Final Room

19 | veronica sawyer

CHAPTER NINETEEN | VERONICA SAWYER

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          The two weeks leading up to Halloween are torture.

          I've never been much of a fan of Halloween—both the holiday and the movie franchise—and Emma was always the one who enjoyed dressing up, going as far as dragging me along for trick or treating back when we were younger, so I have plenty of excuses not to partake in any activities this year. It's boring, I have to study, I'm too old for this—the list just goes on.

          Right before November, I'm the busiest I've ever been. November is notorious for making college students cry and this isn't my first rodeo, so I know what to expect, even if I'm a sophomore now and that's supposed to be an entirely different world. It's not that different from freshman year, especially with the professors here being significantly more lax than those back in Chicago, but I want to believe that's a general characteristic and not one they're saving for me like special treatment.

           All things considered, I'm handling the work fine. I've done worse with time management and, even though my current situation isn't ideal—work is still piling up, after all—it's not nearly as bad as it used to be. I want to believe this is a consequence of my perseverance and hard work, despite it not being perfectly adequate, and not an effect of people taking pity on me. Sympathy I can handle, but pity is on a whole new level and it makes my skin crawl.

          Halloween landing on a Friday this year does no wonders to my concentration and motivation. I stay on campus for longer than I ever did, finding I can focus better at the campus library with Betty than at home when it's quiet, but with Halloween being right around the corner, it feels like a different place than I'm used to.

          People are already dressing up, including costumes in very poor taste when it comes to my personal opinion—all the Ghostfaces and Michael Myers running around only remind me of the trolls calling my house phone months ago. They're not allowed to bring weapons to campus, not even plastic or 3D printed ones, so I'm not running the risk of turning in a hallway and having someone in a mask jump out from a dark corner with something that can physically harm me, but still.

          I've never liked horror movies, especially those that depend on cheap tactics to scare the audience like jumpscares, so I don't appreciate being put through that in real life. People must think it's hilarious to reference classic horror movie villains around me, like those trolls did, but they don't understand they're messing with my real life, not watching an actor play a character on the screen. They find it much easier to empathize with a fictional character than with someone they see on campus every day, and it's something my brain can't comprehend.

          My suffering and my trauma only matter if they're dramatized and adapted to an audience who wants to be entertained. Otherwise, I'm on my own.

          The new version of me I want to adopt is one that shakes off those thoughts. That new version refuses to think about my trauma at a meta level, assuming everyone around me has the same insight capabilities as I do regarding something that's so personal or that they would even bother to think about it that way. Realistically, I'm the only one dissecting it to extensive detail and no one else cares that much, so I'm better off accepting it instead of fighting to change the status quo.

          Not caring about people's interpretation of my trauma might be what has led to me sitting next to Callum, out of all people, at the café.

           If I've barely had any one-on-one conversations with Odette since we first met, I can safely say this is the first time I've been alone with Callum. I'm not uncomfortable around him and he joined my table without hesitation, like he officially considers me a part of the group, and his informed selectiveness is enough to let me know I've received a Callum stamp of approval. Betty, on the other hand, would probably see this as me betraying her and joining the dark side, like Callum is public enemy number one, but the two of us seem to get along just fine in silence.