Everything is, or can be, a system of manipulations.
When Via's mother left it was pretty much an end to the world as Via knew it. She was only five at the time so there wasn't a whole lot anyone could say. Her mother found some way, though, to say it best. A rainy Monday afternoon Via came home from kindergarten to find a postcard from California that explained in six words that she was "not ready to be a mother." Then, Via was confused, now she's pretty sure it could have been said in two.
Via doesn't believe in forever, and not because of her mother, because her father repeatedly told her that romance was bullshit. Joseph said "Life is just a game, princess...play it right or the house will rob you blind." Via believed him because her mother walked out when she was five and her father hadn't. When it got down to the bottom line, everything past that fact didn't matter. Joseph raised her the best he could despite everything and instead of teaching her about good and bad taught her about the truth. However, the truth was that Via was his princess and that blurred all the other lines. By the time Via was thirteen conditioning had provided her with all the secrets to getting exactly what she wanted. There were tears to trigger pity or regret, stoic silence to trigger frustration and anger. The truth was her father was right; life was just a game...and the Petrucelli's never lost.
"Daddy, it's just too much...I couldn't ask you for that. I can find another one. How about that blue one we saw earlier?"
"But the green one is the one you want, no?"
"It's just one night, though" she mumbled sticking back onto the rack.
"It's one very important night. Now be still, Via, don't argue," her father ordered pulling the dress back out and shuffling towards the sales clerk with anxious eyes.
The dress was a beautiful forest green that flowed down just past her knees and made a perfect circle around her when she twirled; she was wearing it the night she met Kevin. Kevin wasn't tall, or perfect, or insightful yet somehow he was always shining. He fell hard for Via and barely two months after they met neither of them were facing reality. Via prided herself on two things; one, she was to be respected because she had earned that much, and two; she wasn't a liar. Via wasn't a liar because her mother was and she was nothing like her mother. Everything Via said had been, or would be, the truth at some time. Via yearned for sentences that started with "The truth is..." because they made her feel smart, made her open her eyes and truly look around. She listened closely to what everyone said to her and always spared herself the lies. So, when Kevin grabbed her hand, cheeks rose-tinted from the gleam in her eyes and went to whisper, "I love you," Via cut him off at the "I lo-" and thought nothing of it. After all, romance was, in her fathers words, absolute bullshit and Via knew when to take a hit and when to stay.
Via waited until a perfectly boring Tuesday night and took Kevin aside to say, "I'm sorry about that that. I know you love me. I---me too." She took the extra care needed to blush and look down at the stained sidewalk, to ensure he believed every fumbling, stuttered word. After that Tuesday Kevin was flying so high the he didnt even realize it was all the perfect set up for a fall. Kevin listened to every word Via said with intrigue and passion because his father never heard a word about how unhappy his mother was until the day she walked out with Kevin placed securely in his car seat. He wrote Via love poems and sent her flowers because he grew up with a single mom and that was what all the good boyfriends did. He tried to be the best of all worlds because in his fourteen year-old mind he is convinced that was the least she deserves.
Kevin tried and tried and listened but he never saw. He was so blinded by her fumbling words that he didn't once look up to watch her running away. Via was running, always running, convinced that she couldnt stop because there was just too much to do and if she stopped to actually feel anything it'd just be less time she had to finish the race. Kevin tried and tried but never succeeded. His futile efforts to be the best grew tired. He grew wary, himself, and in a vain attempt to save his one true love from going to hell he kissed her with all the passion his fourteen year-old body could muster. He kissed her like it was the last time hed ever get the chance because he knew her and it very well could have been. He offered every piece of himself to her and greedily she devoured him until he was barely the boy hed been just minutes before. Kiss after kiss, touch after touch until they were so entangled in each other that there was nothing else to feel but the others hands and lips and burning flesh. It seemed to Kevin that the world was ending, that life was over, because there was nothing left to live. When they awoke every thing was still standing tall around them; they were both sorely disappointed. Via rolls away from him in the night and doesn't think that she has just lost her virginity to the love of her life. She is not stupid and she will not lie...especially not to herself; love is something that only exists in fairy tales and romance is bullshit. The truth is, Via is thirteen years old, her father is away on business, and in two hours, when Kevin leaves, shes going to need to change her sheets.
Kevins departure was only half as promising as it had seemed while she was clinging to his torso. He'd leaned in to kiss her only to be shocked when she turned leaving the imprint of his chapped lips on the underside of her cheekbone. Kevin didn't question her motives just pulled his shirt over his head and walked out the door. Kevin was good like that; always knowing whether or not to stop and go. He just assumed she needed space and gave it to her accordingly. But Kevin had faults, too. He had one weakness, and she was it so when she steadily avoided his gaze and his feeble attempts at conversation he buckled under the pressure. Thinking about her made him sick to his stomach and hearing her laugh made him cry. A week later he saw her at an ice-skating rink with another boy and vomited uncontrollably for an hour. He spent days remembering every sweet little word she uttered to him, each time she said she cared about him. It is more about the embarrassment than anything else. He told himself that they deserve each other, that boy and Via. Because she grabbed his hand the way she used to grab Kevin's and kissed his earlobe the way Kevin used to do to her. Via was lying about everything, probably, he tells himself. He knows she could afford to tell him whatever she'd wanted him to believe but, after seven months, it just seemed appropriate to consider him something special.
When Via finally gets around to talking to Kevin it is to tell him two things: one, he just wasn't enough of something to be loved by her, and two, she wants her copy of The Iliad back by Tuesday. Kevin drives himself crazy thinking about what she said. Not enough? How can you be less than enough of something? He wants to ask her...but he's afraid to find out. Either way, it is Via that starts the conversation again. She wants to make sure he's okay and he's not. So he tells her that. He can't get her comments out of his head. Every time he moves he wants to make sure he was good enough for anyone watching. "Why wasn't I enough?"
"You just...look...life is about the practical things. It's not about love or the fleeting emotions that rush into our daily lives. Theres so much you don't understand, Kevin." She continues to supply him with a long list of his faults. She tells him about the annoying things he does and the stupid things he sometimes says. It all ends when she tells him, in simple terms, the he just wasn't good enough for her, she deserved better. When she says it he isn't shocked at the lengths of her conceit. On the contrary, he believes it. After all, she said it was the truth. She said, after all that time, she was finally going to tell him the truth...and when you've wanted something for so long, it's easy to believe you're finally getting it. Kevin cried then because all of his life has gone by and he had wasted seven months trying to be something he's not ---good enough. Kevin understood now, the kiss on the cheek, the ignored I love you, the constant running. Kevin understood that Via was always running towards something and he was just never fast enough to run there with her. Kevin finally could see it all clearly and he wished, for the first time, he couldn't. When he closed his eyes each night he tried to think back to a time when he could still question why love wasn't enough. But now it was too late. Now Kevin had to face the truth; love is never enough. As long as this world is as cold as it is, as long as there is death and pain, love will never be enough to concur it. The truth, Kevin figured, was that Via didn't need someone to tell her she could make it. She had people like that, she needed someone to run beside her, to keep her company as she got there. Kevin wasn't good enough to be that guy. Shortly after his realization Kevin stole Zoloft out of his mother's bathroom cabinet. He told himself he'd just take one...to make it hurt less. But no matter how many he swallowed he still wasn't good enough and it stills just...ached. Pill after pill, gulp after gulp and he still wasn't good enough. He knows he is worthless, now, and that will be the last thing he knows. He fell against the sink in his bathroom and the rest of the pills lay abandoned on the floor. It hurts less now, he figured before he stopped figuring all together.
The news was hard for Via because, well, she was thirteen and it was mostly her fault that this had happened anyway. She attended all three viewings, talking to each member of his family in careful, planned words. She cried like he had been the love of her life because, in some odd way he probably had been and she just hadn’t known. When Kevin’s mother tried to talk to Via she sobbed loudly and can’t control herself. She wanted to run away from all of this and would have, if she’d known of somewhere to hide. The last night Via was there for three hours and her nails had become short stubs with bloody sides from where she’d gnawed the skin right off. When Kevin’s mother finally corners her she says the sweet things Via’d never expected to hear. She wants Via to know that this isn’t her fault, but her efforts are in vain because Via knows the truth; every piece of this tragedy has her name written on the by-line. She nods anyway, “I know that, Ma’am…I think it’s just hard because sometimes I feel like I should have known.”
“There was no way for any of us to know, sweetheart. Look, Kevin loved you…he wouldn’t want you to feel this way,” she finished giving her a small hug. Via sighed then because she knew that and, deep down, the knowledge only made it worse.
Via meets Adam at a restaurant and that either changed everything or didn't change a thing. She never really knew which; she was too busy playing her part.
To be continued...