STRIP MY MIND; 03.

I hadn't seen Cooper Lansing since the day I ran into him, and a part of me hoped I wouldn't have to run into him again. He made me nervous, plain and simple.

Something about his utter lack of respect for people who did not respect him both intrigued and scared the shit out of me. How could someone become like that? To just write anyone off immediately. I found it impressive as well as the characteristic of a true asshole.

Something about Cooper Lansing told me that he definitely did not believe in second chances.

I wished I had the balls he did. I wished I could easily write people off, and not be all wishy-washy about whether or not they'd be my friend again.

Then again, I sort of did do that. I'd lost my whole group of friends, and I wasn't begging them to come back. I wasn't on my knees, grovelling at their feet. I'd just stopped caring. They would believe what they wanted to believe, and there was nothing I could do to stop that. I was passive. I didn't like confrontation. I was scared of letting people know what I truly felt. So incredibly scared.

And I didn't know why. I'd seen so many people tell everyone exactly what they felt, and it never seemed to go too badly. Nothing I'd ever seen had gone completely awry.

I wanted my life to be interesting, and I wanted it to be dramatic. I wanted my life to be beautiful. I wanted to be as beautiful as the beginning of Taking Back Sunday's "The Blue Channel". When I had friends, I'd been like that. I'd partied, I'd drank, I'd hooked up with as many guys as I wanted. Back then, I was such a different person. I was loud, I was opinionated, I was argumentative. But when I'd lost all my friends, I'd shut down. I'd stopped talking, and I'd stopped caring.

I hadn't touched alcohol in two months.

Even when I had friends, I hadn't been accepted. I hadn't been loved, or cared about, or maybe even liked.

You see, I used to run with the popular crowd. The Abercrombie-wearing, vodka-drinking, touchdown-scoring kids. The ones everyone loved to hate. The ones who had it all. But the thing was, I wasn't like any of them. I didn't wear preppy clothes. I didn't enjoy drinking one bit. And I certainly wasn't a star athlete. This never seemed to openly bother anyone until that one night. The night that it all came out. Every traitorous thought, every dirty word, every single thing that could ever ruin a person.

That night was the end of everything.


don't call my name out your window, i'm leaving


"Casey, can I get you anything to drink? To eat? To munch on? Anything at all?"

Mrs. Gaffney was overpowering. Really, she was. I didn't know how to handle her constant questions, her constant concern, her constant being there.

"Mom, seriously, we have work to do. If Casey's hungry, I can show her where to get food," Michael said, his irritation with his overbearing mother clearly evident.
"Michael, I just want her to feel at home-"
"Mom, please. Leave."

She looked a bit miffed, to be honest, but left the room nonetheless.

I snuck a side-glance at Michael, wondering when it would be appropriate to burst out laughing.

"Don't even say anything," he muttered, not looking at me, "She's always like this."
I bit my lip, trying to conceal my grin, "I wasn't going to say anything. I don't even know your mom."
"You don't have to know her to think she's absolutely ridiculous."
"I never said she was."
"You didn't have to. I know she is."

And that was the end of that.

Michael's family was exactly as I'd pegged them. The typical suburban family. The big green backyard, the drooling dog, the little sister colouring on the porch, the society mother and the business suit-wearing father. It scared me how accurate I was. Their house was perfectly clean. Not a speck of dust or a thing out of place. It was like walking through a museum, almost.

The contrast of the Gaffneys to my own family also scared me. Moving between the two houses, between the two lives, was like moving through one of the warp zones on the original Super Mario Brothers. It was like switching planets.

The Gaffney's house was straight out of a magazine. And my house? My house was Mrs. Gaffney's worst nightmare.


hey, megalomaniac, you're no jesus
oh hey there.