Pretty Little Bones

I Swear I'd Burn the City Down to Show You the Lights

I Swear I'd Burn the City Down to Show You the Lights

Whenever someone was asked to describe Ava in two words, they always used the same two: smart and funny.

And she was smart. She was a very, very smart girl. More than anyone even realized until her secrets came out.

But she was smart out of necessity. It took a lot to remember all the stories everyone believed about her. She was never the same person to anyone and slipping in and out of personalities took a special kind of genius.

She did it flawlessly. That was the only thing she did flawlessly.

There were no seams when she pretend not to be herself.

That's what made her humor so prevalent. It was the only constant among her personalities.

When she was the party girl she made raunchy jokes. When she was the good girl told self-deprecating anecdotes. As a smart girl she crafted puns and irony into psychological elements. The athletic girl on the track and cross country teams made offensive observations that were only so funny because they were true.

The girl that hung out with the pot smokers out by the lake took shots at government and politics. The girl that sang in the high school choir did spot-on impression that were so impressive they were hilarious. The girl hanging by the lockers with the kids that hated life made clever commentary about social standards.

The daughter made commentary about anything related to sports, and twisted it with elements of historical irony. The sister relied on pop-culture shortcomings.

And the best friend said anything and everything. Because she was fucking hilarious.

Sometimes her jokes were too smart. They were too clever and no one was smart enough to understand the references. But that didn't matter. Her execution was enough to compensate. Whether you got it or not, Ava's jokes were funny.

She never claimed to know a lot about anything, but she knew a little about everything. Enough to hold and conversation with anyone in a room. Enough to weave in and out of crowds and make a little mark as a stitch in the whitespace.

No matter who Ava was or whom she was talking to, she could make them laugh. That's why she had so many "friends", as they liked to call themselves. That's why so many people talked to her. They liked her.

It didn't matter what they were going through. It didn't matter how shitty their day had been. Nothing mattered. She could make them laugh. No matter how many tries it took, how many jokes she burned through, how many references she had to play on, she always found a way to make anyone laugh.

It was so important to her. She felt like it was the only thing she could do right.

And occasionally it was at her own expense, but she never seemed to mind. At least not outwardly.

No matter what personality she put on, no one ever knew how much she hated herself. Everything else was completely different.

That was part of the reason people tended to assume they were the only friends she had. Because when they heard other groups talk about her, the girl they described was nothing like the girl they knew.

She had a way of making everyone feel special. Unique. Like they were the only ones that mattered to her. Like they always had been, and always would be, important. Like they were enough no matter what the world thought.

I always wished she could have just met herself.

Despite being very much an introvert, she didn't refuse socializing. She'd go to parties with me and sit quietly reading or doing God-knows-what on her laptop. But she didn't refuse to talk to people. They just had to start the conversation. She didn't want to bother anyone, but there was no rule that they couldn't bother her.