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Alice isn’t sure what to do as she blocks the door, clutching her cellphone between her fingers until they go white, waiting for her girlfriend and Grace fucking Chastity to break it down and do God knows what to her. She wants to call her father again, just to have the comfort of hearing his voice, but she decides against it. For one, she doesn’t want to bother him again, get in the way of his rescue attempt; she’s also just not sure if she wants the last thing she hears to be his voice.
Briefly, she wonders if that’s petty. The world’s going to shit, she’s about to die, or become some freakish singing zombie or whatever, and she’s still strung up about him? About the fact he doesn’t know how old she is (seventeen, she’s fucking seventeen, not eighteen or whatever bill thinks she is), about the fact he still sees her like some stupid child. Maybe he’s right. I mean, it would take a real stupid kid to hide from zombies in a closet, to wait for help like a sitting duck instead of making a break for it. Who knows. It’s not like Alice has time to ponder the matter further, not when she hears a crack from the door.
They’re close. She can hear them singing, their muffled voices going on and on about every reason why she should just give in. It’s almost a comfort to her. Deb has a beautiful voice- it was one of the reasons she fell for her in the first place. She never sang around her, though- always said it was too embarrassing, that she wasn’t good enough or that Alice wouldn’t want to hear her anyways. It’s nice to hear her sing again, even if it’s at a time like this. “Deb, g-go away! Please!”
It’s almost as if she thinks she’s strong enough to break through to her. There’s a pause in Deb’s singing, but it’s back as soon as it was gone. “Fuck.” She glances briefly at her hands, she’s bleeding at this point, pricking her fingers on the chipped wood of the damaged door. Her phone is all but crushed, bits of the screen missing, leaving nothing but sharp edges of broken glass.
She can fight back. It might not be a lot, and sure, Alice’s never so much as hit anyone before, but she could take her phone and jam it in Grace’s thick skull and be done with it. She could grab the music stand behind her, take off its head and jab and stab the base into her tiny waist until there was nothing left. That would leave Deb, though. Her dad would be so disappointed in her, knowing that the only thing stopping her from escaping is her stupid crush on Deb.
Her fucking dad. Bill. She wishes her phone had any chance of working, just so she could call her dad and use her final words to cuss him out. Just thinking about him makes her angry. He doesn’t know anything about her, and yet he acts as if he has every right to choose the way her life should go. Whether it’s Deb, or what restaurant they eat at, or what they do together- it’s his choice. Even when it comes to college, her dad had the school all picked out for her-
And yet she’s crying, tearing up at the realization that she’d never see him again. God, she tries so hard to love him. Times like this made her wish that she was actually living with him instead of her mom. If she didn’t have to get on that stupid bus, she’d never gotten off it- she might have been with her dad right now. They could have talked things through, could have come to terms with the whole Deb thing. She remembers how close Christmas is, how much she was looking forward to spending the holiday with her dad and Deb and everyone else she loved.
Suddenly, she wants to call him again. Now she needs to hear his voice, she needs to talk to him, to tell him she loves him. There’s simply no time, no way to do it before they barged their way in. All she can do is wish that he’s here with her, hugging her in that protective way he does, holding her close and doing his best to comfort her. She wants to go to Church with him this Sunday.
It all hits her at once; the fear turns into anguish, panicked terror morphing into regret. She’s never going to see Deb again, either, or her mom, or her friends- even those fuckers in the ‘smoke club’ are gone forever. She's never going to get to snuggle with Deb, or make up with her dad, or anything ever again. It hurts. She’ll never get to go to college, never going to get a degree or a job or have the dream wedding she’s always wanted. Her life is over.
The only thing keeping Deb and Grace away from her are her hands pressing against the door, delaying their attempts to get inside. But she knows the door only has minutes before snapping. It’s inevitable; they’re going to get in and there’s nothing she can do to stop them.
She lowers her hands. Slumping down to the ground, she crawls to the back of the closet and folds in on herself, face hidden away in her knees. She doesn’t want to watch as the door flies open, as Deb spearheads the march toward her, doesn’t want to see her expression. She can hear her dad now, telling her how much he hates Deb, how she should date some other prudish bitch instead of the girl she loved. It’s maddening, because Alice knows he’s only trying to make her happy, and now he’ll never get the chance to again.
“It’s all your fault.” She doesn’t mean it. “I hate you.” She didn’t want those to be her last words, but by the time she can even think about saying anything else, Deb’s already launched herself forwards, already grabbed her by the neck and squeezed until she feels her body go limp.