Final Room

29 | sidney prescott

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE | SIDNEY PRESCOTT

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

          The thing about this Final Girl is that she's an avoidant coward, but she also gets things done when there's no possible way of delaying them any further.

          I go back to college in January after passing all my finals—with honors, even, something no one ever saw coming after how badly I struggled with revising—and feeling like I'm in danger of getting hit by a truck whenever I least expect it. Now that things between me and Claudia don't feel like a ticking time bomb and I can finally walk into World Literature lectures without my brain insisting that flinging myself into the sun is a much better idea, part of me was expecting to have a more positive outlook on my fourth semester of college.

          And yet.

          It's the first week back to school and we haven't had much to do so far, still getting acquainted with the few new professors and syllabi, which leaves me with plenty of free, dead time to do whatever I want. I never know what to do when I'm not busy with college, the highlight of every single one of my days, but I don't want to commit to an extracurricular activity when my schedule is this free only to have to either drop it or burn myself out once things start picking and piling up.

          The rest of the group—it still sounds so odd to refer to them as such, like I couldn't possibly find more than one person who tolerates me and actively wants to spend time with me—are far busier than I am, especially Betty, so the loneliness gets particularly aggressive. The bad weather remains relentless, so I don't even get to spend some time outside, and all I have to spare my sanity is the campus library. There, people don't give me the stink eye if I'm sitting by myself, surrounded by my laptop and textbooks, like they would if I were sitting at the Grill, and I easily blend in.

          Whenever I find myself worrying about that, the painful experience of being judged by young adults, I can faintly hear Callum's voice in my head, out of all things.

          You really need to stop caring so much about what other people think. The planet is, like, dying. We're not that relevant in the greater scheme of things, so maybe we should invest all this effort into things that actually matter for our future.

          Though yes, it's true that I won't ever have to worry about being judged by my peers if the planet burns and everyone dies, my mind doesn't exactly work that way, and it hyper focuses on the things that are closest to me. I can't do anything to save the world by myself, just how I can't stop people from perceiving me or turning me into a subject of their thoughts.

          In spite of that, I still head to the Grill at the end of the week when I realize I have a two-hour break between lectures. With everyone else still stuck in their own lectures and my stomach rumbling like a distant thunderstorm, I decide to treat myself to a cup of coffee and a pastry, despite my suspicions about the negative effects the sugar and the caffeine will have on my body.

          I haven't had a panic attack since the New Year's Eve party, which is a considerable improvement coming from someone who couldn't go two or three days without falling victim to one, but the hyper vigilance state never goes away, not completely. That, along with the combined efforts of sugar and caffeine, leaves me somewhat fearful of what is to come.

          I sit in a corner with my peppermint mocha, a cinnamon roll, and my laptop, treating myself to a moment of privacy—as much as the Grill can provide, that is.

          It's not too crowded, even with the warm food and the heating system turned on, buzzing softly in the background, and I suspect that's the only reason I've managed to snag one of the coveted corner tables. There's a window to my left, but if I sit at a certain angle and move my laptop to the right just enough, no one outside will be able to see what's on my screen, and the lighting works perfectly for what I need.