I’ve been agonizing over this all night. You have to believe that I’m not taking this whole thing lightly, but I guess what I’ve decided is that this isn’t going to work. There are a lot of reasons. The biggest one is that this whole episode has introduced a bunch of doubt into my mind, and when I try to think of going back to the way things were, I just can’t imagine it. I know that no matter what happens, there will be this creeping amount of doubt in the back of my mind and I won’t be able to shake it.
Tristan told me to get dana to send me the original email. unfortunately, she’d deleted it. But why would he offer that if he didn’t know that there would be nothing in the email that would prove him wrong? I keep turning that over and over in my head. i don’t know what to think. on the one hand, tristan has been pretty backhanded and even cruel. on the other hand, he’s my best friend and he says he’s been doing this because he’s looking out for me and he doesn’t trust you. And he did only get rude to me after i insulted him. So, there’s that.
Mostly, I just don’t know what to think. You admit that you used to find tristan attractive. i’ve always found you attractive. If you’d started dating tristan instead of Dana, my attraction to you wouldn’t have gone away. why should I believe you that yours did? And why did you start dating me when you totally hated me before? Did you really just decide I was the best you were going to get? I can’t live with those kind of questions, and no matter what you say, I’ll still have them.
So, you’ll always be a big and beautiful part of my life, but I just can’t let it go on any longer. We’ve got to stop seeing each other. I’m sorry, but we do.
Eric
From: Sarah
To: Eric
Date: Sat 8 Mar 2003 5:26:39
Subject: I’m innocent.
I thought the best way to deal with all of this was to e-mail you all so that you could all hear everything that I have to say. Also, that way, no one can send edited versions of my e-mail to other people and fuck me over that way.
Tristan, only you and I will ever know what I said to you on the two incidents you have so blatantly exaggerated and LIED about. So, as Eric says, I guess neither Dana nor Eric will ever really know what I said or how I feel about all of you. However, I need to at least get this all out for everyone to hear, for my own sanity at least.
1) When Dana and I first started hanging out in Reetown we met Tristan, Eric, Odin, and Heath. Heath and Odin had girlfriends, as we first found out, and I made a comment to Dana that I found Tristan “cute.” Dana agreed with me.
2) Flash forward one month. Tristan asked Dana on a date. Dana asked me if I would be mad if she went out with him. I believe her exact words were, “You called it first.” I said, and I actually remember this verbatim: “Geez, Dana, all I said was he was cute. It’s not like I want to bear his children.” So Dana and Tristan started dating.
3) It was no secret to anyone, myself included, that Eric was seriously into me beyond words. However, whenever I hung out with Eric he just blushed a lot and said things like, “Uh, howareyou?” And then he’d run away. I thought he had the personality of a lamppost.
4) On the first night in question, Dana was arguing with whoever she could about the punch bowl, because she was in the running for one of the prettiest girls in the party. I, bookworm and nerd, was of course not in the running. So I remember having a poor pitiful me conversation with Tristan in which I told him I wished I had a boyfriend. He said I should have one. After all, when we’d first met, he’d thought I was kind of cute. I responded that I had found him easy on the eyes as well. Then he said that I was smarter than Dana, but not as well endowed, so things might have worked out between us, but might not have. I said, “Dana gets lower grades than me, yeah.” That was it.
5) Upon actually having a conversation with Eric, I found him much more interesting that blushing, mumbling boy.
6) On the second night in question, I approached Tristan and said we used to be friends, why was he so angry at me all of the sudden?
He just shrugged. He said, “Dana’s pissed at me; do you want to get out of here?”
I said, “You’re just trying to break up me and Eric, and after the way you’ve treated me, no way.”
He laughed. He said, “I was right. You are pretty smart.”
That’s it, that’s all. That’s the way I see it. The whole truth. If that makes you guys hate me, then fine. Hate me. But hate me because of what I really did, not because of what Tristan says I did.
sarah
From: Dana
To: Sarah
Date: Sun 9 Mar 2003 2:36:04
Subject: get over it!!
i don’t hate u, we have just grown apart. face it, sarah this isn’t grade school anymore. u don’t have to share everything with ur best friend.
ever since eric wrote that stuff about me and u didn’t say anything, i have been hurt. i just can’t deal with the fact that my best friend thinks i am dumb. because no matter what u say, u do.
i’m sorry u feel the need to try and make stuff so u look good, because honestly sarah, i really just don’t want to talk to u anymore. just leave me alone. don’t write, don’t call, don’t try and talk to me at lunch. get over it.
sometimes people just grow apart. that’s all.
goodbye,
dana
From: Tristan
To: Sarah
Date: Sun 9 Mar 2003 4:28:46
Subject: ha ha
back the fuck out, chica.
out,
tri$t@n
From: Eric
To: Sarah
Date: Sun 9 Mar 2003 6:37:28
Subject: nothing’s changed
your email didn’t change anything. I still don’t feel like i can trust you, and frankly, your little attempt to make it sound like you didn’t do anything wrong kind of disgusts me. just admit you fucked up and suck it up.
i wish things could have been different sarah. there was a time in life when i adored you. you were probably the sweetest and prettiest and smartest thing on earth to me. i was dumb and stupid. i wish i’d seen it sooner.
to save us both grief, please don’t try and contact me again. you betrayed me.
eric
From: Dana
To: Sarah
Date: Sun 1 Feb 2004 4:55:09
Subject: It’s been a long time.
Hey Sarah!
look, I know it’s been a long time since we talked. I realize that we were never going to speak again or whatever. anyway, I know that there’s some stuff that I need to get off my chest. I hate the way the rest of the year went. I hate that you ended up hanging out with the band kids and not going to the graduation party. I hate that you ended up coming to prom alone. I hate that over a boy, I totally stopped believing you, my best friend.
after graduation, as you know, tristan and I moved into together. he turned out to be a cheating dumbass, who later admitted to me he made the whole you hitting on him thing up just because he got a kick out of watching everybody do what he wanted them to do. i guess you heard about odin getting lost in on his road trip after graduation for ten months? yeah, that was kind of funny. he swears he fought a dude with one eye, and had sex with goddesses. penelope waited for him; can you believe it? Adam’s stepped on a hypodermic needle at the beach and got infected with HIV. Yeah, he’s going to die just cause of a little wound on his heel. mick went to college away. So did eric. I guess what I’m saying is that everybody who hurt you got their due or whatever. karma, maybe?
so, after all of that, and now that it’s a year later, I just wish that you and I could patch stuff up? I miss you is all. you were my best friend for years. i don’t have that kind of t
hing now.
From: Sarah
To: Dana
Date: Sat 2 Feb 2004 7:36:24
Subject: dana!!!!
ohmigod!! I can’t believe it! I haven’t heard from you in ages... gosh, dana, stuff sounds fucked where you are. I can’t believe that about adam. Is he going to be okay? what am I saying? Of course not. He has HIV.
Jesus, Dana, do not wish that on my karma. Nothing bad enough happened to me to wish dead on somebody. Especially through their heel.
look, I never think about that junk in high school anymore. High school’s like that. It’s intense and then it’s over. and when stuff’s over it feels like you died. like whatever happens is the death of everything and only this moment is important. All that high school’s good for is tragedy. It primes itself for it. to feel that much intensity about so much silliness means everything’s tragic. (Sorry—I’m writing this paper about Romeo and Juliet for my 101 class—Oh, I’m an English major. you knew that right? Anyway, that’s like my thesis.) And with all that intensity comes all this fear. Like if I don’t do it right, everyone will hate me and then you hate people because other people hate them and you don’t want to lose them...ugg.
i’ve loosened up a lot since then. I met this way cool guy at Sarah Lawrence (girl, the pickings here are so slim. There are WAY more girls than guys and half the guys are gay...). Anyway, so I met Willoughby Churchill. He seems really charming, and he’s really laid back about stuff. I’ve learned a lot from him.
so, dana, don’t sweat the dumb stuff from a year ago. E-mail me back. What’s up in your world, chick?
tootles,
sarah
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V. J. Chambers is...
...dark and gritty...
The Jason and Azazel Trilogy
What if the anti-christ and the messiah fell in love? What if you couldn't tell who was the anti-christ and who was the messiah? And what if they were both just high school seniors who couldn't figure out their sex lives, let alone the fate of the world?
A story that travels from the backwoods of West Virginia to the streets of Rome, that tackles questions about morality, fate, and the nature of good and evil, Jason and Azazel will shake you up.
Breathless
Trembling
Tortured
The Jason and Azazel Apocalypse Trilogy
They thought they'd escaped their destiny, and that they could live normally. But as the modern world comes crashing down around them, it seems that every horrible thing predicted about them is coming true.
And they're not getting along very well anymore either.
The Stillness in the Air
Between the Heaves of Storm
That Last Onset (forthcoming)
Death Girl
They call Maureen Death Girl because she's obsessed with mass murderers. That is, when anyone in her high school speaks to her at all, which isn't often.
A teenage outcast, Maureen thinks she'll graduate high school before going on a date or being kissed. But in the first month of senior year, she attracts the attention of both enigmatic Jared, whose idea of fun is burning down old shoe factories, and distant Trevor, who dreams of violence and blood.
Jared has a plan. Trevor has a secret. And Maureen is about to be twisted up into a bleak world of desire, destruction, and sadistic glee.
Brighter
Ramona Brinks is barely surviving her post-college angst, struggling to balance her partying with her job and her love life. She wants to move out and grow up. She doesn't want to worry about the fact she's seen a dead girl walking around in Elston or that she's seen pictures indicating certain people in town haven't aged in 60 years. She doesn't want to be bothered by nagging evidence that something ancient and evil is at work in town. But when someone locks her in a basement because she's asking too many questions, she can't help but begin searching for answers in earnest.
As Ramona digs deeper, she begins to uncover a world underneath the seemingly quiet small town's veneer. A realm of violent deaths and vengeful creatures, protecting a source of ancient power. Beneath the surface of her twentysomething culture--kids playing at being adults, existing on cigarettes, bars, and caffeine--something far more sinister is at work. And whatever it is, it doesn't seem to want Ramona to leave.
...compelling...
Invoke
I invoke Morgana of the nine circuits of time.
A routine exercise in the spirit realm goes wrong, leaving the students of the Academy, a haven for Sensitives who can communicate with spirits, assailed by dreams of wind-tossed fields, dully glinting armor, and galloping horses.
May the wheel spin again! May the clock wind backwards! May the old world live again!
Taken over by spirits of the legend of King Arthur, they struggle with loathsome romantic pairings, as their teacher beds one of her students, and a strong romance is ripped apart by magic.
Three deaths and then the charm is wound up.
When students begin to die, and their bodies disappear, the remaining Sensitives know they must fight against whatever evil has been unleashed in the Academy. But how can they fight when they are tangled up in swords, mists, and castles, and when their very essences are being ripped away from them by ancient spirits?
Faerie Changeling
Things started going wrong for Russ Knight last year. He found out his girlfriend was cheating on him when she gave birth at the junior prom and left the baby to die in a trashcan. Russ didn't even know she was pregnant. Hell, he thought they were saving themselves for each other.
Now, locked in her padded cell, his girlfriend is screaming that she was just trying to get the faeries to give her baby back. Russ doesn't buy it. But to shut her up, Russ tries a trick the old legends say will work, and the baby starts swearing and begging to be taken back to Faerie. He's got to accept the truth: the kid he's raising is a faerie changeling.
The faeries are going to sacrifice the real baby at the Equinox if Russ can't get them to switch again. But the only person who can get the baby back is a biological parent, and Russ' girlfriend certainly can’t help. To save an innocent life, Russ will face ancient faeries with razor-like teeth, wrestle snarling skeleton dogs, and, maybe worst of all, track down every guy his girlfriend was sleeping with last year in the hopes of finding the baby's real father.
And apparently, the father could be half his senior class.
...humorous in a twisted way...
Little Sister: A Vampire Novella
Ever since Jane Cassidy's big brother was killed in a car accident six months ago, she's been taking solace in watching cheesy vampire movies and yelling at the characters on the screen when they do stupid things. She can't control the tragedy in her own life, but in the movies, the characters can find ways out of the grip of death.
A chance meeting with Bailey Westfield, her brother's best friend and her childhood crush, catapults her out of her cocoon of grieving. Bailey's kiss makes Jane feel tugged under a rushing waterfall of cold, sweet darkness. She only sees him at night, and she longs to feel his icy fingers trace the outline of her jaw.
Jane doesn't realize that she's been (literally) sucked into the plot of a vampire movie. And she's not so snarky when there are teeth in her own neck.
Mischief
Iris Tanner grew up watching the PSAs. She knew it was a bad idea to take pixie dust. She knew there was a chance she'd get bad stuff—black pixie dust, the kind of drug that doesn't give nifty, magical hallucinations. The kind of drug that has the nasty side effect of turning people into ghouls. She should have just said no.
Instead, she's raiding morgues for food. Her band abandoned her, and she bitterly has to watch them climb the Billboard charts without her.
No one even talks to her except the tall, dark stalker/stranger that's
been following her around. That guy might be hot, but he's mentally unhinged. He thinks the metal band Mischief is actually made of disguised pixies, and they want to feed their audience to an ancient monster.
On the off chance he's right, Iris decides to help him. After all, saving the world is at least as good as a hit record. Right?
Mischief is a 1980s glam metal urban fantasy. With pixies.
V. J. Chambers is not for the faint of heart.
Way I See It: an Email Novella Page 6
