20. Give Me Novacaine/She’s a Rebel
Give Me Novacaine/She's a Rebel
As the house lights in the auditorium came up and Chloe’s clothes reappeared, Dustin finally breathed a sigh of relief. Watching the people he cared about have to struggle like this was like getting kicked over and over again when he was already on the ground from his own ordeal.
Chloe made eye contact with the group, finally able to see them. If she was uncomfortable with the knowledge that they’d seen everything she went through, she didn’t show it as she stepped down from the runway and met them as they approached.
Dustin went in for a hug, but he hesitated, realizing that he’d never really seen Chloe hug anyone before.
Noticing his conflict, Chloe gave a weak chuckle.
“It’s alright just this once fish boy. Bring it in,”
“You did a great job. Not that you need me to tell you that,” Dustin said, pulling her in close, “that took a lot of courage,”
“Reel it the fuck in,” Chris grabbed Dustin’s shoulder, physically forcing him and Chloe apart, “I don’t have time to watch you play therapist for everyone else. Bailey’s gone and all this shit is probably about to change again,”
“Have you lost your fucking mind?!” Dustin snapped, “I know you’re going through shit right now, but look around! So is everyone else! You don’t get to be an asshole just because you…”
“Because I what? Because I actually FEEL shit instead of just pushing it down and ignoring it like you?” Chris fired back, grabbing Dustin by the collar, “you don’t get to fucking judge me, like you’re so damn perfect,”
“Let. Me. Go,” Dustin demanded, his teeth clenched tight.
“Make me. You’re the leader, right?” Chris was grinning now, irises pulsing red with every word.
“You guys, please, there’s no need for this to get out of control! We should focus on finding Bailey, not fighting each other,” James offered, his voice shaky as his eyes bounced between the twins; clearly debating whether to get between them or not.
“Fuck off. This ain’t your fight short stack,” Chris spat, his grip on Dustin heating up to the point that the latter’s shirt started to smoke.
“There’s not going to be a fight Christian,” Chloe cut in, her veins and eyes flashing white as a clear warning, “let him go, get your shit together, and let’s find Bailey. In that order,”
Chris scoffed.
“What? You giving me orders now?”
“It’s an order I suggest you follow,” Dustin seethed, his eyes still locked on Chris as his veins darkened, turning his breaths into puffs of cold air with the subtle activation of his powers, “don’t take this somewhere you can’t come back from,”
Chris just eyed Dustin for a long moment, his eyes still pulsating with crimson light.
It looked like he was studying him, trying to predict what he would do next.
It wasn’t a side of Dustin he was familiar with (it wasn’t even a side Dustin himself was familiar with) so he clearly wasn’t sure how to proceed.
But eventually, he released his brother, pushing him back in the same motion.
“Whatever. Let’s just fucking find Bailey,”
As Chris finally let him go, Dustin finally took a look at their environment; gone was the glorious atrium of Chloe’s trial, and they were now standing…
in the Kochiyama High black box theater?
The room was larger than the one at their school, but Dustin still recognized Mrs. Lincoln’s office door on the far side of the space; the only distinguishable feature of the bland space with black walls.
The seats on the edge of the room were slowly starting to fill with shadowy, humanoid figures. They were chatting amongst themselves in a language Dustin couldn’t quite decipher, but it made him shudder nonetheless.
He had no idea what Bailey was in for, but he knew for sure that it wasn’t going to be pleasant.
Bailey was possibly the theater kid-est theater kid to ever exist, so finding herself in the dressing room of her high school, amidst costume pieces and half-assembled props shouldn’t have been unnerving.
But of course, it wasn’t really the dressing room, was it? It was the Lotus Garden spitting an approximation of it back in her face as a way to test her.
Like a trap wearing a dear friend’s face.
Before she could even really get her bearings, the creaking sound of the door on the other side of the room caught her attention. It swung open on its own, silently urging her to step out into the Black Box, where she could already hear indistinct chatter.
Even though she couldn’t understand exactly what was being said, she could still feel it, oddly enough. She knew the tone of judgement and ridicule, even when she couldn’t make out the words.
“Face the judgement of a bunch of assholes without losing my cool?” Bailey wondered aloud, guessing the theme of her trial before the garden even had a chance to spell it out, “easy-peasy. I’ve been doing that for years,”
She stepped through the door and into the theater proper, instantly noting that the main performance space was surrounded by an impossible number of chairs, full of featureless shadow people.
In the center of the room, was a massive slab of pristine white marble; like the kind fancy sculptures were made out of.
Bailey rolled her eyes, followed by a self-assured smirk.
The Lotus Garden really thought it was clever. Truly believed this was some kind of “gotcha” moment.
Trying to weaponize her insecurities against her?
Right after she’d spilled the beans to Chloe about every day feeling like a constant performance, just so people would see her the way she truly was, the garden puts her in a theater with a blank slate, clearly testing her ability to sculpt her reality when under pressure.
Well, if the garden thought this was gonna break her, it had another thing coming.
She took a breath and drowned out the voices, feeling her body grow heavier and sturdier as her powers flared to life. Yellow light coursed through her veins and she focused on the marble; every tight, dense molecule suddenly part of her awareness.
With a powerful heave, cracks splintered through the slab; spiderwebbing across the smooth surface as pieces fell away.
As she sculpted the stone with her mind, she kept her thoughts locked on the image in her head; an image of herself, standing strong, holding the world on her shoulders.
The thing she’d been doing with ease since she was 12 years old.
The thing she’d do for the rest of her life.
As the figure began to take shape, the voices from the crowd intensified. Bailey still couldn’t understand their words, but their snickers and hushed whispers said it all.
She barely noticed. Her focus was rock-solid.
The marble continued to form to her will, and in no time flat, the sculpture was complete. It turned out even better than she’d expected; it looked like Atlas if he shopped at Forever 21, and that was kind of the sickest thing in the world.
Bailey smiled wide, expecting the audience’s voices to fade out, or at least quiet down a bit…
But they only grew louder. More aggressive. The strange foreign whispers gnawing at her ears now, grinding into her brain.
The marble cracked and splintered, threatening to send her immaculate creation tumbling down in front of this assembly of faceless buffoons.
Oh… so that was the game, huh? Fine, she could play along.
With another surge of power, Bailey locked the statue in place; sealing the cracks by sheer force of will and maintaining the structure.
The voices kept getting louder and louder.
More violent and vicious. And with every increasing decibel, a new fissure formed in the marble, forcing Bailey to exert even more effort just to hold it together.
As she pushed harder, she noticed that her feet were like…
gone? No, dummy, they weren’t gone. They were just, numb?
At the risk of losing her focus, she glanced down at her shoes…
and they were rapidly being overtaken by stone.
Stone that was currently creeping up her body, threatening to swallow her whole and render her just as immobile as the statue.
She gasped in horror, and that mere momentary break in concentration resulted in her statue’s arm crumbling and smashing to the floor.
“Shit!” she immediately locked her eyes back on the sculpture, throwing her arms out in front of her and pushing her power to its absolute limit to force the thing to stay in one piece.
She pushed harder. The statue kept cracking. The voices got louder. The stone was now up to her waist.
“Okay, okay! I get it!” she called out, to no one in particular, “if I keep going like this, I’m gonna end up just like the statue!
Subtlety is not your strong suit! I just…
I just don’t know what else to do! What, am I supposed to just let everyone write their own story about me?
Am I supposed to just let the people I care about fall apart, myself included?
If I can stop that from happening, then I have to stop it.
Great power and responsibility! You know?
Spider-Man! God, Dustin’s gonna get a kick out of that one,”
The unintelligible shadow voices kept rising, so loud now that they were drowning out Bailey’s thoughts. At this point, she couldn’t even move her arms; the creeping stone had rendered them completely immobile.
“Bailey!”
Her eyes widened.
Was that… recognizable human speech?
“Bailey! Just let it go!”
There it was again, clearer this time. Dustin’s voice, soft and sweet as cotton candy, even when he was stressed to Hell and back. But how was she hearing him right now?
“Wait… can she hear you? I think she can! Bailey, remember what I told you in the mall! You are who you are regardless of what anyone thinks, you don’t have to try so hard to hold up the version you want everyone to believe in!”
Chloe’s words were as clear as a bell, ringing through the incoherent nonsense with ease.
“They’re right! You’ve kept us working as a unit since day one just by being you, not by killing yourself with the effort!” James chimed in.
“I’m not usually into the whole ‘Power of Friendship’ bullshit, but… they’re right Bails. You’re not sturdy because you try, you’re sturdy because you’re YOU. You don’t gotta play Point Guard all the time. The point of a team is to carry the load together,”
Bailey started sniffling at Chris’s words; both from how sincere they were, and how hypocritical it was coming from him. But then again, as long as she’d known him, he’d never been one to take his own advice.
Could they be right though? Could she just… let it crumble? Trust that if she stopped holding it up, that it wouldn’t fall apart? That she wouldn’t fall apart?
Damn it.
Of course she couldn’t be sure.
And that was exactly the point.
Bailey took a shaky breath, tears streaming down her cheeks as she did so.
After a moment that seemed to stretch on forever, she finally just…
let herself rest. Her muscles unclenched, the light in her veins and eyes faded away, and the sculpture she’d effortlessly crafted and rigorously maintained, completely and utterly collapsed.
The chorus of incoherent voices didn’t fade; if anything, their meaningless words only seemed to be more venomous now that they’d seen what they perceived as weakness in her. But that’s when Bailey realized what she’d known all along.
She couldn’t understand a word they were saying… because whatever narrative they were writing, wasn’t about her. Not really.
And even though the statue was nothing but dust and rubble on the floor of a theater, Bailey, the real Bailey, was still there.
She hadn’t fallen apart. And she never would.