CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE | JESS BRADFORD

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          The thing about constantly feeling like the world is about to end and that something terrible will certainly happen is that you don't know what to do with yourself or how to function when you don't feel that way. You grow used to the permanent rumbling panic nesting in your chest, grow to be grateful that your brain is trying to protect you, and you can't help but feel betrayed when you fail to get a heads up.

          Even when nothing bad happens, even when you're painfully aware this is not sustainable and is ruining your life, part of you resents the moments you manage to forget and live. I don't miss having panic attacks during lectures or on campus, in front of the entire student body, and I certainly don't miss having to lock my bedroom door because a noise outside scared me, so I should be thankful I've been mostly fine tonight.

          Hell, the worst thing to happen to me tonight was dancing with some guy I don't know—thankfully not Callum, as Odette would never forgive me if I crossed that line—and it didn't trigger any panic in me. It was just guilt—good old, reliable guilt—and mild disgust, both things that would be normal in someone in my shoes. I don't want to make a habit out of drinking my weight in alcohol when I can't even handle one cup of vodka soda, regardless of college parties being a formative experience in every young adult's life or not. This life isn't for me.

          Julie stares back at me like I've just insulted her entire family, and I'm suddenly conscious of how many people are standing in this kitchen, staring right back at me. Odette and Callum are still here, no longer as oblivious to their surroundings as they previously were, now that I've unceremoniously interrupted their private moment.

          It's dawning on me that I don't really know any of these people, nor have I ever made an effort to change that, even with them switching up their daily routines for my sake. Waltzing into a party and turning the spotlight on me, putting Maeve in a tough, awkward position by making her pour me a cocktail when I can't drink, and feeling entitled to Julie's time isn't doing my reputation any wonders.

          Still, part of me wonders if this is who they expected me to be or not; what did they think the local Final Girl would be like? Am I shattering their expectations? If yes, is it in a good or in a bad way? Am I as mediocre and bland as I'm supposed to be, nothing but a trope instead of an antithesis of one?

          "I think you should get some water first," Julie says. I look away from the two people in the kitchen I know, panic over disappointing them and embarrassing them spreading across my chest like ice water. This is the person they've brought along to introduce to the rest of their friends—painfully unremarkable. "You look a bit pale."

          Odette steps forward, heels clicking across the tiled floor. "Come on, Wendy. Let's go."

          I don't want to go anywhere with her, not when I stumbled into the kitchen to talk to someone else, and she's making things so much harder than they need to be. She's not the enemy, I know that, but someone in this house has to be, and she's the most familiar face and, therefore, the easiest target. Not even Callum gets treated that way.

          "I'm okay—"

          She shoves a glass of water in my hand. "Drink that. Sit down." She pushes me towards one of the high stools, which I wouldn't struggle with climbing to if I were sober, no doubt, and I reluctantly obey. Now that I'm no longer causing a scene, people aren't paying much attention to me anymore, but I don't want to give them a chance to reconsider I'm more than the good girl who follows the rules. Contradicting a trope is dangerous. "What's going on with you? This isn't you."

          The new version of me I'm trying to show off to the world, whether it cares about it or not, would tell her she doesn't know anything about me and has no business pointing out holes in my personality or facade, but I bite my tongue. The alcohol, I assume, hasn't left me that uninhibited.

          I like Odette, though I'm terrified of her simply because I'm scared of anyone who doesn't automatically welcome me with open arms and is always warm and cuddly.

          Warm and cuddly like Sidney. My stomach turns when I reach out a hand to pet a dog that isn't present.

          "I know we're not close like you and Betty are, but I hope you know you can talk to me if you need to," Odette continues, sitting next to me and supporting an elbow on the countertop behind us. I don't want to be having this conversation again, especially under these circumstances, and she sounds like she's underwater, her voice barely reaching me. Even while sitting down, the house is still spinning, blurring together like a carousel moving at full speed. "I don't want to be another stressful thing in your life."

          She isn't, which I should remind her of aloud just so she isn't the one feeling stressed out, but I'm too big of a coward to do so. I timidly sip my water, afraid an abrupt change in nutritional value—or lack thereof—will upset my stomach any further, and I'm acutely aware of why no one should be drinking while taking meds, particularly Zoloft.

          I miss the feeling of being effortlessly weightless, like I was floating around the house like a fairy without a single care in the world, but reality sinks in, sinks me like an anchor. The aching in my chest gets harder to ignore, pulsating with each beat of my heart, and I can very well be glowing neon with the attention I think I'm attracting.

          Realistically, no one cares. It's like I'm not even here, and there's only three, maybe four people aware of my presence, like they've already forgotten all about the way I returned to the kitchen. Overestimating my importance in people's lives has gotten me in trouble before—I thought I mattered enough to not find myself cornered by my machete-wielding friend, but alas—and, at most, this is my paranoia speaking. The constant terror caused by the sensation of being watched, of being stalked has yet to manifest itself as a tangible, physical form.

          People enter and exit the kitchen. No one looks my way, as though I'm not even present, as invisible as I wish I could be, and the music is still booming across the hallway.

          Then, as if I weren't feeling unsteady enough, the ground sways beneath me and the legs of the stool I'm perched up on like a canary. The horribly familiar smell of a certain cologne is like a sucker punch—the spicy scent of ginger and pepper, softening slightly with the aid of notes of citrus—and is everywhere around me, no matter where I turn my head to.

          I exhale, knowing I'll have to inhale back the oxygen at some point, but I can't allow myself to do so. I know I'll never fail to recognize that scent, much like I know I'll never let it hit me the same way as before; the way it gets under my skin, the way it weaves into my hair and clothes is as aggressive as being doused with it. It was everywhere that night, mixed with the putrid smell of death and the metallic odor of blood, following me like a shadow.

          "You've had a lot to drink," Odette continues, though her voice is little more than persistent buzzing in my ears. I only remember having had one cup, the one I asked Maeve to pour me, but I don't know how much time has passed since that moment and now, with me wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole. "Every time I looked your way, you were getting a refill, then you were dancing—"

          I close my fingers around her wrist. She instantly stiffens, inching closer to me. "Can you get me out of here?"

          A dull sound echoes in the distance, like footsteps slowly approaching—purposefully slow, like a taunt, like a threat. When the footsteps stop, so will everything else. Even then, I still search for him in the crowd; after all, there was a period of my life, now overshadowed by the events of one night, when this smell was associated with nothing but good memories—memories of a close friend.

          It's Tom Ford, Jake used to say, whenever questioned about his decision to wear such a strong-scented cologne. We could smell it from miles away. It gets the point across.

          "Do you need Jules?" Odette asks, taking the hand I keep on her wrist with her free one. "I can go get her—"

          "Just get me out," I repeat, slipping out of the stool. Odette is the single reason I don't fall forward, flat on my face, and she's surprisingly strong for someone this small, four whole inches shorter than me.

          "I'll take you upstairs, okay? Callum's room is empty. He's very particular about limiting access to it during house parties, so you won't run into anything in there." I almost snort out a chuckle. I don't find the energy in me to do it, which would ease the tension between us. "I need to ask him for the key, but I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."

          I don't think I'm able to go anywhere by myself, as pathetic as it sounds, and I watch her cross the kitchen as my chest heaves. My breathing is louder than everything else, louder than the heavy bass line from the music playing, louder than the chatter around me, and my vision blurs at the edges. Jake is nowhere to be found, but I can still smell him, can still hear his footsteps.

          So much for forgetting.

          Odette is by my side quickly after, with Callum beside her and Julie in tow. Julie looks somewhat suspicious of her surroundings, suspicious of me, and I can't say she's at fault when I'd be feeling the same way. If Maeve knows about me and wants me to know about Julie, then I'm certain Julie, too, knows about me—she knows what I am, what I've been through, and she knows why I tried to pull her aside. She knows me by name, and there's a strange feeling floating around in my chest, swelling with pride over being recognized, of getting the official Final Girl stamp of approval.

          It hurts that this is the only thing that matters these days, even after all my efforts to not turn into that, to not partake in a narrative that sensationalizes my suffering and my trauma. I cling to that title like it's the only part of me that is minimally interesting, both to the world and to myself, and I go back and forth between hating it and holding on to it like a lifeline. This black and white way of thinking isn't one Doctor Albott is amused by, and she constantly pushes me to find the gray area, but I've never been balanced.

          I stumble up the stairs like Bambi on ice, but the power of four and friendship prevails over the side effects of my mistakes. Callum opens the door as I sway back and forth, with only Odette to keep me in place, and I swear I can vaguely hear him ask her if they should call Xavier to ask for help.

          No words come out of my mouth—but who's shocked by this at this point, really—and I don't want to make a fool out of myself by responding to something that wasn't directed at me and may very well not even have been said. No one looks at me during the brief exchange, either, so I don't bother making my voice heard.

          Callum unlocks the door and I'm greeted by a generic college boy's bedroom. There are sports trophies proudly displayed on a shelf, while the others are filled to the brim with personal belongings, including framed photographs, books, and important-looking textbooks. The bed is neatly done, the light-gray blankets and duvet contrasting with the steel-blue shade of the walls and the crimson pillowcases, and it's where Callum points me towards.

          "Do you need someone to drive you home?" he asks me, while Odette sets an even taller glass of water than before on the bedside table. Callum rushes towards it, coaster in hand. "Careful, OC. Expensive furniture. Mom's gonna kill me if anything's ruined."

          Odette presses her lips into a thin line at the use of the nickname, which I cannot understand why he's still using it when it's so obvious she hates it, but says nothing other than a rushed, muttered apology.

          "In a bit, I think," I reply, voice raspy from me nearly choking with my own breath in the kitchen. I clear my throat. "Thanks."

          He nods. "No worries. We'll be downstairs if you need anything. Jules is staying here for a bit, I'm guessing."

          Jules occupies an empty spot at the end of the bed, away from me like I'm ill and contagious, and the fist around my heart tightens its grip. Out of all people in the world, she's the one that shouldn't be acting that way.

          "I'm sorry for ruining everything," I tell Callum, hoping my voice doesn't sound nearly as desperate as I think he does, and he's already standing by the door when he looks back at me over his shoulder. "I'm sorry. I really am."

          "Wendy, it's just a party. There are more important things to me."

          "Oh, yeah, I can totally see what you see in him, OC," Jules snarks. Odette flashes her a middle finger, while Callum lets out a deep sigh as he exits the room. "Total charmer."

          "Thanks, Jules," Odette retorts, then turns to me as she slips out of her leather jacket and wraps it around my shoulders. She's always been so self-assured; it's odd seeing her this hesitant, like she's more scared of me than I am of her. "I'll give you a ride whenever you want to leave. Text me?"

          "Do I have your number?"

          "Actually, no. I don't really give people my number, but Betty gave me yours." I scowl. I know Betty didn't do it out of malice—it's only natural to have the phone number of the people you hang out with regularly—and she must have thought she was doing me a favor, assuming I wouldn't reach out to Odette by myself, but it still feels a bit too invasive. "I'll text you, then you can text me back."

          She follows Callum as soon as she stops talking, closing the door behind her, and it's just Julie and me sitting on Callum's bed. I'm too mortified to even breathe properly, now that my heart is no longer pounding like a sledgehammer, and I figure this is a great time to showcase my talent for holding my breath without actually pretending to be dead. That joke almost never lands.

          "So, what are you supposed to be?" Julie asks, breaking the silence.

           "Huh?"

          "For Halloween." She nods towards me with her chin. "This is a Halloween party."

          "Oh." I stare at one of Callum's trophies in the distance so I won't have to look her in the eye when I inevitably say something stupid. "Someone who doesn't care, I guess." 

          "I don't think you're doing a particularly good job at it. No offense." None taken. If anything, I'm relieved to have someone be honest with me instead of walking on eggshells when I'm in the room, like I'm threatening to shatter and deflate like a disturbed soufflé. "You're supposed to dress up as something different from Halloween; if you're doing what you spend the rest of the year doing, then what's the point? Suspension of disbelief?"

          "You sure sound like you know a lot about that."

          Her lips twist into a small scowl. "I've been doing it for a long time."

          She sounds like most of the Final Girls on those forums, treating it like a lifestyle or a hobby, and I'm not sure what I'm supposed to say in response to that. I don't think I've reached that point yet—and the fact that it appears to be inevitable frightens me—so I know this will be another brick wall separating our experiences, so I'm unsure why Maeve thought this would be productive or helpful to any of us.

          We're at two completely different stages of our journey. She doesn't like being around me and I'm intimidated by her mere presence, like it's even fair of me to call her seasoned thanks to the worst thing that has ever happened to her, and this night has been a disaster. I've caused most of the negative events, if not all of them.

          "It happened when I was fifteen," Jules begins, quieter this time. The hostility is still present in her tone, though I can't tell whether it's directed at me or at the story she's telling. Feeling enraged over what happened to you is a step I haven't taken yet, but I understand it—you're furious at the nerve of the people or person who ruined your life, you're furious at all the lives that were lost only for yours to be spared, you're furious over the loss of your girlhood. To many Final Girls—to most of them—life also stopped that day. "Summer camp, too. A former camp counselor wanted to get revenge for being bullied. We had nothing to do with it, but . . . you know." She lowers her head. "People never think rationally when they decide to do things like these."

          I stare down at my lap. Her description of the events, albeit short and straight to the point, hits far too close to home. "I'm sorry."

          She shrugs. "It's been six years."

          "Still."

          "You get used to it. Some days are easier; others, you feel like you're unable to get out of bed. Somehow, you find the strength to still do it." She leans forward, wrapping her frail arms around her knees. "Sometimes it overshadows every other feeling, and everything seems so bleak, so dark you wonder why you're still fighting, but then you realize you've learned to live with it. It's the only way you keep going—it's a habit. It becomes comfortable. Grief becomes your companion."

          We sit there for a while longer, as sharing a moment of silence grows to be more comfortable instead of awkward, and I feel her relax next to me. I don't want her to warm up to me or become my friend, as looking at each other will only remind us further of what happened, of how similar the events were, and I already feel like an open wound. I don't need to be bleeding out.

          I speak first. I know I shouldn't, I know it's wrong to break the silence, but I have to.

          "How do you move on?" I ask her. "How do you give yourself the permission to keep going?"

          Julie looks at me from the corner of her eye, never fully turning to face me, and I find my reflection in her pupil—disheveled, mascara streaming down my cheeks. "You're still in the guilt stage." She takes my silence as confirmation. "Honestly, I don't know. I don't think there's a set formula. One day, it just . . . it just happens. I'm certain people have told you to forgive yourself, to grieve everything, to allow yourself to mourn your past self, and I know it sounds like people are talking out of their asses. You sit there and think no one will possibly understand what you're going through, and their advice feels so fucking useless. They're telling you stuff you already know, things that sound so easy in theory, but they're not you. They don't understand that your brain has been rewired and reprogrammed to process things a certain way."

          "Yeah."

          "I don't know what to tell you. I really don't. Survivor's guilt is a real bitch, and you have to deal with it for the rest of your life; you have to work through your own grief and everyone else's. It doesn't matter if you move on if the people around you don't. They'll look at you and see the person who survived in lieu of their children or their friends. How is anyone supposed to heal when they're feeling like everyone regrets their survival?"

          A shiver runs down my spine. I force myself to remember this is a Final Girl, one who has been through a traumatic event eerily similar to mine, and it's normal to share feelings and thoughts. Having her echo to perfection the thoughts running through my mind and managing to put certain feelings into words as someone who truly gets it is like a breath of fresh air, but I find myself constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop.

          She speaks of it in a distanced way, like she's able to separate herself from the person she was at fifteen, like it happened to someone else, while I often have trouble coming to terms with that reality. Sometimes I succeed—my quest for a new normal has led me to this party, after all—but there are times when I'm sucked back into a period before that night, leading me to believe there's still a chance of fixing things. The quicker I drill into my mind that I don't get to be pre-Camp Comet Wendy, the quicker I'll be able to heal.

          "I'm not blaming you for feeling that way," she continues. "It's normal. We've all been there, some longer than others, but it's not all there is. Most of the time, it sucks. It fucking sucks. Surviving something like that changes you, and you have to live with it for the rest of your life, but there comes a time when it stops defining you. You probably won't be able to watch any horror movie with a female protagonist without feeling like you're being exploited for the sake of male entertainment, but it does get better." She wrinkles her nose. "I know it sounds so basic to say, and I know everyone's experiences are different and they deal with them differently, so there's no one-size-fits-all cure or magic solution, but hanging on to that sliver of hope might be the only thing getting you through. It is, until the day it isn't, and the world has opened back up. You'll find other things to hold on to."

          I let out a small sigh, brushing back my hair. "It's exhausting, though. It's so draining to constantly be on edge, to always put your survival first. You don't even get to enjoy things."

          "Yeah, well. That's part of the process, but I think you'll be fine." She smiles at me for the first time, and I understand. That moment, the world opens up to me—and it's so much brighter. "One day, you'll be living. Not just surviving."

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i am SO SORRY for the absurdly long chapter friends pls don't hate me