The Lake

vinyl walks in, a cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth. she's got one earbud in, the other dangling uselessly by her side, and some mayday parade song is playing. she's not paying attention to it, honestly. she's not paying attention to anything. hasn't been for a while, it seems.

it feels like it's been ages since she's been here; everything from the past few months has just been this hazy blur of... well, vinyl doesn't really know. which is kind of creepy, actually, but she puts that thought away, into the deep recesses of her mental filing cabinet.

she doesn't take a second to look around, just walks down to the old dock that's become her friend over the course of the past few months. that's all she seems to be able to remember, it seems; this dock, and some stuff from before. she's not sure how long ago it even was, but she remembers lollita and alexander and just thinking his name makes her stomach lurch so she doesn't think about him, just sits down at the end of the dock that feels like it could collapse at any second and sticks her feet in the water.

(vinyl hadn't bothered wearing shoes; she had become somewhat of a hippie/flower child, not wearing shoes anywhere. and like, who even cares, yeah?)

vinyl swings her feet around in the water, making small splashes. her jeans are getting wet, but she doesn't care; trivial things such as wet jeans don't really matter.

it's days like this that vinyl wishes she were normal. wishes she hadn't been smoking cigarettes since she was thirteen and drank coffee instead of beer when she wasn't at camp. she wishes she were the type of girl who always wore her jeans cuffed and those dumb toms, or maybe that new style of vans or something. nails that were perfectly manicured. she wishes she was one of those girls who read all of the classics.

but then she remembers that, no, she could never be normal. having a name like vinyl record kind of ruins that, as does having the ability to mess up anything you step within five feet of.

(she reminds herself that ruining things can be a good thing, too. she tells herself that it makes it easier to move on when there's nothing left. it means that she knows how to win a war and that she knows that she shouldn't be the one to clean up the mess because she's the one who won. the words just sound hollow to her.)

vinyl feels like someone behind her is watching her, and she has no idea where the feeling came from. but she trusts her instincts, so she turns around and. well. at first she doesn't see anything unusual, but then she spots him behind a tree (the coward).

the thing is, viny can take rejection. she can take shame and humiliation and all that comes with it, but she can't take the person who gave it to her. if alexander walked over to her, vinyl would probably start yelling at him (and possibly trying to kill him - hey, you never know), and then sob uncontrollably before running away. that or she wouldn't face him, which seems like a much better option. to just sit there, stoic, like a brick wall.

so vinyl turns around and takes a deep drag on her cigarette because she needs some serious stress relievers, dammit, but this is all she has and she is going to take it by the throat and use every last bit of it.

'don't talk to him don't look at him don't react,' is the mantra going through vinyl's head, just repeating over and over and over because she thinks that if she doesn't react then alexander (another sharp stab in her chest) will go away.

but, apparently, her voice doesn't take orders from vinyl because suddenly words are forming in her mouth. "if you don't get the f*ck away from me right now i will not be held accountable for any damage done to you. am i clear?" the words come out quietly, but kind of in that way that someone will say something really mean and post an emoticon of some serene, smiling face. because she may have spoken quietly, but vinyl's words were filled with threat and anger and just possibly hatred.

alexander may be able to put everything behind him, but vinyl sure as hell isn't.

vinyl's hands form fists by her sides, and it's just. just, who does alexander even think he is? who does he think he is that would get him forgiveness for free simply because he couldn't live with something?

"okay, look, a-hole," vinyl says, and she's fuming by now, so furious that she isn't even thinking about what she's saying. "that's not how things go, okay? you hurt people. you mess everything up. and if someone else isn't ready to forgive you that's because you're the jerk who screwed with their head. it's what you deserve."

(vinyl knows what it's like to not be forgiven, but she never wants to be forgiven.)

she curls her fists around the edge of the dock before she starts swinging punches. which has nothing to do with not wanting to hurt alexander, oh, no, it has to do with not wanting to get in trouble and having to do, like, kitchen duty or something.

vinyl stands up and leaves. there's no way she could stay without causing trouble. it's better she goes now.