#is currently looking forward at me now and terrified. this is unrelated to that comic a lot but its like. thinking about how i will change

[mildcicada]

[theaquarianphoenix]

THE DRIVING LESSON

It’s Saturday afternoon and we’re driving back home from Show Low in our powder blue Ford, Taurus. We went to Show Low to get groceries and things my dad needed for projects around the house. We stopped at a hardware shop so my dad could look at chainsaws. He talked to someone for 45 minutes while we stood around outside. My younger brother and I made dirt configurations with our scuffed tennis shoes and kicked some pebbles back and forth. It was mostly boring, and my dad didn’t buy a new chainsaw. I guess he’s going to try to fix the one has, even though it’s hard to start and he gets mad at it almost every time he uses it.

On the 50-minute drive home, my brother, 13, is in the front passenger seat. My dad is driving. My mom is sitting in the back with my sister and me. I’m not sure why she’s not in front with my dad. There is conversation between my dad and brother, but I am not paying attention. I stare out the window and watch the landscape turn from piney evergreens to high desert laden with shaggy bark cedars, sage bushes, and pinyon trees. I watch the clouds make formations across the sky above the scenery. I am enthralled by their unending ability to shape shift, one minute a fiery dragon, the next a wild horse tossing her mane.

Ricky Van Shelton is playing in the tape player. He’s singing “From a Jack to a King.” My dad likes Ricky Van Shelton, so that’s who we are listening to.

I feel the car slow down and am shaken from the daze of my window-gazing world. I watch my dad pull over to the side of the road. We’re just outside the small town of Concho.  I ask my mom why we are stopping but she’s not looking at me or answering my question. My dad and brother get out of the car and swap seats. My mind makes a hurried, dreadful click. A realization. My dad has told my brother to drive. NO! I plead to myself inside of my head, “Please, No!”

The second my little brother slides in the driver’s seat my whole body tightens and clenches and bears down. My heart ricochets in my chest like a rogue bullet, painfully piercing the sides. I put my hand there to quiet its noise.

I already know what is going to happen.

Because it’s what always happens whenever you do anything alongside my dad. There is never teaching. There is no space for patience or learning. You must know. You must possess the knowledge of the exact contents of how things should be done according to my father’s rules and expectations. You are not allowed to make mistakes. You must be an expert, even if you’ve never done the thing you’re being asked to do before. You must do is RIGHT.

And failing to do things right means consequences. Ugly, ugly consequences.

I watch my brother put the shifter in drive. He looks so small in the big seat behind the steering wheel. His white, blonde hair barely levels over the top of the dashboard. Aside from a few streets in our quiet, small town, I’m sure he’s never driven a car. Instinctively, I feel the need to get low. To make myself unseen and sink into the Earth. I wish I could dig a hole and crawl down inside. Like a snake, I slide away from the window and press my head in my mother’s lap. I feel her body as stiff and tense as mine. She knows. And she’s bracing herself, too.

We aren’t more than a mile under way and my dad is already raising his voice, yelling at my brother not to drive too close to the center line. Angrily, he grabs the steering wheel and jerks the car toward the side of the road. I feel the jerk like a stab to my neck. A kind of invisible blood flows out. It starts pooling on the floor. My skin becomes pricked with stress and fear. Each hair raised at attention. A thousand tiny antennae. They absorb the vibration from my brother. The antennae on his own body reaching out along the current, communicating his terror, his pain, and the whirlwind of emotion he must navigate to survive what is happening.

I lift my head slightly from my mother’s lap and look out the window. I see a cloud shaped like an elephant. I imagine a circus.

“Ladies and Gentlemen! Do you see that boy up there?? Look up! Way up! He will now perform a high-wire, tightrope act! To keep from falling to his death on the paved highway racing by below, he must do the impossible! He must balance his inexperience and the unimaginable pressure of trying to do things perfectly right, with a thousand tons of the unrelenting and brute dominion of his father!”

It continues this way the entire 15 miles to our house. My father yelling and jerking the wheel. I want it to stop. My mind falls in on itself over and over, pleading for it to end. But I can’t stop it. No one can. Not even my mother. Because we understand that, to protest, to intervene, to plead for mercy, is to poke the teeming, angry nest of a thousand swarming bees.

So, I try to stay still. Because stillness is the only way through. To keep the bees from stinging en masse. I peek up at my mother, her face so tight. I know this look. A mix of agony and helplessness. So filled with torture.

The invisible blood is still flowing.

In my stillness, I tune in to everything around me. My antennae at high vigilance and hyper aware. Each car that goes by whirs past like a buzz. I feel them almost cartoonish in their passing. Like the pages in a comic book. BUZZZZZZ!!! ZOOM!!! MEEEEEEEP! Our car almost spinning.

Then a flash!

I’m instantly brought back to reality by my father’s voice. The pounding hammer of his yelling. “Stay in the goddamned lines!” “Get the hell away from the center line!” “I thought you were more advanced than this!” “You’re not goddamned listening!” Jerks to the steering wheel. Again, and again. At one point, the jerk is so hard the car wheels screech. Each mile makes his shouting more intense. More sinister. More filled with rage.

And then I hear it.

SLAP.

A hard smack to the back of my brother’s head.

Have you ever seen my father? He’s big and strong and built like an ox. Sometimes I think he’s so strong he could lift our car over his head.

His slap rattles your bones.

For my brother, that slap meant, “Do it right, goddamn it! Do it right or I’ll hit you harder next time!”

When we pull up to our front yard, I feel a release from the anguish of being in the car. From the inescapable enclosure of that horror.  But the brutality and the trauma remain. It covers us. A baptism. In invisible blood. My dad has already stormed off somewhere, outwardly vindicated by his actions. We stagger, wounded in the upheaval of his wake, trying to swim to shore, to find our breath. To pick through the mountain of his wreckage.

I watch my brother slink out of the car. Hunched over. Like a tortured, terrified alley cat. When he looks up, we lock eyes and hold each other that way for a few seconds. We don’t speak. We don’t have to. I understand what his eyes are saying so completely I have to steady myself to keep from falling forward on my knees.

It’s always the same. That horrible mix of feelings. The blame. The shame. The guilt. The self-loathing. The self-doubt. The hatred. The anger. The demoralization.

The dismemberment.

The murder.

The death.

Of your spirit. Of your soul. Your heart.

Of You.

And the invisible blood keeps flowing.

[well-good-luck-with-that]

Do you think you could do a Clony fic, that's where ever since Hannah died, Clay sinks back into old childhood habits (such as sleeping with a teddy or being scared of the dark, etc.) but one night he has a really bad nightmare and calls Tony and Tony comes over and finds about everything and thinks it's absolutely adorable. Sorry if it's a little weird or something... Clay's just this smol bean that needs to be protected for the love of god. Thanks! XD :)

Read it on AO3

 It all started about a week after he’d finished Hannah’s tapes. Hannah’stapes. Her final message unto the world, and Clay had been both privilegedenough and horrified to have been witness to it. Clay isn’t too sure when hefirst started to become dependent on these behaviours, but he knew that it wassteadily starting to spiral out of his own control. He tried all he could atfirst to get Hannah’s voice from his mind; he wanted rid of her sweet laughter,the soft lilting narrative that he’d been accustomed to hearing had swiftlyinfected his brain to point of hallucinations so vivid that he had to remindhimself daily that Hannah was well and truly gone. Clearly, somewhere along theline his mind had been kept out of the loop, and he often found himself placingher physically in situations where she no longer belonged. It drove him absolutelycrazy; constantly trying to piece reality with his scrambled thoughts. Socrazy, in fact, that he needed to seek comfort in something… anything.

His first thought had been Tony, but on top of allthe other shit he’d dealt with in the past month it appeared that the slightlyolder boy had been avoiding hanging out with him one to one, so it wasdifficult to express what he was feeling. Besides, Tony had been with Brad whenit started, and not wanting to be a burden, Clay thought it best to just leavethe Latino to himself and his relationship. He was probably sick of him anyway,God knows Clay was sick of himself.

Before long, Clay knew that he needed to dosomething to stop him from turning full wackjob, and if that meant helping hisparents clean out the basement then that’s what he would do. It was only whenhe got his hands on his old childhood toys that he realised what a gold mine ofdistraction was hidden away in those stale, old boxes, collecting dust as theysat untouched. It all started with his old wool-stuffed dog toy; that was oneof the first things he pulled from the cardboard containers, his face lightingup as he remembered the great memories he’d had with this tiny, beaten-up doll.When Clay was 6, he remembers that he was absolutely terrified of dogs afterstaying up to watch a documentary about how dangerous wild ones could be. Hismom tried everything to get him to sleep at night, but the reoccurring dream ofa dark beast invading his bedroom to tear him limb from limb was enough to makelittle 6 year-old Clay fairly adverse to joining the land of the unconsciouswhen nightfall hit. The soft toy was his dad’s idea, having read in an oldparenting manual that it could help, Clay’s parents told him the toy dog wouldwatch over him in the night, protecting him from danger. Clay remembers the joyon his parents’ faces in the morning when he came downstairs having slept afull night without nightmares. It was a good memory, he thinks.

It is this memory, clear in his mind, that causedClay to take the toy to bed with him that night. If it could help him sleepback then, the teen saw no reason why it couldn’t work again, and he really waswilling to try anything at this point. For the first time since Hannah Baker’sdeath, Clay slept a solid 7 hours – not perfect by any means, but a definitestep forwards. It didn’t stop with his old dog though. As Clay progressed withhis cleaning out, he came across many of his childhood treasures includingcomics, colouring books and his old night-light. In the space of a month, Clayhad fully regressed to using his childhood as an escape; spending hoursre-reading stories and using blunt pencils to colour freely, not even botheringto stay within the lines, before getting into bed with his old teddy andswitching the night-light on. Clay could acknowledge that this behaviour wasn’tparticularly normal, but he was so happy to finally stop thinking about Hannahthat he just didn’t care anymore.

This night, however, is different. This night, aheavy storm that’s been brewing all day like a tropical storm building upenergy for destruction, has unleashed its wrath onto the small town of San Luis,and is currently pelting Clay’s window with heavy rain and hail. The wind isunrelenting as it whips through the air and causes the panels on the roof toshake and rattle and it… it is exactly like the night in Jessica’s bedroom.Clay tries his hardest to forget. He grips his toy so hard and squeezes hiseyes shut so tight and he tries so damn hard to think of his comic books or hisfriends but all he can hear is her.

“Get out, Clay.” Hannah isshouting at him to leave. He’s gone too far… he’s hurt her and she wants him toleave.

“I don’t want you here, get out.” Clay is so confused. His hands cover his ears as he tries toblock her out but she’s inside his head. She’s shouting at him.

“Get away from me.” She wants himto leave but if he leaves then Bryce will rape Jessica and Hannah will hear itand then Sheri will knock over the stop sign and Jeff will die and it’ll all behis fault again and he just can’ttake it anymore and he’s close to the edge of the cliff but then… Tony. Tony thinkshe needs to stand away from the edge. Tony will make it better. Just like hedid that night on the cliff. Just like he’s done every time Clay has needed himand God, Clay needs that guy right now.

Clay doesn’t even think about the fact it’s 2:00am,and the storm is hurtling through their small town like a hurricane and Tony isprobably sleeping, he just knows he needs Tony to be there. He grabs his phoneand hits speed dial. “Tony.” He sobs, only feeling pure relief that the otherboy has answered; that he doesn’t have to be alone anymore.

“…Clay?” Tony asks, his voice laced with sleep butimmediate concern for his friend. “Clay, what is it? What’s happened?”

“Tony.” Clay just sobs again. “I need… I don’t know…it needs to stop… I can’t… she wants me to leave again, Tony but I can’t.”

“Okay, listen dude, you’re gonna stay right whereyou are yeah? I’m coming round now but I need you to promise me you are notgoing to hurt yourself, okay?” Tony tells him sternly, as he hops around hisroom juggling his jeans and phone all at once.

“I won’t, Tony. I promise. Please just come.” Claybegs, tears still pouring down his cheeks, as he sits huddled in his mess of a kid’sbedroom, clutching the soft dog.

“Always, Clay. I’ll always be there for you, nomatter what.” Tony promises, echoing their past conversation. “Give me 15minutes, tops.”

-

Once Tony has managed to pull himself up andthrough Clay’s window, a task proving much more difficult due to the heavystorm surrounding him, he takes one look at Clay on the floor and his heartbreaks. He’s down next to him in seconds, cradling the sobbing boy in his armsas he runs soothing hands up his back. “Clay, come on man, you’re okay, right?Everything is okay.” He tries to reassure.

“How are things okay, Tony? Hannah is dead and it’smy fault!” Clay sobs into his t-shirt whilst gripping fistfuls of it in hishands.

“We’ve been through this. We all could have donemore for Hannah, Clay. We all failed her in some way, but this isn’t yourfault! You made her happy, Clay. You. You need to remember that.” Clay justcontinues to cry into Tony’s jacket, but the Latino is feeling a lot better nowhe’s here to comfort the boy whilst he lets out his sadness. It is whilst Clayis buried in his chest, that Tony finally notices the child-like memorabilia thatlitters his best friends room. “Now you’re a bit calmer, do you wanna talk tome about all of this… stuff?” He asks gently, gesturing to the mess around Clay’sroom once his crying has started to soften into hiccups.

The younger boy finally looks up. “I know. I’mpathetic, right? I actually thought all of this would help me forget.” Helaughs bitterly, picking up the toy dog before throwing it down in disgust.

“Clay that’s not…” Tony starts. “That’s notpathetic, dude. We all need an outlet and you shouldn’t feel ashamed for doingit.”

“I like that… that me as a child doesn’t… didn’t know Hannah. It means I canforget. I just want to forget.” Clay tells him honestly, eyes brimming withfresh tears and successfully breaking Tony’s heart once again with his sadness.

“Oh, Clay.” Tony sighs. “We can’t ever forget. And y’know,we shouldn’t. We need to learn from it and heal from it, and make sure it cannever happen again.” The older boy says wisely.

It is silent for a few seconds before Clay sniffs. “UnhelpfulYoda.” He mutters, smiling a little when Tony let’s out a laugh.

“We’ll get you sorted okay? I’ll get you one ofthose adult colouring books. You don’t need all of this stuff to feel normalagain, Clay, it’s just going to take time.”

“Tony, will you… will you stay with me tonight? Idon’t want to be by myself.” Clay asks shyly, still tangled in the Latino’sarms that are securely wrapped around him.

“Sure. I’ll stay as long as you need me to.” He responds,standing to bring them both to Clay’s bed. “And as long as you want me to.”

“Looks like you’re moving in then.” Clay jokestiredly, waiting for Tony to take his jacket and jeans off before crawling intobed and back into his arms.

Tony laughs, before switching the light off, andpressing a brief kiss to Clay’s forehead. “We’ll get through this, Clay. Ipromise you.” He whispers, as the boy in his arms slowly drifts to sleep.