We All Fall Down
The place is empty.
Well. Nearly empty.
There are piles of ashes on the floor. One of the drapes is still on fire - Viccy knows it will burn itself out. Balloons and stuffed animals litter the floor. In the near distance, she can still hear some piece of technology sparking.
They’ve managed to run everyone out.
Dawn is cackling in the near distance, folding up her umbrella again. The ground is soaked in water from the sprinklers. Some buzzkill had pulled the fire alarm the second they’d noticed the way smog was spilling across the floor.
No police are there yet. Viccy can’t be completely sure when they’ll arrive. A part of her almost wants them to come - to catch them in the act. She wonders what shade of red Dad would turn if he heard about this, before Mom took over for him.
These thoughts, she knows, are only there because she’s still drunk on victory.
Dawn is putting the umbrella in the corner, now. Her delirious cackles have subsided - though there is still a wide, easy smile on her face.
Viccy knows her face has the same expression. She can’t bring herself to want it gone.
Dawn puts her hands in her pockets as she strolls over. She’s wearing the most garish, cheap suit she could get - bright orange with green polka dots. The polka dots are painted on, though, so they’ve dried into this sickening brownish colour. The cuffs of her sleeves are wet with sprinkler water, and ash is sprinkled in her hair. A light plays behind her eyes.
The bright white banner above the stage finally falls. Viccy just catches the words on it before it folds in on itself, hitting the ground.
Dance the Night Away!
Dawn, with practiced nonchalance, wipes some of the ash off her pants. Her hair is in tangles - it has green highlights this week.
She’s never been more beautiful.
Viccy lets herself do something stupid - and sticks her hand out at Dawn.
“Would you care to dance?” she says, with some accent that vaguely borders on being British and a dismissive flip of her hair.
Dawn smiles - wide and sincere.
“I thought you’d never ask.”
When the police arrive, they find a completely ruined prom, and two teens, slow dancing in the center of an ash-covered floor.
Viccy knows she’s in love.
She’s never known love. Not from anyone, not for anyone. She’d never realized that love hurt this much - that it felt like hot acid, nibbling away at the walls of her stomach.
Well. Except when she’s with Dawn.
When she’s with Dawn, the love feels very different. It feels very warm - soothing and thick, running from her head to her toes. It makes her feel very safe - when it’s not making her feel like she’s boiling over.
That kind of feeling only comes every once in a while. When Dawn gives her one of those smirks, or grabs Viccy by the hips to surprise her into making one of those very embarrassing noises that only Dawn could ever coax out of her, or licks her lips slowly and bites her cheek after making some comment about how Viccy looks perfect enough to ruin.
And, sometimes, love makes her feel very… wrong. Like something cold and nauseating is eating away at her head, and a weight is pressing on her ribs.
When Dawn says that Viccy is absolutely perfect just the way she is - and Mom’s voice echoes against the walls of her skull. When Dawn reaches over and holds her hand like its the easiest thing in the world - and Viccy can’t think about anything other then what Dad might think if he saw this. Whenever Dawn hugs her - and Viccy can’t quite bring herself to hug back.
...She doesn’t like being in love.
Viccy is fifteen when Dad mentions, in passing, that she has to cut ties with Dawn. Or with Amber, rather. He says it like it’s not worth spending any time on - between more involved conversations about grades and career choices.
And maybe that’s what hurts more then anything else.
Dawn was always just a side note for Mom and Dad. She can’t even get the final victory of having her love cut out of her life with the gravitas it deserves.
Just a passing note.
Victoria is sixteen when she slaps Dawn. She’d tried to put it off as much as she could - but a part of her had always known that just ghosting Dawn wouldn’t really work.
She feels very small in that moment.
That’s all she feels.
Small.
She cries herself to sleep that night. When she wakes up, she throws away the scrapbook she and Dawn had made.
She doesn’t cry again for a long time after that.
Victoria is eighteen when she meets Maxine Caulfield.
And now, Victoria is nineteen.
She has nothing to live for.
She has fear. She has obligations. She has pain.
She has money.
She stares into the mirror for a long time that night, scarcely daring to think.
(She wonders if things could’ve been different.)
Her parents wake her up the next morning.
Victoria wishes that Price had killed her.