Crash (& Burn)
Serena thought the worst part of this week would be watching a soccer game. Maybe being forced to share a hotel room with a girl she didn’t know. Turns out, that was the least of her fucking worries.
The plane was going down. Because of course. Because if God was real, he never loved Serena. That had always been clear. Briefly, she wondered if this was her fault. Some sort of punishment for everything she’d done wrong in the last year. It’s not like she didn’t deserve it, if what the church taught her had been the truth.
Prayers crossed her mind, silently begging to be saved, but Serena knew it wasn’t any use. If God was real, this crash was intended for her. If he wasn’t, then the prayers would be irrelevant anyway. So, she sat. Sat alone, because she didn’t know any of these girls. Tears streaming down her face with not a single soul to offer her comfort. She was going to die surrounded by people she barely knew.
With this realization, she pulled the flask from her jacket pocket, the flask she had been sipping from since boarding the plane. She had intended to save the rest for when they got to Seattle, but if she was going to die, she was at least going to die having finished the rest of the vodka she’d brought with her. It would at least keep her from feeling all the pain of impact.
A face flashed through her mind. Maggie. Instead of anger, like she’d felt for the last three months, she felt sadness. Gone were the thoughts of how much she hated her, of how betrayed she was. Now, Serena only felt sadness. She’d never have the opportunity to talk to her again. Serena was going to die, and she wasn’t even sure if Maggie would ever find out.
With the sadness, though, came a modicum of comfort. A familiar face. The first girl she ever loved. The only girl she would ever love. At least she forgave her, in her final moments. Finally. It felt like relief.
“It’s okay,” Maggie reassured. Serena didn’t know if it was real, but she believed the words anyway.
“I forgive you. And I’m sorry,” Serena whispered.
“I know. It’s okay.”
Now she was beginning to accept her fate. There was nothing she could do at this point. It wasn’t as if she could sacrifice herself, or offer any of the others comfort. She didn’t know any of them. They had each other, or themselves. Serena wasn’t part of them. She was her own entity.
She braced for impact.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Serena woke to screams, smoke, and someone shaking her awake. It took her a moment to remember where she was and what was going on.
She survived.
The plane went down, but she was alive. She was alive.
The girl shaking her, a brunette that she’d seen before, was practically dragging her out of her seat.
“C’mon, we have to get out.”
Serena, finally coming to her senses, practically bolted from the plane. The vodka in her bloodstream didn’t help her coordination, but she managed to get out without much trouble. Outside, things didn’t look much better. Everyone was pretty banged up, screaming, hysterical, or just plain out of it. She didn’t know what to do, how to help, how to fix it somehow.
So, instead of doing anything, she fell to her knees. A combination of the alcohol and the insanity around her. Definitely not her proudest moment, but she was too overwhelmed to do anything else. And too drunk. God, why did she think drinking that much was a good idea?
Oh, right. Because she was supposed to be dead.
Her head was swimming, and suddenly she felt nauseous. Before she even realized what was happening, she was throwing up in the grass. She hoped the others would assume it was from everything going on, not because she was drunk as all hell. She didn’t need to be explaining that right now, not that anyone would truly care.
For a moment, she just knelt down on the ground, heaving and trying to catch her breath. Then, out of nowhere, she heard a loud noise, and heat flashed across the left side of her face. She looked up to see the back half of the plane aflame.
“Oh my god,” Serena breathed, and the dam broke. It was just too much, she was too drunk, too upset, too nauseous, to deal with what was happening. It was all too much.
A million thoughts raced through her head, wondering what she could have done to prevent it all. All of this somehow felt like it was Serena’s fault. Like God was punishing her and a group of innocent girls. Girls she’d barely even talked to.
All of a sudden, she felt a hand on her shoulder. Looking up, she saw a blonde girl there, looking as rough as Serena felt.
“Shit, you doing okay?”
Before Serena had the chance to respond, she felt another wave of nausea wash over her. Bracing herself, she vomited for the second time, her face flush with embarrassment, tears still streaming down her cheeks.
“So great,” she managed to croak out, rubbing her face with her hands.
“Yeah, you look peachy,” the girl responded, giving her a small smile. “Need help up?”
“Fuck, maybe.”
The girl, Serena still didn’t know her name, offered her a hand. Taking it, she got to her feet, stumbling just a bit.
“Thanks.” Her mouth tasted sour, and she still felt pretty dizzy. But the nausea was gone now, which was a significant improvement.
“Yeah, don’t worry about it.” With that, the girl was off, surely to go help someone actually worth her time and attention.
Serena, taking a deep breath, leaned up against a tree. She knew she wouldn’t be much of a help in her current state, and she didn’t want to get in the way. The chaos was still unfolding, but Serena was barely thinking about that now.
She watched in a daze as the others somehow lifted a piece of the plane off Coach Scott, tempted to reach back for her flask. She was already wasted, what was the harm in getting drunker?
God, she was a mess.
Pushing the thought out of her head, she watched on. One of the girls had walked away from Coach, a blonde with glasses that had tried to sit next to Serena on the plane. She had glared at her, but she began to regret that decision when the blonde swung an axe down onto Coach Scott’s leg. Fuck, maybe the plane crash wasn’t gonna be the reason she died.
Wait. No, no. She wasn’t killing Coach. She was… amputating his leg? Holy shit. Serena stumbled towards the rest of the group as they began to move Coach from where he was lying, wondering if there was any possible way she could do more than just stand there.
The girl with the glasses (Serena really needed to figure out these people’s names, Jesus Christ) moved about, helping anyone else who looked like they needed it. She never ventured near Serena, though, presumably because she didn’t look too banged up.
Eventually, she made her way back to Coach, kneeling down next to him.
“We’re gonna need to disinfect it somehow. Maybe something from the bar cart?”
The brunette, the girl who dragged Serena out of the plane, speaks up. She sounds almost sheepish. “It was just soda. Cheaper that way.”
The others shoot her looks, and she shrugs.
“Maybe someone brought contraband.” With that, everyone turns to look at the blonde who helped Serena off the ground. Honestly, she looked the type. Not that Serena could talk.
“Wow. Okay.” She pauses, looking almost embarrassed. “I did. But it was in my bag, and god knows where that is now.”
“I have some.” With that, everyone turns to look at Serena. She feels too exposed, like she shouldn’t have spoken. But it’s too late now, so she pulls the flask from the inside pocket of her jacket. “I don’t know if it’ll be enough, though.”
She hands it to the redhead, who looks grateful until she realizes how much is really in the flask. “Jesus, this is almost empty.”
Serena flushes a deep red color. Fuck.
“Yeah, uh, sorry. That’s all I’ve got.” She doesn’t know what to do now. She knows she won’t be much help, but she doesn’t think she can just leave now.
“Alcoholic much?” One of the girls whispers, but it’s loud enough for everyone to hear. Jackie. Serena knows Jackie.
The other girls all shoot her looks, and she pretends to look sheepish.
“Go fuck yourself, asshole.” With that, Serena gives Jackie the finger and walks away.
The redhead laughs, shooting Serena a smile before turning to Jackie. “You really trying to make people’s days worse, Jackie? Or just me and her’s?” Serena hears her ask, before she’s too far to hear the rest of the conversation.
Serena decides that she likes the girl, likes that she seems to somewhat on Serena’s side. Maybe they could be friends. Or something, she didn’t know.
She was starting to regret not even attempting to befriend any of these girls before. She’d talked to a couple of them, even. Shauna, who was in her creative writing class and seemed pretty interesting, and Taissa, who sat in front of her in AP Government. She should’ve spent more time with them.
Whatever. There wasn’t anything she could do about it now. Thinking about what could’ve been wasn’t going to change anything, no matter how badly she wanted it to.
Finding a somewhat secluded area where she could still hear everyone, Serena pulled the carton of cigarettes from her pocket. Fire hazard be damned, she needed a smoke. Besides, wasn’t smoke like… helpful? It would alert other planes to where they were, or whatever. She really didn’t care, she just wanted to rationalize why she was smoking. In reality, she just needed something else to occupy her mind.
—----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
When someone found her, she wasn’t sure how long she’d been away. Minutes? Hours? She was fairly certain it hadn’t been days, but she could have been wrong.
“Hey, don’t mind Jackie. She’s just kind of a bitch sometimes,” It was the brunette, the girl from the plane. The girl who saved her.
“Yeah, I gathered. Just a crazy thing to hear from a girl who gave her best friend a sedative before the plane took off. “Holier than thou” shit she’s got goin’ on. Yeah, fuckin’ right,” she can tell she’s rambling like a lunatic, so she takes a deep breath before saying, “Sorry. I’m Serena. And you’re..?”
“Lottie. C’mon, we should go back before it gets really dark.”
Serena nods, following Lottie to where the rest of the girls have gathered. It’s dark, but not too late yet. Everyone’s sitting around a small fire, looking dejected and clearly trying to stay somewhat warm.
Lottie sat down first, clearly close enough with the team that she felt comfortable around them. Serena didn’t know what to do. She was starting to get cold, the sun had taken its warmth when it set. Yet, she couldn’t bring herself to sit with these girls she barely knew. Sure, they’d all been through a traumatic experience together, but it still felt odd to force herself in with the rest of the group. She was an outsider, someone who hadn’t cared enough or been around enough to form connections with them.
The need for warmth won out against her fear of rejection, though. Trying to make herself as invisible as possible, she sat down around the fire. Everyone looked exhausted, but they were clearly too anxious to sleep. They didn’t know what sleep would bring for them. Rescue? Hopefully, but it wasn’t guaranteed. What was more likely was attack from some sort of wild animal. No one wanted to risk it, at least not yet.
So, they all sat. A few girls looked completely zoned out, others just tired. One girl was crying silently.
“You okay, Laura Lee?” Taissa asked the girl, putting a hand on her knee.
The girl, Laura Lee, is silent for a moment before responding, “This is all my fault. I did something really bad.” She pauses again, subtly shaking. “I kept screwing up in my piano lesson last week. Mrs. Brophy kept yelling at me. “Sharp. F sharp. F sharp. I just… couldn’t take it anymore, so I called her a bad word. Just in my head, but God heard me.
Now we’re all being punished.”
Internally, Serena groaned at this. Sure, she herself had the thought that this was her fault earlier, but rationally she knew that wasn’t true. Laura Lee clearly believed she was being punished for simply thinking a word.
“What did you call her?” Taissa sounds confused, and a bit concerned. Clearly, Laura Lee cursing was not a regular occurrence.
Laura Lee is quiet for a couple seconds, presumably working up the courage to say whatever “bad word” that she internally called her piano teacher. She lowers her voice considerably when she responds, like she can somehow keep God from hearing her say it again.
“Cunt.”
Immediately, the redhead lets out a small laugh, and Taissa hits her shoulder. The attempt is futile, however, because everyone else starts laughing, including Serena.
After the laughter has died down a bit, Lottie suddenly says, “I steal shitty clothes from TJMaxx.”
“What?”
“I return them, and I get credit that I never use, and I have thousands of dollars in TJ… bucks.”
Everyone laughs again, and Lottie puts her head in her hands, giggling with everyone else. It’s funny to listen to these girls talk about the things that “made the plane crash’.
“I only transferred to Wiskayok because I got expelled.” The words are out before she can stop them, and Serenna is mortified. Why did she say that? These girls didn’t know her. They had no need to know that. Her stupid, dumbass, drunk mouth. God, why couldn’t she just stay fucking quiet?
Before she can freak out too badly, the blonde with the eyeliner laughs. “I think we all kind of assumed that. No one transfers halfway through the second semester of senior year for fun.”
Serena’s face flushes, and she feels a bit stupid for not assuming everyone already knew. At least she had been smart enough not to say why she’d been expelled.
“I, uh, I used to sneak downstairs after everybody had gone to bed and watch the Color of Night, so I could pause it on Bruce Willis’s wang,” Jackie chimes in, looking somewhere between sheepish and proud.
Taissa grins, turning towards Jackie. “That is definitely why we crashed.”
“I mean, Jeff’s not bad, but damn.”
Jackie turns to Shauna, looking oddly seductive. Serena takes note of this, but doesn’t say anything. If they’re fucking, that’s their business, not hers. She knew what it was like to be caught.
“What about you, Shipman? Any secrets big enough to crash a goddamn plane?”
Shauna looks shocked, and almost afraid. Like maybe Jackie knows something that Shauna doesn’t want to admit. She doesn’t get a chance to answer, because as soon as she opens her mouth, someone starts screaming. Coach.
Some of the girls get up, presumably to check on him, while Serena and a few others stay put. She can’t hear them from where she sits, and she’s a little worried about what could be happening. Presumably, it isn’t some sort of wild animal, since they would have heard it. But it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility.
After a few minutes, the others come back, and Taissa looks exasperated. “It was just Misty. Cauterizing Coach’s leg. Which would have been nice to know before you did it.”
She turns, presumably to Misty. Great, now Serena finally knows her name. Maybe she won’t get her own leg chopped off.
Misty just shrugs, not even looking ashamed of herself. She seemed so casual, especially for a girl who amputated her coach’s leg and then cauterized it. Serena was a little afraid of her. Yeah, she definitely should have let her sit next to her on the plane.
“Jesus Christ,” Serena mutters, lowly enough that she didn’t think that anyone would hear. But the blonde looks at her, grinning. Suddenly, Serena really wants to know her name.
No. No, she’s not doing this. No relationships, no crushes, nothing like that. Not after Maddie. Not after what went down with her. Hell, she’s not even doing friendship at this point. No, she’s going to just… have herself. The cool-looking blonde girl nonwithstanding.
So, instead of smiling back, Serena just rolls her eyes and turns away. Getting close would just inevitably hurt her. Plus, Serena was a shit girlfriend anyway. She was protecting the girl. At least that’s what she told herself.
Everyone else continued talking about whatever, anything to avoid thinking about the situation they were in. Serena sat passively, listening. Nothing too crazy, it was mostly just gossip. Who was hooking up with who, which teachers were being especially bitchy. Serena didn’t know any of the people referenced, and she didn’t care to learn. Once they were rescued, she’d only have to deal with them for a few more weeks anyway, so why bother?
They stayed like that for a while, clearly trying to avoid having to go to sleep. Eventually, everyone decided they were too tired to go on talking. Serena curled up by the fire, resting her head on her arm. It was cold, but not entirely unbearable. She was happy that she had worn long sleeves as well as a jacket, and the fire helped a lot. It wasn’t comfortable, by any stretch, but it could have been worse.
Serena watched as everyone else succumbed to sleep, but she couldn’t seem to get comfortable. Every emotion she had ignored, all the fear, stress, and anxiety seemed to surface as soon as she laid down to sleep. She tossed and turned, running over the day’s events in her mind. How had everyone else just… fallen asleep? Why was she seemingly the only one awake?
Normally, she’d take a couple shots and be out in about half an hour, but she’d sacrificed the last of her vodka, and her bag was nowhere to be found. So, she was forced to fall asleep on her own.