((...))
It was early December, a blanket of snow beginning to coat the ground. Despite the chill in the night air, Katelyn was cozy, lazing underneath a blanket on her living room couch, with Mister Kitty curled up on her stomach, gently purring away. With the TV lighting up the room with its dim glow, Katelyn was warm and safe, even as frost crept up the window.
Yet, despite her warmth and comfort, the atmosphere in the living room felt just as icy as the outside air.
Katelyn and Ashlyn were watching a horror movie together, a weekly ritual the two of them shared that they had kept up ever since they entered high school. She didn't quite remember why it had started. Faintly, she recalled one night where their aunt and uncle weren't home, and she had wandered downstairs and into the kitchen, only to see Ashlyn watching Evil Dead on the living room TV. For some reason unknown to her, Katelyn had decided to sit on the couch across from her sister, and from that point on, it had become a habit.
They had never discussed it or agreed on it, it was just something that happened between them. Many horror movie nights came and went without a word passing either of their lips, both of them shuffling off to their respective rooms when it was all said and done. From Katelyn's perspective, the tension between them never quite went away, even in these moments of relative peace. Yet, despite that, they both continued to do it, these nights serving as a quiet, unspoken truce.
She was barely paying attention to the movie that was playing, a somewhat recent release called Hellbender, her mind instead preoccupied by thoughts of the approaching school trip. After the accident, she had never gone on another school trip. Even ignoring her distaste for riding in cars and buses alike, every time she had considered it, she had always thought that the latest trip would be the one that would get her on Survival of the Fittest. She had always been wrong, of course, but she couldn't help it. Whatever joy the trip might provide her wouldn't make up for the anxiety she'd feel the whole time.
Yet, despite all of that, she was set to go on the Senior Winter Trip in a few weeks' time.
Her friends had encouraged her to go, because most of them were going. Ashlyn was going too, since she never had the same issues with school trips that Katelyn did, and she hadn't been kidnapped before. As convinced as Katelyn was every time that this would be the one, it had never happened. Her worries were clearly unfounded.
Yet, despite that, she couldn't help but feel that same sense of gnawing dread creeping into her mind.
After all, if it was ever going to happen, then this would be the one, right? They always went after Seniors, and she was one now. They had never kidnapped anyone during the first semester, but that didn't assuage her worries. It would be just like those monsters to break the pattern and catch everyone off guard. This would be the one, and then she would be the one dying on camera, her suffering being gawked at and dissected in painstaking detail by creeps and weirdos like herself.
The chances were so small, and she knew that, but she was afraid. She didn't want to go. She didn't know how she would break it to her friends. But, maybe she could practice with Ashlyn. It's not like her sister being mad at her would be a new experience for Katelyn.
Slowly, her mouth opened, and she tried to speak. Only for her throat to protest and abruptly close up, no sound being allowed to escape.
So instead, she closed her mouth and remained silent, eyes affixed on the TV screen.
Sisterhood
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VoltTurtle
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Middle of the mid movie. Seemed more like a harrowing mother-daughter drama for teens. Basic plot with the fixings of a horror movie wasn't inherently a bad thing, Midsommar was essentially a chick flick but brutal murders, but this one just didn't reach that level of prestige that made it worthy of praise. Or, watching in general.
((Ashlyn))
So, phone in one hand and both eyes plopped right on top of it. Lighting in the room was dim enough to serve two purposes: of scaring off the folks because they knew it was horror movie night, of forcing Ash to shove her screen right up against her face to be at all legible. Not that she had bad eyes, but she had her brightness to lowest possible to make sure her distraction wouldn't distract Kitty. On the like, tenth percentile off chance that she was actually paying attention to the movie. Kitty was a lot of things, but she knew her shit with the horror genre and this wasn't it.
This was an interesting bit of human ingenuity she was reading up about. On Tumblr to start with, then her tabs had exponentially grown to encompass news articles in several countries' publications and Wikipedia. Manually growing bridges and roads by manipulating the direction of root growth when pliable. Or, being some annoying pasty ass white person and doing it to make a chair in your backyard under your favorite tree.
The journalists reporting- hi Salem- liked to call it sustainable building in harmony with nature. BS. Still mankind forcing nature to do what it didn't naturally intend on doing. She doubted this was good for the long term health of any of these trees.
Her eyes wandered when a loud noise- bloodcurdling scream from the TV, from real life even that they'd both happily bystander effect- casually disrupted her intent. She glanced at Kitty, buried under layers of blankets (was it even cold?) and cat (annoying ass furball). Kitty had already sent in the applications for her colleges right? She wasn't usually unreliable in that regard. Still, she probably needed a reminder or two. She always did, with whatever the hell was going on in that brain of hers firing off in random directions at times. Towards the unseen spirit realm above and beyond the mortal plane, for all Ash could understand her little sister's motivations sometimes.
She was staring intently at the screen, clearly engaged by something on either side of her eyeballs. That earned a quick glance at the TV for the first time in half an hour- was Ash missing something? Was the movie actually good?
((Ashlyn))
So, phone in one hand and both eyes plopped right on top of it. Lighting in the room was dim enough to serve two purposes: of scaring off the folks because they knew it was horror movie night, of forcing Ash to shove her screen right up against her face to be at all legible. Not that she had bad eyes, but she had her brightness to lowest possible to make sure her distraction wouldn't distract Kitty. On the like, tenth percentile off chance that she was actually paying attention to the movie. Kitty was a lot of things, but she knew her shit with the horror genre and this wasn't it.
This was an interesting bit of human ingenuity she was reading up about. On Tumblr to start with, then her tabs had exponentially grown to encompass news articles in several countries' publications and Wikipedia. Manually growing bridges and roads by manipulating the direction of root growth when pliable. Or, being some annoying pasty ass white person and doing it to make a chair in your backyard under your favorite tree.
The journalists reporting- hi Salem- liked to call it sustainable building in harmony with nature. BS. Still mankind forcing nature to do what it didn't naturally intend on doing. She doubted this was good for the long term health of any of these trees.
Her eyes wandered when a loud noise- bloodcurdling scream from the TV, from real life even that they'd both happily bystander effect- casually disrupted her intent. She glanced at Kitty, buried under layers of blankets (was it even cold?) and cat (annoying ass furball). Kitty had already sent in the applications for her colleges right? She wasn't usually unreliable in that regard. Still, she probably needed a reminder or two. She always did, with whatever the hell was going on in that brain of hers firing off in random directions at times. Towards the unseen spirit realm above and beyond the mortal plane, for all Ash could understand her little sister's motivations sometimes.
She was staring intently at the screen, clearly engaged by something on either side of her eyeballs. That earned a quick glance at the TV for the first time in half an hour- was Ash missing something? Was the movie actually good?
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The movie was okay, probably. Katelyn didn't really know, because she hadn't been paying attention the whole time, instead wrapped up in her own sea of thoughts.
The movie centered around a relationship between a mother and her daughter, and having that be such a prevalent part of a movie always made a hole open up in Katelyn's chest. Not just because she missed her mom—though she did, terribly—but because it always made her think about how she missed her mom more than her dad. Knowing that she'd never see her parents again was bad enough, but she felt cruel to prefer one dead parent over the other, and the guilt from that was worse than anything else.
She had worked hard to shake the guilt from the accident, having it drilled over and over into her head that even if her need for transportation had set events into motion that night, it wasn't her fault. Then right when she was finally starting to internalize that lesson, she read all those statistics about how dangerous cars are, and how she really had been putting her parents in danger by getting them to drive her everywhere. Then she had to work hard to shake off the guilt again, and that time it seemed to stick, but even now she wondered if she could've done something different, replaying that horrible day over and over again in her head.
Katelyn had a lot of reasons to feel guilty, and she didn't like it. She liked thinking about it even less. So that's why she wasn't paying attention to the movie. And thinking about all of this definitely wasn't also a way to procrastinate on bringing up a difficult subject to Ashlyn.
No sir.
The movie centered around a relationship between a mother and her daughter, and having that be such a prevalent part of a movie always made a hole open up in Katelyn's chest. Not just because she missed her mom—though she did, terribly—but because it always made her think about how she missed her mom more than her dad. Knowing that she'd never see her parents again was bad enough, but she felt cruel to prefer one dead parent over the other, and the guilt from that was worse than anything else.
She had worked hard to shake the guilt from the accident, having it drilled over and over into her head that even if her need for transportation had set events into motion that night, it wasn't her fault. Then right when she was finally starting to internalize that lesson, she read all those statistics about how dangerous cars are, and how she really had been putting her parents in danger by getting them to drive her everywhere. Then she had to work hard to shake off the guilt again, and that time it seemed to stick, but even now she wondered if she could've done something different, replaying that horrible day over and over again in her head.
Katelyn had a lot of reasons to feel guilty, and she didn't like it. She liked thinking about it even less. So that's why she wasn't paying attention to the movie. And thinking about all of this definitely wasn't also a way to procrastinate on bringing up a difficult subject to Ashlyn.
No sir.
Ashlyn's blood pressure ratcheted up oh point oh one percent when a jump scare violently littered the screen with human hued red and pink.
Again, not a particularly inspired movie. She glanced back at Kitty. Sis was doing that thing she did sometimes where she zoned out but her lips were still tracing some verbiage- probably remembered, but lost to the cavernous halls of distraction and chicanery. Fair, but she was probably trying to say something to Ash specifically. And their conversations tended to be limited to times when one needed the other, as any honest red-blooded American family was built on microtransactions and the legacy of genocide that was Thanksgiving Day.
So Kitty was trying to say something important and failing. Ash had told her, many a time, to stop doing that- it would come off as disrespectful, if she did that too much in her adult life. Ash was just trying to make sure Kitty didn't have any habits that would make her future more difficult than it had to be.
She did, of course, have many such habits. Ash stared blankly, half into the distance and half her sisters way, waiting for the inevitable.
Again, not a particularly inspired movie. She glanced back at Kitty. Sis was doing that thing she did sometimes where she zoned out but her lips were still tracing some verbiage- probably remembered, but lost to the cavernous halls of distraction and chicanery. Fair, but she was probably trying to say something to Ash specifically. And their conversations tended to be limited to times when one needed the other, as any honest red-blooded American family was built on microtransactions and the legacy of genocide that was Thanksgiving Day.
So Kitty was trying to say something important and failing. Ash had told her, many a time, to stop doing that- it would come off as disrespectful, if she did that too much in her adult life. Ash was just trying to make sure Kitty didn't have any habits that would make her future more difficult than it had to be.
She did, of course, have many such habits. Ash stared blankly, half into the distance and half her sisters way, waiting for the inevitable.
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Oh no, Ashlyn was looking Katelyn’s way. She averted her eyes on instinct, loathe to make even a moment’s eye contact. She tensed up alongside it, and Mister Kitty stirred, looking at her lazily before letting out a long, deep “mrrrooow”.
She knew well enough what that noise meant. She was getting too nervous, and he could tell, and that noise was his way of reminding her to calm down. Or at least she liked to think of it that way, it could just as well be “you’re waking me with your jittering” or something else entirely, she couldn’t be sure. Still, it was a reminder that putting off confrontation wouldn’t make it better, she would just be nervous for no benefit. Time to spit it out.
“H-Hey, uh,” she stammered, “A-Ash, I… um…”
Talking to her sister was difficult at the best of times. This was not one of those times.
“S-Sorry for talking o-over the movie. I-I was thinking a-about the trip and…”
She sniffled, stress levels rising already, throat threatening to close up again, making it so hard to speak. She wished it wasn’t so hard to talk to Ashlyn. Yet whenever she tried, all she could remember were the years of anger, fighting, and blame. Ashlyn was different now, even if she still hadn’t apologized, but it was still hard for Katelyn to think of anything else.
“I d-don’t want to go. I’m s-scared.”
She knew well enough what that noise meant. She was getting too nervous, and he could tell, and that noise was his way of reminding her to calm down. Or at least she liked to think of it that way, it could just as well be “you’re waking me with your jittering” or something else entirely, she couldn’t be sure. Still, it was a reminder that putting off confrontation wouldn’t make it better, she would just be nervous for no benefit. Time to spit it out.
“H-Hey, uh,” she stammered, “A-Ash, I… um…”
Talking to her sister was difficult at the best of times. This was not one of those times.
“S-Sorry for talking o-over the movie. I-I was thinking a-about the trip and…”
She sniffled, stress levels rising already, throat threatening to close up again, making it so hard to speak. She wished it wasn’t so hard to talk to Ashlyn. Yet whenever she tried, all she could remember were the years of anger, fighting, and blame. Ashlyn was different now, even if she still hadn’t apologized, but it was still hard for Katelyn to think of anything else.
“I d-don’t want to go. I’m s-scared.”
Minimalist eye contact was cringe, sure, but if that's how Kitty wanted to be. Most things were cringe when you were the Youth (TM) anyways, including that very 'I'm not like other girls' style thought. A true classic, always a displeasure to rep. The cat, Ash knew through years worth of osmosis, also knew when Kitty was struggling for the right thing to say.
Weird thing to get worried about. Just say something- it'd be phrased wrongly and suck anyways. Ash understood social anxiety, sure, but only as a third person observer.
"No worries." Talking over the movie? They cared about the movie? News to her.
And that was it. Kate finished talking. Ashlyn's expression was the same shrug that she rolled her shoulders into- fractions of a decimal on the Richter scale, slow and lazy enough that Mesoamerica was conquered and colonized in the meantime. Disease, war, death, all in the blink of an eye and Ashlyn's singular thought, a thing quick as the crack of an executioner's axe against a bloody stump.
"Honestly a bit surprised you wanted to go in the first place. I didn't think it was your scene." Ash had kind of lost track of which particular weird subcultures Kitty was in by now. At some point she'd joined the school's conspiracy club, right? The thing that was sanctioned as an official club for some obtuse and arcane reason? Ash would have committed it to memory if she hadn't presumed by now that Kitty didn't care if Ash asked about her day. Rarely did. Rare as in fresh roadkill.
Ash's hand followed the arc of her forearm as she raised both for a lazy thumbs up... then reconsidered. All in a moment before she offered it anyways, her dark painted nails briefly catching the light of generic wilderness spoopy scene #80 taking up the big screen they were both casually ignoring.
"Sure, no one's going to force you to go. It's kinda dumb though. Schools do trips all the time nowadays and it's been years since the last one."
And even if they were taken against all statistical odds, had either of them been expecting to make it through many years of their adult lives with how fucked up they both were?
Weird thing to get worried about. Just say something- it'd be phrased wrongly and suck anyways. Ash understood social anxiety, sure, but only as a third person observer.
"No worries." Talking over the movie? They cared about the movie? News to her.
And that was it. Kate finished talking. Ashlyn's expression was the same shrug that she rolled her shoulders into- fractions of a decimal on the Richter scale, slow and lazy enough that Mesoamerica was conquered and colonized in the meantime. Disease, war, death, all in the blink of an eye and Ashlyn's singular thought, a thing quick as the crack of an executioner's axe against a bloody stump.
"Honestly a bit surprised you wanted to go in the first place. I didn't think it was your scene." Ash had kind of lost track of which particular weird subcultures Kitty was in by now. At some point she'd joined the school's conspiracy club, right? The thing that was sanctioned as an official club for some obtuse and arcane reason? Ash would have committed it to memory if she hadn't presumed by now that Kitty didn't care if Ash asked about her day. Rarely did. Rare as in fresh roadkill.
Ash's hand followed the arc of her forearm as she raised both for a lazy thumbs up... then reconsidered. All in a moment before she offered it anyways, her dark painted nails briefly catching the light of generic wilderness spoopy scene #80 taking up the big screen they were both casually ignoring.
"Sure, no one's going to force you to go. It's kinda dumb though. Schools do trips all the time nowadays and it's been years since the last one."
And even if they were taken against all statistical odds, had either of them been expecting to make it through many years of their adult lives with how fucked up they both were?
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"W-Wait. Really?"
Katelyn was taken aback. Ashlyn never liked it when she was weird, or paranoid, or overly anxious, and she thought she was being all three of those things at once. She was expecting anger, disappointment, annoyance, something to that effect, not this oh-so-casual reaction that she actually got. She almost felt bad for assuming the worst of her sister. Almost.
"I know," she started to say, her words coming out much more clearly than before now that the ice had been broken, "I know it's dumb. I didn't want to go, but my friends w-wanted me to."
She bit her bottom lip and drew a bit of blood, her mouth filling with that familiar copper taste.
"I didn't want to make them sad though," she mumbled, "s-so I agreed, but now I'm scared. I know it's not gonna happen, I know that, but..."
Ever since that horrible day, Katelyn was always worrying. She spent every day afraid that something terrible was going to happen. She knew better than most that at any moment her life could be totally upended and change for the worse, and nothing could ever go back to the way it was before. She was so, so afraid that it would happen again. She knew it in her bones that something like it would get to her eventually, and every day she dreaded its arrival.
"What if," she squeaked, "what if it did?"
Katelyn was taken aback. Ashlyn never liked it when she was weird, or paranoid, or overly anxious, and she thought she was being all three of those things at once. She was expecting anger, disappointment, annoyance, something to that effect, not this oh-so-casual reaction that she actually got. She almost felt bad for assuming the worst of her sister. Almost.
"I know," she started to say, her words coming out much more clearly than before now that the ice had been broken, "I know it's dumb. I didn't want to go, but my friends w-wanted me to."
She bit her bottom lip and drew a bit of blood, her mouth filling with that familiar copper taste.
"I didn't want to make them sad though," she mumbled, "s-so I agreed, but now I'm scared. I know it's not gonna happen, I know that, but..."
Ever since that horrible day, Katelyn was always worrying. She spent every day afraid that something terrible was going to happen. She knew better than most that at any moment her life could be totally upended and change for the worse, and nothing could ever go back to the way it was before. She was so, so afraid that it would happen again. She knew it in her bones that something like it would get to her eventually, and every day she dreaded its arrival.
"What if," she squeaked, "what if it did?"
Ash's hand swirled in a nebulous state of being, at some point being more an entity of the Twilight Zone. She dropped it suddenly and unceremoniously, careless about how it crashed into her thigh like a shotgun shell to the skull.
"Guess I have been up in your face about stuff recently. Your college applications, whatever. Sorry." She meant it. She knew- objectively, had it filed away in the rusted filing cabinet of her venereal disease of a brain- that her methods of keeping Kitty from getting too lost in her own head were probably not the most pleasant. A useful evil, but evil all the same, like culling onto the overgrown species of the wild, or fire onto the eldest and most vulnerable of trees. As nature- no nicety, only necessity.
Damn, how high and mighty of herself. She almost believed her own righteousness. But still. Kitty needed a firm hand, sometimes.
"So yeah, really. I don't mind, the trip's stupid anyways." Ash paused, forced to as the screen once more twisted into an overly loud, unearned, cheap jumpscare. Eyes didn't budge. "I feel like a lot of people are only going because of bystander effect, right? Nobody wants to be the first person to throw in the towel."
A grunt, a single monotone note of irritation. Ash saw Kitty's lip crack. No apparent injury but you knew the lines before they happened when you watched the movie enough times. Kitty had enough self-defeating tics to start her own one man freak show troupe. Ash, of course, the ugly and malformed conjoined twin act.
"You're hurting yourself again. You don't have leprosy, pay attention."
Ash was sure she'd said that before too. Same slight frown, same aggressive jab of her finger at [insert body part Kitty was trying to saw off in a fit of anxiety], insert tape rewind sound fx as oops! ...she did it again.
"Let's ignore the what if it did, because you and I know I don't care about what happens if it comes down to something that random." Like a lightning strike- you didn't plan for stuff like that. You just died. You know- awful, awful thought this, but Kitty was pretty scaredy cat for a girl who'd tried to off herself multiple times. Ash had to wonder how that added up. Probably had to read the books on dealing with girls with autism in the folks' den. Again. And learn nothing. Again.
"First off, if you're gonna let your friends pressure you that's even stupider." One thing at a time, Ash reminded herself. She could multitask but she was trying not to inflict that onto someone else. "But ignore that. Examine your own logic for a second. The likelihood that a terrorist group out of commission for three years picks us and does it again."
There was a supernatural tingle racing up her spine when she said it. It was about the right amount of time gap, after all. Like being targeting by an unstoppable force of nature. Standing on the shoreline, watching the insurmountable wall of storm clouds get closer as the storm surge stole the water from the beaches for a single glorious moment before death.
"I don't mind if you don't go, I just not exactly on board with your reasoning."
"Guess I have been up in your face about stuff recently. Your college applications, whatever. Sorry." She meant it. She knew- objectively, had it filed away in the rusted filing cabinet of her venereal disease of a brain- that her methods of keeping Kitty from getting too lost in her own head were probably not the most pleasant. A useful evil, but evil all the same, like culling onto the overgrown species of the wild, or fire onto the eldest and most vulnerable of trees. As nature- no nicety, only necessity.
Damn, how high and mighty of herself. She almost believed her own righteousness. But still. Kitty needed a firm hand, sometimes.
"So yeah, really. I don't mind, the trip's stupid anyways." Ash paused, forced to as the screen once more twisted into an overly loud, unearned, cheap jumpscare. Eyes didn't budge. "I feel like a lot of people are only going because of bystander effect, right? Nobody wants to be the first person to throw in the towel."
A grunt, a single monotone note of irritation. Ash saw Kitty's lip crack. No apparent injury but you knew the lines before they happened when you watched the movie enough times. Kitty had enough self-defeating tics to start her own one man freak show troupe. Ash, of course, the ugly and malformed conjoined twin act.
"You're hurting yourself again. You don't have leprosy, pay attention."
Ash was sure she'd said that before too. Same slight frown, same aggressive jab of her finger at [insert body part Kitty was trying to saw off in a fit of anxiety], insert tape rewind sound fx as oops! ...she did it again.
"Let's ignore the what if it did, because you and I know I don't care about what happens if it comes down to something that random." Like a lightning strike- you didn't plan for stuff like that. You just died. You know- awful, awful thought this, but Kitty was pretty scaredy cat for a girl who'd tried to off herself multiple times. Ash had to wonder how that added up. Probably had to read the books on dealing with girls with autism in the folks' den. Again. And learn nothing. Again.
"First off, if you're gonna let your friends pressure you that's even stupider." One thing at a time, Ash reminded herself. She could multitask but she was trying not to inflict that onto someone else. "But ignore that. Examine your own logic for a second. The likelihood that a terrorist group out of commission for three years picks us and does it again."
There was a supernatural tingle racing up her spine when she said it. It was about the right amount of time gap, after all. Like being targeting by an unstoppable force of nature. Standing on the shoreline, watching the insurmountable wall of storm clouds get closer as the storm surge stole the water from the beaches for a single glorious moment before death.
"I don't mind if you don't go, I just not exactly on board with your reasoning."
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“O-Oh.”
Apology not accepted, but Katelyn did as her sister said, and stopped biting her lip.
This was one of those situations where Ashlyn was right, and Katelyn couldn’t deny it. She knew how unlikely it was that she would be kidnapped. It was akin to being afraid of getting struck by a falling plane, and she wasn't afraid of that. She did fear car crashes, but those were comparatively likely, as they happened all the time. It was reasonable to fear car crashes, it wasn’t reasonable to fear getting hit by a plane, and it wasn't reasonable to fear getting put on SOTF.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a bridge she didn’t want to cross. Like it was fate that the first trip she went on since elementary school would be the one that killed her. Maybe it wouldn’t even be terrorists like she was expecting. Maybe they would just get into a bus accident, instead. That was a much more reasonable thing to scare her.
But, that was just her overactive anxiety, right? Her therapist would probably say that. Something about how she was just hurting herself by engaging with it, that it was okay to let her guard down sometimes. Then she’d see there was never a reason to be afraid at all.
Except there was still always the chance things could go catastrophically wrong at any moment, and no amount of rationalization could stop her from worrying about it.
Ashlyn was wrong about one thing though, because what her friends thought did matter, and it wasn’t peer pressure. She was afraid of making them sad, and she wanted to make them happy. Like her mom told her, good friends don’t hurt friends, they help friends. So if she made them sad, then she would be a bad friend, and she didn’t want to be a bad friend.
Oh no, would not going make her a bad friend? She didn’t think about that until now. She had to go now, didn’t she?
Maybe she should ask her therapist.
“Okay.”
Apology not accepted, but Katelyn did as her sister said, and stopped biting her lip.
This was one of those situations where Ashlyn was right, and Katelyn couldn’t deny it. She knew how unlikely it was that she would be kidnapped. It was akin to being afraid of getting struck by a falling plane, and she wasn't afraid of that. She did fear car crashes, but those were comparatively likely, as they happened all the time. It was reasonable to fear car crashes, it wasn’t reasonable to fear getting hit by a plane, and it wasn't reasonable to fear getting put on SOTF.
Still, she couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a bridge she didn’t want to cross. Like it was fate that the first trip she went on since elementary school would be the one that killed her. Maybe it wouldn’t even be terrorists like she was expecting. Maybe they would just get into a bus accident, instead. That was a much more reasonable thing to scare her.
But, that was just her overactive anxiety, right? Her therapist would probably say that. Something about how she was just hurting herself by engaging with it, that it was okay to let her guard down sometimes. Then she’d see there was never a reason to be afraid at all.
Except there was still always the chance things could go catastrophically wrong at any moment, and no amount of rationalization could stop her from worrying about it.
Ashlyn was wrong about one thing though, because what her friends thought did matter, and it wasn’t peer pressure. She was afraid of making them sad, and she wanted to make them happy. Like her mom told her, good friends don’t hurt friends, they help friends. So if she made them sad, then she would be a bad friend, and she didn’t want to be a bad friend.
Oh no, would not going make her a bad friend? She didn’t think about that until now. She had to go now, didn’t she?
Maybe she should ask her therapist.
“Okay.”
Ash remembered reading the report that Kitty's therapist sent monthly once. Mom had left it out on the exact old as Jericho oak coffee table her feet were on at that exact moment, November of last year. She was positive Kitty was catastrophizing right now, at this exact moment (in my house? More likely than you think) and Ash had always been kind of salty that she totally got it and related. The verbiage on Kitty's reports word for word matched Ash's own. Procured from that exact same coffee table years prior, Mom being the genius homemaker that she was. Ash, twenty pounds lighter, inches shorter, significantly more angry and depressed...
That her was never too far away from the front of her mind, if Ash was being honest with herself. And if that shadow of Christmas past, the one that said Bah Humbug and hated Christmas, was a mere hangnail's worth of difference from Kitty? Maximum cringe. Heaven forbid Ash realize she was essentially just her younger sister with a palette swap and significantly more cleavage.
Hence, she would never realize it as long as she lived, unless she was in a particularly bad mood.
Her mood now was more of a meh. Consciously testing her own lower lip with a tooth, careful to not break the skin. Just a moment before she resumed a neutral expression.
"I'm getting the sense that you're going to do a complete one eighty and go just because I told you to. Or peer pressure because I reminded you of your friends."
Devil's advocate kind of mood. Ash figured she'd look pretty good with a trident and skimpy succubus wear, shrug.
"And I know you know what I think about that."
Ash smiled softly. If Kitty ever grew a spine in the next century it'd shock scientists the world over.
"But who cares what I think, of course. What is your priority here. Like, pretend for a moment you have no fears at all. What do you, specifically you and not the hormonal or cavewoman version of yourself, what does she want?"
That her was never too far away from the front of her mind, if Ash was being honest with herself. And if that shadow of Christmas past, the one that said Bah Humbug and hated Christmas, was a mere hangnail's worth of difference from Kitty? Maximum cringe. Heaven forbid Ash realize she was essentially just her younger sister with a palette swap and significantly more cleavage.
Hence, she would never realize it as long as she lived, unless she was in a particularly bad mood.
Her mood now was more of a meh. Consciously testing her own lower lip with a tooth, careful to not break the skin. Just a moment before she resumed a neutral expression.
"I'm getting the sense that you're going to do a complete one eighty and go just because I told you to. Or peer pressure because I reminded you of your friends."
Devil's advocate kind of mood. Ash figured she'd look pretty good with a trident and skimpy succubus wear, shrug.
"And I know you know what I think about that."
Ash smiled softly. If Kitty ever grew a spine in the next century it'd shock scientists the world over.
"But who cares what I think, of course. What is your priority here. Like, pretend for a moment you have no fears at all. What do you, specifically you and not the hormonal or cavewoman version of yourself, what does she want?"
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VoltTurtle
- Posts: 1525
- Joined: Fri Aug 10, 2018 4:10 pm
- Location: Dreamland
Katelyn sat quietly for a moment, contemplating Ashlyn's question. Her arms wrapped themselves around a pillow on instinct, hugging it tight to her chest as Mr. Kitty went back to napping, gently rumbling all the while. She turned the question over in her head, examining it from all angles, no regards paid to the movie that was now nothing but background noise. With no fear, what did she really want to do?
That was a difficult question for her to answer, because she didn't know where to start. If Katelyn had to name one emotion that ruled her life above all others, then she would pick fear, with sadness as a distant second place. Her thoughts were often dominated by her fears. She was afraid of dying, afraid of being forgotten, afraid of ending up just like her parents; a footnote in someone else's tragic backstory. Almost everything she did was, in a way, a response to that fear. She wanted to be noticed, remembered, seen. She wanted people to care about and love her, because that way, if something horrible were to happen to her, then she would have a legacy to leave behind. Disregarding all of that was basically impossible for her.
So why not play pretend, then? For a moment, she could pretend she wasn't a sad pile of hot garbage who was probably going to hurt far more people than she ever helped just by virtue of her cursed existence. That person, that ideal version of her, the one that she pretended to be and insisted on being called "Kitty", what did she want?
"I..."
She squeezed the pillow tighter.
"I only want my friends to be happy," she replied, slowly, taking care not to stutter. "That's all."
They did so much to make her existence tolerable, and she burdened them so much with her problems, so it was only fair that she did everything in her power to make it up to them.
"Which means I sh-should go, right?"
That was a difficult question for her to answer, because she didn't know where to start. If Katelyn had to name one emotion that ruled her life above all others, then she would pick fear, with sadness as a distant second place. Her thoughts were often dominated by her fears. She was afraid of dying, afraid of being forgotten, afraid of ending up just like her parents; a footnote in someone else's tragic backstory. Almost everything she did was, in a way, a response to that fear. She wanted to be noticed, remembered, seen. She wanted people to care about and love her, because that way, if something horrible were to happen to her, then she would have a legacy to leave behind. Disregarding all of that was basically impossible for her.
So why not play pretend, then? For a moment, she could pretend she wasn't a sad pile of hot garbage who was probably going to hurt far more people than she ever helped just by virtue of her cursed existence. That person, that ideal version of her, the one that she pretended to be and insisted on being called "Kitty", what did she want?
"I..."
She squeezed the pillow tighter.
"I only want my friends to be happy," she replied, slowly, taking care not to stutter. "That's all."
They did so much to make her existence tolerable, and she burdened them so much with her problems, so it was only fair that she did everything in her power to make it up to them.
"Which means I sh-should go, right?"
Their eyes met, like strangers in the night met Jack the Ripper.
"Does it look like I can answer that question?"
Ash shrugged and breathed a breath the same as any other. Where she had been, a void in the heaviness of the conversation she didn't expect to invest any effort to fill. She got up in one smooth motion and started for the kitchen adjacent to their room. A drink sounded better than the movie.
"If you want people to be happy you make yourself happy first."
She didn't bother with eye contact for that one. Throwaway, washed up on the river banks, no longer moving or breathing.
"Does it look like I can answer that question?"
Ash shrugged and breathed a breath the same as any other. Where she had been, a void in the heaviness of the conversation she didn't expect to invest any effort to fill. She got up in one smooth motion and started for the kitchen adjacent to their room. A drink sounded better than the movie.
"If you want people to be happy you make yourself happy first."
She didn't bother with eye contact for that one. Throwaway, washed up on the river banks, no longer moving or breathing.
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