Solace
Rating: Dark themes, so might be in R-territory.
Notes: I chose Drusilla because it means strong, not just because I happen to be a Buffy fan. Wesley is meant as more of a Princess Bride reference than an Angel one. Beth is, however, a Moonlight reference.
Drusilla and Wesley are from a completely fictional town called Millerville. The town in which they are living now, Cartref (the Welsh word for home), has a reasonably big university called Candle University, after Richard J. Candle, the founder.
Chapter one:
I wasn’t even sixteen when the entire world spun off its axis and left us nauseous and waiting for sanity to return. Because the world I knew before was not this cruel. It was cruel enough to make life hell for Jude and make it the easiest thing in history for JD, but it was not cruel enough to destroy us completely. All of us, even the ones who were left standing. That was just the three of us. Three out of the eight who walked into that room made it out whole.
I have been back in that room. Not just screaming in fear at night, but in actuality as well. Just once, because after seeing the bloodstains on the floor and still being able to see it fall I have not set foot in that room again. I couldn’t. Other students might have believed the paint story, but Wes and I knew so much better than that. We were there.
We were there when - no, I can’t do this. You can look it up on the Internet, and you will find everything that you need to no and much more. Just don’t talk to me about it. I am stared at more than enough already, because everyone has seen the press coverage. Everyone knows. And the ones who don’t know immediately hear it from their classmates as they whisper and point at me when I am just trying to get to class.
It was just one day, and it happened over seven years ago. But it is all people see when they look at me. And it is all I see when I look at myself, because scars don’t fade over time. You can try to cover them up, but they will still be there.
Some scars are external, and those scars are the ones that everyone points to. Other scars are a bit more hidden from plain view. They are the ones that make me stay away from people I don’t know well enough. So, everyone but Wes, I guess.
And Beth. That is a recent development. Me having a friend other than Wes. Someone who didn’t know me before, but still accepts that she may not always get everything there is to get about me. She has not see my kind of horrors, but she is not a complete innocent either. And that is a good thing, because true innocents get ruined by being around me.
Why I signed up to be an RA for our university’s exchange students… Actually, I can blame Wes for that, because he told me to do it. He knows that helping people is what I do, even though I am not good at connecting at all. I need to help people, because I can’t be helped, according to my former shrink. She gave up on me.
But that’s just what people do; give up. Sooner or later, people just give up. They give up on love, they give up on caring about anyone or anything in the entire world, and eventually they give up on life altogether. And then it’s all over.
Sometimes I’m scared that I am going to give up on everything. But I am even more scared that it means that Wes is going to give up and leave me. And I know that I am going to sound pathetic, but he is all that I have left. We have always been Dru and Wes, constantly together as if we were stuck together at birth. Well, at my birth, because he is almost a year older than I am.
The only times that we have been apart for longer than necessary, were his two girlfriend-periods with Jenna and Tessa. And even then we spent time together. Not much, because he felt they were more important at the time. That is why the Jenna-period and the Tessa-period were the two times we fought. I get cranky when I can’t sleep at night. And without talking to Wes, there is not sleep for me. The level of dependence scares everyone, but mostly my parents. They tell me we need to get our own lives away from each other. Even the thought of that makes me sick to my stomach.
It is not that I do not know that it’s wrong that I’m so dependant on him, it is just that I cannot help but need him. He is my rock, and even though I tell him that he is being ridiculous, he tells me that he needs me to lean on as well. Two victims saving each other. It is unheard of, and the Grimm brothers - and Walt Disney - would turn in their graves, but it actually works. In a seriously dysfunctional and bad way.
“Are you thinking about me?” I suddenly hear Wes coming up behind me, making me jump up in fright, as usual.
It is not just because he is so good at sneaking up on me - because he is not that good at it - it is also that I scare easily. I spend half my time scared to death.
“You scared me,” I breathe.
“I’m sorry,” he says, only half-serious. “But it’s time to go. I don’t want to be late.”
Wes can be anal about time. He is the kind of guy who gets his pizza for free because he times the pizza boy. He needs to be on time for absolutely everything, and he thinks that everyone else should be on time as well.
“We don’t have to be there at a certain time.”
“Your parents are expecting us for dinner,” he tells me.
“Oh, okay. I didn’t know.”
“I know you really do not want to sit through another lecture about how unhealthy this thing is. I don’t either. But they’re parents to the both of us.”
“They used to be,” I correct my best friend.
Back when life had at least some fairness to it, my parents were the best parents a girl could wish for. They practically adopted Wes and they always understood me and what I needed. We had our disagreements from time to time, which is only normal, but everything got back to normal easily. And then they just stopped understanding me. They forced me to talk about it when my vocal chords were still glued shut with fear. And when I most needed to work through the fear, they smothered me. Wes and Lany were the only ones who got it right.
I miss Lany. She always knew exactly what to say, and she was my second-best defender, right after Wes. She just zeroed in on any insecurities the bullies had and exploited them, for defense purposes only. Jude practically worshipped her, because she had been saved so many times. Lany was a good person. I miss her so much.
“Dru, you’re lost in the past again.”
“I miss Lany,” I tell him.
“We’re in the present. Lany’s gone.”
“I sound like a five-year-old. I hate whining like this. I hate it.”
“I understand. I miss them too.”
“I know,” I say, looking him in the eye.
“Then let’s skip the soap opera dramatics and get on the road,” Wes waves theatrically.
We are both still lost in the past, no matter what Wes says about living in the present. We still live with the past in the back of our minds, because we are reminded of it with every step we take and everything we do. Every single thing we do is a reminder of all the things they can never do. Because of the men rotting in jail for the rest of their long, miserable lives. They took them. All of them.
When I close the door of my room behind me, Wes is right in front of me, staring intensely. Usually, this focused look means he has figured out some chords for the band’s next song, but now that this look is directed at me, I am not exactly sure just where his head is at. Sometimes it is him just staring off into space, sometimes he sees the old me, the girl he became best friends with in the second week of kindergarten and for some inexplicable reason remained friends with throughout the years.
“Write those chords down before you forget them.” I tell him, with the smile almost actually reaching my eyes, for once.
“You know me so well.”
“To well, according to mom and dad.”
“They will just have to deal with it,” he argues.
He then puts his hand on the small of my back and leads me out the door of the building I live in. And also the building where he spends most of his time, when he is not off to brand practice or working at the bar. And even then I’m there most of the time. I am not a bar kind of person, so I just sit in the manager’s office and write. Wes comes over during his breaks, and it’s all good for the both of us.
“How has Beth been,” Wes then asks.
He likes her. And how could he not? She is beautiful, a great dancer, and she is so kind to me. She looks like a young Lauren Graham. And I really hate comparing myself to anyone - because I always come out lacking - but I am more of a young Judy Greer.
“Beth is fine, as far as I know.”
“Well, that’s good,” he says after minutes of silence.
“We’re almost there,” I say.
With all the awkward silence we have managed to get towards the place I don’t want to go back to. My hometown, the place where it all happened, and the place that hasn’t changed much since then. But everything that kept me there is long gone. And coming back only makes me remember what is not there anymore.
The incident is the town’s most important claim to fame. They have t-shirts for sale, saying ‘I survived Millerville’, or some other things like that. The town has never made this much money, and they did it by selling, or just plain capitalizing on, the horrific deaths of my friends and the abuse we all went through. And it kills me.
The car stops and my stomach lurches. I have been here many times before, but it never stops being so incredibly painful that I want to stop going. But I owe it to them to keep going, to keep going here and to keep going in general.
Judith Etherton: 1984-2001.
Beloved daughter, caring friend.
May your soul brighten the world forever.
‘Hey Jude’, the song starts playing in my head and I need to take a deep breath. I cannot listen to that song anymore without thinking of her.
Cole Beresford: 1983-2001. Son and friend.
Another deep breath, and the lump in my throat won’t go away.
Jordan Davis: 1983-2001. An ordinary hero.
I see JD’s body falling to the floor, but not in the slow-motion that you always see in the movies. I see it on a loop, repeating itself over and over again until it is all that I see while I drop the flowers onto the ground below his name.
Theodore Stanford: 1985-2001. Protector.
The look on his face when they pulled Gabby away from him and towards them. He would rather die than let anything happen to her. But even his death did not stop them, and that hurts so badly. They just did not stop. For nothing.
Delaney Langdon: 1985-2003. Never leave us.
I can’t breathe anymore, so I run away from the graves of the only friends we have ever known. Wes is leaving the rest of the flowers while I try to stomach it all, while I try to get ready for visiting Gabby.
“Why was it so bad this time,” Wes asks me when he reaches me.
“My new exchange student is Dutch.”
“Did you say what Theo taught you?”
“Yeah, I did,” I answer, no longer able to fake a smile.
“Are you still up for visiting Gabby?”
I don’t want to talk, so I just take his hand and slowly drag him towards the car. We need to visit Gabby, because she never gets any other visitors besides us and her sister. I know you are not supposed to visit out of obligation, but it’s what gets me through the pain a visit causes for the both of us.
The door is open when we arrive, and we walk in without any problems. Until the obstacle of nurse Satan, who has never liked us. Maybe she just hates visitors in general, but she never wants me and Wes there.
“Here to see miss Holcomb again,” she asks.
“Yes, nurse Stanton,” Wes replies.
She takes us to Gabby’s room without another word, but her murderous looks speak louder than a thousand words. Wes rolls his eyes at her behind her back, but I always get a little intimidated. With one last evil look, she opens the door to Gabby’s room.
“Miss Holcomb, your friends are here to see you,” the nurse speaks up towards her patient. “Now I’ll be in the hall if you need anything.”
“Yes nurse Ratchet,” Wes mumbles.
I shoot him a disapproving look, because it would not do to get kicked out of here. If Wes gets us kicked out, there is no way Gabby will make any progress. And he knows that, so he stops talking until the horrid nurse walks out of the room.
“Gabby, it’s us again,” I try to make her hear me. “Dru and Wes.”
“You look old,” Gabby speaks up.
“I’m twenty-three Gabby,” I explain. “And so are you.”
So it’s one of those days again, one of the days when she thinks that she is still sixteen years old. That is not really that bad, until she relives that day again. Her mind is a cruel thing, constantly jumbling everything up and making her go through these horrors time and time again. The pain never stops.
“Wesley, you look old too. But nice.”
“So do you, Gabby.”
“Where is Theo? He was supposed to take me out today. We were going to see that movie that everyone has been talking about, the one with -”
God, Theo, if only you had made it out of that room. I am sure that you would have been able to get the old Gabrielle back, that you would have been able to save her. She loved you more than anyone else. It was your death that made her mind bend the last bit over the line. If those men hadn’t killed you, she would have -
No! Wes keeps telling me that it is wrong to think in what-ifs. I cannot keep imagining what life would have been like if those men had never decided to rob the school. Because reality is not a fabric that can be torn and mended. Reality is fixed and it is not going to change. It never will. No matter how much reality hurts you. And it will.
