's...she's alive. What color had been left in Joy's face drained rapidly as she watched the news blurb, pupils turning to pinpricks in the ocean of her eyes.

You're not a murderer. You have a chance to make this right, you can fix this. You have to fix this.

As she steps out of the ratty gas station, still clutching her food, she sticks out her thumb and waits for a car to stop.

"Damn...what happened to you?"

"A lot."

the driver exhales between their teeth. "Alright. Where you headed?"

"Batesville, and step on it; I have to fix a huge mistake."

[dreamsofalife]

Tony looks down at Joy, fist in her hand as an intimidation tactic. She wasn’t going to lay a finger on the other woman, but it was clear she was enraged. Her left eye twitched in anger.

“Ya better get outta this town. I ain’t gonna touch ya, but I can’t promise someone else who isn’t as nice won’t. You’ve done way too much and now you’re stuck with the consequences. You’ve gotta lot of eyes on ya, put a target on your own back. Don’t make things worse for yourself. Get outta here, ya hear me?”

"You have to believe me, I didn't mean for this to happen! I would never...not on purpose! I'm going to leave, I swear, but you have to understand. I'm not a killer, I didn't mean it!"

[dreamsofalife]

"So that's basically what happened..." Joy sat at the table of the breakroom, idly stirring her cold coffee in a borrowed cup.

Shy had been valiantly attempting to ignore her pounding heart and trembling limbs, or to utterly dissociate. She was fine; this was fine, being in a room with Joy. She wasn't scared at all! Never mind the way she flinched any time the other woman moved. This was alright, wasn't it?

"I'm sorry that happened to you. That you went through all of that...it really sucks."

"It's fine, I guess." Joy stirred the coffee grounds at the bottom of the cup, thinking a moment. A brief smile flashed across her face. "You want me to read your coffee grounds? Like the way we used to when we were-"

"No. No, thank you." Her reply came out sharp, sharper than she expected, to the point even she flinched.

Joy's face fell. "Okay...So..." Where do they go from here? Why are they even still talking? It's obvious that neither of them want to be here, so why can't she just let it go? Maybe this is one of those times where she'll just know when she's gotten it. Maybe... "What have you been up to since I left town? I mean, you work here now, obviously. What else?"

For the first time since they'd begun to talk, Shy's eyes sparked, showing some life. "It's a long story...are you sure?"

"Positive."

She wanted to know. Maybe that was her closure; knowing that walking away was the best thing she ever did...but it didn't happen. Shy kept talking, and talking, and the longer she went on, the more her heart began to sink.

Of course...of course she had the new career, the home, the family. A beautiful daughter. A sweet son. Too many friends to count. Adopted parents along with her biological family. It wasn't fair. It wasn't fair, it just wasn't fair! She got to have all of this, all of it, after ruining her life! After breaking her heart and it wasn't fair!

Her hand clenched the mug so hard the the handle snapped in her hands. Rage, rage, so much that every atom in her body was pulsating with anger. As if on autopilot, she raised the cup over her head, walking forward with precision.

If I don't get to be happy, neither do you.

[dreamsofalife]

What have I done? What have I done, oh god what have I done?

There's blood everywhere. The floor is a mix of coffee grounds, broken glass, and blood, so much blood...

She hadn't meant it. She didn't know what had come over her; all she recalls is gripping the cup tighter and tighter and a choking, hot rage that enveloped her body. She saw red and when the other woman's back was turned at the sink, she..

Joy bolts from the break room of the funeral home, past the door and out into the parking lot, not stopping, not even thinking about stopping until her body cannot physically continue. She collapses on the outskirts of town in a farmer's field, immobile except for sobs that rack her body as she gasps for breath.

She can't go back. Oh god, what has she done?!

[dreamsofalife]

I'm just being honest.