I squinted at the Scantron, clueless about the correct answer to the exam's final question. I'd skipped it earlier in case I became a Spanish genius while going through the rest of the test and immediately chose the proper conjugation upon revisiting it, but as I rubbed my hands over my jittering jeans, straightening out sore knuckles, I still didn't know which circle to fill in. My frustrated mind was too close to snapping for me to stretch it any more and riddle out a solution.
The pencil twisted through my fingers. Unwilling to continue fixing my mistakes, the eraser was close to falling off of its bitten end. My contacts stung in my heavy eyes and the anxious air pressed down on my shoulders.
Finally, I shrugged to myself, figuring that I was probably fucked either way, and I scanned my answer sheet, determining C to be my least-used response and scribbling graphite accordingly. Stiff legs carried me to the front of the room, I deposited my test, and then I was stepping in between more desks, slumping into my seat, dropping my forehead into my hands and blowing a breath out through my teeth, trying to expel my nerves with the carbon dioxide.
Spanish was my last Final, but the weight of the unknown grades overpowered the relief of the ending. The clock ticked towards the final seconds of the school year, though the room's atmosphere was low; it was students bent over tests, staring blankly at walls, impatiently counting down minutes. I was one of the lethargic kids, paralyzed by the joint stress.
Eventually, there were two minutes left, and pencils were shoved into cases, chairs scraped across the scratched floor, and voices raised as the answers to our exam were exchanged. I observed the dim commotion. Our teacher was complacent in her corner, waving her students towards the door instead of attempting subdual.
A breeze swept by my arms as I pushed outside with the crowd then broke away and strode quickly towards my car. All the lockers were empty in preparation for the new combinations that would come with my senior year. Backpacks bumped against everyone's shoulders, our muscles aching from supporting to-be-returned textbooks.
Alex was leaned against the side of my car, talking to Zack. Flyzik and Grieco were half-sitting on the hood and having some conserved conversation. My boyfriend grinned at me and his bright eyes jolted towards the school when the final bell sounded, excited shouts joining the shrill ring in the distance.
"Year's finally fucking over," Zack exhaled, tugging a hand through his curly hair. "Thank God."
"And we made it through mostly intact. What a miracle," Alex joked, mouth curling up towards flat eyes.
Zack nodded, having endured the same courses and campus, and Alex passed me the cup that'd left a wet circle on my car's top. He wrapped his arm around my waist and explained, "We went for coffee during the last final; I got you tea. It has, like, passion fruit."
I ignored Zack's eye roll - he drank his coffee black and laughed at my disgust with its bitterness - and sipped the fruity drink. I thanked Alex with a kiss, and the iced liquid cooled my throat as I asked, "None of you had a final?"
"Grieco did, but he must've gotten out early," Alex said. He peered at his friend, squinting skeptically and amending, "Or something. Who really knows?"
"His teacher, hopefully," I responded facilely. Rian appeared a second later, kissing Zack and smiling at the muscular arm that fell over his shoulders.
With Rian's addition to the group, the collection around my car separated and the pairs split towards their own vehicles. Alex slid into the driver's seat after I passed him my keys; I didn't mind driving, but I preferred being a passenger, watching the world through the window's blur and not having to be concerned with proper awareness of my surroundings.
I sighed when Alex asked about my Spanish final, explaining that half my answers had been guesses as we pulled out of the school's parking lot. The side of my head was pressed against the window's glass.
Alex noticed my dull disappointment and promised that it didn't matter, that Finals didn't alter much, not in relation to our grades or our overall lives.
"I know," I said. The blasting air conditioning numbed my skin. "I know that, but it doesn't feel like it."
I didn't elucidate further, instead repressing the wish that I'd done better, known more. I didn't give a single fuck about my ability to speak Spanish, but any inadequacy awakened my insecurity enough for it to consume another section of my mind.
"Least it's over," Alex offered frailly, letting out a breath. "Finally summer."
I nodded, tilting my head to watch Alex drive. His sight flicked between the mirrors, grip loose on the wheel, speed edging slightly over the limit. He was a reasonable driver despite his predilection to shocking sensations. Reasonable when I was next to him, anyways.
"So, final thoughts on junior year?" Alex asked, eyebrow raising.
"Definitely the worst year of my life." I replied, examining my left arm. I turned it over slowly, eyes inching over the initial cuts, the stubborn scar, the Y burned beneath my wrist. They were completely faded now, almost invisible, almost gone.
But not quite. Not completely. Never would be.
"But," I continued, unwilling to cast the year as completely dismal, regardless of the amount of pain that tinged my recollection of it, "I also started going out with this guy who's kinda cool, so it could've been worse."
I paused, thinking back to after my Spanish exam, when I'd slid my desecrated pencil past a broken zipper and into a case that still contained slicing scissors, sharp edges whose capabilities should've never been known but would forever stain my thoughts. "Well, not by much. But it could've."
"You're always so positive," Alex said. Sarcasm deadened his words.
"What'd you think of it?"
"Junior year?" He was quiet for a moment, considering, slowing towards a red light. I swirled the ice around my cup of tea, examining the spiral formed by the liquid.
The brake was released and we drifted forwards, Alex deciding, "It was more of the same. A bit better, I guess. I've got you and I don't have any new scars."
My eyes stuck on him, observing the shift of his jaw and the droop of his eyes as he said, "It doesn't feel like an accomplishment. It should, but it doesn't. I've been clean for a long time but it hasn't really made me any happier. It should've, right?"
"I don't think that's really how it works, Lex. Correlation isn't that direct. Cutting helps with the bad, right? But its part of the bad, so it kind of cancels itself out." I shifted in my seat, hands tugging at my shirt. "Less cuts, less relief, more detrimental thoughts. You're keeping the internal inside instead of making it external."
Worried that that sounded like an endorsement for him returning to slicing up his skin and wanting to direct the thoughts contorting Alex's face somewhere productive, I added, "It is good, though, babe. Making mental grievances physical just gives them more lasting power. You don't need those reminders."
He didn't indicate if he agreed with me or not, instead sweeping his sight across the windshield and lowly asking, "Am I ever gonna stop wanting it?"
I sunk further into the seat, the words holding me down. I'd been clean, recently, hadn't utilized any shining razors because the pain and the blood didn't seem appealing, but my attraction to that idea had disappeared along with my interest in everything else. I'd almost liked the beginning better, with the choking sobs and the torn scabs, than this present, with the colorless haze and the stifling apathy.
The sharp extremes, like everything, seemed better than ennui.
But Alex was somewhere in the middle. He had the dullness punctuated by the pain, and when I was down, even if my bones were too heavy to move and the tears that deformed my cheeks were silent, I still looked at my wrist, imagined the stinging of a blade on my tingling skin. It was always the first solution that my fucked up mind produced.
"Somebody, I think you will. You'll forget someday," I said, more optimistic than confident, wondering if such disturbed brains would ever be willing to let go of that pernicious sensation.
"We will," he corrected, sending me a slight smile.
I coughed out a laugh, eyes dropping to my legs as I altered, "Right. We will. Someday."
"Do you think next year's gonna be better?" Alex said, voice flat, lacking hope but avoiding tilting towards resignation.
"I really fuckin' hope so," I replied, adding thinly, "Don't know if I could take another round of this."
"Oh, you could. Won't have to, with any luck, but you could. This one didn't break you, next one won't." He was oddly matter-of-fact, absolute surety filling his words and strange affection polishing them.
I let out a noise somewhere between a sigh and a chuckle, directing my eyes out the window again and exhaling, "It's gonna be a fuckin' great summer."
___
"So are they dating, or what?" Rian questioned, staring at Flyzik and Grieco off in the distance.
We had been five minutes from our destination when it occurred to me to ask Alex where, exactly, where we going, and he only laughed in response to my delayed inquiry. I got my answer when we rolled into the parking lot of our local mini golf course.
Apparently, Flyzik had randomly mentioned his desire to go mini golfing some time ago, and Grieco recalled this and was hit by inspiration when they were waiting around my car, discussing what to do with the day as Rian and I were locked in our testing rooms. Zack said it was a stupid idea and then agreed, Alex was happy with whatever his friends suggested, and Rian and I got tugged along.
Not that I had a problem with it. I was, according to my general level of sports skills, completely crap at mini golf, but fucking around with my friends in the company of neon golf balls and dragon sculptures was enough to have the reality of summer sinking in, soaking into my skin with the fizzing sun.
The year had left me scarred and removed and stressed, but it was over, and I knew that that had no real significance, that the reprieve from classes wouldn't necessarily make me any happier, that having nothing driving me out of isolation every day could make the indifference infect more of my blood. But, fuck, with the brightness and the laughter and the shimmering air, it was so easy to believe that it would get better.
A foolish idea, really, but, for a couple hours, I found relief in pretending.
Flyzik's ball had flown off the course and into a fountain. Grieco was balanced on its concrete side, leaning out over the bubbling water and trying to hook the ball with his golf club as Flyzik steadied him with hands on his hips. Alex stood behind the pair, either mocking or aiding them.
Rian, Zack, and I looked on, squinting against the sun's intensity. Zack replied, "I think that they're just really close friends, but, y'know, no one is really sure."
Rian let out a "huh" in reply, and I cocked my head towards the far-off pair, saying, "Who do you think would bottom?"
"Oh, definitely Grieco," Zack responded instantly.
Rian nodded, smirk twisting his lips as he said, "Yeah, he's almost as submissive as you, Jack."
"Hey! I'm not-" I paused, considering this statement as Alex stepped back towards us, practically strutting. Shrugging, I conceded, "Well."
Alex returned to the course with a grin pulling on his features, amusement at his friends' antics lifting him. He saw Rian and Zack's smug expressions and asked, "What're you talking 'bout?"
"How much of a bottom Jack is," Rian declared, laughing as Alex's eyes widened, Zack jokingly hit him in the shoulder, and I mocked extreme offense.
Alex's surprise morphed into lazy eyes and slanted lips as he turned to me. He pulled me into him with hands curled around my hips. Zack put down his ball and practiced a swing as Rian critiqued his technique.
I pouted at Alex as I looped my arms around his shoulders. My head tilted back, eyes focusing on the puffs of clouds and relaxed breath joining them in the sky as my boyfriend kissed my collarbone, up my throat.
His lips swept over my jaw and connected with mine. The kiss was sugary, sliding, a revel.
Just after twisting a hand into my hair and drawing my head to the side, Alex pulled away; he leaned back, gazed at me, released his fingers and pushed hair out of my eyes, kissed me on the cheek before properly stepping away.
"I really do love you," I said quietly. Rian whined about how the wind had fucked with his ball in the background.
Alex simply smiled, his affection implied as he brushed a hand down my arm and interlocked our fingers. I returned his grin, and, spotting Flyzik and Grieco loping back over to us, still missing their golf ball, said, "Are they fucking?"
"I think they are, but no one really knows."
___
Alex cursed at the machine, frowning as the wheel ticked past 500 tickets and stopped at 20. They clicked out of the slot as he shook his head, blond streaks flopping into my boyfriend's eyes as he swore over his luck.
"Babe, you already have, like, a million tickets," I commented, gesturing to the strings of paper dangling from his fingers. A couple jackpots in the mini golf arcade had given him twists of tickets. I'd shrugged away my misfortune after the first few failures, adding whatever I did manage to win to Alex's pile.
"I know, but I want more," he moped, staring up at me with shining eyes and pouting lips. I shook my head at him with a stuck smile and pulled him in for a kiss, an arm draped loosely around his waist.
His mouth remained curled up after I moved back. Alex's eyes reopened slowly, turning to me under dopey lids as he said, "Alright, I guess what I have isn't that bad."
"Yeah, I am pretty fucking fantastic," I agreed, my tone lively, the darkness repressed enough by flashing lights and sprinkling laughter that self-depreciation didn't strain my voice.
Alex faked confusion, his eyebrows sinking down as he said, "What? No, you suck, I'm talking about my tickets."
I laughed shortly, spreading out my fingers over his hip and disagreeing, "Mm, you wish I sucked."
And then Zack's hand was on my shoulder, stopping our aimless wandering through the arcade. Alex's cheeks were tinted pink under the neon lights as he likely recounted exactly how close my mouth had gotten to his cock.
"Jack, you have to come play this motorcycle game with me," Zack said, nodding towards the side of the arcade and two bikes that were connected to screens. "Rian won't do it because he's worried that he'll, like, sprain his hip."
"Is that even possible?" I asked, my eyes following Alex as he went off to find our other friends, my hand slipping over his shirt.
"I don't know," Zack responded. I swung myself onto the fake motorcycle, leaning forward to feed the machine some of the coins that were weighing down my pockets. "But, apparently, Rian doesn't give a fuck if it happens to me, long as he's not injured."
"Oh, he'd definitely care. You can't have sex with a cast like that," I said, then modified that declaration as I flicked through the games' options, "Well, you probably can't."
"And that's all that really matters," Zack laughed, twisting the handlebars to accelerate as the game began.
"Obviously," I agreed. When I realized that I didn't know how to play and my bike scraped along a brick wall, I cursed, "Fuck, how do I turn?"
"Lean," Zack replied, and I did, leaning to the left and clumsily dodging an obstacle.
Zack was apparently expert enough at this game to not necessitate focusing fully; he chatted casually as he navigated the course, questioning, "So, how're you and Alex?"
"Good," I said quickly, distracted, jerking to the side to follow a sharp curve.
The memory of Alex's lips tingled on my throat. I added, "Really good."
"Has he told you he loves you yet?" Zack asked, and I wondered if it was obvious, wondered how Alex gazed at me when my attention was elsewhere, how his voice sounded when my name was mentioned in my absence.
"Yeah." The word was bright even though I winced after it, having shot off the course and skidded over a patch of grass.
Zack muttered "good," seemingly involuntarily, his thoughts mostly dedicated to speeding through the end of the game. I prompted, "And Rian?"
"Still great." Those two were impervious - a doubtless majority of high school couples split after graduation, when they left their city or went after different educations, but I wouldn't surprised if Rian and Zack made it.
Zack sped across the finish line, probably miles ahead of me, and joked, "He doesn't care if I get injured, but he'd bring me flowers in the hospital, so."
"How cute," I said with clear sarcasm, though sincerity lingered at the end of the syllables. I rolled across the finish line, sitting up straight and uncurling my knuckles from around the handlebars, completely unsurprised when the screens announced that I'd lost.
"What do you think younger us would've thought of this?" Zack asked, unfazed by his victory. Succeeding at anything athletic was a given with him. "That we're now high school seniors, and we're fucking around in a mini golf arcade, talking about boys?"
I thought back to the beginning of our friendship, before everything. It seemed like an eternity ago, part of a life that someone else owned. And it was, really, wasn't actually mine. I wasn't that kid anymore.
"They'd be happy that we're happy with our boys," I said, sappily, Zack smiling widely and knocking half the air out of me when he threw an arm over my shoulders, "And impressed by how buff you are now."
"Fuck yeah, I've always wanted to make my old self jealous," Zack stated, strangely smug.
I laughed out a "congratulations" and swept my eyes across the arcade, ending the curve when they ran into Alex and Grieco playing DDR, Rian and Flyzik watching intently. Alex was definitely losing.
Maybe if my younger self saw this, when my scars were concealed and my mind was airy and my nerves weren't jittering, maybe he'd be excited for the future.
___
I flopped down on the edge of my mattress, bending over to undo the laces on my high-tops. Alex examined himself in my mirror and made a face at his reflection. He asked, "Can I use your shower? I feel gross."
I nodded, my skin also residually sticky from the swinging in the sun, though I was too tired to rinse it clean. I toed off my shoes and started to wiggle out of my jeans, saying, "Sure, do you want clothes?"
"I'll just get some when I come back," Alex decided. I imagined what would happen if one of my parents ran into a towel-covered Alex walking down the hall and internally chuckled at the mental image. I scooted up to the top of my bed once I was down to my boxers and t-shirt, crossing my legs and examining the lines my jeans had printed onto them.
"I'll be back in a couple minutes," Alex said, supporting himself with a hand on my shoulder and leaning in to press our lips together. His hand brushed up, gliding over my jaw, and then his touch was gone and he was strolling out of my room, door quietly closing.
My alarm clock flashed 10:32. I slanted back against my wall, plaster digging into my shoulder blades as I considered the past year. It was, as I'd said, decisively the worst year of my life, and its end relieved me, but the school year's conclusion didn't really mean anything.
Another nine months had dragged by, the detrimental time cutting scars into my skin and black gouges into my mind. I got Alex and some new music out of it, so the highlights did exist, but, fuck, the lows had pushed me so deep.
And I was desperate for that to end. For the despondency to be permanently bled out, for the day's enlivenment to last. But the sun always set, and the replacement artificial lights distorted and depressed the world.
My vision went out of focus, making the bright wall that faced me into a meaningless blur.
Junior year was over, and my recollecting its start produced memories of other beginnings. When I'd originally called to Alex in PE, the first time I'd split my skin, the initial droplets of blood.
Those weren't quite accurate starts, though. I knew of Alex before I got to know him; I was already fucked up before I was a cutter. The beginning didn't matter, couldn't be exactly determined, didn't really exist.
And the ending? The ending was invisible, indeterminate. Classes concluded, but the rest continued. I'd been clean but didn't take any pride in it, wished that I was inspired enough to end the monotony with a flash of pain. Alex and I were solid but I still couldn't imagine an eternity, still had my thoughts flickering to the future and college and the different people we would become and how they might not be compatible.
I ached for some ends and dreaded the others. I didn't know if Alex and I would burn out with screams or sizzles or not at all, but I'd always think of him, how he knew me, had known me. I'd think about if he still cared to think of me.
I was incapable of properly forgetting others, could never really let go of connections that had once existed. So we wouldn't end, not fully, not ever. In one aspect, at least, we'd have a forever.
And total happiness seemed impossible. Though I'd silently begged for the urges to subside, it seemed like the desire to see a razor colored red would forever taint my mind, make my fingers involuntarily twitch. I could forget, sometimes, during the exultant instants, but the dullness was still there, choking all my previous passions and making every action heavy.
Maybe that would never end. Maybe my life would be punctuated by days of indifference and numb dissatisfaction. Maybe the extremes and the blades would return and my throat would once again be torn with sobs as metal pushed towards my bones.
There couldn't ever be a precise ending. Doing it once gave it the ability to linger always, even if I eventually swore 'never again'.
It all waned and faded, but didn't truly begin and end. Just continued differently. Everything stayed, in some way or another.
I stared at the wall and considered getting out my phone, texting Zack about the party he was at, scrolling through Twitter, listening to my loved music, or even recovering my disregarded guitar. But moving didn't seem worth the effort.
So I sat and I thought, listening to my heartbeat and the buzzing silence. The fake lights sunk through my eyes and my lungs ceaselessly emptied and expanded. I sat and I waited for Alex to come back, to sensitize my skin with a touch or activate my mind with his words.
It would be different, someday, had to be. I wouldn't always end up here, alone and despondent once all the stimulation was used up.
But, fuck, that day was not today. Not yet.
I endured the nothingness, and I waited.
____________________
I wish I could give this a more definitive and happy ending, but, considering its purpose, it didn't seem right. For those who wonder what happens after, though; this is based on my life and after this year the summer was horrific and lonely, and then, by winter, things started to get better. Two years later and I'm not lying when I say things are good. Don't be like Jack, though; don't wait for that. Waiting is stupid. Fight for it. Create it. And in the mean time, stay alive, because soon enough, tomorrow will be what you want. Thank you again for everything, and please comment your final thoughts!
xoxo
Rose
P.S. I don't think I'll be posting anything after this. I've gotten this out of my system and feel like I have to figure out what else I can do now. I'll miss this, though; I'll miss you. Thank you.