Title: Tell Me Why I Don't Like Mondays
Author: cherry vanilla
Codes: short story, Original, Angst
Rating: PG-13
Status: NEW, Complete 8/22/01
Series/sequel: no
Summary: "And soon we'll be learning that the lesson today is how to die."
Notes: Completely inspired by the Tori Amos version of "I Don't Like Mondays." A departure from all the feel good fic I've been writing lately. I'm still in the romantic mood, but this one was nagging to be written.
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"And he can see no reasons
Cos there are no reasons
What reasons do you need to die"
* * * * * * * * * *
When he thinks back now, he seems inclined to remember last summer the most. The time before everything went to hell, before the horror began and things seemed so easy.
His most vivid memory is standing at the beach in the shallow water, Greg's arms wrapped around his waist, his lips kissing his neck and neither of them caring what other people thought of it because they were living in that moment, living their lives.
And then had school began again and the harassment and threats had started. They'd tried to shrug it off as best they could. Maybe they shouldn't have. Maybe they should've said something.
He closes his eyes against the cold, the ground is solid beneath his feet and he finds it hard to stand up straight. He feels his parents by his side as he makes the difficult walk up to the casket. He flashes back to that winter's day.
It was the day that their club would meet, the school nearly abandoned by that time. Of all the sources behind the harassment, he had to say the shock of it being a girl was something he still hadn't overcome.
She'd come in and started preaching about how they were sinners, how they were unnatural beings. She'd claimed they flaunted what they were and didn't have respect for others. Out of the corner of his eye, he remembers seeing one of his friends at the door and running out as he took in the situation. He remembers that being around the same time that he'd seen the gun. Greg had taken his hand under the table and had started talking to her as calmly as he could muster.
But he himself couldn't talk; all he could do was stare as his mind flashed on every moment in their lives that they'd had together because 'if this was where it had to end, he'd thought, then at least let me remember the good things': the first time they'd kissed, the first time they'd made love, the first time they'd told their parents and, after a while, were finally understood and accepted as best as they could hope to be. He remembers thinking at the time that they sure had a lot of firsts by the age of nineteen. He didn't dream that almost dying would be on the list.
But she had continued screaming and Greg had continued talking to her, the grip becoming painful. He'd squeezed back and faintly asked her not to do this.
The cops had come in a moment later, and the shot had gone off. Thinking back now, he wonders if maybe they would have been able to stop her. To this day, he blames the cops for scaring her, making the hand slip on the trigger as started turning around. The rest of that day, he barely remembers now. Except screaming and cradling Greg and not letting go even when he was told it was over. He didn't remember leaving the school or how he'd gotten home.
Later, he was told that she wasn't sane. He'd said he could figure that much out on his own, but 'tell me, is that a reason?'
'There are no reasons,' the cop had responded, and actually let him cry on his shoulder.
He almost can't look at Greg's face as he goes up. But he forces himself to. His lifeless body is too much to bear, though, and he falls over while clutching the photograph of the two of them in his hand. He slips it inside and kisses Greg's cheek. And whispers good-bye.
He hopes that maybe one day, he'll be able to return to that room. That one day, he'll be able to visit Nicole Miller in jail and spill out all the pain he has inside, make her feel some kind of shame. He hopes that one day, he'll be able to like Mondays again.
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END