Survival Of The Fittest

[Keisha Higgins-Bell, meanwhile.]

Keisha frowned as she sifted through the yearbook materials, eyes poring over every bit of paraphernalia she could get her hands on. So, yeah, she was finding stuff, but not stuff on the people she felt she really had to enshrine before anything bad really started going down. She didn’t need to know what the fuck the business was of Kelly Nguyen, Suckup Extraordinaire, because hello, Keisha didn’t have to play like that to get good grades. Nah, she got it through hard work. And standing up for herself, and speaking in class, and generally being able to be a competent student without any sort of buttering up whatsoever.

There was Ms. Baby Mama Drama, who okay, was fun to gossip about when she was like outside, having her baby, but back at school? Was generally someone to stay way clear of in the hallways. Even Adele, smiling with all of her gal pals, probably before running around sticking her nose into places where they had no real place being. Maybe people called her nosy, but Adele was pushy - like yeah, bullying wasn’t something that should happen, but acting as if God gave you the power to go and defuse conflict? Something that also shouldn’t happen. Some basic white boy was there too, his quote baseball or whatever, and yes, they were all dead, and yes, Keisha was still wondering if she should’ve tried to care more.

It was wrong to speak ill of the dead, she knew that, but it was something to hold on to, because she knew if she stopped roasting and started reminiscing, she was sure enough gonna end up ill herself.

---

If there was one silver lining to this, to being left behind when her friends were probably either cutting up or getting up by a bunch of crazy people, it was that she finally saw the value in wearing black. A lot of it, in fact. Maybe those emo goth weirdos had finally infected her brain or whatever, in an odd ritual to make sure she didn’t forget their asses, but in any case, she was still trying to stick to routine, still trying to get out there. Still trying to remember. Like everything was fine, things still all great and good and hyped about graduation. Not that it was happening anymore, but mood. All about the atmosphere.

Keisha called bullshit on that. B-U-L-L-S-H-I-T, not just those little kinds of BS, like some light grinding at a dance, but some real juicy stuff, such as the whole Carter twins debacle, with Ivy sandwiched right in the center of it- hopefully not literally. Was cool though, she and Ivy were chill, she and Ivy were still getting along, she and Ivy were-

Probably never going to see each other again.

She held up a photo, with all the cheer squad gathered around as if they didn’t hate each others’ guts. Yup, she was there, Mercy was there, Lori, Amber (probably, unless it was like Ambrose), even Madison. All of them, smiling, or at least not frowning, all gone. Just like that. Flash, boom, bye. This was why she had to do it. This was why she had to hold onto what happened before, because wherever they were now, it wasn’t good.

Really, though, it was because she knew, deep down inside, within a part of her she would’ve liked to hide much, much better, that regardless of who came back, she probably wasn’t ever going to try to speak to them again. Whether it was Meka, Ivy, even Myles or something, there was nothing good to be found in trying to help someone broken, help them heal.

Sure, Keisha could gossip with the best, throw quips around as if she was Tiffany Haddish in the house, yes indeed, but when it came down to heartfelt discussions? Long, deep, heart wrenching contemplations on insecurity and doubt? Not her forte, no, and so she resolved to do this. Make some kind of archive for posterity, of how they were before, of how they were meant to be, and hope that was enough to guide them through, because she sure as hell couldn’t. She could make shit shine, but she couldn't make diamonds from coal. Wasn’t the Keisha way. Maybe this could get her into Columbia Journalism, though, and a bitter smile bubbled up to her face at that thought.

She was still holding onto the large cardboard box with photo tucked inside, the box that she got after hours on the phone with the yearbook people, as she used her legs to push back and forth on the swing. It creaked, almost seemed to audibly crack, but still, it held firm, as Keisha dragged her sneaker-covered feet through the dirt, as she swung back and forth. Back and forth. Stuck in a cycle, really, stuck in a rut, but it was okay. It was fresh air, something for her to breathe in to stop from choking on the tears she was 100% sure would come.

A familiar face in the distance, though, stopped her, and by extension, the swing in its tracks. She looked up, eyebrow already raised on reflex.

"What're you doing here?"

He slipped off his headphones.

"Oh. Hey."

Gaelan's eyes diverted momentarily to the ground, before matching Keisha's.

((Gaelan Meloy, Meanwhile...))

The past several months had been a blur, even before Nick and Blaise disappeared. Ariana's anniversary came and went, Swiftball came and went, Prom came and went, and then the trip happened. When he realized that he didn't want to spend a good week trapped around some people who either hated him or were hated by him, he made sure he could fill in every afternoon at the shop, enthusiastically helping out middle-class faux hippies buy their fake bags from India and camel-hair ponchos. He watched Instagram stories and Snapchats, direct or otherwise, showcasing D.C. in all its grandoise, and each night became sadder when he realized he'd missed out on a big thing. He loved his mom, but he regretted not being selfish.

And then the stories stopped.

When the hundred and a half of Gaelan's classmates suddenly became a news item, Gaelan was suddenly notable, even though he had barely considered himself such recently. People were coming into the store, asking him questions, and yet no matter how much they looked in his mind like people looking for an undercover story, he refused to talk about anything but the items. Eventually, they left, and Gaelan would walk into the office and try to breathe again.

Eventually, he stopped going to work and stopped leaving his bedroom and stopped talking to people altogether, for more reasons than one, and suddenly it had been nearly three days since he'd gone outside. But once he realized that the news cycle of America would never let him forget what was more than likely going on and the thoughts he wanted more than anything pushed backwards were bursting forth, he put on his Beats and found the nearest park to get some goddamn quiet inside his own head just by drowning out every goddamn sound there was with the angriest people he could find booming through the wires, and suddenly there was Keisha, box in her hands and a look on her face like she hadn't seen him in years.

"I'm just...too many people."

Silence followed from both ends, before Gaelan realized what he needed to say after all, to anyone, even the girl who in his eyes held barely concealed mild contempt for him for dating one of her best friends. He walked up to the set of swings Keisha was perched on, sat on her seat's partner, the chain groaning the joints.

A lot could be asked that didn't need to be said at all because it felt redundant, but it hung in the air like an ugly balloon.

"How've..."

Even when he tried to start something, the sentence finished before the first word left his lips. He instead left the sentence to hang and looked down at the box of all that would remain of their class.

Keisha turned her head to face Gaelan, eyes boring in to him.

"What, cat got your tongue?"

The venom came easiest, spit out of her tongue at high velocity. Sure, honey got more flies than vinegar, but who wanted flies to buzz around them, anyways? Much easier to get some spray and get them out of your business. It was what came easiest to her, the witty comebacks and insults. It was easiest to get them all to go away, or make a clap-back that got some good laughs like that was all that was there to care about in this goddamn world, but still, the words rang hollow. The words were rude, sure, but the fire wasn't there.

Her face was almost blank as she continued to look at Gaelan, body still as she continued to look at him look at the box. Look at him, lost, confused, annoying, sometimes a jerk, but still, a person. A friend, occasionally. She could've tried to dig in deeper, find some more ammunition to fire as verbal salvos, but the blood within her veins didn't feel up to that. There was only a chill, a nasty one.

"...But really, how've I been doing? Shittily."

The familiarity of the word rolling off of her tongue helped to compose her face into something more live, something with some kind of energy flowing through it. She tilted the box, allowed him to view more of it, the photos of the damned, the dead, and them. The forgotten. Stuck here, stuck waiting, for the remnants of whatever person ended up finding their way back. It would have been easy to get angry again, but what was the point of that ow? There was no social pyramid to be maintained, no need to bother pretending that her parents were always out, not letting people know that she stayed up some nights listening to her mother fret about her next paycheck. There were no battles to be fought anymore. This was the ceasefire, and the quiet only made her more restless.

Slowly, Keisha tilted the box in Gaelan's direction, allowing for him to see more of what was stored within. She smiled bitterly.

"Guess I'm just trying to make something to remember them by. How about you?"

"Mmm."

It was still Keisha, after all. He couldn't expect anything different, even under the circumstances.

But of course, she seemed to be doing more than him. He'd retracted, but she looked like she was actually getting out and about, probably working towards something. The most he'd done in the past few days when he wasn't on Facebook or Instagram was just exercising, because if he let the darkness take ahold then it was the end of a lot of things, and pull-ups were the healthiest distraction. He hadn't even spoken to Lukas, and for all he knew Lukas was dealing with the whole thing better than himself.

There was someone else he'd spoken to as well, but that was a short conversation that he had yet to process even indirectly.

The box was now fully visible to him, and it was full of their classmates. Smiling, sporty, club-focused, even some candid stuff that would have been dreadfully out of place in yearbook, and Gaelan would know that given he was technically still a member. He might even have been the most senior one left, and wouldn't that have been a stitch? He only ever joined it as a backup choice to help a backup choice, something to help his college prospects if modelling didn't work out, and at the end of the world he was fully prepared to just sit in the room all day as the situation got worse until he realized they wouldn't be opening the school to the public for a long time now, which was why he was even in this park in the first place.

Still, the ends of his lips momentarily formed a narrow smile as he looked at the people who weren't coming home, at least until he saw someone related to the conversation he was putting off processing.

"I'm dealing with it, I guess."

Of course, now was the time to process it, because Gaelan had said it before he'd even realized the words were on their way.

"Me and Ariana broke up."

Well, Gaelan didn't seem too chatty, which was what Keisha kinda expected, considering all the shit that happened, but it still didn't leave her very satisfied. Conversations were not a one-way road, no sirree, and she wasn't really looking to be the driver of this little unexpected chat. He knew what he was doing, he knew who he was, he was the one who came up to her, so he could've filled in the dots, checked off the boxes, answered all the questions. Not just look down at the boxes, smiling like he knew what was up.

She envied that, sometimes. The ease with which people seemed to inhabit spaces, never feeling as if they were the only speck of something against a stark white backdrop, as if they knew what their place was already. A place that didn't have to be carved through the most shocking rumors, the fakest laughs, all the goddamn tumbles in the world. She liked that place, duh, worked hard for it, but she wasn't sure if it even existed anymore. And Gaelan was just another reminder of that, something keeping her tethered to this town, to this place. To the people in the photos in the box, as if it was all good. All nice.

"Dealing? That's one thing to call it."

Their banter was awkward, always had been for people that in theory should've been a lot of friendlier than they actually were. It was okay, she could deal, just for now, chase away the emptiness with something so meaningless it'd-

"WHAT THE FUCK!?"

Suddenly, the blood came rushing back in a heat of haze and rage and fire, and all Keisha knew she could do was focus it on the source of it. Stare into him like her eyes were magnifying glasses on an ant, burn to brittle bone until nothing was left. That asshole, that jerk, all her suspicions confirmed in one fell swoop, and he mentioned it like that? Like he was ordering another dish at the Diner for Jackasses Who Didn't Support Women? Fuck this, fuck it all, and for one shining moment, she knew there was something else to fight. Someone else to confront.

Her hands pulled the box away from him, nails holding onto it like talons.

"...Why the fuck, what the hell were you thinking?"

She would've laughed at this, because of course Gaelan who would turn out turn out to be like this, she'd called it, she'd called it, and she was right, and she should've been happy, but instead, the only thing she felt was burning.

"Tell me. Now."

Ah, yes, this was why the sentence was caught in his mouth in the first place. Because the only way out was through Keisha.

The moment it aired itself, he hadn't expected anything but what he got. Fire and vitriol from Keisha, like a bubbling volcano just ready to swamp and calcify the people of the city. He could feel the rage singe the light hairs on his arms, burn off his eyebrows, and poison the crops. It probably wasn't to Keisha that he had the audacity to date one of her best friends, no, it was probably the fact that he had the audacity to date one of her best friends for as long as he did before it ended the way it did. The latter of the latter fact, however, was something that she wasn't aware of the circumstances of yet, and was demanding them as they sat there.

Well, Keisha, there's no keeping secrets from you. He'd learnt that much over the years, when private conversations concerning facts about himself that happened to be in her earshot somehow ended up in Ivy's hands, or the moments of uncomfortable silence between them even before most of their class was missing and soon to be dead, and while her methods weren't the same as they were now, it wasn't as though he really had anything to hide, or anything to prove, anymore.

"Well for starters, you're going to have to ask what Ariana was thinking, Keisha."

He didn't feel like a statue anymore. He felt like a man impersonating a statue, with coins as upkeep instead of dedication.

"Because it was her who broke up with me."

Keisha was ready. Ready to go tell off this stupid-ass white boy, tell him to his face what she'd been thinking all these years, everything she'd long to tell to Ariana about how he'd leave her ass, go find some other dumb-ass white chick to stick his dick into, and that'd be it. End of question, boy bye, all packed and sealed off. No more trifling, no more trouble. That simple, that easy, that cathartic, because it'd mean she was right then, right?

Meant Keisha knew best, Keisha knew all, and just a few weeks ago, that would've meant the world to her. Now, though, all she wanted was someone else to burn, to point the flames inside at anything else, and that meant Gaelan was as convenient a target. She was ready to lay into him, tongue of spite, words like bullets, when the next words that spilled out of his mouth kept all those right in the chamber.

"W-what?" She said, definitely not stuttering and definitely keeping her cool, because seriously, what? It was tempting to think he could have lied, could have done some shit again, because that was what Gaelan did, say stupid shit she passed off to Ivy or whoever. The friend within Keisha wanted to start more shit, walk off and be done like that, but the gossip within her wanted to know just a little bit more.

Awful shit, sure, but if there was just a little ounce of truth, she had to know. For the truth. In memory of everyone. That was what she told herself, at least, crossing her arms and tilting her head.

"Like really, the fuck? She tell you anything else, or did you just run out then?"

Keep it cool, keep it Keisha.

The beast had been quelled, or as quelled as Keisha could be. Not that she was a beast, but her anger alone was not something Gaelan was ready for.

"Well, it was...shit, probably wasn't even a day ago. Hadn't spoken to her in a while, on account of everyone being gone. I just...we both have friends who aren't coming back, and I wanted some time alone, and I figured she'd want the same thing too, yeah? Just be alone with our feelings or whatever? And like...she called me last night, and she was screaming about how I wasn't there for her."

It was true, all of it. Gaelan had only really been thinking about his own feelings, and yet in the entirety of his and Ariana's relationship he hadn't really caught on to how she sorted her emotions out. Sometimes, Gaelan thought it was a female thing, but the more he pieced together just how badly the past few months had gone for him, maybe he was just bad at anyone else's emotions but his own - man, woman, or Blaise. Then again, Blaise had never let down that guard, so what was there to do?

"She wanted me there, and I wasn't, 'cause I was off doing my own thing, y'know? I couldn't deal with being around people, so I thought...well, I thought, that's where that went wrong. And by the time that phonecall finished we were both single."

Gaelan's hand grasped the swing's chain, nudging the frame of his vision which had Keisha and the box as its features. He looked down at the pictures, at the familiar yet utterly painful splash of pink.

"Oh, and she said that she'd figured out I was still in love with Ivy after all this time."