Molly Stearns (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
losttheright) wrote2012-04-20 04:22 pm
losttheright) wrote2012-04-20 04:22 pm
Entry tags:
I can't help feeling we could have had it all
At first, when she sees him, Molly is certain that her eyes are playing tricks on her.
It was one thing when she showed up here, after all, when the world went black and she came to having exchanged one city for another, except this isn't anywhere she's heard of and it's missing a few things a real city would have, like, for example, a way out. That part is just as well, though. Even if there were somewhere else to go, she isn't sure how she would get there or what she would do once she got there. She's dead, she knows she is, or was, or whatever verb could be used to describe someone dying and then waking up having been magically fucking transported to some other world or something. There doesn't need to be anything outside of this because there was never even supposed to be this. Someday, maybe, she might even be able to count herself lucky for that. For now, she's just taking it as she can, doing her best to settle into this completely implausible extension of the life she cut short, trying not to dwell too much on the circumstances that caused her to do so in the first place (though that much is easier said than done). She's far away from that now, from Mike Morris and the rest of his fucking campaign, no one she's spoken to having even heard his name before, at least as much as she's been able to tell.
That is, she was supposed to be. Everything having been uprooted, she actually thought she'd have been okay with that. None of the past was going to have followed her here; she wasn't going to have to be the intern who fucked the married presidential candidate and got an abortion (the latter only applying where getting herself to a doctor has been concerned), like she knows she'd have wound up being back home after the other side got a hold of the story, and she wasn't going to be the girl who killed herself, either, and not even the daughter of the chairman of the DNC. Daunting as some of that has been, the idea is kind of refreshing, too. After all, if there's one thing she's ever been good at — and okay, she's good at a lot of things, including but not limited to fucking and fucking up — it's making sure she seems alright when she's anything but, and that's been the case here. In her own head, she'll never get away from what she did, knowing full well that screwing a married man, getting an abortion and killing oneself is supposed to be a one-way ticket straight to whatever Hell is, but at least she hasn't had to let it define her.
One glimpse of Stephen Meyers, and suddenly, she isn't so sure that's going to remain the case. Whether he's a figment of her imagination or not, or just a face she caught from the wrong angle and jumped to the worst conclusion about, it's like a sign that everything has really followed her after all, making the smile she'd plastered on fade and her stomach drop. Of all people from home she'd have wanted to turn up, he isn't last on the hypothetical list (that would be Morris), but anything else that seeing him might make her feel — and it is him, she's sure of it now, more so with every passing second — gets easily buried by residual fury, the sound of his stupid goddamn voicemail message echoing through her head. Jaw set, she swallows hard, not certain yet if he's seen her. The bar's all but empty, but the corner booth she's inhabited isn't the most visible. Either way, she's not about to slink off into the night. She told him once that she wasn't going away, and whether he even listened to the fucking message or not, she isn't going to do so now, either.
Standing, she stares at him and shakes her head, her own voice almost jarring as it cuts through the relative quiet. "No fucking way."
It was one thing when she showed up here, after all, when the world went black and she came to having exchanged one city for another, except this isn't anywhere she's heard of and it's missing a few things a real city would have, like, for example, a way out. That part is just as well, though. Even if there were somewhere else to go, she isn't sure how she would get there or what she would do once she got there. She's dead, she knows she is, or was, or whatever verb could be used to describe someone dying and then waking up having been magically fucking transported to some other world or something. There doesn't need to be anything outside of this because there was never even supposed to be this. Someday, maybe, she might even be able to count herself lucky for that. For now, she's just taking it as she can, doing her best to settle into this completely implausible extension of the life she cut short, trying not to dwell too much on the circumstances that caused her to do so in the first place (though that much is easier said than done). She's far away from that now, from Mike Morris and the rest of his fucking campaign, no one she's spoken to having even heard his name before, at least as much as she's been able to tell.
That is, she was supposed to be. Everything having been uprooted, she actually thought she'd have been okay with that. None of the past was going to have followed her here; she wasn't going to have to be the intern who fucked the married presidential candidate and got an abortion (the latter only applying where getting herself to a doctor has been concerned), like she knows she'd have wound up being back home after the other side got a hold of the story, and she wasn't going to be the girl who killed herself, either, and not even the daughter of the chairman of the DNC. Daunting as some of that has been, the idea is kind of refreshing, too. After all, if there's one thing she's ever been good at — and okay, she's good at a lot of things, including but not limited to fucking and fucking up — it's making sure she seems alright when she's anything but, and that's been the case here. In her own head, she'll never get away from what she did, knowing full well that screwing a married man, getting an abortion and killing oneself is supposed to be a one-way ticket straight to whatever Hell is, but at least she hasn't had to let it define her.
One glimpse of Stephen Meyers, and suddenly, she isn't so sure that's going to remain the case. Whether he's a figment of her imagination or not, or just a face she caught from the wrong angle and jumped to the worst conclusion about, it's like a sign that everything has really followed her after all, making the smile she'd plastered on fade and her stomach drop. Of all people from home she'd have wanted to turn up, he isn't last on the hypothetical list (that would be Morris), but anything else that seeing him might make her feel — and it is him, she's sure of it now, more so with every passing second — gets easily buried by residual fury, the sound of his stupid goddamn voicemail message echoing through her head. Jaw set, she swallows hard, not certain yet if he's seen her. The bar's all but empty, but the corner booth she's inhabited isn't the most visible. Either way, she's not about to slink off into the night. She told him once that she wasn't going away, and whether he even listened to the fucking message or not, she isn't going to do so now, either.
Standing, she stares at him and shakes her head, her own voice almost jarring as it cuts through the relative quiet. "No fucking way."