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"no is a full sentence "
- elizabeth olsen

song to listen to: the first cut is the deepest by cat stevens

warnings: violence , knife-violence , blood , fighting , crying , getting injured

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july nineteenth , nineteen seventy-eight , around 12:45 P.M. 

"Hey, Cindy!" I look over at the doors of the mess hall opening, a small smile forming briefly on my face. "Can I ask you a question?"

"No, not right now. I am not in the mood for any questions. Let's just get this mess hall cleaned up, and then...then maybe you can ask questions. But right now? No. No, absolutely not." Her tone of voice and her posture made me recognize that a rant would start sooner, rather than later.

I didn't even bother to respond, knowing it would somehow make this situation worse. For about twenty minutes, there was silence between us, the only noise being the campers running around outside and Cat Stevens playing on the radio. It felt weird, for sure, but it gave me time to think about everything that's been happening. Pros and cons needed to be listed in my head on a strange day like this-sure, today could be considered a good day, but something felt weird. Making the list of good and bad helped with my anxiety. Something was going to go wrong, that's what my gut was telling me.

So! Some pros about today, let's see what I can think of. It's my birthday, I'm finally seventeen years old! One year away from legally being an adult. Tommy gave me a cupcake for breakfast, which is always a good thing! Tommy took me to a nice viewing area of the sunrise, Cindy and I danced to Grease's soundtrack, and Tommy asked me to marry him! Check, check, and check-all of those were good things. All of those were pros. So there couldn't be too many cons, right?

And here the cons go: my dad hasn't called me yet to wish me a happy birthday, Cindy's in a bad mood, and we're stuck cleaning the mess hall only for the kids to come in an hour later and screw it all up again! The pros outweighed the cons at this moment in time, so the hours left in this day could take me in several different directions. Hopefully, they were good directions, but I didn't want to dwell on it any longer for fear of jinxing it.

"I swear to God everyone just wants to...ruin my life." Cindy's annoyed and strained voice was a perfect distraction to my own thoughts, although she brought up a topic that might cause her bad mood to worsen.

"Hmm?" I asked, needing more context to her sentence.

"Alice? She's like...she just won't let it go, ya know? It's like we're still twelve years old and her whole goal in life is to punish me for something that wasn't even my fault!" She started to explain, and Tommy and I exchanged a look of disappointment.

"Can't believe you guys used to be friends," Tommy commented, looking over at Cindy after breaking our moment of eye contact.

"And Ziggy?" Cindy went on, ignoring Tommy's side comment, which only felt a bit off to me. "I mean it's only a matter of time before she ends up in jail or...worse! And I'm just trying to be a good role model and make something of myself," she started scrubbing the floor with an unnecessary amount of pressure applied. 

That caused me to stop cleaning and sit on the table I had been attempting to clean. Tommy glanced over at our girlfriend again, his facial expression only being able to be read as 'disbelief'. It's time to add another con to this day: Cindy's in a mood for ranting about her 'terrible life' again.

"But no no, I'm the stuck-up priss who hates fun which isn't even true at all, I like fun, I like fun! I just...I just want to get out of Shadyside is that so...so crazy?!" Her sentence ended with a gasp, and she straightened up to reveal the sponge she'd been using to clean wound up split in two. "Shit...Shit!" The swear word sounded like another language as it came out of her mouth, leaving Tommy and I stunned.

"Wow," I laugh, a smirk growing on my face even more.

"Did Cindy Berman just swear?" Tommy and I asked in unison, only for our parade to be rained on.

"Not now Tommy-" Cindy started to scold us, and although I knew she'd say my name, I had to go and speak up.

"What about me-" I start to ask, only to be cut off with a rude tone.

"Especially not now to you either, Mia! I am not in the mood." And with those final words, she stormed her way to the supply closet, leaving my happiness cut off for likely the rest of the day.

"What did I do?" I asked, looking at Tommy in hopes that he'd have an answer.

"You didn't do anything, babe. She's just...in a mood again." Tommy set down his sponge and walked over to me, resting his hands on my hips and pulling me a bit closer. "It isn't anything you did, that's a promise."

"Ziggy probably got her in this mood, right? Like...we can both agree that this is probably Ziggy's fault?" I wrap my arms around Tommy's neck, pulling him down so our foreheads can touch.

"It was definitely Ziggy's fault, but...today's still gonna be a good day, and that's a promise. You know I never break my promises, babe. I am going to make this the best day of your life, no matter what the cost is. Okay? So you just go with the flow-"

"Tommy and Mia, what are you two doing? You're really...freaking me out." Cindy's voice broke apart Tommy's sentence before he was able to finish, and yet again, our moment was interrupted.

Which, you know, that's fine by me, and I'm not mad about it at all. But I'd prefer to have a full moment with Tommy without anyone interrupting us. Not that it was a bad thing that Cindy came in-I mean, the three of us are dating-but she usually doesn't join the cute moments we have, even if we try to get her involved.

"What is it, babe?" Tommy asked, walking out of the shadows we'd been in and standing there, a small smile on his face.

Cindy turned to face the both of us with an alarmed gasp sounding from her mouth, but after a second she got a soft smile to form. She looked really pretty right now, everything from her hair to her smile to how she was standing was just...perfect. The floorboards creak to the right of us, and all of us look over to see Nurse Lane standing there. Something wasn't right about her; the tension that grew in the mess hall was so thick that you could cut through it with a knife.

"Nurse Lane?" Tommy asked, his voice oddly shaky.

"I'm sorry, but I can't save either of you." Nurse Lane shook her head, and I took a step closer.

"Nurse Lane, what are you talking about?" I asked, my eyebrows knit tightly together with concern.

"I saw his name. I saw it on the wall. Sweet, sweet Mia, I heard your name in the basement. One way or another, you're gonna die tonight." Her voice was steady as she walked closer to us, and I got a strange feeling in my stomach.

It was the feeling you got when you're on a rollercoaster and it goes down the hill super fast. And it was that feeling that happened when you went on one of the rides that would go up high and drop, over and over again; the name of that ride is beyond my knowledge.

"What are-what are you talking about?" Tommy asked another question, his voice still as shaky as before.

All of a sudden, Nurse Lane was right in my face, a knife to my throat. Letting out a scream, I fell to the floor as I tried to get the knife away. We were rolling around on the ground-it was getting hard to tell who was 'winning' this fight, but I knew in two seconds that I lost. Hitting my head hard on the floorboards,  I felt something sharp cut into my right hand. I let out another scream, and as an overpowering ringing sound in my ears blocks out all other noise, Nurse Lane gets off of me. 

My vision goes in and out of focus, and as I looked around and tried to piece together what's going on, I felt a hand resting on my left forearm. I looked in the hand's direction, and although I couldn't exactly focus, I could tell that it was Cindy next to me. Her lips were moving, but I couldn't hear a single word. Is this what being in shock feels like?

"Mia?! Mia, ohmygod Mia can you hear me?! Are you alright, what hurts? How-Mia?!" Cindy's voice gradually becomes audible to me once more, and I squeeze my eyes shut.

"Ssh, ssh...you're really loud." I sat up slowly, looking over at Tommy as I did so.

He was backed up against a table, sitting on the floor as his hands were shaking. Across from the blonde, an unconscious Nurse Lane laid on the floor.

"It must run in the Lane's blood, right? Just...going crazy?" I asked breathlessly, and although it was an attempt to get us to smile, I couldn't even bring myself to smile.

"Are-are you okay?" Tommy asked, sort of crawling closer to Cindy and I.

"No."

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author's note :

YAAAY
and shit only goes downhill from here, don't it?
yeah yeah it does
we don't know anymore fluffiness here
not unless it's flashbacks
........
which TOOTALLY won't happen at some point later on in this book
(it'll happen and y'all will be smiling through your tears)

anyways if you haven't voted or commented then what tf have you done??
but if you have then uh....marriage?