maskormenace | Entry #004

[ Here is Gansey, looking a little strange. He’s wearing a navy-blue sweater emblazoned with a raven – an Aglionby school sweater, over what appears to be ordinary clothes. His shoulders and hair are damp, like he’s been rained on, and he looks strangely pale. Despite that, he’s displaying a welcoming smile, and his hazel eyes are bright and vital with some emotion he’s holding back. ]

Apparently, I vanished yesterday.

I say apparently because it feels more like several weeks ago, but according to this – [ he holds up one of De Chima’s daily newspapers – a tabloid, headlined with speculation about the upcoming import elections ] – it’s only been a day.

A lot can happen in a day. Sometimes things that give you perspective.

Can I ask – the school year is almost over. Some of you will be graduating. I will. Which is odd, because I was here for eight months, and then I went home and it was Fall again, and Senior year was just beginning. I’m not completely sure what age I am now. I turned eighteen a couple of months ago.

[ Which, he actually never mentioned. It had seemed like there were more important things to be getting along with, and the thought of getting older in the wrong world had annoyed Gansey anyway. He’d kept quiet. Now, if he could do that over again, he thinks he’d celebrate it more – even though he’s only mentioning it now because it’s relevant to this. ]

Then I go home, and I’m seventeen again, so now I don’t even know what counts. Graduation will, though, I know that much.

So: to everyone else who’s graduating. Or even if you’re not, even if it’s just that you see change coming for you. What are your plans? Will you work, will you travel? What would you like to do, ideally? I think I’m ready for it to be summer again.

Private to: Billy Kaplan, Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch, Noah Czerny, Matthew Lynch

[ This part goes to everyone’s private inboxes. Gansey’s smile is less presidential here, but his eyes are even sharper. He seems energized, like he’s on the edge of something. His voice is trying not to sound like it. ]

Hey, everyone. I very much hope I didn’t worry you. I think I was mid-conversation with you, Billy. I’ll have to blame my rudeness on the Porter.

Listen, I’m on my way home. Could someone bring the car and pick me up? I’m getting pizza from that Italian place near the porter in De Chima. I’m absolutely famished.

I’d…like to know if anyone else vanished, too. Ronan, Adam?

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( sam himself had been a little too preoccupied with other things when he'd first gotten here to think about leaving - and those things are still rolling around in his head, and ... well, wandering between the cities, making trouble for himself. he has to find a way to get a hold on dean before something bad happens in the literal sense instead of the hypothetical.

but he has a hard time living outside of the what-ifs in the day-to-day. ) It's never too late to think about college, if it's something you really want to do. I went for a few years, and things went really well until ... well, life happened. ( he shrugs it off, because it's been so long now that it doesn't do him much good to think about what he could have had if he'd just finished at stanford and gone ahead with a career in law.

but there's something to gansey's tone that insinuates that he doesn't really mind that he thinks it's too late, and he ponders that. )

You could always take a year off. I've known a lot of people that have, and they went back after a little ... I guess you could call it 'soul-searching', if you wanted. ( there's a little laugh. ) If you can even get away with trying something like that before you hit twenty.

( sam you sound like an old man, jeez. )

Soul-searching. [ Says Gansey, trying out the term. He's smiling, but it's not because Sam sounds old to him. It's because he sounds like Henry Cheng. ]

I hear a lot of people my age do that. Try to find themselves. Take a gap year. I suppose I could.

[ He supposes he'd like to, actually. He thinks of that toga party, of Blue and Henry talking about Venezuela, and of the ache in his chest at the thought of all he would never get to do.

None of that applies now. Gansey repeats it to himself, trying to make it sink in. He's alive. He's really alive. ]

It's weird not having it all mapped out. I thought I did. I have something of a blank slate now, and I'm not sure what to write on it.

( sam would probably like henry, if he ever met him. he would fit neatly into the eccentric hole that a handful of people he already knows occupies.

but at least what he'd said hadn't come across as strange. while sam himself had used his acceptance to stanford as an escape in its own right, he realizes that not everything is going to be that way for everyone else, and taking a break between one end and a new beginning is sometimes the breather you need to get your bearings. ) If you already had everything mapped out, it wouldn't be - ( what is he trying to say, here? ) - I don't think it would mean as much, if that makes any sense. You're not supposed to be a hundred percent sure of everything before it happens. It takes something out of it.

( he doesn't say 'fun', because that sounds too cliched, even for him. )

No, I know. It’s not good to know too much of your own future. It’s tempting, but it’s better to be surprised.

[ Especially when the future might bring up something you would dread, the way Gansey’s has for the last year. Choosing not to know might be akin to burying your head in the sand, but he thinks if he’d had it to do again, he’d still have made the same choices. ]

I think I wouldn’t mind being surprised more often. I mean, I’ll still go to college, eventually. There’s still plenty I want to do, and learn. I’m not sure that’s all in a classroom, though, that’s all.

Entry #004 | Video

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