CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
MELANCHOLIA

PETER was falling and falling and falling without anyone to catch him. The ground accelerated towards him, or he was accelerating towards the ground. The air was thinner before but it felt colder and heavier now. God's eye view of a tragedy was always the most sadistic. Peter was gaining speed; there was the sound of New York streets in the background but that wasn't the focus of our scene. The focus was that Peter was falling, there was the ground and there was nobody there to catch him. Do heroes need heroes? Here comes the ground now; it's cobblestoned. The ground opens its arms and ─

Amelia woke up in cold sweat, hair sticking to her neck. She opened her mouth to take a big gulp of air and exhaled, her shoulders sagging with the movement. Her hand went to massage her head as she tried to shake off the awful feeling that had settled in the pit of her stomach. Cold perspiration had collected on her forehead and the nape of her neck. She rubbed her hand over her face in an attempt to wake up from the nightmare.

Groggy and nauseous still, she threw a glance at the clock on her bedside table. Amelia had woken before dawn. It had been a while since she'd had to wake up early for tennis practice, but she still sometimes sat bolt upright at 5:00 a.m., ready to hit the court. 

Usually, she'd spend those sleepless early morning hours quietly going through her books or surfing the Internet while brewing coffee. But after last night's nightmare, anything routine felt unsettling and she couldn't bring herself to be productive. 

Instead, she had retreated outside through the drizzle to gaze at the early-morning gray-blue sky. She had looked up, eyes closed, and let a rare few droplets touch her dew-kissed skin and then opened her car door and settled in. Warmth flooded through her immediately and she had been comforted. Even when it wasn't running, the car smelled intimately of old vinyl, lavender, and gasoline.

As she sat, she tried not to think of the nightmare ─ of Peter. But he was always there in the back of her mind, an incessant thought poking her constantly. Like a loose tooth you couldn't stop bothering with your tongue even though you knew you shouldn't or an itch you just couldn't quite scratch.

The conundrum was: Amelia could scratch this itch, only she didn't want to.

But it was ever-present. From the moment the morning dew had started to slip off the car's windshield to the 80's song on the radio to the car's clock turning 6, then 7. It pressed against the back of her skull and Amelia rubbed her tongue to the roof of her mouth trying to push it back as if the thought was a physical thing. But it stayed there. 

So, Amelia kissed it, and it didn't move, it didn't pull away, and she kept on kissing it. And it hadn't moved, it was frozen, and Amelia had kissed it, and it will never forgive her, and maybe now it will leave her alone.

SCHOOL seemed dreadful that day. Amelia didn't remember the last time school had seemed dreadful to her. In fact, the whole week was dreadful. It wasn't the absence of good things but the fullness of them that made Amelia's stomach churn. She was always anxious, always tip-toeing. Monika and Gemma didn't know and she wouldn't tell them. And of course, Peter had noticed it. All of it. The watery smile she passed him when he broke the news that he wasn't expelled or, unlike Ned had predicted, gone to a school with a principal with a crossbow. He had seen her stormy eyes at lunch when she said she didn't feel like eating. Her ghost-pale face when he had extended her the invitation to join him and Ned in building the LEGO Death Star.

He saw it now in the curve of her back, as she hunched over her notebook in Physics. The burgundy t-shirt she wore vaguely sculpted the raises of her spine. There were bags under her eyes that were usually sparkling but looked dull and monotonous today. Here in Physics was the closes she sat to him, just in front of him. He thought of asking her if she was okay but stopped. There was something exhausted about her today, something drowsy in the way her shoulders sagged as soon as the bell rang, something sluggish in the way she collected her things and carried her backpack.

He hung back a little, watching her stare emotionless at the small tussle when everyone tried to exit at the same time. Then he approached her. "Hey," he said. It was whispered because it seemed that anything higher in volume could hurt her.

Amelia looked at him and Peter was shell-shocked. There was a vein in her left eye that seemed like it had burst, but her spectacles rested on her nose, hiding her flitting gaze behind them. Peter didn't even know she wore spectacles. She gave him a wavering smile. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she nodded aggressively, brushing past the topic and deflecting it. "Just -- didn't get much sleep."

Peter didn't believe her, but he let her think that he did. Gave her an understanding smile. As they walked down the hallway, he thought about how to tell he really actually wanted to take her to the homecoming dance, not Liz.

Amelia trudged down the hallways beside Peter, not particularly excited about her upcoming activity. Since she had kissed the nightmare about Peter there was this sound in her head, this constant, incessant, anxious ticking.

Tick, tick, tick.

Amelia felt as if she were at the very edge of the precipice. There was a turning in her stomach, sickening feeling drilling to her very bones. And being here, just beside Peter as he talked about the LEGO Death Star, the feeling worsened tenfold.

Tick, tick, tick.

The minute hand of the clock crept closer to 2:45, the end of the school day. Amelia's heartbeat followed the beat like a puppet following its puppeteer's directions. She told Peter she had to go to the gym to take a few pictures of the Homecoming Committee before tonight's dance.

Peter asked if she was going and her voice got trapped. She laughed, it sounded terrible and Peter had that awful feeling of being a disappointment again. Maybe that is why she is so miserable, Peter. Maybe she knows you're gonna ask her and she doesn't want to go with you.

Tick, tick, tick.

Amelia said, "Are you?"

Peter hesitated. There was so much space between them today. Amelia felt distant. She was just beside him but felt oceans away. Peter felt there was insurmountable swimming required between them right now and it seemed neither of them wanted to take that first leap of faith, not yet. There was still that fear, that crippling fear.

"You should ask, Liz," she said. "You do like her, don't you?" Amelia could help but let a bitter undertone slip in her tone. She just prayed Peter hadn't noticed that.

"What does it matter to you," Peter asked, "if I like Liz?"

So he had caught it. She tried not to let it shake her disposition. Amelia held his gaze, unflinching. Crisp, she replied, "None at all."

And it was a lie.

It should not have been, but it was, and Amelia, who prized honesty above nearly every other thing, knew it when she heard it in her voice. Which meant Peter heard it, too. Amelia Sóng cared whether or not Peter was interested in Liz. She cared a lot. As she whirled and took down the hallway with a dismissive shake of her head, Peter felt a dirty sort of thrill.

Tick, tick, tick.

The sound kept pressing against her eardrum like a slowly inflating balloon about to burst any moment. When Peter had talked about Liz, Amelia had smiled. But what she had really wanted to do was take Liz's head and bash it through a ─

"Hey." It was Liz, arriving beside her at the corner table in the gym where she was working. Amelia smiled politely. Liz glanced over her shoulder at the table and raised her eyebrows. "Are those it?"

Amelia turned. Scattered on the table were dozens of pictures of the Homecoming Committee and her classmates in general. She nodded. Photography had been her father's hobby and he had gifted her a camera just before she had left for New York. To capture the memories, he'd said.

Liz picked up one. Cindy and Betty sat in the middle of the floor, laughing, paintbrushes in hand, but the paint was more of their faces than the banner. Then she picked another: Liz hanging a banner in the gym. Then another, and another, and another. Flash as the DJ, letting Tony and Cooper listen to a song privately with headphones before the world heard it. Gemma sitting in a shopping cart that Monika pushed in front of her while she ran. And the rest? Peter. There was Peter at the roadside, looking at the sunset on that very first drive they had taken. Peter in the bus to D.C, earphones in and eyes closed, a soft smile on his face. Peter and Amelia by the Willow Lake, back in Virginia that night.

Amelia felt her heart contract.

Tick, tick, tick.

She gathered all the pictures of Peter and stashed them away in a box, laying only the ones relevant to the Homecoming Committee on the table. Liz gave a look but Amelia didn't see it. Now she wanted to bash her own head through a wall.

When Amelia left the gym to go home she found Monika waiting for her out in the hallway. This confused her because Monika didn't like being in school during classes much less afterward. With furrowed eyebrows, Amelia asked, "Did you have band practice?"

Monika shook her head as she fell in step with Amelia, flipping through a set of papers. "Mr. Harrington's making me work the door at the dance for my tardiness," she said, putting air quotes around tardiness. She waved the set of papers in front of Amelia's face. "This is a list of all those who are coming and their dates."

Amelia's eyebrows rose up in surprise. "Seriously?"

"Oh, yeah, this is definitely the best part aside from sitting in a chair and judging their dresses as soon as they walk in. Girl, I'm saying, employ me at America's Next Top Model."

"Alright, slow down," Amelia laughed. God she could always depend on Monika to make her laugh. "What's it say? Who's going with who?" She craned her neck to peek over Monika's shoulder at the paper.

"Well, let's see," Monika smirked, making a big fuss about unfolding the paper and Amelia rolled her eyes. "Lyla Monet's going with Elio Darlington."

"You were ─ " Amelia huffed, "you were waiting for that one, weren't you?"

"The only reason I told you I had a list."

"Ha," said Amelia. It was enormously monotonous and exceedingly faux-amused at the same time.

"Who're you going with?" Monika wiggled her eyebrows.

"No one," Amelia shook her head, fiddling with her car key as they reached her car. Monika scoffed and Amelia looked up at her, standing across on the other side of the car with a seriously face. "What?" Amelia shrugged. "I'm serious." She opened her car door and refused to meet Monika's eyes. "I'll be busy anyway, snapping pictures for the yearbook." 

She settled inside and Monika followed suit, not ready to let this go yet. "Oh, come on," she said as soon as she shut the door. "Don't bullshit me," she gave Amelia a look that made her halt while turning the keys in the ignition. Amelia looked at Monika whose crystal blue eyes held a storm and a shoreline. "You wanted to go with Parker, didn't you?" she asked, but her voice had dropped. "He's ─ " she checked her paper and her eyebrows went up to touch her hairline. "He's going with Liz? How the heck did that happen?"

"Actually," Amelia said, starting the car, the engine humming under them, "I told him to ask her."

"You told him?!" Monika gestured wildly and Amelia cringed back, scared to get slapped by her flapping arms.

"Yeah," she shook her head and she eased onto the road, leaving Midtown in her rearview till next time. "Why're you shouting?"

"Why did you ─ why did you ─ why ─ what?"

"Okay," Amelia's face contorted, weirded out and she glanced between the road and Monika alternatively. "You're not as happy with that as I thought you would be."

"Yeah, well!" More arm flapping.

Amelia didn't understand it. Her eyebrows furrowed. "Do you ─ do you like Peter now?"

"NO!" Monika said at once. "No, I don't like him. It's just ─ " she shrugged, "going with him is better than going alone."

"Aw," Amelia cooed, sliding her hands over the steering wheel, "you have a new fwend."

"Shut up!" Monika punched her in the shoulder, her face turning red.

Amelia kept laughing. God, she loved Monika. Thank you, she thought, to whoever is listening, fate, god or whatever. At this point, she didn't even care. Monika was the best gift she could've asked for. She glanced at her from the corner of her eyes. "I could just kiss you right now."

"Don't," Monika huffed, crossing her arms. "I don't like your cherry lip balm." Amelia shook her head, smiling to herself.

IN retrospect, having Gemma do her hair might have been one of the worst choices Amelia had made in a while. Not the worst, but one of them, definitely. It wasn't because Gemma was the worst hairdresser between the three. No, actually, she was the best and Amelia's hair really did look spectacular. It was just that Amelia had forgotten about what Gemma could do, just for a moment. She had slipped into her head, tossing and turning in thoughts and completely tuned out Gemma until the blonde had spoken.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm good," Amelia replied with an enthusiastic nod. But Gemma's face was still unconvinced. "I'm great," she pressed. But just because Amelia didn't speak the facts out loud didn't erase their existence. Silence was just a quieter way to lie.

"You don't look good," Gemma retorted, tongue-in-cheek. "Or great. I mean," she waved her hand over the spectacular lacey black dress that Amelia had donned and her impeccable hair, "you look great! But," she chewed on her lip before she said it with a frown, "you seem sad. Is everything alright?"

Amelia's face was the color of winter sky, just before it rained. Gemma discreetly glanced at her from the corner of her eyes when she heard her sigh. Was it odd that she knew how Amelia sighed? Maybe. She had always wondered, how Amelia was like before ─ before all of this. Was she still the same person with the strange affliction for grief ─ buried somewhere deep in her soul like it always had been a part of her?

Amelia, for once, didn't answer in quick affirmation and dismissiveness. She couldn't pick one feeling to show ─ as all of it poured down behind her eyes, every story in the book of Amelia Sóng. She couldn't be mad at her sister for dying. And she was upset that no one was a tad bit angry at Amelia when she didn't. She couldn't be dismissive of her parent's fear and overprotectiveness that the accident had originated. And she couldn't be upset with Peter when he didn't ask her to the dance since she had given him no indication that she ever wanted to go with him. She felt angry at herself for being so double-faced with him, sorry for the whiplash it must've been seeing her baring her soul to him then trying to avoid him in the hallways.

"Gem," she said, very quietly as she put on her earrings, "you know it's really nice of you to ask even when you know everything." Amelia's felt Gemma's cold fingers brush her bare shoulders as she gave her a squeeze of reassurance.

Gemma was staring apologetically at Amelia, who was looking just as sorry, just as tired, just as close to giving up as her. She didn't say anything. But Amelia knew. Amelia always knew even if she didn't say anything. Amelia's sadness was a contagious sadness ─ like a wrecked bird nest, or a drying river or a dying pet, a night starless. "I thought talking about it might make you feel better."

"Not really," Amelia confessed quietly. The haunting images of Peter falling flashed behind her eyes. She exhaled through her nose and stood up, as if she was shaking everything bad from her shoulders. "But, tonight isn't about that. We're gonna have fun tonight, yeah?" She picked up her camera and grinned, pointing it at Gemma. "Okay, smile!"

The click made Gemma turn her head away, her cheeks flaring red as she tried to hide. "No stop, I don't like my pictures taken! You know that!"

"But you look beautiful!" Amelia protested, trying to get a good shot as Gemma hid behind the folding screen divider in her room that was there for changing clothes. The door creaked open then, hearing the noise and Monika stepped in. "Mon, tell her she looks beautiful!" Amelia cried.

Monika glanced at Gemma. "Hey," her eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "Why aren't you wearing your dress yet, Gemma?"

"'Cause I'm not going to the dance, Monika," Gemma answered in the same tone as she sat on the bed with a defeated thud. "Nobody asked me," she pouted.

Monika frowned and dropped on the bed beside her. She hated seeing Gemma sad. "Fine," she said. "I'll go with you." Gemma raised her eyebrows, unamused. "I will," Monika pressed, serious. "I'll be like your date or whatever."

"Mon," Gemma said, "you hate dances."

"Yeah, I hate a lot of things but I don't hate you, so . . . "

"Monika."

"Gemma."

A smile threatened to spill on Gemma's face. She grabbed Monika's hand. "Are you serious?"

Monika managed to sound incredibly monotone and exceedingly excited at once. "I really wanna go to the dance."

Gemma laughed softly and threw her arms around Monika's neck, tackling her in a hug. Amelia smiled to herself, clicking a picture. "Okay," Gemma said, jumping off the bed. "I'm gonna go get ready."

"Okay," Monika nodded.

"Oh, you have to change, too."

"I . . . " Monika glanced down at her Panic! At The Disco t-shirt, open flannel, ripped jeans, and combat boots and made a face.