Special

I wanted to talk about Finley, here. I want to talk about how we met...

Homecoming. I was so lonely, I didn't have a date or even friends who wanted to go with me. Liz and Adam were going. Liz wasn't even going to dress up, and I wasn't standing for that. I was going to dress her up. But by some miracle, Kate Murley and Katie Gundlach (Kate dressed for fire in that bright, red wig) took me to Subway. It's clear that things had been going well--Kate hadn't poisoned Katie overly recently--and they were there with Kya and... someone else? Whoever the pair was, they were not polite. They were rude to call things 'awkward', to understate the poison.

Katie had been hurt already. Not as much as she is now, not even close to healing like I hope she is now, but we still talked once in awhile. We'd had a conversation and I'd stayed up half the night taking notes for her on a very boring, very long paper. Good notes, too. Subject line and everything.

But Kate knew when I defended their relationship from Kya. She knew what I'd been saying to Katie. One of the first times I'd trusted somebody since Adam... since Liz... and now...

I ripped up those notes in the garbage at Subway. Reapplied my makeup, and acted happy. When Katie got there, I asked about my birthday party. She said, of course I'll come. She forgot, but that's okay. We're close now. I was wrong, we sorted this all out later. She didn't know everything. I wonder now if I helped them re-fuel the poison, and hope I'm wrong.

Katie knew my secret. Katie knew what I was involved in, and she didn't believe me. I'm not sure she ever did. A strange number. "Lady Eliac speaking." Everybody laughed, but I couldn't chance it. If it were Lord Ignio, Lord Orannis.... if it were Faris Nightshade...
"Hello? This is Finley." Finley?
"Who?" But I knew. This was the blond-boy. This was the boy I'd loved from the first moment I'd seen him for his careful walk, his gentle smile.
"Um, Finley Wiese?"
"Oh. What's wrong?"
"I was just wondering... if you had someone to go with?" Go with?
"To what?"
"...Homecoming?" My heart skipped a beat. I stopped breathing. Three more beats. Handsome boy...liked me? We worked out the specifics, and I was awed the rest of the day.
Homecoming night. The whole school was in chaos--
And Elizabeth was at my house. It broke my heart to see someone I was so similar with was better than I was, and she had to be, didn't she? Adam loved her.
He hadn't done anything to me but tricked me into what he wanted. Not all the way, but close.
I coaxed her into makeup. I coaxed her into a beautiful outfit I'd coaxed her into bringing.
She was the sun, but I was the moon.
Finley's car pulled up. He got out of the car, walked up to the door. Mom took pictures of my outfit, cooing all the way. A black shirt... tight, tight pants... high shoes.... carefully bound hair... a decently sculpted face... curled hair.
Finley took me to the car. He opened my door. Riley was in the back seat, silent, eying me and then Finley and then me again, as though to say, "Really? This is who you picked?"
From the moment I saw him, I felt different. Like I were myself again, like I'd been before Azra--Ryan. I didn't notice that, though. I tried hard to fit in. I laughed, I smiled, and I danced... I danced! I was everywhere, like the moon should be. Like I were playing a part. I lived life like a role, didn't I? I could do that.
We took a break, and I didn't vomit when Adam introduced his Beau. The polite chit-chat felt like swallowing poison, and I wanted to get away. I did, too--for the first slow dance.
Not the second, though. Walking back towards the hall, Liz stops me, asking if there's someone from the Roses here. I give the correct answer--no--and see Katie. A green dress. A warm, full smile. Beautiful red hair.
She was really, heart-wrenchingly beautiful. The whole room breathed to be near her. How could Kate leave somewhere like her? Hurt someone whose whole soul seeped devotion and life? Really, really hurt them?

How could anyone?

Finley found me by the second slow dance, his arms wrapped closer and closer around me. Our faces inches apart, his eyes in mine in the crappy high school dance lighting as a song from Lighthouse played. At that moment, I knew he loved me.

He wouldn't talk to me again for two months.

I was a pick-a-little lady. Remember that? The big hat? So.. was Cierra. I had no outstanding objective about her. I thought she was a little bit flirt-hungry (starved, perhaps). Always complaining about poor Finley. I kept my mouth shut; what one night of dances can speak for the soul of men? She was very jealous of me. You could see it in the tilt of her head and the venom of her criticism. I don't know why, but she wanted to be me. I spent a lot of time with Tessa and Lauren. They were so gentle and sweet, it was impossible to disagree with them.

The show opened. John and I had had our tryst, and I was tired of playing a game I knew I'd win. Even knowing I'd win, it didn't matter. He still wanted to play, and he loved me. More than Finley did. Total, life-driven devotion to this strange, soul-singing witch.

And that's all I was to him, you know. A witch.

Finley was at the show while Cierra whined and hurt him, was rude to him, told me that I took what she loved from her, tripped me on stage. And in-between the scenes, there was Finley... waiting, smiling, camera in-hand and the press pass hanging around his neck. The long coat. I was in love with the Romanticism and couldn't stay away. I promised myself I would be minimal interference.

He remembered me. "Payton!" We talked. I can't remember about what, I do know he interviewed me with a tape recorder about what I thought of the show. I remember glancing at Cierra nervously as she shot frozen nails into my exposed neck. I remember smiling the nicer Finley was to me. And then Cierra flirted, and Finley looked at her, smiled hopefully...

I walked away.

I wouldn't talk to him again for three weeks.

He called me. I was downstairs, reception was shit. I heard the opening. And, racing up the stairs, the next thing I understood was.... "And that's why relationships are difficult." I spent ten minutes telling Finley--who seemed to want to tell me something--he could come over, yes, I was sure, it was all right. We watched Monty Python, and then we decided to talk.

Well, he talked. I listened.

He was confused. Cierra had treated him like shit, and he'd remembered me. He'd remembered how ''gentle'' and ''sweet'' I was, how ''different''.... I remembered being the moon... I told him that whatever he did, he'd be all right to me.

The next time Cierra broke him, he was mine.

He had a lot of cracks to fix, Finley did. Largest among them was self-hatred instilled by Kate. Not Katie's Kate, a different one. This Kate had.... had really torn him. His every thought, initially, was for her, and it took a lot of work to help him. A lot of work to put him back together. Finley said I saved him....

I saw him fall. I went through humiliation for him. Went through pain and loneliness for him. I told him everything, and he believed it. He had the whole truth. He held me when everybody else told me to grow up, grow up when my heart was broken.

Now I'm an expense to him. I fixed him, and he loves me, and it's going to work out. God wouldn't give me a miracle like this just to take it away, and I trust Him.

I love Finley. I love the sound of Mrs. Payton Wiese...

Special

Over this weekend I experienced, and confess openly to, envy. I am happy with people with talent... musically. I am talented musically, but I can't do what they do. I wept over that, because I've wanted to stand out, and the more and more I try for that... that talent... I realize I'm nothing more than given by God's grace a few minor talents.

That hurts. We sang a song so beautiful I cried, because it reminded me of Finley so much. I wanted so much to be happy: the town was beautiful, my blood sugars were good the entire time (!!!), we stayed at a nice Bed and Breakfast, the music was good, the directors competent... I was happy, too. I felt like the people staying with me were my friends, and that maybe that was all I needed to have talent, you know? Friends.

I was wrong. I'm always wrong. All of them are "busy" indefinitely and get nervous when I spring an invitation on them. Poor Secret Keeper's so busy, she barely has time for air, so no best-friend mojo... not that I want to complain to her. She's already under so much pressure and in so much pain. Even Director seems distant and too busy focusing on self-loathing to attune to anything else. I hate self-loathing. I hate, hate, hate it. I would murder it if it were a person.

Jason, when he checked Facebook after one day of being at the Dorian music festival (actually in a town called Decorah), had seventeen updates. When I waited four days to check mine, I had none. No one at school even noticed I was gone. Jason had people calling to him as soon as he steps from the van, and no one even talks to me. That hurts. Finley's going to be too busy to talk to me for awhile... teaching.... pretending he has money to come see me when I know he doesn't...

Katie says that a relationship shouldn't rely on proximity (well, okay, it was more "relationships don't go so well if you depend on the other person", but still), but I don't think she knows how rarely I am spoken to. Total strangers loved me at Decorah, because they didn't know me. Here, people won't even give me a chance, no matter how I use these mini-talents of mine. I've got to get somewhere like Decorah. I've got to not be lonely. Take it one day at a time. I wonder who made that expression? I don't think it's accurate; lately, several days have been attacking me at once.

I keep trying to like myself, and really take the Portrait-lesson that Mr. Congdon, upon taking the picture of myself I drew last year, and Katie, who saw the portrait and took what I didn't, would both advise. I would trust either advice.

I wish I had someone to talk to like She does, but I don't. I can't even talk to Finley right now, not with all the shit he's dealing with--trying to get a new job and his own apartment, for example. Learning more about diabetes. Passing college. Being admitted to the college of education. Managing to feed himself on a very tight budget while managing still to make the drive he is now forced to make whenever he gets anywhere near me, ever.

You know what else really bothered me about Dorian? Everyone there... their calling was music, and they knew it. They felt it tug at their hearts and knew they would stay with it as long as they could, even the pianists and the flutists and the organist. Even the family who ran my bed and breakfast had a purpose to their lives.

I realized today, and throughout the weekend, that I do not have only one calling. I do not have one talent that is full, developed, and beautiful. Someday, I might have to give up my dreams to eat or pay rent, and that someday might be soon. I need something besides Finley's company--the full trust and love of a friend--to make my bread and butter my butter. Even a dog knows what their lives are for, yet I cannot chose a single future... a single star of light in a bright heaven where I am the sun....

Which grain of an hour glass makes us internal? Which cloud in the sky is the brightest? Which eon of air is the whisper wind's will?

Every teenager in the world likes to think that they have secret mutant powers, or they have some secret alter-ego, that they're tragically misunderstood.

I think they're idiots: my fear is being understood perfectly.

"But, as for whether or not I can chose a single entity of entirety for focus and live by that choice.... I could no sooner pluck a single star from the heavens than tell you tomorrow."

How many friends would I lose if they knew me? If they really knew me?

Special

"Shards of ice filled her veins.
'Keenan!' she screamed.
But he had gone, no longer glowing, no longer looking at her.
She was alone."

Secret Keeper updates her blog with great regularity. It's just so her. Must work on that, really. Anyone reading this would never think it's me--I'm not this chatty.
Snicker. Snicker.
I wish there were some way to help her more. In my comment, I told her she was like Donia, the present winter Queen. Beira's successor, if Beira can be called in respectful terms. She DID have style, after all. Donia had her heart broken by Keenan, and still loved him. Poor Donia. I always wanted to help. And SK... so like Donia. Only she doesn't get to be queen, does she? Humans are rarely as kind as the faery, even if the faery are monsters and kill each other off/annihilate the humans they cross/cause massive wars/curse innocents for fun, SK still has to pay bills... still has to throw herself out of bed to live...
I cry over it. I really do. I want to cry now, but I can't, she's due in around an hour. There's so little I can do, despite being a genius. Do for anyone. Not for Taylor or Adam or...
No. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. It'll go away. It has to. I'm sure it's only a warning to get you back in the game, that's all it is. Faris wouldn't...
Stupid me. Listening to Faris. I wish God would answer my prayers to help these people. I know He's busy, but can't He help his children who in any case love him?
I do. I pray to Him, every night.
Help me, God. There's so much to do and worry about...
So little time. I can't breathe to think of it...

Special: Killing Taylor

"A woman with true wisdom fights the monster in her friends; and only if the monster makes the man."

What does one do when both ends of a failing arguement are also failing, precisely? Of course I can't talk to anyone about this--she didn't mention writing a blog no one's ever going to read now, did she? No. No she did not.
See, my sister is very fond of attention whoring. After all, isn't every person, even if they don't admit it? The shyest person in the world happens to want noticing, even if they're too afraid to tell you that's the case.
Taylor is not the shyest person.
Not even a little bit.
She's stupidly ready to die but when she gets there, she temporarily (yes, TEMPORARILY) realizes perhaps this is not the most prudent option and fights like all hell for life.
Meanwhile, my mother is kicking herself every day for the half million things she's taken on. And when a full moon meets the sliver, there's dark. And when there's dark--there is... hostility. Horrible hostility.
'Hostility' is really a word for 'they fight, because they're too proud and both is wrong in some way.' I'm late for school every day because one of them is slow, if it's not me (I'd like to think it's me less often, I've been getting up at five since September, but I've overslept a couple of times) and I was late again today. Mr. Mahoney, who I personally think does actually like me a little, only noticed that the fashionable girl was late for the first day of swimming--well, you can guess what his assumption was. It took all my personal charm to convince him I did want to swim (which I did, I'm a water faery for all these intents), so I'm making it up ninth hour. A minor detail, really.
What can I do about this? Really nothing. I'm forbidden from mentioning it, if I understand correctly. Like I can't mention mom's freaking out about money. Like I can't mention Taylor tells all her little minions, the freaky unintelligent minions, what a horrible nasty monster I am, how I've surpassed her in every way.
Whatever.
She's adding yet another worry to a list of my shit, and I don't need this from her. She doesn't have the will to live, and mom's pushing her into living. There's nothing we can do, which annoys me, but not as much as the fact that we need to keep hitting her, so to speak, back into life. That should not be anyone's responsibility but hers. It should be easy as breathing.
Ugh. Ugh ugh ugh.
First government meeting tonight. I'm going with Sam Snodie, we're leaving at six fourty-five. Hopefully mom'll be okay with that, I know that scholarship shit is tonight... it won't last *that* long, will it? Well, she'll have to deal with it. I need this meeting and one other one to graduate, so deal.
Graduate... yeah, soooo excited about that.... /Sarcasm fairy
Mom also mentioned I need a job if I want to do anything fun, ever, after reminding me what a failure I am at all life, after looking at me midway through the fight she and Taylor had last night when I was trying to do my stupid Algebra, as if to say, 'help me, damnit!'
Well, that's the way to motivate your children, isn't it, if you're busy.
Whatever.
So much to do. So much shit. I feel like I'm drowning with a weight tied to me, but I'm not dying yet. Still holding my breath...

What happens when I r un out of air?