same as it ever was; [OTA]

[teen_angst_bullshit]

WHO: Veronica Sawyer
WHERE: Front porch of bungalow #22
WHEN: BACKDATED to September 19
OPEN TO: OTA
WARNINGS: n/a
STATUS: Closed to new threads

---

Dear Diary,

I am 18 years old and I am a horrible person.

The words just came out, and now everybody knows: I'm a murderer. I'd like to give you some line about it being a big relief, that my inner turmoil has finally been soothed, but I just wish I'd kept my fucking mouth shut. I'm stuck in this place with an apparent rogue's gallery of broken people, but it still bothers me that they look at me differently now. Like an asshole, I'd spun some prom queen fantasy that only Cougar knew wasn't true, and in true masochistic fashion, I've blown it up in my own face.

But that isn't even the worst of it.

Diary, you exist because today I got a box with my name on the top, and inside were three beautiful, fat packs of paper. So much paper. If I'm careful, if I force myself to write small, it'll last me a long time. There's enough to share, more than enough to donate some to the cause of record-keeping. But I don't want to share.

I told you, I'm a total fuck.

Is this simple greed or sabotage? It's like I don't even know myself anymore, Diary. But I do know this: If I woke up tomorrow back in Sherwood, Ohio, I'd really miss some of the people here.

Oh, and I missed my 18th birthday. I don't even know why I care.

Frustrated, Veronica clamps her fingers hard around her pencil with a low huff and resists the urge to throw everything across the yard. She may be a greedy shit, but the paper is too precious, and too much of her time was spent in sewing it into a little journal to treat it like garbage.

So many things are frustrating her anymore, it's difficult to pinpoint a single one as being the cause for how she feels. The water situation definitely doesn't help, Heather at Veronica's shoulder when she looks at her wilted and greasy reflection every morning, congratulations, I didn't know it was possible to fall this far. Vanity rearing its pointless, ugly head.

Settling the little book and pencil in her lap, Veronica leans back against the steps of the house she shares with Cougar and Jake. What would be really incredible right about now would be a drink. It's kind of, sort of her birthday, right? You'd think the benevolent gods of this place could provide some libations.

Comments

[igotacrossbow]

He knows he has what could be termed a motor-mouth, and he knows that a lot of people find his personality grating, if not outright annoying. Julie and Beth have to love him, they're contractually obligated to as his family, and Cougar puts up with him from a combination of Stockholm Syndrome and the fact that nobody else in their unit can translate his silences as well as Jake can, but apart from those three, he doesn't really have a vibrant social life.

"Oh?" He's not really surprised. He saw the glare she shot his way in the Inn. He's not that worried about it. Cougar was pissed at him, but he's already found all the clothes he'd stashed around the house like a petulant child, and they've made up in their quiet way. "Why's that?"

[teen_angst_bullshit]

It's difficult to know whether he's legitimately curious or simply fucking with her, and Veronica hesitates a moment, watching him as her eyebrows pinch together.

"Because it wasn't just your secret," she says. She doesn't know if she should be sternly frowning or drawing him a helpful chart of social mores. "And you know Cougar. You know how he is. He's not exactly broadcasting his personal shit to everyone he meets. You could have at least asked him first."

[igotacrossbow]

Jake would, and often does, fuck with people by pretending to be dumber than he is, but he wouldn't do that to Veronica in general — he still can't tell if she likes him at all or if she just tolerates him for Cougar's sake, which is a fate he's more or less resigned himself to at this point in his life — and especially not now that she's in such a fragile state.

"I know exactly how he is," he replies. "I also know that, if given the choice, he withdraws so deeply into himself that he can't remember the way out if people don't keep him from doing it in the first place." He shrugs. "He's my best friend and I love the guy, but he's a stubborn son of a bitch with a self-flaggelating streak a mile wide who's convinced that people will think he's a monster if they know even the most basic thing about him. It took me six months of running through war zones together for me to learn his real name, you know that? Even now he yells at me if I drop it in conversation just between the two of us."

He huffs a quiet, wry laugh, shaking his head. "Well, inasmuch as Cougar ever yells, really."

[teen_angst_bullshit]

It's difficult to stay angry with Jake when you're actually faced with him, Veronica's come to realize. He doesn't mean half the shit he gets up to, and while that's no excuse, he's still so damned affable that you invariably end up forgiving him, even if it's a really shitty thing he did. Like this.

"I know," she says, her expression softening. "But that doesn't negate my point. There's a pretty big difference between not wanting him to keep things bottled up and announcing his private shit to everyone we know here without so much as a heads up."

She purses her lips, fidgets with the journal in her lap. "He talks to me. We have a deal about it."