sometimes mary stuart felt like her whole world was centered around that one night.
~:~
think about it, mary,
the ghosts in her hair would whisper to her.
think about the way the carpet felt beneath your fingers as you clutched at it, unable to find purchase, to get a grip on it, to stop what was coming.
think about the way his hands felt as they shoved your nightgown up, rough and hard and fast.
think of your screams turning your throat raw, your sobs -
his hand over your mouth, preventing you from crying out anymore...
stop.
stop, she wanted to scream...!
stop!
i don't want to think about it anymore!
~:~
it certainly wasn't as if she wanted to think about it.
it was just that it was -
forever
there.
a part of her. always there in the back of her mind.
~:~
breaking apart her bond with francis...
sometimes she thought she could see the shattered bits of her marriage on the floor,
lying there in a thousand glittering shards.
she always tried to look away.
~:~
...it didn't work.
~:~
always there when she looked at francis.
sometimes there were wild accusations, hatred, on the tip of her tongue,
and other times she was held captive by the hole inside,
screaming,
i'm sorry, francis, i'm sorry, i love you, please help me, please fix it-
but she could never get the words out
and she knew he thought she hated him.
she just knew.
she was so sorry.
~:~
she was so sorry,
yeah,
because she didn't know how to blame anyone
except herself.
~:~
mary always felt like she couldn't breathe now.
she wished -
she just wished she could feel -
that she could breathe -
that this was over.