Survival Of The Fittest

Three goths sat in silence at a table in La Gelateria, watching live on Sadie's phone as an airplane touched down.

Heidi sniffled quietly.

"If you start crying, I'm gonna start crying too." Gerard quietly said.

"Sorry," Heidi mumbled.

Three goths sat at a table in La Gelateria, speaking as quietly as they could.

"Who was it?" Sadie asked.

Heidi was silent for a moment. She inhaled shakily through her nose.

"Salem, um, Salem shot him." she mumbled.

"Salem Fox?" Gerard asked.

Heidi nodded her head slightly.

"Jesus," Sadie muttered.

"It's, it's, I don't think he suffered, it was fast, but," Heidi mumbled, "just don't watch it. You don't need to watch it. I - just, don't watch any of it."

Three goths, all respectfully dressed in formal black, stood together at a wake in La Gelateria.

"Home," Wesley Schultz starting singing from the shop's music system, "is where I want to be-"

"Fuck," Heidi choked quietly, angling her face at the ceiling.

"You okay?" Sadie said.

"Mhm," she lied.

Three goths sat, talking at a table in La Gelateria.

"Yeah, I, uh, I'm apping to Yale." Gerard said.

"Oooh, Yaaale?" Sadie said, "I'm proud of you."

Heidi was quiet.

Two goths sat, talking at a table in La Gelateria.

"Well, she's alive. Because she's still reading my texts." Sadie said.

"I haven't seen her at school at all for, like, two weeks." Gerard said.

Just then, Sadie's phone vibrated.

"She says she's sick," she read aloud from the screen.

Gerard made an uneasy noise.

Two goths sat, talking at a table in La Gelateria.

Sadie's phone vibrated.

"Her mom says she's refusing to eat or speak, and they're gonna try to get her checked into a hospital," she read aloud from the screen.

"Jesus," Gerard said.

Two goths sat, talking at a table in La Gelateria.

Sadie's phone vibrated.

"Heidi says she's alive, and that she loves us but never wants to speak to any of us ever again, and that she's dropping out for the rest of the year. And also, apparently she's autistic," she read aloud from the screen.

"She's autistic?" Gerard said.

"That's what it says." Sadie said.

"She didn't seem autistic." Gerard said.

Sadie shrugged.

Two goths sat, talking at a table in La Gelateria.

"So. Guess who got into freaking Harvard???" Sadie said.

"No waaaaaay," Jared said.

"YES WAY, BITCH," Sadie said.

La Gelateria sat empty, an hour after closing time.

Inside, the lights turned on for a second, and then off.

And the Earth kept spinning.