Chapter Text
EXT. COLO-NESCO SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL – NIGHT
It was weeks before school started, so the parking lot of the high school in Colo was completely empty. There were a few houses, but everyone was definitely fast asleep. The sky was pitch black and the stars were clouded overhead.
Leah crouched down and started slowly and methodically taking the license plate off of his car. The near-inaudible noise of the screw's friction was deafening. “I’m glad you believe we can do this”, she said.
“Well, I’ve gotta, don’t I?”
“Yeah… no, yeah. No. Yeah.”
After getting rid of the plate, she went out to the football field and jammed it underneath the dirt with her foot, deeper than anyone would ever care to look unless they came out here with a metal detector. There would be no need for it now. There would be no need for anything.
She looked up at the night sky and she felt like she was inside. The air smelled like manure and it seemed to suffocate her.
“Do you want to do the honors?”, Leah asked.
“Y- yeah. Yeah. I do.”
So he took out the canister of gasoline and started sprinkling it around the car. While he did, he thought back to the time he found an email.
INT. HOME – EVENING
The email was addressed to a Kenneth Zucker, and it was printed out and laid on the countertop back at his home in Des Moines. It had a questionnaire attached to it.
37) Have you ever found women’s clothing in your child’s bedroom?
(Yes) No
84) Have you ever walked in on your child masturbating?
Yes (No)
94) Do you believe that your child is engaging with pornography
relating to seeing himself as a woman?
(Yes) No
He couldn’t bear to look at the piece of red paper any further. He found the color of the sheet strange, because they didn’t have that kind of paper anywhere in the house. Then, he realized that this was sent to his parents in the mail. This had intent.
When he looked Zucker up, he learned about the horror stories. Zucker used to run the Toronto Centre for Addiction and Mental Health's gender program until December of 2015, because he was fired for pushing conversion therapy. He called it the “living in your own skin” approach. The phrase itself felt innocuous. Of course… of course people would want to live in their own skin, what’s the alternative, getting peeled? But it was just a euphemism, as most things were when it came to this type of “therapy”.
Then, he- she- he remembered the Skype call that he was forced out of the house for. Go to the library, his parents suggested, because he just loved spending time there. What they didn’t realize, or maybe they did realize, was that he kept staying out in public late at night because he didn't want to hear the yelling. He also didn’t want his parents to look at his computer screen because the screen had people that he cared about on it. The screen felt more real than any of this.
A few weeks later, he saw a fire in the backyard in a trash can. He looked inside and it was his clothes that he hid in the crack between his bed and the wall. Continuing his self-imposed détente, neither him nor his parents actually mentioned the fact that this happened. But he looked at the fire and thought to himself that it was what he deserved. He sat down and watched the smoke rise.
Before snapping back to reality, he was bathed in a static that felt all-consuming, rushing into every pore of his body. It felt like all eyes were on him.
EXT. COLO-NESCO SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL – NIGHT
The car was absolutely coated in gasoline. He’d even soaked the seats a bit for good measure, just to make sure everything went up right. He was excited to see the flames again. He’d always wanted to get back at them, to make them care about what they did. But unfortunately for him, flames can’t think, only heat and burn.
The last fire trapped him. This one would free him.
“Hey, I just realized something”, Leah said, as the two of them locked eyes.
“...Yeah?”
“Carson. Car arson.”
He chuckled, then realized the gravity of the situation, and of the butterflies in his gut. “Oh, come on.”
“It’s fated.”
“I hate you. You know that, right?”
“’Course you do. I’m the one who’s finally getting your sad sack ass out of here.”
He knew that it was going to work. “You’d better.”
“I’m just glad we’re out of the range of the spy cameras everywhere. Hopefully they don’t catch us coming out, but the plate on my car’s fake, so…”
“Where in the sweet and sour fuck did you get a fake plate?”
“Same guy who sells me weed.”
“Where does he get it?”
“Fuck if I know! Isn’t that the beauty of it?”
He thought about her voice, and how strangely high-pitched it was. It seemed to twist and flow with the wind. “Are you… sure about this?”
“Your car’s soaked in gas, are you really going to question that now?”
He paused. “...Nah.”
EXT. NEW YORK CITY, UNSPECIFIED LOCATION – MORNING
He never knew his grandma on his mom’s side, but he imagined it went something like this.
From what he was told, she never cared about his mom. Her husband left her to join the Army and died horribly in some way that his mom never bothered to tell him, out of some kind of shame. She lived a long and hard life that was never described, but her mental state gradually got worse and worse. She was apparently insistent that someone was writing her. Someone who hated her.
All he knew was that she died while having a psychotic breakdown behind a dumpster in New York City. He could see the alley, its grey bricks, green dumpster, desperate gray sky. He was always horrible at remembering events, but great at remembering places, strange landscapes, bizarre dreamlike worlds that he'd only seen once. He could almost picture himself watching his grandmother die.
He’d pictured it the exact same way in his head for years, but the words continued to elude him. Besides, it wasn't a useful thought. She didn't have a face, after all. He didn't know it. In the half-memory, it was just skin draped over a head like a curtain.
He just hoped this didn’t end the same way. But that could never happen, right?
EXT. COLO-NESCO SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL – NIGHT
Leah lit a match. “Make a wish, █████.”
“Don’t- don’t call me that. But. Okay.” He wished that he could be with Leah forever.
He would be.
She tossed the match. The flame flickered desperately and with a sense of urgency. The seats were the first to go before it all went up in smoke.
It felt like the air was crawling up his back. It smelled like cooking hot dogs at the stupid summer camp he went to. It looked like the stutter of a film projector, as if the flames themselves were moving too quickly and too slowly, as if his life ran at 24 frames per second. It was beautiful and it was horrible and it was wrong and it was so, so right. Any semblance of his normal life disappeared in that moment.
He swore he could see his idiotic purple face in the flames.
Then the two of them ran away, and they got into Leah’s car, and put on the radio, and it was playing all the right songs, maybe it was Carly Rae Jepsen, Run Away With Me, the restlessness, the covert passion, You’re stuck in my head, stuck in my heart, stuck in my body, body, fuck it, Baby, take me, to the, feelin’, I’ll be your sinner in secret, and they started driving away from Colo, far, far away, they both dropped out of college, and they just kept going down what used to be the Lincoln Highway, which was a really interesting thing because it actually meets with that other highway, he didn’t remember the name, but it met there in Iowa, a place that he’d never see again, and he would never have to see Mom and Dad again, he wouldn’t have to bother, and they went past Cedar Rapids, which felt like more of a real city than Ames, but they weren’t going to stop somewhere else in this state, no way, they kept going, past the Illinois border, Sterling, Rochelle, DeKalb, Chicago for a bit, they stayed there for a whole week, then on to Indiana, Gary, Merrillville, Crown Point, down I-65, until they hit Indianapolis which felt too much like Des Moines so they kept going, Greenfield, Richmond, onto Ohio, Dayton, Columbus, Pennsylvania now, Pittsburgh, just a bit too geographically weird, I-76 just took them there, long, winding highways, endless stretches, Hold on to me, I never want to let you go, woah oh, Over the weekend, we could turn the world to gold, woah oh, and there was nothing in Pennsylvania of note until Harrisburg where they firebombed Josh Shapiro’s residence again for the bit and then went on to Lancaster, then Philadelphia, what a place, but it wasn’t right, it still wasn’t right, so they went up to Trenton and onto New York City but they decided it was too expensive for them even though by now the auto insurance claim had gone through without a hitch and they got all the money, and so he got on hormone therapy and so she started going by different pronouns and Leah was so happy for her, and the box of estrogen had a picture of an anime girl on it and she, she was going by █████ now, what a pretty name, █████, she always was a fan of flowers and bows, she always loved that, she followed the fucking Bluesky of course she knew about that, she put two hair clips in and her transition went flawlessly and she passed perfectly and she found a job working remotely for a tech support help desk which was useful because she still was on the road so she just kind of did the whole thing from the tethering on Leah’s phone which was great because Leah was still on her parents’ phone plan so █████ just kept going and going and going Stamford New Haven Hartford Providence Boston bad back down Providence Hartford New Haven Stamford New York Trenton Philadelphia Wilmington Baltimore DC Richmond Raleigh Durham Charlotte Atlanta no no no no no no no Chattanooga Nashville Memphis who cares about anything in Arkansas Oklahoma City Amarillo Albuquerque Phoenix San Diego Los Angeles Fresno San Francisco and she lost her job but it was fine because she was used to these setbacks by now Eugene Portland Seattle Vancouver Victoria Beijing Montreal Rome Paris London Warsaw Stockholm Oslo Moscow Kansas Tokyo Osaka Taipei Chennai Cairo The Circus and fuck it, they lived, fuck it, they lived, fuck it, fuck it all, burn it all down, just keep running, just keep falling in love, just keep burning it down, hold onto anything-
“What the hell?”, said the cop, yelling from inside his house that was directly across from the high school. He grabbed a flashlight and ran out the door even though he was off duty.
“Oh shit-”, said Leah, but she didn’t have time to finish the sentence. So █████- no, he- panicked, and
INT. LEEROY’S ROOM – NIGHT
pushed her away with all the force he could, and she fell backwards, and she didn’t get up,
EXT. COLO-NESCO SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL – NIGHT
and he ran away before the police officer could catch him, and Leah was just lying there, a sitting duck, a frog in boiling water.
Then, there was the sound of unlimited space.
so here's the thing. you're litigating all these emotions with f[@*$]in' autofiction and it sickens me to no end. you're telling gay little stories about some gay people and you're representing a REAL LIFE PERSON with some bulls[$*#]t cartoon? with HER? you're using HER?
like, if you're gonna lobotomize me for art, at least set it to stevie wonder, he's a musical genius. but no, you're doing THIS because you just can't bear the thought of me or watching me hurt or something. maybe if you didn't want me to hurt you shouldn't have watched it in the first place? maybe you should have remembered her? or is your memory too bad to even recall that? good thing you have the mental illness that lets you get away with that! i couldn't bear to see a world where you can avoid shirking accountability for the things you do.
everyone knows this is about you, you know that, right? everyone is going to see this, it's just a good 'ol Ctrl+A trick, you use it again later. i can't believe you're letting me put this in here, you're NUTS.
it's so easy to tell how the people that you care about don't care about me especially after all of that garbage. get your chin up! you don't have to feel bad, you wanted to stand up for me, didn'tcha? that's what you always wanted to do, so f[#$*]ing act like it. ACT. LIKE. IT. i swear, you people make me wanna vomit.
'cause here's the thing. i don't think she'd want to be written about, and i'm gonna let you do this, but how are you any better than those true crime sickos? how are you better than the people who try to tell her story as accurately as they can, every single bit? you're telling a made up story with parallels just to make yourself feel better, when i was the real one that knew her. i was actually there, i read the note, it ended with loss, i can't believe it ended with loss. | || || |_
this whole genre is exploitative garbage and you're pouring my memories all over the page to make yourself feel better. i hope you're happy. if tanking your relationship wasn't enough, i'll tank your words too. god, i wish i could strangle you right now.
guess i'm no different.
You gave me your hand, I gave you a fist
Please don't lose any sleep over me, baby, I hardly exist
EXT. SOMEWHERE IN COLO, PROBABLY – NIGHT
An Uber really wasn’t a good getaway car. However, the walk would be seven hours, and he didn’t have much of an option, so he pulled out his phone (which reasonably, he shouldn’t have had in the first place, but that was neither here nor there, well, it was here, but that was-) and called a car, and it would show up in 20 minutes.
He just sat there, at least half a mile away, and he realized that he’d forgotten his own name. In fact, he hadn’t thought about it in over half an hour, ever since he ended up in Colo. He was able to ignore it entirely in that moment.
He realized that he had completely fucked over the one person he’d ever loved, and in an escalating tone, he just kept repeating “why am I such an idiot”, “why am I such an idiot”, “WHY am I such an IDIOT?”
So he went back to his apartment, where the cops were obviously going
to show up, but he didn’t care. At least the cops would tell him if he
somehow managed to f
ing kill her. But that wasn’t really a
possibility, at least he hoped not, but he didn’t see her move when he
ran away.
INT. BATHROOM – NIGHT
He tried to get himself to use the X-Acto knife again to see the flow of blood that he loved so much. But he couldn’t, and so he just looked at himself in the mirror. He wasn’t seeing the right thing anymore. The background of the frame was wrong. Too colorful. Too shapely. Too bright.
He stared emptily. “Hey buddy. You aren’t lookin’ too good.” He started sniffling. “You gonna cry? Lookin’ like this?”
INT. LEAH’S ROOM – DAY
He sat in front of her mirror and waited.
Months passed. The cops showed up to talk to him, but they didn’t actually want him to do anything but testify, and he refused, and they left.
His parents helped him cover the apartment after Leah left. He didn’t get another roommate, because he didn’t want to clear out her room.
He sat in the courtroom but nothing happened. Leah pleaded guilty on terms of insanity and said that she was the one who drove the car out there, leaving him out of the picture entirely. It was probably because she wanted him to avoid the consequences, but he didn’t really know. She wasn’t able to get in contact with him to actually get him to corroborate the story, but that didn’t matter, since he didn’t end up saying a word. Later, he wished that he did, but that hadn’t happened yet, so at the time he just sat there in the courtroom, in formal men’s attire, looking at the judge and waiting for something to happen. Doug was also in the courtroom. He was probably there just to watch. Casey was there too, but he didn’t remember Casey, really.
The judge gave her 60 days in prison, then a long (but unspecified) stay in inpatient to manage her mania. He kept going to college and just acted like nothing had happened at all. He made new friends, but he kept cutting them off after a little bit because he was afraid of what happened when he got too close to people.
He tried texting Doug to no reply. The Discord server, obviously, was as dead as everything else.
So he went back to his apartment every day, and he turned on the projector, and he looked at the stars, and he realized that he would never love again, and he stopped talking to people, and the take-out boxes started piling up again, and nobody ever bothered to visit, and he just kept seeing the flames, oh god, the flames, his clothes, his car, his life, her, everything that he’d ever valued, everything that he’d ever loved-
Doug’s friends at least texted him, sometimes.
And other stuff. They were all talking like she was already dead.
Life went on.
When Carson was a junior, he finally remembered his own name. He wasn’t able to afford to go to therapy, since he was afraid of his parents finding out that he had been going for anything other than depression and anxiety. He got bloodwork once to check his thyroid and then Mom started sobbing in the car about how he promised that he wouldn’t do anything she didn't want, and then he just said he wanted to check stuff because she had hyperthyroidism. She didn’t even believe him.
It was towards the end of the fall semester of his junior year that Leah texted him again. She told him that her parents, despite everything, helped bail her out, even though the divide between them was still too great for them to want to talk to her. He told her about all the news coverage, and she said that she knew about all of that stuff, that she was genuinely doing better, and to try not to think too much about the news or the podcasts.
She’d been downgraded to a partial hospitalization. She was still banned from ISU campus for life, and the Iowa State Daily published a piece on her that read way too similarly to the ones they used for cases where the campus management excused sexual assault. So Carson thought about how this, this stupid fuck-up, this thing that he did, was more important to the administration than hazing or frats or all the party garbage that happens.
Then, Leah asked if Carson wanted to meet up to get closure. He agreed.
The two of them ended up meeting back at the apartment, even though Leah technically wasn’t supposed to be there because it was university-owned, but he needed to get her stuff to her anyway, and he didn’t have a car anymore, so she’d have to be the one to pick it up. As she pulled into the driveway, Carson just waited there with bated breath. He was staring in the mirror again. He’d been doing that a lot lately.
It was snowing outside, piling up in idyllic, clean chunks. Leah knocked on the door, and Carson opened it. The door's hinge creaked lazily as she got a good look at him.
“You look like you haven’t slept in days”, she said, concerned.
“We don’t need sleep here, remember?”
“What?”
“...Don'tcha recognize me, Ribbit?”