Louder than Words | I'm Not Okay with This Fanfiction

The Longest Day..and the worst(part two)

Syd was known around school to have an anger problem. Phoebe didn't blame her though, especially for someone who's dad committed suicide earlier that year. Stanley and Phoebe found her sitting against the Brownsville, Pennsylvania mural outside of the store, looking down with her face buried in her hands. They walked over and sat next to her. Phoebe sat on the right side of her while Stanley sat on the left side. "Panic attacks, huh?", he asked awkwardly. "My mom used to get those. I mean, she still does, but I mean it sucks that you get them". There were times when Phoebe would have panic attacks herself. It was mostly due to her bad habit of overthinking. There were times when they would feel like she was drowning. Syd looked up at Stanley and then at Phoebe. "Why are you guys still talking to me?", she asked.

"Because everyone else is boring", replied Stanley.

"And you have a unique personality", added Phoebe.

"What did she say?", Syd asked Stanley.

"She said you have a unique personality".

"Thanks", Syd said to her.

Stanley pulled out a tin container and took out a blunt. "I've never smoked before", said Syd.

"Did you want to try?"

She nodded her head and he passed her a blunt. "Does Phoebe smoke?", she asked him.

"No", Phoebe signed.

"Yeah, she doesn't. It's fine", added Stanley.

Phoebe thought that being the only sober person out of the three of them would be kind of awkward, but it was pretty much a good thing since she could be useful in case Stanley or Syd end up doing something crazy. Later, they decide to go to the football game at their school. The three teens sat in an area farther away from the bleachers on the other side of the field. "I'm surprised that people even come to these things. It's so lame", Syd said.

"It's the opposite of lame, Syd. That's theater. It's live theater", Stanley explained and signed. "High school on a Friday night. What could be more tragic? more shakespearian? That about it, the moment the lights come up, you know it's not going to end well. Take Mr. Bradley Lewis. His best scenario is what? Managing an insurance company were you get to, I don't know, be employee of the month? I mean these are people that will actually attend the five, ten, twenty year reunion because aside from this, nothing else is gonna happen". Bradley Lewis always rubbed Phoebe the wrong way since he often came off as a cocky fuckboy. Sometimes, whenever she would use sign language in class, she would notice him glance at her and whisper to one of his friends as if she was an exotic animal that walked in the classroom. Or as if they've never seen a deaf person before. At one point, one of the competing football players roughly knock him to the ground and the coach blew his whistle. As soon as he got back on his feet, he took off his helmet and slammed it to the ground, yelling, "Fuck!".

"Go, Bradley, Woo!", Stanley sarcastically cheered him on. "..And cue the dramatic scene transition", Phoebe said sarcastically, mirroring off of Stanley's theatre comparison. "Yeah", he slightly chuckled before translating to Syd what she said. A concerned Dina seemed to rush over to him. It had already become well-known around school that Dina was going out with Bradley. Phoebe thought that Dina seemed like a nice girl compared to Bradley which was what made the pairing unexpected.

Later, they went back to Stanley's house and hung out in his basement. Stanley and Syd continued to smoke weed while Phoebe stayed sober. The three of them laid on the ground and engaged in random conversations. They started playing a game of "would you rather..". "I'd most definitely be a shapeshifter. Not like go inside the e girls locker room or anything creepy. I'd wanna turn in to like a giant ass jellyfish", Stanley said.

The trio laughed. "A jellyfish?", she asked.

"Yeah. Why not?", Stan replied and signed as he explained. "I read somewhere that once humans destroy themselves, this planet isn't going to belong to the roaches. How could it? I mean, roaches aren't shit".

"So what? We're going to become, like, the planet of jelly?", Syd asked.

"Yep, and I will be their leader, and we'll be battling roaches and we'll swim in the deep blue sea".

"I'd be down with that", said Phoebe.

After a while, it was Syd's turn to ask the next question. "Would you rather tell me your deepest darkest secret or-", Stanley began, but Syd cut him off.

"I'll tell you guys my secret, but when I do, you can't tell anyone", she said. They both agreed. 

"I've got pimples on my thighs".

Phoebe chuckled. "Seriously?", she asked.

"Why?", Stanley asked.

"I don't know why. I just do, okay?", asked Syd defensively.

"Let us see them"

"No, it's so gross", she laughed.

"I've got you beat, watch this"

He pulled his shirt off and showed him his back pimples(or as called it, bacne). Then, Phoebe showed her chest birthmark. Syd finally pulled down her jeans and showed three red pimples on her left upper thigh. To be fair, they aren't as bad as Stanley's. "Can I go get some water?", Phoebe asked him. That was enough of showing one's weird bodily features. "Sure. We have water bottles in the refrigerator", Stanley replied. He briefly directed her to the refrigerator before he headed back downstairs.

She stood there for a minute and took a sip of her water. When she went back downstairs, she stopped in the middle of the steps once she saw the sight of something that left her frozen in her tracks-Stanley and Syd, who was now in her bra, were passionately making out on the couch. She found herself at a lost of words. At a lost of what to do next. All she could do in that moment was go back upstairs. She grabbed her jacket and backpack and texted Lana to pick her up.

She sat silently in the living room until her sister finally pulled up at the house. She stepped in to the car and sat in the passenger's seat. "Everything okay?", Lana asked. "Yeah", Phoebe replied, obviously lying.

That night, after taking out her cochlear implants, she went to bed with the large pit in her stomach, thinking about how her day turned out to be both the longest and the worst.