Roadtrip RP (after highschool)

[behindTHEmask]

"It's no problem." He looked in the back towards Carolyn, then back at John.
"I'm Matt by the way."
They were never formally introduced.
He lost his name as he saw the crash.
It escaped him.
"Either of you want anything?" His optics dropped to the paper sack filled with food.
Junk food mostly.
He slipped the keys into the ignition. The engine started up. Gripping the steering wheel, he sighed.
He was wondering if either of them were ready for this.

[Sparks]

John, up in front, looked at Matt. "I'd eat something. But I'm not sure I can keep it all down."
His brutal honesty floored Carolyn.
"Carolyn?" His eyes turned to her.
Empty.
She felt anger somewhere inside of her shell of disbelief.
How was he not thinking about it? How was he not seeing his brother, crumpled in the driver's seat, hands folded in his lap like crisp, clean laundry, body drenched in his own blood?
She shook her head and looked out the window.
"Okay." Like he understood. Like he was going through it all.
But even in the crease of her misplaced frustration, something told Carolyn that he was.
And he didn't look like he knew what to do.

[behindTHEmask]

He nodded and continued driving. His eyes were locked on the road before him.
The world around them was deserted.
It was like those TV shows when teenagers go on roadtrips, and nothing surrounds them. They kick their feet out the window and let the wind guide them. They were carefree.
That was the only difference.
Pain soaked through the creases in their faces.
He took one hand off the steering wheel and rubbed his temples.
His mother warned him about what the world held.
His father told him it would eat him alive.
But he didn't listen.
He wasn't going too.
He wanted to save the world.
These people were the start.

[Sparks]

Half an hour passed, and barely any talking had been initiated.
Half of Carolyn never wanted to speak again. But the other half wanted to sing out loud to confuse the lyrics with the terrible memory that time had just created for her.
So push the seats back a little further
I can see the headlights coming
So push the seats back a little further
Roll the windows down and take a breath...
"Matt," she found herself saying. Her voice was surprisingly steady. "Where are you from?"
And even as she spoke, the remnants of her life's song sunk into the margins of her washed out self.
I can see the headlights coming:
They paint the world in red and broken glass...

[behindTHEmask]

Matt looked into the rearview mirror hearing the females voice.
"A small town in Colorado."
He swallowed lightly, blinking at the open road.
"What about you two?"
ALways make conversations.
Silence may be golden.
But sometimes can lead to death.
Silence is murder.

[Sparks]

"I lived in Nanaimo a long time ago, and then moved to a small place called Port Royal," Carolyn said.
Nanaimo. Her fading past was carved into the ground of that place, and she suddenly felt a deep need to just be there. When tragedies like this happen, home is where you want to be.
She would have elaborated, but she didn't think it was necessary.
Instead, she turned her eyes on the rearview mirror, and saw Matt's, glued to the asphalt in front of them.
She knew those eyes. There was something in the expression, the depth, and the parade blue that she remembered, that she recognized. It was like seeing a familiar face and not being able to place it. Not being able to give it a real name, because the only name that she could come up with wasn't right.
Cameron Adams?
He'd been dead a long time.
It must have been three years. But they were definitely his eyes...and it hurt her to even try to think of why that could be.
She leaned back in her seat, trying not to recall the incident, because she was still in the backseat, and she was still covered in her friend's blood.
John, staring out the window, said something.
"I lived in New Jersey a long time ago. I grew up there. I moved to Port Royal about five years back... never liked either of those places."
He looked back at Carolyn, and then turned his eyes on the opened road.
There was something almost electric brewing in them.
Carolyn caught it, but lost the vision as he turned his head.
"Yeah. I was planning on getting as far away as possible, and I think I'm doing pretty good so far."
Carolyn took it in and decided, if that's what he considered good, he deserved to go through it.
"It was a foolproof plan, I thought."
His face went limp and he looked down at the dashboard.
His eyes.
They were blank. Slate.
He didn't want to remember.
"I guess there never was such thing as the perfect plan, though, was there?"

[behindTHEmask]

"Perfection is in the eye of the beholder."
His optics didn't move from the pavement.
"It's all a matter of perspective and only exists in our subconsious."
He was rambling about nothing, but he didn't care.
"It doesn't physcially exist, but people draw up this perfection in their mind to feel confident, when really, it's all about excepting ones flaws."
He blinked for the first time in five minutes.
"There's beauty in breakdown."
Swallowing hard, he sighed.
"But sometimes, breakdown takes it too far."
These memories can't replace,
These wishes I wish,
And dreams I chase.
No one ever wants to be put in a coma.
Life just happens.

[Sparks]

Time to let this pass
(The time it takes to let go)
Time runs through our veins
(It starts and stops and starts and stops again...)
Carolyn said, almost to herself, "I think the breakdown took it too far this time."
She kept gazing out the window.
"In fact, I think the breakdown took it way too far. I hope the break down fucking dies."
John replied calmly, "Carolyn, I'd rather not be the one to tell you this, but the breakdown doesn't die. The breakdown isn't even a thing. In fact, it's a string of verb and adverb fused to make an abstract noun."
She felt antagonistic, all of a sudden. What right did he have in hell to be telling her things like that?
"Would you say that if I told you it was your brother?"
He retorted sharply, "Would you say that if you had any idea what it's like to know he's gone?"
She paused.
"Lauren and Cody are both gone," she said.
There wasn't anything to do about but sit there and know that it was true.
It kind of scared Carolyn.
"No fucking way," John said, abruptly sarcastic.
The scenery flickering by was unchanging.
Carolyn wondered dimly if Matt was getting irritated by them. He had been so nice to do this for them.
"Car, I don't know about you, but as soon as the doctors let me go, I'm gone. I'm so far gone, you wouldn't believe it. I'm never coming back to what ever city we're heading into, and I'm never ever going back to Port Royal."
They both turned their heads towards each other.
Carolyn noticed that his eyes were angry.
He was scared, and she felt it.
Typical of him not to show it. But she could play that card too.
"Maybe I won't go back either."
John sighed. "Oh, Carolyn." Sarcasm. What was wrong with him! "You poor girl. Don't waste your years following old Jonno. He's not going to wait for you."
She hated him, suddenly. "Shut up."
Surprisingly enough, he did.

[behindTHEmask]

Matt listened to them bickering, but didn't say a word.
He knew what it was like.
He knew the pain felt when you lost someone you cared about before your eyes.
It wasn't something magical, and it never went away, but he didn't tell them.
Take this broken heart and make it right,
I feel like I've lost everything
When your gone,
Left remembering what its like...
A small tear fell off his cheek.
Don't even start with yourself, he screeched inside his head.
They have their own sad songs.
Don't start chirping your own.
Licking his bottom lip, he blinked.
It was becoming instinct for him.

[quilleh]

_{((I'd post, but I fear I would be mighty confused. o.0))}

[Sparks]

( it's an opened roleplay, so there aren't any restrictions to when and who can come. How much you think you got out of it so far, and how much you think you can go on with is really your decision, and I would take into consideration that it might be hard to keep it making sense (things going together, you know?) if there was a part you didnt take in fully, or something. Either way, you choose. )

Carolyn realized there was a song stuck in her head, winding between her ears while she sat and listened to the rumble of the four cylinder engine.
It was ironic, actually, how well the moment and the song fit together. Music had always been her way out.
She now feared it always would.
The song was called Standing on the Edge of Summer, another emotion-gripping song by a band called Thursday.
Never a particular fan of "emo", Carolyn had taken a while to fall into this music. But by the time she did, there was no going back, and every lyric was her life.
So we stay on the open road
We drive for hours and still no end in sight at all...
She was mesmerized by the flashing scenery. Field after field after field. Faintly glittering cities were barely visible, but so far away, still.
It wouldn't have been hard to believe the world was flat, she decided.
She turned her eyes on the rearview mirror.
There was dense emotion in Matt's eyes.
She wondered what it was about. The crash?
Forget about the crash.
It's over.
It'll be like it never happened.
Except it won't.
She thought back to what she'd said about never going back to Port Royal. Suddenly, she felt like she had been telling the truth all along. She really didn't want to go back. And as much as John thought she'd go back, she decided that she wouldn't. There wasn't really anything left for her.
It's like a country killing off another nation and drilling for oil. When it runs out, and the money generated evens out again, and they're back where they started, what happens? The people are still dead. And the people were all that mattered, in the end. The people you love are the most important part of your life.
She knew a bunch of kids who probably never knew that. Her father didn't.
She could see John's profile, and in the clear morning light, his eyes were a translucent brown.
She wondered what he was thinking.
For all the things he said, he was worth something to her.
He was the only remaining survivor at the moment.
He was the brother of a boy Carolyn had known and been somewhat close to throughout high school.
He was the only string she had left, attaching her to Port Royal.
If she frayed that one, there would be no going back.
She noticed Matt run his tongue along his bottom lip and blink.
Like he was on the edge...
Maybe it was just the sunlight.

[behindTHEmask]

"I don't think this is a good idea. Come on, let's just head home."
"Ah, Matt, you worry to much." Jake smiled brightly, shoving his hands into his pocket with a shrug. "Enjoy the nightlife.
You can't enjoy something that takes away your best friend.
"Fuck! Run, Matt. Just fucking run!" They had him in a headlock. Blood ran down in his face, and it looked like he was crying. "Just get out of hear." His voice was scratched and muffled. He must of gotten thrown to the ground, or pushed into the stomach of the offender. I coudn't tell.
Whichever, I wasn't going to leave. I couldn't. Not when they had me--face down in the dirt, screaming into my ear. "Now how does it feel on our turf?" They had me stuck.
There was a gunshot, then bitter silence. They realeased their grip and just ran away.
This made the headlines.
The gang shooting was all over the news, and they still didn't find them.
Jake's murderers still run free.
Matt blinked again, pushing out another droplet of water.
Fear became an accustomed feeling after watching his best friend die.
Pain was what he held onto every night.
But it wasn't like everyone knew.
He was the rich kid. Never got into trouble. Always made the right choices.
Stereotypes are hell.
Just a bunch of fabrications weaved into teenage reality.
Nothing was what it seemed.
He still stared at the pavement, but out of the corner of his eyes, he could see the scenary staying the same.
Not everything can last forever.
The sky was fading colors again.
The clouds were flying in.
Just another interval of life unfolding before his eyes.

[Sparks]

She'd been told by her entire life that crying was unacceptable. Boys hate girls that can't hold face. You can't hold face Carolyn? You can't do anything for shit.
She never heard anything positive from home. It had always been, "Shut up," and "Do what you're told."
Anger was a constant in her memory. Angry at her father, angry at their living accomodations, angry at the poor part of town that she could never seem to get out of, angry at how young she still was.
Angry at her mother for disappearing. Angry at her for never coming back.
She might still have been that way if she hadn't met Cameron Adams. The funniest kid she'd ever known, and after only a short time, she was never the same again.
He had changed her in a way she recognized, but couldn't name.
He was also dead and scattered somewhere over the Pacific, probably silt on the ocean floor.
Matt's face in the rearview mirror alarmed her.
The only thing she could see was the watery eyes.
She looked a bit harder and blinked.
He was crying.
Silently, and with a straight face. She knew what it was like. Don't make a sound, because maybe, if you don't look at them, they won't notice you.
But there was a faint line on his cheek, and Carolyn wasn't sure how to react.
She decided after a moment of watching his unnaturally blue eyes follow the road, that she wouldn't say anything.
If girls aren't allowed to cry, boys shouldn't dream of it.
Her father would kill this kid.
He'd kill her.
She burned up inside. She knew what it was like, even if she didn't know what it was about.
The silent tears are the ones that hurt the most.
She'd kill her father, if she ever got the chance. A murder and a string of seashells sitting on the welcome mat.
Fifty-one was old enough.
Eighteen wasn't.
Eighteen definitely wasn't.

[behindTHEmask]

My eyes burn from these tears,
You'd think I'd learn over the years,
Good things won't last forever,
So what the hell am I supposed to do?
Big boys don't cry.
He inhaled deeply, sucking away the tears. This isn't the time. Maybe the road trip was to clear your head, but there are more important things here.
He looked in the rearview mirror at Carolyn. He could tell she was looking at him--or at least was before now, so he looked back at the road.
The silence was killing him. He swallowed hard, flicking on the stereo.
The sound was as light as a baby's first lullaby.
Excuse me while I fall apart,
Don't flatter yourself sweetheart.
Let me take the wheel,
And I'll crash this car.
Do you have to make this so hard?
Maybe the radio wasn't the best idea. He turned it off.
"Sorry." His words were choked. His crying hadn't mentally subsided.
He bit his bottom lip again, blinking.
Silence in black and white.
He knew what it was like to be mute.

[Sparks]

The words that echoed from the static-filled radio drew Carolyn out of her thought-trance.
The radio clicked off.
Was it going to be like this for the rest of her life? Every time someone mentioned a crash, would they apologize?
Oh, God. How was the funeral going to be?
The city was closing in on them.
Carolyn looked back into the mirror.
She couldn't get over the feeling of recognition she got every time she saw those eyes...
But this wasn't the time for it.
The silence was growing more awkward every second, and she'd nearly forgotten John was only a couple feet away from her.
He said something for the first time in miles.
"We'll be there really soon."
Carolyn nodded slowly, even though he wasn't watching her. He was facing Matt.
Oh, no, Carolyn thought to herself as one of John's eyebrows tilted and his whole face darkened. Confusion set in, and he looked to Carolyn suddenly.
"Matt," he said, his eyes darting between the two of them. "Were you ever related to a kid named Cameron?"
Carolyn had always been a perceptive kid.
She knew how people felt. It was a genetic trait, she was always told, that she got from her mother.
She observed peoples' reactions to everything, and built personalities on it.
She knew human nature.
John must have missed that class.