The Waters That Drown Us

The Flames That Burn Us

His lips grind into hers, sucking, biting, fucking. She pulls him in so she can push others away. He's rough and it's just mindless. It's the way she wants it. It's the way she needs it. His arms push her down into the bed, wrapping around her and needing her all at the same time.

His hips thrust into hers, pushing, pounding, fucking. He pushes further into her so that she'll forget all others. She's pulling and pushing and moaning and grimacing all at the same time. He's owning her completely which is just how he wants it, how he needs it. She's fucking him; he's making love to her.

She feels his shudder, knows he's finished. She prays that no words are needed. She hopes he'll understand that he should leave and not try to make this more than she wants it to be.

He feels himself beginning to unravel on top of her and knows it's finished. The only time he's alive is for the brief moments when they're joined. No end to one person and no beginning to the other, wrapped up in one another. He rolls off and searches for the words that seem to float in the room. He knows that they aren't enough; they'll never be enough to reach through the walls she puts up, that he puts up. They are more alike than she thinks.

She looks at the cracks in the ceiling and tries to force her lunch to remain in her stomach. He reaches over and touches her shoulder. She shudders. It probably hurts but she doesn't give a fuck. That's what she does; she fucks things and then fucks them up. Pain…pain she can control, inflict, take away if only for a few moments. She's a drug. The high skyrockets, the bottoms plummet, addiction. She ruins things and fucking loves it. They are more alike than he thinks.

He pushes off the bed and pulls on a shirt, pretending that it doesn't hurt. He looks at her bare back, stiff as a board facing away from him. He's looking at the shell of who he used to know. He's kissed her, possessed her, fucked her, seen the real human inside that shell but he'll never really fucking know her…not really.

She pulls on a shirt. Her back is to him. He hesitates but there's not reason to stay. She's gone away already. The shirt scratches her skin as if he's burned her with fire. Maybe it's not his fire but it doesn't really matter because in the end she got burned just the same. The flames lick higher and on one hand the pain is refreshing, living, feeling something but in the end it will kill her. She welcomes the smoke, pulls in the warmth, and dances until she burns. She'll stoke the flames and fuck him harder and love him less and she doesn't really know the difference between the fucking, hating, and loving…not really.

He walks from the room without a backward glance but pauses in the hallway. Pictures of her stare at him from the walls. She smiles, she laughs. Was she ever really innocent? In his mind the child transforms into her and he sees the smirk that hides behind gap-toothed grins and the snide comment that lurks behind the wide mouthed laugh. She's always been this way but so has he. Life fucks you up. People fuck you up. So he fucks her. There's no clear line between when the fucking turned to loving but it blurred into it almost how they push into each other. No order, chaos. Without morals, without reason, and without knowing how much they were going to hurt each other.

She hears the door click, missing him and glad he's gone all at the same time. It's easier to think when he's gone but his constant noise and feelings make it easier for her to forget the thoughts in her head. She reaches over to the dresser and pulls a cigarette from its pack. It tastes familiar and dangerous in her mouth, just like him. She lights the fire, watches the paper burn, and pulls the death into her lungs, through cracked lips. She's going to burn to ashes with him, without him, and through him but at least the flame is going to be fucking bright.

He steps into the rain and jerks his coat up around his ears. He stares up into the water that drips onto his face. The curtains of her window are closed. He sits on the curb next to the puddles and watches the light coming from her room. He pulls a bottle of vodka out of his jacket pocket and swallows the liquid fire, glad that it feeds the pain that boils in his stomach. Rain runs through his hair and soaks his clothes. He's drowning in her and for her. He feels the dark warmth slip over his head and gladly gives up the breath in his lungs. Drowning in her is going to make him, destroy him, and eventually pull him down. He smiles into the cold water, at least with water rushing over his head and dragging him into silence will lead him closer to the place that to him is fucking heaven.

"Bye Cook," she murmurs as she puts the cigarette out on the pale skin of her arm, grinning at the burn.

"Bye Effy," he whispers as he steps off of the curb and out into traffic, smiling into the rain soaked headlights that light up his face.