Chapter Text
Candy had convinced herself that everything would be fine if she just got the recording (then everything would be normal. Iris would smile at her again. Lysander wouldn’t look torn apart by the struggle between his friends. Castiel would change out of that ugly jacket that looked so very wrong on him. She could fix it, she just had to try hard enough). But Deborah caught on. Deborah got the recorder and with the right words spun it around that she had attacked her and made it seem like thank god Deborah knew how to defend herself because otherwise who knew what Candy would do to her?
I will never be forgiven, she thought as Peggy sneered at her. Peggy, who was so very much like her, and god if it were the other way around would she have been convinced? Would she have shut out any of them if Lucy (God, she hasn’t seen Lucy in months, she’s an awful friend) had come up and whispered poison in her ear about them?
{It can’t end like this. It can’t and-}
It’s while she’s trying not to break down that she notices Amber with a bucket of water. Tired, (she’s always tired now and-) she asks her what she’s doing, and hearing that she’s going after Deborah (Amber being targeted by Deborah, becoming a shell like she was…It wasn’t an option) tries to pull the bucket from her hands. It tumbles, down and down like Candy wishes she would until it falls smack on Deborah’s head. Her legs feel weak and she feels herself slide down to the ground. Amber, Charlotte and Li are gone when she looks up. In their place is a sopping wet Deborah and the principal.
Detention.
Slurs.
“You could have hurt her! What is going on in your head?” Castiel shouts. He’s so loud, it makes Candy’s head hurt. She weakly protests it wasn’t her but Amber. He gets angrier.
“This is my last warning! You need to calm down or I swear that I will make you regret it! Just leave everyone alone!
“If Deborah is here, it’s because she has a great offer for me! With all the trouble you’ve been causing I can’t think about what I want! I didn’t think you were capable of stooping so low just to oust a girl you think to be a rival or whatever!” He sounds so disappointed.
(Deborah, turning Castiel against Nathaniel. Deborah using Castiel until she tosses him aside again.)
“But, wait! Just…” Her words taper off as he starts to walk away. He can’t leave! She has to explain, if he’ll just listen! She runs after him and catches his arm at the stairwell.
“Castiel, wait!” She begs. He doesn’t turn to look at her but doesn’t shrug her off. A spark of hope that hasn’t been extinguished grows bigger.
“I swear I didn’t do anything. If only you would listen to me, you would understand…” She swallows a sob before continuing, ”Deborah manipulated you, and she wants to do it again! She wanted me out of the picture to be able to do what she wants.” She takes a deep breath, trying to gather the strength for her next words.
“I like you, Castiel. I like you a lot, and I don’t want her to use you again. Please, I’m begging you to believe me.” She whispers.
“Go away…” He turns to her as he says it. His eyes are cold.
“Please.” She’s not sure who she’s begging now. The universe, maybe.
“Go away now, stop talking to me. Just forget that I exist and don’t get close to anyone I like.” His voice isn’t even loud. She lets go of his arm and wraps her arms around herself. Suddenly, it’s cold.
{Buckets of water, Nathaniel and no hope, everyone avoiding her, Lysander promising he’d fix it, Rosa sweet Rosa believing every word, record and-}
“I just wanted to help you. I just wanted everyone to understand.”
He doesn’t say anything. She feels something fall down her face and realizes too late she’s crying.
He leaves her alone in the stairway, and hope withers and dies in her chest.
{-she wants it to end.}
Candy walks home alone in the rain. No one stops her, no one comments on the tear tracks on her face . Peggy hasn't put out her paper yet, but people already hate her enough that they avoid her like wildfire. She has yet to learn how to make it stop hurting. She wishes she knew. She walks through the park and goes into her empty apartment. Her parents are away for the week, visiting her grandparents. She’s never felt lonelier, and it’s only to easy to grab a pair of scissors from the kitchen drawer. To walk into her bedroom and lock the door before sitting on her bed and wonder if the sharp edge to those scissors had always been so alluring.
Her friend’s voices play like a loop in her mind, and they make it easy to dig the blade of the scissors into her wrist.
“I…I can’t believe you’d do something like this…”
There is a stuffed doll sitting on my dresser I bought just so you’d be comfortable. Please believe me, Violette.
“I don’t feel comfortable with you anymore, Candy.”
Iris? I gave you my notes. We spent so time together planting flowers and laughing together.
“…”
Alexy’s silence, oppressing when he normally chattered away about anything and everything. Why won’t you talk to me, Alexy?
“He’s not here, so there is no use staying here…”
I helped you with your invitations, Melody. Don’t you remember the sleepover? We had so much fun.
“The drummer won’t fly out here to solve a petty high-school fight.”
Rosalya, sweet Rosalya trying so hard to help even though I’m not worth the effort.
“I believe you.”
Lysander, trying to help even as I drag us both down.
“You already lost! Do yourself a favor and give up!”
I helped you find the missing exams. I got Castiel to sign that absentee note when you forced my hand. Nathaniel, you’re more like your sister then I thought and that makes me sad. I was going to fix this for the both of us.
“You are a bully like Amber now, so you want to become her friend?”
Kentin, Ken please you know me. Have you really changed so much that you don’t even know me anymore?
“You must have fallen pretty far to come crawling to me for help… It’s great!”
So cruel, Amber. All I ever wanted to be your friend.
“What would I do without your mistakes and low blows, Candy?”
Peggy, what did I ever do to you to deserve this harsh treatment from you?
“You should go see what Peggy wrote.”
Kim, curling your lip like that. I thought we were friends?
“Go away now, stop talking to me, just forget that I exist and don’t get close to anyone I like.”
Not you. Please, not you Castiel. Anyone but you…
And to her surprise, the pain feels almost liberating in a way, and it makes the voices fall blissfully silent for a moment. Her lips twitch into something resembling a smile, before she starts to draw along the branches on her wrists as they start again. By the time she’s done, her hands are covered in blood and trembling. At some point, she ended up on her knees, and now that she thinks about it, it’s kind of getting hard to see. But the voices are gone, there is silence in her head at last! She loses the strength to hold herself up and falls to the ground. Her carpet somewhat cushions the fall and is soft under her cheek. Her wrists hurt, and she thinks to herself of how foolish she had been. She laughs, and the sound is mixed with a sob.
I thought you were my friends.
Reaching blindly into her pocket, she manages to take out her cellphone. She gazed at the blurred display, her bloody finger scrolling through pictures of her ‘friends’. It could have been minutes or hours, but soon enough her phone fell from her numb fingers. Her eyes slid closed. And then there was nothing.