Private
I feel older.
It's not a bad feeling, though. Different, but still me. I shouldn't have lost it like that yesterday, I knew that pretty much as soon as I'd finished. I absolutely fucking terrified myself. I want to keep saying it was justified... because that means it wasn't my fault- I didn't do anything wrong.
But it was justified. And I did do something wrong.
Complicated, huh?
I don't know. It makes sense in my head and that's more than I could have said for anything a few months ago. But it was worse, back then. I lashed out so much more violently. I still don't know what to think about that so I try not to, at all. One day I'm going back to that factory, though. One day when I figure out what I'm supposed to do that'll make a difference, now. One day when there's a lot more distance between the me I was then and the me I'll be.
But I think for now I'll try to continue not thinking about it and concentrate on thinking about things more to do with now.
Like Ry, who may have gone through some god-unknown hell that made him desperate enough to become a demon, or however it works. I wished yesterday hadn't happened like it did. God, I would have handled it so much better if I hadn't just come from Snap's FUNERAL.
Next time it will be different. Next time I won't be such a mess. And I won't let myself, I won't fall apart. I'm not just saying that to convince myself. Right now I feel indestructable, unshakeable. Also kind of dangerous, but I won't let that get the best of me again. If I'm going to be dangerous it'll be a planned kind.
Maybe it's just today that I feel like this. Maybe tomorrow or even later tonight I'll shatter again. But I don't believe it. I feel older, stronger. And despite common sense telling me otherwise, also kind of immortal.
I'll be the girl he needs me to be. I'll be the girl they all need me to be.
Last night I thought about Scotland. I thought about Ry asking me to go and I hated myself with a vengance for not going with him. Telling myself I should have been there. I should have gone. I should have been there with him when Dorien and Mia... when whatever happened happened. I hated myself and almost choked on the guilt.
But then I thought, what about Josie? If I'd left then to be with Ry, and if I'd come back as Ry has... it wouldn't be pretty. For anyone. Even if nothing had happened and I'd left her in the state she was in, I probably would have come home to little more than a shell. Either someone completely hollow or someone set to explode at the slightest touch.
Even if she wasn't a demon, and there wasn't the risk of her, y'know, killing all my friends, I would have stayed. At that point in my life, she was the one person who needed me most and she was the most important thing.
And now that place belongs to Ry. Josie is finding her feet and won't slip if I concentrate on Ry till... till whenever. I was even tormenting myself by forcing myself to choose, what would I rather have, a broken Josie or a broken Ry?
But I can't, and I won't let myself feel guilty about staying here. What had happened, has happened, and now it is the time for dealing with it. Eyes forward, kind of thing.
It's funny- no, not funny, intersting, maybe, or slightly strange- about Josie, about how she's changing. Back in August, when I ran off, and long before then, before juvie, she was the one in charge. I always thought she was the strong one, the one that always knew what to do, how to act, and I modeled myself on her. And now she's looking at me like that, like I know what I'm doing. And maybe it kind of makes me think I do.
It's funny (again, not that kind of funny) too, the way we've been see-sawing with each other recently. First I'm there, staying with her every night for the first few nights Ry was away, keeping her together. And then she turns all strong when I start to break down. I didn't notice until she said something on her journal, about being strong for the both of us. It's like if she's broken I can't be -not just can't because everything would turn to shit, but I think it's an actual, physical impossibility. I honestly can't hit the bottom if she's already there, it's like there's not enough room down there for the both of us, so I have to discover something about myself that'll allow me to bob up to the surface and drag her out of there, so she can do the same when it's my turn. It doesn't really make any sense, when you think about it. Of course two people can be at the bottom of hell at the same time.
But not when it's us, it seems.
I think there's something about that that makes me feel so unbreakable.
I have to find Ry. My Ry.
But not tonight. Tonight me and Jinx go down to the cemetary to give Snap the send off she deserves. Oh- I'm discovering I still have tears. I thought I'd cried all it was possible to cry in the last week. But even these feel different. I'm not crying because it hurts, anymore- no, I'm explaining it wrong. It still hurts. I'm not being shaken apart by the pain anymore. They're just tears. I did love that girl. In the four months I knew her (in person, at least) she did change my life.
So tonight... we say goodbye. And moving on starts. Because that's what people do. They bury the dead and concentrate on the living. And never forget.
And I'm not stupid. Josie knows where we will be tonight. There'll be a demon lurking in the shadows of the graveyard, out of sight. She told me I wouldn't even see her. It would be too painfully ironic to be murded by a demon (or regular human maniac) while mourning the loss of a demon murder victim.
Tonight I tell Jinx how Snap really died, too.
And tomorrow... tomorrow I ring work and tell them I can start again, in a couple of days. And I visit Jude. And then I find Ry, my most important thing.
Nothing's going to stop me now.
Edit: JUDE'S GOING TO BE OKAY!