Last time.
A leather clad fist meets point blank with my face and I shatter on impact.
This is the last time.
I hear a few more punches, no longer feeling them over the painful bite of the snow, and am seeing stars dizzy around me - around him.
I won't be coming back.
He leaves me on the gravel with a solid kick goodbye and stalks off in the cool December air. Leaves me like I am less than nothing. Like what we had means nothing in his pretty green eyes.
And I know, no, I ain't gonna come running back with my tail between my legs this time.
But he has eyes a gal could just get lost in and be perfectly hunky dory with never finding her way back. Trust me, I would know.
The roaring motor of his Grand Torino twists my gut into a cherry knot and I feel like I'm on the verge of falling. What if this is the last time ? What if he never comes back ? What if ?
And I have to remind my self that I've sworn him off, like a drug.
So, good riddance Mister J.
I hope your car crashes into the river.
Hope that river leads to a waterfall.
Hope B Man's with you.
Hope the icy water doesn't do too much damage so I can still see your beautiful face when I steal you from the morgue.
Lying on my back I can smell the exhaust as he speeds away, away from his poor Harley Girl. I look up at the stars - not the ones that dance around when I take a particularly heavy punch to the face, or when I see J - but the ones you can never see in Gotham. The ones that only show their face outside of Gotham's smoggy atmosphere.
Because even stars have standards, even stars know Gotham is where good things come to die.
And when I finally sit up I wonder if it's too late to chase after him. To run faster than I've ever run and catch up with his shiny purple car, throw myself through the window and curl up on his lap. Beg for his forgiveness, for his love, for him to please take me back.
He might come back. He might not.
Anythings better than sitting on my ass, which is also bruised, by the way, and succumbing to the rotten ache where my heart should be. I like to think I still have a heart. That what's beating in my chest is more than an organ pumping blood, that what I feel for him is really, truly love.
I might have a heart. I might not.
My world is built on possibilities, and if I stay out here much longer there's a big ol' possibility I'll get frostbite. Or mauled by a bear. Or hit by a car, cause I'm still in the middle of the damn street.
Which might be preferable to the relentless loneliness I feel right now. A pretty dolly who just wasn't pretty enough to be loved, left in the gravel to die.
Red always tells me I'm more than that.
That I have to 'have self respect and value myself as an independent woman'. But really I just feel abandoned, and how can I respect myself if Mister J thinks I'm trash ?
I stand up, brushing off the dirt and heartache, and follow the rocky road back to Gotham. Back home. I still don't know where I'll go from there because, like I said, my world's built on possibilities.
I might come home to an empty warehouse, find only the lingering smell of gunpowder and dogs. I might come home to find him waiting with open arms, maybe to strangle maybe to hug. I might not come home. I might steal a gun and shoot him. I might find my hammer and smash his laughing face in. I'll probably go to Red's. Probably.
I ain't blind.
I know Red's got a thing for me. And I got a thing for her. But I got a much bigger thing for Mister J.
No matter what, he's the only guy for me. The man who swooped in and plucked me free of my emotional restraints. The man who showed me how laughably insane sanity was and how pointless it was to try and conform to it - how funny. I took his hand and he pulled me in on the joke, made sense of the world by showing me it made none, showed me, for the first time in my young life, complete clarity.
And I laughed, too.
I am head over heels for the guy, sickly, beautifully in love.
And this is what I tell myself the next morning, when I'm lying awake entangled in Poison Ivy's pale sheets and flowering vines. When my lips met hers the night before, soft and frantic and gentle. When my fingers trace the soft curve of her cheek, careful not to wake her up.
When I close her front door and scurry off into Gotham's grimy streets, running back to J under a starless sky.
And sometimes I regret leaving. I really do. Red's a great friend and probably more than a gal like me deserves. But I belong with the man who lights up my world with bombs and blood. I need him like the moon needs the stars, or like a fishie needs water. My world just don't make any sense without him.
She's got a thing for me. I got a thing for her. What I got for the Joker's bigger.
I open the warehouse doors to find crates and metal and empty bottles. The smell of sawdust and iron. A familiar tangy scent, as familiar as a mothers touch, the smell of steaming blood. My heart flutters in excitement and anticipation, eager to find the source.
Where there's blood, there's excitement, explosions, stabbings, where there's excitement there's J. I skip down the dark hallways until I hear yelling and muffled cries.
Gotcha.
I wonder briefly if it'd be impolite not to knock before coming in, but throw the door open thinking what the hell, anyway. There's some poor bozo tied to a chair with one eye and enough sweat to fill a swimming pool. Joker stops his work and turns with a flourish to see what's got the cyclops man all excited. He sees me and I see him and I could melt into a happy Harley puddle.
He seems surprised more than anything and I watch his pretty smile grow a little bit smaller.
"Thought I left you in the forest."
I cross my arms. Hide your excitement, Harley Girl, you need to show him you're angry.
"Guess you didn't drive far enough, ya dumb jerk."
His smile grows again and he starts to laugh, really laugh, and I ain't trying to be funny or nothing, but I'm just damn glad he's happy. I run full speed and wrap my arms around him, desperate to just touch him, and he pushes me off.
"Next time I guess I'll just have to drive a little further, you dumb broad."
But he pats me on the head with a smile and turns back around to finish carving up the guy in the chair and he loves me he really loves me. I could see it in his eyes, pretty and green. The chump's yells don't even annoy me as I think about how wonderful it is to be back with Mister J. Back where I belong. Where things make sense.
And he must have missed me, cause he hands me the knife and tells me to go crazy, and I do. Slicing and dicing the poor chump in the chair like it's Thanksgiving. And I can't help but smile when I turn around to kiss him and he doesn't even punch me.
He has me wrapped around his little finger once again and I am just happy to come along for the ride. He loves me, and I love him, and even if I was a thousand miles away I could always find my way back. Sure as sugar. Because I love him.
It might not be healthy.
It might just be crazy.
And it might be the farthest thing from conventional.
But love don't have to make sense.
I love The Joker to the moon and back.
End.