my last friend // caleb vs andy

Growing up, she had never seen snow. Not until here -- up until a week ago, it had only been smog and ash. The outpour from the factories billowing into her backyard and her walks to school, she and Bambi would sit in her room with the window down on the summer months and hated the way it'd fall in. Clog the air and their lungs, she never pictured snow to be any better. Bambi would dote during the Ratmas movies they'd watch together, "not even! You don't even have to hold out your hands to catch them, you can just eat them."

"Oh, please," Caleb would say, chewing on popcorn, "all I'm saying is the only people who care about snow are people who have never seen it." 

And they would continue talking over the movies until the credits rolled, turn the fairy lights back on and talking about Ratmas. They would talk about their twenties, when they'd move in together and go to college for business and photography; this new year, they'd talk about getting summer jobs together in different districts. Bambi wanted to go to district ten to see the animals, there weren't horses like that in Five. 

Caleb would have chosen four, where it was warm all year long. The beach can kiss her skin and she'd have her legs in the sand, holding Bambi's hand as the sun would hug her skin so warmly. Never would she have chosen this- the snow. The way it burns her tears and cuts, it makes everything light up and there's no ignoring every little gash. The cracks in where her skin has dried up, her lips chapped and her stomach groaning for anything at this point. For everything.

She never would have believed what the snow can hide. Through everything, Caleb never pictured being here with Andorra, at the end of the line, feeling the pain of losing him so strongly in the bitter cold. 

Scared of losing him, of being alone, here. He yells at her the same as she had him, "YOU abandoned me."

"No- NO," she grips her knife, inching it deeper in his leg. Shut up, shut up, "for what Delroy told you," for what- dreams? Is she so stupid for hoping there was something better than fucking this. That for a second, there was a delusional relaity that she and Andy could both live past the blizzard and see the beach together. If this is the worst she's done, she can't help but feel her gut wretch. 

If that is worse than what's to come, Caleb isn't going to be able to stomach it. It wasn't supposed to be like this; she was supposed to sleep next to him again, remember the only feign warmth there was before all of this. Before the world fell apart in a fifteen year old girl's hands; I did everything right. She had never hurt anybody before the games, never even thought of it. Caleb took care of her mother and her grandparents, she worked hard in school and started her own business. 

She took care of things, kept  her promises. 

And here she stands, not knowing what to believe with her knife in her only friend's last leg. Funny, how quick things seem to fall apart. 

"He lied, Caleb."



"He fuckin' lied."

"Quit it out- shut up," it isn't funny anymore. 

The joke's ended, somewhere along the blood in the trails and he raises his knife as well. She's focused on his eyes, swimming in her own head -- he won't hurt me, will he? Like I did him? How did they get like this, when everything was supposed to be okay. "We ran from Jacynth, and Amelia."

"We HAD to," or they wouldn't have made it this far, to where they couldn't run anymore. They wouldn't have made it further than Marsh had if they didn't, "you ran from me, you can't keep-" pretending this isn't happening? Pretending that the world isn't fucked and burning in ash, how did she get so stupid? Seven days and her brain's a twisted mess -- this isn't real, this isn't. The sky is fake, the wall is right there, just beyond the snow and Delroy's seen it all too- she isn't crazy. 

Bambi's always wanted to see the snow, and Caleb, too. She's known this all along; it isn't snow, it's just smog. More polluted things, this can't be how it really is meant to be. The trees are made by hand, there's a camera surrounding all of this and it isn't too late to stop this. To hold his hand and help him back up, to make it to the end together, "Andy, we can- we can still make it," fix this. She says it through her sobs, gripping his side with her left hand and digging the knife deeper into his thigh. Carving her wound into his leg, that she'll always be there. 

Right in the blood. 

Andorra's her last friend, and she's killing him slowly. 

"There's no exit, and there's no fucking peace. There's NEVER been any, whatever Delroy told you." 

"You're wrong, you fucking know it! You have to," Andy, please, listen to me.

"I'm-" she grips his ribs and stare into his eyes, looking for the brother that followed her to the end of the world. All the way through the tundra and the blizzard and back, the one who killed Yuki and saved her from Amelia, the boy who carried her out of the bloodbath and kept her above water. She wouldn't have made it more than a day without him, and she doesn't want to be the one alone at the end of it all. 

Without him sounds worse than dying for him. 



It burns, and sears, and carves into her bone. She flinches at first as Andy sinks the knife into her leg, and screams as it takes its gash. Her scream for Lysander and Patricia, for how deep in this shit she's gotten, how much she's lost in just trying to stay alive. For the way the snow settles into the gash, Andy's hand in her left thigh and she crashes ontop of him, punching his shoulder as she tries to keep it together, "FUCK," fucking.

God, make it end, make this easy. 

Make Andy better and make the exit real, "I don't care! I don't need you to be sorry, I just need you to be better," she digs her forehead into his chest, wanting to pretend that they're just sleeping in shifts again. That it's not fucked up, and she can accept his apology like he can forgive her -- "I can't do this without you Andy, I can't- I can't," she's spitting as she talks, sobbing into the coat they took from Marsh's body. 

She can't see through him anymore; it's too late to pick him up and take him with, he'll bleed out before they make it to the exit. 

"I-" don't want to do to this, want to go back to the training center talking about Belle and Joan. Pretending to be siblings and brushing his curly hair as he told her about the smoke in nine, the riots he had fought in. Told him about her dogs, and her mother's jambalaya, of how lazy Joan was and how crazy Vatican was. She misses her family, and misses when Andy made her feel safe. 

Made it feel like it wasn't all falling apart, coming to the end. 

"I just want to go home." 

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