Be My Escape

This is absolutely one of my favorite songs. And I'm rather proud of this piece. It's a bit longer than the last, but I hope you enjoy. On with the show.

******
Well, this was it. Rock bottom. The lowest of lows. The fall. Not even the fall, the landing. The crash landing. The all-time low. It was probably time to just give up.

Staring in the newly-cleaned bathroom mirror, tears streaking down her face, Elaine wondered how this had happened. Where had she gone so wrong? She wasn’t a bad person, not really. Sure, she had done some bad things, but that didn’t mean she was rotten to the core, did it? Yes, yes it did.

She hadn’t always been so bad. She actually used to be such a good girl. Straight A’s, church choir, ballet. And then she had met him. Different, edgy, on the wild side, and maybe just a tad bit dangerous, Jake was everything she wasn’t. He wasn’t bogged down by schedules and expectations, not trapped by society and their rules, as she was. He always seemed so free. And she so desperately longed to be free.

He had captured her heart, and pulled her into his world. A world of sex, drugs, alcohol, parties. A world where grades ceased to matter, where fights with parents were common, where rules were made to be broken. It had been fun, at first. And as the year had dragged on, it had simply become a way of life, her way of life.

This, though? This was a wakeup call. She stared down at the little plus sign. The positive sign. The complete and absolute end to her life. Jake would know what to do. She swiped at her eyes, and pulled herself up. She needed to see him in person for this. Besides, her parents had taken away her phone (again).

Thirty minutes later, she walked up to his house. The tears were kept mostly at bay when she told him, and, as predicted, he didn’t seem to really care.

“I don’t see the problem,” he said, his slurred words indicating that he had been drinking. “Just get rid of it.”

Elaine stared at him, and then it hit her. He didn’t care about her. He wasn’t her escape. He wasn’t free. He was merely trapped in a cycle of drugs and alcohol and sex. And she had become that way too. Without another word, she turned and walked off. She didn’t know where to go, but she couldn’t stop walking.

As she wandered, she couldn’t keep her thoughts from tormenting her. She was trapped too. She had let Jake pull her into this world, thinking it was her way to escape, to be free. She hadn’t realized her escape was just pulling her down. She was locked inside a cage, the bars she had built up around herself. But who had the key?

It was probably time to just give up.

Give up. Hadn’t she already done it? She couldn’t handle the pressure to be perfect, so she’d turned to a world where she didn’t have to be. Now, she was just another burn-out, another person who would get nowhere in life. She had never, never meant for this to happen.

Her feet had carried her home, and she stared up at the house she knew so well. The house she had once loved, then grown to hate. She harbored no feelings towards it anymore. With a sigh, she went inside. Her mother was home, as expected. Elaine didn’t particularly want to talk to her. Lately, all they ever seemed to do was argue. All a part of the cycle, she supposed.

“Where have you been?” As Elaine should have known, avoiding Lillian Grant was impossible.

Elaine opened her mouth, a caustic remark springing to her lips out of habit. She stopped herself though, and just turned and walked up to her room. She couldn’t tell Lillian. She couldn’t talk to anyone. She was all by herself. She had to fix this on her own. If only she knew how.

The tears came back with a sudden vengeance, and she was soon sobbing into her trusty pillow. Help me. The words danced across her mind. Please help me. It had become a mental mantra, a plea, although she had no idea who she was begging.

In time, the tears ebbed away. Elaine sat up, folding her legs Indian-style, and stared at her reflection in the mirror. She looked, quite honestly, terrible. Her excessive amount of mascara had smeared during her sob session, her eyes were puffy and red, and her hair was a mess. With a shuddering sigh, she stood up and walked over to her mirror. She didn’t take her eyes off her reflection as she came towards it.

She picked up a towel lying on her dresser and wiped her eyes. The make-up came with it. It was as a little of who she had been this past year had been removed. She went to the bathroom, the bathroom where it had all started, wet the towel, and removed the rest of it. Her face was red, but completely clean for the first time in she didn’t know how long.

She tilted her head, examining herself. It was different, but she felt clean. Freer. Not completely free. She still had problems, but she felt as if she had taken a step in the right direction. She bit her lip, eyes lowering. Something was telling her she couldn’t do this alone. That she had to tell her parents. They would figure it out soon anyway. It wasn’t like she could hide it forever.

She tiptoed downstairs, although she wasn’t sure why, and hesitated on the threshold of the living room, where her mother was currently sitting, watching some talk show. Elaine took a tentative step into the room, and her mother glanced up.

“Yes?” Lillian asked.

“I’m sorry.” The words came from nowhere, not at all what she had been intending to say. “I’m so, so sorry.”

The tears started again, and suddenly Lillian was there, wrapping her arms around her daughter, as she had been longing to do since they had lost each other.

“Oh, honey,” she said softly. “It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

“I just wanted an escape,” Elaine blubbered, probably sounding absolutely insane. “Just an escape. But then I got trapped, and I’m still trapped, and I don’t know how to escape from that.”

“We’ll figure it out.”

And figure it out they did. Every Sunday, without fail, Elaine could be found in the church down the street from her neighborhood. Every day, before bed, without fail, Elaine could be found kneeling by her bed, head bent, hands folded. Every day, without fail, Elaine had found her escape.

Formatting

Hey y'all,

I apologize for the lack of paragraphs. It's something I'm trying to fix, but I suck with stuff like this. Just bear with me! =]

EDIT: All the paragraphs are fixed. Should this happen in the future, don't fear. I will, eventually get around to it. =D

The Rest Is Up To You

This is rather short (thank you exams). Hopefully they will be getting longer. If you don't know this song, you should listen to it, it's spectacular. Anywho, on with the story.

*********

“I know what you’ve been through,” Matt says, but he has spoken unwisely.

His brother, who has been sitting passively so far, refusing to look at him, snaps his head up, and the green glare he is now directing at Matt is rather disturbing. “You don’t,” John half-growls. A moment later, he drops his head back into his hands, fingers gripping at his dark hair, hair that could use a brush and some shampoo. His voice lowers, anger fading, as he adds, “You couldn’t.”

Matt eyes him. “You’re not the only one who lost Mark, you know,” he says, frustration decorating his words. He stands, making as if to storm out in an angry huff. John’s next words stop him though.

“No, but I am the only one who killed him.”

John refuses to look at Matt, but he doesn’t shrug off the hand Matt has now placed on his shoulder.

“And don’t you even tell me I didn’t,” John continues, correctly predicting Matt’s next strategy. “I did. We all know it, and pretending it didn’t happen won’t make it go away.”

Matt’s grip tightens, and they sit in silence for a moment.

“It should have been me,” John whispers. The whisper just sort of slips out. It is filled with the anger, confusion, grief, and guilt that have been plaguing him since his Mark’s death. It is something he has been thinking about every day for the past month. Something he has known all along. He can’t figure it out. Why is he still here? Why isn’t he the one lying in the coffin six feet under in a cold, dreary graveyard? Why is it Mark and not he?

Matt almost hits him. Instead, he snaps, “And you think that would make things better, do you?”

“It’d make me feel better!” John half-shouts.

“Yeah, and that’s all that matters, isn’t it?” Matt says. He sighs, running a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do to get through to you. I guess the rest is just up to you.” With these words, he turns and leaves.

John stays where he is, wallowing. The emotions he feels is almost suffocation, which isn’t a very masculine thing to say, but he never does say it, which probably contributes to said suffocating feelings. Matt can’t understand. Matt didn’t kill their brother. Matt doesn’t live with the premature death hanging over him the rest of his life.

Neither do you.

The voice is sly, whispering in the back of his mind. It’s the part of John, the part that exists within all of us, that is generally kept at bay.

You could end it. You wouldn’t have to feel this anymore.

It’s selfish, John knows. So, so selfish. But he can’t help considering it. He doesn’t want to be here anymore, doesn’t want to taint his family with his presence. He can’t help but feel that it would set things right.

It would be so easy. You can say good-bye to everything. To the pain, to the guilt.

It was tempting. But what would everyone say? What would Matt think of him?

Your life isn’t up to them. It’s up to you.

And his decision was made.

********

A young man, a teenager of maybe sixteen, hurries into a church. He hasn’t been in a while, and has forgotten that mass started ten minutes ago. He genuflects and slips inconspicuously into a pew. He hasn’t missed much, he notes, as the woman stands to sing the Responsorial Psalm, and for that, he is grateful.

He smiles, a feeling of peace and content washing over him. It is something he rarely feels

anymore, and he embraces it. He no longer is burdened by his troubles. He no longer is weighed down by guilt and misery. Sure, he feels sad sometimes, but who doesn’t? He has figured out the key to happiness. And everyone was right.

It was all up to him.

Hello, Internet World

Several months ago, while watching the movie Julie and Julia, I was inspired. I wanted to do something like that, but, as I am a terrible cook, and that would completely be copying Julie's fabulous idea, I decided to do something I'm good at (or, well, at least like): writing. And so the idea came to me: for every Relient K song on my iPod, I would write a story. Thus, this blog was born.

In advance, I'd also like to point out, that Relient K has many Christian songs. I myself am a Christian. This will be reflected in much of writing. You don't have to like it, I ask only that you refrain from insulting my beliefs.

On a side note, I'm sure it's obvious, but I feel compelled to add, that I own none of these songs. They are all copyrighted by Relient K and their record companies and what-not. Occasionally a line from their song might end up in one of the stories, however, apart from that, the writing is all mine.

Thanks, and I hope y'all enjoy! =D