Chapter Text
The desperation of reality is often perplexing.
A warped thought, that traverses from what is real, and what is not. The reality of desperation, is often a different thing entirely. One that forces you to realise that you are becoming desperate, that the want of another, is what forces your mindset to change.
It is exactly this, that has forced me to be sitting on this train now, that the universe has told me to be late, for a reason. Or maybe, just maybe, my alarm clock at seven in the morning was turned off and so in a rush, I got up and sprinted to the metro, already knowing i'd have missed the train that takes most students to school.
Nine.
In the morning and finally after catching up on lost sleep, I woke, for the second time that day.
Although I slept in, and although I was late, I still was tired and the quiet carriage in the train lulled me back to sleep.
Waking up is a treacherous thing, it dazes you and if anything, i'm left feeling even more tired than I was ten minutes ago, but something causes me to wake up properly, and its probably because there was now someone sitting close beside me, black pants and white cotton top, our school emblem on the pocket, and also because a police officer was going around checking everybody in their compartment.
I groan, stretching my legs and looking out of the window.
Graffiti walls and a sad world of options was out those windows. And the train cart buzzed in sarcastic laughs and sadistic looking characters, the stench of coffee prominent on everyones breath. Especially the guy with a trombone and briefcase who stood by the doors.
"Excuse me, you haven't seen a kid with a blue baseball cap and red jacket have you?"
A smile lulls over my lips, and eyes flick up to land on the police officer who was interrogating a middle-aged lady. She hardly looked like she belonged in New York, actually she looked like she had just bought a plane ticket here and decided to live the city lifestyle.
"Uh, no. Sorry." She shakes her head, and the officer nods, leaving her be.
Blue baseball cap,
red jacket.
"Good Morning, Dream." I whispered, and I gave a hard shove to the boy next to me, who only groaned and pulled his head down further.
"Shut up, kid, I'm only sitting next to you because I know you go to my school." The boy beside me replies with a snarky tone, eyes gripping at his phone, his hands desperate for no attention.
Kid, who the fuck is he calling kid?
"What'd you do this time?" I asked, nonchalance laced around my words, and I didn't bother looking at the senior, who would walk around school with both the baseball cap and jacket; but now wore a black letterman, his head of blonde hair covered by a black beanie too. "Graffitied on Officer Sams car." He snickered and he side-eyed the officer, who was now leaving the train car and going towards the next. "That, is a serious felony." I whispered and I'm not exactly sure where this new-found confidence was coming from. Or maybe it had always been lurking in the shadows. Usually I stuck myself in books, usually I kept to myself, associating with people like him, or him in general, was only ever a bad thing. Nothing good ever came out of talking to Clay Beckett, and it may be okay right now, in fact, it may be so okay, that in the end everything will be terrifying.
That, is the reality of desperation, the desperation for everything to be normal, the simplicity of that life that was once okay. The desperation for everything to not be terrifying.
My hands grip the pole, and I listen to the screeching of the train wheels. "Is this our stop?" Dream asks me and he got no response when the train stopped, when the doors opened.
"Hello?" He asked, and I shrugged, grabbing my sorry excuse of a bag and getting off that damn seat. I looked back at the blonde, who stared back confused.
I sigh, leave him here, he'll never survive. The Metro is deadly at nine in the morning, it's exactly this reason that I usually catch the earlier train at seven.
Seven o'clock train? Stupid old men in business suits, carrying brief cases that hold responsibility.
Nine o'clock train? Assistants, little girls that dance their way around the tiled floors, the poorest of people, skipping rocks but they're actually bottles, waiting for them to shatter like highschool hearts. Phone calls and chatter, words and banter, they're a life of anything but simplicity, but in this world, in this city, everything is okay, everyone is desperate.
It's our reality.
"Grab my hand or you won't make it off this train." I call extending my hand to the one person i've told myself to keep away from at all costs, over the stench of coffee, over the call of the loudspeakers, over the footsteps of passengers.
And it feels okay, for a moment, when a calloused hand falls into mine, larger and the grip was subtle. Held loose. Dream gets up, grabbing his duffel bag and slipping out of the train behind me, as I pushed our way through the underground station.
"How far is school from here?" The blonde called, and I don't bother looking back at him, instead I only scoff and pushed past a group of drunks. "Five minutes." I voiced back finally, and Dream nodded, seen through my peripheral, taking in account of the world beneath the streets. There was no taxi traffic down here, no yellow cabs or people in Gucci, instead the world of the turnovers and the sleep-deprived lived here.
We walked in silence, my hands stuffed themselves in pockets, backpack drooping over a shoulder.
"You don't look like goody-two shoe George, do ya?" Dream smirked, laughing as a I returned glare, met with his eyes of greens.
"Why pretend just for you?" My laugh was low, and dark eyes returned to the sky. Was that my reputation? Goody-two shoe. I wasn't a snitch, because I had lies and a truth, I had secrets and a fault. If I snitched, I'd be only throwing myself under the bus.
The blonde frowned, "You remind me of me, in sophomore year."
"In Sophomore you got drunk at a party and decided to try and test those wings of yours off the side of Sophia Butchers apartment." I drawled, pointing out his biggest fault of that year, and my lips curved up when Dream was the one to frown now.
"Why do you remember that?" He asked.
"Everyone has to remember the stupid shit other people do. It's the same with politicians and their stupid tweets from years back." I noted, and the blonde nodded, pulling down his beanie.
"You look like Quackity." I said with a sly smile.
Quackity was one of his friends, another person I told myself not to associate with. Although he was far less laid-back, and was rowdy, rude and had no decency when it came to talking behind peoples backs.
"Great." Dream rolled his eyes, his tone of sarcasm also rolling off his tongue. "Hey why don-"
"Dream, I would love to walk around and talk with you, but I won't." I cut the boy off, and with that I took his departure through the school gates.
Wstakens High School was more than four walls and a roof.
And I sigh, pulling up my bag before pushing my way through the doors.
It was actually way more than four walls, also with a hole in the roof, and a courtyard of lustful, hungry, and depressed students. It was a reality of life, that left people desperate. Everyone here wanted something, and whether that was good grades, or a scholarship, or perhaps drugs and sex,
everyone was the exact same.