Dare Me

Когда тебе четырнадцать, пятнадцать, семнадцать, нужно что-то делать, чтобы убить все это время, это бесконечное зудящее ожидание, когда каждый час, каждый день ждешь чего-то – чего угодно – лишь бы это поскорее случилось.

Когда стреляешь в короля - лучше не промахивайся.

Бет всегда была капитаном, а я - её дерзким лейтенантом.

When you have nothing inside you, you feel everything more, and feel you can control all of it.

I wanted to be a part of your world, but I didn`t know your world was this.

In the basement now, there is a powerful nostalgia. This is a Beth I haven`t seen for a while, the Beth of subterranean nights, our self-whipped adolescent fears and JV yearnings: I will never what if we never will we ever.
I`d forgotten we were like that, before we were everything.

Once, Beth and I had a night like this, the night before we started high school. Kiddie-like, we`d hooked her brother`s Swiss Army into our palms and pressed them tight against each other, and later Beth said she could feel my heart beating in my hand, her hand. She swore she could. We knew that meant something. Something had passed between us and would endure. We don`t talk about it anymore and it was a century ago, wars won and lost since then.
And, Beth, you`re not even here now.

Let`s face it, we`re the only animation in the whole drop-ceiling, glass-bricked tomb of a school. We`re the only thing moving, breathing, popping.
And we know it. You can feel that knowingness on us.
Look at them, that`s what we can hear them -- everyone -- say when, Game Day, we stride the hallways, pack-like, our ponytails rocking, our skirts like diamonds.
Who do they think they are?
But we know just who we are.

Beth Cassidy, our captain.
I, her forever-lieutenant, since age nine, peewee cheer. Her right hand, her fidus Achates. That`s what she calls me, what I am. Everyone bows to Beth and, in so doing, to me.
And Beth does as she pleases.

We`re all the same under our skin, aren`t we? We`re all wanting things we don`t understand. Things we can`t even name. The yearning so deep, like pinions over our hearts.

That’s what people never understand: They see us hard little pretty things, brightly lacquered and sequin-studded, and they laugh, they mock, they arouse themselves. They miss everything.
You see, these glitters and sparkle dusts and magicks? It’s war paint, it’s feathers and claws, it’s blood sacrifice.

You have to understand. People will always try to scare you into things. Scare you away from things. Scare you into not wanting things you can’t help wanting. You can’t be afraid.

“You wait your whole life for something to happen,” she’s saying, her face virtuous, princess-like, under the rimy fluorescents. “Then, suddenly, it’s all the terrors of the earth all at once."

She told him the way she felt after Caitlin was born, like the secret of life had been told to her at last and the secret was this: in the end all the things you think matter are just disappointment and noise.

Beth touches these things inside us sometimes. Inside me. It is one of her gifts, deeply misunderstood by others. It sounds like she’s being mean, but she’s not. Sick, sick, sick. It’s something you feel constantly, the thing you fight off all the time.
The knot of hot boredom lodged behind your eyes, so thick and grievous you want to bang your head into the wall, knock it loose.

Они находят меня на Ройстон-Роуд. Я бегу.
Я никогда не бегаю. Бет говорит, что бег — скучнейшая форма мастурбации. Не знаю, что это значит, но эти слова навсегда отбили у меня охоту бегать.
Однако сегодня утром, с языком, онемевшим от мачехиного клоназепама, я решаю, что пробежаться было бы неплохо

—Чтобы победить, надо блеснуть! — кричит она. Голос её всё громче; он гремит в наших ушах.
—Встряхнули головой! — велит она, и мы повинуемся.
—Хлопнули в ладоши, резче! — велит она, и мы повинуемся.
—Лица такие, будто вы хотите переспать со всем залом! — велит она, и мы сияем в экстазе.
—Улыбайтесь так, будто замуж за них готовы! — приказывает она. Будь у неё кнут, она бы сейчас хлестала им на по ногам. — Жгите, жгите, жгите!

Одна маленькая ложь – но кроме нее было еще много всего. Если сложить вместе все ее вранье, получится гора размером с пятиэтажный дом.