CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
side effects include
BLOOD POOLS BETWEEN HER LEGS, a catatonic crimson cataract welling from the tops of her muscle-thick thighs and staining the sheets of her bunk bed.
Sitting up with the blanket cast back to expose her bare legs to the half-light filtering through the window, Sawyer cocks her head and thinks: well. It wasn't supposed to arrive this early, but antidepressants had this inconvenient tendency to screwing the regularity of periods, according to the label on her prescription. According to the label on her mood stabilisers she should function normally—or, as normally as someone doped to the roof on a motley of drugs could operate. With the torrential litany of exceptions—side effects include—such as: weight gain, involuntary shaking, aches and pains that have less to do with life and more to do with physiology, cognitive problems (eg. for example, feeling that your thinking is slowed or fuzzy), etc. Otherwise, not quite cured but close. Not quite happy, but not quite I Want To Die Violently And I Want The World To Die By My Violence Too.
But she hadn't taken her medication yet and the moon glowed a little too bright, a little too cold, a little too mocking. Bones like liquid, Sawyer slanted it a languid look. You think you're better? You're just a piece of floating rock. You might control the tide, but you have no other pull on this Earth.
In the moonlight, her blood glimmered like pools of obsidian. Most of her doesn't want to move. Was it worth the effort to deal with it now or go back to sleep and slip back into the darkness of her eyelids where it is too easy to pretend nothing exists? Between her legs the blood is sticky and cooling rapidly in the frigid September air. Side effects include: indecisiveness, irritability, lethargy, thinking: I guess I'll just die, then.
"Sawyer?" A quiet voice croaked from the other end of the room. Quinn's sheets rustled, static sluicing through the silence.
Without tearing her eyes off the blood staining the sheets (no doubt seeping into the mattress, too), Sawyer flicked a hand at Quinn's confusion-muddled face. "No."
Nonplussed but too groggy to process the flat-out rejection, Quinn only nodded and fell back onto her pillow. Sawyer waited until Quinn's breaths evened out again before she made her decision.
Sliding back under the covers, her bare legs brushed the cool moisture of her bedsheets. She shut her eyes and the darkness engulfed her once more. This would be the morning's problem. When your life is just one uncomfortable position after another... Call it laziness or any other variant of the name. But she had no energy to deal with anything other than breathing now. Even then that seemed a difficult task. It's a vicious cycle she's trapped herself in, do you understand? Dahlia, her psychiatrist, called it The Scab. Keep picking at it, and it'll never heal right. Sometimes it's better to get through the itching phase, leave the wound alone before applying anything to it. But Sawyer has a macabre habit of hurting. As long as she stays this way, she'll keep reopening the wound, keep picking and scratching so it never gets to heal. Scratch until she bleeds, and then scratch some more. Some days she feels like she's fifteen again and learning how to hold her breath underwater for a whole summer. Some days she feels like she's been drowning her entire life.
* * *
AT BREAKFAST, THE OWLS COME POURING INTO THE GREAT HALL in a blizzard of feathers and flurried wingbeats. Hamlet, Sawyer's owl, lands clumsily in her half-empty bowl of pumpkin soup—it's gone cold long before Hamlet's haphazard landing, fortunately, since Sawyer hadn't touched the remaining half since Jeremy shoved the bowl in front of her, demanding for her to eat something before taking her meds and bullied her into downing at least half the bowl—and drops a package into her lap.
"Dumb owl," Sawyer says, lightly smacking its beak in reproach. Incensed, Hamlet snaps its beak at her fingers, drawing blood. It snakes down her sleeve from a deep cut on her knuckle, stinging and warm. Unapologetic, Hamlet shakes off the pumpkin soup dripping from its talons and flaps towards the Gryffindor table to deliver the soup-soaked letter tied to its leg to Wyatt.
"What's that?" Marcus asks, leaning over to inspect the package, wrapped in brown paper and tied up in brown string.
Turning the package over, she shows him the label on the side, branding the package, RESTOCK: TOPAMEX.
"Which reminds me," Jeremy said, pulling out two orange prescription bottles. He unscrews the caps and spills out four pills—two from each bottle. In exchange for the new package, he hands the pills to Sawyer, who knocks them back and swallows them dry.
Rio lifts a brow at the odd exchange. "Can't hold onto your own meds?"
Sawyer flashes him with a cheerless grin, all ice and teeth and iron thorns. Letting out an exasperated harrumph, Jeremy fixes Rio with a pressing look: you know.
Nothing ever happens without intention. Reasons infect the resonant why of every action. Why Jeremy holds onto her pills instead. Why Sawyer has a chronic sweet tooth. Why Sawyer's mother can't stand to be in the same room as her anymore. Why she can't look her twin brother in the eyes. Why she's melting her brain to the ground and every waking day feels like a fever dream. Why she'd take the anger and the apathy and the hatred and hold it all inside where it hurts nobody but herself.
Some answers are never easy. There are the clear-cut echoes, where the response bounces off the wall and rings truth in your ears. 68% of prescription medication consumers die from overdose, you know you have no self-control. You've always liked sweets because your mother said they were bad for you. Your mother loves you but you make it so, so hard. Then there are the echoes that are piped down a tunnel, bouncing off wall after wall after wall, losing their shape, so it filters through your ears a dented and chipped version of the original. Looking into your brother's eyes shows you everything you can never be; you peer into a fraternal mirror of yourself—albeit, male and six feet tall—and you see everything you can never have. Dope yourself to the fucking ground because you've made a promise—you'll get your end of the deal, you'll be left alone to your own noise. Ruin yourself before they get to screw you over, otherwise they'll keep you alive just so you're forced to crawl and say "thank you" for every bone they throw; send them away gagging or sobbing if they're soft-hearted.
Those thoughts come and go, judgemental and intrusive and accusatory, molecular overlapping and misfiring, backing into the wrong pathways and rebounding off each other like clumsy atoms, an endless, multi-way street of vehicular mayhem fumbling for footholds in the haze of her dimension-slipping brain. Is it supposed to hurt? Does the traffic ever cease? Sometimes she can sense when the lulls are coming on, but the medication sets in slowly. An hour and a half of fragmented collisions inside and wishing she could be back in her dorm room sitting in the darkness because the glare of the world sets her skin on fire and then the pills kick in and she floats on strings her friends won't let her cut.
Noise-jumbled and noiseless and not entirely present, Sawyer skewers a cube of potato with the tines of her fork as the accusations stab the walls of her brain like a child playing darts with their grandmother's knitting needles.
In a practiced move, the package vanishes into Jeremy's robes.
"I still think it's fucked up that your mum keeps you sedated like this," Marcus grumbles, pushing the eggs around his plate with the top of his fork.
Sawyer shrugs. "We have a deal. As long as she keeps her word, I'll keep mine."
"Neither of you win," Rio points out in a voice made of glass shards. He would know about crossroads. His parents were morbidly controlling, too. "Why would you hold onto that?"
"I don't care about winning," Sawyer says, as if it's that simple. Sometimes it is.
Scrubbing a hand over his buzzcut, Rio opened his mouth to counter, but a shrill shriek rips across the Great Hall, effectively silencing all chatter.
"RONALD WEASLEY," a woman's enraged voice roared, tearing through the space, heart-stopping and charged with vaporising fury, echoing all the way across from the Gryffindor table, where Harry Potter and a red-faced boy with hair the colour of carrots sat, stunned. "HOW DARE YOU STEAL THAT CAR? I AM ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED! YOUR FATHER'S FACING AN INQUIRY AT WORK, AND IT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT! IF YOU PUT ANOTHER TOE OUT OF LINE, WE'LL BRING YOU STRAIGHT HOME!"
All doped up and suspended fifty feet in the air, Sawyer found the single, barely coherent thought unravelling through her liquid brain: Strange. As the world held its breath, as the hall filled with a nebulous confusion, as every pair of eyes drilled holes into Ron Weasley's burning face. How awkward it must be for the child, how humiliating to have his failings aired in the open to so many people. Strange, Sawyer mused internally, to think that she was in the same position a year ago, under the same fire of maternal rage. It had to hurt. Though her heart was made of stone and barbed wire, though she kept her composure under a shark grin and defiant, flinty eyes repelling the world's outstretched pity, she knew, deep down, it carved something out of her.
But that was none of her business. If Ron didn't have thick skin, that was his problem. If he chose to crumble like a dumpster fire, it was his weakness to handle. It wasn't happening to her, so it wasn't her problem. The best thing people could do would be to ignore the entire ordeal.
Unfortunately, the universe had other plans.
"How does a twelve year old know how to drive a car while I'm still put on the waitlist for driving lessons?" Jeremy murmured, equal parts baffled and highly impressed. Sawyer makes the acute observation that his hands were empty. He'd folded his copy of the Daily Prophet and set it off to the side, but no owl had come to him. Odd, seeing how his parents would always send him letters and pictures of their travels and such, but since the second semester of fifth year, correspondence had been dwindling down to barely a letter every fortnight. Sawyer had been meaning to force the answers out of Jeremy, but she was still unsure how to approach the subject.
"He probably wrecked it," Marcus pointed out, matter-of-factly. "There's really nothing to be envious of."
"Yeah, I'm sure that's tragic and all," Rio said, waving a hand dismissively. A dangerous glint sparked in his eyes. Jeremy and Marcus exchanged knowing looks. It was the same glint that'd materialised in his eyes every time Rio wanted to pull something life-threatening, something that earned him the mantle of societal menace. The same glint he had in his eyes when he'd trashed his parents' house out of spite—not that they'd grieve. A house was just a house, and the Alvarez's could have any number of property they wanted. It was more about the inconvenience, about the time taken to clean up his messes—Rio's father was a busy man, and time was money. "Can you imagine if we had charmed car races as a legit sport here?"
Marcus rolled his eyes. "There are so many logistical flaws to that pitch I wouldn't be able to list them all by next year."
Grinning, Rio nudged Marcus with his elbow. "Don't knock it—"
Face schooled into a deadpan mask, Marcus crammed a bread roll in Rio's mouth, cutting him off mid-sentence.
Amidst Marcus' exasperated berating and Rio's protests and Jeremy's counter-points, Sawyer makes a mental note to corner Jeremy at some point this week.
* * *
FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE, Oliver Wood would never forget the look on Sawyer Lee's face when she considers the seating chart posted on the blackboard for the entire Transfiguration class to see.
At the front of the classroom, Professor McGonagall shoots Sawyer—who'd stormed in ten minutes late, soaking wet and dripping all over the floor—a disapproving glare, mouth cinching as she gives Sawyer a critical once-over. Outside, a storm rages against the windows, raindrops lashing against the glass with a savage vendetta. Thunder growls, loud enough to make the brickwork tremble. Every pair of eyes in the classroom is pinned on Sawyer, whose flat, stone-faced expression remains unmoved even as her shoes squelch against the floor, and her hair is matted to her pallid face.
"Look up your seat on the chart, Miss Lee," is all Professor McGonagall says sternly, tapping her wand impatiently against the corner of the seating chart. "And come to class on time, in dry robes, please. For your tardiness, I'll be taking five points from Hufflepuff."
With the flick of her wand, Professor McGonagall mutters an incantation, and the rainwater instantly evaporates off Sawyer's hair and clothes. Amusement glimmers in her expression as Sawyer lifts a brow at the seating chart, impassive gaze combing the list for her name.
From his seat in the second row, Oliver tightens his grip on his wand subconsciously. He knows there's a ninety-nine percent chance that she's high off her medication by now, and he doesn't know why he's watching her so closely. Maybe it's got to do with the fact that she's late, drenched from head-to-toe in rainwater, and naturally the centre of everyone's attention (both situationally, coupled with the fact that she is Sawyer Lee, disreputably branded class A violent "psychopath"). Maybe it's because he knows that she isn't herself, that she can't be herself, that he has to relearn the mechanics of her mind. Maybe he's only paying this much attention to her because she's his fucking desk-mate for the rest of the year.
That realisation must have dawned on Sawyer too, because—for the briefest shadow of a moment—her body goes rigid, and a flicker of something indecipherable flashes across her face when she finds her name. Right next to his on the chart.
But the moment is gone as quickly as it arrived.
With mechanical movements, Sawyer turns to Oliver, and her gaze is empty. Disappointment claws at his gut, but he shoves it down. Why should he be disappointed? They were never even friends to begin with. She'd said it herself. They were nothing. Nothing has always been nothing.
Merlin, Oliver thinks, startled by his own thoughts. Where was all this bitterness coming from? Since when did a deal for the sake of Quidditch become something more? So you see, there is a reason why he'd rather focus all his energy on Quidditch. Human relations were too complicated. Quidditch is purely physical, is made of inanimate objects and strategy that don't have the sentient ability to disappoint you, nor does it have have the capacity to hurt you.
The unceremonious screech of a chair dragging against the floor pulls him from his revelry.
Unfolding his fingers, Oliver lets his wand clatter onto the desk, and sends a disgruntled glance at Sawyer, who only acknowledges him with a vacant grin.
"Oh no," Sawyer muses, dumping her wand and stack of textbooks on her side of the desk, leaning over to stretch her hands over the edge and let her fingers dangle, "we meet again."
Reclining in his chair, Oliver blows out a frustrated exhale through his mouth. "What is your problem with me?"
"Do we have a problem?" Sawyer cocks her head.
As Professor McGonagall resumed her lecture as though Sawyer's intermission hadn't happened, eyes combing the rows of seats, watching for inattentive students, Oliver's jaw flexes. Sawyer didn't even bother to pretend she was listening, let alone feign interest in the curriculum. Her gaze burned into the side of his face, and he resisted the urge to bring his gaze to meet hers at the risk of a detention. Inwardly, an endless scream of frustration shook loose the avalanche in his chest. Keeping his voice low and his eyes trained on Professor McGonagall, Oliver murmured, tone dripping with sarcasm, "my mistake, I thought we were at least somewhat friends before you flipped it all back to square one. So we're nothing. I get it."
Why do you have to act like I'm the enemy? What did I even do to you? Questions searing on the tip of his tongue with an urgency so desperate it was pathetic. Questions he will save for a braver time. He didn't think he could stomach any answers now.
"Good for you," Sawyer drawled. "As I've said, you don't step on my toes, I won't break yours."
Something akin to hatred blooms in his chest, a harsh burning carved in the space between his lungs. Sucking in a slow inhale to ease the irritation prickling his nerves, Oliver builds a mental wall between himself and Sawyer. Builds tunnels around Professor McGonagall's voice, just so he can have some clarity before he loses his mind and spills his guts to Sawyer in a heated moment. He casts his mind to Quidditch, the upcoming training sessions, tryouts for new members to embellish the reserve team with, brand new strategies he's read up about over the summer that he wanted to run by his first string of team members. Statistics. Equations. Anything to keep his mind away from the girl who he's peeled back too much of his mask around and now he isn't sure if he regrets giving her the pieces of him that no one else has seen at all, to the girl who doesn't care and will keep pushing and pushing and pushing, to the girl who he doesn't know anymore.
* * *
"GUESS WHAT," Quinn says, catching Sawyer in the bustling hallway on the way to Study Hall. Around them, students shuffle towards their next class in clumsy clusters. Someone screams someone's name down the corridor. A student trips on his own laces and spills all his books on someone else. Sawyer drifts along the chaos, ignoring the sounds of the universe, ignoring the voices and elbows that used to dig into her skin and set her nerves on fire in the packed hallway.
"No."
"Fine, but just so you know—" Quinn narrows her eyes— "you suck and you're no fun."
Sawyer smirks. "Can't say I've heard that one before."
"Shocker," Quinn drawls, flatly. "Anyway, I finally met your friend, Rio. He's in my Potions class. He's funny."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, I think he sort of bullied me into sitting with you guys during meals now."
"I thought you hated being in the Great Hall with everyone." Sawyer hitched her bag higher up her shoulder as she turned a corner, searching the crowd gathered in front of the Study Hall for her friends. Coincidentally—and fortunately for both Sawyer and Rio—they all had this free period together.
"I'm..." Quinn hummed, carding a hand through her thick, curly hair in contemplation. "I'm working on being a little more social, I think. My therapist says it'll be good for me."
"So it's a New Year's resolution thing."
"Something like that."
"You could've told me," Sawyer said, though it wasn't accusatory. Just an observation. She wasn't hurt about Quinn not telling her things. Some people had a threshold for how much they could put out into the world, and Quinn stood on the end of the spectrum where the world would have to settle for knowing only tiny, fragmented shards of her. People like Quinn needed time. Sawyer was the same, though she was a little more unwilling to give where she had no gain. "We could've taken you in a lot sooner."
"I know you think I'm lonely because I'm always alone when I'm not with you," Quinn said, a surreptitious twist of her lips hinting at the irascible defensiveness rising from years of repression. "But I like solitude, and I've always preferred books and my vinyl records. I'm not used to people."
"I never said you were lonely," Sawyer said, cutting Quinn a sharp look. "Don't put words in my mouth, you know I can't stand when people do that. I just meant that if you give me your back, I'll hold onto it."
"You should know she makes good on her promises," a voice behind her pipes, snidely. Rio reaches around Sawyer and claps a hand over the crown of Quinn's head, a shark-like grin slashed across his lips. It's a little disorienting, seeing Rio act so easy with someone else outside of their tight, all-exclusive circle. "I would know. She almost broke my arm during my weed addict phase. I've been clean for almost half a year now."
Quinn arched a brow. "I heard she also beat up someone for you."
"She does that sometimes," Marcus said, coming up beside his boyfriend. "You make a deal with the devil and sometimes you earn yourself a guard dog."
In retaliation, Sawyer flicked her fingers at Marcus. Quinn let out a breathy laugh, though she gravitated towards Sawyer a little more by instinct, now that Marcus—an unfamiliar face—had joined their little huddle. Though she was no expert when it came to people, Sawyer could read it in Quinn's stiff body language: the girl was getting overwhelmed.
"I don't like people touching my things," Sawyer said.
"So you've said," Marcus drawled. He turned to Quinn with a sardonic smile. "She has issues with sharing."
Just as Sawyer was about to snap back a retort, Jeremy burst through the crowd, books in arm and wand tucked behind his ear. "I'm not late!" He exclaimed, panting slightly. Then he took in the sight of his three friends and the additional Hufflepuff girl. Flummoxed, Jeremy plastered on his winning mega-watt smile and threw a slightly awkward wave at Quinn. "Hey, I'm Jeremy. Jeremy Knox."
Flushing red, Quinn smiled back shyly. Looks like she wasn't immune to Jeremy's charming radiance either. "Quinn. Sawyer's roommate."
Jeremy's gaze dropped to the stack of books in Quinn's hand. His eyes lit up when he caught sight of the book sitting at the top of the stack. "Hey, are you a fan of Ray Bradbury?"
Quinn blinks. Then realisation hits her and her eyes widen and Sawyer swears Quinn is glowing. "Oh! Yeah, I've read Fahrenheit 451 too many times."
"Same! I've loved his works since The Martian Chronicles."
"No way!" Quinn gasped, perking up like a daisy in fresh water. "I love those books too!"
Rio and Sawyer exchange disdainful looks.
"Nerds," Rio murmurs, nudging Sawyer towards their usual table inside Study Hall. Half-amused, half-bored, Marcus trails behind them, all while Jeremy and Quinn jabber on about books and reading lists and everything Sawyer will never be able to relate to at a rapid-fire velocity none of the others can keep up with. Despite the disconnect in interests, despite her head floating amongst the clouds, Sawyer thinks: I don't quite want to die when I'm around these people.
Does that make me a fake?
AUTHOR'S NOTE.
so this chapter might be a flop because i literally forgot how to write coherently but the next chapter is Juicy i SWEAR
ALSO!
IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!
"Drug" characters as reaction memes:
sawyer:
oliver:
rio:
marcus:
jeremy:
quinn: