Past Sins and Psychic Dread
“So, what did you do?” Yuffie asked, voice cutting through the thoroughly awkward silence.
“Huh?” Aria sounded.
“What did you guys do to get in detention?” She repeated. “We know what Flash and I did, and we know what Jack did, but what about you guys?”
“I skipped school.” Momo winced.
“I did it more than you, and I’m in here.” Mercury pointed out. “That, and the food fight.”
“Yeah, but still.”
“I put a couple of frozen Mentos in a Coca-Cola can, froze it, let it thaw enough and shook it hard, and then I stuffed it into Midorya’s locker–time bomb soda.” Gary explains, the corners of his lips quirking upwards. “And, things kind of… It got a bit out of hand, and I fucked up his locker; had to pay out of pocket to replace the door ‘cause of all the dents.”
“You also ruined a diorama report Midorya, Ashido, and I were working on for a history presentation on the Hundred Years War.” Momo glowered. “It took us over a week to make it!”
“It was supposed to be a harmless prank,” Gary defended. “I didn’t know it’d mess up his locker that badly.”
“Okay, my turn.” Aria sighed, sitting up a bit. “So, you know how Doctor Oobleck’s (RWBY) car got vandalized last Wednesday?”
“That was you?” Alice gaped.
“It was an accident!”
“How do you accidentally carjack a teacher?!” Gary asked incredulously.
“I thought it was someone else’s car!” Aria says. “And, all I did was stuff it with crochet penguins until it almost burst.”
Flash cackled and toppled over, arms around his middle.
“What about you, Alice?” Jack cuts in, reclining against the leg of a nearby table.
The goth girl froze, eyes widening slightly. “M-Me?”
“Yeah, what did you do to get in here?”
Swallowing thickly, she took off her fingerless gloves and rolled up her sleeves, exposing thin, crescent-shaped scars along the insides of her forearms.
“Oh my God.” Aria gasped.
“They’re old.” The Brit ground out, hastily pulling her gloves back on. “The meds help, but the nightmares don’t go away. I-” She sucked in a breath. “There are days when all I can think about are Lizzie, and my Mum and Dad, and-” She swallowed, running a hand through her hair. “On Wednesday, I stole a kitchen knife from my apartment and I hid it in my locker-”
“That was you?” Gary gasped.
“I was planning on holing up in some bathroom and getting it over with!” She snapped. “I just–I wanted it to end!”
“But, you didn’t do it.” Mercury points out gently. “You didn’t go through with it.”
“Only because I got caught.” Alice admits. “I lied and told Principal Goodwitch that I was having an off day because of my new prescription.” Alice sniffed. “Levi didn’t buy it. He confronted me when we got home and I broke down, I had to beg him not to take me to the hospital for seventy-two hour observation. It was stupid. I know!” She says, running her hands through her hair. “I could have been arrested or had had my visa revoked and gotten deported. And, I know that the timing wasn’t great, after what happened to Hannah” Yuffie winced. “And I am well aware of the fact that even if I had succeeded or got sent to a hospital, it would have been written off as me being a copycat or an attention seeker.”
“Why the hell do people even say shit like that?” Yuffie ground out, fits clenched in her lap. “When and how in the hell is someone cutting up their bodies with razors, or burning themselves and shit, or attempting to overdose on purpose get written off as attention seeking behavior?! If anything, it’s a cry for help! Or, a sign that someone’s about to jump off the metaphorical and literal deep-end!”
“I don’t think anyone ever really sees it.” Jack admits. “That former friend of mine I was telling you about, Chase, I met him the summer before I started high school.” He explains. “We were in the same hospital, I was a couple of rooms away from him. I had to get an emergency appendectomy, and Chase… He told me that somebody caught him trying to seal himself inside his garage. He never elaborated on why he tried to do what he did.” He sat up a bit, pulling his legs against his chest. “I don’t think people will ever know what drives people to that point. The person you see day after day, the people you never give much thought to – they could be bright, beautiful, confident, or none or all of those things – and still you’d never see it coming. No one ever sees it coming, and I don’t think they ever will.”
“I thought Courtney was suicidal.” Aria mused, causing the others to turn to look at her. “The weeks before she was killed, she started acting off. When I look back, I can’t help but wonder if there was a part of her that felt that way, or if there was something else that I missed or didn’t notice.”
“You never know what goes on in anyone else’s life but your own.*” Yuffie pointed out. “Hannah used to say that. That you don’t know what it’s like to live in someone else’s shoes, just your own. Even when you think you know that person like the palm of your hand, you still don’t know what they’re like when the lights go down.”
“No one knew Hannah was going to do what she did.” Gary stated. “You never know when someone is going to go over the edge until they do it.”
Yuffie sniffs. “I feel like I could have done something. That I could have been a better friend, or if I had paid attention to certain things and people then maybe, maybe…” Maybe Hannah Baker would still be alive.
“Just I feel like I could have done more.” She admits. “That if I said or done something differently then maybe–maybe I wouldn’t feel as helpless as I do now. That if I had just told people how bad it was, then she’d still be here. But, I kept my mouth shut, and Hannah’s gone, and I… I feel pathetic. Like, I’m some kind of let down.”
“Get that thought out of your head right fucking now, Kisaragi.” Flash snaps. “You are not a let down, pathetic, or a bad friend, you’re a fourteen-year-old girl who didn’t know jack shit. And that’s fine!” He says, when Yuffie opens her mouth to contradict him. “You’re allowed to feel the way you feel! You weren’t a bad friend-you were never a bad friend! If anything, you were the only real friend Hannah had, apart from Tony (TH1RTEEN R3ASONS WHY) and that Clay guy you were one of the few people who genuinely cared about her.”
“Hannah was in pain.” Mercury says. “Hannah Baker had a lot of baggage and she was going through a lot of bad things, but she couldn’t see the end in sight so she decided to make a decision and she stuck with it. Harsh as it sounds, it doesn’t make it not true.”
“Because she took the coward's way out?” Yuffie sneers.
“I view the dead as their own keepers.” Mercury replied evenly. “Hannah Baker lived her life, but that doesn’t mean that you have to stop living yours.” Sitting up, he continues. “Besides, there’s no use in dwelling on or thinking about the ‘what might have been’s’–what’s done is done, and focusing on the what if’s will drive you crazy.”
Yuffie frowned, but she didn’t say or do anything else.
“When I was a kid,” Mercury says, “my old man used to leave me with a hooker he knew. She taught me how to cook, helped me with my math homework, used to watch Power Rangers with me on Saturday.” He frowned. “She died of a prescription drug overdose the week after I graduated from middle school. Before she died, she wrote letters for the people she knew. She made me promise to live longer than she did.”
“How old was she when she died?” Luna asks.
“One month shy of thirty-four.” Looking into Yuffie’s eyes, Mercury continues, “Even if you couldn’t help or “save” the people who died, at least try to live for them.”
“Y-”
“She had a “why not” list, didn’t she?”
Yuffie froze.
“I heard about that,” Gary chimes in. “Hannah didn’t just leave the tapes and the map, she also had a list of reasons why not.”
“Why not what?” Jack asks.
“For every reason why, there are reasons why not.*” Mercury says. “Hannah had a list of reasons to live-to keep going even when shit gets hard. Because even she had hope that things would get better, maybe not by a lot, but enough that it counted. Enough that she wanted to - at the very least - try.”
“I don’t want to die.” Alice admits, green eyes growing glassy. “I wanted it to stop, but… I don’t want to die.” The tears spilled over, and Yaoyorozu scoots closer to the goth hugging her tightly. “I just wanted it to stop. I-I didn’t–I didn’t want to scare or worry anyone. I just…”
She choked a sob, makeup running as the tears flowed down her face. “I need help.”
“That’s a good enough place to start.” Luna says gently.
“I think I need to see someone.” Yuffie says. “Like, a psychiatrist or something. I mean, I saw a grief counselor when Hannah died, but-”
“But, it’s not the same.” The blonde finishes.
“I’m not crazy!”
“No one is saying you are,” Luna replies. “But, there isn’t anything wrong in asking for professional help.”
“If I went to see a shrink, it would just prove people right about me.” Aria scoffed.
“I didn’t,” Alice hiccups. “I didn’t have the best *sniff* history, with mental health professionals. But, after I came to the States it… I got better. Not by a lot, but enough that it showed. It helped me.”
“I see psychiatrists like those every flavor jelly beans*,” Gary says. “Sometimes you get a good one, and every now and again there’s a raised eyebrow, or a really bad one.”
“You think Vincent would do it?” Yuffie asks. “If I asked, do you think he’d do it?”
“If he gives a shit about you, then yes.” Mercury answers.
=\=
<Now playing ‘On My Own’ by Three Days Grace>
Alice was eight when her parents and Lizzie died.
The only memories she had of that wretched night were of the smoke, being dragged out by firemen, and the EMT’s sedating her as she screamed.
Next thing she remembers is waking up in the hospital with tubes up her nose and an IV taped to her arm, then a kindly old nurse walks up to her with a sad smile and tells Alice that her whole family had died.
Alice: I walk alone,
Think of home
Memories of long ago
No one knows I lost (shudders) my soul long ago.
Alice had a few brief memories of her adolescence–receiving a red velvet cupcake on her tenth birthday and getting a NintendoDS over Christmas the year after that to name a few, but it wasn’t until the age of thirteen that she started remembering things properly.
There was always one constant: from the night she was admitted, to the day she left for America, she never once left Rutledge*.
Alice: Lied too much!
Aria: She said that she's had enough!
Alice: Am I too much?
Luna: She said that she's had enough!
She had no idea that the man who fucked her over–the man responsible for her madness was her therapist.
The irony, she knew. But… It didn’t make it any less sickening.
Alice: Standing on my own,
Remembering the one I left at home.
Forget about the life I used to know
Forget about the one I left at home!
Renowned hypnotherapist Dr. Angus Bumby (American McGee’s Alice Series), the miracle worker who turned adolescent basket cases into semi-functioning members of society via one simple trick: making them forget their trauma.
He called it “Wiping the slate clean.” So I can take advantage of them and pawn them off for cheap.
Alice: I need to run far away
Can't go back to that place.
Momo: Like she told me I'm (shudders) just a big disgrace.
The night she confronted him was probably the worst day of her life, second only to the night her family died.
He didn’t deny it. Hell, he didn’t bother to hide it! He fucking laughed in her face! “My God Alice, who would believe you? I can scarcely believe it myself.”*
Alice: Lied too much!
And he was right.
After all, he was a well-respected man, borderline revered in his field. And, she was just the traumatized washout orphan Mad Alice Liddell.
Yuffie: She said that she's had enough!
Who would you have believed?
The answer was so obvious it was sickening.
Alice: Am I too much?
So, Alice did the only logical thing (the only thing she could do, really): she pushed him in front of an oncoming train and got the heck out of dodge.
Aria: She said that she's had enough!
Seeing the man who had made her life hell because her sister “refused” him getting his long overdue comeuppance was so worth it. But, she didn’t want to end up behind bars again (doesn’t matter what it is, a cage will always be a cage) so she ran… Ran all the way to America.
Alice: Standing on my own,
Remembering the one I left at home.
Forget about the life I used to know
Forget about the one I left at home!
So, now I'm standing here alone
I'm learning how to live life on my own!
Dr. Bumby was wrong.
Forgetting the bad things didn’t make anything better, or make your problems or trauma go away. What he did wasn’t fixing her; he didn't want to “fix” any of them, he just wanted them to become numb. Empty shells, puppets with nothing left to live for but to “please” their masters in the most depraved ways imaginable.
Aria: Lied too much!
There actually was a word for what he did: gaslighting, psychological abuse, brainwashing, sex trafficking and exploitation, among others. But, the word she was looking for was rugsweeping.
Yuffie: I think that I've had enough!
You can’t erase your trauma or make the bad things go away with a few trigger words or a specific sound.
You can’t repress your sadness or push your negative emotions out, all that does is make things worse in the long run.
Most of all, you can never run from your past.
Alice: Am I too much?
You can learn from it, live with it, tolerate it even, but you can never ever run or hide from it, let alone forget.
That Alice knew for a fact.
Luna: She said that she's had enough!
But there was one thing Alice could do: live.
Not just for Lizzie, or her parents, or the other kids Dr. Arsehole got a hold of and ruined, but for herself.
Alice: Standing on my own,
Remembering the one I left at home.
It wouldn’t be easy; living was never easy. But she survived.
Alice could have died in that fire, but she didn’t.
She could have given up and rotten away in Rutledge a long time ago and she almost gave into her demons last Wednesday… But, she’s still here.
She’s still here.
I’m still here.
I’m alive.
I survived, and I’m not going away any time soon.
All: Forget about the life I used to know
Forget about the one I left at home!
Alice wasn’t stupid. She knew that one conversation in Saturday Detention wouldn’t change anything in the long run. But, wasn’t trying worth something?
Alice & Company: So, now I'm standing here alone
I'm learning how to live life on my own!
Even if she didn’t succeed, she could keep trying.
All: Forget about the past I'll never know.
…Maybe trying would keep the ghosts at bay.
Alice: Forget about the one I left at home!