GRACE + ryden

Act 0

There are hundreds of beginnings to this story, so it took me a while to sift through them all, find the one that really was the start of this whole goddamn thing.

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This was harder than it sounds, because my life has always seemed so fragmented. All bits and pieces and events and people that really hold no relevance to each other whatsoever, things that aren't connected, just a series of stand-alone events.

I told Ryan this one day, and he said I was an idiot; that everything always leads to things, in life there are no loose ends. He's probably right, he usually is, but really I'm getting ahead of myself.

After days of sifting and searching and chewing insanely hard on the end of my pencil, I narrowed it down to a select few beginnings. All unique and out of place starts to the same long story. I think I found one that I could use, a good place to begin, or maybe it isn't, but it is a start, and it'll put me on the right track.

So I guess it begins with a conversation.

"They don't mean it, Brendon."  Catherine said, tucking strands of bleach-blonde hair behind her pale ear. Her face is flushed and her brow is furrowed and when I ask her years later what she was thinking, she'll tell me that she was insanely scared for me. That maybe, to just a certain degree, her heart was sort of breaking.

"Of course they mean it, they always mean everything they say because they think every syllable out to the last letter hours before they even have to say it." Catherine's forehead furrowed further, her brown eyes squinting at me. That probably made a lot more sense in my head.

"Well...they don't speak for all of us, Bren...I'm proud of you. I've always been proud of you."

I roll my eyes, scathing and condescending and arrogant. "Whatever, Cate."

"Seriously."

We sat in silence, on the moth-eaten sofa in the apartment she shared with a bunch of junkies. Catherine was chewing on her big, red bottom lip, casting me soulful glances every couple of seconds, whilst I just lay back on the couch, arms folded over my chest. As far as I was concerned, this bullshit would all be over soon, these people would be nothing but some foreign matter of which I wouldn't even have to think about.

And I was right, in a few days time I wouldn't know these people anymore. They'd be right here, and I'd be in a totally different world. One far less familial, far less caring and one that knows me a whole lot more, but really, a whole lot less.

"I have something for you...for whatever happens next."

Catherine dug a white, shaking hand deep into her messenger bag, pulling out a perfectly kept leather-bound journal. With a wistful kind of sigh, she handed it to me, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her full lips.

"Mum gave this to me years ago. It..." She paused, trying to find the words, "It's full of quotes, of lyrics, poetry...all that jazz. When I got it, it was full of things that Mum had read in her life, of things that had helped, y'know, see her through. I added my two-cents, so I guess it's sorta collaborative now."

I shot Catherine a strange look, not really sure why the hell I would want something like this. I expected her to grow scathing, to frown, glare, and take it back, but she didn't, she just laughed.

"I had the exact same look on my face when Mum gave it to me...but y'know what, it's worth it...even if you don't look at it for fifty years, it's...I can't explain it."

She laughs again, Catherine always laughs, but still, she didn't take the book back. Instead, she leant down, kissed me on the forehead, and brushed the hair out of my eyes. She shot me one last, fleeting glance as she went into the kitchen to shoot up.