PROLOGUE|Poppy
It was August, and I was nearing my second year of university when I realized my friends were not who I believed them to be.
The manipulations and lies that brought me here, recounting this, are myriad. At one point, I could have perhaps sat down and managed to write them out—but that is neither here nor there.
We have all been told horror stories about university; the endless parties, alcohol poisoning, hours of studying and exceptional caffeine intake.
What they do not tell you is that the most dangerous people are not the party animals. They are not your roommates blowing smoke from a shared joint out the screened dorm window. They are not the ones taking shots eight hours before a midterm.
The most dangerous people are the people so obsessed, so damnably devoted to their studies that they see nothing beyond them.
This story—my story—is not a happy one, nor is it a tale of perseverance in the face of influences that will inevitably drag us down. It’s a story of subversion and the stupidity of three people labouring under the delusion that we were the heroes in our own particular stories.
I wish I could say none of what follows was my fault, or that my hand was forced. Unfortunately, to be disingenuous at this point flies in the face of any lesson I may have pulled from the last eight months.
In my wilful ignorance, I became just as manic as my friends in the frenzy to solve what we considered the biggest find of the century. There were any number of times I could have walked away.
I chose not to.
To become enamoured with a glossy version of one’s present is one of the greatest sins of them all, or at least one of mine. It didn’t take much to have me daydreaming a pink-flushed version of my life. Countless sunny days on the deck of Whitacre’s house, playing cards and drinking his father’s expensive whiskey on cold February days. Even the drab university library became a sparkling haven of old tomes, made beautiful by the silky drape of Petra’s hair over the table.
When I look back now, all I can see is one terrifying motif, repeated over and over.
If someone were to make a movie of my life, this would be the part where I, as an old lady, began to impart my wisdom on my beleaguered grandchildren.
But this is not a movie, and I am not wise.
