(no subject)
It comes down to choices, in the end.
To get specific, it's the kind of choices birthed out of reaching a place where you're so tired of bending to this huge, uncontrollable, and frankly thoroughly crappy force that you have to do something to make yourself stand up to it. It's hitting a point where you don't run: not because you're paralyzed with fear, but because you're finally making the conscious decision to hold your ground.
Even if the whole time Sam and Darla are going on about "taking it off" and "showing commitment to the organization," looking at you like you're brain-damaged because you should have known that this was what they were talking about when they asked you here because, seriously, what else would they have been talking about? -- even if the whole time they're doing that, you can feel your legs liquefying and are pretty damn sure that if you open your mouth, you're going to throw up.
Not this, Mac thinks as she stares at them. Not this again.
But she doesn't even drop the sign they gave her, which is a pretty impressive feat in and of itself; it shakes in her fingers as she holds it way too tightly, but that's it. And just as she's about to drag her voice back into her throat to tell them exactly where they can stick the aforementioned sign for telling her to strip naked for an animal rights calendar and just assuming she'd be okay with it, the curtain at the back of the room falls away, revealing the rest of the PHAT kids laughing and applauding. Somewhere, a flash goes off.
A prank, she realizes with dull incredulity and a undeniable crash of relief. The whole thing was a joke.
But she --
Veronica wouldn't have thought any less of Mac for leaving in the middle of this job. She knows all about everything that happened in the Neptune Grand. Bolting would have been a totally acceptable option, had Mac done it.
But she hadn't.
She didn't run.
...And, yeah, okay, it's kind of stupid to pretend it's not true: Bronson Pope's pretty cute when he smiles like that.
So that's what she can do, she thinks. She can keep letting Cassidy control her life when he's seven months dead, or she can reclaim it as her own. She can spend so much of her daily existence in fear that she turns into somebody like Beaver, or she can prove exactly how much she isn't, and never will be, somebody like him.
And Mac can do something like knock on Bronson's door a week later and ask him to a movie -- then spin around as she's about to leave, sprint back up the steps, and pull him in for the kiss she backed away from when they hung out at the Around The World Party.
For a week where she found herself thinking about Cassidy Casablancas so much, it turned out weirdly okay by the time it was over.
Maybe that'll even be a trend.
To get specific, it's the kind of choices birthed out of reaching a place where you're so tired of bending to this huge, uncontrollable, and frankly thoroughly crappy force that you have to do something to make yourself stand up to it. It's hitting a point where you don't run: not because you're paralyzed with fear, but because you're finally making the conscious decision to hold your ground.
Even if the whole time Sam and Darla are going on about "taking it off" and "showing commitment to the organization," looking at you like you're brain-damaged because you should have known that this was what they were talking about when they asked you here because, seriously, what else would they have been talking about? -- even if the whole time they're doing that, you can feel your legs liquefying and are pretty damn sure that if you open your mouth, you're going to throw up.
Not this, Mac thinks as she stares at them. Not this again.
But she doesn't even drop the sign they gave her, which is a pretty impressive feat in and of itself; it shakes in her fingers as she holds it way too tightly, but that's it. And just as she's about to drag her voice back into her throat to tell them exactly where they can stick the aforementioned sign for telling her to strip naked for an animal rights calendar and just assuming she'd be okay with it, the curtain at the back of the room falls away, revealing the rest of the PHAT kids laughing and applauding. Somewhere, a flash goes off.
A prank, she realizes with dull incredulity and a undeniable crash of relief. The whole thing was a joke.
But she --
Veronica wouldn't have thought any less of Mac for leaving in the middle of this job. She knows all about everything that happened in the Neptune Grand. Bolting would have been a totally acceptable option, had Mac done it.
But she hadn't.
She didn't run.
...And, yeah, okay, it's kind of stupid to pretend it's not true: Bronson Pope's pretty cute when he smiles like that.
So that's what she can do, she thinks. She can keep letting Cassidy control her life when he's seven months dead, or she can reclaim it as her own. She can spend so much of her daily existence in fear that she turns into somebody like Beaver, or she can prove exactly how much she isn't, and never will be, somebody like him.
And Mac can do something like knock on Bronson's door a week later and ask him to a movie -- then spin around as she's about to leave, sprint back up the steps, and pull him in for the kiss she backed away from when they hung out at the Around The World Party.
For a week where she found herself thinking about Cassidy Casablancas so much, it turned out weirdly okay by the time it was over.
Maybe that'll even be a trend.