some only had hearts that were brave and true

books-and-bodies

Karen Teller is having a really, really, really terrible month.

(In the privacy of her own brain, she is willing to admit that if ever there were a month that was downright shitty, this would be it.)

Her sister is dead. Not, like, gone to heaven dead, stuck on earth as a ghost dead. Her niece is still a werewolf, and is making progress on her apparent goal of scratching up every piece of furniture in the house. Also she got a D on a history test. Just straight-up got a D, on a history test, because she's been too dead all month to even listen during lectures. And she's too - proud, or scared, or something, to call in her parents for help, so she's just living in this house with a ghost and a tiny werewolf and an elementary schooler and hoping that nothing goes horribly horribly wrong before she graduates.

She has a job. It even pays enough to hire the nanny all day. Which is, you know, super. It starts at six and ends at nine, and is all the way across town, and she can't drive, so when she's lucky she gets home around ten, and she mostly doesn't take a stab at her homework because by that time she doesn't want to do anything at all. She does manage to take a shower, usually, because she's been handling dead bodies, because, oh yeah, she works at a cemetery, which is why it pays so well.

Also, she finds out today, there are zombies. Just, y'know, actual zombies, wandering around the catacombs under the mausoleum, which is probably why the caretaker gave her a mace, although honestly this is a thoroughly ridiculous way to handle this problem and you would THINK, if you knew that there were zombies infesting your catacombs, you would be able to seal them off and move your business somewhere safer, or at least come up with a solution that's less completely stupid than arming sixteen-year-olds with medieval weaponry and expecting them to fend for themselves.

This is mostly what she's thinking about when she takes out the zombie that's about to take a bite out of her coworker's shoulder. She has to assume that the actual contact is, like, instinct, or something. She hits it again, after, for good measure, and again, until its face is completely smashed in, because maybe she can't beat the crap out of this horrible, horrible month, but at least she can make sure this fricking literal walking corpse isn't going to make anything any worse.

"There. Dead zombie. Hopefully it stays that way this time."

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books-and-bodies

She mostly runs the camera car scouting equipment and watches for zombies while he's getting stuff. (If there are any more zombies she actually intends to yell about it before shooting them, in case the debt system counts these differently and failing to immediately remove the problem doesn't affect debt stuff as much.)

She saves the gems and reads the books. She puts the gnomes in various locations on their lawn. She's pretty sure they're moving around the yard on their own, but she can't actually prove that it isn't Zana or the dog or something. She has no idea what the flower does, but if it's magical then she figures she'd better save it. She presses it and keeps it in a pocket of her notebook.

And one day at school a boy who is in her math and history classes, but who she's barely talked with, comes over to her locker after classes. "Hey, Karen?"

books-and-bodies

"....yes?"

"Do you want to go to the Spring Fling with me?"

books-and-bodies

Oh no.

"Uh."

He waits expectantly.

books-and-bodies

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa she was kind of hoping he'd follow up with 'it's okay if you don't' or something but apparently he actually nonzero cares about this and is not going to give up after two seconds of indecision. Aaaaaaaaaaaa.

If she says yes then she has to go on a date with someone and she will have to spend an entire week experiencing absolutely nothing but dread. Probably that is more terrifying than saying no.

If she says no she has to... say no.

She could say "sorry, I can't" except she could so that is a lie and it will hurt Connor.

She could say "I wasn't gonna go" which is true! Except this is not really a reason to not go if someone else has asked you.

She could say she doesn't really like dances but she is not actually sure whether this is true or not.

She could say that she already said yes to someone else except that is a lie and it will hurt Connor.

She could - this silence has gone on way too long. Uh. Uh.

Don't lie don't lie don't lie don't lie -

"I, uh, I actually already decided to go with someone else," she says, and maybe she decided this in the past two seconds but technically she has decided that now.

"Oh." He looks disappointed. "Uh, okay. Have fun. See you there, I guess." And he leaves.

books-and-bodies

Okay! Well! The universe didn't decide to smite her!

Now she has to go to Spring Fling.

With someone who doesn't go to this school, so that word can't get back to whoever that was that she actually just didn't want to go with him.

There's only one high school in this town.

So... Connor. She has to ask Connor.

She can't say that she would rather die but she would maybe rather lose an eye.

Maybe she can, like, explain what happened and that she panicked for no reason and then probably he'll know not to read a lot into it and then she will just have to - go to the dance with Connor, and it will probably be incredibly depressing, because she'll only be going to save face, but probably it'll be better than going with some random person?

She contemplates how ridiculously terrible she is at everything as she bikes to work.

not-like-i-care

Zombies have made a halfassed attempt to dissassemble a fence. He's fixing it.

books-and-bodies

Oh cool. Good. Good to keep their zombie defenses up.

"So, uh, we have this dance happening at school in like a week."

not-like-i-care

"Oh. Okay. Are you gonna take off from work for it?"

books-and-bodies

" - wow, I'm such an idiot, that would've been a totally plausible reason not to go. Um. A guy asked me to go and I told him I had decided to go with someone else and now I guess I am going, yeah."

not-like-i-care

"Who are you going with?"

books-and-bodies

"....yyyyou but if you don't wanna go that's fine and understandable?"

not-like-i-care

"Oh! - is there some reason why I shouldn't want to go?"

books-and-bodies

"Um. You'd have to wear something fancyish and take off work and go to a dance. I guess. With me."

not-like-i-care

" - do you feel about dances the way I feel about school, or something?"

books-and-bodies

"I mean I don't think they're torture. I just. Have never been to one. And they're like - these highly ritualized things that adults created to give teenagers a script to experiment with pairing up in situations that are theoretically innocuous but where nobody really knows what they're doing but where they all feel emboldened to try figuring it out, and it sounds really awkward but also like it theoretically could be nice, I guess, in principle."

not-like-i-care

"Is that what they are? I guess that's what they are. I always figured they made sense if you were a human. - and the things that humans said about them didn't make any sense. Remember when I beat up Michael Roper and Charlie Cantor after Homecoming?"

books-and-bodies

"...yeah?"

not-like-i-care

"That was because I asked them how the dance was and they lied. It was really confusing."

books-and-bodies

"Did they say it was good?"

not-like-i-care

"No! I know humans do that sometimes and it's inconvenient but I just steal a pencil from their locker or something. They made up whole stories about how it went that just didn't happen at all and didn't answer why people go to dances. It was very confusing."

books-and-bodies