Chapter 30: A Miracle Or A Tragedy?
There are some things in this world that no matter how hard you wished for, won’t happen. The person who can’t have their wish fulfilled would see it as a bad thing, but I’ve always wondered if this was always the case. A person can never know… whether their wish will end up being a good thing or a bad thing.
That day, the snowflakes fluttered like white rose petals to the ground. It was that day that it happened and I’ve always wondered if Brooklynn regretted it in the privacy of her own heart. Does she think about it? Does she ever imagine what would have happened if she had let Tyler die that day?
As the narrator wrapped up the play to the best of her ability, the curtains fell and shielded me from the prying eyes of the audience. Tyler’s face had reddened with the pink marks of my fingertips, but he stood in front of me with this obscure expression as if he didn’t feel anything.
“Why did you do it?”
Tyler looked away dejectedly as he touched his cheek. “Why can’t I?”
His words caught me off guard and I could feel the anger getting more impatient inside of me. “What do you mean by that! What right do you have to kiss me in the first place!”
“Then what right do you have?” He asked. “To walk off the stage like that?”
I swallowed the lump in my throat and averted his gaze. It was wrong of me to force all the responsibility on him, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to say it was all his fault. I wanted to blame him over and over and over, but it wasn’t something I should do. It was also my fault for abandoning the show and leaving because of my personal feelings about kissing him, and that wasn’t his fault. I was the one who was unprofessional.
I sighed. “That’s why… you should have just let me walk off the stage. At least that way, they’ll just say it was my fault. You had to get up and make the whole thing so– ”
“I wanted to kiss you,” he interrupted. “I hate how I have to use the play as an excuse just so I could be a little bit closer to you. I hate how I told you I would wait for you, but inside I’m dying. I want to hold you. I want to kiss you. That’s why I did it.”
“You’re not allowed to.”
“But Marshall is?!” He shouted. “I’m not allowed to kiss you, but Marshall is?!” My heart shook as I stared at him. I had no idea how he knew or when he found out. “I said I’d wait, but when you flaunt it front of me like that… it throws me off the edge! It drives me insane. It makes me want to take you back by force or by whatever means necessary because the thought of you being with another guy… it just… it kills me.”
I looked away. The tears in Tyler’s eyes were making me uncomfortable. “How did you even find out?” Not that I was purposely trying to keep it from him, but the way he was reacting wasn’t making me feel any better about it either.
“You really think people wouldn’t talk about it when you kiss him in public like that? What do you think has been happening in the past few days? People have been talking about it like Hollywood gossip! Do you know what they’re saying? They’re calling you a slut! They’re saying because you’re getting close to Marshall Pittsburgh, you must be easy after all.”
I sighed and tapped the heel of my shoe against the wooden stage floor. He was acting like it was the first time I was getting called names. If he actually cared, wasn’t his response a little too late? Even without Marshall, Brooklynn made sure to keep the rumour mill going. I go in for extra help during lunch, I was sleeping with that teacher. I do an extra credit for that class, that extra credit must be to carry out sexual favours. Weird rumours about me were a daily thing, and most of the time I just shut it out unless it’s inevitable for me to listen to it.
“Don’t you even care about how that would make me feel?!” He shouted.
I turned on my heel just as Brooklynn appeared from backstage. Honestly, I was sick and tired of listening to him talk about his feelings, and this, and that.
When she passed by, Brooklynn didn’t spare a single glance in my direction, but as I stepped off stage, I could hear the resonating echo of her palm striking Tyler across the face. I quickly turned around, but stopped myself before I made a complete turn. It had nothing to do with me so why was I acting this way? Why did I have to look back to see if he was okay?
Shaking my head, I continued backstage. People’s imaginations were thriving about what happened earlier by the time I came outside. It was noisy and my skin was tight from the tears that had already dried on my cheeks. Students from our homeroom kept asking me what happened and in a lazy effort to avoid them, I decided to go home for the day.
I shut my phone off and quickly pulled out of the school parking lot with the radio blaring. I wasn’t usually the type to listen to mainstream music, but every once in a while I got in the mood to listen to something I wasn’t used to, and every once in a while I found a song easy enough to sing along to. Today was one of those days, and I rolled down the windows at the red light to let the warm breeze brush against my cheeks as I sang along.
“Keep it to yourself. If you think that you still love me… put it on a shelf. If you’re looking for someone… make it someone else. When you’re drunk… and it’s late… and you’re missing me like hell… keep it to yoursel-el-elf.”
Once I got home, I took a hot bath before flopping down on my bed. There was only a mattress of a separation between me and the box of nightmares that existed underneath my bed. The summer before grade ten, I had collected everything that ever reminded me of Tyler and Brooklynn and stuffed it inside a big cardboard box. I was going to throw it all away, but for some reasons, I couldn’t. Still, it was a complete eyesore so I shoved it into a corner under my bed. Sometimes, out of nostalgia, sometimes, out of self-torment, I would take it out and look at it. Inside were photographs upon photographs, birthday presents and friendship necklaces. Even the stupid ring Tyler gave to me was in there. Everything important and yet destructive to me was inside that box.
Today I laughed at myself when I crawled underneath my bed and took it out. I was beginning to see myself as a hypocrite. Why was I never able to throw away any of this stuff? It was too painful for me to keep, but after taking it out to the garbage, I had decided it was too painful to throw away. Was I the only one? Or were humans always this weak and indecisive?
The ballet shoes that Brooklynn gave to me were also inside. Sighing, I clutched the small shoes against my chest and thought about how much I hated her.
Brooklynn was always the most beautiful when she danced. That was what the four year old me thought. For me, ever since I could remember, acting and singing were very natural talents. They were gifts that my mother had left for me; that was what I always believed. As for dancing, that took a bit more effort.
My memories of that young of an age were a bit vague, but as my dad tells it, I had begged and begged him for dance lessons and when he enrolled me to a dance school, he hadn’t really thought about what type of dance I would want. He randomly picked one and I ended up taking tap dance.
I hated it.
I still hate it.
I remember wandering the halls after my tap lessons and being jealous of everybody else – especially the older girls who seem to dance so eloquently as if their bodies didn’t contain a single bone that didn’t bend the way they wanted. It must have been one of those occasions that I ran into Brooklynn. Even though she was only four and a half – like myself – she was already in a slightly more advanced ballet class with some of the older girls. The thing about Brooklynn was that she was always oddly similar to me, competitive, arrogant, but she was also extremely haughty and spoiled having been raised in a wealthy family.
She was talented, and she knew she was talented, and she knew I came back to watch her dance every time because I was captivated by her. She would giggle at me every time she saw me and I would glare at her thinking to myself I would be just as good as her if I had taken ballet instead of stupid tap.
One day, Brooklynn waved me inside her class after her lesson. It was under the pretence that she wanted to talk to me because she always saw me watching her dance, but really, I think she just wanted to show off her dance skills to me. She showed me how she could do a pirouette and I was angry after not because I couldn’t perform the move, but because I couldn’t even properly pronounce the stupid word.
Thinking back, maybe it was all predestined. Not to be undermined by her, I quickly quit tap and forced my dad to sign me up for a beginner’s ballet class. That was how I met Tyler. And when I felt that both crybaby Tyler and snotty Brooklynn were both my friends, I was also the one that introduced them. The only real thing I recall from their first meeting was a kiss. Even then, when kids could hardly understand what love or liking someone was, Brooklynn had said, “you’re cute” and kissed him on the cheek upon laying her eyes on him. It might even be fair to say she had always liked him at some level.
Brooklynn and I were natural rivals. While we were very close as friends, we also challenged one another because each of us wanted to come out on top. Although I was always better at acting and singing, and we were almost equal in terms of modern dances, Brooklynn was always better at ballet than me.
While I wanted to get on Broadway mostly because of acting, and Brooklynn ventured into many of the fine arts, she wanted to become a renowned ballerina in the long run. Her mother was a very talented ballerina, but because of reasons she wasn’t that sure herself, her mother never made it very far. Ever since a young age, her mother had been extremely strict and wanted Brooklynn to complete the dream of becoming a famous ballerina for her. It was something most kids might have resented their parents for. After all, the dream of becoming a ballerina was her mother’s, not hers, but Brooklynn had a natural talent and a natural love for ballet. What had started out as her mother’s dream had quickly became hers also.
That was before the car crash.
That was before that winter day and that slippery slope. That was before the car that lost control flew towards Tyler. That was before Brooklynn ran out and pushed him out of the way. I could only remember standing there like a deer in headlights as she ran out there and saved his life.
It was a miracle that nobody was really hurt. That was what everybody said after. The driver had swerved after the intersection and managed to slow the car down considerably before crashing into a light pole. The car was completely busted on one side, but the driver only suffered a head concussion. Tyler had managed to get away with only a few scraps and bruises from being pushed and falling. Because she had a head start run to push Tyler out of the way, Brooklynn also managed to avoid being run over by the speeding car down the slope.
One of her legs did get caught up however and was rolled over briefly when the car passed. She had to get a surgery and they would have to put a screw in her ankle. Then she would have to wear a cast for several weeks, but she would be able to make a full recovery in several months time. She would be able to walk normally and live normally and she could even jog and run as long as she didn’t strain herself.
To a regular person, this was a miracle. It was really just a broken leg for the most part. It might even be fun to get everybody to sign the cast. To the regular person, to escape a car crash with only a broken leg, it really was a miracle. But to the dancer… to the dancer…
The dancer says, “I should have just died.”
Brooklynn would be able to walk again, to run again. She would even be able to dance… if it was something like doing the waltz, but to do something like the pirouette, to dance for hours on your tiptoes, it was impossible.
If Tyler’s mom was the epiphany of what I thought motherly love would be like, Brooklynn’s mom was everything opposite. The first thing she did when she saw Brooklynn after she recovered from the surgery was a strong slap to her face. “You useless thing! They said you wouldn’t be able to do ballet ever again! Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I specifically tell you to be careful? A tiny – a tiny, tiny – injury would be enough to destroy your entire future that’s why I warned you. I’m so disappointed I don’t even know what to say to you. You’ve ruined yourself. Now all people will ever see when they look at you is damaged goods! That’s exactly what you are! I’m so ashamed that I don’t even want to tell people you’re my daughter!”
She was only thirteen, but as I accidently witnessed their whole conversation, I couldn’t help but admire her for her strength. Not once did she falter in front of her mother, and not once did she cry as her mother stormed out of the hospital room.
“I did a good thing, didn’t I?” She said to me later. “I saved someone’s life. I’m a hero… aren’t I?”
“You’re a hero,” I told her.
“I won’t regret it. Even if I can never dance again, even if I lose my dream, even if my mom never speaks to me again, I won’t regret it.”
At the time, all I could do was admire her, but I had no idea that the only way for Brooklynn not to regret what happened was if Tyler became someone so worthwhile to her that she could lose everything for.
After she got out of the hospital, the three of us continued our friendship as always, but at the age of thirteen, we were now becoming more and more aware of what liking someone was, and what falling in love felt like. Even though Tyler and I were always close, even though we pretended to be wife and husband when we were younger, it was only at this blossoming age that we became openly aware of our growing attraction to one another. We started spending more time together, and held hands and kissed in secrecy while Brooklynn’s heart wilted more and more in the darkness.
Even if we didn’t tell her what we were doing when we were alone together, she must have known. Tyler cared immensely for her, but the way he gazed at me was just different from the way he would look at her. She was the one that sacrificed everything and saved his life and yet, I was the one he was falling in love with. It wasn’t fair so her heart stained darker and darker until she must have came to regret it at some point. But regret was something she promised she wouldn’t do, and the only way to avoid being completely consumed by hate and regret was for her to destroy everything. So she did that. She destroyed everything. Me. Tyler. And herself.
A/N.: Sorry, i really should have updated this chapter like 5 days ago, but I couldnt tear my eyes away from Ian Somerhalder on my 55 inch TV screen. That is purely my fault so Im sorry. I have no idea why I decided NOW was a good time to catch up on the Vampire Dairies, but it is what it is.
Also, i decided not to do too much sad flashbacks into the past all at once because I didnt want this to be more depressing than it needs to be. So next chapter lets take a break from all of that. You'll find out what Brooklynn made Tyler do to Camila soon enough. :3 Hopefully, this chapter allowed you guys to see why Brooklynn is so cray cray obsessive when it come to Ty. Despite so many of your negative feelings about her, she is, at the base of it, a really strong (ruthless) character and to continue her life and press forward, she can't really hold herself back with any regrets.