Getting It Right (1/2) Annie Edison, low T TW: drugs
Annie’s first day at Greendale Community College and her mind is giddy with excitement. For once, she doesn’t have to compete with anyone to be top of the class (there was, after all, a guy with sideburns shaped like stars), and that enough ensured that Annie would never worry about anything again. Of course, reality would kick in and the euphoria would last all of three minutes. She remembers her mother’s words repeated over and over again with all the creepiness of a talking doll. She remembers the fact that she’s living on her own, without any means to pay rent, and that the next two years will be student loan after student loan. She remembers that everyone is still calling her Annie Adderall to her face, and she remembers that these years at Greendale have to be the year where she finally gets it right. She enters Spanish class and she feels the smile on her face already cracking. Troy Barnes sits in front of her and of course, he doesn’t remember her. No problem, she thinks, and she resolves to become his tutor. The back-brace and the glasses are gone, after all. Annie swears she catches Troy grin at her, and mentally hits herself for being unable to return anything more than the same plastered smile that never leaves her face. She meets the study group and she is always frustrated because she happens to be the only one studying. But she’ll never show it because for once she has friends and she doesn’t want to lose them. Senor Chang lets her do extra credit even when she doesn’t need it. And Annie coasts through the year, with her eternal smile, because for once she is making it work. She starts dating Vaughn and that’s when she starts to doubt it. He is the most carefree person in the world, and Annie cares. And it starts to mess with her because he is the sweetest person in the world, and every time she’s near him she feels as if she has wings to fly. But, then a small part of her mind will push her back because she doesn’t want him to change and she doesn’t want to change for him. And maybe, just a teeny-tiny bit maybe, that’s why Annie, the china doll with glazed eyes and a painted on smile, decides not to follow him to Delaware.
Somewhere in the middle of her crazy sophomore year, Annie finds herself starting to get disgruntled. She loves the study group, but sometimes she feels like she’ s teetering on the breaking point and sometimes she can’t help but to make it vocal. They are surprised by her emotions, volatile, stubborn and unpredictable. Surprised, yes, but they accept it because they are seven of the most imperfect people in the world. But Annie always feels like just Annie- standing alone in the middle of the room, screaming in hysteria about purple pens to a deaf choir. She dreads coming home. She dreads closing her apartment door. She dreads collapsing of exhaustion on the bed, only to have an advertisement about casting calls interrupt her hard-earned sleep. But most of all, she dreads the constant realization that she is alone, left to combat the monsters in the broken closet in this pitiful square studio. Annie realizes that she doesn’t sneak a glance at Troy as much as she used to, and she finds herself experiencing things from a new perspective, as she tilts her head slightly to the right. Jeff is cocky and charming and everything that makes Annie melt in a puddle. But somehow she can never break past the brick wall that is his self-confidence. She is caught between what she knows and what she thinks she knows. None of the other students in Anthropology give a damn and she’s resigned herself to that fact. But Duncan doesn’t care either, and she can’t help but look at her A with scorn, while the group sits next to her calling for celebration and a bottle of scotch...
Getting It Right (1/2) Annie Edison, low T TW: drugs
...Annie spends most of Biology barely making a passing grade and she can’t even be bothered to hide anything under a ceramic façade. Living with Troy and Abed would be so much easier if it wasn’t living with Troy-and-Abed. Jeff will always be hiding behind a wall that Annie will never get to. Greendale has a mental disorder that prohibits any type of improvement whatsoever, and by the time she’s expelled, Annie finds that she doesn’t really care at all. Two days after her expulsion, she gets an email from her mother. She reasons with her daughter to come back to Riverside, to come back to a town where a high-school drop-out could get on city council, to leave the last three, downward spiralling years behind. And Annie can only stare out her bedroom door. She can only look at Troy and Abed, at Shirley, Pierce, Jeff, Britta. Six other tired, lost people huddled around two La-Z boys watching a rerun of Inspector Spacetime. And all Annie, stripped to a skeleton of broken, battered bones, can do is burst into tears.
Somewhere along the lines, Abed turns around prophetically and sees her.
On the day of her graduation from Greendale, Annie can finally mean every word of her enthusiasm in her valedictorian speech. She can finally throw her mortarboard high in the air with glee She can finally look at the study group and feel her mouth break apart into a real, genuine smile. Troy’s relationship with Britta let him and Abed learn to grow without each other. She spends nights sharing advice with Troy and reaching out to Abed. When Troy and Britta finally call it quits, him and Abed reconcile, both having changed. And Annie can finally enjoy sharing an apartment and a life with Troy and Abed. She changes her major at the last minute, and ends up pulling off all her requirements in her last semester. But it doesn’t bother her much because forensics is as natural to her as skin is to bone. She’ll begin her first day at the CSU force come September. She decides that she is okay without a guy for now because she suddenly realizes that she is twenty-two and that there are a good six decades more of her life to live and that is that. For now, Annie knows that she has the study group. She knows that they’re her family. She knows that she will sometimes be at odds with the rest of them and she knows that they love her anyways. She sits back and observes the after party. Shirley hugs her boys (Andre, Elijah, Jordan, Ben) a million times. Troy finally receives a cake with a non-politically-correct icing message on it and he cries in joy. Abed and his father, Britta and someone Annie presumes might be her brother, Pierce and one of his step-kids, Jeff and his dad. She waits and watches, chuckling at the melodramatic goodbyes, thankful that she is spending this day with her real family. She knows the group will bring her in for a photo at the end of the festivities and she knows that they will all consider it to be the most important picture of all. In her four years at Greendale, Annie Edison would never quite get it right. But there’s until the end of time to figure the finer details out, and she’s decided that rushing towards the endgame takes all the fun out of running. And perhaps for once, Annie Edison, the tried and tempered woman of steel, is happy.
Annie Edison, low T
TW: drugs
Annie’s first day at Greendale Community College and her mind is giddy with excitement. For once, she doesn’t have to compete with anyone to be top of the class (there was, after all, a guy with sideburns shaped like stars), and that enough ensured that Annie would never worry about anything again.
Of course, reality would kick in and the euphoria would last all of three minutes. She remembers her mother’s words repeated over and over again with all the creepiness of a talking doll. She remembers the fact that she’s living on her own, without any means to pay rent, and that the next two years will be student loan after student loan. She remembers that everyone is still calling her Annie Adderall to her face, and she remembers that these years at Greendale have to be the year where she finally gets it right.
She enters Spanish class and she feels the smile on her face already cracking. Troy Barnes sits in front of her and of course, he doesn’t remember her. No problem, she thinks, and she resolves to become his tutor. The back-brace and the glasses are gone, after all.
Annie swears she catches Troy grin at her, and mentally hits herself for being unable to return anything more than the same plastered smile that never leaves her face.
She meets the study group and she is always frustrated because she happens to be the only one studying. But she’ll never show it because for once she has friends and she doesn’t want to lose them.
Senor Chang lets her do extra credit even when she doesn’t need it. And Annie coasts through the year, with her eternal smile, because for once she is making it work.
She starts dating Vaughn and that’s when she starts to doubt it. He is the most carefree person in the world, and Annie cares. And it starts to mess with her because he is the sweetest person in the world, and every time she’s near him she feels as if she has wings to fly. But, then a small part of her mind will push her back because she doesn’t want him to change and she doesn’t want to change for him.
And maybe, just a teeny-tiny bit maybe, that’s why Annie, the china doll with glazed eyes and a painted on smile, decides not to follow him to Delaware.
Somewhere in the middle of her crazy sophomore year, Annie finds herself starting to get disgruntled. She loves the study group, but sometimes she feels like she’ s teetering on the breaking point and sometimes she can’t help but to make it vocal. They are surprised by her emotions, volatile, stubborn and unpredictable. Surprised, yes, but they accept it because they are seven of the most imperfect people in the world. But Annie always feels like just Annie- standing alone in the middle of the room, screaming in hysteria about purple pens to a deaf choir.
She dreads coming home. She dreads closing her apartment door. She dreads collapsing of exhaustion on the bed, only to have an advertisement about casting calls interrupt her hard-earned sleep. But most of all, she dreads the constant realization that she is alone, left to combat the monsters in the broken closet in this pitiful square studio.
Annie realizes that she doesn’t sneak a glance at Troy as much as she used to, and she finds herself experiencing things from a new perspective, as she tilts her head slightly to the right. Jeff is cocky and charming and everything that makes Annie melt in a puddle. But somehow she can never break past the brick wall that is his self-confidence.
She is caught between what she knows and what she thinks she knows. None of the other students in Anthropology give a damn and she’s resigned herself to that fact. But Duncan doesn’t care either, and she can’t help but look at her A with scorn, while the group sits next to her calling for celebration and a bottle of scotch...
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Annie Edison, low T
TW: drugs
...Annie spends most of Biology barely making a passing grade and she can’t even be bothered to hide anything under a ceramic façade. Living with Troy and Abed would be so much easier if it wasn’t living with Troy-and-Abed. Jeff will always be hiding behind a wall that Annie will never get to. Greendale has a mental disorder that prohibits any type of improvement whatsoever, and by the time she’s expelled, Annie finds that she doesn’t really care at all.
Two days after her expulsion, she gets an email from her mother. She reasons with her daughter to come back to Riverside, to come back to a town where a high-school drop-out could get on city council, to leave the last three, downward spiralling years behind.
And Annie can only stare out her bedroom door. She can only look at Troy and Abed, at Shirley, Pierce, Jeff, Britta. Six other tired, lost people huddled around two La-Z boys watching a rerun of Inspector Spacetime.
And all Annie, stripped to a skeleton of broken, battered bones, can do is burst into tears.
Somewhere along the lines, Abed turns around prophetically and sees her.
On the day of her graduation from Greendale, Annie can finally mean every word of her enthusiasm in her valedictorian speech. She can finally throw her mortarboard high in the air with glee She can finally look at the study group and feel her mouth break apart into a real, genuine smile.
Troy’s relationship with Britta let him and Abed learn to grow without each other. She spends nights sharing advice with Troy and reaching out to Abed. When Troy and Britta finally call it quits, him and Abed reconcile, both having changed. And Annie can finally enjoy sharing an apartment and a life with Troy and Abed.
She changes her major at the last minute, and ends up pulling off all her requirements in her last semester. But it doesn’t bother her much because forensics is as natural to her as skin is to bone. She’ll begin her first day at the CSU force come September.
She decides that she is okay without a guy for now because she suddenly realizes that she is twenty-two and that there are a good six decades more of her life to live and that is that.
For now, Annie knows that she has the study group. She knows that they’re her family. She knows that she will sometimes be at odds with the rest of them and she knows that they love her anyways.
She sits back and observes the after party. Shirley hugs her boys (Andre, Elijah, Jordan, Ben) a million times. Troy finally receives a cake with a non-politically-correct icing message on it and he cries in joy. Abed and his father, Britta and someone Annie presumes might be her brother, Pierce and one of his step-kids, Jeff and his dad. She waits and watches, chuckling at the melodramatic goodbyes, thankful that she is spending this day with her real family. She knows the group will bring her in for a photo at the end of the festivities and she knows that they will all consider it to be the most important picture of all.
In her four years at Greendale, Annie Edison would never quite get it right. But there’s until the end of time to figure the finer details out, and she’s decided that rushing towards the endgame takes all the fun out of running.
And perhaps for once, Annie Edison, the tried and tempered woman of steel, is happy.
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